The Boy

The boy stands among the young men. The boy laughs when they laugh, nervously scanning. He looks for the faces of his one-time peers. They have long left him behind.

The boy is embittered. He knows that to grow one can only wait for time. Yet some, it would seem, require more time than others.

The boy is short with his mother. He hates to be told what to do. He is always tugging at the taller fellows' jeans and bouncing on his sneaks in the hopes that he'll be seen--hopes that his voice will be heard.

He hopes than some distant camera will take its picture at the precise moment when his head reaches the level of his more vertically inclined companions.

The boy is scared--scarred. Only God knows why. He has a lot to be happy about. He could have grown with the rest, but he never learned the value of a little selfless compassion. At least when it counts.

A moral to all the admiring boys of the world: Consideration. Let this always be one of the foremost of the age-old virtues. Our colors shall quickly fade, so do what you can while you are still able.

Belinda, I'm numb to it now.

Mobie sat shiftless in the corner armchair. He considered making some pleasantries with the others, but they seemed so far away now. Those dancing girls, those giggling churls--and the boys, all trying to inch up a little closer.

Morpheus ever taunts. There's nothing worse than the moments before you sleep. The moments when you're trying. You're standing on the bank and you're grasping a tree branch in one hand and your reaching out for the rim of a rowboat. The people in your dreams are all ready to embark downstream. They are waiting for you and you're just trying to reach them. It's so simple and so elusive. Sometimes you wake up and forget.

Maybe a restless river of minor revelations sweeps over you. You seem to hit upon something good, maybe even great, but then you wake up and it doesn't make sense. Nothing makes more sense in a reverie. Floating down the River Nile. The rushes and the women watching, the peasants washing, and maybe the merchants milling in their longboats, bursting with baskets of spices and trinkets, oils, wines, and instruments.

The River Nile. I remember it well. Your name was written on the water there. The river runs north and like you, it never stops running. Belinda, please say no more. We've passed those sad-eyed lovers in the street and heard that bitter banter. Your name doesn't ring halcyon to me now. Your kisses are nothing like they were. I don't believe it anymore. And that smile: Belinda, I'm numb to it now.

Sleep, sleep, sleep.

The Brief Paradisal (The Fever of Lust)

An uncontrollable urgent anxiety sweeps over our young protagonist.
Our prototypical young punk.
Blase, idealistic.
Recovering in a series of hospital beds throughout most of his young life, our protogonist picked up an addiction to morphine. He made friends with an anesthesiologist. They both liked The Specials. The impressionable, naive young doctor had taken pity on the pallid adolescent at his mercy. Fever dreams are a kind of wild pleasure. Pleasure borders pain. The associative property of algebra.

Some people get close to death and it motivates them. They swear they will spend every waking hour living life to its fullest. They will really appreciate all those little things that are such sweet bundles of joy.

Others who return from the brink of death lose all motivation. Our young protagonist is one of these sort.
The days become short. The days are long.
You pay no mind to the changing shades of the exterior world.
You realize something.
I can't say what.
You've got to go there to know, I guess.

-S

TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me on Letterman

Wow.