Yup, sad

Open bag by the check in desk, but not sure she'll want to go into it. Hell, I don't want to go into it and it's MINE. Layer upon layer of black plaque; white around the edges; a necrotic lasagna I scraped together from residue I've been aging in the wild id-spaces like an obsessed oenophile all this years.

I've had a peak before, guessed it was time for another tonite, but it was more like it chose me as opposed to the other way around. I peeled it back, layer by rotting layer, laying them carefully around the bag and looking up for quick eye contact, wondering if she was going to call security. She gave me the look you know. You know, the LOOK. You have a few minutes, but a very few. Better make the right decision.

And I was ready to, thing is, when I got to the final layer, it was terrible beauty.

That's always the way isn't it. Easier to say goodbye and pack this fucker with all it's slimy siblings and inbred cousins together and ship it off somewhere. But that's if it was even a little bit worse than the pasta I've pulled off. Thing is, it's a little beating heart, shimmering in a perfect square of shimmering plasma and highwayed artery lines. And not little in terms of it's an infant heart, no, the littleness is just part of the gelled metaphor, kids. It's a little part of me.

Beating excitedly now, it knows it has my attention. It wants to be fed and nurtured. And I could do that, almost decided to do that, when I heard her shuffling o'er me. Shit, she's brought company too. Both of them have looks of warning on their face ~ you've got a toxic emotional pyschological topspill their waiting to happen cowboy. You're either going to contaminate us or give the little guy (that means you too) a heart attack. Make your call.

And so I do, piling on the rotten blankets on top of it again, knowing that it's the right thing to do but...

As I put it on the conveyor belt, consciously, without a tag or a return address, I feel the desire, the clinging, the sadness and utter aloneness creep up and lodge in my throat.

It descends through the plastic teeth out of site, and I could swear that I hear the little heart break a little bit. Or maybe it's growing, hard to tell.

For now all that's certain is that it's contained and on its way somewhere.

I'm back to one attendant now. She points up to a departure arrival sign, simple message there for me: