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Coffee: Maxwell House Drip, Office Coffee
I see myself in the window. The only light’s from the monitor, and the hall lights on the second floor died so there’s nothing to compete with. I’m in profile. Half silver, half dark. My left eye’s the most in focus because it’s throwing back some of the light from the monitor. My nose is mostly there, too. In the reflection, my lips look redder, and it makes me think about the wild strawberries that grew in the front lawn at my parents’ house. I only ate a couple because they never tasted anything but bitter. Still, I don’t think I would have made it this far if I’d completely ignored such bright, red things.
I’ve never looked so dramatic. There’s a bar separating the window into quadrants so it’s only me in this pane, only the computer in the next pane over. Semi-transparent, the screen’s like cyberpunk – disembodied. Meanwhile, I’m late renaissance.
Twenty years ago, I was riding in a car back from a friend’s house. They lived out in the country. My mother was driving. Their driveway shot through thicks of maple trees. It was dark outside.
You only see what’s ahead of you by the headlights. You come to a bend in the pass. The ground rises by the turn and it looks like you’ll end up flying. Or maybe that the road will end at silver bark. Your throat dries and time stops long enough to tie it’s shoes. Something important is about to happen – you’ll cross over, live out the rest of your life in a different world. Everything’s contained in that stand of oak trees caught in the headlights.
Over the rise, the path keeps going, and you make it out of the forest, but not without leaving something separate behind. Forever missing, dumped like the postal slush pile. But sometimes you catch sight of it in a nighttime window. It looks an awful lot like you.
Currently Reading: Queen, Suzanne Crain Miller
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Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon’s dead body moved out towards the open sea.
William Golding, Lord of the Flies
Livesay Writing 