Like Absinthe

The cat with the crooked nose barked me out of my house before I tripped over elephant shoes. Beyond the driveway I walked between the arching wooden boards and followed the catwalk through to Kansas. Tootoo told me about Georgia (the place, not the person). I touched a petal and it melted into a rainbow, which stuck to my fingernail and edged under my cuticle. I tried to scratch away the happy yellow, green and blue but only managed to wedge it further into my skin. I saw a purple man with one eye that turned into two and turned back into one. He gesticulated for me to follow but his frowning smile discouraged me so I turned around. With the eyes on the back of my head I saw him turn away too his wide eyes on the back of his head stared into mine.

I shut my eyes and ran. I ran the wrong way. I ran into him and he laughed so hard that his appendix exploded. I opened the right eyes and ran. I saw the clouds in the distance framing my house filled with something black. I could hear my mom yelling but I couldn't understand her so I gave a ninety-degree turn and avoided a little boy who was barfing into a bucket. Eight buckets surrounded him. I didn't bother to check what was in the rest of them, even though I could hear someone crying at the bottom of one. Don Quixote de la Mancha was adjusting the brass bowl on his head and demanding that Sancho had to try his elixir. I saw Sancho turn green and I laughed so hard that I felt my appendix twitch. I stopped then, remembering the purple man. I wanted to follow Don Quixote but by the time I could see again they changed into two trees surrounded by a Saskatchewan prairie. The trees, despite being so close together, looked very lonely.

I wanted to cry but I couldn't find my tears. A little girl moved like a slug towards me and gave me hers. I suddenly couldn't stop crying, even though I didn't feel sad anymore. I wanted to go home, but home wasn't the house I've lived in for the past eighteen years. It wasn't the place I had left the barking cat in. I knew it for it's unfamiliarity, and because it was unfamiliar it made me comfortable and I felt accepted by the angry eyes and wide-set mouths. I felt abused, used, tormented, but it felt better than being somewhere where I knew myself.

Music of the moment: Becoming a Parasite by Echolalia