2 a.m.

This slate grey sky is exactly what I needed, although until it came I didn’t know it. I felt it descend sometime in the night, it woke me with a strange, eerie feeling around two or three a.m., something akin to a shadowy figure standing silently outside my bedroom window. I sat up in bed and hesitantly locked the double paned frame, as if the lock could keep out the ghosts.

Sleep came in small, fitful segments after that, strange dreams ebbing and flowing at the edges of my subconscious.

It was 8:15 and something fell onto the kitchen floor with a loud, plastic clatter. I gave up the sheets for grey slacks, the bed for black coffee. I read a short story on war and all the death it accomplishes. My thoughts turned to this country I live in and to what parts of this country live in me.

The coffee is finished and the chipped “Whistler” mug sits empty. I have to go and write; I have to prepare to face the grey.