23/02/2023
Just down a flight of stairs and behind an unmarked door lives the greatest miracle of our time: a cap belonging to a bottle of fragrance-free moisturizing hand lotion that has been circling, with no perceptible variation in its speed or trajectory, inside the shallow basin of an elderly patient’s bathroom sink for eight days now, going clockwise around and around the bowl like a quarter in a coin vortex, with no interruptions human or divine, the sole exception being an earwig that came up through the drainpipe on the third night and threatened to desecrate the spectacle in progress, when suddenly, after a tense minute of aimless manoeuvring, something seemed to beckon the insect back to its dwelling, as though a hand had stretched forth out of nowhere and touched it on the shoulder, meanwhile another hand seemed to reach out and pry our ruminative fingers away from the lip of the sink, around which we had come to kneel in a semicircle, all four of us, our ears filled with the hypnotic whirring of plastic around porcelain, our eyes burning with the unblinking will not to blink, our lungs sufficiently breathless to prevent the cap from being blown off track, and our minds in deep contemplation and prayer, like those who would have knelt thusly around the circular heath where the eternal flame was once housed, kneeling as if under some spell, risking special punishment should the miracle be interrupted, like the bewitched man who believed that his fate was bound to a burning candle, although we discussed seriously in light of these risks the possibility that one of us might have to reach in with a napkin or some finer instrument to dispatch the insect while taking immense care not to interrupt or in any way influence the cap’s steady lap around the washbowl, a circuit that from beginning to end takes a little under two seconds just looking at it and counting, though the real problem, we agreed, was not the likelihood of influencing the cap, but the possibility that we might scare the insect into its path, meaning that the napkin-wielder’s angle of extraction would have to be precise, however this intervention ultimately proved to be unnecessary, since the earwig disappeared down the drain and has yet to resurface, and the cap continues to circle the bowl, like a hang glider caught in a thermal breeze, unable to land, a circuitous path best described as uniform, if not precisely circular, with successive laps of a perfectly consistent grace, as if propelled by an updraft from the pipe below, though no unseen currents of this sort can be felt, and as for the question of what force sustains it, some among us cling fearfully to the notion that it might at any moment break free of its invisible tether or some speck of dust might be brought to bear upon it which would cause it to veer away from its chosen trajectory and sail out of the bathroom window like a flat rock off the shoulder of a mountain or a swimmer ejected from a waterslide, and such an occurrence would mean that the cap was not at all what it appeared to be, and we must therefore conclude, based on what we know so far, that it remains in motion not of its own accord but is moved by some force beyond our ken, that the cap is at once mechanically dependent and miraculously free, and the more we bring ourselves to consider this paradox, the more our fear subsides and we can allow ourselves to marvel at and appreciate this dance in place, wherein every pirouette around the drain is a vibrant proclamation of purpose, with the same disposition as a solar-powered clock converting sunlight into deep time, the same persistence as a watermill harnessing hydropower to churn grain, just as we ourselves have derived a sense of vital energy from this tempest in a teapot, this storm in a sink, which we now call our reliquary, a word bestowed by one of our number because it reminds him of the receptacle that housed the sponge soaked in vinegar with which our lord was anointed, and so it has come to pass, and pass, and pass, and so we have come to regard as a holy artifact the bottle of hand lotion from which the cap was initially flung, even if no one knows why this object in particular should merit such a blessing, such unbroken attention, and though many among us believe that this is the very essence of religious truth, to know just enough to be baffled, we cannot help but wonder until our ability to wonder is sapped, or our minds are emptied of every last bit of scepticism, which, in the end, is why we think of god as a force and not a person, for this sort of faith cannot be sustained by a truly living soul, indeed, miracles cannot survive in a reality whose structures are constantly being tested, and though it may test credibility, I nevertheless find myself obliged to say that the media knows nothing of all this, for we are called to put public opinion aside in the interest of protecting the funnel, lest we never again be offered an opportunity to witness such a demonstration of the universe’s fecundity, and realize that we are living in a world where entirely new things can happen, that it is indeed possible to walk into the bathroom late one evening, tiptoeing soundlessly across the room in order not to awaken the patient dozing in her bed, and make an arbitrary decision to apply a dollop of lotion to my knuckles, which have a tendency to crack at the slightest hint of dryness, or any mention of growing discord, excessive handwringing, among our volunteers, who in recent days have privately accused one another of being untrustworthy guardians of the funnel, and who believe that this sacred duty is theirs and theirs alone, including one spiritual care provider under my guidance, who refuses to shut his eyes, much less sleep at night, preferring instead to pace the halls, waiting for my energy to flag and my attention to falter so that he can have his turn in the observation chair, at which point he perks up with a fearsome intensity, a relish unequalled by any of the other volunteers, who are somehow content enough to sleep and take rest from their duties knowing that they are within a consecrated radius of this great anomaly, and that space itself is teeming with unwritten laws, but if the cap has taught us anything it is that these ostensible constants are no less tenuous than human promises, easily compromised by the faintest of perturbations, the slightest rearrangement of molecules, or, in this case, a lathered-up hand that was too bold in its application, the very act of which changed the shape of all that has followed, just as any small change in one aspect of an ecosystem can throw it wildly out of balance, and just as terrestrial things have their celestial counterparts, which move together in consonance like a pantograph stretched between heaven and earth, meaning that somewhere in the cosmos there must be a celestial body whose orbit mirrors that of the funnel, a white dwarf whooshing around a cosmic rim, or a misty halo encircling an interstellar cloud, this being the favoured explanation of the elderly patient with whom we had been coming occasionally to pray and talk and read scripture in order to counterbalance our sense of impotence at having to explain this imperturbable, self-sustaining object, now surpassing two hundred hours of unbroken rotation, perhaps the last vestige of mystery left on earth, the natural order overwritten entirely, the cap not just a revelation but proof of a higher, supra-natural order, for this is not just some inert commodity that has been handed to us with no rhyme or reason, but rather a church bell tolling in silent celebration of the truth we are charged with safeguarding, and henceforth we must be prepared to demonstrate a similar faith in any number of other objects beyond our spiritual apprehension, like hotel pens or plastic vampire teeth, double batteries and single gloves, tiny sample vials of perfume and compact discs scratched to oblivion, ephemeral items that one could not even hope to give away for free, not even to the charity shops with their donation bins of jumbled iconography, heaped high with convenience store collectibles and religious kitsch of the vaguest provenance, an electronic rosary in the shape of a digital pet, or an expired milk-chocolate crucifix, nothing that does not belong in the perpetual stew, nothing that cannot be worshipped, and we must not be afraid to bow our heads to these items, to regard them as if they possess some heavenly light, to derive meaning from everything we encounter, no matter how whimsical or banal, including that which appears to be exhausted of all spiritual potency, for the fact is that anything is capable of hosting a miracle, regardless of its size, condition, or apparent lack of aura, as long as it is intrinsically holy, and if it carries symbolic weight, and if it holds a kinetic charge like that of the funnel, then it can serve as a spiritual weathervane to orient our faith, to return us to a state of grace, just as even the most inert of objects have their disciples, like the boy I once knew who carried a bar of pink soap in his pocket for no other reason than he understood it to be the truest representation of divinity, having taken quite literally the idea that cleanliness is next to godliness, and if he were alive today I imagine he would be praying with all his might to the cap, which suggestively resides within that cradle of hygiene, the washbowl, the sacrarium, the fount, the whirlpool at the centre of our existence, which is to say that as long as we continue to trust in the funnel, as long as we surrender to its rhythms, then we can confidently say that we are all moving in the same direction, and not just tumbling aimlessly through the void, but on that note, now that I am aware of the hour, I should take a moment to draw the curtains and turn off the radio before relieving the current vigil-holder from observation duty and allowing myself to settle in for the next shift, in preparation for which I must remind myself to peruse the list of potential hazards that has been tacked to the bathroom wall, where I have added one more item in small, discreet letters, which is the word “temperature,” since the nights have been especially warm these past few days, and the bathroom gets very hot, and we all know that when heat circulates it causes thermal expansion, which perhaps explains the downward drift of our camera mount, which has this habit of slowly nodding, like a train passenger sleeping chin-to-chest, but considering the seriousness of the situation, it should come as no surprise that I have agreed with the hospital administration’s decision to banish visitors from this wing, many of whom have grown disturbingly fond of coming here at all hours, patently disregarding their well-being, and that of the funnel, by crowding the doorway, and I believe it is time we set an upper limit on this accumulation of busybodies and summon hospital security to turn away anyone who looks as if they might wish to enter, or has already attempted to insinuate themselves into the situation, or is lingering in the hallway outside the door and begging for admission with a look in their eye that suggests an urgent need to verify rumours, but for the time being there is no immediate cause for alarm, since few interlopers wander the halls at this hour of the night apart from the colleague I spoke of earlier, our sleepless friend, who announces his presence with every use of the drop-cup coffee dispenser, which tends to disgorge its contents with a dolorous, tinny clatter that reverberates through the hallways and undermines the mental privacy of anyone who might be trying to focus, and yet, as I sit here watching the cap spin, I must admit that I am less worried about potential dangers from outside the room than those that multiply within, for the truth is that no one in this hospital, myself included, has any true understanding of what is happening inside the funnel, though we all feel obliged to keep watch over it anyway, and there is a limit to my capacity for attention when I am tired or hungry, and I begin to doubt whether my own vigilance has been satisfactory as my eyes drift to the door, where, as it turns out, our friend from the hallway appears to have been standing this whole time, watching me watch the funnel, his face lit up with a lantern-jawed expression of wonderment, his expression that of someone who has just realized he is still holding his breath, his hands trembling as he offers me a cup of coffee, a gesture that is not entirely welcome given the circumstances, though I must admit that I could use the caffeine tonight, so I accept and thank him with a weak smile, taking a sip as he looks on expectantly, as though I might offer him my chair, and before long he breaks the silence, excitedly telling me about his new theory of the cap’s rotation, which is that the bowl itself is actually the sacred object, while the cap is just a secondary phenomenon which skims the surface of the sink like a needle reads grooves, conveying information encoded in vibrations, and perhaps if we could decipher these vibrations, we might discover an eleventh commandment, or an alphanumerical cipher, or some sort of message from beyond, and while this is all well and good, I am at a loss now as I try recall if the man on duty before me had locked the outer door, but even if he did, it does not change anything, for my colleague has somehow come into possession of a key, and now he is here, trying to commandeer the observation chair once again, compromising the integrity of the funnel by speaking near it, incanting over it, putting unnecessary air behind his words, air that could blow the cap off course, but all of this aside, my colleague claims to be here with an update from the nurses, who tell us that it is only a matter of time until the patient’s organs will fail, that she is herself circling the drain as they say, but he is naturally more interested in what this means in relation to the funnel, the way that both the spinning cap and the human heart fulfil a hidden purpose, miraculously independent of our will, performing essential functions with no input from us whatsoever, and he is right, of course, but somewhere in the midst of his monologue, I notice that my arms and legs have become leaden, that my head has slumped down so far it is grazing my chest, as if my body were following the example of the camera mount and sinking into a state of forced repose, which can only mean that I have gone beyond mere fatigue into a coma, but no, no, no, I have not lost consciousness at all: there is still some activity in my brain, magnificently alert, though my body is gravely unresponsive, and yet I can lift my eyes just enough to see that the expression on my colleague’s face has changed and now resembles that of someone who has just planted an enchanted seed and is waiting for the magic to unfold, and at some point, I do know not exactly when, I find myself in a drowsy half-sleep, my mind drifting in and out of consciousness, a brief flash of light before all goes dark again, the coffee cup slipping from my hand and falling to the floor with a muffled clunk, and when I reach down to grab it, I find that it is now packed to the brim with snow, a jolt of strangeness that triggers a cascade of infernal images, some of them faint and others richly detailed: a grey geyser of steam erupting from the mouth of the funnel, a horde of earwig hatchlings crawling up the wall and squeezing through a crack in the ceiling tile, a rush of nebulous forms roaring around me like a motorcyclist in a globe of death, and then the final image, of the cap floating lifelessly in the sink, a dead dove in a birdbath, a sliver of my own mortality, and before I can scoop up the bird in order to resuscitate it, I find myself abruptly awake and squinting into the dilated eyes of my colleague, which appear completely devoid of colour, like two empty paint buckets staring into space, and I want to say that, all this time, he has been holding a lighter to the skin of my left calf, but it is just the gradual return of warmth to my extremities, and as my eyes continue to roam his face, I can tell by the loosening of the tape above his eyebrows that he is approaching the end of another sleepless night, and now, grasping my wrist with whatever energy he has left, he pries open my fist with his fingers, and places the cap, inanimate, into my palm, and though I want to say something, nothing comes to me, and somewhere a door swings shut, leaving me alone with the ravaged remains of the funnel, a camera pointed hopelessly at the floor, and the fast-moving flames of doubt spreading within me, like a fire started from nothing at all…...
Just down a flight of stairs and behind an unmarked door lives the greatest miracle of our time: a cap belonging to a bottle of fragrance-free moisturizing hand lotion that has been circling, with …
