Transit by Michael Grant Smith

Review your hardware-store shopping list. Arrange the items into two categories: things you must fix before they break something else, and parts for projects you’ll never start. Stop choosing tools based on whether you think they’ll outlast your span of years. Don’t synthesize memories and likely scenarios as you did last time. Gaze into the bathroom mirror. Use a finger to etch your name on the steamy glass. Write at least ten other names: people you’ve not yet met, places you may visit someday. Shave your stubble. Do it again to save time tomorrow. Part your hair the opposite way so you’ll view yourself as others do. Use clippers to take it all down to the scalp. Now you can be anyone. Make some decisions and hope they move your life forward. How can you know if the motion is in a positive direction? Staying in one place is the same as losing ground. If you remain here, you’ll perish. This won’t happen suddenly; it takes about three decades or so. Go to bed. Lie there in suspension between the sheets. You are untouched by the Egyptian cotton above and yet leave no imprint below. Arise after six sleepless hours and reenter your waking dream. Walk away from the bed. It’s as if you were never there.

Michael Grant Smith wears sleeveless T-shirts, weather permitting. His writing appears in several publications. Michael resides in Ohio. He has traveled to Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Cincinnati.

Photo by Krista Mangulsone