lift raze there are eighty-six thousand and four hundred seconds that make up a day. he could locate one within three hundredths of itself using his thumb. he almost nailed it every time. sometimes he even lucked into landing on the number he wanted without any roughage. monday he woke up feeling like a bad imitation of himself. not empty, but spent. "why say anything?" he thought. "why do anything? there's no point. no one cares. everyone leaves and everything dies and pretty soon i'll be dead too. a quarter of this year is gone already, and i haven't even had a chance to catch my breath. if i'm breathing at all." he opened a window. he opened a door. he left the house. he was gone for half an hour. in a little less than two thousand seconds he saw an alley littered with leaves that led to an uneven patch of grass. he saw steel wool saturated with soap sinking into someone's front lawn. he saw a medley of birds. sparrows and robins and seagulls sharing space. one flew past his face. then another. in optimist memorial park he saw two tall trees with broken backs. no human hands had done that. just time. he studied a hole in the heart of a beech tree. he watched a blue-gray gnatcatcher watching him. he listened to the soft music it made. he found an empty wrapper of halls cough drops. it was down to just the ha. it laughed at him every time he looked at it. he laughed back. ha. he found a forked branch almost as long as his body. he lifted it above his head. he asked to be led to water or buried metal or some piece of truth deep enough to drown in. he didn't see anything that wasn't already there to be seen. it was beautiful. all of it. even the ugly parts. he would blink away another week before learning he'd been holding the divining rod the wrong way. he was pointing it at himself. 220411 what's it to you? who go blather from