The Anatomy of a Sneeze

The orange of evening gracefully laid.
The sun descended to the western horizon.
The garden swing near where I stood
swayed in the gentle breeze.
I rested my hands on my knees with a sigh,
thinking about my future—
when I leave my city forever,
to dwell in a place aloof and far from where I came.
The sealed boxes on the floor pulled me in,
toward the shadow of paperwork awaiting in a new city.

​"Hs-Hs"—pepper slipped into my nose, but I didn't sneeze.
Its spice dissolved in my throat,
laying out a long red carpet for its feet to tread.
As I waited for the burst, hyperawareness took over.
"Ha-Ha-shi," I practiced in my mind.
​Then my eyes shifted toward—

The bonita lift of a grand, sparkly bald head,
shining brighter than my own future.
A round, red man—
lashes fluttering on his upper cheeks, sweet sweat wearing down.
Exhaustion flowed off him as he jerked it away
with a sigh superior to the world.

​I watched his performance like a ghost,
eyes fixed to their goal, head locked onto its sneeze,
While I unconsciously nodded to his poise.
​A couple stood statically on the other side.
Another girl winged the eyes of a thin friend who waited too patiently.
"... “— ... a”— “ ... eh”—.“Ahh!"
Her partner—a bowl-cut boy—screamed as he tripped over a pebble he tried to kick.
​Swift as thought, his partner caught him without moving an inch—
falling toward the charming man he tripped for.
Like a prince falling toward a shiny-headed princess,
whose bottom was cloaked by a falling leaf, draped into a princess gown.
And he shined brighter—dramatically scrumptious.

​I tried to unlearn the vision, but failed cruelly.
My sneeze was almost there—1, 2, 3... soon.
​Beside me stood my nephew with his phone,
quietly clicking a picture like a mysterious shadow of a shrimp.
He captured the worker's face, adding cartoonish plump lips and glittery whiskers.

​A few steps back, my daughter stood on the verge of tears,
wiping the grief from her glossy eyes,
sharing farewells with her friends—one open-armed, the other sobbing aside.
A few steps hence, my son bent his knees
to test the stretchability of his jeans, eyes wide as eggs.

​My sweet little dog sat on the grass near his bowl.
And the food inside—
an artistic, homemade dish sleeping so plainly, so flatly, so lamely,
That I wanted to kick it all the way to Antarctica.
Taking in the sight, my dog sweetly decorated its beauty with a dry leaf,
wearing a smile that was anything but happy.

​Overhead, sharp-beaked crows fought:
"Oi, I'm the Lord!" — "No, I am!"
They laughed like pirates in a voice that rolled, fell, and broke—
eyes like bullets, ready to flip the world upside down.

​I didn't find it humorous—not really.
But it made it impossible to pause for my sneeze,
as if they might puncture the air and tickle me from within.

​The whole scene turned slappable as I tilted my head—no offense intended.
It didn't make me angry, just pulled silly faces—
slow-motioned, like laughing at 0.05× speed.
I looked around. I looked at myself.

​"Ah-'Ah-Shi!" I sneezed.
​Without a second of relief,
I erupted into a horrendous laugh,
through my nose and mouth.
Everyone turned to look at me,
shrinking into tiny dots.
My eyes swelled with tears,
but the moment lingered,
as if it would clumsily sit beside me,
Without doing anything for how lame it is.

​The picture circled in my mind.
Standing at the north, reaching its closest proximity,
embracing sweat, laughter, and stretchable jeans.
I joined the madness right after the sneeze—wheezing,
Wanting to do everything: spin around, sit down, breathe.
​What a sneeze it was.
I’ll remember it for years and years hence.

And nobody around would even know
Why I even laughed.