There was a slight tremble in Maurice’s hand, but he pretended it didn’t exist. \u00a0He imagined his muscles like loose ropes which moored a ship to the docks. \u00a0He saw himself grabbing hold of the frayed, coarseness of them and pulling hard, stealing all the slack they had stolen as the ship drifted at the mercy of the tide, and he wrapped each one tighter and tighter around the steel\u00a0protuberances\u00a0of the wharf. \u00a0His muscles\u00a0mimicked\u00a0this, the\u00a0taught-ness\u00a0and the tension. \u00a0He knew that this utter focus was necessary, because this was something that could not be undone. \u00a0There was no means to erase or undo each stroke of his blade. \u00a0There was a finality in this, but it did not enter into his head. \u00a0Only the unfettered commitment to his work which slowly etched itself in front of him as he went.<\/p>\n
As each cut bore itself deeper into the surface, flakes and bits of paint fell to the floor like confetti and \u00a0began to stick to his pants. \u00a0But this too went unnoticed. \u00a0Maurice was almost finished now. \u00a0He was almost at the end of all this. \u00a0He felt a sudden, unexpected sting on the flat part of his thumb and a small stream of blood began to drip across the groves in his palm and down his wrist, as if some disembodied force was guiding it without knowing it, like hands on an Ouija board.<\/p>\n
As a single drop of his own blood struck the floor, mixing with the paint and flecks of cheap metal, Maurice finished his work. \u00a0He had transfered which had only been a\u00a0semblance\u00a0of thoughts, a mixture of things never quite settled on long enough to be considered<\/em> thoughts. \u00a0They couldn’t have that name because they were only flickers of ideas, strapped together with the fleeting phantoms of past experiences. \u00a0But now he had made them concrete. \u00a0He folded up his tool, hiding the half-dull tool away for now. \u00a0Maurice didn’t linger, though. \u00a0The thing was done and before the blood that had spilled on the floor had made its way into the groves of the tiles, he was out the door and in his car and down the road.<\/p>\n He knew that his work would be there forever. \u00a0And if he ever questioned his own existence, doubted for a moment that he was really a relevant player in this world, he would not need to doubt himself.<\/p>\n Because, forever etched into the third bathroom stall in the Gas and Go off of Interstate 73, read the words:<\/p>\n Metallica rules.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There was a slight tremble in Maurice’s hand, but he pretended it didn’t exist. \u00a0He imagined his muscles like loose ropes which moored a ship to the docks. \u00a0He saw himself grabbing hold of the frayed, coarseness of them and pulling hard, stealing all the slack they had stolen as the ship drifted at the … <\/p>\n