A Pixelated Universe
Maybe the secret to happiness is to look a little less close. Maybe not. I’m not sure, but I wrote a prose poem about it.
I might as well be made of concrete, except then my joints would have already crumbled.
My knee pinned into unforgiving plastic, toes biting against a disappointingly placed metal rod, leg cramps that spiral from my thigh all the way down.
Yesterday I was a glimmer of moonlight, hidden in plain sight against gently lapping waves of a river that reflected the whole world back onto itself.
Today I’m the reading light of seat 35D, with its shadows cast aside at rigid angles, slammed against the curves in the alcove of the ceiling.
My thoughts are muddled with the relative infinity of slowly passing time, hazy with the void of existence between timezones.
The air is thick because everybody else feels that way, too.
But 11,000 meters below there’s a fisherman drifting through the Rankin Inlet, hand on the wheel, eyes on the sail, and ears hearing the distorted rumble of our engine tearing through the atmosphere, sounding like the gentle hum of a greeting from the sun itself.
And 3 hours and 52 minutes from now there’s a little boy who just stepped off a plane, eyes as blue as the toy dinosaur in his hand, being swept up by a tearful grandma who needs a reminder of what it means to love.
10,800 meters below there’s a bird that just got a fleeting moment of shade.
2 hours and 25 minutes from now there’s a photographer pumping her fist in the air, finally getting the perfect shot of a plane kissing the tops of dreamy green peaks.
A million meters above there’s cosmic existentialism smiling down at everything that was and wasn’t meant to be.
And 3 hours and 48 minutes from now there’s feet that’ll touch down on soil they’ve missed — a heart that’s finally made it back home.
So maybe my grainy thoughts and legs that throb with static are simply the makings of a pixelated universe, and I’ve been looking at everything way too close.
