#131 Swamp Economics

by Adam Bolts

I guided my hand down my leg and held till I saw sparks.

To bury one’s defaults is to be perennial.

After six weeks of waiting and living off the food Joni the fishmonger gave me, Sky Chief finally delivered a specimen of craft worthy of reverence. My new cedar canoe was perfectly weighted and balanced bow to stern, allowing me to stand and fish as well as sit, which I so enjoyed. I could paddle out to the rigs to snag a few cobia for Joni the fishmonger and be home before I had to defecate.

Today the sea had a frothy white scab, so I picked my way through its repressed conduct, keeping an eye for temperature flux and unanswered riddles as I provoked its test.

I balanced on Neptune’s forgiving pinky and sacrificed accordingly to his bloodthirsty Amphitrite, puncturing the oily shell mechanically to make up for lost time.

Tuesdays I had to stay in the hole until I got the host’s permission to leave.

She never praises, only answers my insecurities with critique and pummels my delusions with bleak reasoning. The host has no face, yet I can hear her breath and can follow her voice in my head.

Hastily, I had fed her violence with approval, sex without warning, and greed with no end, earning an early dismissal and temporary approval.

Now, poaching the hag, I withstood the torment of boredom by preparing for infinity’s lost requiem; content, patient but still hungry for death’s imprint.

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