At the Speed of Thought

They say we glow. Our eyes can be bright or light up or gleam. Sometimes we even radiate and sometimes we go so far as to shine. Lightbulbs turn on in our heads.

Walking, I had felt the light rising in my body, slow sparks swirling up from my root chakra all the way to the crown. There, fireflies were etch-a-sketching in my head. Nerves reaching out aimlessly. Would I be able to hold it together this time?

“10 guys, 10 gals. The odds are fair my G. We are going to get our chimneys swept tonight or face extinction. Come on ye dudlies- light my fire!!”

It was our fifth go at speed-dating and Jenny was getting us revved up for another spin.

Her gold bangles raced around her wrists as she sauntered, one slick step in front of the other. 

“I mean, come on!!” she exhorted the timid summer stars. “How can you leave two such fine middle-aged wines unattended? We gonna get drinkened up!”

At that moment, I was more concerned that by the time we got there, Jenny would be cross-eyed with the puzzle of words she was seeding upon the world. But Jenny could handle herself.

I adjoined her at the elbow and in height, in lockstep and reeking of patchouli. 

“We shall not remain undrunked!” I confirmed.

Our rollicking bluster sobered a tad as we rolled up to the silent matte black doors. Above it in pink neon, shaped to resemble handwriting, was the word: Living.

“It’s drink or dry time,” Jenny held my gaze with her bright feline eyes.

“It’s do it or… do it?” My wrinkled elephantine eyes worried back.

“Right on!”

We both spat on the ground, as was custom, and entered the bodyworks studio. Wood floors, white walls, glass ceiling rimmed with fairy lights. I loved that ceiling with sky included, and every time wondered about who cleans it, and if they worry about falling through when they are squidging away. 

After mocktails and a few introductory rules from the event planner, all the women took seats at one of the ten tables arranged in a large circle.

The men gathered into a pack, drinks at hand and furtive looks at their prey, not wishing to scare them away. As if you could scare women past their supposed prime. They’d seen it all and knew the score. 

A clear chime sounded.

Men were taking their places at the tables all around me. A large well-manicured hand laid claim to Jenny’s table. She waggled her bold eyebrows at me. They seemed to say: “Bring it on, cocks!” 

People’s first impression of me is usually that I am unmemorable. They always ask for my name a few times again after we first meet. I think of my initial impression as being that of an elephant who dreams of becoming a mouse. Or at least that is the feeling I work to give off. I cultivate my confounding first impression to protect myself. I wear weird yellow spectacles and braids. Not exactly sexy.

I have developed mini litmus tests over the repetition of attendance at these wheel-of-romance improv shows.

First, I embody the tired-eye elephant who wishes to become a flitful mouse - that persona repels the phonies.

Then, at another turn of the wheel, I can become the passive plant - if you water me, I will bloom. If not, our love will wither.

I also have the slinky soul that whispers, and the diplomatic duck who squawks out: “Wat? No wayyyy!” 

But sometimes, if my heart deigns to be awakened, I will pull back the curtain all the way and let the orb at my core speak in the language of moon-beams. If the answering voice carries birdsong, we can consider leveling up. They say that trees are the neurons of the earth. And birds are the charged particles that pass between them.

The man who ended up in front of me had a kind face, in the way a retired emergency technician might have if he had a good pension waiting for him. 

The conversation card had given us a thought-provoking question and he was well underway with his answer when my mind glitched at a question he asked of me: 

“Can I pour some more water into your glass?”

I had been trying to listen carefully to what he had been saying up to that point- about his long train ride here, the funny anecdote about his dog swallowing food dye and having blue shits. We had laughed together but eventually my attention had wandered. So when he finally asked me a question, I thought it would be about me.

“Can I pour some more water into your glass?”

Water? I am part water. 

Glass? That magical transparent barrier made of sand. Or was it silica? Did the skylight cleaner know the reason why it was possible to see so clearly through matter? 

“I guess…not?” The jug hovered, held aloft in his hand.

I startled. “Yes! No! Thank you.”

He set the jug down and continued on about his new life in retirement, walking his dog on the shoreline and the things he finds on his walks.

“I even found a Rolex once! Can you believe it?!” 

I had been making myself listen intently to what he was saying. I could feel the intangible mechanism of auditory waveforms traveling up my ear canal, turning analog information into the wet data my brain uses. So much energy released with every one of his words. Millennia of nurtured DNA transmuted into culture. All those words triggering movies in my mind.

Belief - a word that held the poetic potential of being a leaf. The shot zoomed in on the leaf to reveal chloroplasts. They were migrating in response to changing light intensities. They moved away from strong light to avoid photo-damage. The avoidance response. I knew it well, but was I a believer?

When I focused again, a new man was sitting in front of me introducing himself and talking about his dating credentials. I smiled at his beard, wondering at the texture. It looked soft. I bet it smelled nice. Would it be too rash to ask him to stroke it? He seemed to be a daring character. He was recounting an experience with dating.

“Once, I went to a speed dating event that started with everyone blindfolded, sitting on the floor in a circle.”

Circle - a word that is a hole that is a prison that is endless that loops and swings and returns and flings me flying on a sacred geometry pinball ride back and forth around and around the infinite points of the circle.

Blindfolded - my inner archivist started flicking through all the references I had stored up so far: hostages, pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, moments I couldn’t see that were stored in my body, silk, a surprise party, an eye operation, and finally this event that he was talking about. My imagination quickly sketched in a doppelgänger scene.

All this processing that happens in the blink of an eye.

Neurons flooding dark parts of my neural pathways, cross referencing with other streams. Trains of thought coupling and uncoupling. Finding their appropriate destinations. Arriving at unboggled conclusions.

Sitting - on a chair. In the air. Squats. Never! On the ground. Dirt. Concrete. Grass. Mats. Yes.

And nanoseconds later, finding an adequate response:

“Well, I hope they gave you mats to sit on.”

And so it went for another hour of the paso décimo. Like gears, the circles of ladies and lads clicked wise and counter-wise around the room. Sometimes Jenny and I would catch each other's eyes and nod at a departing guy, making a quick grimace of "yikes" or the stretched face of “not-bad!” 

Our bodies fizzed with nerves and with possibilities that were probably more exciting to contemplate than to experience in real life. 

I could feel my brain over-heating with neural activity. My frontal lobes were considering how further evolution should make space for all the added speed and storage required for all the hyper-meta-discussions from the added dimensions of more computers, AI, internet, Zoom and all these other hardwired informational pathways that were being added to our collective conversation. Telepathic cloud service perhaps?

“Focus Nora!” I chided myself.

“I beg your pardon?” My current match looked surprised, his reindeer eyes blinking, looking as if he had just discovered I was there. He even cocked his head. I caught sight of Jenny choking on silent laughter, biting her lips.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. 

I was grateful for the current interaction prompt: To sit together silently and communicate through our hands. Maybe I could finally listen properly, letting my mind rest from the monkey making music with my dendrites. Our brains may live in darkness in order to allow for all our little nervous neurons to zip about like atomic superheroes and save the parsec without any added blasts of sensory information. But we live in light. At least it looks that way. I closed my eyes.

I released a sigh and felt my hands settle over his, our skins barely touching.

They say we have brain cells present throughout the body. My body knew for sure that I was warming up to his noninvasive presence.

Ease poured into me and rose up to just the right level. Right above my chest. I relaxed.

I opened my eyes slowly and looked across at him. Both of us silent, breathing slowly. 

This stranger could become family. 

Where to begin?

His grey eyes promised all the colors, even black and white. 

I pulled my curtain all the way back and lay my moonbeams on the snowy cap of his mountain. 

It was a peaceful night up there. 

The distant song of a nightingale could be heard borne upon the breeze.