Frangible.

I'm sick, and when sick make terrible decisions, like spending the day in bed with a book, and just before bed washing down a couple of sleeping pills with a glass of bourbon and a Nyquil chaser. I fell asleep with the television on, woke up not an hour later to find it turned to the movie version of the book I was reading, not the original mind you but the one with Sean Penn and Jude Law, terrible stuff really but wow. What are the odds.

I didn't sleep much last night and I am sorry for it, because when I lie awake at night I practice the future, only last night I started to believe that maybe I wasn't practicing so much as I was seeing. He'd say "I'm sorry" and I'd say, "No you're not." He'd say "I love you" and I'd say, "Leave me the hell alone." With each thing he'd say I'd say something horrible in return, and the endings were never as happy as they are in the movies, the sweet relief of being shot dead in the Capitol rotunda not even an option. Nope, just strolling side by side, twilight lingering in the thousands of miles between our bodies, never touching, barely breathing the same air, certainly no longer speaking a common language. And that's just it, you know, you go from having everything to having nothing, and the change comes so fast you can do nothing but laugh at your misfortune like it's some kind of comedy flickering on the television screen for your amusement.

Oh, and even my broken little body cannot make up its mind, alternating as it does between violent shivers and drenching sweats, and the last time I shivered and sweat with such vigor were happier times indeed. I don't know why I remember when I've tried so hard to forget, to bury the memories beneath layers of food and drink and drugs and more drink, layers like sedimentary rock hardening over the passing years. I feel like I should say something but there's nothing left to say, except maybe "I don't even know who you are," but my throat is raw from the cold and the coughing, and my heart is cold and shrunken like that of a white dwarf, and isn't that funny?

Nah, I don't think I'll let you in on the joke.