clutch and choke

part 1

Terry sputtered hot coffee, but judging from the feeling of wet upon his sock, and a burning sensation on the toes of the man today-named-Terry, there was really no coffee in his cup. Terry-today, yesterday-called-Moe, peered with an eyeball framed in larceny into the void and spat imaginary libations interlaced with vulgarities upon the kitchen counter. His cup was empty, full of holes, the vicious pen stroke of multiple jabs to its Styrofoam carapace. Once the liquid flowed, colored in drab, like a torrent over jagged landscapes. But now his gaze fell on the dripping laminate, the wood grain of the lower cabinet glistening with muddy droplets, and his wooly foot dampening and the damp spreading to his thread worn cuffs.

Terry's thoughts turned over twice like a ripening pancake and stuck on his small collection of two-headed babies, then flipped upon seeing his reflection in the semi opaque glass cabinet he stood in front of. All was dark except his reflection in the form of pixilated lights, and when he moved Terry felt he was an animatronic character in an amusement park train ride. He moved and he moved again. His movements were deliberate and unscripted.

Finding no purpose in a puddle, Terry scampered into the den and collapsed onto a lumpy sofa, pushing his right leg and wet sock into the air, hoping for brazen air currents, and his mass of brain material coalesced vaguely to a patchwork of brightly colored trapezoids – the same fading fabrics he had hoarded in a shoebox underneath his creaking bed springs. Was life nothing but the never ending struggle of a hunter gatherer, and what constituted a successful hunter? Terry thought back to his kitchen counter, it was a short trip, and the grocery sacks. The crumpled ones, heavily laden with jars of cheese sauce, and then he dreamed of fresh Japanese gardens, a wire mesh, and white, luxurious skin.

Terry with one leg in the air and his arm joining in altitude, crushed the forlorn coffee cup in a joyous rage, and he rose above the cushions, flinging his arms wide and signed an invitation to the world, his improvised State of the Terry.

A shadow grew from his shape on the wall, but that was only the beginning.