Entry #9

My Last Cloudy Thought
by Scott Simpson


My last dying thought eludes me like an open sky. Moribund am I and soaked in medicine and morphine. They can pickle me and jar my organs if they so desire. They can treat me like the fatuous fat man I‘ve become and the fraudulent fighter I know I am.

They can assume all they want about me in their deranged and helpful hearts. My desire to live, for example. My desire to die.

But they can’t take from me my knowledge of what my last thought came to be.

I own that knowledge as my last refuge.

I wait for it.

I try and steer myself away from memories.

“She was an evil cunt with a slim waste and an eye for a wad of cash. “

“You were a father steeped in tradition and as cold as a block of ice.”

“My daughter. You brought this on yourself. “

“Oh, my brother! How could you have done this to your flesh and blood?”

I try.

“There is a stream that runs about the back of the barn. There you will find the tiny steelhead, and the water-skippers and the svelte tree frogs.”

“The sky there opens up at night, and rumbles and shoots stars.”

“The nature there is solace in a cloudy afternoon… The storms of our souls may wrestle there.”

“I have wet myself again.”

“Good God, please don’t let that thought be it!”