serpentine raze after watching an enormous arachnid scale his bedroom wall, he dreamed of an orange and white animal. it had the body of an elastic cat and the mouth of a cobra. he skewered it with a butcher knife, trying to kill the thing before it killed him. it didn't want to die. upstairs, i fell out of sleep to find i couldn't get any air. i tried to drink in something that would save_me, but the branches of the tree that lines my chest were broken. i thought about hypoxia. the brain can only live so long without oxygen. if i'd been choking on food my stomach had sent back up the pike after failing to break it down, i could have coughed to clear my throat. but everything i'd eaten was already gone. there was nothing to wrestle with. just my wide awake mind and the promise of dying alone in the dark. his nineteenth or twentieth thrust of the blade stole the light from that striped predator's eyes. and as the poison drained from the back of its head, my lungs learned how to breathe again. 220420 what's it to you? who go blather from