My Bed Bug Problem

The day started with an old and peaceful feeling somewhere in the deepest corners of my heart running away from me and hiding somewhere outside of my minds eye. I looked out my window and saw the side of the Castle Apartments Building leering at me, and for a moment it was as if a thousand voices whispered to me from across the wall imploring me to step inside their doors and join them. But I can't. I have made my peace with it and I have to stay here like a little marginalized cockroach. I certainly deserve it. I gazed into the little alarm clock that stood beside my cot. Its quiet green hum piercing the roof of my mind. And with that I stood up from my bed and wiped the spittle from the corners of my mouth as calmly as I could manage. My hands still shook a little. And if I hadn't grabbed onto the edge of my cot I'm pretty sure I would have fallen over, but I didn't. I steadied myself as the little black dots seemed to crawl across my vision and a quiet fury hammered away at my head

I walked downstairs to the first floor of the dilapidated building I now called home, the air rife with heat and stench of the slowly closing summer, and greeted my nightly guests. They quietly grumbled a familiar greeting except for this one old man who lay still entirely to still. I walked up to him and gave him a gentle prod as fear quietly crept into me. He didn't move for a moment, and I gazed at him soberly. One of the others walked over to him and gently pushed me to the side. I was too shocked to act as another man gingerly pulled off his shoes and began examining them and trying them on as if he were buying them at a store. At this point the man (who had been sleeping, perchance dreaming) woke up. The man holding his shoes looked at him for a moment transfixed by the quiet fire he carried in his eyes. Then he dropped his shoes in as neutral a manner as he could and walked away. Within a few moments they had all gone to different corners to beg. I watched their shoulders sloping away with quiet resignation.

After they were all gone I paused and let the silence once again wash over me. No one had lived here (and I mean stayed here for at least ten years). I saw their pictures in one of the rooms upstairs. They were all smiling they seemed content with their lot in life. But that must have been a long time ago. There was little sign that anyone lived here a few pots and pans some cups, and an old piano coated in layers of sawdust from when they built Castle Apartments. Back before I was here. Back before it all. I thought of my alarm clock and thought about how it was broken. It only goes one way. Well nothing to do about that nothing at all.

In that quiet room I looked up at the ceiling my eyes glazing over as I looked at the hissing eye of the phosphorescent light. It had grown in an ignoble crescendo as I stood distracted and now it gave illumination where darkness should prevail. I hung there a moment transfixed by its ignorance of time and space not knowing who and what it would outlive. Sometimes it seemed like things never born lived longer. Like steel, and fire. I sat there for most of the day and pondered the only thing worth pondering. And once again my own self-loathing grew, driven by its own engine. Until it was night again and I walked upstairs laid my head down on the pillow and felt a sharp bite. I reached down and held a little creature in my hand. I laughed for my name is Pestilent Mann. I and knew it would continue to follow me, because It always has and always will. God I could use a drink, but I don't deserve it.