I wake, heat catching in my throat. It seems I have overslept and in doing so have left myself open to the cruelty of the sun. It reaches through the cracks in the shades to blind me and bake be in streaks. Like meat on a grill, without the benefit of mesquite or hickory to liven the olfactory experience. My throat has already been seared. A band of heat has been resting there, slowly roasting it dry.
I close my eyes and try to capture an image of wet. The slide of condensation on the outside of a perfectly chilled beer. I hold the image in my mind until my mouth finally starts to water. The wet trickling slowly down my burning throat. It is not much, nut it is the best I can do. "Heal thyself." Well, I am certainly doing all that I can, trapped as I am in this bed. In this room. In what is left.
I peer down and over, stretching the limits of what I can see. My shattered fragments have grown since the previous day. This is not surprising. At some point I am expecting that there will be nothing left to shave off, and then what will be done with me? I still have not quite fathomed why this process is fruitful. Who benefits? I cannot see that I am gaining any insights. And no one seems to be monitoring the results of this experiment in my gradual fragmentation. Of course, what do I know? I could endulge in paranoid delusions and assume I am important enough to keep an eye on. But that would assume that somehow I did not put myself in this position, and I am not quite ready to give up idea that I have controlled this from the beginning. It belies the idea that I might control the ending.
Searching the periphary to the other side I am startled to find my longest finger touching the edge of a sliver of myself. It takes all of my control not to pull my hand away. Not that I have the strength to move that quickly, but the thought exists. These fragements are repellent as much as the are also compelling. I lift the finger slightly deciding what this may mean to me. What portent it may have. Finally, if for no other reason than I can no longer bear the burden of holding that digit up any longer I let it fall back on the fragment. The sllight touch moves it further under my grasp. I can hear the air escape me.
This fragment is choosing to come back. It seems I will have no choice but to accept it. I wonder as a slowly work with it. pulling at it with the fingertip, moving it closer to an angle where I can truly view its content if it will be whole enough for me to understand. Perhaps it will take many to complete the puzzle.
I pause. What will happen it I am able to complete a frame? Can I will myself through it? Is there a way out of this constriction? Or is this just another way to occupy my unending hours.
I work with the fragment. Worrying over the time it is taking. If the shadows begin to fall I will lose this opportunity. Once they edge their knife blades to me I cannot predict what will happen. I must see and remember this image. The light has already shifted from my throat to my chest. It seems I am not as swift as I could hope. But then I had never planned on being reduced to a digit's worth of movement.
Finally I secure the fragment trapping it against my leg and turn it into my palm. Now all that remains is the reverse journey to bring the hand back out to where I can view it directly. The light has moved to my belly. I strain to move more quickly. I do not have the leisure of time on my side. I cannot take as much time to reverse the movement as I did to enact the forward thrust. But then perhaps it will not be as hard. I am not chasing the fragment this time. I only need to be careful not to dislodge it from my palm.
The blades have begun casting the knife edged shadows. They are lengthening but are not yet where they can touch me. I can see the redness of the evening through the cracks in the shades. Just barely enough light and time as I bring my palm in view. Lifting it is a struggle, I have already expended so much energy. I am not sure I can make this last effort. I am truly not sure that I want to. Still I push myself, pain gripping me. I squint to try and make out the image and feel defeated. The sliver reflects only a simple reflection of the coolest shade of blue. As a try to devine some reason for this I can just make out a single edge a bump on the far right side, a blip of white. And then the knives descend.
I cannot help myself, I let my hand fall and the fragment drifts away from me as a new churning froth begins. The pieces of myself blurring the room, snowflakes. A little miracle added to the oppressive heat. Or it would be if it did not seem so hideous that the game proceeds.
Thank goodness the night will come. I pray for sleep and fear all I will see is fragements of blue. An empty ending to my effort it seems. But why I expected more I do not know. My construct it seems is more complicated. As it should be when you build your own cage.
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