ONE SMALL FACE

The drug begins to take hold of me. These are my last waking moments before I once again shape-shift into the form of a life-size puppet. A cigarette outside joined by a curious floating stinger passing by. It buzzes past me, looking at me before continuing onward in its mysterious journey. I’m now back inside the confines of my room, but somewhere that little thing is most likely still buzzing around and will continue to do so until its inevitable demise. Unlikely I will ever see the odd creature again, but I wonder what it thinks of me, and will it ever think of me again. With so few life days remaining and so small a brain I can’t imagine the acknowledgement of my existence being of any great importance and remembrance. As is the same with most people I will meet or meet eyes with or be seen by. I am but but a speck in most others story and they are but a speck in mine. Yet undeniably even the smallest characters that make a cameo appearance into my life’s story alter the course forever. And by my being altered alter the course for them and onto all others who may or may not have been there with or without the others before it. I often wonder if the site of one particular face I didn’t see or the lack thereof of one I did would have only created small variations of my ongoing history, or if it it could have changed everything completely. One small face could influence one menial decision one second later, spawning yet another variation moments later, resulting in a momentary delay minutes later, causing me to see yet another new face I wouldn’t have seen otherwise after that—sparking a short conversation there, leading into an argument here, finally until I missed a particularly important face, one that would alter the decision of where I ate that night. Now entirely new faces, different food, different timeline, going on and on and on until I reached the present moment, half a year later in a different  space, place, relationship, job, friends, clothes, health, knowledge, etc. That is why I do have regrets in times of unhappiness. It’s the knowing that I didn’t see that one face that would have resulted in my better positioning and circumstances. It’s the understanding that out of the trillions of tiny things that happen, this particular combination in this particular reality in this time in this body in this mind took me to this exact unfavorable spot. Where on earth was the one tiny thing that would steer everything towards what I want? Where oh where was the fantastical destiny of Hollywood fairytale to intrude in one small event that would bring me to a more content version of my self. I imagine the alter-universe somewhere out there forever out of reach where I saw one other face on the bus last January and how it changed every single thing by this moment. If only such places out of reach could be reached.