3 by 5

I sit shirtless at the wooden table, the one with the fold out wing my housemate and I found at the goodwill one rainy, Seattle afternoon in late February. I'm munching on a chocolate hazelnut biscotti recently rescued from the bread dumpster. All of my bread comes from the dumpster.

The biscotti biscuit was a surprise, a perfectly pre-packaged jewel of sugary goodness just waiting for me to take home. And home I took it.

The goal was to try and summarize the last 6 months of a life, my life, on to the back of this 3x5 piece of scrap paper. Being a consummate revisionist I picked up a pencil. That’s sort of cheating, I know.

Telling anyone about anything has been almost impossible for me. Its like I'm a victim of some great shock or war, but I’ve yet to figure out what war it is. This whole business of forming words into sentences and sentences into stories has all but escaped me.

But then I remember that these stories are my life, are what keep me alive. And that if I don’t at least try to tell my tale or anyone else’s I as might as well be dead.

I'm not dead yet.