Desert Songs: O, this languid eternity and the caustic breath of a rotting cell

there was. a pulsing, buzzing sound in his ear. and then. a white flash, just off to the left and right in his peripheral. and then. he was blind. and he was floating. he reached out. nothing. nothing. nothing. and then, he could just barely reach it. grains. the sand. he was still where he was before. that was all he knew for sure. but, why was he floating? how was he floating? this, he had no answers for. what was that flash? what was that sound? were they related to his current situation? again. he didn't know. it was useless to ask these questions. so he waited. occasionally. he reached down and touch the sand. took one or two grains and rolled them around between his fingers. it was the only sensation he had there. it was the only thing that reminded him he was still alive. well. still being, anyway.

then, after a time, there was a new sensation. something moving and touching his back. small. soft hands. tiny fingers running up and down his spine. it was then he realized he was not clothed. he didn't know quite how he had missed that before, but right now that didn't matter. these hands. whose hands? and then, like a slow wave, he heard their voices. a low murmuring tone. like the rustling of feathers. getting louder, rising and crashing, echoing as if in a great chamber. but he was outside. he could feel the sun. he could feel the sand. he touched his back. the sensation of his fingers on his back was added to the sensation of the many hands. but he couldn't feel their hands with his hands. but he did feel something else. a smooth, thickening liquid forming droplets and dripping from his back. he couldn't see what it was, but he knew what it was. blood. his blood. were the hands doing this? how long had he been bleeding? why was he bleeding? again, questions he couldn't answer. how could he stop the bleeding? could he? he had nothing. maybe it would stop by itself.
he folded his hands across his chest and waited. it was all he could do. besides, if he didn't allow himself to over think his situation, he could imagine himself in the most comfortable bed receiving a light massage. he floated. and smiled. he fell asleep and dreamed. he dreamed he was in a vast prairie running through grass with some sort of animal that he couldn't quite see. Every time he tried to look at it, it was as if his vision was pushed away like water resisting oil. so he stopped trying to look at it and just bounded away in the grass. jumping higher and higher and laughing. and then in the middle of a jump he felt a sharp pain in his back and he folded over backwards. he woke up. shaking. there was a great pain along the center of his back and neck. he tried to reach back with his hands, but that movement hurt him extraordinarily. and so he lay, floating. hands out to his sides. mouth open. the voices rose and crashed with greater frequency. he salivated uncontrollably. small pops and bone cracks resounded and his body was overcome with seizure. he welcomed the seizure. it negated the pain. and through the cloud he felt his point of view shift through his body and he saw the tiny white hands pull at last his spine from his body, sever nerves and muscle in a fountain spray of red. the white hands shucked the bone from bleached yellow interior of the spinal cord. and as he looked he saw it was moving slowly and had small black eyes near the tip and thin purple line for a mouth. it bend itself toward his consciousness and took him into its mouth. and now. again. he could feel the white hands holding him. warm hands. caressing gently. carrying him. somewhere. it didn't matter. he felt content. and even if he wanted to know where he was, his eyes and mind couldn't comprehend it. his vision slipped around the reality. and his mind simply forgot that anything was really there at all.