i sat at the bench today for twelve hours and for three of those hours i was just a ghost in the machine pretending my hands knew what they were doing while the world turned into a goddamn watercolor painting... it started around ten when the fluorescent hum above my head began to vibrate in my skull and the black thread i was using for the mourning veils—how poetic right—just started to bleed into the fabric until there was no edge left and i couldnt tell where the polyester ended and the air began... i’ve spent half my life making sure things were lined up just right first with a sight picture and then with a seam allowance but now the optics are FUBAR and i’m just sitting here in the dark typing this because the screen is the only thing high contrast enough for me to actually see where my thumbs are landing on the glass... i remember being twenty and spotting a tripwire in the brush from fifty yards out without even trying because my eyes were like high-definition cameras back then and everything was sharp and dangerous and clear... now i’m thirty-eight and i’m defeated by a size 12 sharps needle and a bit of spit on the end of a cotton blend... i spent forty-five minutes today trying to thread that eye and i felt the heat rising in my neck that old familiar itch of a botched op where you know you’re exposed but you can’t move yet... mr hendricks came by and asked if i was having trouble with the tension and i just looked at him and said no sir just a bit of glare from the window and he nodded because he thinks i’m the reliable one the veteran the one who never misses a stitch but my depth perception is a goddamn lie these days... it’s not even that i’m sad about it which is the weirdest part of the whole situation... i should be terrified because if i can’t sew i can’t pay the landlord and if i can’t pay the landlord i’m back to sleeping in places i spent a long time trying to forget... but there’s this profound inertia in my chest like a heavy ruck i forgot to take off and i’m just waiting for the inevitable collapse... i watched my hands tremble just a fraction of a millimeter and i thought about the word ATROPHY and how it sounds like a soft sigh... it’s a sophisticated way to say everything is breaking down and there’s no spare parts for a human being in this economy... i’ve survived mortar fire and bad logistics but i can’t survive a degrading macula... the shop smells like burnt motor oil and stale coffee and that fine gray dust that settles on everything including your lungs... it’s a garrison life without the uniform and i find myself falling into the same rhythms i used to hate... i do the maintenance i oil the machine i check the bobbins but when i go to pull the thread through it’s like trying to catch a shadow with a pair of tweezers... i had to squint so hard my head started to throb right behind the temples where the shrapnel scar is and for a second i wasn't in the shop anymore i was back in the dirt wondering if the ringing in my ears was ever going to stop... i felt the fabric beneath my fingers and it felt like sand and i realized i’m losing the only tactical advantage i have left... i saw maria looking at me from the next station over and she’s a good kid but she talks too much about things she doesn't understand... she asked me why i was holding the fabric so close to my face and i told her to mind her sector and focus on her own hems... i sounded like a prick but i can't let them see the weakness because in a place like this once you’re perceived as a liability you’re already gone... they don’t give you a discharge ceremony or a medal for twenty years of service in a garment shop they just stop putting you on the schedule and wait for you to take the hint... i can't afford the hint... i can't afford to be anything other than a machine that produces three hundred units a day without a deviation in the stitch count... i think about the optics of failure and how i’ve been preparing for a fight my whole life but i didn't prepare for the slow dimming of the lights... it’s a technical disadvantage i can’t overcome with sheer will or discipline or some clever flanking maneuver...