BLACK-EYED ANGELS

"I jumped in the river, what did I see?
Black-eyed angels swam with me..."

           - Radiohead, "Pyramid Song"

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JOSHUA LYMAN/DREAM


There is the idea just before sleeping that all across the United States of 
America right now people are lying in bed in the dark and dreaming. People 
who have never known true fear or true pain, who have never knocked on the 
door of Death or Despair or any of their kin. People swathed in the raw silk 
of their private cocoons. These people are dreaming.

I go to sleep to the lullaby of that idea and dream of being free of scars, 
free of all burdens. Innocent. Forgiven.

Impossible.

*I dreamed a dream tonight/And so did I/And what was yours?/That dreamers 
often lie...*

"In bed asleep while they do dream things true," I whisper aloud. "They do 
dream things true."

Not even the night believes me.

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JL/DEATH


What do you fear most?

What do you desire most?

The endless, the end, the endless end, the end of endless...

It is death, the eater of souls. (Liberal arts education: like Judaism and 
the Catholic Church, at its best only with last rites)

It is death, at last, the deliverer. The dark of her passing, the sound of 
her wings, the peace of her presence that passeth understanding.

It is death.

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JL/DESIRE


"If you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for red lights."

A strange taste fills my mouth as I watch her not meeting my eyes, and it is 
the taste of want. I want her and more than that I want to know that she 
wants me, loves me, needs me with that much strength, with the momentum of a 
1992 Volvo barreling through every stoplight on the way to GW.

Just the idea of it makes me short of breath, not from desire but from fear. 
Nobody loves that much. Nobody loves me that much. What would I do with that 
kind of devotion? Only waste it, destroy it, fuck it up with one of the 
monumental fuck-ups I'm so capable of producing. I can't be trusted with 
this red-light-running love.

But I want -

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JL/DELIRIUM


The window breaks.

Your hand goes clean through and feels cold, like the glass was really ice, 
like you've thrust your fist through a wall of ice, but the pieces of glass 
on the floor shine silver in the artificial light and look not like ice, but 
a broken mirror. There was a story, a Snow Queen story, about a little boy 
with a bit of broken mirror in his eye...

The window breaks.

Pieces of glass scatter and you wonder in a detached sort of way what it 
would be like to watch all of this rewind, watch all the tiny shards spin 
back to their places.

The window breaks

with a crack, and a musical tinkling of spilled glass, and inside the noise 
of things shattering you almost hear a high, faint laugh, like a giggle, a 
crazy kind of giggle that you understand because it is the only possible 
soundtrack to this scene. Go on. Laugh. Nothing's funny. Everything's funny.

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JL/DESPAIR


One time.

That's all.

I swear.

On a Thursday night I reached for the TV remote on my nightstand and my hand 
brushed a bottle of pills.

Time stopped.

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JL/DESTRUCTION


*You need to LISTEN to me. You have to LISTEN to me*

so lately i've been thinking about killing myself mr. president nothing 
serious you understand it's just the occasional stray thought when i get up 
in the morning and when i go to sleep at night like something out of the 
bible "in your waking up and in your lying down" that's in the bible right 
well that's death, death is in my waking up and in my lying down

*I can't help you unless you LISTEN to me*

i mean everyone likes to think clarence the angel's going to come for them 
but we know the truth don't we everyone who's stood toe to toe with death 
knows the truth: that no one's coming

*You can't send Christmas cards to everyone, you can't do it! Forget the 
SPR, let's get the IMF loans like we said we were going to*

we are on our own i am on my own at the end

*LISTEN to what I have to say about Didion*

at the end of the road i am alone in the dark

*and please LISTEN to me*

after all the bridges are ashes there is just

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JL/DESTINY


"How did that bullet not kill you?"

"Just lucky, I guess."

Lucky. Lucky is the quarter-millimeter between a bullet and total 
irreparable arterial collapse. Lucky is Toby Ziegler's weird sixth sense 
spotting you in a crowd of screaming, rioting people. Lucky is a bright 
light on the operating table and a surgeon's skillful hands bringing you 
back.

"Why am I alive?" you asked yourself almost every day, mostly silently, 
sometimes out loud to the haggard reflection in the miror. And Christmas, in 
the emergency room, "Why am I alive?" you asked Donna, the words slipping 
out before you could stop them.

She tucked her arm under yours and said, "Because there are so many answers 
to that question."

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FINIS

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and then there were none.

:-) Kim (desperately hoping at 12 AM that there are no horrible 
typographical errors in this...)