Circle

When you’re on a merry-go-round, you see the same things over and over. But they don’t mean the same. When you start out, you probably enjoy it, if merry-go-rounds are your thing. If you can get into the concept of riding a horse, or a jet, or a flying elephant, or whatever, then it’s probably no big deal to soar over and over. But it’s for cases like these that “ad nauseam” was made. You see some plants. You see the crowds, people waiting to do what you do, when really all you’re doing is watching them, four seconds at a time. Blurry claymation. Suddenly you think you might get off. But you stand, and somehow you’re still spinning. You lose track of how long you’ve been on, but your body knows. Your body has more wisdom than your feeble mind can comprehend, and it knows that you’ve gotten yourself into this landlocked seasick. Your eyes can’t focus, and two images won’t quite come together. You place a foot accidentally, and your sole hasn’t finished introducing itself to the ground before you’re falling. If your mind could think, it would wonder how a merry-go-round could go so fast. But the strangled animal impulses are just fear and the need to hold on with your pins-and-needles hands. The metal is somehow warm and clammy when your palm hits the pole. The smallest thought with the biggest feeling is that it will end must end let it end. But it’s for cases like these that “ad infinitum” was made. So you spin spin spin, flung all to bits, disintegrating atom by atom while laughter and endless music shake through you.

Time goes in a circle. Clock hands move through space to move through time. You move through the office so you can afford to move through time. And what a time it is. Wake up feeling tired in a bed you don’t own. Drip shower, lenses fogged with steam, damp clothes sticking to you. Cologne of traffic exhaust. You go in before the sun comes out. There are no windows, just a surly bureaucrat gone sour in middle age. The fluorescents cover everything but light nothing. The walls are beige, the floor is carpet. You can drink paper cup after paper cup but you will never be hydrated. You will not run but your feet will hurt. You will not lift but your back will protest. This is a cutting yard for the soul.

I hear cadences, when I’m surrounded by the same people for too long. Thinking in their voices, even. These pieces bounce off the rented walls and careen off the ceiling, all winding up in my head so that when I dream it’s about work. I wake at four begging myself to think about something else so I can have my last hour of rest. I don’t think there will be any. I think that when I step into my coffin it will be put into a hearse which will drop me off at the office.