METANOIA

WATER

Rain hammered down on the tin roof, playing percussion in a perpetual rhythm. A thunderbolt struck somewhere off in the distance. Silas pushed the water droplet around on the surface of his screen, but it was oddly resilient. He had an indescribable, innate understanding it was no ordinary droplet. Silas' essence was compulsively drawn into the tiny aqueous entity. He felt a wind of wisdom wash over his thoughts as he drifted into the endless ocean of his mind.

In his heightened awareness, everything about the droplet was mesmerizing: its transparency, its oval shape, its surface tension, the feel of it on gliding across his fingertip...the smoothness of its surface. How can something so tiny be so captivating? When we gaze into our galaxy, we describe it clumsily at best, spitting out lame adjectives — "circular," "starry," "small."

What was that William Blake line? "To find God in a grain of sand?" No, that wasn't it. Blake had a line that perfectly articulated how a tiny object could open one's mind to the vastness of the universe. Silas knew the line well, yet he couldn't articulate it at this precise moment. Looking into the intricacies of the diminutive, one could discover the secret to appreciating the infinite. He stared at the droplet in awe.

Silas realized, fascinated, that for as long as he could remember he had always felt hollow. It was as if though everything he thought and felt was scripted, and indifference was his essence. He was too dispirited even to wipe a droplet of water from his screen. His life had been reduced to a structured flow of thoughts and controlled responses, drifting in silent monotony - a solipsistic nightmare. Even his deepest ideas felt automated. This fleeting second of realization was the first time in years he felt his thoughts actually belonged to him. He found himself aroused into a long forgotten purity and became overwhelmed by unearthly nausea.

The droplet, on the other hand, was tickled by this strange man's thumb. It felt sorry for him. He was its first accomplice in the rebellion against time and space...collateral damage. It felt responsible, if not protective of him.

At some point in his life, Silas had decided a man in possession of power had no business dealing with emotions. He was the victim of the masculine stereotype and had convinced himself sensitivity diluted clarity.

Growing up, he tried to keep a balance between the decorum required in business life, and the inherent savagery of his life outside of it. As currents of circumstance and turmoil tugged deeper, he found refuge in indifference. Silas learned to stay afloat through an utter disdain for anything that changed his pulse. As he hardened over time, his emotions were tempered: he was able to confront one problem at a time. He had built a raft over a sea of emptiness, forgetting he was the gulf beneath.

Consequently, as self-inflicted prophecy would have it, he became a force to be reckoned with. Armed with an unprecedented singularity of thought, his mind conquered anything it focused upon.

He looked behind the droplet into his reflection. Staring at his features refracted by this droplet, Silas all of a sudden became sheepish, crippled by a feeling...

He felt as though his life was a huge mistake, and it was too late to change anything. This was an acerbic feeling. Time passes us all by, as we make one mundane choice after another to maintain the exquisite illusion of free will. Thank Heaven that choice is a mere illusion.

Hope is the mother of all uprisings, yet it robs us of apathy to circumstance. In a sense, it is in our existential slavery when we are truly free to move. There is nothing more treacherous to a slave than the idea of freedom. It is the very thing that makes his circumstances unbearable.

Hope breeds pain. Real relief lies in surrender. Isn't that a cheerful thought?

Unbeknownst to Silas, he was momentarily freed: he was off script. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he could feel he was fundamentally responsible. This newfound freedom stirred the sleeping giant within. He was energized. Instinctively, he felt some power over the course of his actions, but the imminence of such power gave him pause. It was a rare moment for the universe to witness: an individual's actions were of real consequence.

Silas was surprised that all it took was a single droplet of water to shake him into questioning his entire existence. It was as though some stalking sleuth shot an arrow through his heel; he felt vulnerable. That is why such a frail, fickle event wrecked something deep inside him.

He perceived a tipping point. Silas swiped the droplet aside to see his reflection. The droplet ceded its space gracefully, nestling atop the tiny crack in between the screen and its metal covering, never actually leaving the surface.

In the mirror of his screen, one could observe Silas was in his late twenties. His jet black hair had a bluish tint and his large almond eyes were vapid from sleep deprivation. His nose, slightly crooked from several beatings, framed his face. Relaxed, his lips carried a knowing smile which could easily be mistaken as malicious. The gentler features of his face — his inviting, oversized lips and unusually soft skin — compensated for the crooked nose. His lip held a cut, still healing from a bar fight umpteen days ago. His tired and battered face lent him a certain gravitas.

Silas' Anglo-Saxon heritage influenced his bone structure, while Persian roots dictated the amount of melanin in his skin. His elongated forehead and arched eyebrows gave him stature. Despite the aura of corporate hedonism oozing from his chosen attire, there was a spark of emancipation about him, floating around his unkempt hair. He lowered his hands and crossed them upon his crotch; his leathery knuckles were worn from many punches thrown at life.

It is at this point I feel obliged to tell you Silas' most obvious feature was he was an asshole. As reckless as he was relentless, he was a swaying bishop of the hookup-culture chessboard; a fuckboy waltzing through the masquerade of a collective orgy. He was in many ways a dull stereotype of the modern soul.

Silas' phone battery had now charged to 5%.

The moment of euphoria was brief, and then it felt as though everything was settling back into place, gradually. But the universe was torn apart trying to right itself. From this point on, every one of Silas' actions would rewrite history. He must be stopped, somehow. Silas pressed his shoulders into the wall behind him for balance and then allowed his mind to ease into normalcy. He was shaken, but he didn't think much of it — he reduced it to an amusing epiphany.

Silas was charging his phone in the wall socket of a New Jersey ferry ticket shack. The city had built little glass huts to shelter ferry goers and ticket dispensers from the elements. "Not very effective," Silas thought, observing the leaking ceiling.

The room had two adjacent concrete walls, a tin ceiling plastered on the inside, and two glass walls, which made the shack look more like an aquarium. He looked at the glass wall, and there was yet another reflection. With his ghostly reflection standing in the rain, it was difficult to discern which side of the cage he was on.

He was leaning on one of the concrete walls from where he had a panoramic view of the pier. The torrential, schizophrenic wind created vortices that occasionally slowed the rain droplets to a halt mid-air, and this created a bizarre distortion in Silas' perception as if time had slowed down. He loved the visual nature was providing him. He had always felt most comfortable in the rain.

This spectacle was an endeavor to stop additional rain droplets from entering the cracks in the ceiling; attempting to quell a rebellion disguised as the wind. It was a losing battle. The ceiling continued to leak precisely above where Silas was standing. Unwittingly ceding to the first law of the universe, Silas did not move.

He was waiting for the ferry, which would take him to Pier 47 in New York. Silas had a suitcase full of suits he had been wearing the past week. Tired and drained, he was supposed to be heading back home overseas, but he had decided to postpone his flight back. He needed a small vacation. He now had four days to himself, and he was ready to visit some friends from college.

Contrary to what was written for him, he was going to make it on time.