The Derelict Web

And he must hold on to the sink and stand firmly on his left leg because his right leg is useless. It doesn’t respond to his command all Henry can manage is to drag it along and he doesn’t dare stand upon it because he doesn’t trust it to hold him up.

In this fashion Henry starts his day, everyday. He doesn’t know how he will go on. But he goes on, and the next bit is the worst part of every morning.

Henry?

What, already?

What does regret mean?

A metal machine skronk segues to a lower register followed by a thin glass skittering from the closet.

Nothing. Nothing but the black suit, white shirt, black tie and demon shoes. A glint catches his eye, and there in the corner a drunken spider makes it’s way across it’s derelict web toward a sidereal moth in its throes.

“Henry, you were such a good boy. So tender to the touch. Remember the day you discovered the Sassaby’s? All you said for days was, I am a sassy Sassaby. Oh, you were such a dream, Henry”

Henry rotates the bird cage, shakes it, places his ear to the felt pad on the bottom.

It’s not that Henry is on the road to perdition as much as he is in Satan’s bowels. And then it all begins again.

What I’m Reading:

a stone near a cemetery suggests
why give birth to children
at all

— Mosab Abu Toha / “Gaza Notebook (2021-2023)”