Crazy

Sometimes I think I’m going crazy. Like today, for example, as I stood on the pier waiting for the ferry, sipping a blended iced mocha from Peats, and found myself counting, very quickly, in my head, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10… then starting over. I won’t say it felt idiot savantish, just idiotish. And I wondered how long I’d been doing that until I became fully conscious of it.

Or as I later boarded the ferry, only one of the two ramps was lowered and I imagined myself walking right up and off the raised ramp. And mostly I wondered what stopped me from doing this. What part of brain stopped me? Though my legs leadened as I reached the fork, momentarily. It’s not that any great harm would have befallen me had I walked up on the raised ramp – maybe a thirty foot fall at most, likely less, into the bay. Divers propel themselves from heights beyond this, nothing would have happened. Maybe I would have been banged up a bit by something on the fall, but it wouldn’t have been a mortal wound.

This morning there were black birds on the roof, trying to crack walnuts or something open with their beaks. Knock, knock, knock. Knock, knock, knock. Peck, knock, peck. I walked outside and surveyed the roof. “Hey you,” I conveyed to the birds in an agitated tone without raising my voice too much, “hey you, knock that off. Stop it.”