Circle game

The fan spins over my head, white tips of the blades catching and reflecting back the light from the standing-lamp that dimly illuminates the room. I can't tell by looking at it how many blades there are - strange the way our eyes, or memory, can fill in the gaps to form a continuous or sensical whole. If I blink quickly enough I can see flashes that are almost still - a human strobe light - and count five blurred blades whirling. Somehow I thought there are only four, but I suppose it's hard to know for sure with them running all the time; comparisons to restaurant fans aren't necessarily indicative of our own. I have two memories that I have had for a long, long time - twenty years or so - which in my childhood I could not and to this day I cannot discern if they are real memories or strange dreams, the closest approximators to life I have ever seen. I wonder sometimes if they are one filed mistakenly by a young brain into the other category and therefore creating the confusion. Or maybe it's just a phantom of each, like the ten fan blades I think I see right now, swirling air on the ceiling.