Between two very dense chapters that make up most of the book is a tiny little chapter in the middle of To the Lighthouse called Time Passes. I don’t remember much more of the book, not the plot, not the characters, just the beautiful structure of a tiny chapter in the middle called Time Passes.

This is my chapter of Time Passes.

Time is passing. Time is always passing. Murphy walks. Murphy sleeps. Murphy eats. Murphy snatches a mouthful of kibbles out of her dish in the kitchen and carries it into the living room to eat it. Murphy leaves constellations of kibbles across the floor. There is no stopping her.

The color of the paint on the wall fades some.

The fiber, the fabric of the carpet, of the couch, sucks up that sitting sedentary smell and holds it. Nothing will rescue it. Nothing will release it.

I write. I sleep. I eat. I shit. I smoke. The color of the drapes fades some. I turn the page in my book. Another page. I live an hour. Another hour. I sleep a night. Another night.

I surround myself in an excess of ordinary. Time is marked, life is punctuated, by tiny little emergencies. I’m out of milk. I’m out of smokes. I’m out of insulin. I catch a cold. Lost is a rerun.

Quietly, imperceptibly, everything I have must pass out of fashion. My clothes. My furniture. My dishes. My taste in music. My shoes.

Memory is a trick like a stroke. I can smell toast where there is no toast. Too much of memory is not a good thing. I’m looking the wrong way.

And time is passing. And the clouds today were not winter clouds. And the pope is dying.

SS