Frames Of Reference- Chapter 1

“Silence. Noise.”

I don’t know who said that. I’m tired, but as it happens there’s nobody outside and I know there isn’t. I’m aware of my surroundings- out here on my hammock, nestled tightly in, between the folds, untethered by gravity, free to rock back and forth. One way and the other, simple motions of comfort in an increasingly uncomfortable environment. It’s all I can hope to do. One more sip of lemonade, then I go in for the night. Check my watch. 3:20 A.M. 

Before I do, I stretch my ankles and look up at the stars- the way the breeze seems to carry certain aromas, the cookout two houses down this evening, the mowed lawns and the wet roof tiles from the small drizzle yesterday, shingles coated in a thick shellac of dew, baked off by the hot all-day sun. Simple things like that. Need to take it in. 

“You’re late,” she sighs as I stumble in beside her and brush her hair from in front of her ear. 

“I know,” I say. “Thinking. Up all night thinking.” 

“You think too much.”

“I think on behalf of those who can’t.”

The long night, the time spent listening to my wife’s breathing, worrying about her heart, how it beats softly in the velvet pools as her brain slips, fades away into nothing and mine remains preoccupied with the affairs of the days and weeks ahead. I make note of the curvature of her shoulder, the way it curves gracefully in what might be described as the golden ratio, outlined faintly by the moonlight on top. 

My mind is a racetrack covered in people holding flags and yelling incessantly about facts and trivia and other detritus, a confused screaming agony, as the Formula 1 comes careening down the bend at a staggering 120 miles an hour, its tires burning on the summer pavement, and any second its axle is going to slip and it’ll ram into the wall and kill its driver. 

But here- now- outside the fever pitch of my thoughts- I’m holding her hand and looking at her dark eyelids and I’m trying to push the negative inclinations out and replace them with soft hypnotic lullabies, repetitive fractals and spirals which can theoretically repeat forever. 

Out in the hallway, the clock is ticking, the pendulum swinging back and forth, and the carpet is a soft, warmly lit desert of artificial comfort, and next to the clock are all my degrees- each framed in golden and oak rectangles for nobody except her and myself to witness. Ornate things, these, each with an ink signature carved on smooth parchment with a quill pen, warmly cutting through the particulate. I’m better off than most, I remind myself. I have nothing to worry about, nothing can cause me to fall off my pedestal into the abyss beneath. 

I shift over onto my right side but keep my neck craned up such that I can make out the flat expanse of the ceiling- the accents on the borders, the one corner which tapers in, the paint applied decades back, the material it’s composed of. Too insulative, too warm for summer. I kick off the sheets, trying my best not to disturb her, but I need to feel the breeze grace my neck in so many ways or I’ll never get to sleep. 

That’s when the shivers start- they begin low, only in my legs, and I hope they don’t continue, but they don’t show me any mercy. It starts at the root and makes its way up, towards my torso and then to my arms, which I wrap around my chest for security. For an instant, my eyelids flutter, then retract, and then my eyes are staring straight forward with intensity at nothing in particular. 

My forehead aches, but I’m too high-strung to risk getting an aspirin. The wave has passed, a cold torrent of sweat collecting on my brow. 

I don’t know what to call these episodes- medically, I don’t think there’s a name for them. They’re not seizures, really, in that they affect my entire body and I feel as if I would have a rough amount of control and autonomy to avoid them, if I really wanted to. 

Are they cowardice?

Guilt, maybe. There’s a very high chance that these are waves of guilt I’m feeling, in addition to the assorted clutter of my head. Tsunamis of regret. The inability to admit defeat, and the inability to admit that all those fancy plaques hanging up on iron nails out there are what led me to my current position. 

Some say that they hear droves of cicadas when they’re under immense stress. Things breeding and multiplying in the trees, swarming over each other, discarding exoskeletons. I don’t. I hear this low, deafening hum. Like the hull of some lone spacecraft deep in the furthest reaches of some foreboding solar system, empty ghost freighter with no souls aboard. It comes from my ears, grows the closer I focus on it. It and the shivers. 

I’ve been seeing her differently. It was so simple at first- the way the bridge of her nose dipped beneath her glasses, lips wrapping around the exterior of a strawberry, nails grasping the stem with fervor. Time went on. Little by little, she’s eroding in front of me. Day by day, I feel as if I know her less. Some day, maybe, I’ll wake up and she’ll be here and so will I, but she’ll be a complete stranger to me, I’ll point at her in confusion and back into the corner, and she’ll call the ER- the same ER she works at- and have me taken there for an evaluation. 

I have to assume it comes with the work, need to trace it back to its earliest point, stop it before it becomes unmanageable. Maybe it’s already too late. I don’t know. 

Heart pounding, sending oxygen to every corner of my body. My fingers feel warm, needles stabbing into them, and the incessant ticking of the clock, each movement a step further towards the grave. Close my eyes, don’t focus on her, don’t think about her, retreat inward. 

Deep in space, the freighter nears its target, its monolithic oil refineries blasting in unison...