Time warps
By order of thickness, in my apartment:
1. Kitchen near SINK
2. Bed, closest to window
3. Desk in office
4. Chair in front of CHEST OF DRAWERS
5. Shower stall
Think: you ever seen a commercial for caramel? Ribbons of it, oozing so luxurious, so rich and buttery and golden and perfect, seeming so smooth and nice, see it Now, pouring out of Someone Kindly’s spigot of candy perfection—can you? The ropes fold on themselves, yes? Making clown frowns and towel stacks and then toppling over melting sticky into each other pink elephants on parade style and you can’t separate them and then it’s just one blob of hot runny sweet?
Time: there are places—physical and temporal places both—where it turns and sticks to itself. So you can go into a bend if you’re moving—physically or temporally—in that direction. Then it’s just
and I am chopping vegetables
and I am walking in the snow down Smith Street to meet someone, a friend, he was a friend then, I do not know what he is now, more like a brother and I do not know if that is better, it is five years ago, but I am in my BODY, this keeps happening since the hurricane, back in Brooklyn, I am meeting him to have tapas
.
I am leaving class and I am in Bethesda and I am walking with the man who was a friend and there is no middle ground in that friend ship any more and we do not
.
I am in the shower
and I am in the bedroom and I do not know where I was.
.
“Does that happen to you?”
“I need you to be more specific.”
“Do you fall out of time? In the toilet?”
“I thought it was only me. A symptom. The shower. It’s a portal.”
“How long was I gone?”
“Ten minutes. How long were you gone?”
“I don’t know. I was nowhere. Notime, I was notime.”
“Maybe it just hasn’t happened yet. You’ll remember where you were in the future.”
No: that is the conversation I wished I had had. Why; I don’t know. It’s boring. He has the same experience. I know because he told me. I don’t know why it makes me feel more understood, more at home, more loved, to slant it this way, but it does.
It’s too far away now, too long ago, three apartments ago and I can’t remember what we really said, it feels dishonest to
and I am in the shower and it is made of elastic. I am in movement inside of time outside the glass all is slowed there is a clock and the minutes do not pass but the water passes just fine and the only sound is the water the drain the me the bottles the shampoo I cannot hear the neighbors I cannot hear the fan I realize after I have finished most of the order of my shower cleaning I must have been in here at least ten minutes I take too long to shower but I have not this time why not because I am in a thin spot the heel of time it is threadbare here there is not enough time to go around it needs to stretch
That’s where I was. In a thin spot. That’s why nothing happened outside.
Faster than light travel is full of tedium and nail trimmings; I’m sorry to be the one to tell you