It's always this way. I walk outside and there's the holly bush, the little red honda, the stone house across the street, the badly paved driveway, all so expected and natural and without transition, like the last two months never happened. There are cats, at least. I had forgotten that somehow. Consolation, I guess. There's also an older, fifty-point-lower-IQ version of me in the basement at all times. In that room across the hall sleeps a wrathful God counting down the minutes to the moment he can smell my coat and confirm his true assumption. Not even the airport pickup and long island iced tea can put it off for long. I woke up this morning in Santa Fe and tonight I go to sleep in Ellicott City. A small portrait of hell.