Sometimes I glom

I’m generally private and prefer no one else in the room but me. But there are some people I can’t help but glom on. I feel like gum on the bottom of their shoe.

That happened this morning when I time traveled to 1931, Paris, and the studio of Salvador Dalí. He was in the midst of a painting and I got down on the ground and grabbed his ankles. It wasn’t my intention. I’d only gone there to watch him paint.

Dalí didn’t mind and continued with the painting. I held on for hours. My arms didn’t get tired. I felt like someone who’d been in the desert for a while and was drinking one long sip of water through a straw.

I don’t know how much longer it was when I finally let go of Dalí’s ankles. I stood up and nodded at him. He nodded back. Painters realize how much words are a waste of time, and keep things to a few essential body movements. I’ve heard mathematicians are the same way.

I time traveled home. Fully inspired, I went out to my backyard with a shovel and began digging. I dug for hours. Eventually I reached an underground river. I held my breath and slipped into the river. I rode underwater for a distance. I can hold my breath up to a half hour. That may seem like a lot, but I’m not the world’s record holder. That’s Lloyd Gance Devinson. He’s been clocked at four hours, thirteen minutes, though that’s the moment he died.

Eventually the river let out into Lake Pasper.  I swam to the surface and lay out on the bank to dry off. I felt an itch on my right calf. I pulled up my pants leg and found a leech stuck to my skin. I peeled it off and tossed it into the water. I went back to soaking in the sun.