Noises Off

[This is the third in a series on comic-strips.]

The line between reality and fantasy is never quite so sharp, though, is it? Real life is artificial, just as 'framed' as the scenes comic-strips present. It doesn't happen at a steady pace. It is a series of reiterations, with occasional dramatic intervention. The time-lapse between frames in a comic-strip is open to our interpretation, it could be a second or a lifetime. And at the end of the strip, what then? There'll be another one tomorrow or next week, but in that world, in those three or four frames, there is a whole life played out that looks like eternity.

Think of the edges of the universe. Our lives are boxed in just like Calvin's or Jon's, and sometimes the frames are drawn without lines. Usually we're just so big, we take up just so much of everything. But sometimes the cartoonist pans out, sees us from further off, brings more space into view. It crowds around us like the silent and invisible air. We are alone, much more alone than when the frame holds only ourselves and not so much space, when someone else could be just off-stage, waiting to come on.