Day of decision

“You did this,” he murmured to the man in the mirror. “Every step and misstep brought you to this place. Oh, you had some help and some enablers along the way, but the responsibility is all yours. No one manipulated your fate to put you here; this is the sum total of your every action all tallied together.”

He surveyed the room, thinking, and realized this was so.

“If I had done this before, I would be in a different place now. The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, but the second-best time is now. And so now, where do I plant the first tree?”

He surveyed his life and looked for fertile soil. At first he thought he saw only fertilizer, but then he realized it was the despair talking.

“I can do this,” he said. “All I have to do is decide what ‘this’ is.”

Just as he needed to decide, waves of indecision washed over him and held him in place.

“No, not now,” he insisted and resisted. “Now is not the time to sit and wait. The waiting must end. Time now to act.”

But what? Do what? Act how? The choices were endless, and he had to pick one.

“Of course! I can — no, that would — then this — this is the way — but that might lead me down to —”

The second guesses led to third guesses and on beyond zebra. “Are you really making Dr. Suess references now?” he scoffed, but the thought made him laugh, and he remembered the admonition to “be silly sometimes.”

“What if I were to be silly every day?” he asked himself, but, “No, that’s what got me into this mess in the first place: I overdosed on silliness. Or was I not silly enough? Should I have taken silly to the next level?”

And just like that, he was focused on the past again.

“Stop looking back, this is today,” he repeated like a mantra, until he worked his way back to the present moment. All was fuzzy around him, but that was his aging eyes fooling him. Clarity began to arrive, slowly but decidedly.

“Decidedly,” he sighed. “That word again. I really must decide what to do. Bold action all at once. Oh, no, baby steps, one at a time. What am I going to do?”

He took a next step, and it was the one that made all the difference.

Out of focus

He awoke in a hospital room. There were needles in his arms attached to bags full of liquid, and he heard the hums and beeping of machinery, and the place just smelled like medicine.

A nurse was leaning over him.

“I thought you might be waking up. I’ll get a doctor,” and she was out of the room before he could ask a question.

Another nurse bustled in followed by the woman he’d seen first. No, this new woman was a doctor. He saw that in the badge on her chest.

“How long was I sleeping?” he asked.

“Hello to you, too, Marc,” said the newcomer, not unkindly. “I’m Dr. Vermiere. You’ve been out for years.”

“Years?! How many years?”

“Well, what’s the last thing you remember?”

“Steve Ditko quit Spider-Man.”

“The movie hero? Who’s Steve Ditko?”

“There’s a Spider-Man movie?”

The two women exchanged a glance.

“It’s been a very long time,” the nurse said.

“Try. What is the last thing you can clearly recall?” said Dr. Vermiere.

“I’m really not sure,” Marc said. “It’s hard to know what was real and what is my imagination.”

“Are you not sure if I’m real?” the doctor asked.

“I don’t know if I’m real. This could be a dream.” He felt the sheet under his hands and wiggled his toes. “But I think this might be real.”

“I can assure you it is.”

“How? How can you assure me?” Marc asked.

“I am real. I know you are real. I’m pretty sure I know reality when I see it.”

“How nice for you,” he said. “Apparently it’s been a very long time since I could be so certain.”

“You’ve been dreaming.”

“Or maybe you have,” he said, and they both chuckled, but then she saw the look in his eyes.

“Oh, you’re not joking,” said Dr. Vermiere.

They talked for quite some time, the doctor trying to assure him he was awake at last, the patient reaching into his psyche and looking around the room for confirmation that he wasn’t still dreaming.

Would he ever know for sure?

Could he ever be certain of anything, ever again?

How long ago was the sixties?

“What year is this?”

“2026.”

“No.”

“Sorry, yes.”

He looked more carefully at his hands. They did look like old man’s hands.

He wanted a concrete sign that he was real, but he whispered to himself, “Define real.”

“Oh, come on, this is getting silly,” the doctor asked.

“I didn’t mean to get you angry,” he said.

“I’m not angry,” she said. “I’m just concerned that you’re not waking up to the real world very quickly.”

“How do you know? How do I know you didn’t yank me out of reality and into an illusion of some kind? Is my name really Marc?” There was an uncomfortable silence, and then Marc added, “See, that’s just it. All of this could be in my mind.”

“OK, that’s it, I have to get you out of there,” Dr. Vermiere said.

“Out of where? Where am I, anyway?”

“Help me with this, nurse!”

The two women descended on him together, but he escaped just in time. How he got away, he never did quite understand.

Waltz of the infernal annals

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.”