forget. You become god of a paralell universe in which hiding is alright, where fear flows everywhere like lava, and gradually becomes the earth and mountains. You hold veto over all, and use it often, banishing this irresolvable, that uncomfortableness, and every discontinuity. And the world slowly diminishes like a warm bead of water on a shiney red Chevy—gradually at first, but quickening toward the end as though viewed in a time lapse film. Then what?
Forget, and you become god of a paralell universe in which hiding is alright, where fear flows everywhere like lava, and gradually becomes the earth and mountains. You hold veto over all, and use it often, banishing this irresolvable, that uncomfortableness, and every discontinuity. And the world slowly diminishes like a warm bead of water on a shiney blue Chevy, gradually at first, but quickening toward the end as though viewed in a time lapse film.
Then what?
my writing lately annoys me as do phone calls from friends, and as much as the necessary little errands which require me to leave my apartment—or my chair. Some events lately have shaken me hard, and pulled my hands down from covering my face. It is open-enrollment time again—in my life—and I can change plans now, if I want.
I have never known what it all means, but like a shooting star, it feels like something.
the very first time it happened was in 1985, right around the time An Early Frost aired, and I was still closeted in lots of ways and frantically obsessed with life and death issues—my concepts of gayness and illness were easily confused. I was working as a fire fighter in Northboro, Massachusetts. I stepped into the hallway from the upstairs bathroom at the fire station, and visible in the bedroom across the hall was a clock displaying 4:44 PM.
When I saw that 'sign', it felt like God tapping me on the shoulder with an important message, and a number of times I tried to interpret the tapping, perhaps neglecting the message entirely. Each time I was sure it was the Great Beyond trying to tell me that I would be gone soon, maybe trying to convey that I was already HIV positive and gravely ill. Only, I wasn't. And I haven't died.
I have had countless other theories for interpreting these numerological insignificances, but none has ever been confirmed, or even remembered. I have begun to accept the sign as indecipherable, but its portent for me has remained undiminished. It feels significant. It is happening often lately. These signs may be the whispers and rumors of life beyond the cynical limits I have set for myself, voices urging me away from a diminishing existence, nudging me to expand reality to include things impossible in my current world.
moments ago I watched a ponderous jet, slowing and low, with landing lights ablaze, float beneath the presiding moon, teasing just barely enough lift from the cold night air to hold its glide path safely to the ground. My days are mostly occupied by this journal—when I write it. And so it happened that, at midnight, I was out retrieving a tuna sub from Tech Pizza, my supper postponed mostly by this journal-writing until moments before closing time. The waxing moon shines in a cold haze as I write the end of today, and eat.
I stopped in the street to watch the massive craft pass-by on its descent, with so little space between us. Its engines didn't roar, but made a whooshing sound in a delicate balance between thrust and drag—or maybe that's just the sound of the air when a thing that big rushes through at almost 200 MPH. When it passed out of view, I continued biking home. Leaves have begun falling and accumulate against curbs, fences, and tree trunks. Their scent is intense in the damp night air. At the door to my building, as I inhale my last breath of tonight's sweet autumn air, I hear in the distance the full-throttle roar of a jet's engines as it aborts landing to go around and try again.
|
|
|
|
updated |