A Confusion of Lines (Fiction) by Brian Edward Bahr

A Confusion of Lines
by Brian Edward Bahr

How do two spheres connect?

There comes a Monday; there comes a Sunday. Two points colliding: a tangent line perpendicular to a diameter: car and man. One shoe traces a parabola through the sky. The road striped with lines: perpendiculars forming a crosswalk: black scuffs from tires. Vision becomes star-points then empties.

New perpendiculars crosshatched between ceiling tiles. Curved lines dangling from IV drips. An unfamiliar intersection: nurse and man: two eyes; two feet; two hands; two minds: how do two spheres connect?

There comes a Monday; there comes a Sunday. Is this a Monday or is this a Sunday?

One mind ends where Sunday lost Monday. The other mind rattles in a new sphere.

Two lines diverge from a singular point: two lines cannot meet unless their paths lie on a sphere.

Three separate lines: is there a family? is there a wife? are there two kids? A point on a line stretching backward and forward, but does it intersect these others?

A family: a wife; two kids. Two minds diverge from one: a point on a line stretching backward and forward; a sphere can connect them, but in a plane lies oblivion.

One mind ends where Sunday lost Monday. On Monday there was a husband. On Monday there was a father. On Monday there was a man who the newspapers reported to be on the way to an extramarital liason.

Will this line return to the same beginning?

Circled lines on a sphere repeat themselves endlessly. Is this sphere the same as before?

How do two spheres connect?

These lines diverged for a purpose contained inside the first sphere. One mind ends where Sunday lost Monday, but Sunday always leads to Monday. Should these lines converge?

Two children grudging hospital chairs. Two children grudging family. To them, a man, the same yet broken. To them, the man who splintered a home.

Outside the square of the window: the horizon: a confusion of lines: continuous; unmeasurable; the area beneath incalculable.

How do two spheres connect?

A point; a circle; a sphere within a sphere.

Author bio:

Brian Edward Bahr lives in the woods of northern Minnesota with his cat Yuki. Check out his other work at: Brian Edward Bahr.