[ WP ] A man wishes to be a genius . It will come true at midnight . He wakes up the next morning and he is exactly the same .

He woke exhausted, as he had done every day this week. In a daze he showered, dressed, and ate before picking up his keys, to leave his home and go out to his car. It was a green car, with faded paint that had once caught the light in a way that almost seemed to glitter. Now it simply held together, and spots of brown rust etched into it's sides. 
 
 How many times had he done this? 
 
 He often wondered this to himself, sometimes aloud, often shouting, as if he was trying to break some terrible hush that held over a crowd; but it was only ever him, and him alone. 
 
 Today he did n't ask, or shout, or even think the question, as he closed the car door and took slow breaths of the chilled air. The was no resistance left in him, this was his fate. He simply sat in his car, with his left hand on the wheel, and his right hand on the key, which was placed in the ignition unable to move. Was this what his life was now? Nothing more? 
 
 He simply sat there, and did n't turn it. For some reason, instead, he felt compelled to simple sit and stare at the trees that littered his backyard. 
 
 So he did. 
 
 He sat for an entire hour, until the dim sunlight was bright, and cars on the previously empty road behind him, roared past. Here he was, just like the day before, only aware. Not in the way one would feel superior to their previous self, the being who possessed their skin and bones the cycle before- and the countless others who seemed to simply exist while they toiled to put their work and time into assets to bring this mind into existence. No, the man as he was, found himself to be the same as he had been the day before. 
 
 Only this morning, when compared to the others, for some reason he had noticed the details. 
 
 The pine needles on the branches of the great evergreens behind his home seemed to swirl, in millions of tiny patterns, that transfixed him. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he was late to something, but as he got out of his car and walked into his backyard, he realized it did n't matter- not right now. This was a moment to seize, to hold onto, to learn from; this was not a time to let go. 
 
 As he walked through the cool grass, he felt his shoes, polished black to fit into his office attire, grow cold and damp from the morning dew. His breath fogged in streams of dissipating cloud that swirled behind him as he moved to stare up at the great trees and their many branches, twisting in the wind. 
 
 As his eyes widened he saw the patterns, in that instant he found the clarity he had simply overlooked. He had simply ignored them, for thirty seven years, he had simply gazed without seeing the obvious. The beauty of the world that had shouted at him, just as he had shouted at himself, every morning before starting his car; the glimmer of something beyond his senses. 
 
 The understanding that his mind could not retain, but could only recognize. 
 
 Larger branches gave way to their slender offshoots, which gave way to smaller still, until they gave way to infinite needles; all of which rippled in waves. Waves that rocked his mind like the tide against the ocean's shore, he saw it, and held it in. An impression of an understanding, a picture immediately forgotten. Though he could not keep it, he knew if he saw it again, he would recognize it, and greet it just as he would an old friend. 
 
 The wind died, and the man found himself standing among the trees in his yard. 
 
 A car down the road honked, a neighbor stared at him curiously from the yard over as they let out their dogs, which barked and ran through the cold wet grass. As he stared back up at the branches, he could find no recognition. It was as if... as if he had simply been missing something, something obvious. 
 
 The pocket of his jacket buzzed with vibrations, as his cell phone broke him from the trance. Work, calls, things to do. He did n't have time to be standing here, he was late. Those bills had to get paid, and there was a meeting coming up. Things to do. 
 
 The man hurriedly rushed back to his car, with it's dull green paint, starting it with a sputtering of the engine that began to rumble away any stillness left in the morning. The stop and go of traffic soon had the man forgetting all about his experience in the yard. The phone kept buzzing in the seat next to him, and from the looks of things he was going to be stuck in traffic for awhile now, as the radio indicated an accident up ahead several exits. His boss would be angry, and the clients would not be pleased if he was n't able to get... 
 
 Then, it was gone. 
 
 The moments of awareness that pass through lives barely recognized by those that experience them. His awareness faded back into the life he had constructed, and his mind returned to it's slumber. 
 
 A genius covered, buried, and forgotten. 
 

