There was some talk I picked up on a couple weeks into the quarantine about the unusual dreams people were having. I was furloughed, sleeping a lot, but wasn't having any dreams of note.
Early this morning I strangled a man to death with my hands. It took some serious time. My grip strength nearly gave out more than once, along with my resolve. There was a lot of time to think, for rage to abate, to suffer anticipatory remorse, to second guess the justice of the act, to doubt my motives, to fret about what to do with a dead body in a public space in broad daylight. Then there was his face, the colors, the weird way his eyes stared, and the shape of his head shifting to weasel-like, twisting wildly to slip out of my hands.
When it was done, I felt ill, wrong, dismal. And I woke up with that feeling. It was first light. The feeling lingered, and I couldn't get back to sleep. It mixed with anxiety about my divorce, how my children have been affected, the fact that I never really took any pictures. A stain. But finally I did sleep, for a minute...
Then, an insane clanging and ringing of wind chimes in the doorway. A squirrel pranking me, pissed because it still hasn't managed to gnaw through the duct tape I reinforced the baffle with, and probably because I ran out of corn to put in the defunct birdbath bowl. I jump out of bed and charge the glass, running him off.
I am thinking of killing and eating them now. I am thinking this is what happens when you extend a hand. I am googling wrist rockets.
During the course of the week, changes occurred. Fiddleheads unfurled into ferns arching their backs to feel the sunlight on their flat symmetrical green bellies. Full leaves came into being on the trees and I cannot see the neighbor's house for the green.
I was in the city yesterday. The cars moved too fast. The people made too much noise.
Early this morning I strangled a man to death with my hands. It took some serious time. My grip strength nearly gave out more than once, along with my resolve. There was a lot of time to think, for rage to abate, to suffer anticipatory remorse, to second guess the justice of the act, to doubt my motives, to fret about what to do with a dead body in a public space in broad daylight. Then there was his face, the colors, the weird way his eyes stared, and the shape of his head shifting to weasel-like, twisting wildly to slip out of my hands.
When it was done, I felt ill, wrong, dismal. And I woke up with that feeling. It was first light. The feeling lingered, and I couldn't get back to sleep. It mixed with anxiety about my divorce, how my children have been affected, the fact that I never really took any pictures. A stain. But finally I did sleep, for a minute...
Then, an insane clanging and ringing of wind chimes in the doorway. A squirrel pranking me, pissed because it still hasn't managed to gnaw through the duct tape I reinforced the baffle with, and probably because I ran out of corn to put in the defunct birdbath bowl. I jump out of bed and charge the glass, running him off.
I am thinking of killing and eating them now. I am thinking this is what happens when you extend a hand. I am googling wrist rockets.
During the course of the week, changes occurred. Fiddleheads unfurled into ferns arching their backs to feel the sunlight on their flat symmetrical green bellies. Full leaves came into being on the trees and I cannot see the neighbor's house for the green.
I was in the city yesterday. The cars moved too fast. The people made too much noise.
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