Abduction, abduction, whaat's your function?

by
Tom Haynes

Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved by the author.

The lights went out, no really they did; when they came back on, daylight streamed in from outside, through the open window. She was gone, but she had left me a fresh glass of ice water. I watched the beads of sweat race down the glass. I had a strap on my left arm, but the right was free. Was this some sort of test? I decided to leave it alone.

What did I recall of that night, the night the rainbow struck me and time froze at 10:31? I wondered again at the time, but I knew, just knew that was a forbidden question to ask. Who was I going to ask anyway? I could see shadows stroll across the frosted panes of the door. I could also see the fine wire mesh in those self same panes. No, no quick exit there. Where would I go with the specter of escape from a psycho ward hanging over me?

Again, the thought of something hanging over me was unpleasant. I thought back through the veil of that night, clouded by time, drugs, and some outside agency. I recalled a thousand needles simultaneously pricking me and my skin wept with that memory. In some, my blood and other vital fluids had been sucked out; I couldn't even cry then, there were no tears left. I cried, just a little, now. To my everlasting relief, the drops skied down my cheeks, some of them depositing their salty burden on my parched lips.

The taste was welcome, because the other needles carried fluids, green, orange, and with the viscosity of oils, back into the flesh. I don't know what I would have done if my tears had not been my own. A man should not be stripped of the power to cry.

That was the only memory strong enough to break through the walls. While I couldn't recall anything else, a feeling did manage to worm its way past the defenses. I felt, I felt I had been judged and found wanting. The tears continued to wind their way down my cheeks.

• Start
• First Awakenings
• Second Awakenings
• Third Awakenings
• Prelude to a Discharge
• Discharged

We had record highs in January and last week it was in the 70s. Today in Tulsa, it is a blanket of snow.

I just got my team roster (thanks for coming back Tyler) and I lost probably 3 kids to baseball, 1 to indifference, 1 to failing to register (miss you Noah), and 1 because of personality clashes. Okay, one of the baseball kids would also fall in that category.

I picked up 4 kids from a team where the coach left and 2 whom I'm going to assume played tackle football.

I need to schedule practices, not too hard since they gave me the same practice fields on the same night. I just need to figure out when it gets dark and subtract an hour.

USC failed to contact me for the first meeting, so the other teams might have already had a week of practice - in the warm weather.

The next biggie is uniforms - 4 of the teams, including mine, had a red/black combination in the Fall. I'm pretty sure the 4 players I got also were in red. I want to do something a bit different - but my wife made a nice flag for the team. I'll post a picture soon.

I'm driving back from the soccer coaches' meeting and this song comes on XM-Comdey - Cheney's Got a Gun. It snowed last night and the combination of that and the laughing almost caused a wreck.

Enjoy.