Quasi Story: Not there, but not not there

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A man stands at the window trying to pull the string of the curtain but his hands are full of his other task, which interrupted a third task still that he can't even remember. His body stands at the window tangled up in his soul. The window won't open, the sky is concealed.

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A stranger walks down the street talking into a cell phone to a hidden person -- is there another person at the other end? The oddity is, the man isn't here, he's on the phone, but he isn't there either, he's walking the street talking to someone he can't see, whose gestures he can't read. Actually he isn't anywhere exactly. Are you listening to me? the voice says. Are you listening to me? The man's own body behind him somewhere, tapping at a window that refuses to make a sound. Let me out so I can walk with God again! Hang up the phone!
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Neither listening nor not listening, neither seeing nor not, neither there nor away, but actually all this "not" is an illusion. What is present is presence not absence. If the man is scandalized by his own body and denies its presence, it's still there -- but where is he? Where am I?

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Alissa racing down the road to pick up her kid, cursing the other cars, cursing the red lights. We all have shells on our bodies here, as if we have chosen to be estranged. No, she thinks, it's not a choice, it's just life. But that could be your best friend in the car ahead that you're cursing, but it's not your friend, it's her car with her inside. Like a cage with an angry prisoner? Our lives are on display but hidden, the road is in charge. And now she passes quickly, coming within an inch of dinging the other car and she looks inside, it's her minister glowering at her. The car is as powerful as a drug in its ability to change people without their even knowing. Now soul (wearing its wet virus the devil) has conspired to put the community in this angry proximity without any way for our bodies to mediate and magnetize us into the larger body Paul says that we are. Yes Alissa says, but I tell you it's necessary. Look at me, I have no choice. And around them the fumes rise to the heavens, they too are in a hurry.

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