They always do the same thing, words. They hide away under the folds of my mind, deep in the shadows, keeping as silent as death. My ability to search for them is limited, so I try my best to shine light into those darkened box canyons of brain tissue, but words are not bound by the laws of physics and my feeble light is obscured by a thick fog. The multi-verse is popular these days, so I imagine that words exist in their own pocket universe and they can control when and where the two realities intersect, allowing me to access them again, but only for a short time.

I try to force myself to create new words when the ones I seek refuse my peace offerings and woeful cries for respite. This piece was born of that method. Here, now, I sit trying to push the words out of my mind and onto the page, but it is a painfully laborious process that taxes my attention and enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm. What even is that any more?

Back in late January of 2020 before the world was fully aware of the threat that was dragging it’s lumbering carcass from the depths of the microscopic reality that lives alongside us humans, I was struck with the then-unnamed viral horror. To make it even worse, I was still in the throes of my first bout with Shingles. I was wreaked with pain, but suffered none of the lung-related afflictions. My wife and daughter both joined me on this unwanted journey, and we were lucky, though we didn’t know nor care at the time.

Before that, the words frolicked about like puppies in a field of flowers. I could do little to stop them, but I would catch a few and give them a lot of personal attention until I would present the trained and groomed product to the internet for general consumption. Then the new decade came and ended all of that. From thence, I watched as the light, cool air and clear blue skies faded into a shadowed wasteland studded with dark, foreboding chasms of blackness impenetrable to the eye or thought… or hope.

I am reminded of the closing stanza of Robert Frost’s famous poem:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,


And miles to go before I sleep,


And miles to go before I sleep.

There exists a caveat, however. The woods I am in are not lovely and I hope that there may be an opportunity for me to leave them soon. And when I do sleep, I hope to awaken to a new dawn in which I am restored and whole.