murmur
surrounded by law books. table fixture too high. high hats placed in stained and broken drop ceiling tiles. wooden table dilapidated from time — memory, the sound it would make if fucking on it — cracking, bleeding, moaning — in the fit of the passing.
binders strewn, the hum of an old computer next to a pile of 5 1/4 inch minifloppy disks — it had been some time since i had seen those. rows of “bankruptcy reporter” and “the business lawyer” staring me in the eye, like marching soldiers, men and women awaiting command. it seemed fitting in the small town of bethel, vermont, driven past and visited before without knowing on my trips through that i would be sitting in the place i wished to be. not necesarily in this very chair, but almost a year ago, making the necessary appointments to find myself in vermont and away from my now, past life.
it wasn’t about the books or the sound of a tired computer or the shoddy drop ceiling. moments past brought me here, sitting, as cars drove by as i did so many times before, in spaces, in places, where people where being human, where people were working jobs from 9 to 5, making livings, supporting their addictions. i sat in calm, the murmur of voice, engine, silence — also passing by, along the discovery at these crossroads, at this life.
back on the way to seclusion i passed one of the old apache pop-ups, green, solid-state fiberglass. the floodgates of memory filled the car moving at violating speeds — pine needle carpets, crunching toast autumn leaves, the river that led to the pond where the sky opened up to the whole world. it might have been there. it might have been there i decided who i was, who i was going to be. there in the breath of the trees, the sound of life moving, trickling at times, the sound of lightning and rain and limbs falling onto home — it was then i knew i would always be home.