The Hanged Man
I am writing to report that I am in a most uncomfortable position, immobilised as I am between the shutters and the wall of my fair apartment, hanging by a shoestring from my left hand foot.
The blood has surged to my upturned head. I’ve heard an Algerian boy say it’s bad for your health. I didn’t believe him at the time but now I’m not so sure. I reflect on this as I hang in the cool night’s breezes.
How? You may well ask, am I stuck like this and that is a most welcomed nuance of yours.
Tripping on kittens drunk I was, as I swaggered atop the balcony with such ideals in my head on this fateful faithful night, trusting the fresh French air to cleanse my saturated skin I breathed in and looked out over Paris. My dear kitten joined me there and I felt her fur at my ankles. The world at my feet. Thought I.
I couldn’t say the certain twist took turn of events which then arrived to me, a kitten instigated trip, I’m sure lead swiftly to a foot in the flowerpot, a bamboo cane shot up too near my nose, and then upturned was I, in some cruel kayak of the night.
The pot now sits broken in two above me and this pallid pottery regards me with a look nothing short of distain. I am but a sorry jelly baby to my cold stone like smug like pot. As it sits on the throne where I wish to be, atop my French balcon while I dangle below it like a man off a tarot deck, waiting for the hounds to come.
It was 2.30am, late enough to not be chanced by a helpful pedestrian and early enough to know that there was a good deal of the night left. Oh how the hours seem long my friend, when you hang as I hang here. I was faced with a more than mild predicament and my visage told it so. My expression was of the mystified genre, like a quiz with no answers or questions.
For this reason I was on some level grateful as arrived a large bear like fellow of a dog, least of all because he served to distract me momentarily from my eternal ponderance. Alas as he neared closer… His eyes I decided were mean and likely to pick a fight. And lo as the thought that he could smell my fear became strong it began to permeate the air between him and I…. and form a sort of fear canal. An aqueduct of terror if you will, along which the beast was now swimming toward me.
He sat not a nano second out of place, right below me, on the very blades of grass that would have done nothing to break my fall, should I fall. He sat there for a grand while. His face upturned to receive me, I, hanging like a piece of bait on a wire, not sure whether to feel a sense of gratitude for the degree of stuck that I was currently experiencing.
- Ella Mai
