Insomnia Diary

Dropping the euphemism

Dropping the euphemism He has five children, I’m papa to a hundred pencils. I bought the chair he sat in from a book of chairs, staplers and spikes that let me playVlad the Impaler with invading memos.When I said I have to lay you off a parallel universe was born in his face, one where flesh is a loose shirt taken to the river and beaten against rocks. Just by opening my mouth I destroyed his faith he’s a man who can think honey-glazed ham and act out the thought with plastic or bills.We sat. I stared at my hands, he stared at the wall staring at my hands. I said other things about the excellent work he’d done and the cycles of business which are like  the roller-coaster thoughts of an oscilloscope. All this time I saw the eyes of his wife which had always been brown like almonds but were now brown like the crust of bread.We walked to the door, I shook his hand, felt the bones pretending to be strong. On his way home there was a happy song because de Sade invented radio, the window was open, he saw delphinium but couldn’t remember the name. I can only guess. Maybe at each exit that could have led his body toTempe, to Mars, he was tempted to forget his basketball team of sons, or that he ever liked helping his wife clean carrots, the silver sink turning orange. Running’s natural to most animals who aren’t part of a lecture series on Nature’s Dead Ends.When I told him, I saw he was looking for a place in his brain to hide  his brain. I tried that later with beer, it worked until I stood at the toilet to make my little waterfall, and thought of him pushing back from a bar to go make the same noise.  ...