Malady

I move; perhaps I have wakened; this is a bed; this is a room; and there is light....

Darkness!

Have I performed the dozen acts or so that make me the man men see?

The door opens, and on the landing-- quiet! I can see nothing: the pain, the weariness!

Stairs, banisters, a handrail: all indistinguishable. One step farther down or up, and why? But up is harder. Down! Down to this white blur; it gives before me.

Me?

I extend all ways: I fit into the walls and they pull me.

Light?

Light! I know it is light.

Stillness, and then, something moves: green, oh green, dazzling lightning! And joy! this is my room; there are my books, there the piano, there the last bar I wrote, there the last line, and oh the sunlight!

A parrot screeches.