tributaries
Tiny tiny tiny, like the misplaced fuzzy tuft of carpet lint in the middle of a crosswalk, she there with her toes in the weeds under trees as old as mountains as old as sky as old as God. Make me smaller, please. She could not get minuscule enough.
Her thoughts too big, voice too loud, hands too clumsy, disaster too widespread. She left craters where there were anthills, and she breathed apologies. Everything was wrong; at least were she as small as Nothing, the wrong would shrink. It would fit into a baby mouse’s thimble. A flea on a baby mouse’s thimble. An atom of air on a flea on a fly on a baby mouse’s thimble.
She crossed the street and into the parking lot where cracks spread like tributaries on a topographical map. She followed them, counted them. She itemized her surroundings when anxiety started to swell. Too many to count, and she stopped. She stopped enough to wonder how the cracks formed. Did they pop up all of a sudden? Not a speck on Tuesday, but suddenly, at 6:23 on Wednesday morning, crack: There they were? Or did they rip slowly through the tar and concrete? Rising from white to gray to black? Had anyone thought to snap their evolution frame by frame?
Of course not, she said to no one. Things like this take time to break; we just wait to notice.
