January 31, 2021 - Together we walked out into the parking lot and fell into the car.

It was subtle, so subtle that at first I wasn’t sure that it actually happened. We were inside the gallery, on the third floor, and in one of those rooms off of the main room. The window was small and the mist and rain were heavy, but we could still see all the way across the island, and out into the bay.

Most people who were there said that they didn’t hear it; or that they didn’t see it; or that if they did hear it or see it, they didn’t find it all that unusual. It was April and strange things happened in April.

I hadn’t slept at all the night before, and barely at all the night before then, and just an hour or two the night before then, before then. So while you were driving us to the museum, I was drifting in between sleep, dream, and awake states as the windshield wipers picked up, slowed down, and then picked up again.

No one believed me. Not even you.

I remember running down the three flights of stairs toward the back of the room and paying very close attention to my steps and trying not to fall as I was making my way toward the information desk on the first level. When I arrived, trying not to pant or appear short of breath, all I could explain was that someone needed help ––– in the distance, three or four blocks away; and that the window on the third floor was slightly open, and that I had heard the sound of the steel and glass colliding with the concrete and brick.

I was told police officers would be deployed, and the fire department as well. I said I’d tell them everything, everything I saw ––– and in detail, moment-by-moment, whatever they needed, I would be their guy. I thought the museum would close early. I thought everyone could see the flames and smell the smoke.

Then the rain picked up and I found you on the second level, sitting on a wooden bench and writing in your journal. I said I was going to see what happened and implied that you should wait there, but you closed your journal, and together we walked out toward the parking lot and fell into the car.

“Which way?” you asked as we were heading west on Vine Street. “Left here,” I said, “Left!” as we were approaching Willow. The rain was really beating down, and the windshield wipers were going crazy, and I swear I could hear twelve police sirens and the horns of seven fire trucks honking all at once in the distance.

I thought the entire world was about to turn off, which felt different from dying or death, but more like a prayer or faith –––– or the strongest form of solitude –––– when the feeling of one’s own heart, beating, converges and aligns with all that has ever happened in time, and space. Now I can grasp that no one can see these moments; yet they happen regardless ––– seen or unseen, they happen all the same. That must have been what I saw.