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May 26, 2002 tourniquet I awoke with malice aforethought. Nothing moved in my world.  The park behind my house was lifeless;  no huffing, hopeless joggers, no comfortable squirrels, no twitchy birds, no condescending cats.  I retrieved the morning newspaper and scanned the front page to see if I had missed a holocaust while I slept.  Nothing.  Perhaps the entire Animal Kingdom shared my plans, devised the night before.  I had resolved to hide indoors, avoid contact with anyone or anything, and lick my wounds until they bled.  That every other living creature had simultaneously stolen my idea annoyed me. What wounds?  Why nurse them today?  I had long mastered life with depression.  Nothing fresh and oozing there.  Separation from family?  A walk in the park.  The crush of unrelenting unimpairment?  Don't make me laugh.  No, there was something different going on.  This felt scary and fun, like the feeling you got when first you conceded your own mortality.  A liberating despair you can handle on your own, but which you'd rather not witness in others.  So you wait it out with dignity.  The kind of dignity found only in solitude.

©  2002 by the beastmaster