It does not feel like a choice, the man thinks. The big ones never do. Like standing near a growing flame. Yes, he provided the spark, but that is too late to change. The room around him is now doomed to burn. It is no longer “stay or go”. Not as the heat builds and smoke fills the air.

It is move or die.

And so the man must move.

To where, he has no idea. If he did, there would’ve been no need for the fire. He knows himself adaptable, or as he describes it, circumstantially apathetic. He will survive wherever he goes, no doubt. He will cope with all that he has leave behind in the fire, and it is very much. More than very much; it is everything.

Not everything left in the fire will perish. Most of it will be intact. The life the man has set fire to is full of sturdy things, many of his own making.

For many years, the man has told himself he needs sturdy items. Sturdy habits. Sturdy relationships. Sturdy feelings.

Safe

Safe feelings.

“What is safe without unsafe?” the man asks himself. He has been asking himself this a lot lately. Often multiple times a day.

He has never felt unsafe in his life so full of sturdy things. Does even know his things to be sturdy? He built them to last, but did he build them for strain? He has never even tested them. The fire will be the first test. What has he built that is sturdy enough to survive?

What has he built worth surviving?

The fire dances towards the man’s heels and he is reminded that he no longer needs to wonder about the quality or the quantity of his many things He has them all on fire! And he will be long gone by the time the ashes have cooled enough to pick through.

The flames jump closer and the man feels fear. He feels unsafe. He likes this feeling. It forces him into action. He must find someone else to stand. He no longer has choice in the matter.

Move or die.

And the man is too young to die. So, he moves.

Finally.

the spark

The man did not lie or smoke, but he always carried a lighter. If someone asked him for a light, which happened often on his walks home, he would simply shake his head and say “Sorry, I don’t smoke.”

He would hate himself each time for this. Each day he would tell the truth again and each day he would hate himself again.

The lighter is his secret. He wishes had more. More secrets, that is – not more lighters. He used to have more. But now he only has one.

His lighter.

The man is not sure what to do with his final secret. It’s all he has left.

And since he doesn’t smoke, as he is so often telling people, the secret sits useless in the man’s pocket while he tells truths to hide it.

He will use it one day, the man tells himself each night – as he lies down in his wooden house full of wooden things that do not make him happy. He just isn’t sure what for.

Maybe he’ll know tomorrow.

always packing

No, not a gun. Never a gun. Those aren’t funny. Not anymore, at least. A joke. Probably a stupid one, too. One cannot leave the house without.

To leave the house without a joke would be to leave the house naked. Can’t be doing that. But sometimes I wonder, how did it come to this? Jokes hidden, strapping, always packing.

Avoidance. Evasion. Socializing, taxes. He’d rather give up his money than his words. What does he fear, or hide?

Jokes are avoidance. The better the joke, the more subtle the evasion. Or maybe it’s not subtle. Not anyone with wisdom.

Would I fall for my own avoidance?.. Probably not. Do others? Clearly I believe so. What would happen, I wonder if I did not tell a joke for a whole day?

Who would remain? Who am I, to a relative stranger, if not funny?

I would very much like to know.

I suppose there’s an easy way to find out.

fear of pattern

It becomes more clear over time. There are always signs. Always.

The man ignored them for a long time. They came like clockwork and he used his vices expertly to see past them to each next day. The man who claims to not have it figured out may have known from the start. He plays his own brain like a fiddle, coping around truths one after another.

No. No, you listen to me/

The answer can change. It changes by the day and by the minute.

Tomorrow delivers change if you are open to it /no/ if you look for it. You used to know this. What happened? Find it again. It’s there.