deerfly morning

He sits looking into the sunrise trying to understand why the world has taken on a patina of strangeness, almost like the slow opening of a horror picture show. He wants to clear his mind of it, but he likes horror, not to live, to watch. So, the setting or the rising of the sun behind silhouetted outlines that point like cardboard cutouts toward a sky busy with silver linings, matches his comforting dread. It all fits. He’s where he should not be. He’s thoroughly lost. He squints at the claustrophobic expanse hoping to find a way out of the trap. He struggles to breathe. It doesn’t make sense to him that all this sky, this yawn of land should make him feel trapped but he wants a magic knife to cut a hole in the sky so he can breathe.  No matter where he turns, there’s always something hovering at his back. He doesn’t want to see it. He wants to run from it. He wants to slash the membrane of this world and breathe into the next. He fears there’s no space large enough. The universe is a confining bubble. But he can run. So, he does. He’s traveling still, and that describes a distance that feels like space.  Something is biting him. Something flying around. He catches glimpses, hears the buzz of soft wings, sees black dots. He feels them try to get into his mouth, his eyes, his ears. They swarm him. The numbers are horrendous. He swats at them with frantic flailing arms and hands like the screaming madman who lived on his block back when he was free to judge others. The swarm is relentless. It begins to take on the form of something solid and malicious. He opens his eyes. Relieved it was one of those dream-like states that thud into his brain when he toggles between awake and asleep. He’s relived he’s in another world and floating. But she’s at the helm and she’s coming along side of a stranger.