rafi

This morning I woke up to the sound of the neighbor trimming his tree. I told myself he would stop trimming only if I got out of bed. The tree got smaller and smaller. Soon it was just a stump, and he had to go underground and start trimming the roots, and still I couldn't get up. The roots were gone and he was sawing through the earth and I told myself that when he came out in China, I would get up. It took him all day. I wept and curled and uncurled myself in a way I couldn't control. I was actually writhing in heartache, as if I were a single muscle whose purpose was to mourn. But by the time my neighbor hit the molten core, I was motionless. I had exhausted myself into a blank stare, a full-body examination of the ceiling. I could feel him pushing up underneath the streets of Shanghai, and to my horror, I felt hunger. The body's expression of hope. As he burst through the ground and into the Chinese air, I sat up. He plowed into the sky, upward through tree leaves and then into the clouds. My neighbor sawed into outer space. He cut through the Milky Way, right through the stars and stardust. He went around the universe in a giant circle. And then he landed, with a quiet thud, back in his yard. I lifted the curtain and saw him putting out the sprinkler. It was dusk. If he saw me, I would live. Look up, look up, look up. He raised his eyes, as if it were his own idea, and I waved.

- Miranda July, 'Making Love in 2003.'