Prelude to Nothing

I will wake soon with limbs like barber's poles--limbs which perceive the rise of anarchy though my mind runs parallel to the ground at some times scraping its synapses on the pavement: a sacrifice demanded by gravity; she fears perhaps the fatalism of forward thinking, that she may be forgotten in the time of my steps which speed inexorably toward weightlessness.

It was the mountains who afflicted you with allergies. They are slow beings, after all, with all the time in the world to mourn their loss. They brokered an agreement with the wind who now sneaks antigens into your lungs whenever he can--an act that will end only when you return to the mountains. This is their ploy. They will wait for your return, having all the time in the world, and upon sensing your delicate steps command the wind to cease its machinations. Your eyes will clear and your lungs fill with spring and every stone hum a hymn of welcome. I am certain of this because my sister once fell into a shallow mountain stream. The rocks at the bottom were young, jagged things. A splinter now rests in her palm which speaks the mountains' sleep at night. It is solemn and deep and every morning our mother's china has shrunk against the wall because each piece recalls the first mountain dream and how so many fell and even now after all our apologies we drink naught but bitter tea. But such is the way of things.