She was very kind

kind enough to roll over onto her ailing shoulder and pick up her cellphone for him

from the narrow bedstand

and send him a text message . . . she tapped out what he dictated from the words he 

overheard

the words that hung in his ears from that between place of consciousness and 

unconsciousness:

                                                                                                      “Every man

every man was spoken for  except the dead man” . . . words that came into his ears in 

the voice of a unseen crone

he almost stuck around to hear her cackle

                                                                      but the  slick  stained  poured-concrete walls   

the row of yellow cones of light peeping  --  not wanting to see what they lit  --  down from the innards of flyspecked tin shades                                                                                             

                                                                       the row disappeared into a deep darkness 

like phosphorescent spots on the spine of a snake where its ribs conjoined

its smell wretched

                               frightened him to flee

                                                                        Convinced   if he heard it   hed see her

and she  like Medusa or the Erinyes  would fix him in that place  turn him to stone  or 

remedy him

with a horrible violence of which he had no concept 

                                                                                        torture   forced to contemplate

the deliberate pain one wouldnt force another to undergo or bear

but the torture had nothing to do with enduring the wicked blades or dull blunt mauls

the pinchers or coals or roasting fires

                                                                   not the viscous fetid water drowned in 

or seamy oils 

or needles spikes and spines  or crosscut saws

horrified    he started 

certain when his eyes popped open                                                                                                     in the very next moment hed hear the crone  and would not have escaped 

                                                                                                                      and witnessed         

her shadow slither up a sickly wall

but he eluded his unconsciousness                                                                                                     

or it released him

and the scrap it allowed him to bring back were the words written with his tongue

that she was kind enough to record

to remind him

                                                                                                                                   

fear will seek you where you let it

1616,  Saturday,  28  6. 14