6-3-11 8:25 A.M.

What an ugly little creature, he thought, opening the cage door and reaching in and taking hold of Frank’s loose hide and lifting him out. Frank awoke, hissed, and bit the air and flailed with his feet.

“Quit now,” Raymond said. “Or you can just stay in your cage. You wanna go to the golf course? Huh?”

Frank hissed and peed.

“Vile bastard!” Frank screamed. “You little jerk!”

Frank craned his head and bit Raymond on his thumb.

“AWWWW!” Raymond screamed, dropping Frank to the floor. Raymond plunged his bleeding thumb into his mouth, then thought of Frank chewing crickets and eating cows’ entrails, so he simply encased the bleeding thumb inside his opposite hand. He reared back and kicked Frank from the floor into the opposite wall; a dozen pictures and broken glass covered the lifeless possum. Raymond hoped Frank was dead but only for a split second. Sick with fear, Raymond rushed to Frank. Raymond picked up the possum, limp, tongue dangling. I’ve killed him, Raymond thought. I ruin everything. But then Raymond noticed the gentle almost imperceptible rising and falling of Frank’s chest. Raymond whispered in Frank’s right ear: “I know you’re alive. Quit faking.”

Miscellany from Nod

Interesting building on grounds of Southwest Virginia Mental Health Institute.

6-1-11 1:36 P.M.

He piddled the day away and around three decided to head to Greenway to loaf around the golf course. He tossed his old set of Ping Eyes into the back of his rusty Ford Ranger and then remembered Frank. Flower may have taken Sally but she didn’t have a certain three legged possum, did she? Nope, she didn’t. Raymond went back in the house, an old Craftsman that had belonged to his and Stuart’s maternal grandmother, Evangeline. He walked up the steep brick steps, onto the front porch painted a deep, peeling green. He walked through the front parlor with its ancient hardwood floors and a small anteroom/ solarium stocked with maybe a hundred plants and flowers. His bedroom, the guest bedroom, was located down the hallway, first door on the left. In a small wire cage, Frank slept. Grandma’s black and white pictures of the sky (interesting cloud formations, birds in flight, many, many shots of Fred Holbrook buzzing Glade Spring in his ultralight) covered the eggshell colored walls from floor to ceiling. Raymond kneeled on all fours and looked at his little savior, curled in a grey ball.