Not the ceiling. Me .
At fifty miles up, I met the others.
(Out of Body Experience)
Not painfully. More like a rubber band letting go. I shot up through the roof, past the satellite dish, past the low clouds that felt like wet cotton against my face. The town shrank to a circuit board. Rivers became silver zippers. The curve of the Earth appeared, blue and brutal. I kept rising. Not the ceiling
I floated six inches above my own chest. From that height, my body was a beached thing, pajamas twisted, mouth open on a wet snore. My mother sat in the rocker, knitting something gray. I waved my new, translucent hand. She didn’t look up. Of course she didn’t. I was made of nothing but window glass and held breath. (Out of Body Experience) Not painfully
Now I’m an adult with a mortgage and a pill for my thyroid. I stand in grocery lines. I return library books. I attend meetings where we discuss “synergy.” And every few months, without warning, I’ll be washing dishes or sitting at a red light, and the floor will go soft. My hands will look like someone else’s hands. And I’ll remember: The town shrank to a circuit board
