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Show CHRYSALIS PAGE 8 is another kind of place. An old woman sleep in the bed next to mine, attached to hanging bottles and threading tubes that lace in and out of her every orifice. The fluid eventually drains from her into a bag at the foot of her bed or empties efficiently into the colostomy pouch at her side. I, too, am connected to an intravenous bottle and tube. The needle goes in near my wrist. This demoniac canker intrudes upon our lives even as we feast and love and sleep. We entertain it unawares. I feel that it is the end of everything. My folks have sent flowers. I can't tell them yet. Six-thirty A.M. They come in and take me to X-ray again, the portable IV swinging along as we go down in the elevator. Last time I moved and the film blurred. We have to do it over again. How can they expect me to lie here so long without moving? I have to cough. I have to go to the bathroom. I'm going to throw up again. There go their pictures. Shitl I'm tired and I'm angry. I want to go back to sleep. I dream of riding a great slow horse through an open place. There is much light where he walks, but the light illumes nothing. |
