dotism

To Pay Attention, the Brain Uses Filters, Not a Spotlight by Jordana Cepelewicz

Morning broke with a foreboding dimness, the windows unnervingly dark. Had it already come to this, this seasonal denial of brightness? It felt too soon, too cold, and she shivered at the thought. This was a useless sentiment, pitiful and pathetic, and so she left the room.

Scalding water leaked from a malfunctioning infuser, a piece of it having disappeared in the night. Its inoperable state had gone unnoticed until it was too late, thus steam rose from skin. Her hand reddened furiously as she sighed and turned to look away, abandoning the process absolutely.

There would be a need to explain, to put into words what she perceived, to untangle the tale. It seemed elusive to her, as if the experience was a mist within which she had lived; it was intangible, imprecise, and wholly sensory. The events had become ambiguous, not linear nor definite, and what had once felt criminal now seemed entirely excusable—possibly even proper.

Her hand felt uncomfortably warm where it had been burnt, a reminder, an embarrassment. How could she have been so silly? She hid it from herself, this shame, though it remained demanding, like a pest, a most wearisomely nagging nuisance.

She put on a coat, slipped through the door, and blithely stepped out onto the street. The day had brightened and she felt welcomed, her hand softly secured in a pocket, with a ragtime freely frolicking in her mind. This day seemed to have not been damaged completely and so she assembled the plot, as perhaps it had been no one’s fault, and surely all worries would be wittered away.