Nod

by Adrian Barnes

In sleep we all die, every one of us, every day. Why wasn’t that fact noted more often? When we doze off each night there’s never the slightest guarantee that we’ll wake the next morning. Every little cat nap is a potential game-ender. So why fear death when we’re happy and even eager to make that leap of faith each and every night of our lives? Nod.

Hell is time, isn’t that obvious? Take your greatest pleasure or your greatest fantasy and let it come continuously true—for a day, a week, a year, a decade. And that’s hell.

Someone once said that we get more difficult to love with each passing year because, over time, our histories grow so tangled that newcomers can no longer bushwhack their way into the thicketed and overgrown depths of our hearts.

Amorphous: that’s amore, always morphing.

Nobody says these things—it’s against the rules—but deep inside we know that we are, each of us, unknowable and ultimately alone, even when we love.

It’s tough work being a prophet: every time you ask someone for the time, your reputation is in mortal peril.