motionlessness

After a brief period of motionlessness, I detected my heartbeat.

In the meantime, we sit on the still waters and wait to see if something worse is on the horizon, and perhaps even enjoy the relative peace of this momentary motionlessness, while elections officials are threatened with nooses.

The death of Floyd, a black man whose arrest was captured on video by several bystanders, showing the man panting that he could not breathe as a police officer, who is white, jarred a knee into his neck for eight minutes until Floyd was rendered motionlessness.

The death of Floyd, whose arrest was captured on video by several bystanders – showing the man panting that he could not breathe as a police officer jarred a knee into his neck for eight minutes until he was rendered motionlessness – also spawned demonstrations through the streets of Los Angeles and Memphis.

I was in grad school, deep in a period of daytime beers and open-ended self-discovery, and I was lying in final resting pose, suddenly wondering why motionlessness was supposed to be relaxing.