Posts
Jesse S. Mitchell
it is morning.
Warren Casser has a virus. Makes him dream the most luminous, most vivid dreams. And durable too, the shocks and sights surviving straight on into headache hangover mornings, dry sunburst throbbing sunrises. Oh, every night blinding Polyphemus, every night the blinding light. The great big glowing white moon staring down, flooding over his pinprick skin but cold, trying to stay awake, talking to himself, rattling on and on in random screeds, grabbing Jameson bottle like Proteus and he won’t let go until he gets his answer, shape shifting, slipping through all the deep dark waves like oceantide but he doesn’t want to sleep. And every midnight pharaohically married to his all-day-restlessness. It is tough and he moves around his house in drunken Fibonacci spirals to avoid making contact with himself, mathematically, geometrically but a million years of insomnia collects heavy behind his bloodshot eyes and slumber pools over him like the sea and every night he drowns himself to sleep.
But now, he is awake again. Awake and alive in the same world he fell asleep in, same town, same street. It is a young neighborhood, a churning, living, cul-de-sac filled with adolescence and formation. All through all the halls of all the great big houses, between all the walls of all the great big rooms, ten-thousand bodies, ten-thousand minds, youths in black t-shirts, tight jeans, levitating over each other, a breath away, air filled with words, and all the pregnant lips aquiver against the impossible explosion that is the always possibility of expression.
But Warren knows what to say while they do not. That is how age leaves the body. He is alone with fistfuls of words and they are a mass and violent-loud.
The noise hurts his head.
He feels all covered in embryonic fluid, embalming liquid, euphoria, floating around, smothered over to make it safely through this life, lies, like lies, as lies, to live through this life.
Warren doesn’t live in the house, but instead in the attached garage. He abandoned the house long ago, in fact, he has never really been inside it. He left home early before his parents moved to this particular neighborhood, he only returned to take over their property and dealings when they died. His brother, being already well set in the world, had his own house, his own life. Warren was the natural choice for cleaning up. He has never been able to bring himself to unlock the front door or the side door or the backdoor and go inside. Everything is likely the same as when his parents left it and went on their ill-fated vacation.
Warren has all the amenities of modern life set up in the rather large garage. A deep freezer, a hot plate, a small apartment fridge, and several computers all buzzing and humming away. Warren’s research. Warren is always working. Warren is a philosopher.
it is morning.
Warren Casser has a virus. Makes him dream the most luminous, most vivid dreams. And durable too, the shocks and sights surviving straight on into headache hangover mornings, dry sunburst throbbing sunrises. Oh, every night blinding Polyphemus, every night the blinding light. The great big glowing white moon staring down, flooding over his pinprick skin but cold, trying to stay awake, talking to himself, rattling on and on in random screeds, grabbing Jameson bottle like Proteus and he won’t let go until he gets his answer, shape shifting, slipping through all the deep dark waves like oceantide but he doesn’t want to sleep. And every midnight pharaohically married to his all-day-restlessness. It is tough and he moves around his house in drunken Fibonacci spirals to avoid making contact with himself, mathematically, geometrically but a million years of insomnia collects heavy behind his bloodshot eyes and slumber pools over him like the sea and every night he drowns himself to sleep.
But now, he is awake again. Awake and alive in the same world he fell asleep in, same town, same street. It is a young neighborhood, a churning, living, cul-de-sac filled with adolescence and formation. All through all the halls of all the great big houses, between all the walls of all the great big rooms, ten-thousand bodies, ten-thousand minds, youths in black t-shirts, tight jeans, levitating over each other, a breath away, air filled with words, and all the pregnant lips aquiver against the impossible explosion that is the always possibility of expression.
But Warren knows what to say while they do not. That is how age leaves the body. He is alone with fistfuls of words and they are a mass and violent-loud.
The noise hurts his head.
He feels all covered in embryonic fluid, embalming liquid, euphoria, floating around, smothered over to make it safely through this life, lies, like lies, as lies, to live through this life.
Warren doesn’t live in the house, but instead in the attached garage. He abandoned the house long ago, in fact, he has never really been inside it. He left home early before his parents moved to this particular neighborhood, he only returned to take over their property and dealings when they died. His brother, being already well set in the world, had his own house, his own life. Warren was the natural choice for cleaning up. He has never been able to bring himself to unlock the front door or the side door or the backdoor and go inside. Everything is likely the same as when his parents left it and went on their ill-fated vacation.
Warren has all the amenities of modern life set up in the rather large garage. A deep freezer, a hot plate, a small apartment fridge, and several computers all buzzing and humming away. Warren’s research. Warren is always working. Warren is a philosopher.
