After the disheartening discovery of my office door having been pried open sometime during the night and the locks smashed well beyond repair, I moved my things down to the hospital accounting office. Without a safe office of my own, it was just as well that I should leave the floor while the investigation was still pending and assist in sorting out the security receipts from last year with the rest of the overworked accounting staff, many of whom were not very familiar to me. I was given a small desk alongside Mary (someone that I did recognize), where the two of us were charged with restoring damaged security-cost documents, primarily in regard to preparing a fiscal budgeting system for the next two years that would both predict and accommodate the rising costs of subduing violent encounters within the hospital. Mary’s hands were shaking so badly that I called up to the cafeteria for some coffee and muscle relaxants for her. Her long hair fell in front of her face, hanging there motionlessly until the pills could arrive. Once they did, she parted it down the middle like the curtains of a movie screen, lay one of the pills delicately over the pointed tip of her tongue, then leaned back to swallow it down with a sip of coffee.

Fell down the stairs.

The unhealthy martyr, feeling apprehensive and drunk on defeat.

Confessions Of A Complicated Nature, For The Thanksgiving Table | 3/5.

The partnership of worries.

Sometimes when I think of walking into traffic in the middle of the night on the highway, I remember how when after you and me went to that seance in Quarters Calliph, we fell asleep against each other on the curb waiting for a taxi and when the cab pulled up next to us, the soft rumble of the engine eased us both into opening our eyes at the same time. And I can still see the light in your eyes that morning and I can still feel your breath against my neck and then, like being told it’s okay by some guardian angel, I just don’t want to walk into traffic anymore when I think of that.

Bright violence.

During the rainstorm we were stuck underneath an awning near the shoe store, and the concrete embankment flooded, up to our ankles. For a brief moment I had this extraordinary feeling that we would get to stay there longer, get to know each other better. But the rain only lasted for around twenty six minutes, at which point we started walking again, and with all the people on the street, it didn’t feel so suddenly personal anymore, the things we said and shared. I liked it a lot better during the rainstorm.

Customary inspections of the grounds commence at 6am. The courtyard is routinely flooded at 8am. They saw the jaws away from tranquilized cows in the bedroom, pulling theirs heads back by the ears.

No believers.