OBSESSED BY IT ALL

Imagine a man obsessed by collecting it all. 'All' being everything. 'Everything' being the sum of everything that has yet to be subtracted from the earth. He would wander the deserts to be found all over the globe, putting tiny golden grains in jars made of glass. Enough deserts to dry one's soul and make millions of mirages your endless true friend.

Once the deserts were emptied and the land made but barren, he could turn to oceans and rivers, seas and lakes, ponds and streams and the water from faucets. There is a limit to everything, he believed, and if he was patient enough, such beliefs would prove true. Once all of the water was put in tiny plastic bags, dwarf-size in heft, he would stand under the heavens and wait for the rain. Eventually even clouds got tired of unleashing their spew. He would outwait the weather until the weather gave in.

Pennies and peacocks, aspirin and insects, malted chocolates and craven husks of corn all twisted in shape. These, too, he would put away. Eventually, there would be nothing left but his body himself. He would turn inward. Attack the cancer that ravaged his soul. Stop those cells from dividing. Destroy them at their desperate true source.

And when the cancer was gone, he would wait for its return, its comeback, its ascent from oblivion into where it once went. Peeking into all its familiar haunts like an exile come home, he would nab those dark cells with the force of his will.

Deep inside of himself he feared this would fail. Everything physical could finally be held, but cancer itself seemed devious and sly. A shape-shifter whose intent matched its cunning black skill, ephemeral in scope, limitless in style.

Once the land was all empty and the oceans all dry, he knew the limits of failure would render him still. Immobile. Almost paralyzed. For failure was what the disease would bring forth, a tangible spring from which all else sprung high. He would have to put his physical tools to the side to begin, focusing only on the psychic descent which would let him take hold. If he could dwell in those spots where cancer was born, allow himself a comfort that others would flee, perhaps he could dig up what noone yet dared. The one single cell from which all cancers split. In a jar in his room or a room in his mind, in which all could come see, to mock and to jeer.