Chapter 3 Draft: Carnivals Are Full Of Eddies

3. Carnivals Are Full Of Eddies

Desperation should only be a surprise to the optimistic

“There are several good bars downtown.”

I was having an unlikely conversation with a twenty-something philosophy student and a pleasant older lady wearing a green scarf.  The collegiate was telling me about the local hot spots by my hotel.  His facial gestures and conductor like hand movements meant he was a connoisseur of fine beer.  Sure, I was particular to stouts and other dark beers, but in my adult years alcohol carried more guilt with it than I cared to think about.  I usually struggled with enjoyment and peer pressure. When I was younger, I melted into the evening.  Now, I was always more aware than I was comfortable with.  Though I still drank socially, those peppermint days were through.

They took up the two seats directly across the aisle.  Our chat wasn’t wholly uncomfortable, but outgoing conversations were unusual to me.  I was not a fan of water cooler exchanges.  These things always make me think the other party is intently watching my every muscle spasm, every minuscule out-of-place skin flake.

It is only when we are observed that we truly become inconsequential 

We talked for some time while the plane taxed around patiently.  The conversation became more relaxed and I became slightly more content.  At one point I lent my phone to the lady in the green scarf, so she could message her husband. She reminded me of a warm country villa.  I could almost smell the apple pie. There was a blessing in every word she spoke and a smile that seemed to cover her whole body.  The philosopher was slightly pompous, which resonated something in me, but the countrywoman was gentle.  I found myself wanting to invite them both out for a game of croquet.

We wound through and pulled into several jutting lines and assorted boxes.  The one-armed extension of the airport guided us into a transitional partnership as we exited the plane. Though slightly plagiaristic in nature, I could see myself thinking about them for days to come.  They reminded me of two characters in a Lewis Carol book and I wanted to fit them into my pocket for future hiking adventures and tree climbs.

Arriving in Utah was congruent to moving backwards through Arizona. There was more patience here. The wind bit through crevices in the tunnel molding that instantly split camouflage cells on my face. Outside flowed a billowing icy tundra of pruned trees. What was once a haze, evolved to subtle lucidity. The light, people, and languid air stood aside for passers by. I zipped up my coat and put on my best expression for the onlooking departures ahead. Some of them were struggling with boredom for hours and needed a new outlet to focus on and who was I to disappoint.

When I stepped into the airport proper, I was caught off guard by the ambiance. It was as if the world hushed down while the walls leaned in to listen. Each step sent an echo through the building, reverberating with a frequency that blended in with the silence. This only lasted a few minutes and when it was over I wasn't sure if it really existed at all. I stopped by an advertisement for a local country event and pulled out my cell phone to let my wife know I had arrived safely. While I waited for a response, the older lady in the green scarf waved goodbye to me. It was as if her hand motion contorted around my head and vacuumed away every trace of normality. There was a blend of Summer and drink trays. My life had been so spastic since this morning. I felt like I could get a handle on this as long as I could hear my wife's voice. Without waiting for a response I called her number.

"Hi, I made it in Salt Lake ok."

"That's good. How was the flight? How are you feeling?"

"Not bad, I just wanted to hear your voice."

"I miss you too."

* * * * * * * *

I walked toward baggage claim and the car rental area. It might have been due to the weather, but everyone seemed to be carrying extra weight. I had always made it a habit to travel as light as possible. All I had with me was a simple backpack, just enough clothes to get by, two books and a tablet. In fact, this was intimately related to my aversion to Halloween. Costumes and jewelry were just excuses to make me feel awkward and heavy. I had sympathy for businessmen in suits and I shared the same sentiment for overworked housewives. They were so far away from the freedom of being naked. Not that I was comfortable enough to yearn for that, but I didn't want to be a bother to myself or anyone else. The airport security checks were trials to prove my limitations.

Right before I hit baggage claim I encountered a makeshift carnival midway where everyone was trying to pitch me something. A window salesman motioned towards head pillows and noise canceling headphones while a kitsch looking cereal store owner made himself as appetizing as possible. Even the high speed walkways, more appealing than the ground beneath, seemed rigged and rarely pay out. This is what the world sounds like when I try to cater to its needs. It took effort to acknowledge that a clown faced shotgun would yield profitable results in a place so dirty and discarded.

When I arrived at the carrousel I stopped, with no one around me, and stared at its silver ribbing for a moment. I didn't have any baggage to wait for, but it was incredibly relaxing. Once, when I was a child, I gave my mom a good scare by abandoning her in a place just like this. When she found me, I was in mid-climb toward the top of the baggage carrousel. Maybe I just needed to be alone, in this room, with this object. I stood here for some time and began to wonder where everyone else was. Surely a few people on my flight had belongings to pick up. Then, slowly, they began to trickle in like pigeons. The red alert light spun around and bags started to pour from its metal belly. I took my leave and shuffled toward the bathroom entrance.

The restroom use to be a sort of haven for me, much like everyone else. In my college days, when the throes of academia filled my pores, I would rush to a bathroom stall. It was akin to an eighties dirty pleasure movie with everything but the cafeteria lunch. I usually took solitude in the mathematics building. The floors were slick and the walls were speckled with flecks of gold and green. A row of slanted glass windows lined the north side, just below the ceiling. The typical sexual graffiti painted the stalls. I would find refuge in this isolated island, away from the high powered professors and the numbness of not knowing anyone.

This bathroom was typical of an oversized airport. It was as if the nations top scientists gathered once a year to develop the advanced technology that furnished these places. Between the spaceship like hand dryers and the absence of buttons, switches, or handles, I was guaranteed to get confused. I made my way into a stall, slung my bag around the door hanger and sat down. Everything about this place read chic modern, but the walls around me brought back artwork flashbacks from college. What is it about this place that wretches within our bodies and brings out our most obscene and offensive ideas? This is where our children learn about sex and prejudice, not from their parents. I read each entry in the airport journal, imagining which line came first and judging which was the most clever. In my middle age I looked for distractions, as this was no longer a place of peace for me. It had become a reminder for swollen prostates and irritated hemorrhoids. How frighteningly real life became with these slight annoyances. The lock on the door slowly melted into its hatch, soldering two conflicting thoughts into a mixture of black holes and dense coal. I felt like I was unable to move. Images of a juvenile and shoulder aching period flooded my periphery. A place where I was continually discovering monumental prizes within the human race. When you find yourself at the top and anxiously peer down, you are usually still in the dregs. In my thirties, I'm aware enough to know how ridiculous all of my thoughts are while still yearning for youth. I wish I wasn't so entrapped in these feelings so often. Maybe there was a less manic shell of a body that I could buy for a fantastic piece of self-sacrifice. It would be a minor price to pay for complete nihilism. The latch regained focus and I left the restroom.

* * * * * * * *

"Would you like rental car insurance?"

"No."

"Hmm...let me see here, we have an upgrade available. A 2006 Silverado for only thirty dollars more. Are you interested?"

"No thank you."

I worked in sales for several years and knew how rehearsed that must have been. The lady behind the counter, with pigtails and a blue vest, was only subtly aware of our conversation. She listened for trigger responses to key into her database. I'm sure her supervisor attempted to motivate her actions toward a more pleasing delivery, but underneath her vibrato she was desperately trying to be somewhere else.

Throughout my life, I've been visited by dark figures. Shadowed outlines of warped and torn pieces of agitated air. When I was young I thought that aliens vigilantly watched me at night, beckoning me to to merge with their bodies. To succumb to defeat. This would happen between the cluster of bedtime thoughts and the silent approach of sleep. The background would remain in focus, a left on tv or light in the hall, but a blurred and charred person would appear in the distance. It was as if time stood still and the melting figure was obsessed with picking at the tension that hovered around me. It was simple in nature, but utterly frightening. A personal otaku embedding itself into an unhealthy obsession. I would become paralyzed and had to deeply concentrate to move my hand a quarter of an inch. If someone was in the room, I would attempt to breathe in gasps to alert them, but this only intensified the mood. My body was a bean bag of pins and screaming children. A sudden realization would burrow its way in, this thing wanted to take over me and I wanted to let it. The real display of cowardice came when I fought back. Menacing against the fear of the unknown and then regretting the normal reality that remained. I would wake up in a jerking fit.

Much later, I found out these episodes were called night terrors. For a time, I was interested in their origin. I began to think this sleeping disorder had actual intentions that could be manipulated. Purposefully, I would sleep with the lights on or in awkward positions that would cause me to drift into that place between sleeping and waking. The entrance to this world would come with waves of yawning. It sounded like someone was quickly turning the volume knob on a static infused stereo, back and forth. As I listened to the car rental clerk talk, the world wobbled in and out of focus as the terrors reminded me of their presence. I hadn't had an episode like this in years, and never in these type of circumstances. Her head split between her cheeks and a white light flooded through the room. Suitcases were absorbed by the intensity while light fixtures shook hands with each other. When my eyes regained focus, I found myself sitting on a chair next to my mom.

Her house was at the edge of a cul-de-sac in Nixa Missouri. The town was dressed in such vulnerability that the construction of a Walmart steamrolled over local businesses, like the Guitar Man and the Bag Lady. It’s residence were so entrapped in the wonderment of a one-stop-stop, that they forgot how precious and intimate a remote culture could be. You could see the formation of forgotten men on the corner, made of rags and fossil fuel. The first baptist churches still sang with a fervor of salvation while the sepulture of past historians went unnoticed. As hard as you tried, the roadways turned into confines, always brining you back to the heart of america.

I sat in an old cushioned chair, resembling a modern aesthetic for the underpaid.  The carpet shared the texture and color of fine sandpaper that bled into white speckled walls.  This duplex was manufactured on stilts, so creaks and echoes could accompany you at night.  My shoes were off as I reveled in the heat from floor vents, curling all of my toes up into themselves.  Winter intonations fell upon the window in the kitchen, beating a rhythm that only the deaf could hear.  My mom was lying on the couch to my left. Everything was always to my left.  She kept the air at bay with a heavy quilt she had knitted some years before. I’m not sure what my mom was made of, but it was always gentile and soothing.  She seemed to come from the sand and mold into a golden thread that kept the Earth and Polaris fixed on each other. Of all the ancient constants, this was the most fundamental.

She told me she was dying of cancer on a Tuesday. I had known that this aggressive insurgence was primed to suffocate her for some time, but my hope was smothered by insecurity. At this point, I didn’t have any sincerity for spirituality.  What device could sacrifice something so beautiful? Even toward the end, my mom had difficulty accepting other peoples charity in exchange for hope. It’s this lack of understanding that filters my memories though anger and abundant solitude. In my mind, dirt and the rocks were held together with a piece of twine that placated my imagination, much like the blanket that kept her warm.

The chemo had taken her legs, her hair, and her ambition. Nothing is as twisted and embarrassing as radioactive decay. I couldn’t help but think of coal miners and deep caverns. My grandfather had labored over dense rock and low altitudes for decades, only to die from the same contagion that pulsed though my mom’s lymph nodes. I never knew him, but I was told stories about dumbfounded doctors who tried to alienate what they didn’t understand by poisoning him. Such a leftover fate for such a great man.

We watched tv most of the time.  Educational programs designed to enlighten our concept of reality. Within their depths I found a miniature resistance to hotel room nights and procured a fondness for small town skies. Besides evening conversations and trips to the local antiques shop, there wan’t much else to do around here.

Curled up on the couch, I wanted to tell her so many things.  How much I loved her and how I didn’t want her to leave. It’s hard to explain what it’s like when your spinning in a whirlpool of slow motion devastation. There is guilt for wanting it to end and there is sadness for all those who enter. Once, when I was young, she learned how to play a popular kids card game, just in case I was interested. I never developed an affinity to it, but I desperately wanted to harness that temperament and use it during times like this.

“I should be able to pay off the truck in time”

She was concerned that her husband, my step-father, wasn’t fiscally responsible enough to support himself.  This was mostly true.  They had argued often about money.  The fact that she was worried about such things in her health was endearing and angering. Instead of embracing this responsibility and contributing to our family, my step-father chose to fumble through life as a coward.  His exterior was burley and bear-like, but I knew what dwelt beneath.

“You shouldn’t have to worry about that. He should be able to manage.”

“I’m just worried about him and what will happen if this isn’t taken care of.”

I couldn’t help but hear the compassion in her voice. Personal debt is strange. It should be the last thing to consider when you are struggling on pain killers and sedatives. A mounting flurry of annoyance, towards him, had been building up for some time. It started with his spastic discipline attempts and followed with cheap moments of fatherhood bonding. In the months to come, her mind took to morphine and mine was split apart with vulnerability and temper. The fountain pouring out between my cheeks was fueled by moans and frustrating directives being yelled at her from another room. He didn’t handle anything with grace and I was too afraid to surface.

It brought me comfort that she was in my every movement, in every expression. The most cherished components of my being were forever laced in her tender influence. I knew this would follow me throughout my life, but the dichotomy of my head forced a path toward temporary numbness.

“I’m sorry mom. I love you”

Chapter 2 Draft: Counterweights Don't Always Show Up On Time

2. Counterweights Don't Always Show Up On Time

When I stepped into Denver, I was overcome by a mix of smells. This was highly unusual, as there were pesky polyps in my sinuses continually playing red rover with pollen and pastries. I'm sure I was reacting to a combination of the unfamiliar and all movement around me, but I was sure it was spring and summer in a potpourri dish. The walls were dried out and ready to share their aroma.

Trying to act nonchalant, I made my way to the departure display. My flight to Salt Lake City was delayed two hours. The weather outside was fashioned from the stuff that made carolers belt out into the starry night sky. I had been through this drudgery before, so I found myself a nook to briefly scribble in before I set out to find some food. It may have been the snowflakes outside, but I was drawn to the figure of an old Japanese man strolling through a sun dried landscape. It was calming and took the form of twisted clocks.

For as long as Kaji could remember, he’d had a partial yearning for the desert breeze. When the scolding air slammed against his cheeks, everything stopped in wait for his reaction. He was caught between wonderment from the blinding flash and desperation for immediate relief. The kinetic foundations of the godless horizon mixed with desert skin. With rolling mounds on either side of him, the wind billowed in like so many furious bones.

Kaji’s stilted sandals quietly cracked against pebbles beneath as the beady sky tried to force desperate conversations to all that would listen. A large reed hat shielded him from smalltalk. It was curious that reeds weren't available to harvest here, nor were the contents in his satchel, but such thoughts were unyielding to resolution. He was a solitary laborer on an isolated plane, with no one to voice these kindly musings to. 

His knees creaked as Kaji’s body bore the weight of a frivolous pullover. Age was a casualty to this place, destitute and meaningless. He had forgotten how to measure rhythmic events. It had fallen to the wayside with parallax and monuments. This place was just him and the universe's children. Connected by golden threads, everyone else pays bidding to their thoughts and sentiments. We struggle to find meaning while they lay hidden, weighted by stones and dust, on all sides, in rows upon rolling rows.

In a sense, he was devoid of meaning, being unique among everyone else, without a puppeteer to guide his every intimate moment. Though, he was still unsure, which is more appealing. Sometimes he could see countless lines jutting out of the desert landscape, blending into the bright sky. Permanently glowing with splotches of white and champagne. A rippled record on repeat.

He could still recall some moments, before infinity gained his trust. Flapper dancers Louis Armstrong.

As he walked down an aisle of dislocated and desperate ideas, he came across a pair of touching hands, sticking out of the dirt and into the garden trenches. Out of place limbs were not wholly unusual, but a connection like this was subtlety concerning.

Writing this down brought familiarity to a complex of nestled recluses inside of me. One floor housed dozens of mathematicians and sorority girls, while another one was full of empty space. This ancient man was meaningful to me. I had been thinking about him for some time.

An hour and a half before my flight was scheduled to leave, I decided to scavenge for food. The airport industry is full of fast food and magazine racks, so I found myself gravitating towards a sit down Japanese restaurant. It wasn't a coincidence that I was also reading a book by Murakami. When I get into a novel, I become highly influenced by the characters routines. Murakami was known for describing the food and daily minutia in detail.  I always feel more at ease when reading one of his books.

I ordered a teriyaki chicken bowl and searched for a good spot to sit. Sometimes I feel like these decisions are life changing. Should I sit next to the obviously disinterested teenager or the shaken middle aged man? I took a gamble and ventured toward the man.  He wore a white leather jacket and matching hat. He looked like someone whom the world had repeatedly ignored, someone who desperately wanted to be heard, but had been brushed aside for forty years. Maybe he had been blindly turned over so many times that I appeared irrelevant to his cause. I laid my book on the counter, started to pick at my meal, and read about unicorn skulls. It absorbed me immediately and I had to frequently take conscious breaks to eat. Generals passed skulls to universities, which eventually led to tuning forks and sensitive eyes. 

When I was finished I put Murakami back in my bag and looked around the room for confirmation of reality. The leather man was focused on a sculpture of a twisted train track. His eyes moved like he was languidly watching a steam engine follow through loops and whirls. I briefly thought about unmasking my thoughts on him. How vibrantly empty this place was, with age old waste bins and restless exchanges of oxygen and carbon monoxide. There wasn't a single tree in sight, just fake representations. Maybe Plato was on to something. This was a strange place and this man happened to accidentally mimic a dead albino leopard. I wanted to tell him how fitting it was that he was eating here. In a not so Japanese restaurant with a not so natural backdrop wearing a not so energetic mammal. I could see him having plastic kids who took summer jobs in clothing stores. The belly of this was unrealistic. I gently tossed my bag over my shoulder and walked toward the departure gate. As I was leaving I could see him blend into the white walls around me.

On the way to A24 I stopped to see if my flight was delayed any longer. It was conveniently bearing on the already late course, no detours. Life can sometime make you feel like your at the teetering center, when you learn a new word or idea that suddenly becomes popular. It's this deception that can make fate so sporadically appealing. Maybe I was inside a translucent alien box that resonated with everyone around me, to bend wills and fool its contents. Or maybe the plane was just late. With this in mind, I sauntered toward the seating areas outside A24 with forty-five minutes left.

I found a seat on the fringe of two gates. San Diego to my left and Salt Lake City to the right. There were three middle aged ladies sitting between me, a television, and an exit sign. They were talking excitedly about inspirational conferences and pastel hair ties. The conversations were so disjointed it was difficult to exactly decipher their overall intentions. I reached into my bag and decided to read more about inklings and unicorns, in an attempt to distract myself. It was no use. All I could hear were strange epiphanies emanating from talking heads in green blazers and pink blouses.

"It changed my life forever."

"His ten easy steps completely redesigned who I am as a person."

"You've got to try this new cleanse."

In frustration, I fixed my eyes on the television. The commotion drowned out the sound, but it appeared like a newscast anchor was giving highlights from last nights talk shows. Between Leno and Letterman, I caught a flash of Kaki King playing in front of a blue backdrop. There was my focus. There was my distraction. It was a reminder of how hard and delicate we could be. Years ago, when I first saw her on stage, I felt a shift in consciousness. All the guitarist in the past century immediately put down their instruments and realized they had been playing everything wrong. She was so beautiful. It was a blur of hands and an expression that fit inside each fret she touched. Without hearing the sounds, I could feel the abstract vibrations in my finger tips. Music was the only thing that could reshape me like this. I could name the albums that morphed me into a sharp staircase, each step a new way of thinking. The more I thought about this the more I knew, I was really no different than these women.

When I resurfaced my eyes above this sobering moment I was sitting on the plane staring at my old friends, the digital clouds. My row had two seats and I was alone, next to the window, staring at a mountain. I use to have such an affinity for mountains. Each one was filled with rocky springboards alongside shrubbery and jittering pebbles. They inhaled with a force so powerful it couldn’t be seen. When I was young I thought it was God and when i grew up I knew it was patience.  I once shared this experience with Summer.  She was a young christian girl who lived in a newly constructed housing development near a friend of mine.  To me, she was what a petty coat is to most men, an in-style garment to avoid the weather.

Let me preface this by saying that I now consider my actions juvenile and beyond repair, regardless of how you look at it.  I wasn’t fond nor very close to my friend that lived up the street from her.  He was frustratingly annoying, much like a toddlers sippy cup in the middle of the road. I had a difficult time justifying our relationship, until I met Summer.  He was stuck in a vicious childhood crush.  The type of faulty pressure that masks itself like a drug users casualty without the option for rehab.  He begged for Summer’s companionship and she kept him at arms length, unable to stop his motives and wreck his delicate frame.  I’ve never seen someone more nervously fragile.  She was as friendly and witty as they come, growing up in a structured home-school environment.  A place that favored the timid and oppressed, a place that begged for friendship outside of family.  So, they found each other one day out of necessity.  Both profited from this encounter, one searching for pride and the other yearning for the sun.

It’s difficult to say when I stepped into this equation, but I took to Summer’s elegance immediately.  Never had someone made me feel so unique.  She was passionate about intriguing ideas and notions that resonated with within my amber eyes.  To this day, I imagine her curled up in a ball, somewhere between the water line and the pebble tech of her pool.  The sky would rush through it’s daily routines and the tectonic plates would grind against their neighbors, but she was free from their actions.  An immobile breathless object immune to the Earth’s clatter.  I didn’t fall in love with her until much later, though I’m sure I could have if I paid attention.  Our interests in each other was something like a game of chess played through the post office.  Summer was always several moves ahead and I was too lazy to read her responses.  When she was fond of me, I was oblivious to her needs.  When I was fond of her, I took advantage of her convenience.  It was during the latter that I called her and asked that we meet on the outcropping our mountain.

What the millennia had made wasn’t impressive and on a map it appeared a bastard son to the local ranges, but this mountain was important to us. It had character and was able to insert nostalgia into our lives with very little effort.  I had succumb to a night of drinking and debauchery that was foreign to me and there was a yearning to wear her around my shoulders.  It was odd how I separated her, someone so important to me, from everyone else in my life.  My only comfort is the daily admission that metaphysics and reality never fit well for me.  Or maybe I just can’t admit my mistakes with honesty.  Regardless, I met her on a bench that the community added, probably promote outdoor exercise.  She was wearing jeans, a gray hoodie, and her usual glasses.  I’ve always been a partial to glasses.  We didn’t speak much at first, but walked down to the adjacent golf course.  It was nighttime and I’m sure I unconsciously led us there because I wasn’t comfortable with the innocence of the mountain.  It was a beacon of nostalgia to us, but I couldn’t take it’s glare. 

We stretched out on the surface of the driving range, at the top of a ridge that looked over the days failures. Both of us knew what was happening, but we trekked on anyways.

"Do you remember when I forgot your birthday?"

She took in this admitted error with ease. 

"Yes, but it wasn't your fault. How have you been lately?"

"I've made some mistakes I'm not proud of. I think I may have had sex with someone, but I was drunk and can't really remember...I should have been with you when you needed me. I'm sorry."

"You'll always be precious in my eyes."

"Just bad timing"

She nodded in silence. The yard lights that dotted the scenery flooded my eyes. A white blur shimmered with a violence akin to found footage horror movies. I was thousands of feet above Salt Lake City. The other passengers didn't seem to notice these time skips as much as I did. Sure, some of them were phasing back into life from a patch induced nap, but I'm sure I had interacted with the stewardess during the flight. There was a half empty cup of water on the tray above my lap. Clocks were warping through speakeasies in my brain. The thumping of my heart moved my limbs while people filtered through synapses and empty tubes.

The stewardess asked me to put my tray in its upright position and prepare for landing. I looked under my seat, but there weren't any eddies or torrents beneath. The descent was full of clarity. The bags shook with a sharp rapping above our heads and the pilots voice took residence in a halo around us. In this spiritual moment, I couldn't stop thinking about how green the golf course had been.

Chapter 1 Draft: The Reality of a Broken Windmill

1. The Reality of a Broken Windmill

We spend the first half of our life finding things to lament about

This is what's going through my head as a sit in wait for the 743 to Denver. Business men in casual clothes hosting meetings in cramped booths. Florescent lights pouring into action, serving fresh insight to foreign travelers.  Everyone appears to be doing something more important then me.

It's winter here, but the windows look as flimsy as the day they were manufactured. The airport clerk lazily reads a typical women's magazine.  Most likely an article about how to please your man or if a particular hourglass pencil skirt is in fashion. An old man in a wheelchair sports a bald mullet, a strange amalgam of a lumberjack and a Buddhist monk. A middle aged woman instructs her phone to message someone, in what seems to be a sci-fi throwback to the 70s. This place would look like a piece-wise ensemble to a foreigner, but it moved with staleness and hesitation to the native eye.

When I’m uncomfortable, I find myself trying to camouflage with my surroundings by making casual glances at no one in particular, or pretending to be occupied in something as trivial as my shoes.  I can’t convince myself that this ever works.  It was at a time like this that I noticed someone sitting next to me while I waited for the airport clerk to call my section number.  Out of the corner of my periphery I could see a face intently focused on the edge of my nose. I tried to bypass this awkward moment by counting clever prints of airplanes etched into the carpet, but her gaze didn't falter. I read somewhere once that during unusual or intense moments, time can relatively compress when your brain attempts to process foreign information. When I turned my head to see who was fixated on my face, I moved with no more speed than a broken windmill.

She was immaculate and flaunted a youthful sexuality without any effort. A oversized pair of sorority girl sunglasses kept me from determining the color of the pools beneath. She wore a loose fitting camisole and leaned forward just enough to make me nervous. Her hair was pulled back with a few stray strands breaking the soft lines of her face. Her lips looked like they were made of cotton. They parted, ready to evaporate.

"Do you know how to get to Shinjuku Station?"

As far as I knew, we were in the desert and the 743 was waiting for me. I had a difficult time easing myself into this, into her camisole, and she couldn't be more at home, pretending I wasn’t in the room. Unsure of how this was happening, I felt the back of my throat vibrate.

"I'm sorry, I'm not sure."

She smiled in a way that made subtle creases appear on either side of her mouth. For a moment I thought the airport turned into a cliche rendition of that classic painting by DaVinci, and then she was gone. My mind waned with abruptness and I was suddenly aware that the chair I was sitting in was somewhat uncomfortable.  The room hadn’t noticed this blurb in existence, so why should I?  The clerk thumbed through a magazine, the monk stared at the ceiling, and she was gone.

Without considering the reality of her smile, I opened my tablet and typed a quick note.

Always behave appropriately

It was convenient that all of my electronic devices were tied to each other. I could read this message anywhere, at anytime.  It would never be forgotten in the complex superfluous amusement park that we called a highway.  A highway that could never be fully understood. Thinking back, I seem to remember Kepler trying to interpret this in a dusty basement. I couldn’t help but imagine objects within objects that unified everything. It made far more sense than strings and glue and outlandish metaphysical proposals.  The clerk’s voice filled the room, rocking me back to reality.

"Now seating sections A through C, including all platinum and premium members."

I stood up and pulled a plane ticket out of my right pocket. Taking just a brief glance at the empty seat to my left, I walked toward the terminal exit.

* * * * * * * *

The boarding tunnel shared a sympathy for the bitter desert outside. A dull yellow light permeated every helpless carry-on, every recently shined shoe, and every fancy cup of coffee. As I stood at the apex of the slow crawl to our plane, I was made sober by the ocean like haze which formed from shuffling feet and bobbling heads. Each with a thought of there own. When I was young I believed that my thoughts made me unique and vastly different from everyone. How naive I had been in this machine like existence. Everything mimicked each other. Even the ramp floor could be mistaken for rocks and dust.

We moved forward in a waddling fashion. Everyone was in a hurry to sit down and wait for everyone else. At times like these I try to hold my composure and stay as calm as possible. It's an odd internal battle to pity those around you when you want to treat them with respect. Every time I pull this off, passers by receive an awkward half-smile. It feels normal to me, but I know it doesn't look sincere. This is the expression that the gentleman in jeans and a Hawaiian button-up gets when he looks back. The poor sap occupies a very sad point in space, two feet in front of my unpolished shoes. I see the impatience in his expression and I’m not sure how to act.  You would think that thirty-four years of patience and education would have prepared me for these moments.

I could start a conversation.

"Hot outside, huh?"

"Yeah."

It would still end with the same wobble on my face. We would, most likely, never meet again, resulting in a useless conversation. Sure, maybe he was recovering from a tragic existential crisis and he was pleading for someone to acknowledge him, but that was unlikely. That was not the man in front of me. He was content in his flower print while his body urged for first place. We continued to waddle forward.

When the decent down the tunnel reached its end, and the landscape disappeared behind me, I was greeted by a very pleasant stewardess. I've always been partial to stewardesses. They stand as the only source of comfort in this mass of metal, plastic, and 70's decor. As we move single file down the thin rubber walkway, I can hear Carey, by Joni Mitchell, playing through the speakers. I instantly want to be transported to a time when dancing in the daylight with pretty dead things in your hair was commonplace. A time that forced shopkeepers to make signs like "No shirt, No shoes, No service!" My mom lived there, and that's where I wanted to be right now. Instead, I watch baggage straps sag lazily from side to side. A part of me desperately wants to believe they’re working in tandem to match Mitchell's beat, but, as I said before, I'm a sucker for fantasy.

I find my seat, C2, and I'm grateful for a being in the middle. Far away from the statistically improbable crash site and one step closer to the lavatory.  A polite looking woman in a pale suit is sitting to my right, while the aisle seat remains empty. Looking up for something to do, I adjust the air spigot and I'm sprayed with a stale breeze. When the door closes, I'm reminded of a Darwinian past. Living things desperately trying to change their shape in a tunnel of recycled air. Though you can see evolution clearly in most high school museums, when thinking about this I tend to develop sympathy for spontaneous and instant design. With such a short life in comparison to a hydrogen cloud, we aspire to be just like the air we breath, full of movement and violence, but we actually just peter out with barely a dominate trait left for our children. Right now, I'll just have to do with this hallowed out pterodactyl, bones and all.

Where is Shinjuku Station?

The plane starts to slowly tax backwards as it eases out of its bindings, while workers with sticks and blocks scatter across the tarmac. I find the seatbelt fasteners, always a chore, and slide them into place. Looking past the blond hair and matching collar, I’m caught by a brief interruption of vertigo as the world I’m in and the world outside collided in a layman's version of relativity. Similar to tires spinning in the wrong direction. To center myself again I flip my head forward, like a good soldier, and find a modern touch screen monitor looking right back at me. To be precise, it was actually a set of mindless digital clouds and not something so ominous. For awhile, I stared at these clouds. There is something so deeply rooted in human nature that all comfort and sensibility sprouts from it. We all look for patterns. In those clouds I found repetition. This wasn't such a novel thing, as it was probably created with minimal effort and put on loop. To hell with it, I had discovered something, just shy of Prometheus, there was a clear pathway to my left, and there were several good books in my bag. I took out my tablet just before electronic devices were temporarily banned.

The world, and all of its divisions, are simply functions within functions

It's hard to explain what happened next. In all honesty, I'm terrified of flying. In rare and isolated locations of my life, I've found it hard to procure meaning, but when a plane starts to move, so do the cellos in my skin. Such is the flow of age, turbulence brightens dark dense bubbles and pins my head in place like a brainwashed government experiment.  So, I resort to the delusion of synthetics and then remove myself for a moment.

I'm alone with my wife.

She's has the type of beauty that makes me question my existence every time I look at her. A marvelous crooked smile that makes me mirror her every movement. Her face radiates a comforting simplicity that allows me to forget about in-between objects and urges me to become content with blacks and whites. I can see the perfect curvature of her breasts down to the fluttering of her toes, while she waits in anticipation. The sheets are cool to the touch and her body radiates a heat that pulls all of the tension out my pores. This a moment of compounding envy. My shoulders hum as she breaths a soft note of relaxation.

A jerking industrial sound pries me back to reality as the plane’s landing gear salutes to the ground below. The emergency oxygen bags are still intact, the fake scenery is forever on repeat, and the pilot’s voice can be clearly heard.  My flight to Salk Lake City is on time.  I pull out the in-flight magazine from the seat-pouch in front of me and turn it over to see where my next gate is located.  Not too far.  Only about a ten minute walk from the landing site.  As I put the flip book back in place, I notice something peculiar flickering beneath my seat. Upon further inspection, the floor was to melt away as wavicles chased each other in a circle. It was as if a miniature wormhole was casually forming underneath me. I bent over and stretched my head towards it, curious of its contents. Slowly, a clear tunnel took shape, full of dusty cabinets and old clocks. At its bottom I could see people rushing past each other in all directions with suitcases and duffle bags. I could hear a faint voice bouncing off the furniture below.

"Flight 258 to Cincinnati will be boarding in ten minutes"

Before I could register what was going on, the woman next to me slapped on a feathered hat and a pair of white gloves.

"Pardon me, may I...?" 

She pointed at the hole between my legs.

What could I say. Twice in one day I had been molded into a speechless spinster of unusual happenstance events. Why was I acting so unfazed with all of this disorder? If anyone were to peer into my typical daily life, they would most likely find it mundane and stifling. Maybe this is how I react to such strange events. Up until now, the universe moved as it should.  Maybe my mind perceives these fluctuations in normality as utterly equal to my boring routines. I conceded to these thoughts, moved my legs aside and gestured her towards the anomaly.

"Thank you"

She slipped beneath my seat and climbed down the cabinets and clocks. It was a swirl of pale and blond and those sort of things.