Everything Is

My face felt horrible.  I woke up, and it was swollen on one side and when I scratched it, it bled.  I am well into my forties, but don't think I should be fat, wrinkled and experiencing some sort of cystic acne, face eating virus all at the same time.

I walked into the dark hallway and saw a couple of people already waiting.
"Is this where the test is?"  I asked, motioning toward the closed door with a sign on it. At the university that I have attended off and on, for more than twenty-five years.
They made a few monosyllables that indicated yes, barely looking up from their phones.
They looked young, but multicultural.  What a bunch of badasses, I thought.  They'll make amazing ESOL teachers.

They let us inside.  I watched as they wand-ed people, like at the airport.  Made them lift up pant legs, shirt sleeves, actually shirts.  A turban.  And then it was me, pulling my shirt up in front of a big window, raising my arms, pulling my pants' legs up, re-signing my name multiple times before they thought it matched.  I sat in front of that test for nearly four hours, after waiting a half an hour to get in, blowing of my break, just because I was afraid I would invalidate something or do something wrong and blow the whole, nearly three hundred dollar thing.  And the preparation I had done.  Yeah, I waited until a week before I was supposed to take the test to study, but when I did, I did bust some ass.  And, I am supposed to know this stuff anyway.

I stood in the Infinity Room, feeling like my feet weren't below me or that my head was above me.  The more I looked, the more I saw.  We were on a boat, that was floating, through everything.  Through infinity.  When I looked down, I saw the Blue Mosque.  When I looked far, I saw everything.  The heat hit my face.

I saw my sister, and we spoke and laughed.

I saw everything.

*Photo of Yayoi Kasuma's The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away, Infinity Mirrored Room.