dark and faceless creatures

This has been a good week. Here are the top highlights: 1) seeing my good friend Dylan. I went up to Dayton for several hours, and Dylan came over to the house in his new car. We sat out on the porch and drank coffee and talked for about an hour and a half. The visit was unexpected but well accepted. 2) Wednesday night, I got to spend time with Gambill, Sa-Rah, and Jobst late into the night. We sat out on my front porch for several hours and shared lots of laughs. When Gambill and Sa-Rah left, Jobst lit up his pipe and smoked delicious-smelling tobacco. 3) Roommate date with Sarah. We went to Newport on the Levee, browsed Barnes & Noble, ate at Dewey’s Pizza (expensive but amazingly delicious), and then saw the new movie “District 9” at AMC Theatre. Tonight I may be going down to the Serpentine Wall with some people; or I may go to a door-burning party at Nate’s; or I may spend the night inside the house working on a new book I’m slowly piecing together. Here is the opening paragraph to the new novel:

In his sleep he is haunted by dark creatures wreathed in shadow with faceless eyes burning like twin oil lamps sputtering in a stale and breathless wind. They stand hunched over his bed and watch with no emotion, with neither wrath nor love, with neither sympathy nor empathy, just watching in a detached curiosity, as man once watched behind Plexiglas and iron bars the creatures drawn forth from the darkest corners of earth. And as he struggles from his sleep, they break away and slink into the shadows, and the shadows absorb them, and they become nothing more than whispering memories that will fade with the breaking dawn.