Excerpt: Men with Bellybutton Souls

What began as a moment of lingering contemplation has turned into a daydream. He’s not really staring at me anymore but toward me and perhaps through me at whatever he sees that isn’t me but beyond me. Outside of me. Not even here in the car with me but trapped in his head as he just stares. I take out my cellphone and roll the ball to the camera icon and then hold it up to face the glass and think maybe he’ll come back to earth if I attempt to make contact. I press the ball and the camera makes its little faux click noise and I see him now both on my phone, frozen in pixels, and right there outside my window. I think of Hume and how he would say that I have a perception in my mind that is based on an impression, an outward sentiment if you will, of a kid standing outside my window staring at me. And how later, if he ever gets to wiping my car down with his bright red towel and I don’t have to see him staring at me anymore, I’ll have an idea in my mind of the kid standing outside my window and staring at me, because he’s not actually doing it at the time that I’m thinking about it. Right now, for instance. I remember his standing there, with his hat turned backwards and his blank stare that seemed to last longer than the director’s cut of Dances With Wolves, and it is an idea I’m entertaining based on a previous impression. But then I can take my phone out and look at his picture and experience him again just as I had when he was actually there, for I’m entertaining and outward sentiment of him, albiet on my phone. And I think about all the stuff that we think about and how much of it is just an idea based on some shitty perception through a window streaked with soapy water.