How It Feels to Float

by Helena Fox

There’s never enough time. Actually, there’s too much and too little, in unequal parts. More than enough of time passing but not enough of the time passed.

We would have more people in The Posse, but most people are stupid, says Miff.

Why is shouting the word fuck so satisfying?

What did Tim see, what did his hands feel? I wrap myself back up in the towel.

Things change in an instant—one minute a mountain, solid and immoveable. The next, the land drops out. Trees collapse and tumble. The landscape slides into a mess of scars.

“But violence is the answer, Biz,” Grace says. Her eyes gleam. “That’s exactly what it is.” She swigs down the last of her drink. “Time to fuck up some shit.”

Grief feels like this:

It feels like missing.

“Your face was like a book I wanted to keep reading.

But no matter! Let’s ignore the Grace-shaped hole in every single one of my days, along with the Dad-shaped hole so immense it could swallow galaxies! We do not look at holes!

Who knew old people were so busy?

I don’t mind not knowing—the universe is filled with incomprehensible things.

It’s good to know all the facts; then you can decide. “Is that what you want, Jack?” I could have said. “Do you want to keep digging?”

It’s a beautiful thing, Elizabeth, isn’t it? To love this much?”

You’re not lesser for having the need; just remember this. You might have to burn some days, dodge other days. It’s a constant adjustment, isn’t it, to survive?

I want to not come out until I know everything.

I peer at myself in the mirror. Who invented getting older?

I waved my hands in the air. I blinked hard. I would not cry; I would not cry.

Flowers fix everything, right?

I guess I am a little bit okay? I’m here, after all.

Sylvia doesn’t notice, because she is too excited and too old. She keeps talking.

People are undependable.

I want now and I want then.

All truth does is float, travel in these impossible, unpredictable zigs and zags, out to space and back. You can’t find truth if you haven’t captured it. You can’t be sure, if you don’t take a photograph and hold what happened in your hand.

He with his perfect hair and she . . . also having hair.

Grace, all I know is, I want to sit beside Jasper in front of a fire.

How do you put that feeling into words?

I want to unpeel Jasper, suddenly. I want to take off his jacket and shirt, sneak a look under his skin, see the cogs and wires, the tick and beat of him.

What did you expect, Biz, someone mappable?

I think of all of us, passing each other like turtles, heaving our pasts on our backs.

true—and maybe that’s a miracle for the both of us.

and then he hugged me for the first time.

Nothing. God. Why do I keep trying?

and I want to reverse time. But it’s too late because time only ever goes forward.

My throat clangs. My skin itches. My bones hurt. Is this how it feels to leave everything you know and reject your mother’s care and do something no one will understand? It feels like the flu.

What doesn’t kill you . . . makes you not dead yet. Right?

So you’ve got the sads.

What would that be like? To not know your mum?

And suddenly I feel so alone it’s like the universe has yawned open and sucked me in, rolling me like a moth in spider silk.

I stand under the water and want to cry but of course there’s nothing inside me to let out.

“The mind is miraculous.”

You can’t escape your history.

I check for what’s missing and what’s not. I am still tall. I am still here.

“The world is full of strange wonders, darling. Maybe you’re just lucky enough to see them.”

Look up and breathe.

Hard will come—grief and dark and worry and loss. Again. Again. Sooner. Later.

Life is terrible and beautiful, isn’t it? It’s the best/worst at the exact same time, all possibilities at once.

I guess it’s whatever it is when you observe it. And a second later, it’s something else. Now it’s something else again. Now it’s something else.

Let your heart not be troubled. But let it be filled with colors.

You are a miracle of molecules: infinite and extraordinary.