Jeremiah's School of Levitation

The word to poeticize upon today is "mass." So, a ten-minute free write is in order (forgive it for it knows not an edit):

Huddling Mass

"You would look good in ashes," was what she said, finally, after I'd tried hard to get her to speak. Doris lay there, her face sunken, her body seemingly just another lump in the sheets that covered her. Light burst in from the window where I'd pulled back the curtain and it lay across her shattered legs. The nurse had just left, changing the IV, taking her temperature, checking her pulse, and leaving a glass of water and three pills in a cup. Doris took the pills like a good girl and slumped back to the pillow to refocus her eyes, still hazy, on the ceiling.

"I would what?" I said, leaning closer.

She moved her eyes to me, but they still remained focus on the ceiling above me.

"You would look good in ashes. And a baseball cap made of ice. An ice cap. Get it? Ice cap, like polar ice caps. And, a gown of ashes. And, on your lapel, a huddling mass of ants, like a mum."

I shuddered. "Oh, Doris, you are delirious."

"Yes I am," she said.

I sat back.

"Tell me why I'm here again," she said.

I sighed. "I've told you three times already."

"Tell me four. Four hundred. Then I'll believe it."

"You jumped from the balcony."

"Whose balcony?"

I sighed again. "Aunt Linda's."

"How far?"

"Doris..."

"How far?"

"Three stories."

"Wasn't enough, huh?"

"Doris..."

"Next time, three hundred stories," she said.

I wanted to tell her that no building is that tall, but I didn't want to encourage her delerium. She was so given to delusions. She was such a dear.

"I remember where I landed," Doris said.

I was a little shocked. She had, up to this point, said she remembered nothing except going to the liquor cabinet and drinking down the last half bottle of vodka, then waking up in the ambulance, feeling crumpled, and full of electricity, as she called it.

"Where did you land?"

"Right on an ant bed."

"Oh, yeah," I said. The doctors had said, just to complicate matters, she had over a hundred red ant bites on her face. They'd gotten inside her nose, in her mouth, in her ears, and they bit away. Hordes of them. And, she had a nervous reaction, so her face swelled, doubling, nearly, the swelling that she caused by slamming her face on the ground from a thirty foot fall. Poor Doris. She was such a dear.

"I saw them up close, all those mandibles, clicking and clacking."

"You remember that?" I said, leaning forward to brush her forehead. Her pale face was still pocked with ant bites.

"A mass of them. Clicking and clacking, saying rude shit."

"Doris..."

"They wouldn't shut up," she said, her voice getting strained now.

"Doris, please. Get some rest. Dad will be here soon. He'll want to see you well, not delerious."

"The whole time, chatter chatter, saying the same damn thing over and over again."

"Doris..."

"They just said 'You would look good in ashes. And a baseball cap made of ice. An ice cap. Get it? Ice cap, like polar ice caps. And, a gown of ashes. And, on your lapel, a huddling mass of ants, like a mum.'"

I moaned. "Oh, Doris. You are delerious."

"Next time I jump," she said, closing her eyes. "I want to land in a mass of people. Not ants. Ants are rude. Rude, rude, rude."

She lay quiet then, poor Doris.

I began to sniffle. You did land on a mass of people, Doris. The tears came strong then.

You landed right on us, Doris. Right on us.

This is SO vivid...I have to ask...did this really happen?

(I ask you this every time...your descriptions are simply too good, man....)