Breastbone

I went the other way out of class last night, out the wrong door from the one I usually use, to walk by my professor to see if, while talking to another student, he would be inadvertently and luckily answering a question I felt embarrassed and stupid to ask. In doing so, in order to get to the staircase down, I had to circle the entire floor and ended up approaching it from behind. Waiting at the top of the stairs and facing away from me, towards where I should have come from, would normally have come from, was a man with a light beige suit, a blue shirt, short blonde hair, and one hand resting on the banister as he leaned, one leg casually crossed in front of the other. He seemed to be waiting for someone. I was grateful I didn't have to look at him as I walked the hall approaching the stairs, that I wouldn't be seen and watched by him.

A middle eastern kid who I had a class with last semester and who liked my movie had gone the right way and nodded hello to the man, smiling. I wasn't sure if h knew him or if he was just being polite, but the man may have nodded in response. I rounded the man to reach the stairs, and as I did I felt afraid, like I was lucky to never have to see it's face. It was the face of the devil, the face of death, and I'd avoided it.

The staircase was spiral, and as I came around I could have looked up and seen, could have confronted him, whoever he truly was, but I didn't. I couldn't bring myself to look, was proud that I didn't look, because it would have destroyed me. If you enter the right function, the right sequence of processes, into a machine, you can break it. Viruses, trojan horses. You can destroy by input. What would the sight of that man's face have done to me? How would it have changed me? I will never be the man I would have been if I'd seen te face of the man in the light suit last night, and I feel, perhaps misguidedly, fortunate for that.

...

I got an e-mail (most likely spam, I thought) from an unfamiliar address, until I looked again and noticed that it was "cnoicqcuxk@mtaonline."

Apparently, Aztec gods are trying to get in contact with me in order to sell me Rolexes at discount price.

...

I didn't really get a lot of sleep last night. My chest hurts, and hurt then to the point that I couldn't move around, couln't be off-kilter or really turn at the waist at all, couldn't lift anything of any real weight. It doesn't hurt internally, this is not a problem of pink and wet, it hurts near the surface, in the bones. Bone pain is the worst, because it can't go away quickly. Sometimes, when a nerve is pinched in the spine or a joint, all it takes is a trip to the chiropractor and a quick adjustment, and the nerve is out of the way and the pain is, miraculously, gone. This is not that kind of pain. This is degenerative cartilage. This is bone misplacement. This is months, years, possibly the rest of my life of applying cartilage regeneration cream and having my spine readjusted that the flawed trajectory my ribs now take might be corrected. There, on the little padded bench, I must lay balled up in the arms of a surprisingly strong, little man, and try to only wince and not resist when he begins contorting me, snapping and popping my protesting joints. Your bones cracking is little pockets of air moving between one bone and another, separating them for an instant and then, when they move away, causing the bones to audibly slam back together, into place. That's been happening in my god damn sternum. I was adjusted, and it feels better, but it doesn't feel good.

I can't stretch really good, I can't twist really good. If I danced, I'm pretty sure that would be out of the question, not by doctor's orders (there are hardly any) but more on sheer limitation of movement. I can't do much.

Luckily, I never did much to begin with.

Seriously, right now, go Google image search "Rat King." Look at what you get besides the TMNT guy.