Should I Stay or Should I Go

Carlos is out securing hotel rooms for us for the next few weeks.  The shop and its bought-out neighbors are totally gutted.  I can either pace through the wreckage as I have for hours, or I can tap on my laptop as I am now.  Either way, my presence is negligible.  Either way, whether I stay or go—out to a movie, or for a walk, a newspaper, a drink, whatever:  everything everywhere is crashing all around me!

[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

Everything’s packed but the CD player.  Gregorian chants of Benedictine monks fill my bare, crate-stacked rooms. How long since I’ve eaten solid food?  Naked in front of the mirror, I can feel my ribs.

So okay, I admitted it weeks ago! Tyler reminds me of Colin!  Now can I get dressed?  Now will I be able to eat?  Or if not eat—thinking of him (them) my skin feels so tight—I can at least drink:  I’ll start with what’s left of Carlos’s gin.  And then, when that’s not enough, for how could it be?  I’ll head downtown to see if the bar where Colin and I used to drink, illegally underage, still exists.

(Click here to read the next episode.)