He stands in the floor to ceiling window of his condo on the thirty-second floor, looking out. He is overcome with vertigo, but it’s not the height. It’s not the city sprawled below like a safety net. It’s something to do with being alone. Or is it not being in love? Or is it the sudden realization of how he can’t seem to grow up?
To calm himself down, he makes a cup of hot chocolate. He feels at one and the same time like a mother stirring the cup with a spoon, and a little boy licking the chocolate froth off his lips. He returns to the window. A light snow transforms the world of downtown, a kind of fantasy land of glowing lights. All sounds seem to suspend in the air with the flakes and hover, like a trapeze artist caught in the moment after lunging from one rung and reaching out for the other.
He took a sleeping pill about forty-five minutes ago. He should have been down long ago. In his head he hears his own voice saying “time for bed,” like a father and the retort “but I don’t want to,” like a child. He turns his back on the window and looks towards the long path to the bedroom, and that sense of vertigo returns. He tries to make out what those shadows are across the room, tries to hear what the plants are saying to one another. One of the plants reaches around from the corner of the couch as though it plans to touch him with its palms when he passes. Another cringes in a corner, leaves pressed flat against the wall as though petrified of him. But after all, he is seeing the plants come alive. Maybe it should be afraid. Very afraid.
To calm himself down, he makes a cup of hot chocolate. He feels at one and the same time like a mother stirring the cup with a spoon, and a little boy licking the chocolate froth off his lips. He returns to the window. A light snow transforms the world of downtown, a kind of fantasy land of glowing lights. All sounds seem to suspend in the air with the flakes and hover, like a trapeze artist caught in the moment after lunging from one rung and reaching out for the other.
He took a sleeping pill about forty-five minutes ago. He should have been down long ago. In his head he hears his own voice saying “time for bed,” like a father and the retort “but I don’t want to,” like a child. He turns his back on the window and looks towards the long path to the bedroom, and that sense of vertigo returns. He tries to make out what those shadows are across the room, tries to hear what the plants are saying to one another. One of the plants reaches around from the corner of the couch as though it plans to touch him with its palms when he passes. Another cringes in a corner, leaves pressed flat against the wall as though petrified of him. But after all, he is seeing the plants come alive. Maybe it should be afraid. Very afraid.
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