i sit on the floor with my eyes at the level of the window ledge.
i see spires, carillon bells, antennas, and a few skewed windows of the wing next door.
i am here to take a few deep breaths, close my eyes, sink into the bubble of my headphones, and let my thoughts whirl around in my brain until they find a tentative equilibrium.
i think about my day, my work, my friends, my life, and i realize that sometimes i treat the world as a series of short stories that i am flipping through to pass the time, keeping an eye out for interesting characters, taking note of certain turns of phrase.
the stories are good enough, but it’s not really clear what they’re getting at, and it seems that if i shut the book and shake myself loose from the trance of it, i’ll return to another life, a life with something clear that should be done, something that the book was simply distracting me from while i gathered my strength.
but when i actually shake myself loose, i still find myself here, staring at the sky, and i realize that i am what binds the stories together, that life is not the way something looks from without, but the way it feels from within.
this is something i know that i have realized before, and yet whenever it happens it sinks in with a soft thud, as if the foundation of my consciousness is the murky bottom of a lake, and each glimmer of insight is the flash of a watch or a wedding ring that someone lost on the surface. they sink into the mud, twinkle for an instant, and wait.
perhaps some kid will step on them, years from now, rescue them in hushed wonder, and stow them in a cigar box under the bed.
i sigh and feel compelled to do something that only a living person can do, like trace the creases on my palms with my fingernail, or sit quietly until i can feel my heartbeat in my toes.
for now, i just keep staring out the window, letting the whirl take its course, and instead of disconnected stories, i start to see a collage – scraps of pretty paper, distributed artfully, not yet glued down.
i move the scraps around and a picture emerges. the collage becomes a puzzle, and i recognize it faintly, as if i had assembled it many times long ago, like the one with the smurfs fishing in the river that i kept until the cardboard peeled away.
i finger the frayed edges of the pieces, the way they don’t quite seem to fit at first glance.
it reminds me of a ransom note, and the metaphor amuses me.
i wonder with a wry smile about the anonymous kidnapper of my life, and what she might be asking for it’s safe return.
