biopsy epiphany

I expected the worst. I'm not even referring to the results. Worst, as in bend over to be probed, inserted, navigated, manhandled. A conjured image of discomfort, humiliation, breathe-through-it pain, tension, and fear. I was given a needle in each butt cheek: an antibiotic as a preventive measure. The left needle was barely felt; the right one hurt. I was escorted to the room for the euphemistically called procedure. Lie on your left side, facing the wall. So that was better than the on-your-elbows position I had pictured. Plus, they "numbed me up" down there. Another aspect better than I had envisioned. (In 2002, I was not given an anesthetic.) Before you know it, during my rambling dialogue with the doctor, they're in there. Ultrasound images on a screen. Colorful computer simulations, like you see in the movies. Numeric designations on the screens. To the left, or the right, up or down, closer or farther. Lunar landscape. Gentle landing. Inner clenchings like staplings but duller, internal pings -- except for one of twenty, not painful, more like an annoyance, a tangible split-second thump within-the-inner-of-the-inner inwardness. To harpoon and retrieve the tissue samples. The conversation and the screens distractions. The doctor said I'd probably want to watch. I said I rarely do, such as during a colonoscopy, which I wouldn't remember anyway because of the Versed anesthesia. He said, oh, you'll watch. And I did. An observer of my innermost self, physically. Not afraid or anxious. Almost amused. A detachment as if it were somebody else being represented up there on the screens. A curiosity, an observation, an objective assessment. Oh, that. Watching some kind of sci fi episode, without the popcorn. A metaphysical shrug of the shoulders.

Would that such detachment were granted to me for any day's probings, any day's pricks and prods, any day's pleasures or pains.

dis-ease

Consider: disease

dis-, as in lack of, not, opposite of, apart, away, asunder, in a different direction, as in two, twice, two different ways, twain, between.

ease, as in mitigate, alleviate, relieve from pain or care, render less difficult, relax one's efforts (including 1863 to 1907, a more specific sense in sailing), to content a woman sexually (slang, 1861), physical comfort, undisturbed state of the body, tranquility, peace of mind, pleasure, well-being, opportunity. Compare adagio. Cf. at ease as a military order denoting freedom from stiffness or formality.

These from the Online Etymology Dictionary. 

Put the two together.

Dis-ease.

Read the above all over again. 

No, I'm not going to walk you through it. I'm not going to sermonize on what breaking down the two word parts means separately or together, or what marrying them conjures up and gives birth to. You can do that yourself.

It's revealing, isn't it?

But, still, add to the mix not at home in the world, nor in your skin, your psyche, nor in your bones.

The etymological and existential tension (infinitely tender and fragile; unspeakably personal) between cling and let go, grasp and avert, indulge and refrain, partake and repel, pause and pirouette, explore and perish.

Why is that?

So much depends. (William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheelbarrow")

So if you have only a thin wire,
God does not mind.
He will enter your hands
as easily as ten cents used to
bring forth a Coke. (Anne Sexton, "Small Wire") 

the static

like, you know; turn the dials on the Hallicrafters short-wave radio like safecrackers; dive bombers; know what I'm sayin; shrill metallic blast; gurgling high-pitched twirling; ya know; crackling hum; intergalactic buzzsaw; in my opinion; galvanic thrumming; Radio Moscow; I know, right; shockwave echoing; lol; electronic pulsating stammering; shrill feedback; ear-splitting waterfallish avalanche; Vatican Radio; yeah, no; tin stuttering; galloping burping; infinite clanging; Radio Nederland Hilversum; LOL; yeah, no, I know, right; BBC World Service; wave-rippling cool giggling trickle; broken-muffler mauling; know what I mean; sandy sandpaperish sifting; harsh endless high-volume whispering; like; right  

the silence

If silence is golden. Speaks volumes. The chime before meditation. And after. And in-between. The silence of the lambs. Bleating. The silence of no lambs bleating. The silence of no iambs, pentameter or otherwise. The echoic silence after the 3-foot-diameter steel gong is gonged. The eloquence of the words not said, the argument not posited, the point not made, the victory not sought. The power of the pause, the well, the hollow, the vapor, the sky. The weight of it. The invincible juggernaut weight of big fat, divine Unspokenness rolling down the avenue for the Krishna festival, devotees throwing themselves before the wheels to be crushed in sacrifice. That kind of obeisance to silence. The silence more than absence of words or sounds. The white space of silence. The anvil of it. The cartoon bank safe falling onto the sidewalk from the skyscraper of it. The where did it come from and where does it go silence. The ringing in your ear silence that screams. And the silence after that.  

the fountain

I sat there on a wooden bench with iron railings at dusk. Golden September evening. Smoking a cigar and nursing a coffee from the shop across the street, I found myself staring at the fountain in the square. The endless trickling. The silent journey, unseen, of the water upwards, to the pinnacle spout, after which it trickles down in stages, filling black wrought-iron bowl- or plate-like platforms that fill and spill until the tricklings reach the pool at the bottom. And then repeat it, seemingly forever. It hypnotized me, mesmerized might be a synonym. But neither says it. Some kind of serene spellbound. The fountain so eternal in quotes but eternal enough for me right then. Is this why Rome is The Eternal City, because of so many eternal fountains? It reminds me of an old joke, the one about a search for the meaning of life with the guru delivering the punchline, "You mean it's not a fountain?" The joke was on us. Life as a punchline that nobody gets. The fountain tableau transported me to wonder: for how long have humans built fountains and how did they work before electricity was supplied? (Something I refuse to research. Why spoil the fun?) You'd think water fountains prove there is such a thing as a perpetual motion machine. Except. Except for water running out. And time running out in trickles like the fountain drippings. Naturally, even the fountains found in the wild, the ones we call waterfalls, are subject to the same rules of supply and impermanence. But enough of all that. The perfect light. (It was magical enough for four sets of professional photographers to stage and pose families, couples, and individuals for photos to be treasured on a wall until someone moves, storing the photos into an eternal anonymity in a box in a storage bin.) I snapped (screen-tapped) three photos on my phone, which is cheating for a wordsmith, isn't it. A magical hour magical enough for the golden retriever to want with all its canine desire to leap into that reflecting pool, only to be restrained by a tug on the leash. So, if I were in Italy and this were in a piazza it would be more worthy of memory and reflection? Who says. I rubbed the ash off the tip of the cigar against the bench, letting the ash fall to the brick pavers, careful to note no fire was possible. Earlier, I had placed the wooden match I had used to light the cigar and put it in the sink of the patina-painted inoperable water fountain nearby. Now that the lighted match was sufficiently cooled, I tossed it into the bed of ivy, where it landed in the dirt.   

lottery

Luther couldn't believe his eyes. Or his ears. He checked the six Powerball numbers again and again. He checked his Powerball numbers, the five for the white balls, 1 to 69, and one red Powerball, 1 to 26. He held the play slip in one hand, and the ticket in the other. Both hands were trembling. One $2 wager. He hadn't played Powerball, or any state lottos for seven years. Seven years, three months, and five days, if anybody's counting. He hadn't bought any scratchies either, or Cash For Life, Take Five, any of that. No football parleys. He'd been "clean and sober," as his Gamblers Anonymous confederates might describe it. 15, 20, 40, 48, 52, and 16, if you must know. Power Play 10x. Luther wrote the numbers on an index card. He pulled up the website and recited the numbers on the screen. He read the matching numbers on the index card. He said those out loud too. Deep down, he knew he had these numbers memorized; they could not be pried from his consciousness, subconsciousness, or memory. Numerical amnesia would be impossible. Now his hands were shaking and he was sweating, his forehead and underarms were perspiring.

Should I call someone? Who? What would I say?

The Grand Prize times ten would be so incalculably astronomical as to be unfathomable.

Don't go there.

You should call someone, anyone. Dad. Louise, Barbara, Ethan, Evelyn, Camille, Katharine. Sponsor. Sponsee. No, not text. Of course not.

Luther began to compose a resignation letter in his head. Dear Board of Directors, Dear Chairman of the Board, Dear Suckers, Dear Fuckers. Dear Cocksuckers, Hey you, Yo, To Whom It May Concern, Dear Torquemada.

He went to his laptop and typed the numbers in a Word file. Then he went to the website again and managed to copy the winning numbers and paste them into the Word file. They still matched.

Was this flutter the AFib he was warned about nine years ago? It had never bothered him in the least all these years. Why would it. The cardiologist said, One valve or chamber was mildly "generous" in comparison to the others. He hadn't understood the doctor in the least, but he never forgot the intriguing application of generous.

He began to pace in his studio apartment. Apartment pacing was not going to work. Even though it was nearing midnight, he put his coat on and stepped into the blowing snow and frigid cold. And walked.

As he trudged up Harborview Way, he fumbled in his right pocket for the ticket. Once he located it by touch, he fingered it, rubbed it like a talisman.

Nearing the crest of the hill, Luther slid on a patch of ice under the snow and he went sprawling, spread-eagled as if he were trying to create a snow angel. As he tried to brace himself, his hands shot out from his pockets, including his right hand, which had been caressing the lottery ticket.

In the ensuing mayhem, he lost his grip on the ticket, in a nanosecond his hand opened up. Before he was barely conscious of what had just transpired, the ticket got swept up in a snowy gust. The little slip of paper with 15, 20, 40, 48, 52, 16 got swept away. Caught in an eddy of air, not visible in the night.

Luther screamed. He cried. He shouted. He wailed.

He bolted toward the snowy gust. And he fell again.

He ran toward it, and then bent to the ground. He sifted through the snow, any snow, like a gold Rush Forty Niner.

Hundreds of millions of dollars.

They found him on all fours, frozen against an embankment.

A yard to his left, in the glistening sunlight, the winning ticket fluttered, a paper butterfly, out of season, on the powdery snow.

The winning numbers that Luther had memorized were for the wrong week, the week before.
 

anonymous

Literally without a name. Or without a literal name. How about a metaphorical name. Nameless. Not "name known but unspoken." No, not that. No name at all. Was there ever a name. Was a prior name shorn and shucked, offering a new self. Or was the anonymity there from birth. Did the anonymity serve as a blank canvas to paint on, to create an identity, a self. Dead to me. They say this or that one is "dead to me." A phrase nurturing either resentment or detachment. Take your pick. But who are "you"? Who is "me"? The power of anonymity. What exactly is that power. The unheralded secret, random kindness. The so-called selfless act that is never truly selfless despite what they say. Who are "they"? Anonymity as a shield, a shelter. Anonymity as a brandishing (surely not a brand name). "Anonymous" being the author. "Anonymous" being the donor. Handy for purposes of humility. Purposeful for adoptions. Anonymous the voyeur. Anonymous the spy. Anonymous the unknowable divinity, the unspeakable divine, as the ancient chosen tribe resorted to an acronym rather than utter the Sacred Name of No Name. That power of anonymity. Protector. Refuge. Savior. No name. Before name. Beyond name. Beyond noun or pronoun. Beyond adjective.

Just verb.

runaway

He ran away from home. Although we were a real city, with 37,000 people, it made the papers. We were in fourth grade. It was 1961, ironically the same year as "Runaway," the hit by Del Shannon. We weren't close friends, but close enough that I went over to his house once, over in the projects. His projects, not ours. What did we do? We went upstairs to his room and looked at his shoebox of baseball cards. No brothers or sisters. Just his mom and him. His mom yelled at him. He hadn't done some sort of chore. Dishes? Laundry? Make his bed? It didn't matter. You could tell she just liked to yell at him. She was making some kind of point, as if to say, This is how we do things around here, kid (me). Don't try to get smart with me. She smoked Camels. But the part I wanted to forget, the thing I didn't want to remember, was the walls. The walls in the hallway were black. At the bottom of the stairs, the hallway that greeted visitors, if ever there was another visitor, was smudged as if charcoal was rubbed over the institutional yellow paint. I imagine he and his mom braced themselves if they came down the stairs too hard and pivoted left to the kitchen or right to the living room. Or the wall was a casual pushing-off point, a way to launch oneself up the stairs. Or they leaned against the wall to put on or take off their shoes or boots. I don't know. I was thunderstruck. I almost blurted out, What's that? Where did that come from? I, who came from an apartment on the other end of the cleaning spectrum. Today people would use the OCD label, but it was just the way it went, the way we were. Saturdays were consumed with my brothers and I sweeping, vacuuming, washing, waxing, scrubbing, vacuuming again to meet Dad's white-glove inspection Army standards. We hated it. But this. The walls. The outer fringes of the wall beyond the opposite steps had handprints, vestigial symbols of origin. These marginal imprints left no doubt as to the source of the fully darkened portion. Hands. I didn't know how to respond. I didn't go home and tell anyone. Who was there to tell? And what was there to say? 

He was gone a few days. There was no manhunt, no panic, no search, but it was on the radio and in the papers. They covered the story as if it were an entertainment, a curious amusement, rather than a dangerous incident. They were flippant. And kids in our class? Nobody said much of anything. Some crude jokes, wisecracks, about his riding a freight train like a hobo. This came from some of the boys, and the girls shushed them. Mrs. Anastasia never said a word. Open your books. Practice your penmanship.

He came back. 

He came back to school on a Monday.

Nobody asked him where he had gone or how, nobody asked him what he did, or why. We didn't greet him or welcome him back. He just sat in his regular chair at his regular, assigned desk, in the second row from the window.

When Mrs. Anastasia read the roll, to which we were to say "present," she got to his name near the end, because of the letter his last name began with.

She got to his name and he didn't say anything.

He was crying; he had been crying all the while.

She went on to the next two names.

"Present."

"Present."
 

The Lockness Monster

You press the button on the fob. The nearly inaudible click. Press again the button with the closed padlock symbol. The horn bleep. Do it again, neurotically, the way you do, the way so many of us do. Undo it. Second thought. The driver's door gets unlocked. Click again to unlock all four doors. Third thought. Lock? The rapid-fire calculation of risk, safety, security, fear, privilege, race, poverty, wealth, bias, tree limbs, mice, rats, cardinals, sparrows, finches, crows, history, memory, future. Keep unlocked. After all, the car will be in view from where you sit. Plus, what is there to take? You have your laptop with you, which you prize more than the car, a 2016 sedan. They (who are "they"? why assume plurality? who are these contrived and conjured bogeymen from your primordial Freudian-Hegelian-Jungian dream swamp?) are welcome to the 15 or 20 returnable cans and bottles for 5 cents each. He or she or it or they can have the straw fedora sitting in the back seat, if that's what they really want. They can wear it proudly and defiantly. You will nod at them knowingly as you stroll by each other on the Parisian boulevard at midnight. Go ahead, from the so-called glovebox without gloves take the napkins, straws, CDs, condoms (unused naturally), chewing gum, chewing gum wrappers, wrench, Narcan, antacid tablets, cough drops, tampons (unused naturally), tire-pressure gauge, sanitary napkins, compass, torchlike flashlight, toothbrush, Geiger counter, gas mask, mouthwash, and her spare keys from 2016. Have at it. Have at them. Have them. You prefer that they leave the registration and insurance documents for two reasons: you'll need them; and doing so preserves the illusion that your identity has not been compromised by this intrusion. And is it an intrusion after all if the doors were unlocked? Will their defense attorney turn it around and claim your unlockedness was an invitation to browse, forage, and take? What defense attorney? No one would bother to investigate such an unheralded and low-grade transfer of goods. 

You drive home. You park in the camera-monitored private parking lot.

You press the fob twice to lock all four doors. You do it again to hear the confirmatory beep. 

texting one two three

the text text texts Scripture scripture stuttering writing the writing the word words wording string of semantic syllables passage extract narrative pretext context line lines nonverbal unspoken legible utterance utterances legible illegible indefinable posit of posing etymological energy of imprecise embedded thought would be thought inked inkling of linked intuition articulation you say text synonymous anonymous musing musings musingification beyond deeper than hermeneutics semiotics sunny cloudy composition in the infinite cloud unlouded texture texting fabricated text the text tyranny of term terminal terminology text textual silence nothing no-thing