[Name Removed] says that occasionally, like once a year, I’ll
need a really large rubber band. I wonder if it’s because he sees
that I can keep stuff together, all neat (and bound!). Or that
armed with one I can sting skin into a heckuva welt and be
back at the stove before anyone knows what hit them. Or,
horrified, I wonder if he’s referencing that my presence
conjures for him the idea of a 21st century one man jug band.
I slowly lower myself onto the couch. Without knowing how much
time’s threads have been strung, I am transported unflinchingly
into a neatly boxed future. Here in the future, I already know
the significance of hot boxes because I live in one that’s the
size of a coffin. While tucked inside future’s tidy drawer, I
remember things I should’ve taken care of much sooner,
like the squirrels in the attic, the sunlight that flickers
across the island estate, and that two-week suicide watch
I had promised a certain pair of overly enthusiastic interventionists.
What’s to be done of that now? The astonishing necessity of memory!
How inconvenient that it shows up, all too often, a mere half a
minute tardy (but nevertheless with such bravado!). Of embar
rassing note: the deep remorse of finding oneself super-saturated
in The Future, all but settled in to the this drawer or box, agonizing
over how I am so ditzy I might stay here until sunrise. The gym
wasn’t that thirsty, I recall in an attempt to make light of my plight
(two days, one night, stuck in a dark drawer in a sunroom in the middle
of a long midwestern summer). I’m a real tip-of-the-tongue mystery,
I am. Myhead’s spinning violently as it slowly dawns on me that there’s
impending humidity on top of impending heat. One thing can clearly
be concluded from this all-inclusive weekend filled with now and
future: throughout any duration there’s a glaring theme: rubber
bands. I cannot escape them. There’s hardly a minute that goes by
but that I’ve not come up with yet another flimsy but possible reason he
might’ve brought them up at that particular moment. Perhaps it was a
vague Groundhog Day-type reference. You know: today mirrors yes
terday, which, in turn mirrors tomorrow. And we bounce in and out
of these mirrors as if there is something unique about a day or fac
tors of significance differentiating any of us humans from each
other. Perhaps his passing remark was a subtle pun about time
travel. A knowing nod to string theory? Is he even fond of
string theory? I’m confidently thinking he isn’t, given physics
on the one hand, psychosis on the other. But I remain curious
to this day. And. Well. Lately, I let my thoughts move ever
so gently to the fact that once every year or two, I do attempt
to utilize a rubber band. That is, in a way that is practical,
that doesn’t cause harm to others, but instead provides
that modicum of order and that sense of inseparability
that only a rubber band might provide. They do
have a pretty unique purpose or two. I wish that
I could ask my dear grandmother to chime in on
the subject. Whatever, daydreams! I must get
back to the story of the summer I beat myself up
with a bobby pin. I’d not meant it to be funny.
It just was.
