it’s somewhat like being seasick, except that you are the sea. it’s a little like reading the rings in a redwood, then chipping and burning the tree. it’s not much akin to rewinding, except perhaps from the perspective of the tape. it’s nothing at all like reminding, unless the memory’s of childeath or wartime wrath or any kind of rape; something’s lost from the world when it happens, something personal and precious and impossible to replace—though it can sometimes be regrown, with enough time, and enough light, and perhaps a little grace—and every recall is a reliving repetition whose rush of blood and breath proves we embody our cognition.
Prior’s short on grace these days, and in his line of work he rarely sees the sun, and times aren’t so much on his side since he started swimming where their deeper currents run. see, most skim the surface, held taut by its tension, pushed along by waves from underneath. but like soap to an overfull glass, the right concentration can break the cohesion, spilling that elastic solid surer than a strider’s teeth. and then you’re in the water, and then you are the waves, then you’re the one whose shivers make the swimmers sick, and if you’re very, very quick and careful, if you believe you can bear the loss, you just might learn to select where you surface and stick.
it’s feelings: [terrai]nausea and num[inous]er[r]ation, claustrophobicurling and a cosmiconstipation that compresses every cohesive sound into a furo[a]rushing, pounding, pulping palpitation. it’s flashes: flowers of fire and blood blooming inwards, figures falling to their feet from the floor, hallways and throughrooms in a hurry to recede, a boot bursting out of a door.
it’s finished: he sticks and strides in time to hear his partner repeat, (that is, say,) “we shouldn’t rush in. we don’t know how many.” “it won’t be a problem,” says Prior, catching the taste of today. “like i said, i’ve been through this before.”