No, no—it won’t do to go out. I will stay here in this sunken room and shield it from the sun.

Earlier in the butterfly room I swallowed a capsule with cranberry juice and sat around and waited for the light show. She had said, “It will take some time.” And I asked her if I could be off to get to my hole and she said, “I think so.” I rocketed to 34th in a car full of people who would soon be strangers.

Had I stopped working? I think I had. There were only weeks left until I left that place for-ever.

Rushing through that slanted house, watching it become more slanted, I put on a purple t-shirt and welcomed the strangeness. There were faces in the back yard and I wanted nothing to do with them. Instead I wanted only to sink to the bottom of the tank and stay where it was cold and blue.

Oh, the electricity!

Outside a woman is pushing a baby carriage. A band is practicing several blocks away. I open the door and when I breathe I feel heat fill the emptiness. I shut the door and in seconds I am empty again.

Something dashes by and I scoop it up. It is a creature I have seen before. In my arms it is grey and squirming. Big green insect eyes growing and shrinking like little balloons. My son! I hardly recognized you through the rot in my head.

Don’t come in here. For god’s sake, don’t come in here. I pay for this damn room and I want those doors shut as long as I am near them.