My sister opened the door to the back deck and our dog ran out. My brother chased after him. An ice cube fell from the dispenser on the fridge and shattered on the floor. The burgers were sizzling in the iron skillet on the stovetop. My other brother was saying something to my mom.

A car pulled into the parking lot with its high beams on. My shadow stretch from where I was standing in the infield of the b

When you die, DMT gets released in your brain. DMT can dilate your experience of time. In the instant that you pass from life to death, you experience that moment as if it were temporally infinite.

Heaven is an infinite good DMT trip. Hell is an infinite bad DMT trip.

Whether you have a good or a bad trip depends on your “set and setting“—i.e., your mindset and your surrounding environment—at the time of your death.

It’s possible that you could have a good enough mindset at the time of your death to overcompensate for a bad surrounding environment. One who wishes to go to heaven might spend their life trying to adopt a good mindset before the time of their death.

Like a heartbeat, the drum revolves: wuh-WUH … wuh-WUH … wuh-WUH. The buzz of an electrical appliance. A scratching like stiff hairs being dragged along a sheet of metal. A tumbling of solids like rocks rolling down a set of stairs. But I only put towels in this load. What could be tumbling?

Last night, we drove to Union Station to pick up my brother. He took the train from Chicago. We pulled into the parking lot at 9:41, but his train wasn’t scheduled to arrive until 9:49. I sat in the passenger seat and squinted out the window at the signs on the buildings in the distance. I held the right temple of my glasses between my index finger and thumb, raising the lenses up and down. When I was looking through the lenses, I could see clearly that one of the buildings said “Sun Life”. When I lowered the lenses and looked with my naked eyes, I could only see a white splotch in the top right corner of the black building.

I took off my quartz crystal necklace yesterday. It kept getting tangled with the other necklace I wear: a silver chain with a Celtic coin that Dad bought for me on a fishing trip in Key West. I had a dream last night that Mom hung the crystal on the Christmas tree as an ornament. But it was just a dream. The necklace is still in the front pocket of my toiletry bag on the top shelf in the bathroom. 

It rained last night. When I came up the stairs this morning, I saw through the glass front door there were puddles around the welcome mat on the front porch. While I stretched on my yoga mat, Gregorian monks chanted on the speaker. Through the window, leafless branches wavered in a way that matched the deep, somber forlorness of the chanting—like dancers swaying in rhythm to music. I stepped off my mat and stood behind the screen to the back deck. I put my nose to the screen and breathed in the air—humid, wanting to be warm, but chilled dampness. The clouds overhead were a an expansive layer of blueish-grayish with splotches of whiter areas where the sun wanted to break through. The few leaves left on the trees rustled as the wind blew. One bird chirped monotonously, while other birds sang sporadically. Squirrels darted along branches, nimbly hopped between trees, their brown fur blending in with the bark, but still more visible than when they had the leaves for camouflage. An unseen plane flew audibly above the cloud layer. Trucks were louder than cars driving along the highway across the pond. 

Sitting at my desk, bent over my laptop, my back started to get sore. I stood up and reached behind me to pull the wheeled chair to the side. Then I grabbed the handle of the crank underneath the desktop and spun it around to raise the desk. The crankshaft made squeaking noises as it revolved

By the window, a father holds his toddler son in his arms. “Do you see the plane?” he asks in a high-pitched voice. “It’s going to go bye-bye.”

What looks like a giant accordion attaches the end of the walkway to the door on the side of the plane. In the cockpit, two pilots are wearing headphones, looking at the dash, leaning forward, and reaching out to twist knobs and flip levers. 

The screen says we board in eight minutes. On the speakers, announcers recount the movements of players in a game of football that must be on one of the TVs that I can’t see from where I’m sitting. 

The other travelers waiting to board talk on their phones, scroll on their phones, stare at their phones. One guy in a red polo shirt stands, holds a coffee cup, switches it from his left hand to his right hand. A woman takes off her glasses and cleans them with a cloth while talking to her friend. 

Now the screen says we board in one minute. An automated robotic voice says, “We will now begin boarding …”

By the window, a father holds his toddler son in his arms. “Do you see the plane?” he asks in a high-pitched voice. “It’s going to go bye-bye.”

What looks like a giant accordion attaches the end of the walkway to the door on the side of the plane. In the cockpit, two pilots are wearing headphones, looking at the dash, leaning forward, and reaching out to twist knobs and flip levers. 

The screen says we board in eight minutes. On the speakers, announcers recount the movements of players in a game of football that must be on one of the TVs that I can’t see from where I’m sitting. 

The other travelers waiting to board talk on their phones, scroll on their phones, stare at their phones. One guy in a red polo shirt stands, holds a coffee cup, switches it from his left hand to his right hand. A woman takes off her glasses and cleans them with a cloth while talking to her friend. 

Now the screen says we board in one minute. An automated robotic voice says, “We will now begin boarding …”

I’m not sure if the flower vase was intentionally designed to be an optical illusion, but the lines in between the checkered diamonds were pulsing from dark to light. 

Sam called the restaurant and they said it would be an hour-and-a-half wait. I went upstairs to shower. When I got out, my phone rang. It was Sam. He said, “I drove up to the restaurant and put our names down. They’ll seat us at 

The sun sets before five this time of year. I’m not usually done with my work before then, so I’ve gotten into the habit of going for a run at night. It’s peaceful and there’s nobody else on the path.

Tonight, I saw an animal down the hill by the tree line.

Most of the pressure is in my heels. The arches of my feet aren’t touching the ground. The balls are the points where I feel the second-most pressure. My toes are touching, but I have very little weight on them. They seem to be there for balance.

I’m wearing socks, but I can’t acutely feel the fabric. It just feels generally comfortable to be wearing them. I’m also standing on carpet, so there is some cushion.

If I lean back, the weight goes to my heels until my toes lift off the ground and then I almost fall backward. If I lean forward, the weight goes first into the balls of my feet and then to my toes. My toes flex and bend at their joints until my heels come off the ground and then I almost fall forward. I can lean farther forward than I can backward.

“I’ll show you how I do it.”

I followed Dad out to the fire pit in the back yard. He pointed to a spot in the side of the pit where two bricks had space in between them. 

“I get the blower and set it up so it’s pointing right through that hole there. Then it’s like an incinerator.”

“There’s a lighter on the desk in the garage.”

Then he and Mom got in the truck and went to church. 

I got the blower off the toolbox, carried it over to the pit, set it on the ground, flipped the switch for the choke, and yanked on the cord … one, two, three, four times until it started up feebly at first and then strong. 

I set the opening of the long neck so it pointed at the space between the bricks. The motor was making the base bounce around, so I got two rocks and set them on either side of the neck to hold it in place. 

Ash was blowing out from the bottom of the pit. Two metal pales beside the pit were already full of ash from the leaves that Mom burned the day before. I took the two pales through the tree line and down to the pond to dump them in the water. This way they wouldn’t have a chance of causing a fire in the dry brush if I threw them over the fence behind the yard. 

Fresh, but not as fresh as outside. Slightly chilled; it’s winter. Cold on the inhale. Warm on the exhale. Perhaps slightly metallic. I am grasping now. It’s like the taste of water. I know from middle school science class that the gas I breathe in is different from the gas I breathe out. But I can’t smell the difference. There’s a reason olfactory art isn’t popular.

I opened a plastic water bottle and the cap made a series of snapping sounds as it detached from the plastic ring holding it in place. I raised the bottle to take a drink and the plastic made a crackling sound where my fingers made slight indentations. 

The clip says the name of the manufacturer and the size of the ballpoint. The grip is rubber and it has eight indented ribs. The tip is conic with an opening at the end.

Lying on my back in the grass, looking up at the cloudless blue, the ball rolled toward me. A young boy came running toward me with his hands held open, smiling nervously. I picked it up and threw it back to him. 

The squirrels chased each other around the trunk of the tree. Brown leaves lay in piles in the yard. At the pond beyond the treeline that becomes visible each year when most of the branches are bare, a flock of geese all at once stand on the bank, bound toward the water on their flipper-ended, spindly black legs, take flight, and glide to various points on the surface of the pond where they each alight for a splash landing.