Man That I Fear (maniggy)

Chapter 8

Brian lay there in the uncomfortable hospital bed. He was still and silent except from the sound of his rattling breath. I held his hand tightly, stroking it delicately as I watched him sleep, I couldn't stop looking over at the clock.

"Okay, is it Jeordie?" A nurse asked, walking towards us. I nodded.

"Right, we're going to have to take Brian's blood now to make sure everything is okay. We do have to check even though we know he took ketamine, which is very dangerous when it comes this sort if situation." She reassured me.

They took his blood as Brian slept (like an angel, might I add). His eyes fluttered, and his eyes opened slowly. He looked over to me and gave me a confused look.

"What are you doing here?" He mumbled. My smile faded. Brian was angry and I didn't know why.

"Get out. I don't need you here. GO!" He started shouting to me. Suddenly, he had a surprising burst of energy; he reached up and punched me in the eye. I put my hand to my face and held my throbbing eye as a nurse rushed over to restrain him. Another tried to help me. She offered to take me to get my wound cleaned up and covered, but I stormed out.

I looked back to see an enraged Brian glaring into my soul. People gave me the strange looks anyone would expect. I was a guy with huge messy hair, messy, feminine clothes, makeup, blood on my face and tears pouring from my eyes. I ran faster, wanting to get away from him. What was up with him? That wasn't like Brian whatsoever. But I still felt sorry for him. His head was messed up and all I did was storm off when he needs me, even if he denied it.

He needs me.

Right now.

I turned back and walked in the direction of the ward he was on. Again, I got faster and eventually got there.

"Can I please see him?" I asked the nurse in a small timid voice.

"Yes. We gave Brian some Valium so he is sleeping and calmed down. We're very sorry about what happened. Here, put this over your eye."

I sat back down on the chair I'd used before and held my head in my hands. I wasn't religious. I'd never even prayed before, yet I prayed for him. I'm not sure who I prayed to, i just begged over and over to whoever or whatever person in the sky would listen to me.

I recited my favourite poem of Brian's out loud to calm me down, quietly, but I said it. Once, twice, before I knew it, nearly an hour had passed. I wasn't sure if he was still knocked out or he was just exhausted. Probably both.

I recited Hotel Hallucinogen just one more time.

"Lying in bed contemplating,

tomorrow simply meditating,

I stare into a single empty spot,

and I notice a penetrating of eyes looking up and down and at various odd angles secretly inspecting me; and I feel my stare tugged away from the blank screen in front of my eyes and directed at the eight empty beer cans

forming an unintentional pyramid.

And I close my eyelids to think-

how many hours have passed since I construct such an

immaculate edifice of tin?

Or did I create it all?

Was it the watchers?

I open my eyes and return my stare to the pyramid.

But the pyramid has now become a flaming pyre, and the face within is my own.

What is this prophecy that comes to me like a delivery boy,

cold and uncaring of its message, asking for only recognition?

But I will not fall prey to this revelation of irrelevance

I will not recognize this perversion of thought.

I will not.

I hurl my pillow at the infernal grave, as if to save my eyes

from horrific understanding, and I hear the hollow clang

of seven empty beer cans, not eight- was it fate that left one to stand?

Why does this solitary tin soldier

stand in defiance to my pillow talk of annihilation?

Then, for some odd, idiotic, most definitely enigmatic reason

the can begins to erupt in a barrage of whimpering cries.

Does he lament because his friends and family is gone

or that he has no one with which to spawn? They were gone...

but no, that's not the reason. It is a baby's cry of his mother's treason.

The screaming fear of abandonment. And this wailing, screaming, whining causes

the dead cans to rise and I can't believe my eyes,

that this concession of beverage containers is chanting in a cacophony of shallow rebellion to my Doctrine of Annihilation that was discussed in my Summit of the Pillow (which is now lost among the aluminium-alloy anarchists).

I am afraid, afraid of these cans, these nihilistic rebels. As the one approaches-the baby crier, I suppose my fear now escalates, constructing a wall around my bed, trying to shut everything out but without a doubt the crier casually climbs what I thought was a Great Wall not unlike the one in Berlin.

He begins to speak. His words flow cryptically from the hole in his head

like funeral music: deep, resonant, and sorrowful. He says to me: "you must surrender your dreams it's just. We sit all day planning for your attendance

and upon your arrival you very impolitely ignore us."

No. He gives me a pair of aphrodisiac sunglasses, and I fall asleep in the shade.

Asleep in a field of hyacinth and jade. When I crawl out of my sleep

I get up, my hair is tangled in a mess of golden locks. I enter the kitchen, and go to the icebox. I pull out a single can of beer, and as I begin to drink I hear

the weeping of an abandoned infant."