static

The thought arrives with the windows all a flicker, billboard and brick wall and goat barn, the scent of coffee and the racket of the club car. A negligible sense of direction and a penchant for showing up alone. Waiting for the long side of the bend in the rails before sliding open the door, momentum meeting up with the feet. An unyielding stillness, a ship in a bottle. Wandering cabin or car in the imprecision between departure and destination. Unboxed expectations, a similar phrasing of the feel, a grubby room and a screen to fill.

There’s no such thing as a pristine memory. You scuff it up every time you take it out of the box. Some details drift, some scenery changes, you better believe you get the better light. The cross wires of cognition and confection, the placing of the panels, the hanging of the frame. All these thoughts moving from one thing to another, the stories racing us to keep up with our fresh selves, as we work our way through the elements. Every day a costume change from the inside out. Our memories are lucky not to be left on the bus.

The season leans in, the entity encumbered by the swell of shadows and the hinted light. Thoughts swarm and string along, flashes of bright and lively distractions strobe, the flutter of sentience a bird beating against the blinds. The words chemistry and recipe, the words ice clinking against the glass. This stir of dust, this stretch of static, the tenuous accommodations allowed by the now. This moment almost close to some lost long ago, a train only remembered by the tracks.