Recession

I lie on my back and the tiny reflection of outdoors captured by my glassy ceiling light fixture is a transformed world. I see the horizontal window as vertical, and there is a stream or perhaps a narrow canal with a bridge in the distance, a high, mossy stone wall to one side of the water and a dense grove of trees to the other, and the water where it is not shaded reflects a patch of blue sky. This miniature scene invites me, but my eye alone gets to wander there. I remain a heavy weight upon the bed, gazing up at the illusion, unable to rise.

The air today is perfect. I sat in the back yard for a while, listening to birds and breezes, almost able to capture the memory of what it felt like to feel on the verge of feeling as good as the perfect air. The cat stirred, yawned, stretched, then returned to her nap. I watched the afternoon age. It was peaceful until the various working neighbors began to return home. Then I took my stiff neck and achy head indoors to look for dinner. For an hour or so I didn't feel entirely dazed. Now the memory of normality recedes again, like that tiny illusory world in my ceiling light.