Chrisonomicon

Saturday, July 6, 2002

There's this kid with buck teeth sitting in the truck bed ahead of me, bobbing his head obliviously to some unheard music while he plays with a wide manner of truck-bed odds-and-ends and I feel somehow kindered, equally awkward, watching him with the sort of interest that kids never fail to evoke. I'm seven again, easily escaping into another world. Reality bends itself willingly to this vision of my surroundings that have been conjured to make sense of a world that is too complexfully simple for any kind of seven-year-old entertainment and I draw a story line, straight and true, stringing along time and space so that they stand in order, at attention. Everything has possibility: landscapes become battle-grounds, strangers become friends and enemies, anything that fits in my hand becomes an ancient device—a divining rod, pointing me towards some ultimate conquest that will complete the tale, make sense of the world. I watch the kid play, and wonder what sort of world he has conjured within the microcosm of his truck bed. Meanwhile, the light turns green.