Smaller Thoughts
On a boat.
Trying to wokr on a ferry boat, and the people sitting near me talking about something bad that happened to the woman once, I think a biking accident, but then the collapse of a relationship that followed. This was a long, long time ago: the accident, not when I heard about it. Maybe forty years. The woman was explaining how she gradually worked past it all. I tried my best not to pay attention. I didn’t want to be seen as eavesdropping and also nearly everything else about the conversation was boring. They did a four-minute chunk on eyebrows. But that one idea of moving forward, that was interesting.
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SELF-CARE
“Runnelling your mind, you must do this, cut small channels to let stagnant memories drain off, to permit the natural tides of the mind to assert themselves, it’s the only way to preserve your peace, to grow new peace, to heal the psychic ecosystem, to restore.” She was talking nonsense but she was so beautiful that Gregor listened and over time began to see that it was not nonsense at all. It was truth beyond his truth. Would he have come to understand this if she had not been as beautiful, or if her blouse had not been sheer? It was hard to say. He had already registered for the seminar. He had already quit drinking. He would have been on the campus, by the big window overlooking the marsh, a coffee mug in his hand, crystals in the pockets of his robe. So he would have been led to this moment. Would he have been led through it? He couldn’t say for certain but it would have likely taken him longer than ten minutes. [©2026 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas]