Many years ago now when my cousin Jack and I were coked to the gills on a variety of psychotropic substances in Santa Monica in Los Angeles, we stood along the beach at midnight and observed the ferris wheel spinning on Santa Monica Pier. Its rainbow lights illuminated the dark beach below and lit up the undersides of a cluster of grey clouds which hung over the pier. The wheel spun slowly towards us while the lights performed some preprogrammed light show. It was beautiful but there was also something a little somber about the whole thing. The tight clockwork precision of its lighted spokes felt jarringly artificial to us now that we had rocketed through the exosphere and into the blackness of outer space. We agreed that the little glimmer of sadness we were experiencing was because we could sense that the ferris wheel could not feel time.

Years later I would tell this story to my friend Judy. Judy was from LA and for whatever reason we were talking about that very ferris wheel. I told her that now every time I see any ferris wheel, I can’t help but feel a little sadness knowing it exists outside of time.

Before I left for Berlin in 2019, Judy came over to my house and hand-delivered a letter to my sister while I was away. In it, among other things, she had written about the ferris wheel. I remember being surprised she had remembered something so insignificant.

Two days ago in Seattle, I felt a shadow pass over me. I had awoken that morning to find that my right eye had darkened, which is something that happens every now and then when I get particularly stressed out and sad. I groaned knowing it would be some time until my vision cleared up again, an event which is as spontaneous as the darkening of the eye. It could be six months from now for all I know. I felt the oppressive hand of some cosmic cataclysm hovering above my head . . . something up there was moving backward and taking me along with it. I put on my jacket and boots and went for a walk.

Having no alternative, I plunged myself in my deepest reveries and began walking. My body automatically pointed itself toward Elliott Bay, towards water. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever . . . and so I went in the direction of it, thinking its ancient gentleness would help alleviate the mysterious psychic pain I had felt all morning and afternoon.

Along the Seattle Waterfront I passed through crowds of happy people . . . the rain had let up and the weather was nice. It was relatively warm for November. Being out among people, I began to feel all right again. I put my hands in my pockets and walked as close to the water as I could. I watched the water-gazers and gazed along with them. In no time I found myself at the ferris wheel there.

Some part of myself was protecting me just then, and so I did not think much of it. I stopped and took a picture and then kept walking. I walked for hours along the water and the streets surrounding Pike Place Market . . . I bought postcards and a cup of coffee and looked for a place to sit down and fill them out. But now the world did not feel as kind as it had hours before. The temperature had dropped and I felt a strong urge to get away from the crowded streets . . . I wanted to be with Felix and Jupiter back at the house. So I began to walk the many miles home in the cold dark. I felt that same misery from earlier for reasons I could not readily place.

Retracing my steps, I once again passed the same ferris wheel from before. This time it was lit up red white and blue . . . the lights expanding outward from the bullseye in the center, the same animated pattern looping mindlessly over and over. I felt a little sadness that the ferris wheel existed outside of time. It could not feel it like I could.

The part of my brain in charge of protecting me from my own memories had shut off for the night. I felt the full weight of my own history press down upon me like a curse. And gazing up at the ferris wheel illuminating the darkness above the lonely square where I stood, I remembered my friend Judy and began to cry.

Judy died nearly four years ago now. I stood there thinking about the last few times I’d seen her before I never saw her again, which was around this time of year. I thought about how she’d texted me in the middle of the night just hours before she died and how that still haunted me. And I remembered that letter she had written me years ago, the one in which she mentioned the ferris wheel and how she’d had a dream about me. At the end of the letter she’d said she was sad that I was leaving and that she cared about me. Did Judy know I cared about her too? That I dream about her still? I never told her how much all that had meant to me, and now I never can. Now Judy exists outside of time too.

The ferris wheel churned counterclockwise on its axle above Elliott Bay. Its movements were utterly silent. I watched the animation on the lighted spokes shoot out from the bullseye, saw their ghostly reflections waver upon the dark water below, and felt the artificiality of it all. It had begun to drizzle. I turned up my collar and walked home alone in the dark with the light of the city behind me.