At that moment the bottom fell out of Arthur's mind.
Arthur experiences the jump to hyperspace for the first time in his life, and it is not a pleasant. Everything sort of collapses and expands at the same time. I understand this feeling--that unstable moment when the reality that you know gets pulled out from underneath your feet like a loose rug, and you end up on your back, on the floor, staring up at a ceiling that you've never really taken the opportunity to study. You notice cracks and cobwebs and shadows that have probably been there for quite some time. A new perspective on an old place.
I've had this happen to me quite a lot. In fact, my life has been a series of jumps to hyperspace, my universe shifting in a big bang fraction of a second. And after this happens, it takes some time for the planets and stars to realign themselves into new orbits and trajectories. Currently, I am in a settling phase, trying to adjust to my new reality, version 25.1.
For a person who has a pathological dislike of change in any form, I have become very used to these cosmological adjustments. In fact, I would venture to say that they have become almost normal for me. However, I really crave a life where the status quo has a foundation that isn't quicksand. I want ten years or so where my biggest worry is what book to read next, with the occasional automobile repair thrown in.
I'm at McDonald's currently, listening to a group of old codgers who meet up here every morning. They sit around the same table every day, talking about politics and news and sports. Most of them are Trump supporters who are quite vocal in their dislike of anything that even smacks of social equity and justice. They're Korean War vets and Vietnam vets. They've worked hard all their lives, most of them married to the same people for 40 or 50 or 60 years. All of them are retired. They've had stability for quite some time. Or so I imagine.
I don't envy everything about these guys. Certainly not their social and political alignments. But there's something about the routine of their days that really appeals to me. The comfort they possess of money and relationship and world view. Now, I'm sure that they all have problems in their lives. Health issues. Family issues. Maybe even some money issues. But, they seem to enjoy a stability in their lives that I haven't known since I started college.
Maybe, however, there are people out there who look at me and see someone who's stable and happy. Who enjoys a life of calm routine. In fact, there may be a person sitting here in McDonald's right now who is staring at me, thinking, "If only I had a life like his, I would be so happy." I've quoted Thoreau recently in another post: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." I think that is probably true of everybody here this morning, eating pancakes and Egg McMuffins, drinking coffee and Diet Coke.
The first snow of the season fell in my home town this morning. Infrequent, spitting cold flakes. The world is all autumn yellow and orange and red. It is a shifting kind of day, in between the fire of harvest and the cold sleep of December. Even this little rock of a planet we live on must endure these hyperspace jumps of change, every year. A week ago, the air was warm, almost summery. Today, I can taste winter.
It's the way things are. Big bang then quiet eons. Summer then autumn then winter. Sunlight then snowlight. Love and then sorrow.
Saint Marty will just go on, leading his life of quiet desperation.
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