mid-morning laughter
I fell asleep reading a book, something that hasn't happened in over a decade. I've forgotten what it's like to feel pages turning, almost, the words under fingers, undulating with my even breaths. I've always wondered, at what point does the reader become the story? (It cannot and should never only be the other way around; I'd like to think that escapism is the best motive for reading, if only because alternate realities are far better.)
This is what I am reading: accounts of Chernobyl: people whose relatives died, who refused to escape, who watched the sky exploding from the fireworks that would kill so many others, who would have to watch someone else die, slowly or quickly, painfully in either case. I wanted to write about it, in a story, in an essay, in a play, but it seems that words fall apart when it comes to tragedies. No fiction can even come close to the horror.
*
But another thing about words: if writing was a muscle, I'm now sure I know what atrophy is supposed to feel like. Good Lord.
This is what I am reading: accounts of Chernobyl: people whose relatives died, who refused to escape, who watched the sky exploding from the fireworks that would kill so many others, who would have to watch someone else die, slowly or quickly, painfully in either case. I wanted to write about it, in a story, in an essay, in a play, but it seems that words fall apart when it comes to tragedies. No fiction can even come close to the horror.
*
But another thing about words: if writing was a muscle, I'm now sure I know what atrophy is supposed to feel like. Good Lord.