Spectral

Fiction.  I guess this wasn't on the last one.  That one was fiction, too.  Everything is, here on out.

Day 4

"I feel like I'm cancer.  Plague.  My sleep, discord, that unease will seep from my skin, crawl through my mouth and invade each breath in tiny traces, infest those around me.  Infection, pure and simple.  I see it, the spoken message and the hope so much at odds and those people I love decaying at the words and never knowing that what drives them out is blinding optimism.  That someone will see through it, call me out, understand that I'm just posturing, take my shoulders and shake and reveal the lies of the world I've constructed.  No games, no despair.  A simple connection and banishment of that darkness, fading, fading.  They all die, turn, think I'm evil.  I frame what I see in such simple dichotomies.  No, I don't want to believe what I see.  I hope simply someone will open my eyes."

I let it out slowly, tracing the rim of the coffee mug.  My friend looks perplexed.  His hand hovers over his food, digesting my confession.  Suddenly, he smirks.

"Bullshit, Hank.  Puerile.  What are you even saying?  That you're evil?  Bullshit.  You've had a bad run, sure, but who hasn't?  No one.  But most people don't run around thinking they're the fucking Antichrist, or whatever.  Get over yourself and move one.  Jesus, man, someone needed to say it, just be thankful it's me."

I stare at the table.  I have no idea what type of material it is.  Formica?  Some cheap, hard, speckled thing, white and flecks of metallic, amorphous bits.  No, no, he's right, isn't he?  He grabs another french fry from his plate and continues eating.  I sip the coffee.

"I'm afraid the dust that collects within my head shall fall to the ground and put the world to sleep."

"Shit.  You're not evil, but you are fucking crazy, Hank."

I look up from my coffee and say, "Takes one to know one."  We exchange stupid grins.  The server drops off the check, walks through the backdoor.  We leave a tip and go pay the bill.  A homeless man sleeps outside in a chair abandoned after the departure of early spring warmth, its legs chained to a table with a folded-up umbrella sticking out through the middle.  The owner of the diner doesn't care; No one wants to eat outside.  Cold again, despite the Sun, and the wind cuts through the premature spring wardrobes dashing from building to building.

"Fucking crazy."