Ghost

I saw something. I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It's been a week, but I still have that awful image in my mind. It burns. I close my eyes, and I see it. I open my eyes, and I see it. But . . . where are the words to describe it? I feel nauseated. I stare at the glass of water on my desk, wanting to drink. I stare at the glass of water. The flat top of the liquid looks so strange to me now, a silver ellipse, quivering like my stomach, trembling with each tiny vibrationmy nervous foot tapping on the wood floor, a voice in the next apartment, my breath. I need to settle myself. I haven't slept well for a week. In bed, I lie awake and think. My hands are shaking. I can barely write. Now I'm looking at my hands, wrinkled yellow skin, veins crossing and branching. I feel dizzy. I can't look at my hands anymore. Where can I rest my eyes? I see a pencil, stubby and blunt like a dull knife. How can something happen that isn't possible? I don't know. Black is white. White is black. Up is down, down is up. Perhaps I imagined it. I think that I saw something impossible. Am I crazy? I'm not crazy. Let me calm myself and figure out how to say this. I'll pick up the dull knife of a pencil and write. For breakfast this morning, I had a fried egg and two slices of dry toast, like anyone else, what little of it I could keep down. Before that, I shaved. I dressed. What else can I say? Just at this moment, I'm sitting at my desk by the window. I can look outside and see the street in front of my apartment building, children kicking a red ball back and forth, houses, mailboxes, garbage cans, a glass bottle in the grass, a laundry line with damp clothes draped over it. Isn't that just normal life? Or I could turn around in my chair and look at my room. I'll do that. I see a bookshelf and books, some wedged in sideways. I see my bed, half covered with the quilt my ex-wife gave me. I see a standing brass lamp with a crooked linen lampshade. A box of crackers on the table, cracker crumbs. A glass of water on my desk, this pencil, this pad of paper.k The Pythagorean theorem, I still know: The square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of something or other. It has to do with the sides of triangles. Would a crazy person at age forty-two be able to remember anything about the Pythagorean theorem? I'm beginning to feel dizzy again. The nausea comes in heaving cartwheels. My hands. I can't write. I should just breathe slowly. Breathe. Breathe. Let me read what I've written. Okay. My eyesight is good. I mention eyesight because I think I should list all the relevant factors. You see something weird, and, of course, the first thing you question is your eyesight. Or your mind. I want to put down in writing what I can. I've tried to tell a few people, but I can't find the words. Even now, I can't find the words. Ellen suggested I write it down. I'm not sure what she thinks, whether she really believes me. We were having dinner at her favorite Indian restaurant, she flirting with the waiter as she always does, half trying to make me jealous and half just being herself, and she held my hand after I told her and said I should write it down. Where was I? My eyesight. When I go to the optometrist for my biannual examination, I can read the bottom row of letters on the chart. As a child, I was always the first one to spot the school bus coming. I could see the tiny yellow speck in the distance, just the smallest glint of yellow. My friends thought that I was cheating, that what I really saw was the cloud of dust trailing the bus, but I saw the tiny yellow dot. I'll admit that I've never needed such good eyesight for any practical purpose. My books have regular-sizeLightman, Alan is the author of 'Ghost ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780375421693 and ISBN 0375421696.