pearl harbor

I don't know why sometimes people break down over the smallest things. Given my drive to place logic into every crevice of reality, sudden meltdowns are not permitted in my equations. Imagine a foreign feeling suddenly envelopes you in some way, and you have no idea what caused it. What could this mean? For one thing, it means it could happen again. For another, you would not know when it would happen. And finally, you would not know how to prevent such things. Imagine having no such control over your own self, a thing that should be most immune to such incomprehension.

I just read a short story inspired by alcoholism. The narrator goes through the same sense of lack of control. The only difference is that she is too drunk in her narrative to care, so the reader cares doubly for her. It's easy for me to do so, because I can lay a concise solution out on the ironing board, waiting for her to try it on.

Such tactics cannot be used on things whose roots remain unearthed. I suppose the medicine is somehow embedded in the very process of physical release, but I don't just want a reactive patch-up. Not knowing would mean no armor to iron, no armor to put on, and consequently, no defense against the very first moment of the blow. No matter how instantaneously the pain recoils, it's always the unpredictability that hits the hardest.

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