Lister

Lister

The bright lights race across my ceiling and I can barely make out the texture that some man in a white coat and goggless sprayed onto the new construction that is now my room. I try to hold my stare in one spot and wait for illumination as I hear the cars race down my street past my home. I have tried for hours but my eyes still refuse to hold their gaze. My eyes chase the light across the room and dissapear with the diminishing roar of the engines and tires. I think the last one was a set of new Goodyear's. I am pretty good at that sort of thing, even though no one really cares.
As I hear the next car approach I sit with my eyes out of focus so they cannot be lured by the motion of the headlights across my ceiling. As sure as deodorant they hold fast to the spot of texture I am trying so hard to decipher. It causes pain beyond imagination to realize that texture out of focus can't be deciphered any more than a ceiling can be read like braile. I am discouraged but still not tired. It makes me wonder if such details are actually a even relevant to a good ceiling.
When I was a child I sat in bed like this and wondered what it might be like to live in an upside down house. To walk on the ceiling and hop over door headders seemed like such a great way to live. I often wondered if a man might invent a hanging lamp with a rigid cable for just such a house. I thought about patenting such an upsidedown lamp, but my father wanted me to be a professional. He was a gas station attendant who was too busy to plan for such flights of fancy as upside down houses. I wonder what acoustic ceiling feels like on bare feet.
My clock suggests that I have stayed here wide awake for longer than I am supposed to. I know that in the morning I will meet Dr. Rhene to discuss the patient, but that only makes me more anxious. Dr. Rhene is a filthy man and I can't abide the way he blathers along through his tilted-head speech. Always re-assuring and never convincing is his method I think.
Staying awake makes me sweat. I can feel my shirt sticking to my body as I toss here and think about meetings and filth. I should have put on my bed clothes, but it seemed more important to get into bed quickly to be well rested in the morning. I wonder if my boots will mark the sheet enough to make it impossible to leave the bed made up for another day. Changing the sheets can take a very long time and that is exactly what I don't have enough of. What pains me most of all is the constant running. I feel tired running from paycheck to paycheck.
Someone told me in an elderly voice that it is hard to run with the weight of gold. On the other hand, the echo said it is just as hard with the weight of led. If led were treasure I would be a rich man, because I don't seem to have too much gold to slow me down. On the other hand, there is enough pencil led on my charts to sink a battleship. I guess that is what Dr. Rhene means about seeking the correct priorities. Dr. Rhene is a boring fuck.
In the quiet of the night I can feel the oil in the radiator swell to fill the room with heat. It warms my sweating body and makes me nervous. I know the heat will eventually set off another chain of thoughts that I am not allowed to have, but I feel trapped in my clothes. I draw my pencil from its scabbard just in case the thoughts begin again.
I sit to in my bed and wait for that heavy knock on my cabin door. I am sure that it is time for them to come to me again. If I oversleep Dr. Rhene will have me tried as an amature. Still, the anxiety is only making me worse. I need to get to sleep. Another cigarette, no. no. no.
I can feel the bumpy metal hilt of my pencil as I squeeze the weapon by the eraser. If I could, I would erase all these charts and start again fresh. I would wash over them like waves on a sand castle. Plunder and death are fitting to recycle some boring child's kingdom of silicon. Then I would blow the little pink flecks of disaster from the pages and sweep across the landscape with the back of my hand. Maybe then I could sleep. Maybe Dr. Rhene isn't even coming. Maybe his plans have changed.
The thoughts are wiggling toward the ceiling through the matted texture of my scalp. They seek the light that mocks them and dances past above them. I am sure they just want to hear the squeal of new rubber on the pavement. Who doesn't? They want me to kill him. They are asking me to kill him. Kill him in his bed if you have to, but sure enough he must be taken care of.
A dim yellow light races from one end of my room to the other as some asshole with foglights passes. Michelins I am sure. I can almost get what the acoustic bumps are saying when the yellow blob bursts in the knock on the door. It is morning and I am still tired.
Dr. Rhene and I leave without the benefit of a proper shower. How could I tell him that I wore these clothes yesterday?

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