Paul! Lang

Go Back To Sleep

Rubbery appendages that were once my arms; bulks rounding down into legless humps of soft slippery matter. I leave a moist trail when I move. Blotches of diseased, evil gray come and go on my surface, as though light is being beamed from within. ~Harlan Ellison

I have a mouth and I can scream

But I probably shouldn't. What good would it do?

If I were to cry out, would the earth take me to

her bosom and keep me safe?

Or would Hal 9000 detect my

emotional spike , understand it and move on to

process more real, material data? (I.E the sound that a fly makes when it

expels methane gas, the exact circumference of a common stag beetles'

shell, the smell of an ant that has been left tied up and dried out in a

brown recluses' web for three days and three nights)

Would you believe there is a kind of hyperventilation that goes unnoticed

by the lungs, and doesn't escape through the orifices

as it expands and retracts in the brain

If I told you I could smell sulfur, you

would tell me it was just my bad nose

If I tasted blood you would say it

was all the salt I'd poured on my eggs

If I told you I sensed someone

crouching behind the door after midnight, you

would tell me it was just the wind

If I felt death looming just over the horizon . . .

If I told you this was all wrong, you'd

tell me that the world is all wrong,

and you'd smile

These things happen you'd say

Go back to sleep