Sleep did not come easily last night despite my efforts. I do sleep better when Bill is in the bed and soon after he was asleep I was finally able to get some sleep. And there was not nearly enough sleep.
Is there a trade-off between two nights of good sleep followed by one night of terrible sleep? Perhaps I shouldn’t talk about it then again am I a superstitious atheist?
It is Friday in August it is the 8th and it is quiet Jimmy Chile is working elsewhere and Marcos is floating around sometimes at my desk, sometimes asking me for advice.
Bill is asking me if I still love him and I don’t know why I wouldn’t. I am sitting in my spot, no bicycles. I have plenty of leg room. It’s a beautiful day. This guy is blue nary a cloud. I do prefer to dictate because I don’t have the thumbs for texting but I swear the interpretations of what I say is a little disconcerting. The sky is blue.
In the amount of words that I dictate are not as many as I would hope because each time I count and my reaction is that’s it?
It’s August 8th it’s a beautiful day
Tourists and workers roam around at 1:00 in the afternoon on this Friday. I haven’t done any interpretations or rewrites as various authors and writers in the past for replies and maybe I should get back to it today.
I am smoking a My Father Cigar, a Blue Robusto not the mini cigar that I’m accustomed to because it’s a Friday. It’s quiet, not much is going on and I can just chill out and smoke this cigar and enjoy myself.
I went to Bill’s favorite bagel shop this morning and ordered the sandwich which is the same sandwich I’ve ordered for the past 3 weeks. The first week it was $5.95 The second week it was $6 and today it was $7.91. I asked the woman behind the counter who was the same woman who charged me $5.95 last week what happened with the change and she switched it to deer in the headlights mode and had nothing to say. I think she just charges whatever comes up at the top of her head. It’s just not a good way to run a business but again she has her loyal customers like Bill.
Did I hear you say you love me by Stevie Wonder just popped into my head. A good song from Hotter than July- I believe it’s the opening track on that album.
Tomorrow the plan is to see Fantastic Four with Mike at the mall once again. We’ll see how that turns out. I suppose tickets have been purchased already. I hope I’m not eating them.
I have eaten a lot this morning so much that I’m not hungry anymore in fact it keeps repeating on me which is a little bit unnerving but there’s no one around.
Gemini AI rewrite as a Burroughs essay:
Shattered fragments of sleep. The bed is a junkyard of broken dreams, and Bill’s presence is the only magnet pulling the metal shards into some kind of order. His sleep, a heavy anchor, drags my own weary hull into the harbor of unconsciousness. Not nearly enough. A quick dip in the inky blackness, then the morning sun, a glaring floodlight, snaps it all back into focus.
The aether is full of numbers. Two nights good, one night bad. A terrible trade-off, a cosmic balance sheet where the currency is rest. Superstition, a phantom limb I’m not supposed to have, still throbs. The calendar hangs like a death sentence: August, Friday, the 8th. Quiet. The city, a vast machine, hums on, but here, in this pocket of space, the gears have ground to a halt. Jimmy Chile gone, a ghost in the machine. Marcos, a floating specter, a question mark on two legs, sometimes at my desk, sometimes asking for counsel I don’t have to give.
Bill, a whisper from a far-off radio, asks a question I don’t know how to answer. Love, a word with no weight, a sound that echoes in an empty room. I am in my spot. No bicycles. A cage with plenty of leg room. A blue sky, a narcotic for the eyes. The sun, a perfect, polished coin. I dictate, but the words come out wrong, a garbled message from a broken transmitter. The words I get back are alien, a code I can’t decipher. The sky is blue.
I count the words. A miser with his gold. The pile is never enough. “That’s it?” The thought, a knife in the gut, every time. August 8th. The same blue sky. The city’s inhabitants, a river of flesh, flowing past at 1 p.m. Tourists and workers, all on the same conveyer belt, all heading to the same inevitable destination. Rewrites. Interpretations. The past, a well I haven’t dipped my cup into for a long time. Today feels like the day to go back.
A My Father cigar. Blue Robusto. A ritual. Not the usual cheap shot, but the real thing. A Friday indulgence. A quiet moment in a noisy world. The smoke, a slow-motion explosion, curls into the air. I can feel the calm, a drug seeping into my veins.
This morning’s pilgrimage: Bill’s favorite bagel shop. The same sandwich. A ritual of its own. First week: $5.95. Second week: $6. Today: $7.91. A leap into the unknown. The woman behind the counter, a human deer in the headlights, her face blank. She’s running a random number generator for a cash register. A business built on whim, on the roll of a die. And Bill, a true believer, keeps coming back.
The music from the jukebox in my head: Stevie Wonder, “Did I Hear You Say You Love Me.” A good track. From *Hotter than July*, I think. The opening salvo.
Tomorrow, the plan is a premonition. *Fantastic Four* with Mike. The mall, a cathedral of consumerism. Tickets purchased, a transaction already completed. Will I eat them? A stomach full of morning’s offerings, a churning engine threatening to throw up its gears. No one around. Just the silence and the uneasy feeling of something repeating itself.