Cobwebs in the corners of the room mimic flags hanging limply in the the still air still the mirrors are like windows telescoping into some forgotten documentary film filmed by trembling hands; I feel the lens upon me, I smell the batteries, I inhale the musk of bodily fluids – oh, it's not just anyone they've chosen to break their bread with. All the debutantes! Flash photography! They listen at a pregnant belly for any signs of fashion.

But then, the mirrors have been covered now for weeks; they don't look back. My dry lips form the words: “I can't even begin to sew you, you mournful scarecrow of a pillow.” My diction is perfect. Christ, there wasn't a crow out there in the field when the rain came down, now look at me: I'm dragging my feet on the stairs, crackpots in the crevices, shoes sloshing like overfull buckets, weighing a fucking ton, draining me of every last lepton of energy, strength, vital essence. Upstairs, I sense that a desultory clot is, at that very moment, gliding silently through my capillaries, burrowing toward my cerebral cortex, excoriating the softening veil laid over my childhood memories, and strangling the senseless corollaries of my whispered proposition, now brittle, meaningless, forgotten. Furtive gestures and slitted eyes, “a terrific headache,” more light, then less. I'm floored. The crack beneath the door fills with promises, poison gas. Credits roll. I don't move again, just in case.


Mr. Borg was lost at sea in 1936 and soon realized that the hollows of his bones were filled with ball bearings, all straining toward a powerful but unseen magnet. Later, he became a plastic Ronald McDonald head and ruled the land with absolute authority until he was driven from the land by a mob of angry janitors.