The Jules Vern Building
(Central Paradise)

I was roused from my slumber by the sensation of somthing moving in the room. I could make out the outline of a large man leaning over me. As his meaty hand clamped shut my mouth, I made out his face. It was the retarded son of the handyman. Then the cold of steel sliced through my throat and I felt my own thick warm blood gush into my ears...thick and sticky on my skin and pillow. Death spreading like strawberry syrup on my sheets as I struggled. My hands struggled to hold tight the slippery gap in my throat like a man trying to hold back the tide.

Then this man with the mind of a boy put a finger to his lips as if he were quieting an unruly child. No sound from him. Just the sound of my blood as it sprayed from severed arteries in a rythm like a clock winding down. He removed his hand from my face and pointed to the pictures on the mantle. Silent. Insistently pointing at those ancient family pictures. I tried to rise...to somehow recieve the meaning of this, the message so deserving of my death. Blood held my head like glue to the pillow.

Blood cascading through my fingers, the room gray and indiferent to my situation, I saw the face of my killer brighten then vanish. The slit in my neck drew tight and closed. The blood pasted to my hair evaporated. I was sitting upright in a lighted room with my grandfather's picture in my hands.

Meaning? Why would I care about your quiet interpretations. ...your subtle clicks, "uhmmmmmmms", nods, and glances. Who are you that I should care? Leave me now!