Pearls

When everything went wrong we moved away from what was real and now I’m left with a container to study. I live on a beach covered in upright bottles, each one nestled in its own crevice of sand. If any passerby were to come upon us I take pleasure in imagining his shock at having discovered his dreams unfolded. This is a cave of jewels with no auspices. I don’t mind it here, but I can’t pretend I’m not bored out of my mind. I fit everything I own into this bottle, and then there’s me. It didn’t fit very much, obviously, and I had to throw away most of what was valuable to me. One significant occurrence in my life ever since it’s been confined to a bottle is the pearl I found under the mat I sleep on. I spend my days puzzling over how it got here; rolling it between my hands, pretending to lose it between my fingers in order to scare myself. As strange as it may appear to those who have never lived inside a bottle, I sleep with this pearl inside my mouth. This is, I’ve decided, the safest place for it. It feels at home beside my round teeth and is less likely to run away. When I sleep with the pearl in my mouth I dream of a place I’ve never been. In this place if you look at an object and it looks back at you, you become that thing. After sleeping like this for a number of days I woke up to two pearls clicking against my teeth, identical but for a tiny dimple in one of them. Were it not for these signs my existence would remain closed. The opening of the bottle in which I live is my only clear eye to the world, my hole of sky. The pearls, it seems, were born of my own desires. I had wanted another world, and found two miniature globes perched on the palm of my hand. I saved what I could fit in my bottle. I should leave it here to turn green.