Trippiness Postulate Redux Plus

   There comes a point when the "trippiness" over the loss of a thing is overcome by the trippiness of the fact that one had that thing in the first place. Pretty sure I've brought this up in the past, specifically in relation to death, but the paradigm can be expanded. Specifically, thus-- on the long bus ride home last night, the bed I found myself to be missing turned out to be my own. Two years out, two months back, and my own bed isn't so strange anymore.

   Whoa.

   It was the oddest thing the first night back from my mission. Not that it was like things weren't real-- when is anything ever like things are real? It was so cold, with the windows apparently unsealed; the room was so cramped, with the mountains of give-away clothes that weren't ours, stuffed into giant black trash bags and abandoned in the room that had been sans occupant up until under an hour ago. I was so tired.

   And I couldn't sleep.

   Back on the bus. The driver, Toni, asks me her question, I think sometime not long after one midnight rest stop. I can no longer recall what that question is, though it may have something to do with this very thing, the bed that I missed. I think it has to do with the mission, though.

   I didn't know she knew.

   What a mission. By this point both fresh and only a memory, too remote to do any real harm-- this is the transition point; that must be why I bring it up. Her asking. About the mission, about the bed, it's same question.

   I always have to be circumambulatory when I'm asked about it-- the floodgates open up, if I go into any details at all. So I let them think what they want. Figure it's easier than giving "the talk." I say I give birth... Let everyone assume I'm a female, even though I'm a male seahorse, maybe.

   But she asked me, like she already knew about it. I'm able to be both terse and revelatory. It's nice. It must be nice. Must be. Like I said, I can't remember what the question is, only that there is one, hanging in the still air of the moving school bus, like a plum black as the midnight around it. It possesses weight, and form, but takes up no space.

   I'm so tired here, and it's so cold...