The paper came streaming down the day after Monday like confetti on New Year's Eve. The paper spun and twisted and floated and drifted to earth. Some sheets flew like paper airplanes, others tore and shredded at the edges of the fire. Paper glittered, paper rained, paper appeared and disappeared, a zillion records disintegrating in the blue sky. If you could have zoomed in on one fleck, you might have witnessed a word misspelled despite spellcheck, because the day before was Monday. How many dreaded Mondays faced, how many hangovers submerged in aspirin and Coca-Cola, for all for this paper that settled in the chaos, raindrops forgotten for the rain?

All this paper falling down to zero. The "events of September 10th" is not a public domain phrase like "the children are the future" and "the events of September 11th." How many hearts broken on September 9th, swallowed down on Monday morning, the day faced? "I love you, just not that way?" Self-wars fought in corridors by alcoholics, addicts, the obsessive and depressed . . . forgotten. Toilets faithfully scrubbed to sparkle without aid of fancy stoicism . . . dust. The game of time played in the dozen or so available strategies . . . game over.

All that paper drifting down, out of grasp despite correction, revision, polish. Paper that passed through entire chains of command slipped away glittering, especially the good stuff, the high gloss.

A man watches the events of September 11th on TV, thinking, Today a paper sky could come streaming down. Months later, he watches the events of September 11th on a TV special, thinking they should make a poster showing all that paper coming down and tack it to workroom bulletin boards, a reverse inspirational message kind of thing, a keep-it-in-perspective type deal. It would say, "Don't take this shit seriously." That would counterbalance the other poster that always occupies breakroom walls, the one with the bad cartoon of a boss arriving on his employee's doorstep, the poor "sick" worker standing there with a fishing rod in his hand. But then, you could get terminated for a thing like that.

And then he thinks that one day there will be hundreds of thousands of cars in junkyards with flag stickers, or sticky square patches where the flags were peeled off later, after the war was won or lost or forgotten or so ongoing it disappeared into the background like September 10th. And that same man thinks, all that paper raining down. He mows his lawn and thinks that if the sky were to fall tomorrow, what would be more important, the falling of the sky or his mowing of the lawn today?

His wife comes home, drops a bag of groceries on the table and looks at her husband. "What is it?" she asks, adding, "I had a shitty day."

The man sees a grocery bag falling from the sky. He tries to make this moment precious in his mind, but there is nothing seemingly precious about a grocery bag nor thinking about one. It slips through his mind and falls to zero from the paper sky.

The man who thought about these things writes an article about it while his wife sleeps and who knows what she's dreaming now. The writer has the benefit of fancy stoicism. For him the sky is paper but not falling down. He is lucky. Most of us are very lucky, kings in our (at least) humble concrete huts. On our walls should hang posters showing all that paper coming down, a reverse inspirational message kind of thing, a keep-it-in-perspective type deal. For on our worst days we stand with fishing rods in our hands, having never expected our bosses to appear on our doorsteps. The rest of the time we are faithful servants whose best moments disappear in public domain phrases like "the children are the future" and "the events of September 11th."