#second word

The body part flopped about like a dead or dying fish. I wanted to just cut it off. You're always reading about phantom limbs. I wasn't so concerned about the feeling that it would be there if it wasn't. I was concerned with where it would go when it wasn't on my body. Would it come back and find me? Was there some dumping ground where dead body parts go to rest? Could I get it stuffed? If I was going to get it reattached, could I get it reattached somewhere besides where it belonged?

The rain reminded me of a screensaver. I wanted to capture it, but cameras always fail me. Instead, I just stared at it for awhile. Then I went back to whatever it was I was doing that day. When I looked up again, it was like there had never been a rainy day there, framed by the window. The sky was blue, and the sun was slanting around clouds and mountains to fill the living room. The dining table is usually without a table cloth. The floor is faux wood. It hurts our feet. It's supposed to look natural, but what's natural about people living on the inside of a tree?

The fecal matter was pink, or orange, like some kind of coral, like it was still alive. Something had left it right in the part of our driveway where no one drives but everyone walks. I got it on my rubber slippers. I don't remember which side. I don't remember stepping on it. I just remember looking back as I opened the screen door. It was all scattered, as if to prove it had been dry. It looked like some sponge torn apart by a pet's unwatched teeth. I figured it was just one of the feral cats that liked to treat our patio furniture like a hotel. I figured it was just some sick cat who didn't make it to the patch of grass in which we sometimes find lovely surprises. My roommates were convinced, though, that it was something else. They were convinced it was...

The centipede crawled up to the door like an invited guest. The centipede crawled up the drain like it's whole life had been death and only the light at the end of the pipe could save it. The centipede hid itself in my bag. The centipede slept under a rock. Do centipedes sleep? Or are they like sharks? I imagine them lying under those rocks, not resting, not hiding, but plotting how they might solicit themselves into my paranoid mind tonight. Gregor Samsa was always a centipede to me, not a roach. Sometimes I wonder if I will wake up with a centipede in my bed instead of my wife.