Warning Sign

"Warning Sign"

She had decided to stay for a night in a hotel, as a "self-esteem exercise." Outside the hotel room, some distance away: images of bloody bathtubs and death from intoxication, from overdose, from sorrow.

Pages pulled up on the glowing screen-- excerpts from Wikipedia, regarding bipolar disorder. Perhaps. It is a possibility, though labels in and of themselves are no solution.

Inside his head: doubts thrown in the garbage bin (after they'd first been dug up). He'd thought he was over this. He had thought he already knew. And for a brief moment, his assuredness had wavered.

He had regained it now. His dignity, too-- though he shouldn't have fallen for the same old trick, it was no longer a threat to his dignity. Dignity did not matter. The only thing which mattered was steadfastness.

He would not play into its hands. He would not play the disease's game. He was done; the game was childish, and he was sick of it, he'd had it; no more fucking around.

This was serious business.

Some distance away, in a hotel room: clouded thoughts, sour breath, pickled grey matter, phantoms that would not go away. Ghosts which still would not forsake their haunt.

A child huddling, sleeping, crying: alone.

Forty-seven years; and still-- in so many ways, though fewer and fewer with each hotel, each check-in-- still a child, abandoned by her father.

The disease had taken him as well.