Here’s the deal. The senses provide nourishment for the brain. But if that nourishment is comprised of mostly cruelty and suffering, how can the brain thrive? The straight answer? It cannot.

Since the Eclipse, darkness reigns. It’s not the internal darkness that dictated most of my life and which I spent decades taming and abating. This is a different animal. This is an interminable dark night of the soul that has been imposed by the Eclipse and those responsible for making it happen. It’s a cruel joke. Just one of many.

I spend the afternoons on my porch these days, writing and observing and mostly trying to find some sense of peace. Meanwhile, many of the young Hispanic and Latino men in my southwest Detroit neighborhood are restless, to put it mildly. They’ve been stripped of their jobs and lost family members to deportation after INS raids. With nothing to do and no purpose to push them through their day, they, as most hopeless and hormone-fueled young men, cause trouble. I watch the scene play out day after day. It’s like viewing any number of those trite post-apocalyptic TV shows that aired pre-Eclipse. The young men roam around, trying to entertain themselves with borderline or even outright criminal behavior. Then the mostly white police force descends to manage “these animals” and “save the day.” To call it a war on a crime is a hideous misnomer. There is no war – as there is a gross imbalance of power between the two factions. It all belongs to the cops who now have unimaginable power AND rights to persecute, no questions asked. So much for innocent until proven guilty. That flew out the window (or was flushed down the crapper) with the Constitution about 16 months ago with the onset of the Eclipse. 

I suppose some would find this jacked-up version of outlaw justice excusable. Even entertaining. I’m not one of them. What I do find enjoyable, however, are the antics of Emilio Marquez. 

I’ve known Emilio since he moved here from Mexico when he was eight years old. I tutored him for that first year and recognized his brilliance even then. He is also blessed with a mild temperament that harmonized with that of his fierce abuela’s who kept him in line and ensured he stayed out of trouble. She has since passed; which is its own blessing given the current circumstances. But her spirit is strong in Emilio. He is currently spearheading an underground resistance movement to give these young men purpose and meaning. And to watch him interact with the cops is to witness a celebrated actor perform a role with Oscar-winning precision. It is method acting at its finest and it gives me hope. Yet I also fear for him. I fear for a lot of people these days. Especially my father.

My father is that odd combination of scientist and artist. And this, by the estimation of the Eclipse, makes him a double threat. Neither artist nor scientist can be trusted, we are told. Words that echo a chilling era in the not-too-distant past. My father simply waves away my fears (as he’s always done) and assures me that all is well. It’s not. But with him, I’m willing to play the game. I adore my father’s wisdom and warm humor. He’s always said that learning from our own mishaps isn’t as safe as learning from someone else’s. He believes that we feel what we see and experience others as self. So that’s how he chooses to view this whole debacle. This does little to quell my fear though. Never one to take to prayer before the Eclipse, I do so every night now that he won’t vanish like Amina’s father did. 

Thinking back to the last night I saw Amina’s father, I recall we were only two months into the Eclipse and still (foolishly, perhaps) believed everything might be okay. It was Ramadan and Amina and her mother, Sona, were cooking the first iftar of the month. They worked side by side to prepare the ritual foods; chopping onions for the bourek and the Algeria soup, while kneading the semolina dough for the khobz eddar – some of the Algerian delicacies from Sona’s childhood. They also diligently attended torubbing spices on the djaj mhammer – a twice-cooked marinated chicken that was part of her father’s childhood Ramadan celebrations in neighboring Morocco. I also recall Amina’s grandmother sitting in the kitchen at their small Hamtramck house and bemoaning the difficulty she had taking her medication. Amina, who was a pharmacist before the Eclipse took hold, immediately set to cutting her grandmother’s pills to a more manageable size. The gratitude her grandmother expressed was so gracious and sincere, it moved me to tears – which at the time, surprised me.

It’s been over a year since her father’s disappearance, though it feels like many more. I don’t think he’s coming back. I’ve witnessed too much unthinkable cruelty and suffering over the past year to think otherwise. And any tenuous belief I may have had in miracles has long since dissolved. I would never say as much to Amina though. She continues to hang onto hope that he’ll return. I understand it. But it feels to me like trying to fly a tattered kite on a windy day.

When looking in the mirror or at the faces of my fellow humans these days, I DO still cling to finding a likeness to a God I never before believed in. It feels like an increasingly pointless venture though. Because at the end of the day, finding any such likeness is essentially an admission that God is indifferent at best, a ruthless killer at worst. 

And that’s a hard pill to swallow. No matter how you cut it.  

Elouise Lambert stared out the window observing time in the shifting of the light and shadows that stretched across the alley. She’d just awakened from an arduous dream so fraught with detail she was certain the dream had been crafted by her husband. To say that Jerry Lambert was a perfectionist had never been true. But recently, to those who didn’t know any better, he appeared to have taken up the mantle.  

To look at the spotless and meticulously organized interior of their small ranch home, one could easily brand it as perfect. Though given the old paradigm that sticks like pine sap (as so many do), Elouise was often credited for this. After all, is not the inside of the home a woman’s domain? If any question remained about Jerry’s seeming sense of perfectionism among the more conservative-minded, however, those doubts were obliterated upon observing the front yard. Everyone knew this was where the man of the house staked his claim. And the Lambert’s front yard was something to behold. 

Red and orange flowers stood in line at attention like highly disciplined Chinese soldiers, carefully bred to attain the same height and girth with not a single anomaly. Deep emerald green bushes shaped in geometrically accurate spheres and cubes were positioned along the periphery of a lime-green lawn so lush and uniform it could be rivaled only by astroturf. Those who walked by stopped to stare and/or take photos. Those who drove by slowed their cars, fingers pointing out the windows. 

Elouise had grown tired of the spectacle. She’d grown tired of it all. Then, in the same breath, carried terrible guilt for this feeling.  

Among the neighbors, she was forbidden by Jerry to share with them the secret of those gorgeous hues of green. For they were not birthed by nature. It was Jerry who was the proud father. He had conjured up a serum in the bleak grey days of winter to give the bushes and the lawn their false verdancy now. He even had a precise procedure for preparing the formula, which included compounding part of it in the utmost secrecy every morning in his basement – an action Elouise felt was over-the-top and unnecessary. But by the same token, she understood.

The formula wasn’t perfect. First, it smelled horrific for at least an hour after formulation – driving Jerry to install an exhaust system in the basement that betrayed his secret to anybody who enjoyed a 3am stroll outdoors. Fortunately, this was a non-existent population where the Lamberts set down their roots. Second, the serum was also caustic in that first hour so Jerry had to be extremely cautious when handling it, lest he suffered painful burns. Finally, it was toxic to the earth. There was no saying what was happening to the ground beneath his yard. And this oversight was not part of the trademark behavior of a perfectionist. It was more that of a sociopath. But just as he wasn’t truly a perfectionist, Jerry was also not a sociopath. 

Elouise rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and moved to the window that overlooked their ‘perfect’ yard. His ‘perfect’ yard. She yawned and thought of her dream. How convoluted it was while simultaneously making perfect sense in experiencing it. She understood how dreams have lives of their own. And that perhaps more than any other phenomenon in one’s life, they are completely private, subjective, and unique. Yet since his diagnosis, she and Jerry had begun to share dreams. Right down to the last detail. It was eerie. And this most recent one was all his. She was seeing the world as Jerry did. Not as a perfectionist. Not as a sociopath. But as a man who knows he’s in the final act of his life. She now understands implicitly how the fear of death does wonders to focus the mind, heighten the senses, and inspire creativity. And it seems unfair to her. 

On so many levels. 

At times, I like to watch my hands. I delight in the way the fingers bend and articulate; how the nails act as makeshift tools that scratch, tear and, perhaps most importantly, pick. And then there are the thumbs. I adore how those stubby little creatures (the ones that supposedly elevate us above all other sentient beings on this spinning orb) cooperate so well with the other fingers – despite their noble status. 

“What are your thoughts on the thumb?” I ask my friend, James. We’re sitting by the large front window at our favorite café on a late Saturday morning. The café is noisy for my taste and I’m self-stimming by stretching and closing my fingers in a slow-motion fashion – as though they’re underwater. 

James opens his mouth slightly, a devilish grin spreading across his face. “Did I tell you that I saw Ricky last night with that queen from the gym?” he says, the smile morphing into a scowl.

“No,” I say, staring down into my tea. “You just got here. How would you have told me?”

He shrugs.

“Anyhow, you didn’t answer my question.”

“What question?” he asks, his glacial blue eyes bloodshot from last night. I can safely assume he hasn’t yet gone to bed.

“What do you think about the thumb?”

“Oh, yeah. That,” he says with boredom in his voice. He leans back, observes his nails with disdain, and scrunches up his nose. “Honestly? I thought you were being ironic or something.”

“Nope.”

“I don’t know what I think about the thumb,” he whines and lets out a long sigh. “God, Ricky is such a bitch. Can you believe he’d do this to me?”

“You broke up six months ago,” I say.

“So?”

“And you broke up with him!”

James stares at me, perplexed.

“I’m just not up for the gossip today, James,” I say, turning to look out the window. There’s a row of formidable forsythia bushes that are, in concert, coming into bloom. I can almost hear them humming.

“Well,” he starts with a huff and glares at me. “What crawled up your ass?”

“Nothing has crawled up my ass,” I say, defensively. I am agitated, though unsure of the reason. “I’m just feeling, I don’t know… analytical.”

He circles his head and sighs as he leans back in his chair. “No offense, Sasha, but you were much more fun before you got on this Pole Tech wisdom kick.”

“Toltec,” I correct him.  

“Whatever. I’ll take the pole any day,” he laughs at his tired and played-out joke. I roll my eyes. 

I resent his saying this, as I’m not on a Toltec wisdom kick. I just appreciate the Four Agreements from their philosophy. I tried to discuss them with James a couple of months ago and only got as far as the First Agreement, which is to use impeccable speech.  

“Impeccable speech? What’s that supposed to mean?” he’d asked, rolling his eyes and heavily resting his head in his hand to demonstrate his serious lack of interest.

“Basically, it means using your speech to communicate something worthwhile. Otherwise, keep your mouth shut.”

He’d given me a blank stare. “Not computing.”

“It means, for starters, don’t gossip,” I clarified.

He’d looked at me in disbelief, his mouth gaping open, as though I’d just asked him for a lung. Then he’d laughed. “Please!” He’d waved his hand at me and shaken his head. “Everybody gossips. It’s one of life’s pleasures. And how is it not communicating something worthwhile?”

“Have you ever considered how it could be harmful? To the person you’re maligning, and to yourself?”

“Nuh-uh,” he’d said, shaking his head vigorously and placing his hand on mine, a glimmering ruby ring on his middle finger that Ricky had given him last year in one of their many commitment ceremonies. He also wore a rainbow bracelet that signaled to the world he was gay – in case the ruby ring, eye liner, gorgeous scarf, and overwhelming presence weren’t doing the trick. “Silly. You’ve got it all wrong. It’s only harmful if you say it to their face. That’s why you do it behind their back!”

I knew then I was fighting a losing battle.  “Forget it,” I’d said.

“I’d love to,” he’d smiled, then sipped on some ridiculous no fat, no sugar, extra caffeinated coffee drink. It was the same concoction he sipped on now.

“I personally think the thumb is really cool,” I say. “Though I suspect it may have a Napoleonic complex.”

“Hmmmmmm,” he holds out his hands in front of him. “It is the most Napoleon like of the digits. Still, I don’t know. My thumbs are pretty… impeccable,” he mocks.  

I sneer at him. “Very nice.”

“Well, at least I was listening!”

“There is that,” I agree.

He nods. “Because I’m always listening.”

I decide not to address the sheer fallacy of that statement. “I do find it ironic,” I continue, “that scientists are always harping on how the opposable thumb makes us more advanced than all the other species.”

“Mmm-hmmm,” James mutters absentmindedly, betraying his previous statement about always listening. He’s clearly not looking at me, but rather through me at what I can only assume is some guy with a perfect ass behind me.

“And yeah, the thumb enables us to do all sorts of things that no other species can do. But is that a really such a good thing?” I query. “I mean, how many shitty things are we relegated to do simply because we can? And how is that advanced? It seems kind of backwards, if you ask me.”

He glances back at me again.  “Yes. What’s with you and thumbs today?”

“I don’t know,” I say sadly. “I think maybe we take them for granted.”

James squints at me and cocks his head. “You are SO cryptic sometimes.”

I smile. Along with the engineering marvel that is the hand, I have an affinity for words with multiple consonants but just one single vowel holding it all together. Kind of like the thumb. And I’m drifting off into other twisty twirly thoughts when James breaks my reverie.

“Sash?” 

“Huh?”

He holds out his hand, cocks a brow, and extends his index finger. “Pull my finger.”

I roll my eyes. “Shut up.”

“Seriously. Pull my finger.”

I pull his finger and rather than blowing a raspberry, he yells, “Yeeeee-haw!” Several heads turn, some of the faces disdainful. I can’t entirely blame them. He was rather loud. Still, I smile.

“Let’s get outta here,” he says, getting up suddenly and grabbing my hand. 

“Where are we going?” 

“I saw the most fabulous hat at Francesca’s Vintage,” he says. “I don’t want some other ridiculous queen to get it.” We walk out of the café hand in hand; my thumb pressing against his. And I realize that without our thumbs, we wouldn’t truly be holding hands.

“Which reminds me,” he pauses. “You’ll never guess what I heard about her.”

“Don’t go there,” I scold.

“I’m kidding,” he smiles at me and I feel a sudden compulsion to never lose my love for the cryptic, the weird, the irreverent, and, of course, the thumb.