I tripped over the broomstick — YES I knew it was there. Quit interrupting, please.

It always falls out of the broom closet. The broom closet is too damned jammed full. Everything in my life is too damned jammed full. Especially my closets. Would you like an inventory of my broom closet? The vacuum cleaner, the mop, the bucket, the steamer, the rag bag. All expected. But wait! There’s more! Bag of sidewalk salt. Old school backpack. Plastic jug of distilled water. The ex’s shortwave radio (!!!!)

Nothing fits. Things spill out all the time, do you think I don’t know what’s going on? This is Chaos herself — Khaos! Respect her! She can’t be stuffed in a closet you know!

So the broom spilled out, I don’t know when, maybe the kids needed something from the closet this morning — the handle spilt across the doorway to the mud room, I was hurrying back from the bus stop, late for work, tripped, coffee all over.

I was flying for a moment, floating.

It seemed like a very long moment.

But that’s an illusion, a trick the mind plays — and why? To divert your attention? You’re about to get the bruising of your life, your floating is about to meets its bruising end on the hard, hard floor.

Don’t think about it yet don’t think about it yet . . .

I called Derrick afterwards, of course, and he could tell I was crying — I shouldn’t have called — one of those girlie things we do and shouldn’t because what was there to fix?

Nothing. Nothing. The fixing maybe could have happened yesterday, by cleaning out the closet, I suppose.

But he came over anyway, and drove me to work . . .

So I take it back, actually, now that I think it over again. Because I realized after he kissed me and I got out of the car and ran up to the glass doors and through and flashed my ID at the security guard:

“He drove me to work . . . he’ll pick me up after work.”

So maybe the little breaks our mind gives us are not the breaks but the thing itself. Like those optical illusions.

Is it a picture of two ladies’ profiles or a vase?

He’ll pick me up after work. Maybe we’ll grab a bite to eat. Maybe I’ll ask him about his day.

Maybe tripping over a broom handle isn’t the accident so much as the start of the floating . . .

Is that even possible, I wonder?

I wonder . . .