Harnett-Hargrove

165 It was requisite to see Niagara falls on our road trip. We ended up hitting the state line in the middle of the night + all the fancy lights had been shut down. We smuggled W.S.Trax into Canada. By that time she was very use to ‘lie still’ on the floor in the laundry bag. After seeing the big deal we walked up to the part where the water was calmer + belied no threat. It seemed like an nice swim around. i thought how easy it would be if you had a death wish to ease yourself into that lovely water. Fifty feet along the drift you’d get caught up in the here after. It’s not something you’d be able to change your mind about. You’d need to have set your resolve. 

Last night, lying in bed, i began thinking how real that danger would be if one of the children slipped through the space between the grass + cement into that water for a little swim. The kind of realization that makes your heart race even though the danger is ten thousand miles away + ten years past. i had to mentally reduce Niagara to a harmless puddle to get back to sleep.

i often wake up + not know where i am. i don’t recognize the orientation of the room. The window being THERE, the door THERE.  But some inner prompting lets me to know. It doesn't make it sunny to know this is simply the human condition + limitation working.

from -Script For a Practicing Artist + an Unfinished Life.

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.  -Mark Twain