The thing to do-

helicopters

hover
and paramedics and men dressed in kevlar slide down ropes to

compounds

a crippled man with a cane insults hospital attendents who are lowering
patients from the helicopter

while my mother holds the clicker
snapping

like my dog snapping at flies in the living room of our trailer

whats

next we
think

she adjusts her bathrobe
the

dog wakes up and says

"food" or

"out" to my mother i
ignor
the dog

stupid dog
i think and go back to

hacking

parts off

first a finger nail then
a finger the
small one

and finally a whole foot goes who

needs it

i grab the clicker from my mother

irritated i say
why

dont you get a job it
works


when she says it but
she ignors me

of course

and goes to her bedroom slamming the

door


this goes on for some time until my brother frank comes by who wants to borrow nine thousand dollars from

my mother

i say forget it she is in one of her moods

he leaves but first he asks if he can hack off my ears or maybe my mouth
i say

sure fine but
leave the clicker

now i cant hear the news
somebody is falling out of a plane another hurricane reaches the coast of somewhere

ten are dead the
words say

i cant hear of
course

i become irritated again it is snowing outside i am really tired about having to look at the snow

through the trailer windows

so i hack away
i hack
my eyes out it is a bloody
mess

but afterward it seemed like the thing to

do.

Reviews

[SkinlessFrank]

this reads like a transcribed dream, choreographed for cinema...it has that logic that makes sense while we are in the throes of it, and becomes a puzzle with a hidden solution once we awake....an interesting concept here.

[Penlady]

You are a most fascinating writer. I'm just catching up here.