Richard's Special Striped Sweeties

Richard looks like Sven Goran Eriksson ....
with greasy ginger hair.

Richard looks like Lurch from the Addams Family ....
in a hand knitted Shetland jumper.

Richard looks like he's been shaking for some considerable time.

Richard looks like he should be here.

Richard looks through leaden eyes at a world of stripes.

The first stripe is real just like today

The second stripe is real to Richard.

The third stripe is real just like now

The fourth stripe is real but just to Richard.

Richard might decode four stripes, but he has four million flickering in front.

This blinking vision is not even so abstract to be kaleidoscopic, fragmented or mashed, it is always real enough to continue the confusion that got him here.

Richard looks at segments of today, shredded and intermingled with yesterday, last week and twenty years ago.

He lost the white ward that contains him just once, slipping away from the pressed uniforms and locked door as a visitor arrived one lunchtime.
Stars pierced the sky when he returned, cramped into a squad car looking out at the pressed uniforms looking in.

Richard looks at the syrup queue and waits, his knockout globule ready on the white cart.

The sugar sweetens the mind fog of the sedative.

The sedative melts the stripes and makes solid grey.

Richard reaches for the little plastic measuring cup and knocks the knockout back.

Richard shuffles away, Largactil Lurch with ginger hair, stupified Sven in a Shetland jumper, shaking considerably less.

Richard looks at solid grey

and I look back at the white cart through millions of stripes, my quaking hand plucking a waxy red hair from my hand knitted jumper.