He is an ambitious young man. That is what he has been told and he carries the responsibility proudly on his shoulders. They have a small dim place with a stained carpet and pervasive staleness. He stands at the only window by the door. In his mind he imagines future worlds and new versions of himself.
Through the window the sunlight submerges the room and the figure of the young man in shifting shadow and color as the sun rises and sets and rises and sets at an impossible speed. The mutating light throws transient spikes of shadow across the walls that make it seem as if the room is rocking slowly back and forth. The young man’s wife sits at the kitchen table with her shoulders drawn close by a rough blanket. Beside her a small child fades into existence and then a second and a third and together they scamper around the room. They are ghostly whirs of a wispy substance and paling color, never stopping long enough for him to see any of them clearly. They streak across the mottled carpet and around the fading and torn furniture, through the young man and through each other like translucent projections of light. Occasionally his wife stands to cook and does so in an instant and the children blur into the kitchen to swallow their meals and leave again. But most of the time she sits and watches him by the window.
At first glance, the young man’s sharp button down and slacks distinguish him from his humble surroundings. But looking more closely, the slacks have been worn thin and reveal the paleness of his thighs, which are slender but retain the willowy resilience of young muscle. His shirt is also tinged a slight acid yellow from the repeated gathering and washing of dirt and sweat; but his brow is stern and his eyes are hard set in their challenge of the horizon.
“Time is our most valuable commodity,” he says, “but it’s a raw material. I won’t become rich or famous, accomplished, remembered in any way if I harvest time alone. I must use it to accomplish my goals.” The man is immersed in the ever-changing light that flows in waves through the window. His figure sharpens in clarity and vibrancy as time speeds forward. The children around him grow faces and collect memories and names. Their shadows expand and thicken and they move more slowly with the added weight. But the young man takes no notice.
‘’Keep up with the future or fall back with the idle—complain and despair with the timid and weak. I will become the man I see tomorrow.” As he speaks his jaw strengthens and sprouts black hairs. They grow and thicken into a beard. From the back and shoulders of his worn clothes spring new strands of silk. They thread through each other in a serpentine pattern, looping and flattening like inchworms until they form a rich suit of clothes. His chest and shoulders broaden and fill the suit. The man gains the defiant composure of self-confidence.
“Time can be money. Time can be progress. Or it can burn away, and everything and everyone with it. Too many people live passively. They treadmill. They lift weights that settle back into the same place. I will always move forward. I mean to accomplish many things.” Now the house creaks and moans as it grows. Clean white walls rise up and curl to meet at the peak of a cavernous ceiling, and from the ceiling a chandelier unwinds. The floor trembles and melts and hardens into smooth polished wood. Several windows appear and expand outward like mirrored portals. Dark portraits swirl, pull and drain away the children in rivulets of shimmering dust. The man’s back compresses and bends, his belly and chest soften and droop. But he does not express any sense of loss. He revels in his success.
Then, almost as quickly as it began, the rumbling fades into the distance. The sun slows its frantic pace and rests low on the horizon. The house is silent.
The old man stands at the window by the door. He leans heavily on the cane in his hand. He breathes deeply, nods, and turns to inspect what he has accomplished. His eyes are dark and clouded with myopia. They stare widely as he scans the bright room as if searching for something.
“Luisa?” he calls. His voice echoes through the main chamber. His deadened pupils dart back and forth, straining to detect any movement or figure from behind the veil of blindness. But all he can see is a vague warmth of light and the blurred outlines of the photographs on the wall.
“Luisa?” he calls again.
He remains poised for a reply that never comes. The air is still and silent.
Tumors of the Mind 