22
I first met the imp of the perverse at Bob's Gun Shop in downtown Norfolk; my mother took me there to shoot guns. I had a terrible time at the range though I could send bullets through the paper body no problem. Almost any situation can be a source of bad ideas and once my bad idea arrived it was unrelenting—why not point the gun at my head. This is not a death wish. I dislike heights for the same reason; the earth's gravity only holds when you don't think about it, the earth's gravity is an involuntary muscle. Do you ever drive on the highway when the car stops moving and the ground starts spinning faster and reverses? That's what I'm talking about. The whole Earth is sealed in pulverized reconstituted rock in case of sudden gravity reversal, to prevent a freeing of the innards. Preventing an organic takeover. Today there's a heaviness to being in possession of a uterus even if you don't think about it, and I suspect a lightness to running around without one. I overheard a woman rant about the cruelty of having children given that climate change is real. The teenagers around her were quiet and calm. It might be nice to burrow into the soil so that no one could flick you off casually and you could relax and smell your vegetal provenance.