Bird As Fish

Do you ever get thirsty?

I am thirsty right now. Thirsty, thirsty. You know that feeling? When you want something so badly, and you will do anything to get it. I feel as if I am just waking up from some long sleep, and I am thirsty, so thirsty. I look around with my eyes half closed.

Stop.

That is where I am right now. But I know the symptoms of it, I know where it will go. I know that this feeling I get will only get worse and worse. It will make me awake. It will make me open my eyes wide. It will make me run, and oh the pleasure in running. The pleasure of itching legs pumping up and down, of shoulders moving smoothly. Of being breathless.

C'mon, c'mon, I tell my cobwebbed brain. Stir yourself, shake off the dust, stretch. Enough of dreams, enough of mist. The real world is waiting. IT is waiting. And why should it wait for me? I'm not sure, but I am thirsty for it. It is what awakens me, it is what stirs me. It is what takes me from warm bed, from comfort, from drowsiness, from achy unawareness. We shall not talk about IT too much, in case it disappears from my sleepy vision, but it is now a question in my head, which I shall ask as soon as I wake up.

What is IT? I shall yell into the distance. And I will run until I have an answer.

In the meantime, I am thirsty, I think, as my mind mulls over why I have been awakened from such a long sleep. I yawn, and stretch my legs.

©2004 All Rights Reserved MJ Jackson
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