Alice in the Hourglass

Every day, we strive to be the dusters of time and space.

Every day, reality falls through and that which we strive to create shatters.

Once again, the significance of the power in initiative is forgotten, not by us or you or them, but by the defeat.

I guess that is what they mean when they say the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. When we forget, all falls loose. My friend calls it karma and that some people think their heads will grow the size of the sun and they will have answers to all things. Then they fall into the apple tree and it goes down from there. You cannot procreate by climbing into what created you.

“F@€k.” Is all I could say.

“Eh,” You would agree but you can’t speak behind a wall of bark. Wrong tree. Gotta complain elsewhere. Dragging my feet through mounds of dead, crimson leaves, variations of yellow and orange feather into bags were tied and plopped into landfills.

The trials and errors of dusting is worthless. People do it all the time. The dust is a place highly unwanted to be.

You can guess this story takes place in Switzerland, a country sharing three languages, a country with a ground that keeps popping out of itself like fingrs wanting to grab a piece of the sky. This place is mountainous and the people never go to war, they are known for pocketknives and cheese. There is a rumor that at dusk, the leaf-collectors climb to the summit.

They have a pillow fight.

“Do something. You’re here, aren’t ya?” You say. It still sounds vivid like I could look in the mirror or in my closet and you would appear. Instead, my closet is piled with two-dimensional memories. Something never feels like enough. The date the photo was taken is the last I saw you look at me or the camera, smile even fading then, from your eyes, to the tilt of your head, stoop of your shoulder, until I could not see you.

“I mean I could, but…” I was speaking to an overstuffed closet in a spotless room. All of my laundry was rumbling and tumbling in a dryer below my floor. The vibration tickled the soles of my feet.