Edge of the Coin

That kind of day, one where a glance out the window shows a leaf swirling downward in the white-gold sun, slowing the heart in a graceful spiral to the ground.

And you think..."The future is when? Is what?" All the days of your life condense in the mind, creating a singularity of shiny density. The matter compresses. It grows smaller but heavier. A black hole (or is it a white hole?) forming in the skull. You think it is going to suck everything in and you won't escape.

The explosion just might change your mind. Bright matter bursts forth to spray in all directions in shards of thought, of memory, scattering your mind across the universe. It whirls and twists in a paroxysm of joy laminates with sadness, encrusted with nostalgia and longing. The heart wants to follow, it does.

But fear is the stake linked to the chain fastened to the collar that keeps you in the yard.

"Fear of what?", you ask yourself again for a time uncounted. A future you cannot predict? A past you cannot change? Fear that you won't be able to figure out what to do next before it is too late to do anything?

The shards glitter and gambol as if each is animated by the spirits of dolphins at play in the sea. They twist about in a waltz the mind can scarcely comprehend. They move too fast. The speed of things is itself a fount of concern. Concrete decisions seem impossible to make when the data upon which they are founded will not sit still long enough for confident analysis. Sit still. They won't sit still. And if they sit still, you might know their position but you won't necessarily know their momentum.

Out on the lawn, Werner Heisenberg kneels,  grinning at you through the window. At his feet is a box marked "Schrödinger's cat". Werner's hand is poised on the handle, eyebrows arched with a look that seems to say "Shall I open the box?" You laugh. Physics as a monumental joke in the guise of a thought experiment designed to help you unravel the mystery of your life.

Rub your eyes. Make him go away. He begins to fade just as the handle turns. Through him you see the thought shards spinning so fast they look like a ball of molten iridium. They slow and coalesce, taking a shape you recognize, but seems slightly alien.

It is a coin. A silver dollar from your youth, spinning on its edge. It slows and you can make out some faint details, a dead president you never knew but now seems an oracle.

This coin with its knife-bright edge spinning, spinning, leaving you to wonder when it will come to rest. Aha! Rest! This idea releases a trickle of relief in your head and heart.

It will come to rest. The future may seem to be a spinning coin that can't be grasped. Don't worry, though. You don't have to call heads or tails, Future or Past. It will fall into place, this bright, shiny currency of potential fulfilled, and you will hold it by the edges of the Now.