That Instant

 a customer speaks to you with words they would not use if they met you ninety five feet away and you know it for a fact because you stood up from the cash register and they realized (very quickly) that you were very able to drag and throw them through the sliding door toward the wrong end of pelletized glass over a difference of two dollars.

That Instant

you see who they're still in touch with after you had a running fight for three months about them literally sexting them and staying out after hours way too late and magically happening to run into each other and finding out they're a known rapist and telling her and still they're just firing away ... you get the "ewwwwwwww gross, what the fuck?!?!?" feeling of surprise instead of a an "oh yeah, makes sense, why am I shocked at all that her behavior hasn't changed" feeling.

That Instant

you realize you have to move your Al-Anon meeting, but you actually have to move your matinee film to fit around it and you gas at adult problems.

That Instant

you walk up to an old man with more teeth missing than present and the few still in silver capped while he's speaking with your charge and he stands up and cannot recognize your face and goes "oooooooh, what's up dog" like he's seen you before, but you know the scars on your face make you pretty god damn unmistakable and you know for a fact he hasn't seen you before, but you play along just to see how comfy he'll try to get and you almost ask him where he knows you from. 

That Instant

you realize she was never bisexual after she's drunk herself into a raging stupor and shouts at you that you are a "cock sucking faggot."

That Instant

you convince yourself that you are static, you have sentenced yourself to death and you should find a quiet plot of land with a porch and push your way in through the lattice along its side that a few enterprising rats chewed through and lay down to die.

That Instant

The floor begins to tremble and you hear the single, high pitched, distant screech of the midnight freight train pierce the walls of your bedroom and you remember how much you loved to go for bike rides at night to feel that sound in your bones.

That Instant

You realize you are pushing your cycles and cams and pistons and engraved toothsets of finished brass over to force change so the person who loves you can see your moss and lichened belly clearly.

That Instant

you remember blacking out was a reasonable solution.

That Instant

you understand you are creating outside of yourself because there remains an enormous gap in language that will not bridge itself.

That Instant

your cat enters the room licking his chops like he ate something very toothsome, but his food dish is in the bowl you are in and you're certain there was nothing left out he could've snacked on.

That Instant

you want to be done with it and cut your leg off just below the knee instead of the solitary confinement of twenty more days healing an ankle sprain and dealing in the grays of "almost".

That Instant

a vendor on eBay manages to steal a dollar from you because you clicked one button too far before checking to see if there were better deals and you can feel it getting vacuumed right out of your wallet to the sound of their giggling greed and you want to wrestle them for it, rolling across a dusty warehouse floor like a scene in a movie gunfight where there is only one bullet left in a single gun between the protagonist and the antagonist, but you'd rather keep your 100% positive seller reviews intact so your chin drops to your chest and you mutter some unflattering language and continue shopping instead.

That Instant

you realize that all of you is awake & engaged sooner than you envisioned and it is indeed time to join the day stream of humans and rearrange whatever plans you made last night, enthusiasm checked at the airlock's warning chime.

That Instant

you burst into laughter sitting in traffic when you realize people pounding the table pressing merit and skill based immigration because they insist immigrants shouldn't be allowed into the country based on winning a lottery or because they are related to someone already here are completely blind to the fact that their current station in life has a lot more to do with the luck of where and to whom they were born and who they knew and were related to than it did any shining meritocracy or particular honed skill.

That Instant

I was born at the age of 25.

That Instant (_____)

you want to have a little time to yourself for some slippery self love and an orgasm or two, but you just can't quite get there because there is an alarming number of fake books all along the shelves of the walls surrounding the sense and sexuality at the film shoot's center...  ...like a conspicuously, mind bogglingly, strange amount of fake books... 

That Instant (_____)

you reach the meta level of justifying skipping workouts so that you don't have to feel the disappointment in yourself after you keep it rolling for three months and miss a few weeks because you vegged out and partied and flat didn't feel like it and can still honestly say that you will start again when you're ready but there's not point in starting right now because twelve weeks from now will still play out the same and who wants to feel like a waste of life after their first day back?

That Instant

you look back at the countless system restarts, software downloads, years of physical and programming glitches, migrations from operating system to operating system, hardware failures, compatibility explosions, canyons of anxieties, quits, fear, fiscal shortfalls, bouts of rage, helpful hands, sympathetic ears, crying nights, hate filled days, and continents of time you've put in to trying to get the right graphics tablet with the functions you need that isn't near the end of its service life from the moment you plug it in and the tablet lights open their little firefly eyes, and the pen pressure is natural, and no batteries are required, and a twirl of its balance to bring the eraser to the page is as natural as the pointed tip too and you don't know what to feel because maybe something else terrible is waiting to happen and all will be lost overnight again including the money you could've used to buy so many other things, but damnit, it just works. 

it finally just works the way you've wanted it to, needed it to, and things are going to be a little different now, at least maybe ... the way they were before everything fell apart on you.

That Instant

you realize you haven't showered in four days, but you also aren't exactly sure where the time has gone.