Scientific Method
It is raining on Fifth Avenue. I see umbrellas in a rainbow of colors but only gray clothes, gray faces, black rain, black streets. I wait for the sign it is safe to walk, assured God will never deceive me. The caviar store on the corner is empty again, as usual, except for the man behind the counter. My existence remains unproved.
I, like Descartes, come from a legal family. I too am excused from morning duties and allowed to remain abed, contemplating theoretical problems. This morning from my high window I saw the sun rise over the river. Fire to light, line to plane, flames on a gray mirror — objects around me glowing. I imagined an infinity of rulers. I felt hope rising in me with the sun. Hope for what, exactly?
The fish eggs I buy are tiny black pearls, glued together with brine. Bursting against the roof of my mouth, juicy exclamations of Universal Wisdom. I imagine my soul to be something extraordinary and rare, like a flame, coursing through my body. I exist; I think; I am free of doubt. When I was a tender baby, with skin like fresh flower petals, who loved me enough to love my soul? Who breathed dreams into my tiny shell ear? Who wept over me? Who wished me dead?
I am like any ancient geometer, my problems beg for elegant solutions. This curve, this conic slice — where will the truest intersection lie? A series of three dreams turns me into a timid comedian, hiding behind my garish painted mask. I am not a soldier in uniform. Quiet, the air is still — I can feel my heart, unscarred as yet. It only feels as though it has been broken, that is deception, it is perfectly healthy.
I am already exhausted by so much living. While I slept as a baby, the whispers came from someone close: I will lie to you for your health; I will mislead you for your own good; I will beat you up for your excuses, I will beat you for your carelessness; I will beat the drum of my own desires, never yours. Now, the sun is dancing upon the sea.
Neither René nor I like to live long in the same location. We will change our dwelling place twenty-four times in twenty years. Think of an infinite number of points. Across from the caviar store, an icon with a gold halo, painted on peeling white brick.
I pray to you, my silly angel. Hoping for what, exactly? For feelings of joy, like a drug…. The joy of watching water move, tickled from beneath by fish fins. School has let out for summer. The joy of heated skin as it is plunged into cool water. Feet in wet sand, toes nibbled by fish; pinched by tiny crabs, scraped raw on rocks. The pleasure of discovery.
My mind is unclouded and attentive. I deduce the transition of blood into water, wine into water, wine into blood. The firm eggs of the caviar burst in my mouth, tangy grains of hope. Posterity will judge me kindly.
Like me, Descartes could not find leisure and quiet to write until he got away from his family. Was it the way his father drank? The drunkenness, the curses, will repeat every evening at sunset. Children will scream, cry. Children will beat themselves up for an explanation. Hope for what, exactly?
René and I both trust thinking more than feeling. We work hard to free ourselves from the element of probability. Salty fish eggs, trips to the caviar store, and flare-ups of hope, repeated endlessly.
A toast to us, to our new lives. René completes his law degree on my birthday. Both of us will wear robes of black & purple; spread a velvet cowl upon our shoulders. Envy, we can taste envy: who breathed such curses as we slept? I have walked in darkness so long, I cannot bear the light of day. I enter the labyrinth, clutching a flimsy thread. Curiosity is blind, leads me to risk, to unexplored streets, to black fish eggs in the rain. It is still raining on Fifth Avenue.
Kimberly Townsend Palmer 