Awake, but scarcely functioning.
My surroundings are the dull and drab I've become accustomed to during these endless years in my subterranean hovel. Familiar -- of course -- but somehow a shade different from what I awoke to yesterday, and the day before, and . . . The disorderly state of my scant belongings long ago ceased to unhinge me, the neat freak I once was. But as I blink through eyes slowly ungluing from a night's fitful slumber, I sense a tidier aspect to stacks of MSS long neglected, so many have been the bloody publishers' rejections.
Now neglected -- scorned -- by this unpublished hack are reams of hardcopy that I had dutifully, painstakingly inscribed with heartfelt verse; however, an unseen pair of hands seems to have, with some purpose, restructured the leaning tower of dreams and sorrow into smaller, precisely squared stacks. Books scattered randomly on the floor and piled up and on every available surface -- I swear it was so yesterday before I retired -- find themselves neatly arranged on once abandoned book shelves. Dirty dishes no longer lie helter-skelter underfoot, threatening to trip and unleash a volley of invective from this slatternly male. Sacre bleu! On the kitchen counter they lie in sweet repose awaiting the washing up . . .
I am closing my eyes in hopes that I might return to what is sad but comfortably familiar. . . .