The trailer was a lonely man’s hell hole where nobody could escape without invisible wounds. It was my trailer, where the impossibility to study was brought on by disparity in character but also boisterous low flying war planes that would swoop down as slowly as they could while I barely slept, watching the action from below, waiting for them to cross the open sky far away from the back of my eyelids but close enough to rattle my windows while I lay diagonal in my bed.
I would frantically leap out of bed trying to find the strength to make it to class after going through a morning engulfed in chaos. A leg in the pants, an arm in the shirt, while falling down a steep precipice that didn’t exist. Eventually I would face-plant back into bed afraid that the war planes had mangled the other half of my trailer.
Then with my eyes still closed, so I couldn’t see the devastation, I slowly felt my way to the bathroom where I found myself in the shower with cold water on my chest. With my eyes still closed I staggered but I imagined my legs were running in place with my ankles kicking out in a circle rapidly like some sort of angel in snow with nowhere to go.
My eyes were closed, my chest was cool and my feet stopped making loops so I manifested a beautiful woman beside me but she immediately pinned me down by my chest, I envisioned, and yelled “no naked guy in the shower,” and my response in the same tone was “not her.”
Defeated and wet, I walked like a fallen angel to the window to see how I should dress for the day. The rain was making streams of water cascade slowly down, forming a liquid veil that I could barely see through. On the outside was a far off figure standing in the rain. When I stepped back he stepped back. When I raised my arm he raised his arm. It was a game of truth and reality brought on by the satisfaction that both of us were being challenged by the reflection of a lesser man.
Could it be the same guy from the library? In that case, what lesson could I learn from somebody just like me? A man who was on the same frequency and who might eventually change his frequency.
At that moment I realized it may be better to see than to hear. I wasn’t going to be taking any more showers.
Francis Erich McElroy 