friday

Mysterious things are happening. For the past eleven days, I have repeatedly experienced tiny electric shocks. This has happened when I knock my knuckle against a light switch, when I shake hands with someone new, when my hand pulls a warm pie out of the oven and I see silver confetti bloom. I receive these minor thrills perhaps fifteen to thirty times a day, and have for the past fortnight. It seems such a lovely thing, I'm afraid for it to stop.

Ten, eight, or perhaps six days following an earthquake, a pair of green or gray or hazel (it depends who you are, how I feel, and on which way the light bends) searches the faces of the figures folding over coffee cups and blue screens. I pause, my index finger temporarily curled inside of my book, marking my place on page sixteen, as I feel the ground tremble through my feet. Instead of fear, laughter seems to be bubbling in my throat and a loose chuckle falls out of my mouth. I laugh at the most inappropriate moments (to the chagrin of some). For an instant, I consider asking the man painting the wall next to me if he keeps feeling multiple earthquakes (this was at twelve or thirteen), before I realize everyone else is sitting still, heads bowed before hot lattes and free wi-fi. They look normal, too normal to have gone through thirteen minute earthquakes. I leave before I can prove myself right, satisfied believing that I was sitting on top of a fault line in the corner of a coffee shop for half of an afternoon. Often, I prefer my version of the truth, for reality lacks the familiar gestures of imagination.