The screams came first, or did they. No, I think the screams came first, then the stamping. It was a lot of stamping, commotion, noise, extreme noise, too much noise.
The blot on the roof; when sight starts to fail, you start to miss things, but at other times, you actually begin to see things, confusing things, never sure about what is what. Bright neon lights will often fuse together in a gory embrace of blurred colors; letters, words on white paper jump at you like little toy soldiers. Sometimes they march in uniform cognitive awareness, other times they lie dead and far and unknowable.
When sight starts to fail, you start to miss things, but at other times, you begin to see visions of a kind, visions of redemptive annoyance.
The little blot on the wall, no, not the wall, I think the blot was up on top of the roof. Wall or roof, it all looks the same depending on where you stand.
At some point, the blot seemed static. At other points, it started to change form, like a shape-shifter, enchanting little wonder at a distance, enthralling almost. It grew smaller, and larger, smaller still and static again.
Had to tear attention away from the magnetism that was the shape-shifter, back into the four walls that surrounded sanity, back to cognizance that was the failing sight, the big huge windows, shutters half closed and the flapping of the curtains. The clock drags, full bellied and procumbent, along a sea of timelessness, as the four walls echo the drone of he who is pedagogue, to they who assume role of docile novices. Modulation passes, throbs a sway, everything’s normal here, nothing seems out of sync.
Beyond the flapping of the wind, beyond these shutters, the glass windows, timeless zones and the four walls; beyond all of this…the blot on the wall, or is it the roof.
Maybe it’s a bird, this far-off thing. And just as soon as one thinks one knows, there goes the shape-shifting thing again. It cannot be a bird because now it is no more a blot, it is upward and straight. Still too far away to tell so well, but pretty sure it is erect now, like a distant tooth pick, typical shape-shifter, no less enchanting.
My oh my, one does perceive strange things when the mind wonders out of space.
And just like that; the screams, the noise, the commotion. Still do not remember which one came first. Was it the confusion out and down below, or was it my enchanting little shape-shifter, leaning forward, and forward, and still more forward, until the sounds of closing books, moving chairs and slamming doors begin the end of yet another school allocution. But in all of this, right before the awakening, pretty sure there was a thud outside.
Or maybe it was all a mistake, eyes fail, sight deceives, ears lie, sights and sounds can be misleading.
When they found him, my enchanting shape-shifter, my little allurer and attention grabber, he was gone on contact, and there was a great big red halo of warm fresh blood forming on the ground where his head hit first. His eyes were open, almost as if looking up to the sky, up to the heavens, in supplication.
Is that a smile on his face, his slowly dying warm face? He did smile a lot, but that was before he became my little shape-shifter. I know the eyes lie, I know sounds deceive, all is not always what it seems; but I could have sworn I saw him stand, and think, retract and jump. And on he smiled, even as they carried his limp-self away, even as they doused the red halo with water, brushes and a lot of soap.
Commotion rose as the cries rang out, and the panic set in. But he just kept on smiling, smiling on to sweet NIRVANA.
