Staring. Fixed gaze. One sock on, one sock off. Both shoes half on, neither positioned to finish the job. Hot and cold. Deep, searing pain entwined in a grotesque embrace with numbness. So many thoughts and ghosts in the void, with not a one coalescing. My head is full of manic static. Popcorn. Full and void in the same moment. My superposition. My quantum flux.
I approach recluse levels of unkempt. I begin to feel my whiskers creep over my lip. Coarse tendrils slipping into my mouth, clawing at my face, pulling back lips over gums. Tearing at my mask, pulling back and away the slack of aging flesh, revealing the stain, the whisper of a wraith that was once whole. That was once more than an effigy.
