Four o' six am. Just a few more minutes. Watch the clock. Four o' seven. Up since .. since when ? One- thirty ? Two ? Maybe never slept. Four o' eight now. Twenty-two minutes until pill time. A life measured not in days or hours, but in pills. For some reason this thought strikes me as hilarious and I laugh at my own joke; But it's not a joke. Sit rocking forward and back expectantly, hugging my arms. Just ten minutes to go.. "Show an ounce of will power will you, you pogue ?", I tell myself. "They're just pills. Don't screw up your schedule." Almost time. Lay the little beauties in a line across the table. Arrange them by color; white, white, pink, peach. No, that's not good. Rearrange by size; Big, big, smaller, smallest. That's better.
Four-thirty am. "Pill time, its pill time !" I sing to myself to a tune I remember from my childhood, "..it's Channel Thirty Pill Time. We're happy to see you. We hope you're doing fine..". The absurdity of singing to an audience of tablets like some character from "Through the Looking Glass" hits me and I almost choke laughing as I pop them one after another into my mouth and wash them down with a can of Lipton iced tea.. Wiping off the tea that's now dripping from my nose, I think "Oh pills, shall we be trotting home again? But answer came there none. And this was scarcely odd because he'd eaten every one."
Waiting. Nothing to do but wait now. Wait for the thoughts that play over and over in my head to stop. Wait for the dial tone to stop. Wait for the most tragic moments of a lifetime to quit playing in a loop inside my head like some demonic infomercial. Just rock and be calm. I have an itch. Don't scratch it. You know what happens when your scratch. I know.. So stop scratching.. I can't .. But you don't even itch now.. I know.
Find a scar or a scab, or any irregularity will do.. It's not hard, they're everyplace.. Now scratch.. I don't want to do this. You have no choice; and don't scratch too easy.. Tear into the scars left from days and weeks past. Dig deeply until red water flows and your hands are slick; until the pungent smell of blood fills your nose. Watch in fascination as a rivulet of crimson runs down your arm and pools on a large droplet on the end of your finger. Tear at yourself until the pain becomes so great that tears flow from your eyes and remind you that you CAN feel something, even if your memories are dead; even if your soul is damned.
It's coming. I feel it in my head. The chaos is slowing. The familiar muscle cramps in my legs and jaw as the magic takes hold.. I stretch and hold until I tremble.. Like a long hard yawn.. Each muscle seizure working its way up until my whole body shakes.. But it's welcome.. One symptom for another.. And I can handle the shaking. The thoughts have slowed and I feel exhausted, and the day's just begun. It would feel so fine to just lay back in the big cushy chair and enjoy this moment of calm. Just to sit in the dark and the silence.. Perhaps to doze.
Here's Laura with Snappy, the little horse she rides when she has her lessons. Snappy is occasionally a pony when she gets her hoofs trimmed. That's Karen, her riding instructor, looking over her shoulder to make sure the harness goes on right.