A personal essay by Josh Menden
I miss it, I crave it. I ache to possess something that is truly unpossessable, to be at once familiar and in awe of something of which I am largely ignorant. Can I ever learn to capture innocence like I did as a child?
When I was younger — maybe six or seven — I used to watch the sunlight pour into my bedroom through the window. It fascinated me: at once linear and amorphous, the way it split haphazardly in
distorted shapes on my navy blue bunk bed and shag carpet floor, how it sheared straight, distinct lines of darkness, mangled occasionally by an impeding object or moving limb. Staring at the trapezoids and triangles etched in light convinced me that the light itself was wholly tangible, graspable, touchable.
In the intermediate space, between the window and the floor, the incoming sunlight illuminated little specks of dust as they floated randomly through the air, reappearing and disappearing as they flirted with the divide between light and dark. The way they floated, so random and free, visible only within the box of sunlight — it dawned on me: I was witnessing rays of light. Not some nebulous stream of light, nor the feeling and notion of light as I now understand it, but actual rays of light: those particles, those little specks, were themselves the rays, and I was watching as they entered my bedroom.
On the evening of the seventeenth of December, 2014, I receive a life-changing assignment. “Japan, Fukuoka,” my lips mutter and I am stunned. I am going to Japan.
Last year, in preparation for an internship, I read a victim’s statement given by a ten-year-old girl who witnessed an argument between her father and stepmom escalate to the point of violence, ending in her father headbutting her stepmom and breaking her nose. What surprised me first about this victim’s statement was how careful the child was to protect her father, making excuses and minimizing the trauma, even though he clearly put her in a high-risk situation. What surprised me more was the obvious shame this child felt for events over which she had no control. But what surprised me most was how little I remembered of this witness statement considering that I was that ten-year-old girl.
Nineteen. Nineteen minutes to run a mile and a half. 
I still remember dad’s face when I told him the color I chose for my room. Are you sure you don’t want a bright blue, or a dark red? he responded, trying to lead me in another direction. No, I answered firmly. I knew what I wanted.
Wembley Stadium, in London, England, UK, has a seating capacity of 90,000, making it the largest stadium in the country. On May 17th, 2014, 89,345 of those seats were filled with people ready to watch the Hull City Tigers take on North London’s own Arsenal Gunners in the 133rd FA Cup final, the world’s oldest soccer competition. Kickoff time was 5:00 PM British Summer Time.
I am Mowgli in the jungle. I wrap myself around coconut trees and feel warm aluminum against my naked chest. I climb by inches, hoping for the world to turn upside down so that I may fall to the top, pluck the glowing fruit, and drop into the clouds. My feet are bare that I may stand as an extension of the earth, that I may feel the burning asphalt like magma against my soul heating me up until I glow orange in the dark. Seconds bleed in the jungle, mixing with one another until time becomes indivisible, less the passing of a car and more the air I breathe. And I will breathe forever. 
The phone rings. “Hello?”
It starts with unzipping the case, pulling it out by the neck. The light shines off its polished surface, drawing my eye to the dark red that fades to black the further from the center they travel. The wood is smooth, gliding under my hand. I sit with my legs spread apart; on my bed, on a chair, on the couch, on the floor. I clip the tuner to the head, turning it to face me. A little bar appears at the bottom left of the screen when I hit the on button. I pluck the rough string; the lowest one, E. 