Statue

Last night some friends were talking about doing homework while very tired. Sometimes their head nods and they dream they finish their homework. I can exist in a sort of trance, my body going through the motions with eerie grace. In dreams rather than walking, you float places. We think it is weird when we fly in dreams, but do we ever actually move our feet against the floor when we dream? Running, running, down steps, or up into the sky. It's only a matter of vertical position, not physics.

So a few weeks ago I was walking that way, almost floating, and my toe caught behind me. Every day we walk. You would think we could get it right. Instead of sliding on through to the next step, my toe hit the ground and stalled the whole motion like using cash in a Visa commercial.

Maybe it's my boots, incredibly comfortable but about half a size too big and the only heels I wear. Or I might have been too tired to funtion normally. Does that ever happen to you - the toe thing?

It reminded me of a movie my mom and I just discovered, Awakenings with Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams. Based on a true story, a bunch of people had a side effect from a virus years after they had apparently recovered. They froze. Their mind stopped transfering commands to walk, to hold a pen, to talk, to see. In the movie a research doctor discovers that these statue people can be induced to move, by music they really like or other things. I'm giving away the story when I say that medication is introduced that wakes them up, but it wears off permanently, but gradually. In the slow process of becoming a statue again, the patients will freeze mid-step or in the middle of putting a spoonful of cereal to their mouths. A word or a touch would start them up again.

For just a second time freezes, my foot stops, pointing to the floor, and I wonder what happened to my subconscious. Having a subconscious is scary enough; losing it to wander who knows where is very odd indeed.

To God be all glory.