<don’t worry if you can’t figure out what I wrote about here.>

There’s a problem. Something’s wrong. Terribly wrong. It’s not too conspicuous yet, but I’ve heard it breathing quietly down there, under the bed, beneath the rug. Stifled, but alive and dangerous. There’s no way out. No red exit sign glowing in the dark, kiddo. Presently there’s no need for it, because it hasn’t woken up yet, but it will. I’m sure as hell it will. And then there will be no way out, no exit sign glowing in the dark for you to run towards. For me to run towards. I’m waking up a savage beast, while I’m inside its cage. I don’t know what will become of me when it’s fully awake and sees me meek and harmless, agitating it.

There’s no door, maybe, but I see a window. I can’t climb out through it, of course, but it lets a ray of sun in. It’s a phone number. An eight-digit phone number. I can’t even elaborate on it for fear the beast will sense I’m doing it and smell its way to here. Sorry, people, I would have loved to show my gratitude for the window and its ray of sun, were it not for my vulnerability to that beast, that problem.

I asked the number if there were any good hot air balloons I could get my hands on. Then I would take it along with myself up to the top of the house and fly up there amidst the blue sky and fresh breeze and never return here, and show the thing that I wasn’t meant to be another brick in the wall. Another of those quoted and featured-on-page-three ‘successful’ unmentionables.

I can sense it now. There’s a big problem we got here. Window, I need long talks. Over that table I wrote about in my diary. Some exchange of sunshine. Cure me of not being able to smile and smiling for being able to smile.

1Life.