"Disintegrator" by Al Kratz

I wasn't even cool enough to turn into a cockroach. Instead, I had to disintegrate. In a cab, my ears loosened. Outside the airport, they completely fell off. I put them in my pocket. A hand broke free at the kiosk. It was still holding my ticket when it dropped to the ground. I put it with my ears. Past security, I dropped my last hand but I left that soldier behind. I went to the bar and thanked God for alcohol. And straws. The drinks felt good, but my feet tickled and I had to get to my gate. Just before I sat down, my right foot rolled under my chair.

Things could be worse, I said to myself.

A lady in a wheel-chair moved to the jet bridge. I figured they had called for those needing special
accommodations to board the plane. I followed her while everyone watched me. I saw them hope I wasn't contagious and heard them pray their seat would be far from mine. I put my weight on my right stub because my left foot was hanging to a final thread. My knees itched. They'd be free soon too.

At thirty-thousand feet, I was graced by sleep. I dreamed in moving pictures. Plane crashes. Isaac Newton. Jigsaw puzzles. Middle aged Pinocchio. Love at last sight. Paper Mache. Ego cogito, ergo sum, ergo existo, I thought.

I slid into that space between dreaming and waking, the place where thinking could also mean that I didn’t exist. Out of the fragments came an idea that disintegration had been a secret plan to escape the fraudulence of reality. Maybe reduction could be an act of creation rather than destruction. From the ruins, a finished sculpture. The only thing left to do was open my eyes and see.