Bloody Season
“His ears rang and his head felt hollow.
When the first seizure of the day had passed he remained leaning on his palms on the maple washstand, shoulders gathered into a tent behind his lowered head, the stench of evaporated night-sweat stale in his nostrils. On such mornings his senses were painfully acute and he could not stand to be around himself. He poured blood-tinted liquid into a thick, smeared glass tumbler on the stand, set down the bottle, and drank, not lowering the tumbler until it w...as as empty as his head. The alcohol spread inside him, burning as it went, cauterizing. He replenished the contents of the glass and drank it more slowly. The sharp barley fumes flushed his own stink from his olfactory system.
A harsh gust skidded around the corner of the frame building and clattered the panes in the window overlooking the narrow lot next door. The room was cold, as it always was in late October when the wind blew mornings, and mornings the wind was always blowing. He filled the basin from the flowered pitcher, stripped off his nightshirt, the cotton peeling away from his armpits with a sucking sound, and stood naked and shivering, blue-white flesh stretched over rib cage, genitals shriveled and plum-colored, while he bathed his chest and crotch and under his arms with icy water.MoreLess
When the first seizure of the day had passed he remained leaning on his palms on the maple washstand, shoulders gathered into a tent behind his lowered head, the stench of evaporated night-sweat stale in his nostrils. On such mornings his senses were painfully acute and he could not stand to be around himself. He poured blood-tinted liquid into a thick, smeared glass tumbler on the stand, set down the bottle, and drank, not lowering the tumbler until it w...as as empty as his head. The alcohol spread inside him, burning as it went, cauterizing. He replenished the contents of the glass and drank it more slowly. The sharp barley fumes flushed his own stink from his olfactory system.
A harsh gust skidded around the corner of the frame building and clattered the panes in the window overlooking the narrow lot next door. The room was cold, as it always was in late October when the wind blew mornings, and mornings the wind was always blowing. He filled the basin from the flowered pitcher, stripped off his nightshirt, the cotton peeling away from his armpits with a sucking sound, and stood naked and shivering, blue-white flesh stretched over rib cage, genitals shriveled and plum-colored, while he bathed his chest and crotch and under his arms with icy water.MoreLess
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