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the static
Jul. 1st, 2011 07:41 amThe screwdriver is buzzing in my hand.
As I'm extracting the worn-out brass screw at the bottom of this door hinge,
applying just enough pressure to force the blade to engage
with the distant memory of the pattern left in the screw,
I am already favoring my other arm, which hurts for no reason at all,
and the electric hum of something starting to fail is spreading.
It starts in the palm as a delicate itch, like a beetle walking there,
and becomes the patter of falling rain,
then a rush,
then a roar.
I am old enough to remember television static,
back in the days when nothingness meant exactly that—
a roaring snowstorm of prickly light and the sound of flat nothing,
lighting up the room with a cool blue-white light.
"I was watching that," my father says,
only stirring when I reach out to switch off the set
and silence the empty rush of noise.
In those days, I'd laugh. Ridiculous,
to hang onto such a thing,
to hang onto nothingness.
Still, I knew the static well, from when a friend explained
how you could find your way to sleep in all that noise.
"It's simple," she said. "You let the static fall out of the set,
just let it start to pour through the screen
and fill up the room."
You let it fill up the room, wherever you happen to be
when sleep abandons you,
and you let it rise like a tide against the rocks.
You let it rise, feeling the cool, empty sensation of emptiness
that tickles the fine hairs on the legs and forearms,
let it rise till it's rippling around your nose and mouth,
until you're under, breathing it in,
breathing it out.
The patterns go away, the shapes, the colors, the unlimited
collections of aimless, consuming thoughts,
the unanswered questions, the unfinished arguments,
the unresolved loves and losses and uncertainties,
and you dissolve into the static,
into sleep.
The screwdriver in my hand is buzzing,
then it's my palm, then my fingertips, then a sensation
that climbs my forearm, and I can carry on or stop,
and there is so much more work to do.
There is so much more work to do.
The screwdriver clatters to the floor and I curse,
leaning into the doorframe to rub the life back into my arm.
In the worst of it, I have been resilient, adaptable,
and strong as an ox,
lifting things that make nearby eyes widen, just a bit,
to see what I can do.
Even now, I could rear up in rage
and kick that door right off its hinges,
rousing my strength where it lies,
and I'm beaten by a single worn-out screw
and the fuzzy wash of nerves firing at random.
It's just so tedious, this increasing awareness
of being on the other side of a long, long slope,
where it's all just going to get harder, and fuzzier,
and more difficult by the day.
The static rises in the lowlands where I used to play,
an unstoppable flood clawing at the coastline,
and I pick up my screwdriver and run for other high points,
because I'm not ready to sleep just yet.
As I'm extracting the worn-out brass screw at the bottom of this door hinge,
applying just enough pressure to force the blade to engage
with the distant memory of the pattern left in the screw,
I am already favoring my other arm, which hurts for no reason at all,
and the electric hum of something starting to fail is spreading.
It starts in the palm as a delicate itch, like a beetle walking there,
and becomes the patter of falling rain,
then a rush,
then a roar.
I am old enough to remember television static,
back in the days when nothingness meant exactly that—
a roaring snowstorm of prickly light and the sound of flat nothing,
lighting up the room with a cool blue-white light.
"I was watching that," my father says,
only stirring when I reach out to switch off the set
and silence the empty rush of noise.
In those days, I'd laugh. Ridiculous,
to hang onto such a thing,
to hang onto nothingness.
Still, I knew the static well, from when a friend explained
how you could find your way to sleep in all that noise.
"It's simple," she said. "You let the static fall out of the set,
just let it start to pour through the screen
and fill up the room."
You let it fill up the room, wherever you happen to be
when sleep abandons you,
and you let it rise like a tide against the rocks.
You let it rise, feeling the cool, empty sensation of emptiness
that tickles the fine hairs on the legs and forearms,
let it rise till it's rippling around your nose and mouth,
until you're under, breathing it in,
breathing it out.
The patterns go away, the shapes, the colors, the unlimited
collections of aimless, consuming thoughts,
the unanswered questions, the unfinished arguments,
the unresolved loves and losses and uncertainties,
and you dissolve into the static,
into sleep.
The screwdriver in my hand is buzzing,
then it's my palm, then my fingertips, then a sensation
that climbs my forearm, and I can carry on or stop,
and there is so much more work to do.
There is so much more work to do.
The screwdriver clatters to the floor and I curse,
leaning into the doorframe to rub the life back into my arm.
In the worst of it, I have been resilient, adaptable,
and strong as an ox,
lifting things that make nearby eyes widen, just a bit,
to see what I can do.
Even now, I could rear up in rage
and kick that door right off its hinges,
rousing my strength where it lies,
and I'm beaten by a single worn-out screw
and the fuzzy wash of nerves firing at random.
It's just so tedious, this increasing awareness
of being on the other side of a long, long slope,
where it's all just going to get harder, and fuzzier,
and more difficult by the day.
The static rises in the lowlands where I used to play,
an unstoppable flood clawing at the coastline,
and I pick up my screwdriver and run for other high points,
because I'm not ready to sleep just yet.
