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Show CHRYSALIS PAGE 6 nurse pulls the curtain around my bed. There are other patients in the room who do not need to see this spectacle. I don't give a damn if they do. The hours melt into each other, day or night, there is no difference. I sleep a lot, and wake up only when they want to stick me with another needle. I have strange fever dreams. I dream I have written a book, and I call it "The Black Boy and the Preacher's Snot." I can't imagine what deranged microbes inspired this book. The title reminds me of Dylan Thomas's "When I was a windy boy and a bit, and the black spit of the chapel fold. . .sighed the old ramrod, dying. ..." Dying. I hope I am not dying. A whole band, crashing cymbals, timpani, tubas and trumpets and a11,marches through my dreams, their golden epalets waving and brass buttons shining. "What band is that?" I ask. "That," someone says, "is the Kahntoum Hamish Duck Band." Mark says he roust go and relieve the baby-sitter. "Shall I call your folks and tell them?" he asksw "Tell them what?" That I have cancer? No. "They ought to know." "You mean before they read it in the obituaries?" I am |
