Christmas party

(omits taste, smell, touch)

The ringing of golden bells.

A blast of sound and color, but still remote as always. And your mind is a wreck because your body can’t embrace it all. Your body, which has deserted you in such egregious ways. Muster the strength to conjecture. The breakdown of colors into different meanings, the organization of sounds into a dictionary of emotions, all painstakingly classified to suit those chemical needs that will never be satisfied.

The movie continues. The monotony is broken. A parade of people and objects unfolds and you get lost in the details and the words that flow endlessly as if to stifle any passing thoughts. You receive it all with a smile as it will be the highlight of the day. A table full of cardboard cutouts, but you digest it all with a large grin. They accommodated you and you must accommodate them.

Red flowers in her dark hair. She came after all. You hear her voice. It echoes in the room as she moves in and out of sight. And you wonder - if I can't reach her, if I can't grasp the whole of her, how will I understand it all?