Some Factor of e

I.

The earth’s atmosphere is made of nitrogen, oxygen, and argon. But mostly nitrogen.

II.

When the news flickered on and I didn’t want it to I was frozen and liquifying. But mostly frozen. It is hard to feel sorry for myself.

III.

There are some things I don’t talk about. Like sphaira in the discipline of English, or hard things out loud. On paper, I will tell you that I once felt the light gases of Titan, Triton, and Pluto at the Liberty Science Center with my Father. But when I came back to class eager to share this on Monday, my teacher told me that my experience was impossible. Improbable, actually was the word.

IV.

Words seem to be a lot like spheres. You can kind of get away with resting in them and just float around inside of them. I like this concept because once you decide to crawl out of a word, you have to travel through all of the layers and by the time you are through the outer crust you are in a different space and that word is lightyears away and it doesn’t really belong to you anymore. You are this separate entity using another dimension’s alphabet. There is anonymity, a photodissociation. I’m not really sure what that means, but I’m just borrowing it from a place I want to understand.

V.

I really do like Liberty Science Center, all nestled in between warehouses and Manhattan. There’s the actual museum, the dinosaur bones and gravity machines and climate change map illuminated. And then there’s the smoking deck, dubbed the “observation deck”, where you can see pollution and NJ-24’s assortment of animal bones and the tip of Miss. Liberty. You are trapped in manufactured walls, but you can see this green woman reaching her hand out towards you. It’s nice to know something can be two things at once.

VI.

The mesosphere stands at 85 kilometers, but can also be only 40. Then there’s the Kármán line, which separates the earth’s atmosphere and outer space. But, there are no tangible boundaries between the tip of the earth and that vast opening. Just a gray place and an understanding that it is that way.

VII.

I don’t know at what point the acceptance kicked in, the inevitability of one into another. I’m sure I fussed, but these are just words and I might just be borrowing strength from my language arts teacher who was borrowing from a textbook that borrowed from some word maker in the Roman republic.

VIII.

After the day we felt the atmosphere, each night my Father would show me how to press my hands against the window and breath into the glass until I could feel the condensation build up and pronounce “atmosphere” five times in a row without pause. I’m not sure I could actually feel it, or say it, but the sight and sound of my own voice was enough to make me feel like my breath was productive.

IX.

Atmospheric pressure increases with the mass of gas above by a factor of an irrational number e. This factor is determined by temperature, which is not a uniform coefficient, so the unpredictability leads to an unknown amount of atmospheric pressure. This leads to an unknown solution to the force.

X.

In other words, the pressure either leads to a scream and escape, or the receivability of the gas.

XI.

Ghast is a strange word. I really don’t like how it sounds. Or how it describes an appearance that you should look out for or something. Because how would you determine the degree of ghastliness prior to being eye to eye with one possessing this supposive ghast.

XII.

My father is pretty much as close to goodness as a person can get. He plays guitar, fights fires, and sends me articles on managing my finances that I roll my eyes at. On October 18th he took my mom to Sedona to see the vortex for their anniversary. A vortex is a space within a fluid or gas that circles around an unseen axis. I didn’t go with them on this trip.

XIIII.

On October 18th I ate three-hundred calories for dinner at a place I haven’t been back since April. I know this because I always count the energy I borrow and I don’t wish to return to the place that following October 18th, I felt like I was borrowing my own breath from. After I ate, I met a boy. He was ghastly. But, you see, I didn’t know this until his eyes were close enough.

XIV.

The ionosphere builds in thickness and inches closer to the earth as it rises at night. Inches is a delicate word, perhaps a better one to borrow would be heaves.

XV.

A few months ago, after the distance from it, I eagerly spoke about what happened. Well, not out loud but in a letter I never sent to a former teacher. I remember the words I used, the drip down my cheek as I used them, the courage it took to reach out my hand to Lady liberty and say, freedom is something I want again. I remember how I imagined the letter would be received, turned in to an administrator. I remember my fantasy of the blueness of those office walls, the response of the man behind the desk, as he would say that my “narrative was impossible”. Improbable, actually would be the word.

XVI.

On October 18th, my bed was against the window on the 22nd floor. It was an absolutely exquisite night, light air and balanced noble gases and a waxing lithosphere. I will never forget the feeling of my hands pressed against the glass, wanting to hear my father help me sound out “atmosphere”, the atmospheric pressure before it made up its mind before it lay still under the mass.

XVII.

My father’s return from Sedona- with a new fact- that, “ Wind picks up dust and other particles which, when they collide with the terrain, erode the relief and leave deposits. Frost and precipitations, which depend on the atmospheric composition, also influence pockets of relief”.

XV.

I will always remember that window on the 22nd floor, that frost glazed window. My hands shoved against it every unpredictable factor of e, those microscopic pockets of atmospheric relief between the layers of ashen gas.

#creativenonfiction #trauma #science #personal #nonfiction #poem