Reliance (Othering)

This frozen moment — a moment opaque like a starless night that smothers thoughts almost before they are borne into the world — came with the realization that whatever it was that was our reality only a moment ago had gone out of existence.

Birds sang, the sun shone. Gravity, sky and all other expected certainties remained at hand, but eerily shimmered as if sundogs in the rising heat, hanging just outside this frozen moment, beyond grasp.

Judging from the actions of others around me nothing had changed, but in this moment, for me, it was equally apparent no thing could aspire to be the same. Whatever might only a moment ago have been possible was held in reserve outside phenomenal perception in what seemed an eternal torpor, even as no one else seemed to notice.

Alone within this static motion, in this world-lacking world, I felt a potential for something to break loose if only I could move to the very next now. In its absence, any future could only be this aloneness, in this otherly crowd.