It was so bad that he watched Dr. Zhivago four times in three days. Now this film had formerly been reserved only for watching once every five or six years when he was laid back with a bone-aching flu, when everything felt so dreadful that the only possible comfort was to be buried in a Russian snowstorm of melodramatic love.
It was so bad that he made one gigantic pot of it and ate, when he had to, helpings of oatmeal cold. Or, if he had moved to heat it up, heated a portion of it in a small saucepan and scorched the bottom of it over again.
It was so bad that when the fire went out overnight, he did not light it when he woke as was his habit still long before the light of dawn came up. He lay in bed cold or pulled another blanket fallen askew over his body. And if the house stayed that way all day, that’s the way it stayed.
It was so bad that his bones were filled with her screams of death and dying. They were inside his skull, they hunched his shoulders, they closed his eyes to them. Her furniture, her books, her bedside table, her belongings they were all thrashed and thrown about and her little body continued to thrash and throw itself about.
It was so bad he woke to screams that were not his own, traumas that were not his own, cries that were not his own, wounds that were not his own, parents that were not his own, in his own bed faraway from hers that was not his own, in his mind that was not his own.
It was so bad he could not imagine having once lain with her, his arms having ever held her, his heart having for years surrounded her. And her sweet voice was like another’s soft hand touching a green velvet mask behind which she gripped a silver sword; and her coiling naked body an emerald, scaly trap; her raw mind’s pure power, an indefatigably winning finger.
It was all so bad; all he saw were hapless visions of Welles’ Josef K. Notes, and words, and phrases flying by. A screaming, broken cavalcade of pain joined with death. Or, a make-believe, bed-ridden Western. They were horses’ hoofs flying, kicking up dry prairie grass and dust, all whooping and whooping, all the bonnet-wearing women in their wagons all bloody and slaughtered, while the Indians calmly riding upon the escarpment of the nearby mountain looked down at all the madness they do not recognize below them as human.
(read more & play around @ egbertstarr.com)
My goodness! Such darkness from you I don’t recall ever having read before… even the photo appears bleak. Do you have the flu? I suppose this isn’t a good week to visit. xo
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There’s a pretty terrible band—Foreigner—about a guy with a temperature of a hundred and three. Not to worry.
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😀 Okay, I guess! I like Foreigner, by the way — Hot Blooded.
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If you’re driving ninety-five miles per hour in a 50, I guess it’s ok. OK enough?
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I don’t follow?
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It’s good nuff music for when you’re drivin’ way too fast in Chicago, say, at 4am is all… 😉
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Gotcha! Yes, your wit has recuperated from the fever… that’s good! It’s usually the first thing to go. lol
Are you from Chicago?
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No, I’m not..I just like the sound of it. Seems bad ass. Are you, I mean, from Shy Town?
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I’ve never heard of it referred to as Shy Town. Windy City is what I usually hear. I was raised in Chicago until I was 18. I now live in Washington. Are you in the east coast?
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Picture me on one of the uncharted Galapagos Islands. It’s untrue but very pretty there. Is that D.C. or Aberdeen..I think it’s a spoken thing and I’ve never seen it written as chic-ly shy either.
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No man is an island, but I think you’d like to be one! Washington State. So, you are from this planet, though?
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Indeed, you are right. Driving down through the Cascades dead tired in the middle of the night, I love Washington, getting pulled over by the cops and just saying, having drifted over to the left on the curves, “I’m tired.”And he lets me go, just to be careful, he says.
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Sorry; I wasn’t notified about this last comment you made. WordPress is far from reliable. People in WA are pretty laid back… if you catch a cop on a good day, they can be nice, too. 🙂
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