In a perfect world I — am right here, sitting amid the clocks in the morning quiet, coaxing my hand from left to right and dropping images and cryptic symbols onto the page that represent the words coursing through my head.
Will future archaeologists look this page over and say, “Aha! 21st century English, we’ll need to find an expert to read this,” or will it make absolutely no common sense to them? “Markings in a sheaf full of thin materials, what practical use did this object have all those centuries ago?”
And where will my dust be scattered then? Up from the ashes and turned to ash.
Let’s start over, shall we?
In a perfect word I am right here, sitting amid the clocks in the morning quiet, dropping images in cryptic symbols across the page. Every act of every moment of my life led me into this very chair at this very moment, when I realized this has been a pretty good life. I’ve always had something to eat (witness the belly), and while I’ve never been a superb physical specimen, I’ve been healthy almost all of the time for 68 years five months and two weeks.
Page turning now.
Come on now, I know I left it in here somewhere … Oh! Hi — Have you ever turned a page and completely lost your train of thought — what was I just thinking, it seemed important a moment ago and now it’s not even on my mind, just a lingering sense of whatever it is I’m feeling?
My, it’s a peaceful quiet morning, though, except for the occasional screaming vehicle lifting its racing tires across the asphalt up the hill. We’re down here, 40 feet from the old highway and maybe 100 feet from the new, with the biggest windows in the back, facing the trees and the water beyond. Maybe it would be perfect if there wasn’t so much traffic, but the sound is background fuzz by now, these nine years after we began to settle in.
It really is a beautiful space of this big old world, a comfortable place to gather our earthly possessions to make our own. It’s as perfect a world as two mortals can manage, in my humblest opinion, and by golly, I think I’m a happy guy. What do you know about that?