In Waiting

By Diana Matusewic

Timing is everything. I loathe this reality now that I am living the consequences. I have become a fragment of an infinite nightmare. It is impossible to escape so I wait for my release. Every moment I spend walking through this eerie mosaic in search of the door to the other side where everything is bliss. Or even the world in between (reality) would suffice.

Time is the bureaucracy of nature. It has strategically placed invisible walls to catch you off guard where an ape-like man throws you over the threshold of pain into the realm of remorse and shame. The universe's dungeon is full of all that is desecrated and rotten and plagued -- a world of torture devices to remind you of your loss and mistakes.

Still-life Children play in a slow orderly daze, like zombies, in the bog playground while folks walk the streets in a silent-motion-picture stride, our motor skills diminished from our atrophied minds, frowns drip like candles, tears evaporate into mist. There's a permanent fog of embodied strife that burns our eyes but we are all too exhausted to flinch.

We are illusions that were once alive. In our world death is as much a blessing as life. The only sound in this world is the occasional bong from the grandfather clock sky scrapper that towers over us like an evil god gloating over its masquerade of agony. All color and light has been drained, unless you count the dull florescent light seeping through the misty brown atmosphere. Not even darkness is pure.

My only salvation is among the living but he has turned his back on me which is the reason I am here, in the most distant world in the galaxy, Waiting.

By Diana Matusewic