And what if I promise not to close my eyes
Until I come up with something wise
That will last throughout the ages?
And what if the words refuse to dance
Until I’m willing to take a chance
To spill my soul onto these pages?
And if I wake before I die
I’ll ask that God show me a sky
Blazing as angels sing around me.
At day’s end all that I can ask
Is to once more be up to the task
And let not my foolishness confound me.
There! Fourteen lines that might survive
As proof that I was once alive.
This dance is like no other we’ve ever shared. I never knew how to dance, so I don’t know how to move my feet, and I only know where to place my hands by watching the others. And then there are the dancers who dance alone while more or less facing their partner, more or less in synch with each other, more or less dancing.
“More or less” — which part is more and which part is less — and how is it “dancing” in the sense of the word? And how did we make words dance, these random sounds that now have meaning?
“Dance!” and we move our bodies to the beat, and how did we find rhythm in the sounds, and why are sounds and rhythms so pleasing? When we break every thing down into its components, how did it all come together in the first place?
“Sing!” and we speak in a different way, painting pictures with the tones our voices spill.
“Write!” and this foreign instrument in my hand starts to waltz across a piece of paper seemingly with a mind of its own, but the words come first to my mind and. Travel down my arm converted into forms that somehow will make sense to another human being — how did this all happen?
But it did happen, and we can reach across a room or a void and share ideas and concepts, and share abstract and solid meaning.
Then why do we manage not to understand each other in the end, and why do I have such base and earnest instincts — if we seek a meeting of the minds, why does it lead to a sharing of the bodies? And why not?
And where am I going with this?
“Never mind him, he’s grasping at straws, trying to fill a page with any old creepy thought that crosses his mind.”
“And why would he do that?”
“He’s off his cork.”
Who is having this conversation? Isn’t it a monologue by definition, emerging as it is from one mind and one voice in the end?
“This is silly. I won’t share this passage.”
“How do you know it’s silly? Perhaps it’s the most profound thing he’s ever written, destined to live forever in the annals of literature?”
“I rather doubt it. What IS an annal, anyway?”
“It IS an odd-sounding word, isn’t it? I will —”
“Don’t!”
“What? I was just reaching for my phone to ask the etymology of ‘annal.’”
“And next thing you know, 15 minutes will have passed and you’ll forget why you picked up the infernal device.”
“‘Infernal’ — that’s another interesting word — Hey, Siri?”
“No! And damn Alexa, too. We can parse this one ourselves. ‘Infernal’ probably relates to ‘inferno,’ which suggests the fires of hell, and so we probably use the word ‘infernal’ to describe that which we perceive as hellish.”
“I wonder how fire became associated with hell? I can just as well imagine hell as an icy cold and dark place.”
“Yes, but fire burns and consumes, and it hurts like hell if you get too close.”
“I think I understand.”
“And then there are the times when I understand nothing.”
“Is this one of those times?”
“I’m not sure I’m in a position to say.”
“We’re spouting nonsense, aren’t we?”
“I’m not sure. This very well might be brilliant.”
I awake in darkness. Total darkness. This is not the darkness of night when, thanks to stars and moon, your eyes slowly adjust and you start to see shapes. No, this is darkness so dark I simply cannot see anything.
I don’t know how long I wait in vain for any sliver of light, but around the time I resign myself to the darkness, a bright spotlight is switched on, and just like that I trade the blindness of dark for the blindness of light.
“Will the defendant state his name?”
Defendant? Defendant?! I state my name.
“The charge is murder. How do you plea?”
“Murder?! I didn’t murder anyone.”
“Count 1. On July 13, 1983, you went to a mall arcade, inserted a quarter in the Qbert machine, and were still playing an hour and 15 minutes later, when your then-wife and her daughter finished their shopping and came to retrieve you.”
“I remember! Not sure of the date …”
“Count 2. On June 28 of this year, you watched all eight episodes of “Harlan Coben’s ‘I Will Find You’” beginning at 7 p.m. and went to bed shortly before 3:30 a.m.”
“Yes. So —?”
“Count 3. Yesterday, you sat down to write ‘the Great American Novel’ but instead played Free Cell, Klondike and Pyramid Solitaire for nearly two hours.”
“What about it? I was killing time like anyone else.”
“So you wish to plead guilty?”
“What?! No! ‘Killing time’ is just an expression.”
“Let the record show the defendant has confessed to killing time.”
“It’s just an expression!!”
“In this case, it’s literal, my friend,” the interrogator says not unkindly. “You have arrived at your allotted time. Whatever you hoped to accomplish in this world, you needed to have done by now, for you are done.”
I am suddenly haunted by the words I’d read in a book years ago and even blogged about — the author visiting a friend who had less than a week to live. The friend said he was ready to go but sometimes wished he had 10 more years.
The book was How, Then, Shall We Live? by Wayne Muller.
“What would you do with those years?” Muller had asked his friend.
The dying man thought for a moment. “I would be more kind,” he said. “I would live my life with kindness.”
I stand in despair before the judge, the tribunal, or wherever I’m standing and before whom.
“I wish I had more time,” I whisper.
A hand touches my shoulder. In the blinding light I see a gruesome scar on the hand.
“It’s all right, friend,” says the most gentle voice I’ve ever heard. “I will serve your sentence.”
I wake up in a sweat. Was that all just a dream? It seemed so real.
I decide to take no chances.
I pick up another book and find the mission statement I’d hoped to find.
“Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against each other. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect harmony.” (Colossians 3:12-15, if you’re wondering.)
I see the scarred hand is still on my shoulder. No dream, then.
I thank the man who has agreed to serve my, erm, my time.
“I will do my best to use what’s left to me as if it is sacred, for I see now that it is,” I tell him.
“Works for me,” he says.
“Exactly,” says I.
