The room is full of creatures who have decided, all at once, to become something, and they have set aside a whole morning to do it, which is more time than I have ever been given for anything.
They climb stairs that go nowhere and run toward walls and lift heavy shapes only to set them gently down. I love this. I do not question it. What I question is the woman with the little paper card, who tells the counter-man she will come "three times a week."
Three times. A week. She says it the way I would say I have flown once. She has flown, then, hundreds of times, along this same bright river of mirrors, and she stands here promising to fly hundreds more, and no one gasps.
The counter-man does not gasp either. He says, "Same as last year." Last year. There was a whole one before this one, and he was here, doing the counting, and it will happen again, and this does not knock him flat.
A man on the mat has stopped moving. He lies on his back and looks at the ceiling and I think, yes, this, savor the one ceiling, this exact rectangle of light. Then his glowing rectangle buzzes and he sighs and mutters that he'll "finish tomorrow."
Tomorrow.
He is going to be given another whole beginning, another river, another ceiling, and he is spending this one bored, saving the good part for a day he assumes will simply arrive.
Listen to me, you enormous fortunate things. You get the sunrise back. You get the sore legs to fade and return. You are rich past counting and you are lying down.
Get up. Lift the heavy shape.
I only got the one.