Homeward
---------------->
Stretched tight gossamer wings frazzled at the edges, pulse pulled tight and sweat
running down the middle of your back and somehow it's just never quite good enough and
all those around you demanding more and more and more and briefly, in the middle of all
of it, comes this moment of perfect clarity, where the inevitable breakdown of something
pulled too tight and in too many directions comes crashing down on you...some flat tire
maybe, stuck in traffic, overheating, with the guy next to you begging to use your cell
phone, and you can't do any work because you ran the battery down in your laptop and you
wouldn't if you could cause you desperately need this moment to think, and get your head
on straight, but you cannot think because all you can think about is how bone tired you
are and how desperately you need to rest, but you don't because then you will sweat the
sweet sweat of sleep and feel yucky all day, underwear riding up the crack of your
ass....and you wish you had more time to make love to your woman and you wish you felt
like making love to your woman but this thing, this quest for success, or whatever drives
you onward and upward, your reach always exceeding your grasp, because somebody taught you that success meant forever being dissatisfied - quitters never win and winners never quit or stop long enough to ask themselves why or whom they are all doing this for....and the unfinished novel goes back in the drawer, and the garden never gets planted, and all
those projects around the house never quite get done and someday, someday after too many martini lunches your lucid brilliance rising to the occasion through the alcohol fog
anyway and too many cigarettes and lately chest pains and stomach pains and every day you wake, feeling like someone worked you over with a baseball bat, your back always out, no matter how many times you get to the chiropractor, your work never done, and should you
skip work to take care of yourself when others are depending on you and what about
yourself anyway - who gives a fuck about that, you were put on earth to produce more than
you consume, and God knows how much you consume, never satisfied with sales and discounts and the mob guy down the block getting you incredible prices on that audiophile stereo that you never have time to listen to, and shit it seems like we are always out of money, but those garage sales were incredible, and my quarterlies are due - dammit, we need better financial procedures and I need to close the county deal so I can appeal to the
community in a non-profit way, maybe they will get on board and support us because I am
no longer allowed to just provided good product or service, I must be community minded,
and thank God for good Scotch and good bud, though mornings can be a little foggy, but
then you drink that pot of coffee before you leave the house and then the gut starts
burning and you start praying secretly) for all this to be over somehow and you not have
to make a decision and put peoples lives in jeopardy..................
STOP
Red mist.....warm.
Pain.
"Now we see as through a glass, darkly" sang crazily through his head.
Slowly, for fear of damage, he came awake. That rush of feeling when all of a
sudden
the brain explodes and this incredible lightness comes up through the brain turning,
spiraling slow, filling it.
Games he played when he was a kid. If God would curse him, which sense would he choose to
banish. Spiritual Russian Roulette.
Eyes could go - but then he could not read or watch movies, or see a sunset, or a
painting, or a beautiful woman, things that must be gazed upon.
Ears, well Mozart and music and sweet speech she says "I love you", whispered into his
ear in some dark theater.
Limbs, but which, his hands? His legs?
This speculation was fruitless. Life just brings you pain.
Slowly, he could feel awareness return to him. Horns were still blaring, people still
cursing, sweat had soaked his clothing. He could feel the sweat run slowly down his
forehead. His mouth was dry, and there was a distant, still point of pain deep in his
brain.
He sat up and looked around. The cars ahead of him began to move. It took so much
energy to reach down and take the car out of park, put his foot on the gas, and point it
forward. More energy than he thought he had.
As the moments passed, he began to feel slightly better.
