Despite being at the secret center of the universe I am (of course) utterly ordinary, now leading an uneventful life in a quiet town in a European backwater far from any notion of “home”, with nothing interesting to say, nothing interesting to do, just biding my time until there’s none left, almost none, when then I’ll look back at what I did and didn’t do, the hours unspent productively, when none of it will matter.

It’s one way to live, I suppose.

And as I write this it’s all sincere, with the soft round pain of a three-drink hangover behind my right eye making me feel empty and stupid on a Saturday morning. The center of my universe is broken.

But later – when the water and coffee kick in, when I take out the trash and feel the sky above me, walk to the grocery store and stretch my eyes by looking at the far distant mountains that I will never climb – I’ll feel magnificent, and the whole great wheel will start turning again.

I will live another ordinary, uneventful day, alive at the center of it all.