In-Class: Playing With Time.

Today, in class, we were asked to turn the events of our past week into a series of key events; then we were told to turn that into an arrative with one single element that played with pacing. Acceleration and deceleration in the context of the story. Me, typing half-blind, managed to put this out there. Bonus, it serves as an update on my life.

There’s some old yarn about butterflies and wings, but to this day I’ve never gotten into a fight I couldn’t win because of a damned butterfly. Arguing and yelling, raising my voice, throwing my hands in the air, gritting my teeth and trying to tamp down my rage so I could type out what it was I had to say, my oh-so-clear point, if I could just. make. this. asshole. LISTEN.

Thing is, what had happened is I’d misread something he’d said. I think in the back of my mind at the time, I even realised that, because of course, I had to know I couldn’t read right now. Right? I mean, it’d been two hours and I’d recounted his positions in my head, reading line after line, quoting him back at himself, ensuring that no, no, he was going to LISTEN this time.

Sunday was pretty rough.

Saturday was worse in its own way because of the headaches. The grinding, nauseating sense that something in my world was off and something couldn’t be fixed. The sensation of disorientation when I stood up and realised that not only where my feet not where I expected them to be based on years of my life, they weren’t where I expected based on that morning. The nausea that drove me to bed early, slouched and sullen, squinting like a mole at a laptop screen in the half-dark to give myself some damned contrast.

Friday night had been pretty fun if only embarassing. People couldn’t resist the urge to poke fun and laugh, like a D&D nerd disoriented was in any way anything new. We talked about videogames and we watched youtube videos, because David wasn’t around, of course.

Friday afternoon, though, when Graeme came around, to take photos for his holiday? To show people the ‘us’ that had met us online and spoken and communicated for years…? That’s when the butterfly shat on my life.

I’d pulled off my glasses to wipe at them, and make sure they sat straight on my nose. Lots of the time in photos, my glasses are a little off, and that makes my head look lopsided. Brought them down, down to my waist height, to rub my shirt on the lenses, to clean them just a little. In their fatal arc, I didn’t see Fox’s elbow sliding back, inoffensive and gentle. Wasn’t flailing, wasn’t being ridiculous… just… a … bump.

A rivet popped out, flying out of the glasses so fast and fine that I didn’t even see it; I had to trust Graeme, whose eyes were keener than mine, at least when I had my glasses off. The blobs around me coalesced as suddenly, the whole arm of my glasses slid free from its moorings, down the length of a support, then with a teetering creak of unheard metal snapping… fell out of my hands.

It was like watching a puppy’s burp tear apart a bridge.

The metal arm tumbled down to the ground, easily found, but the rivet’s path had taken a bound. Amongst the grass and dirt outside, there was simply nowhere to find it.

My wife’s errant elbow, a raging argument over idiotic nonsense.

I wanna punch a butterfly now.

1 Comment

  1. now I’m imagining the cutest, most destructive puppy ever just sitting there with one ear flopped over and burping and the entirety of society collapses. That’s awesome.

    What is not awesome is how shit your days have been of late. I am so sorry, and you let me know if I can help in any way.

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