540. Fugled

A few years later . . .


"Thoughts are tools Kyra," said Papa. "As are words. Learn to wield them," added Papa, making the motion of a whip above his shoulder, "skillfully, and the sea will bow before your brow and the sun will rise for your pleasure."

Kyra listened, her visage not of her age.

"Likewise, saddle the twin horses of pride and greed, and as the sun rises it will set and upon your heart will fall a darkness no hynerian can escape." Papa stood, his back to the rising sun, his head aflame in haloed light. "Now, listen very closely." Papa's tone turned from thunder to drizzle, a whisper pulling his precocious one to her toes. "There are two questions you should never allow far from your sight." He paused as a magician before the hat.

Kyra drew breath as one emerging from the sea, as if from his essence she could absorb every nuance of the teaching. Consciously, she eased back on her heels.

Papa tilted his head, and assured of his pupil's raptness, launched like lightning a snap of his fingers, a fire in the eye and said, "Question one: What are you running from?" Then, seeming to climb into the sky itself without leaving the ground, his knees moving forth with a power and grace, he continued. "This question, will hide like a shadow in the night. You must, must, hunt it down, every day."

Her eyes grew wide, round, resolute as steel upon the hammer. Still, she said nothing, allowing the wind to rustle as stagehands in the hush.

"Question two: What are you running toward?" Papa stopped, the sudden lack of histrionics more deafening than a thunderclap. The two stood, nose to nose, neither moving, the air charged.

"And when I ask those questions," said Kyra, "I will know that what moves is an illusion."

"Yes."

"And this is why you sit."

Papa smiled, extending his hands. Kyra curtsied, taking his hands. From the window, Grandma Kyra watched a dance of smiles. Leaning from the window, she said, "If you don't move, you don't eat. Dinner's ready."

Leaning over, Papa whispered, "There is one thing I know that moves."

"Your stomach?"

Papa laughed. "Besides that."

"What?"

His face tranquilled like the setting sun, the wrinkles of his brow disappearing as waves in the evening calm. "My heart. Whenever I see your grandmother."

539. Not Easy

John woke, covered in sweat, eyes morning fuzzy. Ariel stood beside his bed, her long white gown giving her the appearance of a small angel; her hands held together, forming a tiny vase. Two fresh flowers, petals white and bowed like floppy rabbit ears, stood still, observers.

The camera pulls back and both John and Ariel come into view. Pulling away toward the ceiling, the camera rotates three-sixty, music plays, neither character speaks. John sits upright, his face unreadable. Ariel stands statue still, her hair as primrose as her mother's, straight as a waterfall, flowing over the tops of her shoulders. Her eyes don't leave his, nor do they blink.

Soundtrack: Five for Fighting's Superman

538. A Ball and a Room

"Papa," asked Kyra, "why do you sit like that so much?"

Slowly opening his eyes papa smiled. "When you get my age, everything hurts. Sometimes it just feels good to do nothing."

"So there would be no reason for me to sit like that too." Kyra took her young finger and corkscrewed it into her cheek.

Papa erupted in laughter. "Come sit here with me."

"Is this show or tell, because you know how I feel about that."

"I do. So how about if I propose a compromise and we do a little of both, not too much of either, but, maybe, if you listen and watch really closely, just the right amount of both?"

Kyra tilted her head as she anchored her hands to her waist. "Okay, but I'm gonna be watching you real close," she said holding two fingers slightly apart and squinting her eyes.

"Deal. Now come over here. Do you remember me telling you about 'this' and 'that?'"

"Yes, papa."

"Well, I want to take that conversation a little further down the beach." Papa pulled a small coin from his pocket. He moved it from right to left, Kyra watching as if he were a magician and she was going to spot the trick. "Did the coin move?"

"Of course it did."

"How do you know?"

"I saw it."

"Exactly."

"Papa. Let's move to tell real fast."

"Okay. If the coin is "this" and you are "that" then we create the illusion of movement."

"I don't understand."

"Few do. And in time, you will. For now, since we are 'telling,' I'll tell you this. Movement is a function of two things. If I move, it is only in relation to something else. You see, if I'm walking down the beach, I know I am moving because I can see the trees I pass, the sand under my feet, our villa getting smaller, so on and so on. You see?"

"No."

"Okay. Let me put it this way. What if there was a room and that room had no walls and no air. In fact, let's pretend that that room only had a ball and nothing else. Could that ball move?"

"I think so. It could roll. It could bounce. Papa, why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because I love you. Now listen closely. In order to bounce, or roll, or float, wouldn't our ball need a floor, or a wall, or air, or something other than itself? You see, movement only exists as relation. And relation implies two things. Like the coin and you. The coin needed 'you' to move."

"Papa, what is it you are trying to tell me?"

"Why I sit. You asked, didn't you?" Papa corkscrewed his finger into his cheek.

"Okay, okay."

"Now. I want you to think about this question. What if all the world, all the universe, everything there is, is just one thing?"

"Well, then you wouldn't be you and I wouldn't be me and we wouldn't be having this conversation. Now stand up. Give me your hands. The sun is going to set soon and I want to show it my new dance moves."

537. Floating

Life wants to live. Life wants to live.

Von sat in the waiting room, those words his hope, his dagger.

Life will fight to live. We don't understand it. But it is our best hope.

You may see her now said a voice he didn't recognize and would not remember. Upon the white pillow her auburn hair flowed and she looked almost comical with her balloon belly hiding under the sheets like a child hiding a ball.

Zoe opened her eyes and reached for his hand. You know, she said, what Ceru would say?

Von shook his head.

When the rain was heaviest and the waters started to rise he would look at me with those deep blue eyes and say that the only way to float, was to smile.

Von couldn't find his tongue.

Squeezing his leathered hand she said, Von, will you do me a favor?

He nodded through glassy eyes.

Float me out of here. Then she smiled and he smiled back as the sun shinning through the rain.


Soundtrack: Colby's Song by Joshua James

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536. So Somatic

There are three looks she said

there is the look before you frail me

there is the look while you are frailing me

and then there is the look after you've frailed me

Put them in order she said

Get them right, she continued, and just, maybe, I'll let you frail me again

Get them wrong, and, well, there's always the milking

She smiled

When you return, I want a week's worth

Anything less than a week and I'll know

"She didn't say that," said Yul.

Rog smiled without replying.

"No frailing way!" Yul said each word as if she were paying by the syllable.

Rog shrugged before adding, "You know what she called me after that first time?"

"What?"

"Often."

Yul grinned, wide. "You know what?"

"What?"

"I love you."

535. Anticipation

Yul sat, twin curves catching the moonlight in shades of Ansel Adams gray. Drawing breath, waist swimmer tight, the fruit of her nature rising, firm, symmetry smooth, seductive. "Tell me about Susan?"

Rog rolled on his side, head resting in his palm, elbow anchored in the mattress like a tent peg. "What do you want to know?" He replied without making eye contact, neither smiling nor not smiling, a look of eyes drinking in the dawn, a face standing still before wonder, breathing unconscious.

She watched his eyes, his face, could swear she felt his warm breath caressing her mind. Tilting her head back to expose lean neck, she arched her back, her arms locked as buttress, softening the curves on her chest to sharpen the sparkle in his eyes. "The first time. How did it happen?"

His eyes drifted into memory and for a second she regretted the question. Like the new sun, his cheeks rose, exposing the rogesque grin she had claimed as her treasure, a simple, natural gesture that made her feel good to be fertile, and as the moon reflects the light of the sun, she smiled back.

"Snizzle." He said the word as if sacred, as if the tone of expiration, spoken not of tongue or cord, but breathed into life by mind and memory, needed no further explanation. Pauses speak; Yul heard. He continued, "One morning, after the milking, she offered me a cup. Well, offered isn't quite the way it happened. I remember the words, then I remember her walking through the mud to the front porch. I followed like a roped calf, her gait a spell before me, her primrose hair as the wind. We walked not twenty yards and I never heard a step nor felt the ground and what should have taken, did take but a minute to walk, endures as hours in my mind, each step, clear as dream, forever changing perception, founting sensations I never knew existed."

"So you had a cup of snizzle and then she frailed you? Is that it?"

"In a manner of speaking," he offered. Like a single coin thrown in the collection plate. A bit irritated with the interruption.

"A manner of speaking? You shiotting me? Either she frailed you or she didn't. Or maybe . . ."

"Or maybe there is more to the story than you know."

"Rog, no offense, but you're not that deep."

"Not that deep? Really. Okay. I might not be that deep but I wasn't the river and a dumb as stone rock don't need do nothin' to fall to the depths." Rog paused, a bit unsure of where he was headed. "Have you thought about that little miss oculator lady?"

Yul tried to maintain a serious look. "I'm sorry baby. You're right. Now tell me about that river. Just how deep was it?"

"I've lost the mood. Another time."

"Rog."

"Alright. So she invited me in. We sat the kitchen table and she poured fresh brew. She didn't speak. Neither did I. I held my cup under my nose as if the steam could hide my eyes. And I watched. I watched a sight that I'm not sure how to explain because what I'm about to say and what I saw never seem to match. So here it is. I watched her rotate her index finger along the rim of her cup. I can't explain it--that sight. I remember the bent of her finger, her clear nail, the skin both soft and experienced and the way she caressed the lip of that bone cup. If she had been a witch casting a spell I would not have denied it."

"Interesting."

"What?"

"I've never heard you so subtle and detailed before."

"Am I boring you?"

"No, not at all. I'm enthralled."

"What?"

"Nothing. Just continue."

"The morning light beamed from window to table, her golden hair sparkled. The morning milking was done, and the room had that lazy satisfied lull between chores. Her finger sang the cup like bow on string and although I followed her finger round and round I found my eyes drifting up to her face, to her eyes. She was looking down, only the bottom quarter visible, her lips sitting ripe, pink, petite, neat, neither too big nor too small, the kind of lips that spoke of wit and humor and educated in common sense, not a stranger to hard work, sincere as syrup on pancakes. So there it was. The finger, the eyes, the lips but that wasn't it at all. There was something else. A mood, a feeling, a texture, a color, hue whatever you want to call it."

"So . . ."

"So that's when she told me one week."

"Are you shiotting me?"

"Nope. To make a long story short, she told me to appreciate the anticipation. Said there was every likelihood the "warm commerce" would not be as good."

"Was she right?"

"I'm not telling."

Yul smiled. "Come here baby."

Rog smiled back. "One week."

534. Kinesics

Mairi knocked on the (red) door.

Trev, did you hear something?

Knuckles white, petite, rose thrice, fell twice.

No baby, not a thing.

Wood sonorous, sentinel sennet, sung with susurration feminine.

I could have swore I heard something.

What fell, fell as rain, the door (silent) witness silent, her heart (leaden) rendered violent.

Do you want me to check?

Rims glinted, a light kind to eyes (verdant) full of (liquid) pain reflective.

Yes, please.

Crimson cheeks quivered, command lost, decorum abandoned.

Okay.

Snuffle breath, pond shallow, issued cries inaudible to stone ears.

Thanks.

Arm rose, the weigh as lead, purchase beyond body to pay.

Trev opened the door.

Her cape opened in the fall, a pleated parachute forming a perfect circle.

Oh my Janus. Mairi? Em!

533. Sennet

The sun rose with a golden palette, light as warm as silent, working without need, giving of itself with nary a thought for the morrow. Upon the beach a gentle breeze combed the oats, a natural bent to the west, their faded hues bobbing like corks upon the sea. Trev sat the deck, facing the ocean, back straight, nude, a landscape known to finger and eye, to lip and tongue. Em watched, soaking in the sight as leaf and petal before the pail, drinking in thoughts delicious, of dreams lived, of a future seen.

Tell me, tell me without hesitation, she asked, what are you thinking?

He smiled without opening his eyes, seeming to breath with the ocean, his chest gentle swells. I'm loving you, he said, eyes still closed, head statue still, jaw smooth and chiseled as artisan marble.

She waited for more, for an explanation to connect the word and the action, which to her mind was less than clear. Loving me? I see. Or perhaps I don't. Tell me how sitting silently, eyes closed, facing the ocean, alone, is loving me?

I can only give what I possess he said. When I woke this morning and I looked upon your still sleeping face, your cheeks smiling in dream, your bosom warm in the way of young flesh in the dawn, I asked myself, do I have what you need? And in that moment, before you greeted the day, as the sun slipped his note under our door, I knew I was lacking. But I also knew there was time. So here I am. Harvesting peace and serenity and tranquility, mining joy and compassion and love, filling my satchels with smiles and patience as I educate my ears to listen and my heart to open and my eyes to see and my lips to impart and my hands to sing. And I do this, I do this to love you, to give of the bounty, to share in life for where there are two there is separation, and where there is separation there is longing, and where longing sits, loves beckons. I heard the call, of trumpets in the matutinal sky. So here I sit, loving you.

She sat with words in her heart that her tongue could not translate.

532. Ply Me

One moon rose as another fell, warm flesh upon pillow smooth stone. Rimmed in soft light, wedges of horn loosed their grip to patient fingers, empty wool slits, one by one, falling aside as bridesmaids before the groom. Her hair rode shoulders curved in bands taut, her breath but a whisper on the cool breeze. Musk of stone and history hung like vine, the mottled wall behind beaded with humid eyes reflecting garments shed, evidence of youth, cast as cloth beneath the canvas of their unshod twine.

He stood gelding nay, breath twin plumes of desire. Chest broad, proud, his primal heart beat as soldier before shot. Eyes, limpid, glassed in lust, blinked not. It's dangerous, he said with a smile, to look too long, to feel too deep, to open too wide.

The orbit of her head swooned, bathing her soul in his pronunciations, cleansing doubt as she looked a little longer, felt a little deeper, opening her limbs above as below, wide as the smile painted upon her olivaceous skin. She had sailed the nusian seas to delight of eye and mind. Tonight, she rode, holding hair like reins, whipping her stallion into mindless lather, his loins strapping, his hunches strong as plowshares. Ply me, she said. Baby, ply my waters like a ship plies the sea.

He did.

531. Afflatus

Water lapped his toes. Warm. Endless openness. With a single incision, he opened his chest. With a solitary reach, he removed his heart. Held forth, the instrument of bottomless pain, black as pitch, burning his hands like ice, damned as angels bowed before pride and greed, the sword of ambition upon their burning shoulders.

Branding fingers seared his heart, tendrils of acidic smoke rising, burnt umber pungent. Flesh exposed, salt air stung, a thousand tiny needles burrowing like minute clams in the receding surf. Pain sought pain, an explosion at the fount of gush to shut the mouth of complaint. Fingers tightened, black pus oozed, fingers on fire, pain intensifying. Cracked lips opened to gasp, to gulp air thick, tumid. A rope of acid descended tongue and throat, seeking union of a boiling, roiling stomach, skin scorched of lava, flesh peeling, withering as paper before heat white.

Noise issued, what sounded like voice, his. Hollow as thunder, words blurred upon the windshield of a driving rain, pounding, base deep, resounding relentless, the sting of soul found weighed and wanting, to look into the mirror and where substance once aboded only a sketch remained, hung from brittle bone, almond eyes pulled round, skin no longer supple. A hand reached, not his own, and into the mirror it dipped as a pebble into a pond, ripples of time like rings on a tree, each a memory hidden behind memory.

Into the wind and whisked away with the backhand of nature, a cry escaped bitter lips. Unto knee the weight of his world driven, shoulders hammered like fence posts into blistering sand. Spume rode waves like horses, galloping toward shore, his eyes afire in reflection of a life surrendered to demons and phantoms as real as the movement of mind and sea. Upturned, his visage into the spittle of mother, his fist balled. Anger, drunk with despair, struck empty air, empty as salvation sought; empty as absolution fought (denied).

From somewhere not seen, not known, not believed, a voice susurrated forth, a salve issuing from no direction and all directions, melody as waves, a call siren, fingers twisting nipples erect, caressing the turgid weight between his legs, closing his eyes with palm assuring. A long slender finger asked not upon the probe, taking the bore smooth, easing the pain of inhibition between the parting moon, wrinkled fruit hanging in shadow, growing tight in machination.

He bent as she had bent. He spread as she had spread. And from the pain of memory, the hot spear of atonement impaled its heat, burning away agony, purging his bowels of regret, exploding his resistance to matters not of hands born, taking from him the doors of pride and conception. Opened wide, from front to rear, a chair appeared, bright as light, locks golden as dawn adoring the frame.

(Lyrics from Be Like the Sea: Cathie Ryan)

It matters nothing what they did to you
The storm is over, the wreckage through
Leave them in your wake, no more for you to take
Be like the sea

If it hurts your heart, cast it up on the shore
Let it go forever, ceart go leor
Wash away the sorrow, the tears of no tomorrow
Be like the sea

The sea, the sea, dive with me
We'll lose these rags we're wearing and be
Like the sea, the sea, wild and free
We'll swim out past the longing so deep

Down below these waves in the deepest depth
There are echoes sounding true as your breath
The still, small voice in you, the endless open blue
Be like the sea

Go on forever, shine out in the sun
The full a tá sé everyone
Dance yourself around, give up the small ground
Be like the sea

The sea, the sea, dive with me
We'll lose these rags we're wearing and be
Like the sea, the sea, wild and free
We'll swim out past the longing so deep

Away out past the longing so deep

(Be Like the Sea: Cathie Ryan)

Gabcast! DT #26 - Afflatus 1

Reading and Commentary



Gabcast! DT #27 - Afflatus 2

Reading and Commentary Part 2

530. Revisions and Hairballs

The original opening paragraph to Swimming in your Soul (Part 2) followed by three optional rewrites. We may see more, for the sake of play, for the sake of slapping myself, for the sake of drowning my pain in words.

Kyra moved to the left side of Kieran’s bed. Rog moved to the right. The room felt cold, looked cold, was cold. White sheets, silver metal and the lonely smell of medication greeted the pair. Kyra resisted the thought, the association of that smell with death.


1. Glow. The room glowed the way dreams glow, a Gaussian blur smoothing edges beyond reach. In the center of the room, his bed floated, silence suffocating, thick as humid, a pall, undertaker irrevocable. I moved left, Rog right. We stood, looking like tongueless giants, our feet rooted to the floor of a world forsaken. Us or him, I suppose, much didn't matter.


2. White sheets, silver metal and the medicated smell of death assaulted spinctered nostrils, Kyra to the left, Rog to the right. Kieran's bed, slab still and midnight silent, floated. Kieran did not; his marble visage sheening not of life, not of any damn thing good. Cold, cold so cold it burned, birthed in the vacated residence of hope, a vacuum, expanding under the heart, hoarfrost racing the insipid horary, turning crimson indigo.

3. Between this world and the next is a smell, sui generis, stiletto sharp. It leaves a stain on memory, indelible, palimpsestic, vestigical eidolons haunting the halls of mind, waiting, seeking to connect what is two back into one.

I kept looking from Kieran to Rog, from pale to weathered, from death to life. I thought of papa and of all he had taught, of promises rendered, of change in my pocket, of standing before the cashier wondering if I could pay for my desire, wondering if I had stepped outside the flow and into the eddy of selfishness, if the spinning was of my own making, a mistake of youth, of inexperience, of wanting to hold on to that which could not be held.

Under a piebald sky, I stood as a diver on the edge of a cliff, the heights higher than I had ever dived. The wind felt cold and my skin pebbled, taut like dry leather. I felt my eyes ache in the dry air and my hair stiffened like straw, brittle. Blood rushed to my heart leaving me dizzy, my chest thumping and pounding, the feeling as if I were hammered from the inside, each blow more urgent than the one before. I couldn't not dive. I couldn't live with the what if.


On a different note, below is the opening of a new chapter that is stuck in my throat like a hairball. So I'm coughing it up. Feel free to sweep it away.

Water lapped his toes. Warm. Endless openness. With a single incision, he opened his chest. With a solitary reach, he removed his heart. Held forth, the instrument of bottomless pain, black as pitch, burning his hands like ice, damned as angels bowed before pride and greed, the sword of ambition upon their burning shoulders.

529. Unowned, Unchallenged, Unheard

I am a lock without a key; and people keep banging on my door wanting in and I just push them away. They don't understand. Truth is, neither do I. I'm broken. Inside. Look just fine from three feet away. No one understands. That I am broken. From the inside. I hold the pieces in my hands and I can't put them back together and in my frustration I throw them to the pavement and crush them under my heel, but from three feet away, I look fine. I would like to be fixed. I would like to find a fixer. I would like to believe in this dream. That somewhere, someone has a key; and that key, fits my lock. I would. But the sun has risen and it has set more times than I would like to account, for with the rising and the setting I've traded a dream for the ticket. I've got a whole collection of tickets. All unpunched. Night is coming. I've got a ticket in my hand. I'd like to say I'm jaded, but that would only be a facade hiding my fear. You see, I'm broken and broken don't sleep too well.

528. Jugal Me

She pillowed his thigh, her warm buoyancy across his strapping lithe limb, nestled in groove firm with purpose intent, eyes not needed for the labor of succulent delight giveth and taken.

Heavy lidded, paled lazy, he watched the valley of her cheek and the wet roundness of her lips do the bellow work upon his furnace, taut heat greeting wet warmth, growing, as the blood of one coaxed forth the blood of the other, an army standing ramrod straight, willing and able to do the bidding of the queen.

For the children he thought, lost to resistance as a raft lost to the ocean. The sun shone bright and with every muscle tensing, she plunged, he plunged, into the crackling waters of healing and release. She held on, her eyes open, his arms deflated at his side. From the darkness of one to the darkness of the other, life devoured as life engaged and the light shone where no sun was needed.

527. Need

"Whatcha writing?"

"Nothing."

"Really? Then I suppose you won't mind me seeing nothing."

After a short wrestling match, Trev's arms pinned under Em's knees, his note in her hands.


I need to be held in the heart of another

arms cradling my dreams

lips giving life soft and sure

I need to have my hair combed in the fingers of desire

to feel a hand in my back pocket

claiming me as their own

I need to see eyes that only see me

and whispers that only I can hear

caressing my hopes and fears

I need to be tickled and stroked

knees and legs against mine

holding me firm in authenticity


"Oh Trev, it is perfect. Almost."

"What do you mean, almost?"

"Just one more line, that's all."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"Something like this: And I need to stop thinking about myself all the time."

526. Thalassic Evenings

ed note: a Rashomon beginning, sorta.

Trev leaned on the railing, the ocean before glittering as a field of diamonds as the stars above gave yield to the rising moon.

"Beautiful moonrise," said Em.

Trev turned. "Not nearly as beautiful as your smile."

-----

Trev stood before the ocean, chest out like the figurehead on the bow of a ship, rail holding his waist in tow. Em floated from the cottage, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, her hair falling on his chest, cheek on cheek, smiles felt rather than seen.

"I love you baby."

"Like a fish loves the sea."

"Come back inside then, and swim up my stream."

-----

Upon the shimmering ocean, a thousand tiny waves winked silent salutations. Trev smiled, drew breath, chest expanding, arms braced on the rail. Em approached, her sheer gown fluttering in soft night breeze.

"Boo."

"Hey."

-----

The wooden deck looked gray under the pale moon light, shadows extending like fingers into the cottage from his angular frame. Em smiled. Trev looked angelic in the cool light of night, his hair spiked from nocturnal activities, waving like long grass in the evening breeze. With nary a cloud on the horizon, the moon loomed above the horizon, his chiseled jaw silhouetted within the circumference of light.

"Beautiful."

"Yes."

"I didn't mean the moon."

-----

The cottage stood in the night as it had stood ten thousand nights before, almost. They say the light from a home changes in tone to the love within. From a distance, they said, the little cottage on the hill, that night, shone with a warmth no one in the village could ever remember seeing before. The light was not brighter; in fact, it was not anything anyone could put their finger on. Yet, undeniably, something was different and they all agreed, that difference made the labor of the day worth the warmth of the pillow.

-----

Soundtrack: Brooke Fraser's Hymn

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525. Endogenous Etiology: 2

Transcript from sometime in the future. Location unknown. Names redacted. (document 2)



Q.

A. I couldn't tell you when it started, no more than a man who slept late could tell you when the sun rose.

Q.

A. Look. I fucking told you I don't know. Ask me another stupid question and the session is over.

Q.

A. Don't apologize. Don't ever fucking apologize to me. Means nothing.

Q.

A. By the pauses. I would say memory, but that is long gone, like the flavor from a biscuit left in the sun. Insipid. Is that the word? Fucking insipid. My memories.

Q.

A. The juxtaposition of those two words. About how my fucking has been. Ever have an orgasm without having an orgasm? Didn't think so.

Q.

A. I don't laugh much anymore. Indulge me. Screw it. What did you ask?

Q.

A. Right. You know not by the thing itself because the thing itself consumes you, becomes you and you can no longer distinguish between it and you. So, you don't know. People look at you funny. They know. But you don't. That is, until you have slippage. You don't know what slippage is do you? Well, slippage is a flash, about that quick. A flash of light. And in that light, just in a millisecond, you know. You know that what is, is not as it should be. And you slip back into the humid dark. A darkness unlike anything out there because the darkness is within. There is nothing out there as dark.

Q.

A. It comes and it goes of its own accord. I've met no enemy I fear more. I never know if the day will bring light or dark and even within the day, like passing clouds, the moods change, sometimes on a dime. How. Why. I've no fucking clue. I do know, there was a time it was not this way. There was a time when the light was all there was. There was a time when I could do no wrong. Now, those times are like another life. I don't even recognize who that person was.

Q.

A. The shift, either way, happens in an instant. I can't predict it. I can't anticipate it. I can't control it. And those around me, they don't understand. To them, I'm an asshole. And, I suppose, looking from the outside in, I am. I treat them like shit. I know it. I know it when it is happening. I see it unfolding. And I am powerless to do anything about it. Except . . .

Q.

A. Leave. The only power I have is awareness. I haven't lost my awareness yet. I know when the moods shift. I know when I'm out of control. I know when I'm going to shit on anyone and everything in my path. I can't change the behavior so I have two options. Either they leave or I leave. Because if we stay in contact, bad things happen.

Q.

A. I feel like you are not listening. I can't fucking control it. I can't not be what consumes me in that moment. I can see it. I can know it. But I can't be otherwise. Imagine it this way. When you are drunk, you know you are drunk. You have that awareness. Now, that awareness does not make you less drunk nor does it give you better judgment. So you don't drive. So see. You isolate your ability to do harm. That is your option. Same here. When the mood changes, it is like in one moment you are sober and in the next you are drunk. And that quickly, you act like the drunk. Now imagine what those around you think? You see, there is no bottle in your hand. You are not at the bar. They see none of the outward signs. Just bam. One moment you are yourself. The next, you are an asshole. A danger to yourself. A danger to everyone around you. And no one understands. So you live with your sickness alone. Unlike a fever or a cold or the flu, you get no sympathy. Instead, you get scorn. And hatred. And you watch your friends, one by one, go away. They stop calling. The visits become less and less frequent. You understand. They don't.