Simon sat gazing out the window, the gray sky outside reflected deeply within, revealing no difference between out there and inside himself. Seemingly the color penetrated him in one long pendulum wave. From him to there and back again the gray traveled, becoming intense for a moment then easing, but the ease was shallow, he knew the color would roll back upon him, and knowing this he kept himself braced against it and against all of life.
Sometimes Simon felt it was tangible and he could step off the window ledge onto the gray wave, walking up to the clouds for a better view, but his courage would sag before he took that first step, and doing this he never discovered how deep reality really was. He laughed at the thought of possessing courage that waned in important times. “I have no courage” he’d say, then brace himself, for the gray wave surely would follow his mocking statement.
Kneading the back of his neck, Simon worked the gray around as a baker might work the dough, fingers poking and prodding muscles, caked in gray so thick he wasn’t able to turn his head. He kneaded and pulled to loosen it all, slowly like a lumbering elephant he would bend over to touch the floor, rocking his head upon stiffened neck back and forth roaring his trumpet under his breath. “Why why why” he spat, fingers flat on the floor, back rounded and stretched, no thoughts just quiet between his plaintive trumpet calls, “why why why.”
From his elephant pose Simon collapsed onto the dusty floor, it reminded him of the transience of everything, but fearing reprisal he resisted saying it out loud, instead his eyes watched his fingers draw shapes in dust. The dust would pile upon itself as fingers transferred thoughts till an unseen breath would even it out, in an etch-a-sketch moment. The thought of the universe being like a giant etch-a-sketch brought a smile to Simon’s forlorn mouth and then a chill shot through his shoulders and then another and another, till all the tension was gone.
Simon didn’t move, he didn’t disturb the space he lay in, didn’t tempt the moment to change position, he stayed exactly as when the smiled appeared, the smile that had released him from the gray. Simon welcomed the release by not doing a thing, he braced himself, fearing the next change to come, when someone decided to shake up, the etch-a-sketch.
