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Planet of the Apes: 4

Wes Lee


My mother stands with Eva beside my bed. It's like waking up to the big nurse.

I've become bold in this place. Fleshed out the role of the bad patient.

"Get out." I tell my mother.

My mother withdraws from the room with the eyes of a watchful baboon. Alone with Eva I don't recognise the friend I used to have. It is me who should be whispering. "It doesn't look like her."

She looks jolted awake. Her eyes are wide like she's pretending or trying to listen hard. She looks like someone standing between things, like she's inside and outside the room. When you get to the stage I'm at, you start to see things in very different ways. It's like you've got X-ray vision, you can see through the skin of everything. You can pick out all the layers, see them rippling together in space.

"They say you could die." Eva says.

Being a bad patient allows you not to answer. You can lie there staring at someone until they crack. You can tip your bedpan onto the floor. You can react without trying to save someone else's feelings. You can stop manufacturing the world. You can just stop.

"I'll come in with your mother tomorrow." Eva says.

Being a bad patient is all it's cracked up to be. It is the thing that everyone should get to be at least once. Being a bad patient is the darkness and the fire. It's what I'm here for.

 


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