Another day befriends a year of inactivity as I at the office staring out the appealing window and the receptionist who dwells beneath it. The blue sky as canvas, so pleasantly strikes the eye that it threatens to be taken away immediately, rolled up like a retracting blind, a decoration to prevent madness. Walking through the halls on the way back from the bathroom and the glint off the white walls brings an extra spring to my step. I see darkened patters on the walls, hidden shadows, reflections of the mind.

I can stop anywhere, take out my pencil and draw a window, I can then peel back the wall from the perforated pencil lines and rip through to the outer layer. Initially it’s a grizzly image, until I replace it with anything remotely European. Greece in ’96 probably, that’s the most popular one. Being content with my decorations, I make my way through the entrance and altering the image of the secretary a bit, same body, different head.

When I finally open my eyes, I wonder if she can tell what Ive been thinking, if my violent sleep patterns made me call out someone’s name. Someone she doesn’t know. Someone she shouldn’t know.

Im entirely faithful, on the bicycle now, the humid air moves through my chest. The thoughts are diversion enough. We’re really happy. Sometimes when I see her, I can see right through her-- a vehicle for me to live through inhabit -- see her personality swell up and revolt against my desires. We make sweet war in the lesser recesses of our brains, see our collective conscious doing battle with tears and feel ripped open and cleansed. Some nights I look long into the future in those eyes, dark with intermittent shades of blue, bright azure with bellicose black shades billowing up from behind it.

Certain nights go by on the porch, neighbors on bikes whisk by, low murmurings of orgasm from next door and I wonder If I inherited her. Feel like Ive been left with a wonderful thing, can’t remember how I acquired her. I have those dreams that night, a shift in geography, my sense of self searching all corners for a static thought, leaden thoughts by which it can attach itself to, creating any sort of permanence. Has my life always been a shadow?

A professor, in Ct. who taught me all of this, where is he now? I remember his fondest memory, at his local bar in 1974. he’d have the entire class close their eyes and walk us through this memory until we all experienced it became shared, part of our collective conscious. I wonder if he’s still walking them through that memory, a thousand students walking around with vivid recollections of events that occurred before they were born.

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I hope I don’t die one day here, don’t drop dead while teaching the closing couplet to Paradise Lost. I hope my teachings live on and multiply throughout the ages. I hope my book sells more than the 300 students I’ve forced over the years to buy my book. I wish I didn’t have to go to the bathroom as much as I do.