Future Patient next World

Collisions of images: searching for jobs or money, companionship or
sex, family members alive or dead, decaying cities, old hotels,
temporary residences... The last breath; the next breath. The child in
him and the children he loved and was responsible for. But those
things became a chapter in another book carefully marked with a
placeholder, he was in another medium; a total surround-sound visual
experience. Trillions of stars, none holding any clues; darkness and
nebula --interesting to look at but void of feeling-- To another world
of quiet habitation.

Collusions of ideas: People born in 1950 parse their melancholy plaint
in the singing of "Happy Tails To You," as tears stream down their
cheeks remembering everyone that has come before them and many
who traveled with them who are now ghosts traveling dim memories
toward total oblivion.

He was joined by imaginary friends whom he spoke to often though
they only smiled or ignored him in response. One was a girl he knew
vaguely in high school and the other a woman he had spent much
more time with. In his valley of unrest he thought he knew both
equally or not at all, but spoke to them often, as if by some perverse
stroke he had become the center of all attention.

"I had a self-conscious dream about throngs of Jewish men outside a
large synagogue. Huge prayers came cascading outside to fill the air. I
wore white socks with green pants and I felt so ill-at-ease; they
probably knew I wasn't Jewish. I wandered through them toward the
base of the building looking for a much smaller congregation whose
weak prayers would grate uncomfortably on the sensibilities of others.
That congregation was closed. The way was blocked by a red hassock.
I stepped past the hassock but found their room empty, not quite a
tomb as there were Chinese immigrants; college students, lounging
there. --I'm not sure how this relates to Jesus."