Ignorance
Mark Coleman
He keeps folding the bill until it’s virtually non-existent. Stares hard at the bit that should carry some meaning. It’s simply not there. It’s gone into hiding. Flips the light switch a few times. Nothing happens that hasn’t happened a million times before. Puts the pan on the stove. Drizzles in a bit of grease. Knowing that it’ll stick, either way. Washes it out, and resumes the search for a bottle that’s not there.
Looking in places that a bottle would never be. Overturns the flowerpot, and nervously sifts the dirt with a malformed toe. (Rocking back and forth with his head in his trembling hands. Inwardly sobbing with unbearable desperation and dejection.) Drinks every open bottle and forgotten glass, in the hopes that something is secreted away in them. Takes apart the computer on the off chance that a shooter is wrapped up in one of its many wires.
The shakes take over his body again, and he doubles over. On the point of weeping, he wraps himself in a blanket. Trying to concentrate on the carpet he’s standing on, he bites his lip so hard that he draws blood. Shoves his hands into his pockets, and tries to force her image from his mind. It remains there, unclear but definite like everything he’s ever dreamt.
Wisps of her and the things she said adding gravity to the sweat running into his eyes. (The taste of her lips. How it felt to be inside of her. The flaxen hair brushing him into the awareness that everything was, and would remain, alright and harmonious.)
Repeatedly blinking. Head spinning. Vomit starts to fill his mouth. He doesn’t throw up in any kind of conventional sense. He just opens up over the sink, and a block of undigested food falls into the drain. His DT terrified mind causes it to sprout legs, and lunge at him. His legs buckle.
On the floor, unable to keep the refrigerator in focus, he hyperventilates. Every inch of his skin carries its own particular spasm and itch. He turns from side to side, wishing for nothing more than to remain undetected in his convex foxhole. Every strand of his hair seems to carry its own individual electrical current. Supercharged carving knives trying to negotiate the retreating tiles. It occurs to him that the only thing that is certain is that this will never end. (Stolen kisses that gave him life. The bounce it all brought to his step. The change in his demeanor. The lines erased. The pain negated. The pride of every moment spent in her embrace flowing into every other aspect of his life.)
His spine is being broken segment by segment by unseen forces. The very cones and rods of his eyes are exploding. The dust motes are begging recognition through impossibly high screams. His body no longer belongs to him. It belongs to a starving contortionist on the riverfront, who wants nothing more than to work up the courage to drown himself.
He has to find alternates to drinking bleach. If he attempts that, his misery will only be accelerated. The last thing he needs is a psychosomatic seizure. The triggers of the guns require too much extension. His fingers are neither long nor elastic enough to carry out that sort of wish fulfillment. (Holding her hand in his. Overflowing with feeling beyond the bounds of any knowable analysis. Her eyes and the quiet answers preciously encapsulated therein. Pregnant with understanding. Swollen with simpatico and something that love doesn’t even come close to describing.)
The thought of a bullet powder kegs him into visions of universal exit wounds. A hunk of bleeding Swiss cheese standing in for the thrifty, little, blue globe that stands on his desk. Even though he can’t see it, he knows that the inkwell is beginning to pustulate. He tries to slide over to it.
The fact that something of such importance is happening just beyond him momentarily makes him ignorant of the fact that the television is growing claws, that the toaster is ejaculating millions of sexed up serpents, that the radio is going to suck the marrow out of his bones. It won’t be long before he understands that he has lost. Checkmated by one and all.
