"gull on an invisible wire"

Maybe you go to the beach. Or near the beach. To the sound where you can watch the ships, large ones that groan and small ones that yip by. And, sure, you've read Faulkner. You know his metaphors. You watch the sea gulls. One, then three of them. Maybe they do seem to hang there, a trick of the light and the play of distance on your tired eyes. Time slips away from you. The gulls only seem to hang there if you are thinking of something other than the gulls. You usually are. But if you watch them closely, they never truly stop moving. The wind holding them aloft on their strong and delicate wings, they are kiting and their feathers are vibrating (but of course you can't see them vibrate from down here).

The sea gulls are not, of course, on invisible wires, floating forever in your mind's eye. The one on a wire is you, expending your energy to stay upright while the hailstorm threatens to knock you over. One day it will succeed. You will slip off of the wire continuum from life to death. No one knows whether anything comes next. But for now, you walk on that wire taut with energy.

The ends of the wire are not visible. You wonder whether there are ends to the wire at all. You wonder what type of wire it is, how strong it is, how long it can hold your weight. You consider crouching down and trying to strum the wire. Would it make a bass or treble note? Would it sound tinny or dampened? Would it echo? Maybe you'd get a shock if you touched it.

Your feet hurt. You cannot remember how long you've been walking this wire, or how long the gulls have been larking above the ships and along the horizon. Funny how sometimes you don't notice the wire at all. That happens when you don't seem to be near the shore but well inland. The metaphor becomes less noticeable, softened by the forest, weakened by the tough stone faces of the mountains, or mocked by the cavernous glass and concrete towers of the city. In those places you can forget; you can imagine you are too busy for metaphors. But on the summits, outcroppings, and rooftops you remember the wire under your feet. Maybe you don't stay in those places too long. You retreat to the busyness and business of what you call life. In those times, you are sometimes surprised to see a gull in the sky. Gulls show up to riffle through the refuse of human life--not because they need it to survive but maybe because they sense that those tasty bits of life we toss out won't be available forever.

You are not an idiot. It's true you've done some idiotic things. An objective observer may opine that you've been foolish or clever depending on their perspective. Perhaps cowardly or brave, depending on their outlook. This is your own theory of relativity. It's not scientific. Maybe you find meaning in the sound and fury after all; or maybe you are indeed a nihilist. That hypothetical objective observer has opinions that can only be well-founded depending on where you are in the metaphor. But the joke is on them because they, too, are on the wire. Therefore, you don't have to worry about what they think about you. Much like the sea gulls.