he almost couldnt bear to look at the illuminated hands of the small travel clock perched beside the telephone atop the bookcase

              Youre a big boy  Look   It aint gonna killya

this was an interior dialogue

mariachi didnt come around until after a cup of coffee

You sure

   Im as sure as you

                          Look

sixsixteen  6:16

                    Yasee  Had I looked a minute earlier Id have been dicked by a five

But yadidnt

I did not

Now whacha gonna do with sixsixteen

Im goin . .

. . Of course we are

   Going back to bed close my eyes an play with the forgiving time

Sounds like a plan

                     Tell me about it when youre up in the morning Im going to sleep

the light went out immediately wasnt fucking around

slipping under the blankets he laid down

his cat jumped himshed held down the fort while he went to the bathroom checked the clock

stroking her neckher throat gently strumming the top of her head Im back  Thanks for keeping the bed warm leftie

she turnedretreated he parted his legs she curled round curled round nestled tight up against his crotch closed her eyes purred

           she was off

on the back of his closed eyes which comprised one viewing screen  he pinned up 6:16

it was coloured pale blue

no fucking idea why

he began manipulating it hypnagogic leaned in over his shoulder  Whacha got   Hmmm

his interior voice in his head sounded like he sounded when he spoke out loud

he hoped his voice sounded different to others who heard him talk

he listened

             Dropping the colon its symmetric   SIX  ONE  SIX

Pulldown on the ONE

Elongate it

Distort it so that it loses its signifier as the number one

SIX  SLASH  SIX

                       Aaah  yasee

Six parts to six parts is actually one to one which means the ones whole a whole One

   Awright

                   One .  .   .

that mélange yes mélange stepped aside as hypnagogic giggledappropriated his fading consciousness and flung him into a lather where he and a women he didnt knowbarely glanced at were stripping off their clothes to race to her bed  had to be the hallway wasnt his  she beat him naked and ran jumped into bed immediately diving under the blankets clasping them around her  it was like she could see him through them as he went to the sides the foot of the bed trying to yank them freetrying to expose her seeing only her outline her shape her rounds under the blankets  she thwarted his every effort he frankly  exhausted himself trying to unearth her

                                                                       HEY

muffled YAH.

You win  I cant believe I cant get my hands on you

YAH. I’M GOOD AT THIS.

he leaned his thighs against the side of the bed

YOU GIVE UP?

Not give up Can I concede for now

FOR NOW?

Yah  Lemme catch my breath

JUST FOR NOW?

Yah

AWRIGHT.

              then her hand her wrist her forearm snaked out  she grabbed his cock

YOU’RE MIGHTY HARD.

Your fault

LET ME HELP YOU WITH THAT. 

                                   vigorously  artfully  she masturbated him

                 

he erupted

OOOOH

           SUPPOSE WE’LL HAVE TO LAUNDER THE BLANKET.

then she began to emerge like a shivering butterfly from her softwoven pale blue chrysalis

2sday,  5  12. 23

1133,  day-between-2-Ts,  6  12. 23

bookends

not where he usually found them

                                   though thats where he found thesefinding himself distracted by the rotting road under his feet through his worn shoes a hole in the toe of one hole in the sole of the other

an old street

             its composite stones and pebbles were being revealedwere no longer denied the sunlightwarming in it again after mixed and buried in sand and concrete for the better part of a century                                

he tucked the book he was reading under his arm

                                                     instead

he tried to read the rocks

his feet were more successful

they could read its braille

it was when he stopped to take in the roads devolution that he recognised the first bookend  to his left

a daycare held at a church children playing insidecontained by a chainlinked fence

he couldnt identify the playground equipment 

                                                  there were no swings or slides or jungle gyms or a concrete sewer pipe to scramble over and within  made a great fort

he couldnt see if they played on woodchips

at the fencededge above him he saw two little boys a little girl she wore a dress a tiara woundup in her mussed blonde tresses one of the boys also wore a tiara

without reason he turned suddenlylooked oneeighty away to what had been his right as he walkedread up the street

   there another bookend

this he looked down into

a small greenspace

a small whitepainted concrete bench on the grass

it too was separated from him by a chainlinked fence

he knew the place a school that taught assisted adults with developmental disabilities

a woman stood on the grass at the edge of a blacktopped parking lot

she was very small not much taller than the little girl wearing the tiara her hair was also blonde  cut in a manageable Dutch Boy

she was aloneheld an opened hand to her chest as if restraining herself then  thumped her chest as she jerked forward from the waist again and again and again and again . . . he didnt count the times

   finally   uncomfortably

                                he looked away

he collected bookends

these were an odd pair

possibly 2PM,  Monday,  4  12. 23

1212AM,  day-between-2-Ts,  6  12. 23

0927,  day-between-2-Ts