Short One 1

3:47 am, behind closed eye-lids; the same standard images flowed one after the other. Their recalcitrance vexing even in sleep. He saw each image...each scene an unwelcome invader to the death-like sleep he wanted. She was there again; the one who bore features that were familiar yet foreign. She vaguely resembled Pam Grier a la blaxploitation era, even sporting an afro like her Foxy double. He was her again...broad opened fields...laughter, a sound invading his ears-his voice, colored with carefree chuckles calling for her to slow down, wait up...running, he...her always before him; every now and then turning around to stare at him; those dark pools of something for eyes, her perfect cupid's bow lips bearing this half smirk....disappeared, some shadow intercepts...some male medium interceptes...that medium...the torment always destroying his imaginings....his yes snap open, always on their own volition. Clock reads 3:55am. He looks around the room, silence, shadows...pulsating...nothingness. Ambrose swings his long lean legs pitching himself into an upright position. Head in his hands, he pulls some strength from somewhere and heads for the kitchen; down the narrow little hallway...he feels that Alfred Hitchcockian feel...that Vertigo feel like the hallway is seemingly elongating itself, like he'll never make it beyond the narrow, tunnel like little place into the spaciousness...spaciousness of the living room with kitchinette off to the right. He makes it...finally...pausing...looking around the off white, tan, and black living room; spacious and furnished in that sterile contemporary mode...devoid of presence or soul...much like him...kitchinette, he enters...freezer opens quietly, retrieves this chilled bottle of Sauvignon. Half glass...oh, well what the hell, he fills it up and immediately gulps every drop down. He...silent man, tormented by images as virile and stubborn as men...honeyed colored black man, creole clad only in electric blue boxers. Ambrose takes another swig of wine, briefly closing his eyes.