He sat in the lecture room on the fifth floor and looked out the window. It was late autumn. A leaf blew up in the window’s view, twirled in the air, and disappeared. It was a brief encounter.
Why, he wondered, in all the universe, in all time, did the leaf rise so high and twirl before him?
And he grew despondent at the incomprehensibility of things. Was he the only one to see the leaf, and the only one who could give it meaning?
And why the undiscovered stars? Why the hidden sparrow’s beak? Why the little weed’s seed pod never seen?
It was hot in the lecture room. He felt trapped like a snail in a shell. He walked out into a corn field of yellow fire. The wooden broken gate sprouted lime-green lichen. Some clear bird song somewhere sang. The air was crisp. The sky was blue and beautiful. He climbed a lonely hill. There, before the transcendence of it all, he had a piss. Forever, he had changed the direction of the universe.