Circles

It started innocently enough in a dimly lit conference room, the droning of the Power Point projector and the incessant reading of each slide by the bookish woman from accounting. God she is boring, even her dark pants suite, no accessories, hair pulled back to a tight bun, so prim. The presentation of quarterly numbers seemed to go round and round. 'It just a circle,' he thought, "just circles". He began doodling circles on the note pad provided by a local bank. It's been an hour; circles fill the page in front of him. He started on the agenda, concentrating on filling in each letter "O"; the meeting, the reports, the talk becoming background noise. He circled back to the note pad, second page, more and more circles until the page was filled. 'What am I doing here,' he thought. He looked at the clock on the wall, a circle of time never ending. Standing abruptly he walked out of the meeting and back to his cubical. Sitting for a moment then turning off the computer. He stood, put on the blue blazer, picked up his back pack and left the building. Every where he looked on the way to the down town parking lot circles jumped at him. Clocks, traffic lights, manhole covers, car tires, circles upon circles upon circles.

As the weeks passed doodling circles became a pastime, like Sudoku, addictive. Doodling circles in idle moments or while watching television. If not busy at work, drawing circles filled the time and finally encroaching on the tasks at hand. He began mowing the lawn starting in the center and going around and around in ever widening circles until only odd shaped patches of un-mowed grass remained at the edges. He mowed circles around trees in the yard making concentric circles with circles around the other trees. He stared at the water mark on the deck coffee table, a circle left there by the iced tea glass, the top of the glass itself a circle. He began to see everything as a circle, a line always coming back to itself. Slowly the pastime became a compulsion. The philosophy of circles, if there was such a thing, consumed his mind; the obvious circle of changing seasons, daily rituals, relationships no matter how weak or how strong were concentric circles; each circle a living person in the cycle of life. His circle compulsion became the driving force in his life. His home became his pallet, circles large, small, concentric, circles inside of circles covered the walls; blue in the living room, green in the kitchen, yellow in the bath and black circles in his bedroom.

One Saturday morning while cleaning out the garage he picked up a can of spray paint and unable to stop himself, sprayed a red circle on his green car, then another and another until the car was covered in fuzzy red circles. He continued painting on the driveway all the way to the street. After lunch he went to the hardware store and bought cans of spray paint in five colors, red, green, yellow, blue, black along with rollers and brushes. That night and the nights that followed he would dress like a Ninja in dark clothing and ski mask. Leaving his house well after midnight he painted circle murals on buildings, train cars, park benches, semi-trailers always careful not to be discovered. He named his circles; Friendship, Politics, Economy, History, Love, Hate, Time, Love and Life. He painted them large and small, inside one another, in concentric connections and individually. Months later late at night after completing an elaborate circular mural he looked at it, sighed a deep sigh, walked to a dumpster and threw in the cans of spray paint, the brushes and the rollers. He was done, finished, he had come full circle.