No one who minds is here. I have today to enjoy my excessive and unregulated senses, in case they are gone by this time next week. I hope I will enjoy whatever senses I have then.
I lean over and taste the stone, the moss, the lichen, touching my tongue to them and then, sliding off the stone, to the wet leaves at its base. The bark of an oak (bitter, astringent), the bark of a poplar (tasteless at first, then faintly sweet). I fling my arms out, whirl in the path, my feet crunching now the crushed stone (no one to notice and be upset, no one to reprimand me, no one to shake a cautionary head). The colors whirl around me with my whirling; when I stop they do not stop at first, but only gradually.
Down and down — I find a fern to touch with my tongue, only one frond still green. It has no flavor. The bark of other trees, most I do not know but I can tell they are different by their patterns. Each has a slightly different, indescribable flavor, a slightly different smell, a different pattern of bark that is rougher or smoother under my fingers. The waterfall noise, at first a soft roar, dissolves into its many component sounds: boom of the main fall hitting the rocks below, the echoes of that blur that boom into a roar, the trickles and splatters of spray, of the little falls, the quiet drip of individual drops off the frost-seared fern fronds.
I watch the water falling, trying to see each part of it, the apparent masses that flow smoothly to the lip and then come apart on the way down… What would a drop feel as it slid over that last rock, as it fell into nothingness? Water has no mind, water cannot think, but people — normal people — do write about raging rivers and angry floodwaters as if they did not believe in that inability.
A swirl of wind brings spray to my face; some drops defied gravity and rose on the wind, but not to return to where they were.
I almost think about the decision, about the unknown, about not being able to go back, but I do not want to think today. I want to feel everything I can feel and have that to remember, if I have memories in that unknown future. I concentrate on the water, seeing its pattern, the order in chaos and chaos in order.
Monday. Nine twenty-nine. I am in the clinical research facility on the far side of the campus from Section A. I am sitting in a row of chairs between Dale and Bailey.
The chairs are pale-gray plastic with blue and green and pink tweedy cushions on the back and seat. Across the room is another row of chairs; I can see the subtle humps and hollows where people have sat on those chairs. The walls have a stripy textured covering in two shades of gray below a pale-gray rail and an off-white pebbly covering above that. Even though the bottom pattern is in stripes, the texture is the same pebbly feel as the one above. Across the room there are two pictures on the wall, one a landscape with a hill in the distance and green fields nearby and the other one of a bunch of red poppies in a copper jug. At the end of the room is a door. I do not know what is beyond the door. I do not know if that is the door we will go through. In front of us is a low coffee table with two neat stacks of personal viewers and a box of disks labeled: “Patient Information: Understand Your Project.” The label on the disk I can see reads: “Understanding Your Stomach.”
My stomach is a cold lump inside a vast hollow space. My skin feels as if someone had pulled it too tight. I have not looked to see if there is a disk labeled: “Understanding Your Brain.” I do not want to read it if there is one.
When I try to imagine the future — the rest of this day, tomorrow, next week, the rest of my life — it is like looking into the pupil of my eye, and only the black looks back at me. The dark that is there already when the light speeds in, unknown and unknowable until the light arrives.
Not knowing arrives before knowing; the future arrives before the present. From this moment, past and future are the same in different directions, but I am going that way and not this way.
When I get there, the speed of light and the speed of dark will be the same.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Light. Dark. Light. Dark. Light and dark. Edge of light on dark. Movement. Noise. Noise again. Movement. Cold and warm and hot and light and dark and rough and smooth, cold, TOO COLD and PAIN and warm and dark and no pain. Light again. Movement. Noise and louder noise and TOO LOUD COW MOOING. Movement, shapes against the light, sting, warm back to dark.
Light is day. Dark is night. Day is get up now it is time to get up. Night is lie down be quiet sleep.
Get up now, sit up, hold out arms. Cold air. Warm touch. Get up now, stand up. Cold on feet. Come on now walk. Walk to place is shiny is cold smells scary. Place for making wet or dirty, place for making clean. Hold out arms, feel sliding on skin. Sliding on legs. Cold air all over. Get in shower, hold on rail. Rail cold. Scary noise, scary noise. Don’t be silly. Stand still. Things hitting, many things hitting, wet sliding, too cold then warm then too hot. All right, it’s all right. Not all right. Yes, yes, stand still. Slurpy feeling, sliding all over. Clean. Now clean. More wet. Time come out, stand. Rubbing all over, skin warm now. Put on clothes. Put on pants, put on shirt, put on slippers. Time to walk. Hold this. Walk.
Place to eat. Bowl. Food in bowl. Pick up spoon. Spoon in food. Spoon in mouth. No, hold spoon right. Food all gone. Food fall. Hold still. Try again. Try again. Try again. Spoon in mouth, food in mouth. Food taste bad. Wet on chin. No, don’t spit out. Try again. Try again. Try again.
Shapes moving people. People alive. Shapes not moving not alive. Walking, shapes change. Not alive shapes change little. Alive shapes change a lot. People shapes have blank place at top. People say put on clothes, put on clothes, get good. Good is sweet. Good is warm. Good is shiny pretty. Good is smile, is name for face pieces move this way. Good is happy voice, is name for sound like this. Sound like this is name talking. Talking tells what to do. People laugh, is best sound. Good for you, good for you. Good food is good for you. Clothes is good for you. Talking is good for you.
People more than one. People is names. Use names is good for you, happy voice, shiny pretty, even sweet. One is Jim, good morning time to get up and get dressed. Jim is dark face, shiny on top head, warm hands, loud talking. More than one two is Sally, now here’s breakfast you can do it isn’t it good? Sally is pale face, white hair on top head, not loud talking. Amber is pale face, dark hair on top head, not loud as Jim louder than Sally.
Hi Jim. Hi Sally. Hi Amber.
Jim say get up. Hi Jim. Jim smile. Jim happy I say Hi Jim. Get up, go to bathroom, use toilet, take off clothes, go in shower. Reach for wheel thing. Jim say Good for you and shut door. Turn wheel thing. Water. Soap. Water. Feel good. All feel good. Open door. Jim smile. Jim happy I take shower by self. Jim hold towel. Take towel. Rub all over. Dry. Dry feel good. Wet feel good. Morning feel good.
Put on clothes, walk to breakfast. Sit at table with Sally. Hi Sally. Sally smile. Sally happy I say Hi Sally. Look around Sally say. Look around. More tables. Other people. Know Sally. Know Amber. Know Jim. Not know other people. Sally ask Are you hungry. Say yes. Sally smile. Sally happy I say yes. Bowl. Food in bowl cereal. Sweet on top is fruit. Eat sweet on top, eat cereal, say Good, good. Sally smile. Sally happy I say Good. Happy because Sally happy. Happy because sweet is good.
Amber say time to go. Hi Amber. Amber smile. Amber happy I say Hi Amber. Amber walk to working room. I walk to working room. Amber say sit there. I sit there. Table in front. Amber sit other side. Amber say time to play game. Amber put thing on table. What is this, Amber ask. It is blue. I say blue. Amber say That is color, what is thing? I want to touch. Amber say no touch, just look. Thing is funny shape, wrinkly. Blue. I sad. Not know is not good, no good for you, no sweet, no shiny pretty.