Eternity In A Plastic Wand

It begins with a child.

It always begins with a child.

Selling bubbles at a red light;

little lungs blowing infinity through a plastic wand,

while gods debate economics over gin and nationalism.

Above him, flags of factions flap like schizophrenic prophets,

each colour pretending it means something,

each symbol borrowed from a language long dead,

each flutter screaming, “Believe! But don’t ask what in.”

The traffic waits, a congregation of chrome and carbon.

Engines hum syllables to convenience,

headlights baptize strangers in artificial light.

Everyone’s on their knees

not in prayers, but in unforgiven debts.

A bubble drifts across a godman’s face on a poster,

haloing his grin like divine mockery.

For a second, the air is holy.

Then the bubble bursts, 

because all holiness is surface tension.

A mother sighs in the car behind me.

A child laughs.

Somewhere, time pauses to admire its own decay.

The tree above shakes its ancient head.

It has seen regimes crumble into begging for thumbs,

religions traded for lunches and dinners,

and dreams outsourced to augmented realities.

I look up,

watching the sky eat its own reflection in a million tiny spheres.

Maybe this is what eternity looks like —

soap, air, and delusion,

floating just long enough to feel immortal.

So I buy one.

Not the bubble, the act.

The idea that something so fragile

could exist, even briefly,

without wanting to own, rule, or justify itself.

And for that flicker of a second

before it pops,

I almost believe

we were meant to be beautiful

before we learned all about grammar and gravity.