What I want... what I really, really want... is to not have to sleep. Yeah. To just never feel that overwhelming fatigue that locks your knees and lets you fall flat on your face there on the hot parade-ground.... To be able to know that you can continue thinking those weird thoughts and not have to write them down before they fade away. To realize that your mind will never, ever let you down because it's been thinking way too long.... ----#####---- Yeah, I had trouble a-plenty getting out of bed this morning. Dreams... such sweet dreams. Until the killing starts, of course. And I'm there watching, waiting for my turn... not knowing if it's my turn to be killed or to kill. Watching the blood flow... my blood? Karen's blood? Whose blood? The dream ends. I sit up in bed, worried about... what time it is. There is no blood. There is no time to dream, it's fucking 07:00 and I need to get my ass moving. I swing my legs over the siderail and sigh. Yes, the room is filled with light, the morning, I step surprisingly into a pool of slick blood, and my back wrenches as I grab the bedrail... the rail breaks and I hit the floor and my legs go numb. My olecronon processes bilaterally shatter. The back of my head hits the floor and bounces.... The cat watches and licks her lips and then her right paw. She is interested. My head sinks into the pool... my eyes focus on the ceiling fan. The blades, one by one. My eyes focus so fast, then the blade is gone. Whap, whap, whap... whap. Where did the blood come from? Karen's face appears over the bedrail. I cannot focus on her face, it keeps becoming the face of a frog. The frog mouths the words, "Are you OK?" Unwilling, I say, "I'm OK!" I'm not OK. Why am I lying? "I love you!" Someone says. "I'll get help!" No. There is no help. There is no help. There is... No help. There is only pain. The cat watches. Her interest is flagging. The fan is not focussing, and Karen is gone. My arms are shattered, my legs are invisible, unfeeling. My elbows are suddenly furnaces, consuming my mind. Nothing but the pain, the pain. And.... Only if time is infinite can I feel infinite pain. The blood rises past my nostrils. Iron, the smell is iron. Sharp:dead. All I have is the smell of iron. The pain is gone, the legs, the arms, the head... no pain. No pain. I drift, sights, sounds, sensations, and Karen says Doug, I love you And I cannot speak, but she knows She has alway known That I love her And the blood is gone And the pain is gone... more or less. But the pain... the pain is remembered. And I begin another day. In the Mail: On the shelf:
beautiful morning, is neigh.