The Cord

The typewriter clicked under his quick-moving fingers. Chik-chik-chik…the pace hardly ever stopped. Light would be streaming in from the window and typed pages would form a stack next to the typewriter. He would lose the sun and then be accompanied by a few of the strongest stars, and the manuscript grew taller and taller. He was unaffected by the hours of man, by the hands of the clock or the tilt of the earth. The sounds of the neighborhood did not disturb him, nor the snoring of his neighbor, Levi, that he could hear through the wall.
He would only break the rhythm of the writing when his body required tending, or when Mrs. Johnson from upstairs would come over to prepare him some lunch. She told him she could not stand to know a man was not eating and wasting away, so she made it her business to prepare him simple meals three times a day. Besides those necessary interruptions and an occasional walk to the living room window, his place was at the desk, before the typewriter and the clean white pages that he would fill with other worlds.
He preferred living in those other places, the realities he created. They were so much more interesting than the city that was just outside his 16th floor window. In his mind, there were no rules, no conventions, no limits as to what could happen. It was total freedom, and he dove into it everyday, as if finally, he was home.
The typewriter clicked.
“…Cintra held onto the helm. She could see the star system fast approaching. It was a cluster of white lights that sparkled brighter than anything she had ever seen. Moving in and out of the clusters were other space craft, smaller than the one she now maneuvered, smaller and more round, like shooting spheres that had the light-willed movement of bubbles. She was not quite sure which direction to turn. Would the smaller ship carrying her crew and supplies follow her into the cluster of light? Perhaps she should circumvent the stars and arc over them…She heard the phone next to her ring. She picked up the receiver, pulling the cord as far as it would go so she could walk towards the wide glass that was the front windshield of the spacecraft. Before waiting for a voice, she said, ‘Let’s go for it Kurt. Let’s see what lives out here.’ ‘OK Captain.’ She walked towards her seat and hung up the phone, resting it gently in its plastic cradle. She got into the chair and gripped the steering device.”
He pushed hard on the key for “period.” He did it more sharply, more exaggerated than the rest of the paragraph. This was getting good. He nodded to himself, enjoying where the story was taking him. He nodded softly, over and over, a small trance coming over him.
It was how he rested. Images of space craft took the place of words. He saw the dark sky of space, imagined what it would be like to approach a thick cluster of stars that seemed to vibrate a thousand times greater than the most populated city. He let himself feel the tension of the space travelers, the anticipation, the curiosity building as they quickly approached the lights.
His body jerked slightly as he heard the rattle of a key in the door. Without even looking up, he could see the round shape of Mrs. Johnson emerging through the doorway, her thick arm pulling the key from the metal hole. Her pudgy pink hand closed the door, locking the deadbolt, she took just a few steps to the small kitchen left of the door, then reached for the apron she left on a single metal hook. He could hear her humming.
He pulled the paper out of the typewriter, tugging gently on it from both corners so as not to bend it. He re-read the paragraph and found it pleasing, though he thought there would be more details he could add later. He liked the world. He read it again, still missing the one thing that would act like a siren to a reader far in the future.
The cord, the phone. In a world of easy space travel, he had inserted an object bound by the world around him. An object he knew, a thing he recognized. His publisher would glaze over it too, both unable to recognize an object from his unconscious daily assumptions.
He walked over to the window, looking out at the constant traffic of a New York street, where cars remained long and bound by the laws of physics. Technology moved so fast, soon engineers would realize that small, round, bubble cars made more sense. He heard the telephone ring and walked to the small wooden end table. He picked up the receiver, trying to untangle the gray cord as he brought the plastic piece to his ear.

The Jump

A man showed up at my door. He was tall and a stranger. The kitchen light was bright, the day outside even more blue and full than I expected when looking out my wide bedroom windows. He stood leaning against the door frame, bringing whispers of deep color. There was silence as our eyes traveled together. silence as he stood before me, still and calm. The seconds became twisting curls of life until he spoke. “Do you want to go for a ride with me?”

I looked into his eyes, “YES.”

A man showed up at my door. He sat on my faded blue carpet with those long legs crossed. The walls were a carnie’s cage of baby blue. The air held the wafting scent of sweet bread and a winter’s approach. “Do you want to go on a journey with me?” he said with a smile while a slight chuckle dusted his lips. I held my answer. I walked through the night, passing Christmas lights and moving through gusts of cool wind. I walked with a twin, passed muted Victorian architecture and slumping telephone poles. It would be the last time I would see her shadow.

The night faded and then the sun was up once again. I held a small telephone to my ear, feeling the hardness of its plastic, feeling the machinery of its shape. “Did you think about my question?” he asked.

“YES”

There was silence. I looked into the world of the blue carpet. Long beams of sunlight moved through the tall plate glass windows and caught my arm with a small kiss. “Would you like to know my answer?”

“I already do. I heard it in your voice, the way you said ‘yes.’”

And then the waters opened.
The dark night opened its cloaked arms.
The gusts of wind were no longer tinged with bloody fear.
The lights held more than their fair share of meaning.

A man walked into a crowded train car just as the sun was setting.
And he could have found another seat.
He could have remained silent, upholding the unspoken rule.
But the lens opened. The voice cracked into rainbowed pieces.
The door remained cracked, just enough for a narrow-waisted girl to squeeze through.

And she could not dive. She could barely swim. But she did jump. There was no grace.

She went face first.

Over the cliff.

Head first into what was waiting.

Binary Tree

The last dash of the “t” is in place, the words are checked for spelling, the sentences for grammar…I wrap it all up with a colorful graphic that exemplifies the text and send it off, through the system of tubes and invisible helping hands that deliver it to curious brown eyes that read it with interest in a dark, warm room. And I take a breath, a plane roars across the sky like a metal dragon and then…silence…the void…there is nothing here. All is blackness and I stand naked and alone, wondering what will come next. A flicker zig zags across my mind sending sparks to retrieve my attention, oh yes, I remember, there is another text to write. There is never an end. There a dozens of notebooks, each full of ideas and within the scope of this lifetime, there could not be enough time to finish them all, and even if I did, there would be more. Each fork in the path, each level of completion leads to another task waiting to be done…a new piece of writing, a new dance. There is never an end, just the cycling of energy from one form to another. The last breath will be the beginning of another branch. A thousand lifetimes will pass and each will lead to the same set of steps, the same writing, the same brown eyes that hold the world in their soft gaze.
The infinite tree, with its infinite forking branches, spiraling off into the colorless sky of a million suns. It is never the end, unless I stop looking, unless I close my eyes and cover my head in a blanket and fall asleep within the deep knot of its trunk. The branches may exist, the endless work may exist, the infinite lifetimes may exist, but what can I do when my eyes are closed? They may spiral around me like sequined circus clowns and spring fairies, but how shall I fly without wings? I may be walking the small, slick branch right now, walking along its curving path into the orange sunset, and yes, I think I am, I feel the fading rays against my skin, but still, my eyes are closed and you promised that we would walk through the doorway together, is it still true? Each branch leads to another segment, another fork in which to choose a path, will it be the left or right? And when I come to the end of this small wooden segment? What then? Left or right? And on other trees, there are three choices, should I take the center path? Should I take the path of crying, the path of fear, or the path of containment? Intellectualizing is simple, the choice is objective and thus, clear. But sitting there, heart pounding, fear licking at the heels, demons whispering in each ear, dragons tugging at the nipples, the steps are difficult to gauge, the distance of their points cloaked in a haze. Visions of a lion strike my face, oh, a wet tongue has found me. The cry of an eagle warns of other, even more difficult choices to come. There will be no end. On my back is a tattooed map, it traces the covered veins below. Go! Go! Go! There is not much time. There is no end, it stretches on and on, two choices at each fork on the road.
Will it be life or sleep?
Work or death?
The path must be walked, decisions must be made, words must be written, melodies must be sung.
There is an infinite amount of choices behind us.
There is an infinite amount of choices ahead.
But the choice is always the same.

The Present In Between

I look up at the pink tiles, wet with the spray of warm water from a leaking shower head. The small rectangular cube is illuminated by a single light above, its golden glow makes shadows of the falling water droplets and the one thin, glistening body that stands in the center, doing its best to avoid contact with the tiles.
Is this mine?
Is this me?
I look to my left, the tan plastic shower curtain. With slightly squinted eyes, I slowly turn my head to the right. Strangeness invades. This is a body I clean, with warm water and soap…I do what I have been taught, the necessary steps to maintain this body. But this is simply that…a body, a biological machine that needs to be scrubbed clean from time to time, to prevent the accumulation of pungent smells and flies.
But the tiles seem unreal.
No, they seem too real.
Small pink squares, line after line of them decorate the interior of this stall. Blue bottles, plastic jars and razor blades. An array of soaps and scrubbing devices. I know these instruments, these objects, but they are strangers of plastic and colors.
Startled, yet manifesting calmness, I continue in a progression of learned habits. Soap lathering, hair scrubbing, face washing. My brain asks, "am I here?" And I am, in this exact moment of alert attention, surrounded by the new vision of wet tiles and billowing steam, something is here.
The human, the cynic with all the answers, has been tucked aside, momentarily silenced by a flowing river of crystalline liquids and fast moving currents. Something new and startled emerges, blinking into the warm mist and bright light. The moment laughs and tumbles, spins and skips like a dandelion running on the breeze. The body holds steady, with soapsuds and streams of water cascading off mountainous pink nipples.
And the seconds roll out like a never ending line of marching soldiers, meeting the future with a series of soundless explosions and colorless paintings. The endless wheel in motion, made of sewn body parts and purple ribbons, it turns and turns, moving like a backwards clock. The past and the future forever maintain their stations on the periphery, along the gentle curving arcs that create the sides and roof; the only constant is constantly moving. Past and future melt together, fusing at the juncture which touches earth. Rolling so quickly as to be barely recognizable, the present blends with the movements that reach both in front of and behind it.
The water continues to run, quickly finding its escape from the moment.