Sometimes it just falls down against  the ground and you can’t do anything to stop it. I’ve tried. Hundreds of times I’ve tried, but it just falls. Anymore I just look at it out of the corner of my eye. We all know I’m not going to catch it. After all this time I don’t even want to try anymore, but I don’t want it to be so obvious that I’ve given up so here we are.

The collision echos a sharp crack in the otherwise silent room. Everyone aligns their head with the point at which their eyes were already fixated, hoping no one else is the wiser. We look at each other as if dumb founded until one of us decides to go pick it up. Me, of course, I decide to go pick it up.

I gather myself off the floor like handfuls of cloth and saunter towards it. I have to use both hands now its been so long, “You really need to stop doing this you know. All of us have a place to go except you. If you keep falling they’ll eventually see you can’t support yourself, and none of us wants any of that guilt. Just-” I adjust it so that its wedged securely between the wall and the floor, “like this, don’t move. Don’t get upset, don’t get happy, don’t think about anything. Just stay here, upright.”

It listens for now, but just in case I continue to watch it out of the corner of my eye. So does everyone else.

“When in Rome, right?” I say as much to myself as to my companion and scoop up a bottle of spirits and tip its contents down my throat. This isn’t Rome though, at least I don’t think it is. I don’t really know exactly what Rome is, or IF it is. It’s just one of those things people say, and keep saying, and keep saying. A copy of a copy of a faded copy.

Is this Rome though? I wonder as the sharp liquid tumbles down my throat like a cool river rolling hot embers. Maybe I’ve already seen Rome, or will see Rome some day. Or. Perhaps it was assigned to one of the other inspectors.

I walk around the bar and take a seat on one of the stools and sit the bottle down with me. “What do you think about Rome, 86?” 86 is my wood partner. Any place involving a forest or lots of woodwork, we are always partnered together. We have a certain compatibility for those things. I interrupted 86 examining a table, a large amount of some entree in his mouth. He swallows it hoarsely to adjust his mouth for a response, “Huh, what was that?”

“Rome,” I say, “What do you make of Rome?”

“Oh! Funny you mention it! I got another guy, he’s my textiles guy. He was telling me that him and his mineral companion, they do a lot of stuff in Rome. It’s a proper noun.”

“Ahh,” I nod my head at the bar top with the half smirk that is born from a disappointed day dream. Proper names are sort of a lost art now. I get up and take another bottle from the shelf, ‘Gray Goose’ this one says. I take it with me to a booth this time. On the table there is already some food set out for whoever occupies the seat. I take a few bites, and follow it up with a few drinks. 86 joins me at the other side of the table. “This is the stuff right here. And the food? Oh man, the food! Oh, and have you tried the ‘coke’? Everyone goes for the spirits, but if you really want to try something that will take you back, ain’t nothing like carbonated beverages. That will make you 12 again, still snot nosed and fragile,” I shrug a response that 86 translates as what’s so good about being twelve anyhow? “Say what you want, but that was living.”

I stare at him a moment, looking angry I bet, I have that kind of face; having not shaved for a few days makes it worse, but really I’m just trying to remember what 12 was like before all this, “Briefly it was though.” I’ve broken the mood. Even if you can’t join the collective, you tend to think in a communal sense, and sometimes you forget your company, and I guess yourself too. Worse yet, he could have chosen this for himself. How can one reconcile that?

86 coughs. Not an actual cough, not a fake one really either, but one of those transitional coughs that help you clarify that everything before is wrapped up and shoved back in its folder, likely not to be brought out again. I get it. I knock three times on the table, “Hey, well, it was good to see you again though,” 86 stammers an attempt to jump back into the new rhythm of conversation, “y-yeah. Yeah, it was good to see you too 17. Next time try the carbonated stuff. I’m telling you, it’ll knock your socks off.”

“Sure thing.” The bar flickers a bit and fades away. We position ourselves next to each other for the surveys.

Question 1: On a scale from 1 – 10, with ten being the most accurate, how accurately did the environment represent a BAR as you remember it?

Question 2: On a scale from 1 – 10, with 10 being very familiar, how familiar are you with late ‘American’ history and old world politics?

Question 3: On a scale of 1- 10, with… 

“You can’t possibly capture it. At its core there is a green ember that kind of whispers this soft light over everything inside. Beautiful. You can’t see it unless you’ve cut into the thing,” He pauses and looks off into the memory as if it were hidden amongst the crowd in front of us, “It’s truly remarkable, but then the thing starts to die, so you know, checks and balances,” He takes a drag off his cigarette.

I lean in closer, hoping to put some emphasis in my contribution, to show I am committed to the conversation now. I say something ineffectual. That’s my ‘thing’. He gets up and walks away, casting the cigarette against the ground where it shatters into sparks. I really didn’t want to capture it anyway. I’m not sure why he started with that, I was just curious about them. I clutch my belongings to my chest. Squeezing the hastily packed sack dispels some of the anxiety that is creeping in.

It’s not even easy to get up anymore, for whatever reason. There was a reason, but that reason has eroded into something unrecognizable over time, a whatever reason. But I do get up eventually. I feel like part of me is still asleep as if my consciousness was dough being portioned out. While drinking my morning coffee and looking out the window I notice a lone figure standing at the corner. I am immediately transfixed by their image, but cannot for the life of me figure out why.  The sun is bright outside yet the air is stale. The phone rings.

The next morning I’ve stretched out into the kitchen and rummage through the refrigerator for the half covered plates I’ve left behind all week. Re-heating the disgruntled assembly of left overs amplifies its blandness. I can’t figure out how to avoid that. Coffee however, helps to keep the poor facsimile of food down. I take my cup to the window and look outside. The figure is there again and once I see them, I am jolted by the realization that I expected them to be there. A cigarette hangs from between the fingers of their right hand. I can’t tell from here but I don’t believe its even lit. A day like this you’d think there’d be more people out, but it’s just the lone figure. The phone rings.

Settling into myself is the worst part of the of the day. I’m eating the food as best I can, keeping a straight face. I am terrified to outwardly acknowledge the notion that there is something out-of-place. Part of me knows that tempting it further would manifest it as a reality. For now I’ve resigned something is off, but its an uncertainty I refuse to embrace. A reality that is questionable and thus can be ignored. It’s been like this for so long anyway, its hard to remember the feeling I’ve presumed at times to be missing. Outside, the figure is back again. Watching them from here, I wonder if maybe all of this is normal. My skin is supposed to feel like foam insulation, my mind is supposed to be floating in muddied waters thick enough to pass for silt. I can’t know for sure, yet I can’t shake the impression that it’s unnatural. The phone rings.

Another morning, shoveling in bite after bite without hesitation or consideration for the contents. My mind bobs through its swamp past half-sunken rusted memories. Things that would still be shiny if I had the focus and determination to keep up with them. Some I can hardly recognize; a bicycle handle maybe that could just as easily be the end of a pole or perhaps a broken ironing board. I can’t get close enough to bring it out clearly. Other Moments that perhaps should never have been abandoned are too big to sink completely in the murky shallows. Their resolve unmoved, they remain as bleak testaments to past negligence. Outside the same figure is by the street. The phone is ringing, but its muffled now. All my focus is on the figure at the corner, cigarette hardly in hand like their taking it for a walk rather than intending to smoke it. I can’t catch their eyes, but it’s the same person. I’m sure of it.

It’s necessary to define things in life to make decisions. As a species we have created language and writing to provide definition to the world around us as much for communicating to others as for our own sense of control. Everything would be ambiguous again, untrustworthy without the bonds of language. Just look at these words here and now, the products of a plot to tie you down to an image of the authors devising. String some letters together to make a trap, and if you’re good enough you can capture that audience in a chapter shaped cage. Or a post. Or a book.

It’s a strange and unsettling analogy I suppose, one I’m using to clarify that words are a mechanism of forced perspective despite their ability to expand a readers experience or knowledge. How do you avoid that though? Having the ability to communicate in several languages I believe would give you more maneuverability within the words, yet still I feel this is just giving yourself a bigger cage. It is likely that the evolution of artistic expression and creation are increasingly aggressive attempts to redefine the parameters of those bars or at least make them more permeable. That’s where we are at now.

Whether you’re beaten or pampered, fed the best foods or starved, kept in filth or kept clean, a cage is still a cage. — Anne Bishop