A Touch with Infinity

Can a mere mortal lifespan ever touch the infinite, The Forever, the perspective of an expanse of existence with no end? LIke a meteor that travels through endless space, mindless, in random direction, traveling anywhere until suddenly... sentience.

Can traveling through endless space, where speculation of past lives, souls and the Akashic record, all tauntingly hint at infinity be knowable to everyone? Some individuals come to experience this Michelangelo-finger-touch only once in their lifetimes, while others experience it multiple times a day.

There is no way to measure or define a journey of conscious thought. There is only a fleeting feeling of frustration as your awareness pops back in, like you were momentarily out of body.

Is going out of body, out of time the mortal’s path to touch infinity? The slightest moment we stop paying attention, it happens and there’s a nano second of awareness before it vanishes. You try to measure, try to grasp it, know it, but then you miss the importance of the experience and still mortal, you fall short of infinity.

When I was eight years old, on a late Saturday morning in February, I escaped our family house, the boredom, the parental fighting, by going outside to play. Chucking on and buckling my black rubber boots, then hastily shoving my arms into my winter coat –leaving the zipper undone– I ran headlong through the front door, breaking free of the stifling atmosphere of my mother and father’s angry inattention.

The snow reflected a clear sky and sparkling white sun. The sudden crisp air in my lungs spurred me, made me run tearing down the block. It was an old suburb, less than a mile outside of a small town. Houses were efficient in size and set with room between properties. The snow was plowed to form bunker-like walls along the street, half hiding the bungalows behind. I watched the air escape my mouth, forming lingering puffs of frozen mist in front of my face as I ran.

I wasn't running anywhere, just running, that free, wanton running that only wild stallions and day dreaming children can do.

During a race with my imagination I threw myself into a stealth fantasy, stalking unknown dangerous criminals, pre-historic mammals, or supernatural boogiemen. I raced across neighbors’ lawns and tore between easements, finally in pure exhaustion I flopped down on a random patch of grass breaking through a melted section of snow. I laid there, chest heaving, my throat and lungs burning. The rest of the world and time itself stood still. My very first experience, while staring at high, sparse clouds, when I imagined I could feel the earth rotating beneath me.

Yellow morning sunlight warmed me and for a brief moment, it was summer. The ragged patch of grass I rested on was dry and green and warm, so out of place with the winter season. I clung to that patch, my fingers dug in, catching and holding my breath. At that very moment, as if I were cocooned, captured in amber to be released from this private sanctuary at the very moment I'd start breathing again, I felt time stop.

I felt no discomfort from the cold. I looked at the surrounding mounds of crystal-blued snow covering the neighbor's yard I serendipitously chose to lay in. It didn't matter to me anymore that it was winter, a season cold and wet and denying the coming of spring. I was immune to it's frozen clutches. My clumsy boots felt heavy on my feet. My coat was wide open and dropped off my shoulders. Sweat soaked my knit hat. My face burned hot in the high, morning sunlight. This was the instant, my first moment I knew without fully understanding – a glorious knowing– my private out-of-time feeling was a touch with infinity. A child’s realization I'd take with me the rest of my life.

#moment #prose fiction #childhood #touching infinity #short story #memories #william calkins #roarke