by Mark Mahon

Created on: June 26, 2009

For this last time, the dawning of my mind coincided with the dawning of the day. Similar to a neon light flickering, flashes of light echoed through my mind as a subtle reminder that I existed. One eye needed to open. That need was not yet strong enough, it was as weak as the muscle required to lift the eyelid. Each time that I have returned to consciousness throughout my life, more than 18,000 awakenings, I would evaluate my being and contemplate the problems of the moment. Now, my last contemplations twang with emptiness.

The eyelid did rise marginally. Opaque vision reinforces the necessity for water, like looking through the ocean, wanting to know what may lie on the bottom. Too empty to blink, I wait for the picture to materialize. A shimmering of image finally reveals a large moss covered rock. My nose is so close to the rock that it can smell the hardness. My eye discerns movement.

An ant is wandering along and across paths, traversing through the forest of the moss. My mind zooms into the world of the ant, it feels as though I am falling through space where the light from the stars flash past in streaks. The ant appears misplaced in its forest. As lost as I have been in my forest for the past six days. There is no pattern to where the ant is travelling. Each tree trunk looks the same. Each track looks the same. Each direction looks the same. Each thought becomes the same. The ant appears then disappears under canopies of moss spread out above as though thunderclouds are passing by. It does not stop to eat. It does not stop to drink. It wants out....Just as I did. My weary mind tells me that Anton is the name that I should assign him. I know that it is a him because the queen is matriarchal and it suits her to make only hims. Power corrupts. My mind is wandering.

I wonder if Anton passes protruding branches that thrust at him and stab at his cheeks leaving battle scars. I wonder if Anton's lips are swollen blue and split with crevices that throb incessantly. Is his heart beating furiously with each pound reminding him that he may never relax in familiar surroundings again? Has Anton's mind faded to shades of jelly manipulating him to take one step to the left, the next step backwards and not even remembering where the third step went? Is Anton desperately panicking? I was.

Am I bonding with Anton? Does our common adversity intertwine our auras in an effort to strengthen our resolve communally? Maybe prisoners of

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