Mike E.

Mike E. had that upstairs/downstairs feeling. His head was pounding and his eyes felt hollow, he clenched his teeth against the glare of the sun and the low mournful rustle of the wind, it sounded like an echo of mistakes. The gritty inside of his skull was rough against his raw brain, his sinuses felt swollen and claustrophobic, every voice he heard was hateful, and every song was the clashing of cymbals and the dissonant shattering of glass.

He snapped off the radio in the crawling traffic and inched along in his car, leaning his head back but not being able to rest it in a place that released the tension in his neck. The quiet was the sound of an invading horde. The tenderness of his head exposed Mike to peculiar regret, for the shortcomings he became aware of too late or was helpless to change. The inadequacy that left him mute at the most important times, disguising themselves as callousness. He was ashamed for the him of the past, and afraid he was still more him than not.

Mike turned on the radio again but instantly turned if off disagreeably. He tried to shift his bones out of their joints. What could he tell Lindz now? He had apologized and they went their separate ways, but sometimes he felt the need to apologize again like the sensation of hands tightening around the back of his neck. Mike did not feel sufficiently penitent, and he wondered if all the time since had been a kind of contrition. A self imposed exile where he had learned to dislike himself even more for who he was and what he had done. A place bordered on all sides by the ambiguity and incomprehensibility of his feelings like some Chinese afterlife. He let himself drift in that space, wondering why what was clear to him now, ground gained through hard fighting, would be so damagingly absent then. And what would he say if Lindz again asked him to just say anything? All's he knew was that he wasn't the man he used to be, but he's not sure of the man he is, but that wasn't much help here in traffic.