Get up, go to the mirror, splash water on your face, look up, there you are! Look at yourself in the mirror! Tell yourself, I love you, self! and everything will be okay!

Lisa listened to the record with a scowl. She hadn’t thought this would be worth her time, had told her mom as much, in fact, in the record store, while they were looking at the twelve-inch square cover, considering its purchase. Her mom had said, Give it a shot, Lisa, come on. Don’t you want to feel better? Lisa had shrugged.

Listening to this inane record, though, she wished she’d said something to her mom, then, saved her some money. Because this was utter shit.

Later, Lisa went to bed in the dark and dreamed about nothing in particular. If she had to describe her dream, she’d have said it was gray, mostly. Just dust swirling around on an overcast day. After an interminable amount of time, she woke up, blearily. She went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She thought about the record. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. She sighed and bent down to the sink to get a long drink of water. She left the bathroom withouth looking at herself again.

I found an old red page-a-day in a thrift store once and I bought it to write my own year in. But when I opened it I found that someone else had penciled their life on the pages: little things, like appointment with M—- or rain today, things that didn’t matter after all these years that’ve passed. They didn’t bother to write their name in the front either. I don’t know who they might be or where they might’ve lived but I know that on September 3rd, they had a doctor’s appointment, and on July 13th, their sister had a birthday. Their looping script, Spencerian style I think, means they lived in the first half of last century, but I’m not sure other than that. Of course, I don’t have the book in front of me. I’m actually not sure where it is. I’m making all this up, to be honest, that is, everything but the fact that there is a red diary somewhere, it was written on in pencil, and the person who wrote it is probably gone now, with only their one year to commemorate them.

From the wind’s perspective, everything moves backward. What theories has it landed on for the way its world works? Nothing is still but it, everything is temporary. Does it know that on some days it dies, that when everything is still, it stops existing? Or does it simply pick itself up somewhere else, passingly curious at the change of scenery that moves past too quickly to really note the difference? Everything, to the wind, is a blur. Nothing is permanent but itself, the sole ruler of its life. The world rushes backward over its hair. Does it find the rush refreshing?