I feel like I want to kill myself tomorrow.

It was suggested - in large part by a flurry of musical activity from crickets - that another evening would pass by in amazement, nettled by paralysis in shimmering pools of pure wonder at the nature of being baffled, confused and emotionally trapped.

I said, I watched you throw your life away. Then, straightening my shirt for the last time, I turned away from the mirror and looked down the empty hall, waiting for an appropriate time to get moving and leave.

Learning ghosts.

We sat together in the small, yellow circle of a streetlight’s gaze, with our hands on each others’ knees. Probably this dream was the best one all month.

When you pretend, on the telephone, I like that better than when you just disappear completely.

Bright violence.

With a partnership of eyes sewn into the palm of the hand, the lights became slowly dimmed until all in the room could see nothing but the whites of the eyes.

At the very back of the theater, the curtains hung all the way to the floor, dangling so close behind the seats that it sounded like, and felt like, there were creatures behind the row, slithering and tumbling over one another. During some quiet parts of the film, this disturbing rasp of the curtains was louder than the sound coming from the speakers. The hidden, patiently convulsing mass behind the last row grew louder as the screen’s volume dimmed. I tried to make eye contact with the actors and actresses on the screen but they never looked directly into the camera, while behind me in the dark, waiting for the right moment for someone to come too close in the aisles, there waited the creature curtains. I looked up at the screen, dazzled by choreographed formations of dancers rising from out of volcanic waterspout; they blossomed like the human petals of some gigantic flower of life, then cascaded across a shiny ballroom floor as the camera panned over empires of majestic smiles and the glitter of an untouchable world. I wanted to climb into the silver screen and look like that, perfect and prim in a black hat and black pants, leading my-costar across the frame as diligent perfection-hungry cameramen followed us with boom mics and light reflectors. But at the back of the seats, the curtains slithered, menacing, the dry touch of some kind of black creature in the shadows making my skin just about crawl inside out. The song on the screen exploded then and the dance became another world even more majestic, even more filled with glitter than it ever had been before. But what made me jump out of my seat were the arms that reached up from the darkness of the curtains behind me and the hands extended from it that held onto my elbows. I ripped myself from the theater seat, dropping the cup of watery ice I’d been sipping from for hours, and I darted from the room, not looking behind me. Once in the lobby again, with the late morning sunshine flooding the theater’s stained red carpets with bright pools of orange and yellow, all was quiet. The Sunday morning church crowd had not filtered in so much yet from across the street because mass would not be over until noon. Mostly nobody was here. The few attendants behind the counters looked bored and tired. Without attracting any attention, I slid back into the movie and sat back in the same seat, wondering to myself if I could ever get tired of watching the same things over and over again or if I would ever feel like a normal person.

I didn’t expect you to be dancing so much because of how sick you’ve been, but like always, you surprised me. Next time (if there is a next time), I hope we can even have a drink together.