“Sunbeams” by Alex Thomson
Sunbeams bend softly through a dusty window.
Blue ink sticks to the page, and the scent mingles in the air.
The pen knows nothing of choice or indecision.
It moves with mechanical precision, unspooling truths like delicate needlework.
The page, bleached, crisp, and marked with meaning, whispers back thoughtlessly.
The writer, harried and impatient, scratches his scalp and presses his glasses, which dangle precariously, further up the bridge of his nose.
He doesn’t know yet that the words, which he scrupulously gathers, like a flock of fledgling ducks, will eventually sit on a weathered bookshelf, immutable. Eternal.
Or how they will remain, long after the ink has dried and the scent has settled, like ghosts, in the memories of people who feel their cool presence while crossing the street or sitting on the subway.
How closely he came to shutting off the small lamp that sits on his desk, dutifully observing, lighting the way ahead, and to pushing in his creaky wooden chair for what could have been the last time, sighing, before retiring to bed.
In the hospital where he drew his last breath, stories untold hum in the fluorescent lighting above, their rhythm marked by steady beeping, quickening now, and then slowing into a single tone—a final cadenza.
Orphaned words float silently out of the room and down the hall and out into the atmosphere, rising, punctuated by the cacophony of car horns and bustling activity in the street below, carried upward by the draft, before collecting like dust in the sunbeam of another study’s window, waiting to be swept up again.
Alex Thomson is a licensed therapist specializing in trauma, anxiety, and OCD. In his spare time, he enjoys writing, birding, cooking, and spending time with his wife and their two dogs, cat, and gecko. Instagram: @talktherapywithalex.