nobody owed anybody anything

     There is something broken in the house now, and when you wake up in the middle of the night--thirsty, or needing to relieve yourself--it keeps you awake, a quiet rumble. It is the refrigerator, you think. Or the furnace, a little louder than it used to be. It is not the guilt that once upon a time used to throb and pulse like the Tell-tale Heart. Or if it is that, it no longer presents itself to you that way. It is something different. It isn't anything. It just keeps you awake.

   Do you remember what it was like when you could sleep through anything? When 5 hours was enough, and you would take 6 when you could get it, and 9 when you didn't have to work and there was nothing else to wake up for? Do you remember? Do you remember reading about Charles Whitman and reading his letter and wondering if the same thing was happening to you? Do you remember how you did something, but it didn't end then, and everything kept going, and you had to come to terms with the world, and hope that the world would ultimately come to terms with you? Do you remember asking the Mother for forgiveness and understanding that it would never come? That that wasn't the thing that was unfair?

     Homes once told you that nobody owed anybody anything. It was hard for you to reconcile your admiration of Homes with the fact that he was in the exact same place as you were. And he pushed you to talk while he sat on his own silence. You might have lashed out at him once or twice. You were angry, and bitter, yes. But you still talked. And you were glad that you did.

     You once did something big, but now your being is announced only with small gestures. You write. You work. You are polite, and you tip well. You hold the door for old ladies. You try to be a beacon of decency. But when you were a young man, you shouted at the top of your lungs, and the echoes still drown out everything subsequent. And you lie awake at night, wishing silence and unicorns weren't equally fantastic.