Michael Scott Hand

Initials carved in wet concrete, worn smooth by the passage of passing feet.

Time passes, yet those indelible figures remain; through burning sun and falling rain.

Steps pass over weary stone, ankles click and muscles groan.

I am not immune to the passing of time. Each step is mine; each second mine.

Each crack in concrete marks the time and old carved initials become a sign…

Of things we’ve lost and days enshrined.

By faded photographs, our lives unwind.

Like broken cuckoo clocks.

The world wobbles on its axis, but we don’t feel it?

The geology of the earth arranges itself in patterns such that we can sense continuity in its transformations.

A man drops a coloured ball into a tube on the surface and it shunts through pipes, bouncing this way and that.

Eventually it will pop out the other end, but who knows how long it will take to navigate the pipes?

The ball, finally coming to rest, is picked up by another man who places it into another tube, and thus–the situation begins again.

Another ball; another tube.

Hands move faster now. Shuffling the balls, placing them into tubes. There are no rules to this game. If there ever were they have been lost to time like faded cave paintings.

Cities spread out like monopoly boards. Chance cards shuffled. In every pack there’s two Jokers, at least.

At least.

The world wobbles on its axis, but we don’t feel it.

The world spins–once slower–now faster, each year. But we do not feel the spinning.

To the calendar they add leap years to maintain the façade of a reality we are somehow in control of.

Time and space whirls around us in a dizzying light show. But to us it is just day and night, day and night, day and night.

Day and night we ponder as the world spins.

Tectonic plates and magnetic poles and ocean tides. The moon shines down. Old friend; old, dusty rock.

The world wobbles on its axis, but we don’t feel it.

Or maybe we do.

Everything’s okay, says the voice on the loud speaker. Please return to your seats and remain calm.

And there’s that special type of fear that comes with falling, that life-affirming, last-ditch gasp as your hands turn to claws on the arm rests and you find yourself praying to whatever-god, any-god.

We will be attempting an emergency landing. Please do not be alarmed; we are trained for this. Assume the brace position.

Shudder, rattle, shake.

You wake up, of course, because it’s a dream. There’s no flaming engine outside your window. You’re not even on an aeroplane.

The fear is replaced by the familiar sensations of your bed sheets and your pillow. Your hands tangled in the covers.

How foolish of you to mistake a bed for an aeroplane.

Having safely landed from your dreams, you sit up and place your feet on the floor.

The floor feels solid beneath you; everything’s okay.

Worry courses through my veins.

Like a demon nobody summoned: it’s there, in my blood.

Worry leers at me from around corners. It stalks me in the night.

Worry touches everything; it even makes me doubt the words I write are right.

What right does worry have to stalk me in this way?

It’s an elongated shadow, sharp teeth gnawing at my nerves.

My nerves like elevator cables, my psyche is suspended.

What victory does worry seek?

Hope, a small bird, flaps around in the air ducts. I can tell the bird is lost, I can hear its body thump against the manufactured metal.

One tunnel will lead the bird to freedom and yet it is afraid; for in every other air vent there are quickly spinning blades.

And who am I? A human trapped between a goblin and a dove, unable to control either. Unable to control anything.

Worry courses through my veins.