How It Feels to Float

by Helena Fox

I am a ghost of the future walking over the ghosts of the past.

and I want to reverse time. But it’s too late because time only ever goes forward. Time is an arsehole that way.

I think about how the sun is right. How in a blink, I’ll stop being Biz and become something other. I think about how the ‘me’ I am will end. Any moment really. Any time.

My body is not even slightly the same body I had when I was born. We alter completely, constantly—our cells die and are replaced, every day, week, decade—our organs, our skin, our bones.

I’m reborn, I’m reborn, I’m reborn. It’s beautiful.

I am atom against atom battering and I’m so sad I can’t breathe.

The moon is a white curl against the paper of the sky.

I think maybe I am the moon,

I can see out the window how the moon is like a spoonful of ice cream, like when you scrape your spoon against the top of the tub and it comes up in a perfect coil.

Dad floats beside the window. He’s curled into the moon’s curl.

reverse time and then everything will be better and then Dad won’t die.’

says, ‘Do you know there are eighty-nine billion neurons in the human brain? Almost the same as the number of galaxies in the observable universe,

‘Do you know monks can increase their temperatures by seventeen degrees just by meditating?’

You can’t escape your history. It’s like a river that follows you, blood that moves without you thinking. The past turns corners to find you.

It is hard to accept. Death is a hard sell. You need years and years and years and years and years to get used to it.

And it turns out today is the day Dad died. Ten years ago exactly.

as we swim in the water of losing Dad, in the water of missing him, in all that water.

Dad? Why did you leave me to this? Why didn’t you tell me it would be like this, so I could go before it hurt this much?

And floating, just like me. Always floating, he and I, somewhere not quite here—an inch, an arm’s length, a sky away.

Did you always float like me? Dad? Was it always beautiful where you went? Dad? How did you manage to come back? Dad? Did you always wish you hadn’t? Dad? How did you manage to stay so long?

Dad’s on the end of my bed. He is made of paper. He is pixels and grain. He is a figment of white and black. He is a measurement of light.

‘I remember thinking: I’m going to make you so happy. ‘I thought: You’re going to make me so happy. ‘I thought: I’ll breathe for you, Biz, beat for you, walk and work and live for you.’

‘I am so sorry I couldn’t do it for longer, sweetheart. I am so sorry I didn’t stay. I wish I could explain it—if there was a way—but maybe there isn’t a way or a why. If I could, I’d show you, I wish—’

Dad is a measurement of love.

The new medication means I don’t hear the photos anymore.

Perhaps it was because of the medication. Or, perhaps Dad laid enough stone down for me to speak.

‘I also knew someone who could see auras,’ Sylvia continues. ‘I met her at a party. Her name was Tash. Oh, she was gorgeous; she had amber eyes like a cat, you know? And lovely boobs, like cushions when you hugged her. She was delightful.’

Reminds me of my sweet arlow

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

‘Tiny oceans in our eyes,’ says Sylvia. ‘Little sailboats crossing tiny oceans,’ I say.

I’m going to float again. I know it will happen. This moment will pass. Another one will come. Hard will come—grief and dark and worry and loss. Again. Again. Sooner. Later.

she knows. How it is. To be in this place, in this moment, under this sun, for as long as you can be, for as long as you get. For as long as you can stay to see what might happen next.