"Algol /ˈælɡɒl/,[12] designated Beta Persei (β Persei, abbreviated Beta Per, β Per), known colloquially as the Demon Star, is a bright multiple star in the constellation of Perseus and one of the first non-nova variable stars to be discovered."

|| tales from the hospital || 

the cross in the sky migrated like it always does. i didn't know anything about it though; it carried itself on my shoulders, pushed up into the brain like a stem. It heightens there, unable and unholy. cross, double crossed, uncrossed, criss crossed. maybe all of it.

the freakish goings on. it doesn't bother me. why should it? why should it not? i'll tell you. because it didn't. i'm talking about all these stars. can anyone else feel them? massive swirling cerebrum; there is no grinding, there is no halt, there is nothing but bending, nothing but that concavity we come to expect.

pleading guilty. it's all we can do by virtue of being here. incapitated, it's no use. still, the people want to know!

"what's it all about?"

less the gnashing, more the drunken driving, the off handed perks, the downloadable content, the arias, the southern comforts and their requisite crosses. keep singing! keep singing. and while you're at it, keep signing too. the g and the n can cross each other like two stars, in whatever dance they choose/d. it's their choice.

i hear it all and wave my hands like a palm tree grazing up the firmaments. just to and fro, like one should do, like all one can do, and like one does.

eventually they bid me to feed her porridge.

her clear blue eyes both placid and frightened.

"shove that shit right into her mouth!" it's the polite thing to do, they said. i impolitely refuse. and so they begin to arc their way around the bed, contorted like the light up letters spelling TARGET on some abject storefront. legs bent, angles hard and hardened, arms in a tangle, spidering their own last moments. we can make you do it!


she can't hear you. she can't see you. she can't say it! they dance this ring of fire with their spoons, with their chow and with their suggestive barking. but i don't think they bark loud enough.

oh if only it were you! they shouted. if only it were you, i repeated with no sound: and with the words the floor turned to mush, all of it sunken, marsh like, captivated. they become old, like she did. sunk down to the knee, to the cap, to the armpit. they become incontinent, lame, vile, stinking, and unable to bathe; though they seem to ignore it. that is, apart from the headache- if you have ever had one, you know it's time to lay down anyhow. there's no avoiding it. and so they left at that, finally. it's not a supportive environment.

i continue to feed this porridge, these eggs, these apples, in the way you would if you could. the power in her lips was magnificent, though she was clearly sick. skin like the petals of a rosary bead. it was just the first twenty minutes of my shift.

i hate to break it to me, but are they correct? what is speaking anyway, if no one even listens? speaking is the REAL. is the NOW. is the MOMENT.

it's all shut the hell up. and as they say these words their own mouths shut. their language shits the bed. their faculties in mutual diminishment, like germish contagion we all, tits and everything, are told to be quiet by people who aren't even in the room. out there, over it all, like the wires behind the walls, like an astronomical dome created just for our punishments. it's not worth repeating, i admitted. and so i didn't.

what happens when you repeat yourself? something predicted. something all too sane. something that breaks -- RIPS like a gargantuan gorger. groans like a sea so full of ships it might vomit. or, alternately, not that;

something different?

algol the doubler only doubles it down, echolalic, algoholic, ridden by the horse it/self. do you like it? the porridge, i mean. do you want a little more of it? the feeling that 'something is going on in here' is loud, and doesn't get much quieter.

the ironic beat of this refrain is that she could indeed speak, although quietly and with effort. they told me she couldn't: still, a triumphant 'yeah' was uttered as we gazed into each other's eyes. and then she took a nap.