These small things

You understand why I write you the most in November, just after the pale streaks of light have left the sky barren. I write to you furiously, near continuously about relatively inane things. I will tell you that I saw a pair of golden eagles, mated, soaring through the sky that morning, magisterial, burning through the sky like winged gods. 

END

What is going to happen to the cracker that I have left on the counter? Will the ants managed to dissect it, carve it up, carry it on their backs beneath the crack in my door, like day laborers building the pyramids in Egypt? You can see them turning around periodically, the ants, brushing antennae, and you can almost hear them saying, “hey, who the fuck is in charge here and where am I taking this,” a piece of cracker twice their size trapped to their backs. Or, more subtly, “did you order this piano.”

 

END

Last night I could hear the ice splintering in the trees. It sounded like a tree splintering, and at first, I couldn’t be sure if it was the ice splintering or the tree, and in fact, I have not checked. I have not looked out beyond the door. Perhaps the whole world is splintering, breaking apart, and so are we. 

END

This evening, I walked around the house with a long thin line of wintergreen floss held between my teeth, a habit that you’d always described as disgusting and broken me of. Now that you are no longer here I can spend hours with the floss held between my teeth, savoring the flavor of spearmint or wintergreen. It is only when I catch sight of myself in the mirror, ragged, foolish looking, with dark half moon’s beneath my eyes that I realize that you were right about the floss, and only the floss.