The Palms and Soles in Medicine is next to Gray’s Anatomy and Dermatology on the bookshelf. Further down, books on The Beatles’ Second Album and Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.
The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe. He recited the opening verses of “The Raven” from memory once, when telling the story of how he was trying to court my mother.
Two books of his family tree, one from his mother’s side, one from his father’s side. My children thumb through them often. Looking for names they imagine giving to their children one day.
At the end of the shelf, a picture of him. “Party-thrower, joke-teller, popcorn-eater.” Hawaiian shirt and lei. Cocktail in hand, smiling.
He is probably younger then, than I am now.
On the shelf directly above the picture is a sculpture of a laughing buddha. A string of beads around his neck, a fan in one hand, a sack thrown over his shoulder. Chubby, content, smiling.
“When I needed an answer, I looked to him. He is wise and caring. My life would be very different without him.”
A boy in joyful wonder as his father shows him magic in the lab.
A device that spins a magnetic tablet at the bottom of a beaker, mixing the solution within. It creates a miniature, hypnotic whirlpool. The boy’s imagination being pulled down into its vortex. Pulled down into a dream. The boy is grown in the dream. It is raining. His roof is leaking. It is ruining the third floor. The rain is now coming down into the second floor. The third floor, with tables, materials, tools, and space. The space and all the possibilities that it brings. All of it being wasted. He explains this to his father. Simply, his father replies, “Just fix it.”
Or, watching as liquid nitrogen is poured from a thermos onto the floor. Dramatically splashing outwardly in all directions as it hits the floor in a cosmic explosion. Turning into ice and then clouds, before finally disappearing altogether.
