Occupational Hazard

Life doesn't seem quite real tonight. Time is standing still. The world is waiting. For what, I don't know.

This feeling of separateness, of not being part of the world, of anticipation, is an occupational hazard, I suppose.

I've spent the day reading. Stepping out of this reality and into worlds created by others. In those other worlds, I exist, but only as an observer. The result is this odd sense of disconnect from reality.

First, it was Oscar Wilde's Salomé, a modern retelling of the death of John the Baptist and the girl who danced and won the reward of the prophet's head on a platter. I was reading it with an eye toward the embedded Greek myths in the text. I found Artemis, the virginal goddess of the moon and the hunt, and Persephone, the queen of the underworld. There were overtones of Hamlet, too.

Then, I read the first three chapters from a member of my writing group's work in progress. It's an otherworldly tale told by an introspective narrator.

Little wonder then, that I'm pacing around a darkened house and occasionally sliding outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of the moon.