There was something in the corner of his eye his left that he couldnt catch up with              try as he may

a rolling  flickering  a neon kind of light that he couldnt heel or bring into focus

    

it ran  an undulating wave  escaping off to his left

he could swing his eyes right  yank it over  but trying to look it it avoided him like a serpent  a desert sidewinder writhing across the face of a sand dune
                                                                  without leaving a trail

they were colored lights  soft Christmas lights  sly  indistinct  hinting    in it he glimpsed reds greens yellows blues
he could not say they had any order  if there was order  or which burned brighter  ameliorated   or waned dull

he sat in an office swivel chair 

  

the strand ran round and round and around across the face of the four white walls containing him

  

he would have looked like an idiot following it if anyone saw him   but it was lunch   his coworkers always went out  they never brought theirs to work

they invited him out

he declined saying Ive got mine right here  slapping a brown sack

they thought he was cheap

he didnt think frugal and cheap were the same

besides  the food he brought the thermoses of cold milk and black coffee never permeated the air with the odors they returned wearing or caused his belly to twist in knots or give him the shits or he wasnt at the work the next day because wrecked by food poisoning   and the food poisoning excused because it was an inherent risk one ran when they ate out

his coworkers thought he was kidding when he said if he ate out and his belly went bad because of the food that hed return to the restaurant and shit in their entrance

No
  

he wasnt kidding

he gave what he got

he wished he could reconstruct what it was that he did to incur this wraith crawling at the edge of his vision  roiling at his peripheral like something stuck in his teeth that he couldnt get out with the tip his tongue and didnt have a toothpick hed have to dig at with the nail of his small finger and if that failed bite and tear a fingernail off hold it between his fingers and work at the clinging shred of meat or celery fiber as he leaned forward low in his cubicle acting as if he lost something on the floor dropped a pen slips of paper
hed readily have some excuse at hand

he was usually ahead of things

what he was never ahead of was the office politics gossip  its tawdry Peyton Placesque suspense

he went there to work

a straitlaced motherfucker

a days pay for a days work

and the company made out on him because few worked as hard as he did or were as focussed

except today

and this fucking wiggling  wiggling    wiggling

even closing his eyes

it ran haplessly in the dark like an escaping shadow  uncolored

after the strobe

the flatline 

the lightning departed

it rolled left and kept on going

he recognised before it went that if he stared straight ahead    it twitched and bitched

distractions dont like being ignored 
 

                                                          perhaps it opted out 
though he thought  more likely  it dissipated  he couldnt know  he could only surmise

he opted out

he quit looking

quit the voyeurism that it had enticed

and when a voyeur quits looking a flasher quits flashing

whatever it was

it was gone

his last thought about it was that he hoped the door really cracked it on the ass as it left  sound enough to have broken its tailbone or loudly snap its elastic backbone

he didnt figure that would be asking too much

not for the lunchtime it cost him his empty belly the mild nausea it induced

after it ran off  or eroded  he recognised something odd about himself

he looked at his foot  his hand  his arm up to where it disappeared into his short sleeve

they werent his

they looked like his  fleshy  muscled

but they were nothing more than appendages one might find in a dimestore or a cheap garment outlet
pieces of a manikin 

they were his color and complexion  fascinating  looked exactly like his own 
 

but were utterly detached of his person

he couldnt make them move

disgustingly  he was tempted to finger his straight razor with his remaining hand and slice them to see if they bled
or if he could feel the thin metal pain after the blade passed

he kept it stropped and wicked  prepared  if he had to use it

he didnt want anyone to know they were cut 
until after he was away

he didnt want to hear their abrupt ejaculate Whaddafuck! Am I bleeding?! 

And out of the corner of their eyes 

                                                         ribbons of blood coiled or jagged on the dull linoleum
or a thirsty concrete walk

1324,  Friday, and again after 1600 sitting with bigfoot on the porch,  6  11. 15