Of Drunkenness
Late at night, when there is nothing but the beetle on the ceiling and, invisibly, gravity, I too might be drawn down like a regiment and descend into the finished basement of my thoughts, where I cannot be fooled like a whelp into believing that a windup clock wrapped in a blanket is the beating of my mother’s heart. It is daytime there, and it is summer, unlike here, where it is winter and the middle of the night. In this part of my thoughts, of the house of my thoughts, it is cool, a good place to escape the heat in the upper floors of my thoughts, gauche though it may be to refer to your own thoughts as hot—warm, yes, okay, but not hot—but what do you want, it’s summer there, unlike here. It’s like a speakeasy in the land of day-drinkers, in almost any land you choose this winter, when we are even more afraid of strangers than usual, and we can’t see a smile without reading eyes, and we can’t read eyes because we leave our glasses in the car, and we drink alone in a speakeasy so exclusive it lends itself naturally to an architectural capriccio. I’ve repainted my nobleman’s robes so many times I look and feel pregnant on the canvas, which today, which is tonight, is the only thing on the wall of the cool finished basement besides the television where my son is playing a video game, and now my son and I are playing a video game together, called Superhot. I’m not making that up, and bravo to the creators of Superhot, where every encounter is fast-paced and to the death, but time moves only when you move. You can do nothing, and your stained-glass enemies will seem to get frustrated or bored, and you can stretch out on the couch with your son nestled into your side as you both listen to the sonogram hum of the ceiling fan that keeps your thoughts moving and once again breathe easy with the world, and in that and so many other ways blessed you can fade into the waves as they crest against the cliff several hundred miles down the street, breathing an end that never ends until it does.