It's like a button, in the ceiling. I could press it, and something else could happen. Something else. I spread my arms. I'm doing that lately. Wind blows, a person is near, a yawn escapes, the sky shouts. A silent hug.

We are all in our respective bubbles. Someone makes a comment, and laughter erupts spontaneously like a giant squishy puddle that everyone steps into and splashes in, glorious justified bouts of preschool montessori mudfights. I wish. Under lights, sitting at night, joined laughter floating on the air through open windows, dissolving into the dark warmth of the night.

I am sitting there, and a photo detaches and floats off to the ground. Just like that. Off. I examine the sticky stuff on the back and it is still there. Things have tolerances, and they snap. Like wood, she says. Words are more vocal. I wonder what that means. I put it back up, tightly this time, and then I suddenly see the curled corners of everything else on the wall.

Descriptions work like chemistry, the right pinch works wonders, the wrong one destroys everything. I wish I was a good chemist. Mixing things is hard, especially at night with the lonely lighthouses rotating for wailing beaches, whispering with silent sighs. I stare out the window, and all I feel is a giant roaring in my ears, and my hands shake. I spill.

Distractions come from left and right, but adrenaline rushes come with the cryptic yet transparent exchanges with true friends. Seeing through. Riding on the same wavelength, over dinner after a dusky sunday meeting. Speaking the same words with different phrases.

Scrabble. So many letters, so many words, so many lives. A million monkeys on a million typewriters, Shakespeare, someday, they say. So many eyes so many words so many things that flow. Someday, I will learn the secret of words, read in ancient palms of maple leaves and from the flickering shadows of light on grass and bark on a lazy spring afternoon, floating dust and warm breezes and white curtains and all.