The argument was inside the head, accusing. The walk along the towpath, the evening, as bugs shot streaks of light across the slow quell of dusk, waters slapped the rushes softly, this was reason, the other was not.
The other exploded across the face, rabbit punched the top of the head, drove the feet beneath the surface of the soil of mind, captured the man in a swathe of net who wriggled and sweated and cursed and could not escape but for the shards of desperation that shrieked in the blood and ran, ran, ran away from there to anyway without a thought only a desperate shaking off the noose of the demonic words that had scuffled about him, dismissing and lighting, brushing and sweeping, jabbing and pinning like some crowd of evil little gods.
The love of the person’s life burst open with the glowing coals of hateful loathing, red in lust to kill the soul that he himself of all things cherished.
Sure this person was one with the bench—there, somewhere close, somewhere here, waiting with the cool succor of soft moonlit sympathy, its pale arms open and beckoning among the mortal and immaterial souls, its sympathies beating a soft drum as the person found it, sitting deeply into it-stilled-the head calm, righteous, sane at last, the eyes brilliant with grief, staring into the glow of the night-lit water. Sinking back, a puff of relief exuded like a punctured tire, the chains of exhaustion relaxed. The head swung back, the eyes closed and soon a soft snore of escape dribbled into the night while the river, soft and nourishing, bore all troubles away.
Grey Sparrow Journal 