Jessamyn sat on a bench in the middle of the city park, legs crossed into applesauce.
She opened her eyes slowly, blinking into the sunlight. Some gray clouds had moved in across the horizon; it would rain soon, but the sun would hold out for a little longer.
The Now that she had been inhabiting dissolved into the Then, and the flow of time returned in its cacophony. The chemically green grass was still chemically green; the traffic rolling past was still rolling past. She was still twelve cement blocks away from the parking lot where she’d parked the car.
But at least her breathing had calmed; at least she’d reached a glimmer of inner peace.
She closed her eyes for another moment, a moment of resignation because she had things to do, places to be, biological needs that were perpetually present to be met. Besides, eventually this moment on the bench would turn into its own obligation. Duty over bliss, that seemed to be the way of existence.
The smell of the air had turned from the subtle honey of sunshine to the mushroomy dankness of the impending storm, and while she knew the storm would likewise pass over, while she knew that the sunshine was the constant across which the glooming passed in its transience, she also knew she didn’t want to get caught in the deluge, not today.
So she slipped on her tennis shoes, sighed deeply one more time, and made her way across one, two… twelve cement blocks back to her car.