VII. Steroids.

The little martian. The little martian. The little martian.

His name buzzes around my brain like a blue-bellied fly on steroids.

He has been talking incredibly fast today, usually, I would love that. but today I can’t find it in me to tell him to slow down, to enunciate, to let me hear him.

No, the martian is a bit disoriented today, and he talks in garbled riddles, quite unlike his usual self.

“It is a sign to move forward! But you’re stuck in the mud!” He cackled, rather unkindly, at me when I awoke from a fitful sleep to a reality that felt jerkier still.

“There is so much to be done, but you seem neither fit for doing nor staying still,” he said to me later that morning. And as I sip my coffee he looks me dead in my dark, almost hollow eyes and exclaims, “you're so wonderfully powerless today!”

I bend down and take the martian in my arms. He needs a long hug today.