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What you do is you start a bank, then by sleight of hand you convince everyone that while you only have 10 units of coin in your coffers y...

Thursday, June 17, 2010

bottom of the ocean

Bottom of the ocean, thirty leagues down a canyon, a spindly glowworm glows in the water. In my descent I chance upon this glowworm – by the way, it’s me, in case you’re wondering, it’s Lui – I chance upon this glowworm and I note how opportune is this encounter, for it has been a lonely trek down, and more to the point, there has been no light anywhere for days. I have seen nothing and heard only odd gurgles and pings from the darkness below.

Solitary and without occupation, my mind, thankfully, has a raft of distractions to keep itself afloat: pictures of people, unfinished dialogues, special girls from the past, but also, the more rudimentary, time.

So it is with some excitement that I stretch out my arm now and catch the glow on my wristwatch to read that it is precisely two o’clock!

In a place like this, it is a treasure of knowledge to know even as little as that: on what side of noon or midnight the journey's made.

In my excitement, I attempt to be my own clock for a while and count down seconds as I descend, but I lose track quickly and get flustered and out of breath for all this concentration.

So I turn again to what is real and physical and simple.

Pressure has increased all along – such is water at depths – and yet my limbs feel almost like air. For some time I have felt close to weightless – cold, but weightless – and with no light anywhere and practically no sound but those gurgles and pings, it is easy to question whether one exists at all.

But I do not question… I continue my descent, my mind clinging to its raft, the glowworm like a lone-star above me.