by Gerard Brennan

There is so much time. It’s huge. Vast. Like space. Like the distance between the stars. Like my mind. But empty. Like my bottle. Like that deaf Indian in Kessey’s story. The bottle made his daddy smaller; I was big like a mountain once too! The bottle has been reducing me some lately. But still I awake, still I can think, still I can feel the film of cold sweat encasing my body. Still I feel that fucking spring poking between my shoulder blades and still I feel a mixture of panic and bliss at the thought that there is one more bottle downstairs. This one is my own personal Everest and I don’t need to get dressed to climb this one. I can do this in my smelly dressing gown. It all starts here in my mind. The thoughts that have no right to be here can be flooded and I as God can command Noah to build an ark. Collect two of each thought. Go forth and multiply. Think, thought, thunk? Sunk. Too many thoughts, like counting sleep sheep. Spelling numbers not counting numbers now counting letters. O. N. E. one, two, three. How many, how much, how soon, too late? Ten green bottles. No, one clear bottle. Not white, green or silver, no colour, like water. But water is blue. Sometimes green. My vodka is no colour but it makes me blue.

This is the real deal. This is the horror the power and the anti-glory. I want to be anarchy but only on Tuesdays. Let me live or let me die. I don't care anymore, I don't care anymore, I don't! I have nowhere to go and nowhere I want to be. It's easier when The Bottle takes it all away from me. I thank God for The Bottle. Truly, I sing my praises to the Porcelain God. That mighty and forgiving Deity.

I hate you all. I hate myself. I can only love The Bottle.

STOP. It’s drinking time again.

Copyright Gerard Brennan 2004