Animal Cracker Migration

He knew the nature of the place that they were in by the texture of the walls. These, these today, they were smooth, slick, and smelled of disinfectant. He imagined the essence of a villain, some terrible evil with a clinical detachment.

“Do you know that some animals migrate?” He heard the rustling of nondescript objects in her purse, the sound of a plastic storage bag opening to a release of air and time.

“Really?” Here was another of her stories that he would struggle to see with no avail. The setting would have to be connected to a place in the senses, a place of memory and vague understanding.

“Yes.” She pressed into his hand a familiar shapeless thing, an animal cracker with the sleek symbolic opportunity to be any species it wanted. “Large groups of birds fly south for the winter, looking for warmer weather. That’s a bird there.” He immediately felt along the edges of the hard cookie, taking in the tip and curve of the wing. “They move in flocks in a v-shaped pattern, and all of their wings beat in unison. Up and down, up and down, one community of flight. Can’t you just imagine that? Not having to think about where you are moving…” She slid into silence. No, he could not. He, who had juxtaposed the very ground since the day he took his first step, could not imagine travelling in time with anything else.

Formless flying blurs all curve and tip? Yes.

Unity? Impossible.

“Sometimes I think I belong in Indostan.” He knew this statement would pull her out of her reverie and cut her deeply. There was nothing like truth and reality to soften the walls she built.

“I never should have read you that poem.”

“I deserved to hear it. The elephant is very like a wall, right?”

“Not exactly. An elephant is beautiful and majestic. They represent wisdom and-”

“Those are just ideas. I’m sick of concepts and senses. Is the elephant like a wall?” Here was another cracker being thrust juvenilely into his hand. This time he felt what could only be the trunk pressing into his palm. He ran his thumb over the spot where the face should have been, searching, in vain, for an expression of great wisdom there, but, finding none, he tossed it and the bird to the side. They were shadows of the truth, and falling in love with phantoms was such a dangerous game. He had learned that in his own life all too soon. There was the smell of disinfectant again, towering in the air like a wall between them, perhaps, an elephant. “How long have we been here?”

“Half an hour or so. Not a long time to spend waiting.”

“I have been waiting forever.” Those forms, those damn forms tormented him. Cheap and lumpy interpretations of what really lie within the memories of others were all that he contemplated. The nature of the world could not be found in synecdoche, and he hated her for trying. She spent all of her time discussing the beauty of the whole, the elegance of a universe he could not picture.

“Please don’t dismiss me. You have been this way ever since-” He heard the muffled sound of footsteps on carpet that had cut her off. At last, the quiet hoof beats of destiny were upon him. His name was hidden underneath the screaming of her heart beside him.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news…” The forms were migrating again, moving up the planes of existence.