Forts

1.31.08

Its 3:41pm. After a big lunch. The computer screen’s getting a little blurry. Words are running into each other. The caffeine from my third diet coke of the day is hardly having any affect.

Now, as tempting as curling up beneath my desk sounds, I look at the mangy area beneath my laptop and my phone and I realize that logistically, that this would never be possible. As I look down at my cavernous stomach that just consumed a bacon double cheeseburger and a bacon, cheese hot dog (look, I was hungry and I got confused), I wish back for those days when I was nimble, flexible and small and could make an enclosed area my personal fort. Armed with a blanket and imagination, I was secure from the dangers around me, invisible to only those who chose to see me. Underneath my bed was my own private bunker that not even the most power nuclear weapon could penetrate.

And then I grew. Taller, initially, and eventually wider as my love for double bacon cheeseburgers caught up to me.

As a look the chair across the from me in my office or my desk, I wish for the days that I could nimbly climb into the smallest of spaces and hide away with a security of a warm blanket and lights and sounds of the world would seem like a distant hum lulling me to sleep.

4:14 pm. Caffeine’s kicking in.