There was one man who officially survived both atomic bomb blasts in Japan, having his eardrums ruptured and his skin blasted in Hiroshima only to head back to Nagasaki and find himself surrounded by the same white light. A documentary a few years ago located a whole bunch more double survivors, but only the one was ever officially recognized. (I bet they gave him a really nice certificate.) He figured that since he could have died on either of those days, the rest of his time here just counted as a bonus, and he lived until just a few months ago.
So I mean, technically we could really survive anything, and each day after everything is basically a bonus. But that's an awful lot of responsibility to be carrying around with us. Especially since everything else is already so heavy.
I wanted to give you planets, plucked from among the more distant galaxies, but my arms are just so tired from the heft of trying so often and failing so hard. And planets spoil so quickly, much faster than you'd imagine that they would, wilting and expanding.
Late at night I couldn't sleep because the phone wasn't, hasn't been ringing, and somehow I started reading about cellular memory. It appeals to me, the idea that we keep parts of ourselves stashed in all of our cells instead of just in our brains, that someone with a transplant can develop ideas and habits and memories unrelated to the rest of themselves. Later, in my dream, I swapped our hearts while you were sleeping. You didn't notice the change, commenting only that colors seemed suddenly brighter and plums sweeter, but I missed my own uneven thump so I switched them back.
I don't think it was my heart you wanted, anyway, and I need it for surviving all of the anything awake. My heart is just as tired as my hands.
No comments:
Post a Comment