Plastic Moment #6, August 17, 2009, 07:23:00AM

Home, Brooklyn, NY 11211 (40.675234, -73.971043)

Years of habitual repetition carry my exhausted body forward. I stumble through the dark, windowless living room and into the harsh bathroom light. Door closes solid behind me the towel is hung firmly on a hook. I turn to face myself in the mirror and am greeted only by noise. A swirl of distorted images punctuated by the staccato echo of my alarm clock, shut off some time ago but still rattling around my head-space along with the swirling remains of abandoned dream time conversations. There is a Cronkitesque news caster's voice, and another that speaks the gibberish of imaginary Russian. Severed from context they are unintelligible now and left to battle the petulant shrieking of non-existent child. All these words and sounds are echos within a cavernous subconscious, all carrying on beyond their usefulness and refusing to be placed back in to the toy chest where they belong.

I rub violently at my sore eyes and stair out again towards the mirror. This time the visual flotsam and distortion has settled a bit. Looking back at me now, is the contorted and mangled flesh of Franicis Bacon portraiture. A slab of day old flank steak run through a cubist machine. Twisted and abstracted, the horrid pink of my skin under the fluorescents barely signify flesh while outlined grossly accentuated by cold gray stubble and blackened rot.

How to shave a face like this? How to shave in a state like this? Best to leave the sharp blades alone this morning. No great crime committed by wearing a bit of cheek shadow to the office. Turning away from the devious mirror, I summon just enough reason to get the knobs turning and the water flowing. I wrestle off the sweat drenched clothes and toss my body around the curtain and into the scalding shower. The sudden movement throws my balance and I end up slumped forward with my cheek pressed against the wall's cool white tile.

For a moment the tiles dance, fluttering across the wall in waves. Blown by an unseen oceanic breeze, they move with a dainty flutter that betrays their ceramic rigidity. The fiercely hot water brings a touch of sanity with it. The swirl of voices begins to coalesce, begins to sound familiar. Soap in hand I begin to scrub vigorously at my flesh. Beginning with the back of my neck and then proceeding over the skull and down around my ears. The thick viscous film of dream-stuff comes off my body in sheets. Making a loud slapping sound as it hits the shower floor, it begins to pool up around the drain in a swirl of luminous pink and blue. I blow long strings of plasma from my nose and tear ribbons of gelatinous matter from my eyes.

Soon my vision begins to clarify. The voices become singular and then the singular voice my own. I stand up and arch my back in an exaggerated stretch. I tip my head back and let the last of the soap suds slide off of me. The soapy bubbles join the remaining bits of the iridescent dream-stuff and together they disappear down the drain. I turn off the water and pull aside the curtain. I'm ready to begin another day.