Recent Mysteries I Have Solved:
What movie did I see that actor in before?
Did I remember to wash my hair this morning?
What the heck did I just trip over?
Does this button do anything?
Who’s honking at me?
Didn’t I have five dollars in my wallet?
Is the mail ever going to get here?
How much more chocolate can I eat?
Ow, why did I just do that?
Does anyone have hands as dry as mine?
What’s on TV?
How much does this song rock?
Since when am I so freaking handsome?
What is that.
—
When I woke up this morning I found this list on the pillow next to me, so I must have been up to something sometime last night, but who remembers what. I mean I haven’t been inactive, we can probably safely say. All the questions made pretty good sense and I could easily imagine the answers to them all, except the last one which seemed odd. It wasn’t even phrased in the form of a question. But then in the shower something on my nose was bothering me. I felt a little thing, a little bothersome thing that I couldn’t stop fiddling with, maybe it was acne or something, but it felt different and hurt slightly more. And then I remembered last night looking at myself in the mirror and then bending over the sink to get a closer look at my nose, and there was a hole, a tear, a gaping wound about a half-inch long, not bleeding but not looking too good either. But later, then, now, in the shower, I didn’t feel a tear so I wondered if that was a dream. But I don’t think it was because I’m usually very particular about not looking at myself in the mirror, and here this memory, not of the tear in my nose but before that, of me looking at myself in the mirror, was accurate enough to have happened. You’d remember a thing like that, when you also remember that you don’t look in the mirror to shave or brush your teeth or floss or wash your face or any of the other things you do in a bathroom but don’t actually need a mirror for. Except there’s this nose situation, and whether or not I was looking at myself in the mirror, and whether or not there was something strong and tiny inside me, ripping it’s way out, little things I’ve forgotten which have angrily grown arms, which I will add to the list of mysteries waiting to be solved.