When I stare at the sun- (I know, not advised). But when I stare at the sun, or its limbs through the clouds, I see these little wisps dancing past each other. They’re spinning, I think, revolving and rotating around random, shifting points in space. They pop in and out of view so fast I can’t get an accurate count but there’s gotta be hundreds of them in every direction. I think they’re everywhere actually. I imagine they make a cheerful whizzing sound. I can almost see a pattern in their swirling, tilting race, but they’re so fast, and so small, I can never quite hold their entirety at once. It’s a slippery thing. Or maybe they exist in chaos. Maybe I’m looking for something that isn’t there. I don’t know. 

 

            I think of those little wisps each time I pour a customer’s soda from our old fountain in the back room. The carbonation seems such an excitable, wild beast; a dog leaping after its own tail. The fizz, carefully poured, threatens to overflow and leave the glass sticky before calming just below the rounded rim. Little droplets of carbonated sugar water are flung into the air as a fine mist, they collect atop my wrists and leave the skin damp and cool as I carry a drink in each hand. I could stare at that mist for hours, watching the bubbling die as the soda breathes itself flat, lifeless. I think those droplets, those wisps, could be entire worlds jumping from the sloshing glasses, suspended in sunlight. I worry that if I stare at them too long I might find myself falling into one. I bet time moves faster when you’re so small. I bet thousands of millions of years pass between the time the bubbles pop and the moments they hit my wrists. Trillions of people live and die, love and lose, just to disappear when I move my head a little and lose track of their worlds. Their universe winks out of existence, none the wiser. I probably wasn’t even paying attention.

 

           My Ma used to say that I could see the magic in everything. She was a nice lady. Didn’t say that I had an overactive imagination, didn’t reprimand me for daydreaming or getting lost in the woods again. (I used to get lost in the woods like all the time. It was actually a bit of a problem.) She would just smile and nod while I wove her my stories, then she would hold me so tight I could barely breathe, her castor oil scented hair prickling my nose, and she would tell me that I could see the magic in everything. 

 

          And then I grew up. I learned that the world didn’t have time for my adventures in the woods. I learned that showing up late and being covered in twigs all the time gets you called names. Seeing the magic in everything will get you sent to the guidance counselor, who will slip you a referral for an expensive man behind a massive desk who will offer you pills that help you see the world better. More clearly. 

 

          It’s best to keep some things to yourself. So I wonder if anyone’s ever slipped into one of these tiny worlds, and I wonder if there’s even the smallest chance that they could come back. I wonder if their world winked out of existence when I wasn’t looking, I wonder if it happened millions of years ago, or when I last blinked. I wonder if it would be so bad for me to loosen my grip, to slip in after them, I wonder what I’d find. I can’t stop wondering, but I keep it to myself.