Constellation Jones

It feels like being swept along in a surging river. I reach out for rocks, pieces of information, something I can cling to, but I’m yanked from them almost immediately, submerged and spinning, swallowing water, and then for a moment my head pops up and I gasp for air, hoping to get my bearings and grab hold of a branch or something certain, but then I’m pulled along again, spiralling downstream….

This whole thing, this trek through the land of illness, has the definitive feel of an ancient Greek Odyssey, and I’ve come to believe that I’m on a hero’s quest.

Quietly, at dawn, as I’m wheeled down through the subterranean tunnels that connect the university hospitals, the porters serve as my guides.

Their various languages flock overhead, the mysterious syllables disperse above me and it’s like they’re communicating a kind of weather instead of words. Descending into this unexplored dimension we pass creatures and topography as strange and wonderful as mythology, my porter/guides taking me on obscure missions where I must slay monsters, solve riddles and exhibit great feats of strength and determination in order to inch closer to my destiny, to my ultimate goal.

And somewhere past imagination, our son Jones pours through space. Laid bare to mystery, he carries messages and lessons from beyond. He hurtles through the firmament now, our meteor, cresting planets with a fierce, unstoppable purpose– he’s everywhere at once, multivalent. He’s assembling in slow wonder inside my wife, while I, caught in a terrestrial and mortal struggle, battle to be present, hurrying to be there to catch him, when like some sort of impossible star descending, he falls into our life.