A gasp. 

A breath birthed then retaken—out, then back, down a rounded, ribbed tunnel, soiled by a too early contact with being.

"Huuuh".

—

He gasped, awake. 

Can you try to see the couch on which he till then lay? 

Try. 

He slept on old furniture, other's furniture, but familiar: the handed around stuff that furnishes a young man's, a college man's, first apartment. No need for buying, just scrounge: 

"The color is fine". "The blanket is fine". "I sleep with my clothes on often anyway". "Thanks".

Where was his mind just then, just before he awoke? Where in his dreams? Did he dream? 

Well… but we say he was asleep, and just so, like a college boy: blanket wrapped over, under, dangling; body twisted stiffly along the spine so as to fit; arms wherever they could manage; one foot hanging. 

The lights were on. His roommate had left him and gone himself to bed. So cozy, indifferently cozy.

Then he gasped. 

No one but he knew why. First the panic, then the confusion, then awareness, sympathy, and he smiles and sits. 

You, outside, are confused, bemused at his antic, but this fellow... you know him and so you work to ask him gently, "Hey, what's up?” 

Or, you would ask him, knowing you now, you would. But where were you, really. Despite all that he might have wished, you are not there.

But, you can see, if you take the time and follow the way back, you can see this college boy clutch at himself. 

Take up that moment of panic. Be still. Let it blossom. Let it fruit.

Up he would come: yes with blanket dangling, socks a mess, he stands and walks a step.

And he is clutching himself and gasping. 

How funny—no, you mean "cute"? If he could hear you you might explain, but he is alone and looking down at the couch, down at the blanket, into himself, clutching his pants right here—where the wet spot is.

For an instant, he, inside: "Oh, again not again. How? How is it? How, how am I stupid... again? Get me—get me out!"

Oh yes, small fry. Daddy's little man. Shake and run, shake and run. 

"Oh horrors: it's me again. Oh how—so stupid!"

Then he sits. You rest.

He breathes gently, now conscious. And the air slipping, somewhat jaded, a fledgling, out, out past his lips parting softly with a sweet adieu and "good luck." This breath leaves a kiss, and is on its way, out.

Oh, if he could talk to you:

"Oh, sweet mercy, look! He, this time, he did not end with a grimace, did not pull his fingers back into his little joints, did not swallow his bile.” 

You could be so hopeful, listening, such a comfort. Not that he doesn't want you to know, not that he's hiding this time.

But how could you? 

You are a fiction.

Let us leave him now, sitting.

—

It is a funny thing, the way memory works. 

I remember this man remembering that boy remembering all the times. The boy seems real; the man as well; but me?

I am trapped outside the present. 

Boy, man, me; me, man, boy. What a silly cycle. Spin and whirl. Why not discard the boy? Not yet.

How cocky I sound, this "not yet."

—

What mysteries populate a young boy's dawdling mornings: behind the door, still in bed, obviously awake? 

Look in, look in. Oh, but how rude, and yet even so we must because we are concerned about him—or, better, mildly irritated that still he was in bed. 

Just consider the activity of the morning: the sun has been up, breakfast, kids, cartoons, cleaning. I don't know. He does spend time by himself a lot. Still, look in. I know he's awake.

How would he explain himself, this little boy? We laugh thinking about that antic, but really now, if he could, how would he explain himself? 

Let's force it: Peel back his small pate, poke in a wire and make him speak.... No, forget it. There is only so much to hope for from a little one—bright as he is, he is still a little boy.

So, it is up to us. 

He lies in a rough semi-circle, this little boy. How strangely he lies, as though protecting a treasure. That is, as though it were a treasure he encircles it with his body and a mirroring fortress of pillow, sheet, and blanket. 

Dig in now, dig in. 

The treasure, it's wet and cold. When you lift the sheet and prop it up with a shoe it will separate from the mattress and dry. 

Look, it's like a big-top, and the wet sheet is translucent, but the grey-blue pattern on the mattress disappears right as it lifts up from the bed. How sad, somehow. Let it down: blue-grey. Lift it up: cloudy-white. Down, up. Down, up. Down. Up.

Ok, now, step in: He gasps.

"No, I'm just lying here," he says. "I don't know, nothing really. I'm just tired."

Look at him. 

Hours he's been there. It's cold; his legs are in it and it's cold. He sleeps in his underpants and they are cold. God, how stupid. How long it takes. His brother is up and gone. The blanket, contrived, looks stupid. He looks ridiculous. A silly boy in a wet bed killing his morning until he can safely get up. 

What a fuck-up.

—

This story could be told quite simply: 

A little boy, nine years old, with a long history of bed-wetting, is woken one morning of no particular significance by the warm spread of urine in his underpants. He comes into consciousness in stages. The warmth at first is a presence seemingly primordial, a sensuous release, lovely. Then, in time rapidly but in awareness subtly graduated, what one would call a dream of toilets and standing and smiling coalesces, and that warm feeling forms a bridge out from limpid semi-consciousness to the opaque and solid fact that he is peeing in his bed again.

The shock is ineffable for a child—perhaps absolutely—and the reflex is immediate. He shows panic. In his inner life, he hates himself, feeling what adults call fear, self-loathing, despair, hopelessness. 

Outwardly his actions follow an absurd and rational path: He pats the bed to assess the extent of the spread, getting urine on his hand in the process. He checks the door to see if he is yet concealed. He rearranges the bed clothes to increase the speed with which they dry while still concealing the spot. 

And if his mother leaves him be, he might stay this way for an hour or two, waiting in a stinking, cold, wet reminder of his mistake.

—

And there we leave him. 

He will wait until the wetness drys, getting on with himself, in an absurd posture. He will wait, waiting, a long time, losing himself in the present, breathing and birthing his breathes, peopling my world with innumerable, soiled and freakish, ethereal companions.

What of these? 

What happens to a breath when let loose, be it howsoever? 

Longevity is ice or longevity is fire. Vapor condenses or vapor wisps away. 

Who knows.

I do.