At the Bottom of 13

At the Bottom of 13

I live out here in the deep frozen space.  Here, I'm all Alone,  and I live in my rocket ship. 

I'd count all the stars and give them each names,

But without any windows, there's nothing to count

Except what's erased

From my memory.

To further the metaphor, I'll say this:

I am now like the desecrated grave of Shakespeare.

With the head removed from the torso,

The disturbed dust becomes our shared curse.

Before I forget, I'll tell you my whole story before it folds.

After the fold, I will flip and forget all of this.

The river Lethe is said to erase all
Like the Big Bang did so long ago.
Everything that had existed fused together
In the cosmic crucible
And then spat out with a bang
Carrying a blue-print of the forever design.

           The flip will erase you.  It will erase me, too.

So while I still can, I will tell you all:

It's no joke when I say I live in space. 

I am literally whirling through outer space

And I survive because I'm safe in my ship.

I consider it my only home.

If my calculations are correct, 

I'm just beyond the solar system's reach,
Though I have no proof of this.

With no windows to see the stars

I'm left with only my imagination. 

My imagination takes full forms
And often pins me to the scene
Like some horrific fiend in a sleep paralysis dream. 
It whispers in my ear.

Mostly I'm lonely, though I don't know why.

As far as spaceships go, mine is okay.

I have no real right to complain.

I've heard that other ships are made far worse than mine,
So I'm thankful.  Truly.

Still, if I'm being entirely true, I am fearful, too.

I'm very aware that something's not right.
For example, in the main hull of the ship where I live, 
I can feel deep scratches
On the large metal-framed door.

I don't recall making the scratches myself,
So I presume they're from another time.

Do the marks recall a desperate attempt to escape.
Did someone escape?  Did I escape?
Did you?

I try not to think that someone else was here

Held within the darkness, just like I am.

I forgot to tell you: there are no lights on this ship.

I had lights for many years,

But one morning, all the power drained away;

I lost all lights and all modes of communication.

Since then, it's only me.

I've tried to keep time as best as I can

And, if my calculations are correct, I've been here

For at least 44 years in the dark.

Sometimes I think that being in the darkness made me crazy. Perhaps I really have dementia, and I only think I'm in a            spaceship. Maybe I'm alive in some hospital, 
But with limited cognitive functions.

  Maybe the sepsis 
Took me
After all -

Alzheimer's 
Patients stare with 
Empty eyes consumed by 
Broken down motors, but my motor on this ship works Fine, I think.

Sometimes I think that this has all happened before.  Maybe, of all the options, the worst is floating through space in the dark.

And just when the fold comes, it will change.
I will then erase as I fall into the flip.
Time will lay flat like two planes
And point A and Point b 
Will transmigrate in
Quantum
Superposition.
What then?  Maybe,
Maybe I'll be a prisoner

Put in solitary confinement and

Left for so long that I will have gone crazy.
The crazy will continue until I remember to

Flip!
Fold
And slip

Am I sitting in "the hole" with nothing

But the cold concrete slab where I now sleep?

When the guards pass my cell, do they hear me

Muttering about being lost in space?

Or maybe I'm still at that party at Frank's

When we hung out in the garage.

I remember the Led Zeppelin posters taped to the sheet rock.

Two pretty girls came over to party.

Someone asked if I wanted some more acid.

Did I drop another hit and then disappear

And suffer permanent brain damage

Like what happened to poor Syd Barrett?

Some days I think a window will appear

From the center of the scratched iron door.

I am waiting to hear a metal tray of food

Slide into my cell, because then I'll know.

Flip!

I am waiting to hear a voice call out

And ask, "Can you hear me?  I love you, my son."

I wait for an ambulance to arrive.

But nothing like this ever happens.

No, no.  Here comes the flip again: 
Now I wake up new
And I understand that I am folded into the trapper.
The trapper is the boy who stands at the trap door
Of the coal mines.
He waits to open the doors.
I am he.

My father works down in the coal mines

And he's left me to sit by the trap door.

My job is to wait in complete darkness.

When I hear the cart of coal, I'll spring up and do my job.

Holding the door, I will watch the cart pass through
So quickly, so briefly.

But how long has it been since my father's been by?

I cannot stand to think that something's wrong

So I will sit until I usher in another flip.

I will return to the ship I know

And whistle a tune until the next roll.

Flip
jscz

Feverish
j,u,mclg

 Burning
uvmtcth

     And ready to leave the world,

I stood as close to the edge as any man 

Who has come back to tell the story.

Carlos immediately recognized the seriousness

Of my condition.

He knew that in a few short hours, I would be back in the hospital.

Soon, his fingers would grip into me,

And then he alone would call my spirit back to the world.

The heaviness of my flesh

Would pour me in sweat,
And in a semi-conscious state

I would feel the scalding fever 

Burn deep inside my bones.

The thermometer reads 106. 

When Carlos sees this, he shouts: “Get up! You’re dying!” 

He forces me into the car, and I rest my head

Against the passenger window.
I am wrapped in the comforter that Carlos brought along.

Heading to the hospital, we move so fast
That I feel like I'm under water. 
I see a bubbling, blurry landscape,
And then I leave my body
And flip....

In that moment,

I hated Carlos.

I wished he’d let me die.

But he raced me to entrance of the hospital

Where the staff wheeled me in.

My thoughts break into splinters now.

I am pushed through the hospital doors.

I am placed onto a stretcher  

 and rolled down a corridor. 
You've heard all of this before:

The team of nurses hover above me, and I feel as if I am floating along with them.   

They push me toward another set of doors
And a young child opens them
Ushering me through.




"The trapper," I think.
I want to stop and speak to him.
I feel inside that I am him.
But I am being wheeled down another corridor...

Speeding faster,
Like a tray of food
Slid into the metal opening of a door
That reads
"Solitary Confinement."



Here, there are no pretty girls
(Though I can hear side two of Led Zeppelin IV
Playing softly in the background). 
I want to tell Dave that I got too high.
"Dave, I got too high."
I want to tell Frank to call my mom.
"Frank, call my mom."
But the words mean nothing
Under the winking fluorescent lights
That shine behind the haloed nurses' faces looking down.

The light above me flickers and fades
And then seems to flash a coded message:
l,im,n r,ll;h, gckk,t ixk,

The wheels stop in the operating room

Where a surgeon in his scrubs instructs me to

“count backward.” 

I do not speak, though inside, I say, 

"White, blue, red…  black white green…."

And everything goes dark.

____________________________