An Object in Motion
An object in motion stays in motion, so I pour myself another cup of coffee. I think of semi-trucks soaring, roaring down highways. I think of all the times I took the bus from Chinatown in Boston to Chinatown in New York City for 20 dollars. When I’d arrive at midnight, the Dunkin’ Donuts coffee I drank on the bus would still be pulsing through me as I decided to walk the approximately 30 blocks to my friend’s apartment. I feel safe in cities; It’s the suburbs that terrify me: If I screamed, would anyone hear me?
An object in motion stays in motion, but all I smell is damp laundry. I look at a picture from my childhood in which all the children are smiling, except me: My brows are furrowed and I’m not looking at the camera. I’ve never been so good at simply existing. Then there’s the one in which I’m at Disneyland with my grandparents and mother at the age of three. I’m sitting in a stroller that’s more like a shopping cart if a shopping cart had two slanting metal poles with a chair on wheels attached. My grandparents are behind me smiling, but I am yelling something. I like to think I’m yelling about how we distract ourselves with Disneylands while the deadly effects of rampant capitalism churn onward with the wheels of my shopping cart chair – though I assume I just wanted some pink cotton candy and Minnie Mouse to sign my autograph book.
An object in motion stays in motion, but last night I had a nightmare that Trump was standing in front of his own inauguration-like crowd and they were all chanting, “Spread the coronavirus!” It’s going to be a while before the horror of that man leaves our psyche. And the world may never fully recover.
An object in motion stays in motion, so I try not to think about the aforementioned deranged man, especially as we can finally enjoy some silence now. I think about how I’d like to re-read Crudo by Olivia Laing now that he is gone. But let’s face it: My motion is currently interrupted by that unbalanced force. Hold me, hold me, somebody, hold me. Tell me that it’s okay now.
An object in motion stays in motion which is why I’ve stopped responding to WhatsApp messages. A friend jokes about my lack of response to his request to buy and send him blue and yellow Lidl tennis shoes as showing it’s not at the top of my priority list. I laugh and don’t respond. Another friend asks if she can borrow the dictionary she passed on to me when getting rid of her books in preparation to move across the world. She is now not moving across the world and would like to borrow the dictionary, but I have given away the dictionary because I am now moving across the world. I let the message sit there, unsure of what to say. I respond to one message that enquires about my well-being with an “Everything will be fine!” *smiley face emoji*. I contemplate deleting WhatsApp and picture an implosion, as though the second I hit “remove app” on my phone, my world will self-destruct. I watch a show that reminds me how in touch you can be with our current reality without staying constantly connected to the internet (forgetting I am still on the internet). My phone has been off for hours. I am a little concerned by how overwhelmed I am by humanity despite not having really seen anyone in person other than my partner and cat for about ten days. I light a candle to mourn my own internet death for my 56 followers.
An object in motion stays in motion but I’m applying for the position of being the object at rest. In counseling, I learn about how I tend to let other people have too much control over my worth and being. It genuinely disturbs me. There must be a middle road between dropping off the face of the Earth and pumping the internet through my bloodstream. Lately, I am faced with challenges that involve other people, i.e., we are in the challenge together. This means I can’t just abandon the task when it becomes too difficult or there’s too much uncertainty, and no one ever has to know about it. I have to find a way to navigate the obstacles and I hate it. “Someone has to be the realistic one here!” I say to my counselor via Skype, but she implies it’s my anxiety’s tendency to first assume the worst. Talk about ruining the conversation.
An object in motion stays in motion so I wait at the crosswalk as I hear the rumble of an approaching semitruck. I look up and see it flying toward the intersection. There’s no way it can stop in time at that speed, so I grit my teeth, terrified for the coming crash. Suddenly, I hear quick bursts of air before one long release, as the driver pumps the brakes and stops at the intersection. I look up at him, but he stares ahead, waiting for the light to change. I take a sip of my coffee and cross the street.
Taylor Miles is a writer and English teacher living in Denver, Colorado, where she works at a non-profit supporting immigrant and refugee communities. She recently moved to Denver from Berlin, Germany, where she lived for seven years. In Berlin, she worked as a translator, studied North American literature and culture at Freie University, and was the managing editor of SAND. She received her MA in creative writing from Kingston University (London).