he clamped his lips together like a vice. he imagined himself as a white encircling wall holding back the black waves of a sea. closed one eye to look inside himself and watch the secret approaching like an express train. filling his lungs with fluid, an implacable churning engine. he leant closer to the bowl, his eyes on fire. decaying organisms surrounded by darkness. breath like the wind from a gas chamber carrying the ashes of the dead up into the sky. human fucking flesh, what a waste of clay. how the fuck does meat generate light anyway. she could have given me the body of a roach. one of the big fuckers, a grandaddy. half jumping, half in flight.. wings moving like scissors.. in the apartment upstairs his retching sounds like a hurricane.