HUMAN WRECKAGE
Recurring Catechism and Killers
The doors to the bedroom closet must be
shut once night has fallen from the sky. There must be cold cuts in the deli
drawer of the fridge to graze on in the wee wee hours after my own night
terror screaming has woken me up.
One of life’s many small pleasures is
hitting the sack with a good book and then falling into a gentle sleep. I’m too
old to believe in beasts beneath the bed however it doesn’t take long for the
gang of men in black cloaks armed with swords and daggers to appear. They
materialize in a twilight moonscape of shattered tree trunks and enormous,
rotting sunflower stalks. The grey, drizzling rain is cold. I am soaking wet.
There is nowhere to run.
Later, after a sandwich and a session with The Economist,
I am in my teenaged bedroom. Pictures of Mick and Keith are on the walls. I
have an exam to write tomorrow, but where? The course could be Religion or
French. I’m not certain. I haven’t attended a class all semester and it’s
possible I’m a university student and not a high school punk anymore. I open
the door to a maze of all the apartments I’ve rented, the two homes I’ve owned
and every nook and cranny of every place where I ever earned a wage. The rooms are
full of people: some I loved, some I liked, some I miss and some I couldn’t
stand. Lately the mystery girl has disappeared from the group shot tableau;
I’ve finally found her.
Treetops and power lines are tricky when
you’re learning to fly. Walking under water with neither weights nor a breathing
apparatus necessitates an inhalation of faith. Last night it was revealed to me
that the secret of time travel lies within the grooves of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Maybe everything that’s ever
happened was and is 20 years ago today. The Catch-22
for time travelers going either backward or forward is that they’ll be in the
present and ignorant of shifting realities; I know this to be true.
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