Bad Day Patrick Liam O’sullivan It’s not a good day when the dizziness comes, when my mind spins, spins, spins, in an endless loop of synaptic static. It’s not good: the days I catch myself staring at my hands, the walls, the floor, fifteen minutes evaporating while I twist the dials fighting to find anything but this interference. Then begins the numbing regression of vision. I can’t do anything but drink water, stand at the kitchen sink and stare at the glass as it’s muddled and blotched and slowly loses focus, remains unfocused as I fight the fade. On the bad days, sometimes, a line from a movie or a song replays in my head. I’m a drowning fisherman clinging to driftwood sputtering nonsense: “So man-the-fuck-up and carve the pumpkin.” “So man-up and carve the fucking pumpkin.” Or was it “So man-the-fuck-up and carve the fucking pumpkin.” Variations I repeat in thought a thousand times while I fill my glass with more water and stare at it, surrendering to the static.
Issue 2
30