C4 antho - Chamber Four

On Castles ~183~
enjoy, being that he is no longer of this world.
I see this as level one on the grieving scale.
On day ten, I reach level two. Level two includes one
drink and one TV news program per day.
On day fifteen, I reach level three. Level three includes
two drinks, one TV news program, and one PG rated movie
per day.
On day nineteen, I reach level four. Level four includes
three drinks, three hours of TV, and light masturbation.
On day twenty-one, I discover a routine. Every morning I
have a grilled cheese with Gewurztraminer. I broaden my
horizons. I watch TV. People with mustaches appraise the
Yankees’ underachieving bullpen. People with mustaches try
to sell me a powerful rug cleaner. People with mustaches talk
about extinction level meteors pulverizing the rings of Saturn.
The rise in mustaches says something important about
the inevitability of the universe’s collapse, I think.
“This is proof,” I say, smacking the top of the TV. “Proof
that life is meaningless!”
At my kitchen table, I decide to leave civilization. But
everything is harder now. People used to live in saloons in
the Yukon and eat hard tack and marry sensible women
named Clara. Now you lie in bed on Monday afternoon. You
think about what heart disease will feel like while criticizing
teen nurse porn.
* * * *
I have two dreams.
One is about a beaver that makes a cozy fire inside his
dam. In the dream, the beaver sips expensive brandy by the