Read It

Forget everything I said before.  That is because over the course of a five days delirious winter storm in which I lumbered in bed lamenting my life in a state of anatomic panic and grave boredom as I looked out on a white lawn with Formica snow I was taken on a ride that I shall never forget at least until I do forget which I already did.  What have I been?

I read a paragraph from Wuthering Heights and flipped the book across the room.  My next thought was to rip it into shreds with my bare hands.  However, an interruption, someone said to turn on the lights, and I said,

"What's that?"

Don't forget everything I said before like I said before, remember some of it again.  It took me a lot of time to say all that stuff before, I don't want it to go to waste.  That is more for you than it is for me if I'm being honest right now which I'm not.

My tragedy was coinciding with the auspicious 36-year ice storm.  It wasn't even Easter for Christ's sake.

There I was.  Laying there, tossing back and forth in frigid fever dreams.  Castigated by fortune.  Quit, falling into the depths.  All Men should brace themselves or leave the room.  I fear their stomachs might be simply too delicate to digest this in the first place.  Never mind the vomit.

Got it?  It is whatever time.  I didn't know anymore.  I don't know anymore.  I had not known anymore. My phone said black.  My yard said six inches all white. The road was white.  The sky was white and gray.  Was it dark or was it day?  I cannot: I said I cannot say.

There I was peering out a window in blinds. In soft bed, rolling and fluffing.  Fluffing and rolling.  Feather pillows sound like bombs when I fluff them.  

"BOOM BOOM BOOM!" they said each time, every space of time.  It smells like the moon.

Roll left, roll right, now middle, the hands, spread, simple, no crossing.  NO CROSSING!  Every so many eternities I get out of the bed and tighten the sheets because they go slack.  You cannot have sheets that slack in the worst winter storm to ever hit!

There is nothing left to do.  There is no goodbyes coming.  This is it.  What will be after is up to some uninterested third party.  There is no word coming.  There is no relief to be found.

Do you see?  All of it has cascaded into nothingness.  All of it, everything in the house is nothing but a shadow in a lost corner.  My coat, blanket, socks, caps, snuggies are more than enough.  I have to shed them.  

I have become good at flipping my body around in that bed!  I can move with perfect efficiency.  In that eternity, I move in perfect action.  Not remembering.  Not loving.

I look up, and I seen him.

I saw his face first, as he opened the curtain, the tiny man, exactly 23 inches tall, with the large oval head.  I saw his face in the snow glow.

I was neither startled nor moved as I estimated his miniature height.  Nor did I for a second believe he was not there - a tiny person who I had never seen before.  I had never seen a person that small before.  I am not trying to put down tiny people, in any way shape or form.  I am only trying to convey to you my total indifference to the shock of seeing a form I had in fact never seen before.

My next thought turned to.  What is this man doing here?  I assume he was a man before I spoke to him, but I only confirmed it later.

"You can leave here now, sir, I do not wish to have you here if it is all the same to you my good man," I whispered.  I didn't even whisper it, I mouthed the words and he looked up.

"Can I just hang out here for a little while," he said.

"Sorry, no, that would be great under normal circumstances, you seem like a docile person on the inside, but, listen, can we perhaps try to do it another time?  I don't want to offend you or anything but it is sometimes thought of as rude to do what you did by coming into my bedroom without permission.  I deal in empty now, nothing more."

"Look, I have to level with you," the tiny man began, pulling back his pony tail, "I came here from a great distance and now I'm in a bit of trouble with my captain.  I kind of need to hide here until they leave.  It will be quick, no more than 8 years tops.  Maybe 800 years, but also, it might be 2 raised to the 800th power.  I do not do math, my head cannot contain math.  Also where I come from its always the same time and date."

"I'm very intrigued, and I will say, I kind of admire you for running away from a paying job, but I think it might have something to do with your inability to calculate bills and the need for money."

"We do not use money, we use good grace."

"Same here," I lied, no sense giving away our secrets to aliens, "there is a store in town that sells cakes for smiles and another company downtown is giving elbow grease for dental floss."

"Alright, that is too much information.  I have to stay here for an uncalculated amount of time, I don't think I can figure it out at all.  I am sorry for that, but it cannot be helped.  I need your help and I cannot be pinned down as to the timeframe.  First of all, it is alien to me since where I live it is always Thursday at 10:26PM in August.  That is fair, right?"

"That is perfectly reasonable, you see," I said, carefully plotting my strategies as I looked out and saw a shooting star cross the moon, "however, there is one thing.  Reasonable.  That cuts against your case, I'm afraid.  Sorry.  You see, I no longer share an interest in a reasonable explanation.  At this time, I am looking for an incoherent narrative that confirms all my suspicions and leaves me smelling like a rose in all cases under the sun."

The alien was angry, I could tell.  Steaming mad!  I think he assumed I would be a pushover but when I gave him such a firm hand...  So, he got up.  Shuffled his 8 fingers and 19 toes (the left foot has 9 and the right foot has 10, I learned later that the 10th toe on the right foot is called the "toe to end all toes")

I think I might be drifting off the subject, so, let me get back on track.  The little man leaves in anger with a mad look on his big bulbous face that was perfectly tan.  Now, listen, I had no thoughts on the matter.  I went back to my final nightmares before returning to the elements from which I had been released during the 178th decade since the stars aligned.

Three days later, the lights were back on.  The water was water.  The lawn was a lawn.  The lamp switch was in agreement this time. I awoke from my daze, and warmed up with the machines.  All the precious machines that buzz and beep and speak to me.  They said

"Where have you been?"

My visitor left a note on the coffee table in the living room near the stereo speakers by the chase lounge.

It was the 10th toe of the right foot carefully placed over the light switch until it grew there.