the terror that flies by night, aka the nocturnal nuisance, aka aidsy, aka beast, aka leo, aka the big yellow cat that lives on my dad's bottom floor

during the day, you see him: a slow moving, gargantuan chunk of goodwill in the form of a cat. he's got the hiv, but his body doesn't know it. he just keeps getting bigger and stronger. he walks around at a slow pace taking a nap here, sneaking another over there, welcoming any affection from any passer by, and therefore wins the affections of every visiting guest. "he's just so big and gentle. i love that cat." they would say.

the truth would beg to differ... you see the light switch is connected somehow to a switch in the big animal's brain.

under the veil of darkness he terrorizes his world. he makes an uninterrupted circuit around the entire floor. he starts, for example, leaving a big smelly poop apparently uncovered in the litterbox, then proceeding to attempt to dig to kitty-china through the opposite corner of the litterbox. seemingly unaware that he's reached the plastic bottom of the litterbox, he just keeps on scratching and scratching. once he's had enough of that, he moves to the sliding glass doors of the shower, scraping his claws over the glass again and again as if he's trying to understand this giant invisible barrier. once he's got a satisfactory feeling that those doors really are there, not just part of his little feline imagination, he finds the nearest cell phone charger and first meows twice in warning, then engages in a battle to the death with the piece of plastic at the end of the cord. as soon as he realizes the stupid thing was dead all along, he moves silently to his food dish, containing an endless supply of very dry cat food. there he chews with his mouth open at a volume even my grade school's computer keyboards would find offensive. after a nice four hour meal, the big dolt moves to the back door and pretends like he wants to go out into the frigid world beyond and lets that world know by scratching on that door for a while until he's ready to go find his litterbox start the circuit all over again.

unfair odds

guillain-barre syndrome.

your own immune system attacks your own nervous system.

...

boy, that must suck.

headache

i stood in the din for only a moment.

"what in the world are you all wearing?!" i demanded.

"iron boots." replied one of the thoughts calmly, unmoved by my distress.

"what are iron boots for?"

"walking." said another thought, "duh".

i wanted to pull my hair out!

incessant! walking?!

"well... what are those thoughts doing over there in iron boots?" i struggled to maintain composure.

"line-dancing!"

there. on my floor.

on my floor lies a single word magnet from one of those magnet poetry sets. it just lies there haphazardly. it looks up at me matter-of-factly. "human".

dead week is not accurately named. that label is grossly inaccurate. it should be called "impending death week". death and impending death are very, very different. nearly opposites, i'd say. one connotes inactivity, while the other connotes a wild mess of disorganized activity motivated heavily by fear of the dark, ominous, looming... i lost my train of thought there, i have a three final projects and two final tests to think about! what do you expect?

meanwhile

"are there apples on the table out there?" tommy shouted from the shower. "yes" i said, as if i were surprised, "there are." "bring me one, please." he said. the concept of what was being proposed began to sink in. "huh. tommy wants me to bring an apple to him while he is inside the shower." i picked up an apple and headed for the bathroom, thinking as i walked "an apple in the shower! genius!"

i hate the smell of dried drool on my pillowcase. it's unpleasant in more ways than one.

then the words came out of my mouth, "a shower in the apple! genius!"

the hair above my lip and below my nose is incredibly straight. defiantly so. while the hair lateral to the corners of my mouth is annoyingly curly. i wonder if the hairs under my nose and above my lip are jealous of the hairs near the corners of my mouth. or vice versa for that matter. one of the little curly guys might curl toward one of the big, older curly guys and say, "man! i wish i was all straight like those guys on the other side of this giant food hole!" then the big curly guy would likely respond, "ah yes, the grass is always greener on the other side. you see little one, we are designed with the purpose of catching small morsels of food from the food hole, while those tall, straight, pokey looking guys are designed to drain snot from those snot holes over yonder. you see, we're all part of the great circle of life. you have a destiny small curly. you will catch food, while they will drain snot. and together we will catch food and drain snot."

meanwhile above my lips and below my nose, one of the little straight ones would say to one of the thicker older guys, "man i sure am glad i'm tall and straight, and not all curly like those curlies way over there curling all over each other just to end up so close to where they started!" then the older one would say, "yeah."

the roughly informed dream machine owner

I turn the key and magic happens

Small-scale explosions in rapid succession.

Each one is individually underappreciated and unnoticed.

Even still, each one is a real live explosion

My engine is exploding.

I used to own a 1990 honda civic dx hatchback. It was the dream machine, but that’s beside the point. The point is that, once upon a time, during the time that I owned that car, I curiously popped open the hood to look inside. The motor was still running, and I had a vague, but roughly informed idea of what was going on in there. I reached down into the engine compartment (also known to me as the-masterful-work-of-art compartment) and unplugged one of the spark plug wires from the one-point-something-liter four-cylinder engine. My car was suddenly a horse with a rhythmic limp. The engine did not die, it just idled there having three explosions per revolution instead of four. I remembered how some tiny cars (not much smaller than mine) ran on only three cylinders all the time on purpose, and they got excellent gas mileage. “this must be what they sound like.” I thought. Then genius struck me on the face. “I could probably just leave this thing unplugged and always run on three cylinders and get excellent gas mileage!”

all the cool kids are doing it. i couldn't help myself.

a story

in the coldest month of 1992, in a normal sized town in michigan, a young man diagnosed himself with an incurable condition; he was too philosophical for his own good. irreversibly miserable, he began to plan the end of his life. "the sooner the better," he assumed. after all, his future was, by all angles of consideration, completely void of any form of hope. open discussion of his plans with his father and mother left them deeply alarmed, so they immediately scheduled an appointment with their family doctor. they thought they could simply get him some medication, maybe some counseling, and be done.

"ross," the physician pleaded, "you have a very treatable and curable case of depression at the very worst! you can't give up on life that easily!" the young man argued that, actually, he had every right to make that decision. "i desire to die." he calmly stated. a very heated and yet checked discussion of the implications ensued between the young man, his parents, and their doctor. he claimed to understand every aspect of this decision and asserted that, even the people that cared about him, depending on the sincerity of their concern, should support this educated and well thought out decision. "why wont you just consider giving medications a try?" begged his mother. "i have, in fact, considered the alternatives, and concluded that a chemically altered state of existence is even less desirable than an unaltered and pointless one. plus, i came to this conclusion over the course of three years of much deliberation." in response to their pleading, his parents felt as though they were handed a large, cold, iron ball. after a moment of silence, the practitioner excused herself from the room. "i apologize, but i don't know what to say, i would like to confer with a very trusted associate of mine." in the doctor's absence, the family sat in silence - a silence that was only interrupted by the subtle sobbing of the young man's mother. after what seemed to the mother an eternity, the young man moved to the side of the aching woman, placed his arm around her and pulled her close to his chest. at this, she began to sob uncontrollably, and the father too, joined the embrace, his own tears, in a sense, mingling with the tears of his wife. the only son sat in the middle of this huddle, like a stone, unmoved by his parents' emotional outcry. before the moment had passed, the doctor re-entered the room and requested to speak to the young man in private. the parents solemnly shuffled out of the room and the door shut gently but firmly behind them. they waited outside not able to put their thoughts into words, until the doctor requested their presence once again. with the whole family gathered in the exam room, the doctor told the family that there was nothing she could do, as forcing an individual of his age and consciousness to take any treatment was illegal. she suggested that the whole family take time off of school or work, or anything else to spend time in companionship. the young man appeared to respond positively to this proposition, and his parents took heart. "perhaps, all hope is not lost." they thought to themselves. Later that same evening, as though the universe had somehow heard their thoughts, the young man seemed somehow, inexplicably, happier. the family shared pleasant conversation over dinner and even seemed content to sit in the sitting room and converse for an hour or two. the family went to their respective rooms to retire for the evening at around 10 pm. exhausted from the emotional events of the day, the parents fell asleep quickly with thoughts of encouragement and hope.

the next morning, just two and a half weeks before his twenty-first birthday, the parents found their only son lying in an almost unnatural fetal position on the floor of his bedroom. his lifeless left hand clasped an empty bottle of barbiturate sleeping pills, prescribed by the family physician the day before. in his other hand, a neatly folded note hung gently between his fingers. the young man's father opened the note, and there written in very orderly and purposeful handwriting were the words, "please, try to understand."