Past perfect

What You See in the Dark is the title of a book I just received, Willard. The cover is lit like noir, all chill and shadow, the title light-infused. The effect is one of luminosity. I haven't read it. I've been failing at books this year, my attention shattered. Maybe not shattered. Meandered. Scattered. Scattered is what I mean mostly. Splintered. Broken and swept into bins. This has been happening with time too. Not circular, but recursive. I find myself thinking about a moment and it accordions into others, some from years ago. Like memories of lovers coming unbidden in dreams or in spare moments, those spent in the interminable line at the post office, the snowbird old queued up to send reminders to their relatives of their existence. We're still here, they say, I imagine. Do you remember us? We remember you mostly, though those memories get crossed and switched like on the old telephone switchboards that gave rise to the metaphor.

So I check out of these moments when I'm waiting. I don't feel good about it, though the mind goes where it goes. They're wondering what's taking so long. I'm wondering what they're thinking, what the contents of their letters are. They're so thin, barely there at all. And then I'm somewhere else. There's a scale on a tile floor. The walls are white, as are the tiles. A hospital? Maybe. One from years ago, nestled somehow in memory. Then there's a flash. I'm back. It's nearly my turn. I don't know how much time passed, or if time passed at all. A lot of things seem to be passing.

Do you think you'll always live in the white? I live in the white. Not actually afflicted. Not nested in cold. Instead we have darkness, years of it. Snow on the mountains. All trees there I think. It's treat, a distant threat. A reminder that we live in an insulated world.