Hero
Hero hero hero hero
hero
Hero hero hero hero
hero
Hero hero hero hero
hero
I’ve hero tattooed to the inside of my skull
Because I needed it to.
He wakes exhausted, still empty. Complacent, he closes his eyes again to read what he’s written. “Hero.” Without a toss or a turn he gets up. He feels a strength beginning to surface, as if kept in reserve (as long as one is living there is always some strength kept in reserve). ‘So what if I’m empty?’ He thinks, noting that this empty feeling differs from the pervasive hollowness he felt before, one which was accompanied by pangs which resonated with the reminder: you are alone.
He yawns like a lion and stretches his limbs. His body and his mind feel sludgy, beaten really. Off in the distance he hears drums beating. It is the same sound and the same tone, the one that insists on war. He comes to his senses quick this morning. He senses the fragility of his immanence. At this moment the shadow could tag its claim on his emptiness and one step in the wrong direction would be all it needed to gain momentum. Relentless, it will come at him, especially now, when he is vulnerable.
His rival has him on the low ground, keeping him there with a constant battery of antipathy. “I must move now,” he says to himself. ‘It will never expect such a sudden change after all the shit it just threw at me,’ he thinks. As he wakes his thoughts begin to accelerate. He displaces them, all of them, in an attempt to abandon his cross-bone post. “I’ll go into hiding and prepare my next move,” again, to himself.
The bedroom is in disarray. It is scattered with laundry, empty bottles and papers from an open briefcase turned over. He shuffles through the clothes, smelling them to discern which are clean enough to wear. Accusational thoughts of being a slob press against his mental barrier, trying to find him and assert a position over him. He senses them and hastens to dress. As soon as he’s dressed, he’s out the door.