10

            This one cloudy day, I was living on my own in Austin, down by town lake.  I had been up for a week, eating speed and was trying desperately to find some klonopin to knock me out.

            I drove through traffic.  Heavy traffic.  I saw bums on corners saying they were Gulf War vets, but they were only drug addicts.  I saw busses full of people going places.  Either to work, to play, or to sleep.  Packs of dogs roaming around and cats running across streets.  Restaurant passed restaurant, filled with hungry people, leaving stuffed.  I had the radio on and I was listening to a DJ drone on about how the weather had been so gray for like a month.  Something had to give.  The sun still existed, it was only hiding.

            As I was getting my keys into the lock, I felt a mosquito bite me in my neck.  I swapped at the nape of my neck and felt something cold.  I turned around and facing me, was this telescope.  It was at eye-level with me.  With my eyes, I followed the shaft of the scope.  It curved upwards, and at every five feet, it was bent, kind of like a Dr. Seuss tree.  It curved all the way up to the clouds that were sitting still hundreds of feet up in the air.

            Thinking my hallucinations were getting the better of me, I took four klonopin’s, locked my doors, went to my bedroom, locked the windows, got underneath the covers, and closed my eyes.  I went to sleep and dreamt I was on Venus looking at planet Earth, covered in fire and ash.