I saw something.

I saw something out of the corner of my eye.

It’s been a week, but I still have that awful image in my mind. It burns. I close my eyes, and I see it. I open my eyes, and I see it.

But . . . where are the words to describe it?

I feel nauseated. I stare at the glass of water on my desk, wanting to drink. I stare at the glass of water. The flat top of the liquid looks so strange to me now, a silver ellipse, quivering like my stomach, trembling with each tiny vibration—my nervous foot tapping on the wood floor, a voice in the next apartment, my breath.

I need to settle myself. I haven’t slept well for a week. In bed, I lie awake and think. My hands are shaking. I can barely write. Now I’m looking at my hands, wrinkled yellow skin, veins crossing and branching. I feel dizzy. I can’t look at my hands anymore. Where can I rest my eyes? I see a pencil, stubby and blunt like a dull knife.

How can something happen that isn’t possible? I don’t know. Black is white. White is black. Up is down, down is up. Perhaps I imagined it.

I think that I saw something impossible. Am I crazy? I’m not crazy. Let me calm myself and figure out how to say this. I’ll pick up the dull knife of a pencil and write.

For breakfast this morning, I had a fried egg and two slices of dry toast, like anyone else, what little of it I could keep down. Before that, I shaved. I dressed. What else can I say? Just at this moment, I’m sitting at my desk by the window. I can look outside and see the street in front of my apartment building, children kicking a red ball back and forth, houses, mailboxes, garbage cans, a glass bottle in t...