Trekhprudny Lane

"Unchopping a Tree"

This little piece hit me like a ton of bricks yesterday, hit me powerfully, like nothing has in a while. When I have nightmares, this is exactly the plot. 

Sometimes babies have scattered from a basket and are wandering away, sometimes something (or someone) has spilled or broken, sometimes the Sisyphean task is bureaucratic, with form after form in triplicate required to process our escape or reunion -- but the idea is fundamentally the same in each dream. Instructions, exponentially more and more intricate instructions for fixing -- the tone, reassuring and disturbing -- an unspoken affirmation of futile virtues, patience and diligence and tenacity -- all the elements are here. (Technical) knowledge as the antidote to rising panic.

I think it comes as close as anything ever has to capturing in some fundamental way who I am. It is so strange to read a story and feel such powerful recognition!