AFFLICTED PERFECTION: NOVEL

“Happy New Year Miles,” I say to myself as I sit here alone in the moonlit twilight. I’m not even sure it is. The clock is smashed with everything else. I feel like laughter, but all I manage is a painfully pathetic half smile followed by a fit of wracking coughs that leave blood on my lips.
Trapped.
Encased in a metallic hug.
I attempt to move the inflated air bag with my left arm. Hypodermic needles of pain attack my brain at close quarters. Change of tactics. After some brutal and frantic foreplay with my right hand the crumpled door surprisingly yields to a swift elbow. I fall from the deceased vehicle into the night.
The ground hits.
Thor’s hammer swung at the spine ripping air from lungs in one long agonising groan.
Murky black seeps through the boundaries of my vision. A rapidly recurrent thought runs through it.
Hold it together
Just a little longer.
The black recedes, but still I know it’s there, skulking, waiting for my resolve to waiver so that it can smother and claim me.
I concentrate on what I must do, what I must make sure of. I lie here in the semi darkness, breathing deep and slow, regenerating my broken body as I listen to the night.
And I am afraid.

© Spencer Dylan, June 2004

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