The Bends.

August 2006.

6 hours before I have to wake up, still not asleep.

I don't know if I might have just not
cooked dinner long enough,
or if it's the anger
of suspicions unwelcomely confirmed,
but my stomach rumbles like it does when it's raining...

Maybe it's the three days sober.
Maybe I'm getting the bends.

5 hours before I have to wake up, I get the news:
The evening clerk at the Veterinary Hospital that
faces my apartment clocked out with two stolen bottles
of euthanasia solution, then went home...

And clocked out again.

Ponder the possibility of the clinic's architecture
as some sort of empathic megaphone,
blasting his misery against my bedroom window
every night
as I sleep,
until the panes (pains?) shake.

That would explain the dreams.

Last night I dreamt my "waking world" was a drugged dream
inflicted on me by a sorceress with black hair. She kept telling me
how depressing the place I lived was.

3 hours before I have to wake up.
Instead of "falling" asleep, I feel myself being ripped
into unconsciousness by hundreds of tiny hands.

I feel myself being dragged from my bed, phosphene sparks from my body grating against the sheet.

2 hours before I have to wake up,
phone calls with no message on the voice mail.
I finally pick up the phone and noone is on the line.

They say that means a ghost has called you.

Why is my bedroom door open?

And stranger still, not a drop of rain.