Bomb Cyclone and its Effects on Harvard - 9

A Novella

9

Do not wage cruel war and call it commerce, do not bleed the world and call it progress, do not grind their bones, to make your bread. And do not yell at your offspring – because they will remember. And every word which my father spoke to me was incised. In a strange way – the arguments that he presented were even deeper than the actions in Currier House. They were more brutal, and delivered with a kind of élan. My father had gridded my brain for destruction, rather than my body.

After he had expended every bit of energy, he lay dormant - quiescent - but not calm. He strode away from the kitchen table where the altercation occurred and left me to stew in my juices. After a long hesitation - my mother came down from their room, and put me quietly into the shower. I plastered myself with warm water - and looking down saw my thighs shiver - they were recalling the torture, still. My hand was on the wall, and for some minutes did nothing at all. It was an active kind of Nothing - enrapturing destruction, like of Phoenix, I stood up and resolved to begin a new.

Ones in bed - recollecting the events, with cold logic - though I have never heard of hot logic - and decided that whatever tremors and quivers that these events caused - they would quickly be forgotten. This I vowed.

Then to fall asleep - and the last thing that streamed in my brain, was why a doornail should be deadlier than a coffin nail. And then to sleep, that bitter pill of waking was time to slumber.

Suddenly a terror, and I awoke … the lights were on outside and the sky was dark, but through the branches of the trees - there were stars again.

There was a cramping between my thighs, but it was just noticeable. Going back to bed, in a dreamscape Lily was present, and she was talking - but the words out of her mouth were gibberish, though of an ornate kind. Also, her lips are in a different syncopation from the sounds. The was no tactile touch against the skin, even this past in a nightmare. Consciousness did not happen - instead, I heard a grandfather clock chiming. In gabardine, bien sûr.

But, I looked for a timepiece, but all I saw was a wooden one in my imagination. It stopped at a time I knew all so well.

We have no grandfather clock, swirled in gin, within this house. Tock-tick, Tock-tick. Tock-tick. Go forth on gathering and gleeful clicking. Tock-tick.