They let me go outside today. There was a meeting in the building next door. It was a beautiful day with perfect temperature and a wonderful clarity to the sky. When I crossed to the other building, I felt like a bat who should not be in the sun. The sun was too bright, and I was squinting very hard, creating an ugly look in my face, perhaps like I’d been blasted in the gut with a shotgun. The sun was too interrogative for me. The town was too old, and I could feel it baking. When I shaded my eyes with a hand in salute, I could see the film going super fast and the town was falling apart rapidly, dissolving into a nearly-weightless dust. I wondered if I was meant to be here and if anything around me was meant to be here, and I thought about a farmer, lonely in a field, in the middle of an intense July heat, one that would be here too soon.
stillfugue 
#1 by liv2write2day on April 11, 2011 - 9:16 pm
Another powerful write, Carl. I was really struck by the line: “The sun was too interrogative for me.”
#2 by Carl on April 12, 2011 - 1:01 am
I appreciate your kind comment!
#3 by Find an Outlet on April 13, 2011 - 1:51 am
I remember the days of working in an office and occasionally being let out for some errand. It didn’t matter if the sky burned or benumbed, it was still a furlough, prolonged by slow suspended steps set to unfamiliar position of sun or shadow. But once returned to crate, rest of day lost to dreamlike distraction.
#4 by Carl on April 13, 2011 - 9:01 pm
You have written such a wonderfully poetic comment! “Returned to crate.” Yes! Exactly! Thanks for reading and commenting.