Traffic

They said he was born with his head high, his head high. He didn't believe in God yet, couldn't, so he had to be looking up at something, maybe the ceiling, but whatever it was, it was above his parent's heads, above the trudgy, boxy camcorder that would record his eye whites, as if he were being possessed, but he was just born with his head high, his head high.

Some days in later age he would roll his head around on the fancy armrest of his favorite recliner, staring up at the ceiling fan, remembering how as a child he would put his hands up to it ever so slowly, wondering if they would chop them off. His parents would walk in the room and look at him, and he was still looking above them, at that ceiling fan, not sure whether he should put his hands in. He would lean back and breath out fumes of aged scotch like a car exhaust, this time his head stuck and sickly, like he wanted to vomit. He wanted to stick his head in that fan, his head in that fan with his head high, his head high.

Some days in early age he would stop playing with his friends, and would just stand still and visor his eyes and look up, but his head couldn't go so high because the sun was too bright, it was that time of the afternoon when it was directly overhead. And he would look down, and the kids were looking at him too, thinking him crazy for looking over their heads.

Some days in middle age he would look down at that piece of paper, kind of crumbled when he tore it out in euphoric delight, ready to scribble the white spaces black. Dream that he would write enough pages to reach the ceiling, then he could look up at that first page, his head held high, his head held high. 

So those days that are now the present, he sits and waits until the ceiling fan slows when you stare it down, almost to a crawl, as if your eyes have stopped it by will. And every rotation draws the momentum away, a train dragging along to a stop, his eyes circling faster than the fan.  And he lets the scotch run out like a car exhaust, and he wants to vomit, and stick his head in that fan, his head high, his head high. Like the day he was born.