Jim knows it’s a bad habit, but could care less, considering it’s his habit and his body and his heart that has been smashed like a mirror, there on the ground reflecting her a thousand times over, so he leans back and loosens the cord and floats amongst the images of her that come in and out of his eyes, travels with her image into the oblivion of the moment because that’s what you’ve got to do to cope and there’s a moment where he wants to keep pushing and be in the nothing, but that’s an even worse habit.

            There is no god but God and you’ve got to understand that and you’ve got to thank Him and praise Him but when you’re staring down a bottle and there’s this thirst that just won’t fucking go away and the girl is gone and you know she’s never coming back, sometimes you say things to God you know you shouldn’t because He’s good and great and knows what’s for the best but that bottle is starting to feel like home and you wish God would just tell you what he wants of you or leave you be for a spell.

            Her daddy once said, “Well, you’ve just got to get behind the mule in the morning and plow,” though she knew he got that from somewhere else, some old blues singer, perhaps, she couldn’t help but see the logic in it, doing what you’ve got to do even if it’s not something you exactly want to do, some things are bigger than yourself, so just get out there and do what you’ve got to do, she could respect that, but Pam knew when it was time to leave the mule behind, and when to try and find a new one.

            She had a dream one night that she was sitting in a park and the breeze was soft and there was the sound of children playing but the sky grew dark and the wind blew in with the smell of rot and shit and from a chasm up jumped the devil and he was tall and lean with knees that bent the wrong way and he moved like a marionette and his was the crooked smile of the boy in her heart and when he flashed it her way she feared she would sign whatever paper he put before her.

            His daddy once beat him with a horse’s femur because he spilt a bucketful of milk but he never did that again, was always quiet when his daddy started drinking and always listened when he began talking about what it meant to be a man, which is to say what is meant to be strong, and his daddy was always strong and only mean when it was his job, and once he saw his daddy walk into a lake yelling at God but all he did was get wet, and later he would be told the silliness of such thoughts.

            He dreamed once he walked up to the crescent moon and picked it up and walked into the office and saw Michael there smiling and he went up and with the moon he made Michael’s blood flow across the office and then he sat down and went about his work, going through expense reports and mediating his coworker’s problems all the while Michael lay on the ground with the moon in his throat and when it was time to go home they stepped over the body and when he woke that morning there was a strange smile on his lips.

            When her mother saw her kiss the boy next door she was pulled into their house and the only words her mother said were You fail me and the girl sat in her room and read the Book and she knew she had and when she grew up, she kept seeing those poor soul’s failures and when she kissed the boy at work she felt like a failure again but it felt so good and something that good can’t be all bad but all her arguments could not make her feel clean again so she gave in to the dirty.

            He misses the way he could see the music and feel it in his chest and down in his groin and those scars on his arm above the veins are reminders of what some would call mistakes while he just called them the Golden Days and these days are vague shadows of those times with him and his friends and the music and that’s really what he misses, the lights on stage and the strings below his fingers but all he can do is sigh and pick up the phone when it rings and hope he’ll dream something good tonight.

            He doesn’t know why he says the things he does and hurts the people he hurts, all he wants to do is be loved and is that so fucking hard, really, day to day and you go home at night to an empty condo, that can crush the soul like a bug underneath the world’s shoe, so he tries too hard and says those things he shouldn’t say and acts like he shouldn’t act and why won’t they just invite him out for a drink every once in a while so he dreams of a better him all night long.

            nothing of interest happened today

            The first time he met Creed, the man smelled strongly of tobacco and death, and he was curious enough and nervous so when he found Creed in the break room he asked, in an effort to make conversation, he asked the old man what his brand was, to which he replied American Spirit wrapped in cornhusks and he was intrigued but there was Gil and the sun rises and sets in Gil’s eyes and lips and hips, but that he can’t share with anyone, let alone Creed, and in his dark moments he wishes death on himself for his cowardice.

            Sobriety’s a bitch but it’s better than the alternative, even if the angel in the spoon had curly hair and he knew it was as close as he’d get to the other girl with curly hair and so it goes that he kicked the habit that held him for all of a week and perhaps one day he’d write a book about it but then there’s the girl to think about, what would she think and does she still think of him and why is he still thinking of her while lying in the arms of another girl.