From a Distance

Calm, but far from serene: the stereotypical numbness of novocaine to the heart. I don't feel the blood rushing through my veins, and it is almost as though I can believe those old rumors that I have a hole rather than an organ in my chest.

Every breath is deep and even, swelling from the diaphragm in perfectly paced crescendo-decrescendo phrases. My forehead is fallow ground, and my lips marble monoliths, heavy and immobile. You could draft blueprints for palaces with the line of these lips, build them and have them stand to observe the crumble of centuries. My face is a silent film of a still life.

I hear cars pass by on the road below, see the flash of headlights across the back wall of my bedroom. Flash, watch them come and disappear, and afterwards discover that my bedroom is unchanged. The maintenance of the status quo inspires only apathy.

A car may just have passed, but if so, I did not notice.

What is this cold, calm brand of madness? It is strange and stranger, sociopathic-ally scary. (I feel for my pulse - I do NOT have a hole where my heart should be.)

There it is! A beat! I heard its sloshing push from within my ear! Disappointment. (I even know its name.)

I watch a pair of headlights rise and fall on my bedroom wall.