The Forest
The internet is as inanimate as the voluminous stuffed grizzlies that frequently populate my foyer. One might raise an eyebrow at the adverb, but it is placed as it is to convey an indeterminate sense of permanency in regards to their residence. Often I wake from a dreamless, harrowing sleep lightly sauteed in a demi-glaze of my own sweat and reeling from the various narcotics I can’t recall having ingested only to find my foyer sadly lacking in ursine companions. I cannot cope with the absence of their frozen expressions of slavering incomprehension any longer, Manuel. I fear this is the end. I must return to my chambers and prepare the poison, for if there is to be a world unsmothered by the fearsome shadows cast across my velvet carpeting I want none of it. Still: I wonder if perhaps I am simply overly hasty in my judgment. Suppose I am to embrace the everlasting sleep, and as my vision mists over I see them once again, beckoning to me with their outstretched paws from but several yards away? Softly, slowly, Manuel. Lower your moustache-bedecked, vaseline-smeared lips to my ear and whisper to me of Tezcatlipoca. Take care not to excite me, however, for in my agitations I might neglect the presence of the kerosene lamp by my chaise lounge. Indeed, my froth and tremors are as palpable as the sweet words pinned to the tip of my tongue. I feel in my muscles a pulse, and yet claw at the air and tear my quilt to shreds as I may- there is no need to cower or hide, Manuel- it remains without excoriation. What remains is the stony vice of slumber that grips my digits. Novocaine Medusa as it is, I shall rejoice in its beheading- biological imperative be damned! I must move quickly now. The drawer, the gilded drawer upon my nightstand- quickly, for my fingers tremble and their unseen hinges crumble even as I speak- I must retrieve from the drawer salvation. It is great trouble. I must grasp its horned handle firmly. My nervous system’s commands seem to be echoing- echoing along the canals of tendons, warbling and trilling and becoming unintelligible across the vast canyons and reaches of flesh. The drawer must be opened, salvation attained. Now, now I have it, though I have sacrificed the horizon of my torso- oh, how I slump! How joyous to slump, the glistening dagger unearthed from its prison! Now, to work! With no abandon, with glorious spurting and sawing, with the rich waters of life squirming through the gaps of my grimace and rejuvenating this parched mask I don, to work! And now, Manuel, can you see? Come, come into the light- make your whimpering finite. See, Manuel, how your master has availed at long last himself of such a cumbersome impedimant as his hand? I see, Manuel. At last, I see them- their shaggy figures embraced by the cavernous dark of the foyer.
