When the sky ties its shoe

...Plus imagined five-star reviews

You might wonder how it feels to wake up one day and not know who you are. I don’t know. I don’t remember. You lose short-term recall, long-term recall, words, space and time. Or you recall a fragment of something, but find it and lose it almost at once.

In my first life, I wrote prose for icons and editors.  Clients included Elmo, Elle, and a Devil Wears Prada or two. Then I got hit by a drunk with a truck. When the brain breaks, the legs don’t know what to do. Neither do the hands or feet.

In rehab, I was the only “survivor” well enough to be a “caregiver,” too. I took care of me. A meal somehow arrived in a room. Someone must have brought it in. Oh, right, it must have been me.

The odds of a sinkhole opening within me were approximately equal to the odds that I’d find the right word at the right time. I said things like “when the sky bends down and ties its shoe.”  Translated, that means “this guy was bending down, tying his shoe.”

There was a lot to get right. To tweezer a word like a tiny gem, then tweezer another, stringing them like beads so they made sense. Sometimes I could. With a spacey cluelessness and the grace of bumper cars. Wholly devoid of data or sound advice.

I began to write this stack and to write a book. One word in front of the other, one step in front of the other, one day at a time. Then I lost my agents due to disability (mine). No agent, No book. Nevertheless, here is an Imagined 5-Star Review:

“This appealing debut offers a brain-damaged protagonist. Somewhat Forrest Gumpian, in that J worked with iconic people at iconic places during iconic times. Think Elmo, Oprah, Martha Stewart, Wired, Elle, Rolling Stone.”