I was reading my book. It wasn’t a funny book, and I had nothing to laugh at. In fact, I felt so desperately sad, that not even the thought of death could help wash away my inner blues. The book loosened itself from my fingers and fell to the floor, only, it didn’t strike the dusty boards. No, it kept falling, and falling, and falling. I did the same. The second my eyes were closed, I was drowned. Amid the drowning though, ethereal images offered me a brief release. You see, I’m nothing but a dullard, and yet in dreams, the things I see set me next to God. Sometimes, I behold a great red dragon. Its wings span the continents, and upon them, I walk. Over fire. Over water. By gun. By knife. Upon its scaly belly, I glimpse all the people I have loved who are now dead, and no matter how much I can go back in my head, the dead stay dead. Not even in the watery lens of memory do they sing the way they once sung in life. The book keeps falling. The pages flutter like the wings of baby pigeons seeking a way back into the nest. They never get there. Too weak. Flesh soon becomes bones, and although the end is home, it’s always too soon. The pigeons are skeletons now. They fall to the ground and shatter becoming dust, whereupon the feathery souls float from town to town, eyeing places, faces, buildings and bars, the likes of which I’ll never know. In my pockets, there are stones. They weigh me down. Falling further, I sink to the bottom of the world, and there, I find the shelter I seek.

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon UK

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon US