I want to escalate this effect of drowning, drinking more water than I should. I have transient thoughts that connect with nothing. These are the anagrams of ephemera that might mean something one day.
I am polite, but only to the Pope. This is a character trait I’ve developed over time due to my maternal parent’s insistence. She has dubious notions of his infallibility. I feel dwarfed in the presence of such men. They wear their robes like the wings of leathery predators. I feel their hawkish gaze upon me from the moment of my birth. In a book, they write down such things as my first word and my first impure thought. I can’t escape, but I don’t feel like trying.
One morning, when I am young and not capable of distinguishing the face of evil from that of a beatific angel, my father takes me walking. We pass through several parks where long lines of black clad men walk in stiff formation, their lips moving in silence as they communicate a pastiche litany of numbers and borrowed phrases. All wear top hats though none stop to lift them as we pass. We play a crazy snake game, weaving between and around them as they move at a pace far slower than seems to please my father. He is determined and urgent in his stride; his large rough hand grips mine and compels me on. I feel safe in this sea of confusing adulthood. The further we move, the grayer the grass becomes. Iron swing sets rust away to dust in the air and a heavy fog envelops us. I clutch my father’s hand and feel how warm his grip becomes as he squeezes, keeping me in tow.
My uncle kept an ocean in a small glass jar, just hidden behind a bucket under the kitchen sink. I would take the jar from behind the bucket and set it on the kitchen floor. For hours I would study the small tide that washed against the side of the jar, wondering where all the ships went. My uncle had never told me about his ocean, though I had tried to broach the subject of large bodies of water many times. He went silent when the conversation turned to these waters, his face growing sad and his eyes looking through me, out beyond the walls of the house. He kept a blanket over his legs; they never were warm enough while he sat in his wheelchair. I pushed him through the house and talked to him about everything I could think of, everything except the small ocean under the sink.
On the day I stopped being a young boy anymore, I walked for hours up a winding staircase thinking about my life. Every now and then I would stop and sit on the stairs. I would light a small pipe my father had made for me, filling it with a sweet tobacco he felt was suitable for his charming son. Sitting in a cloud of my own thoughts, I could feel my body communicating with itself, readying for the shift. My knees looked a darker color and I began to seriously consider not wearing shorts anymore when this was over, when I got to my room. I felt taller and more powerful, though the distance from my eyes to the floor seemed the same, I assumed my vision had grown stronger as well. This was the moment, the time when my body rebelled and my mind would free itself from the shackles of youth. I had waited many years for this moment to pass, and my only regret was that it should transpire while I climbed, alone, on the stairs. I had several hours left before I should reach my room, so I hooked my pipe into the pocket of my shorts and resumed my climb. As I noticed how my toes pushed against my shoes, I realized a new wardrobe would really be the first order of business.
