Book Of Illusions Originally published in LitRag, 2005, I'm pretty sure. Limb. Out walking one afternoon, I see a three-legged dog trot by. Later, I notice that my neighbor is sawing a limb off a tree. I think, Don’t throw that away—let the dog have it. * Fog. A cold day follows a warm one, and the town is wrapped in a thick fog. As I pass through it, the fog closes up behind me as if I were never there. The next day, it snows nearly twelve inches. While shoveling, I am delighted to turn around and discover that the snow has not closed up behind me. * Book. The cheese and wine I have at dinner have been well aged, and are excellent. Later, I am disappointed by the book I’m reading and set it aside. Perhaps it will be better in a few years. * Pajamas. In the summer, I sleep in my shorts; therefore, my shorts are my pajamas. So, when I take off my pants at the end of the day, I am putting on my pajamas. So taking off clothes is putting on clothes. * Lights. Outside my bedroom window is a street light. I have become accustomed to sleeping in its glare, but when we decide to take a vacation at a camp on the lake, I look forward to the light’s absence. When I lay down to sleep in our cabin, however, I discover that the adjacent cabin’s porchlight occupies the same position in the window as did the street light at home. I am angered, as I fall asleep, to imagine that the streetlight and the porchlight are in cahoots. * Park. A popular song mentions a famous park, and when I walk through the park, I think of the song. But when, in a different park in another town, I hear the song playing through a boombox, I think, No, wrong park. * Woodpecker. Several mornings in a row, we’re roused from sleep at daybreak by a persistent metallic clanging that seems to be coming from a machine operating somewhere in the neighborhood. When my wife asks “What is that sound?” I drowsily joke that it’s a woodpecker pecking at a stop sign. One morning I go to the corner for milk. I hear the metallic sound and turn to see what it is. It is a woodpecker pecking at a stop sign. * Criminal. It is winter, and the branches of trees are bare. On the television news, an accused criminal, walking from a police car to the courthouse, covers his handcuffs with his jacket. Later, a report from California shows trees that are fully in leaf. For shame! * Basketball. For my birthday, my mother buys me a CD. When I listen to it, I realize that it’s the same music I used to listen to while practicing free throws in the driveway. So, when my mother’s birthday comes around, I buy her a basketball. * Wall. For hours I sit working in a room with high, narrow windows, each separated by a stretch of cinderblock wall. In two of the windows, two buildings are visible, each isolated by its respective frame. When, later, I go outside and wish to walk from one of these buildings to the other, I think, No—the wall is in the way. * Sand. When we go to the beach, we stay in a rental house where rules are posted about sand. Sand should be washed off with the hose next to the driveway. Sandy clothes should not be removed in the bathroom. Shoes must be left in the foyer, to protect the wooden floor from sand. By week’s end, we have grown extremely sensitive to the contaminating power of sand, to the extent that our car, and everything else that returns with us from vacation, feels tainted. Furthermore we are convinced that anything which has touched sand, and then touches another object, infects that object with sand. It is autumn before I am confident that our house is not slowly filling up with sand. * Coat. My friend and I have the same coat, and our coats are inadvertently switched at a party. The following day a cell phone in my pocket rings. It’s for my friend. Automatically, I say, “Wrong number.” Only after I’ve hung up do I realize that I should have said, “Wrong coat,” or, better, “He’s not in.” * Coyote. While driving at six AM along empty streets, I am surprised to see a coyote in the crosswalk in front of the school. Three hours later, children spill from a school bus and pass the same spot. Look out for the coyote! * Joke. At a dinner party, a college professor tells me that she is a demographer. For weeks afterward, I apply this suffix to everything I do. When I set the table, I am a dinnographer. When I move the sofa, I am a furnographer. I become a memographer when composing a memo to my colleagues, and a privetographer while trimming the hedge. Eventually I tire of the joke and stop making it. When I meet an old woman who tells me that she was once a court stenographer, I roll my eyes. What, is she trying to be funny? * Curve. In a new section of town, a curved office building is built along a curved length of road. But persistent drainage problems mean that the road must be straightened. When this is done, however, the building is left curved. * Electricity. I spend the morning repairing an electrical outlet. In diagnosing the problem, I trace with my mind the flow of current through the wires. The same afternoon, I install a new sink, directing the flow of water from the pipes into the faucet. That night, as my son steps into the bathtub, I momentarily panic, fearing that he will be electrocuted. * Chair. In our house, four armless chairs slide easily under the table. But a similar chair, with arms, does not fit. When a guest occupies it, I wonder, What the hell’s his problem? * Fire. My son tells me that the human body is mostly water. Later, my wife says that a bowl of popcorn is mostly air. In the evening, as I stack logs in the fireplace, I think that they are mostly fire. * Breath. All of the food is at the grocery store, and its customers distribute it throughout the town. Meanwhile, garbage accumulates throughout the town, and sanitation workers consolidate it at the dump. I cut the grass and pack it into bags; then, I tear open a bag of fertilizer, and spread it over the yard. A story, read on the radio, finds its way into the ears of people all over the country, while votes from every state install a single man in office. Flies stick to flypaper, doves are released into the sky. Your breath joins the breaths of six billion, and a moment later, you inhale six billion breaths into your body. * Soda. On the street, people walk by drinking soda. The grocery aisles are packed with soda, and every public building contains a soda machine. The bus stops bear advertisements for soda, and a news report blames soda for a variety of health problems. When my wife brings home a six-pack of diet cola, I gasp in horror. It’s here. * Static. There is a thunderstorm, which disrupts our TV reception, leaving only static. Later, the clouds move on, to rain on some other town, and TV service is restored. The static, too, has moved on to someone else’s television. * Work. All week, I work, and on Friday I am paid. I spend the money over the weekend. On Monday, I am surprised to realize that my work has not been undone. * President. The President habitually mispronounces a particular word. During a speech in my home town, our local state representative mispronounces the same word. I can’t believe I voted for her. * Grinder. I attend a bingo game with my father. Numbered balls are poured into a rotating basket, and come out in a different order. My mother has asked him to pick up some meat, so we stop at the butcher shop on the way home. The butcher presses beef into the grinder, and the ground meat comes out the other end. It is the same meat, just in a different order. * Leaves. Leaves are piled by the side of the road. Then one of them flies away, because it is a sparrow. c2005 by J. Robert Lennon.