A Few Weeks After

[Rudiger Messiaen]

I wake up to a head that’s had too much sleep and body not enough. Sunlight slips through the closed binds, but I can tell it’s overcast outside.  The late-morning’s haze seeps through the cracked plaster, and as I lean against the wall with my eyes shut, I allow myself to sink into its melancholy blanket.  Then there’s a crack of thunder and it starts to rain.  I sigh, overkill.  I push off from the wall and reach my feet in the slow arc of a cast-iron statue being erected by one man too few.      

[Rudiger Messiaen]

Howdy Grey, thanks for the feedback.  No need to feel thick.  Truth is, ain't much hard narrator to these six.  Just sorta was thinking about when something heavy goes down — friend dies, wife leaves, lose a job, what have you — and what it feels like not immediately after, but when you've just started to get back on your feet.  You don't let yourself go to extremes with your feelings anymore, but you're still sorta wallowing in that in-between sorrow, even taking comfort in it.  Problem is, it isn't easy to float in the in-between for too long; something always comes around and tips you one way of the other.  Anyway, that's what I was thinking, at least.

[Toby Tucker Hecht]

I am intrigued by your first sentence and I am trying to find parallels in my own life.  Very thought-provoking.

[Angela]

I have enjoyed all the things of yours I have read thus far, and I like them especially for the thought that your work requires the reader to put forth.  While this is tightly written and also enjoyable, like I expected when I saw your name, the final sentence did not clarify for me the entire situation, and the title did not tip me off, either.  Sorry to be thick, but better to admit it and hope for clarification.

[Kristine_ES]

oooooh...i really like this! the mood, the phrases you chose !

[Sandra Davies]

Yes, indeed - that final line is the icing on the extremely good cake.

[Michael Brown]

While all the imagery here is cast in colorful melancholy, that last one is superb. For some reason, though, I've got the Stalin statue falling in my head rather than one going up, but I keep rewinding the film to accompany your meaning. I like your style.