There is a tear in the atmosphere which I have leaked out of, and I hover above the world looking down on it with a frozen face. I can see everything and nothing from my god-like perch. I feel disconnected and yet there is the sensation that all of humankind has lasso-ed ropes made of shared memories around me, and like a hot air balloon they keep me from drifting into the dark and the nothing.
Overnight I have become a great magician in my own right. I have unearthed the secret to disappearing. You don't need to flee or vanish. All you have to do is let yourself become invisible. You stand perfectly still in the waters of your life-your work, your activities, your relationships-and make no ripples. You are noticed less and less until finally you disappear completely. It's a sad art to master and overtime you worry that perhaps when you at last shake off loneliness, that you also shake off the ropes you once tied to others.
As for my heart, it has not become hardened. It has become transformed as if by another act of magic into a pulsing house for bees. The hive in my chest looks still and calm from the outside, but inwardly there are busy swarms at work decorating its interiors with the sweetest honey they can make. My bees daydream as they work about burying their