250 Words the Easy Way (Two Impulses) (Two Five Zero 016)
I’ve been setting intentions. I’ve assigned myself three 250-word pieces before Sunday. I’m thinking it could be easier than it’s been. More like a prose poem built up from a couple impulses then a hunk of exposition pared down from something four times longer …
Since it now seems I won’t die of cancer in the next 14 months, or maybe even the next 140 months, my attention turns toward concerns less taxing than planning my life under the uncertain and oppressively looming sentence of near-term mortality. Here’s two:
One: I miss, in a semi-abstract way, the comforting reassurance — on waking in the morning or on other occasions both accidental and deliberate — that sexual congress, if not imminent was at least plausible.
Two: I asked my oncologist if he might prescribe something to help me sleep more than a couple hours in a row. People living with problematic prostates know what it’s like to wake up every 90 minutes or two hours all night long every night. It’s wearing, and confronting the relentless enemy of a good night’s sleep keeps one’s condition constantly and inescapably centered. I started the new medicine. Pretty soon my longest stretches of uninterrupted blissful sleep started climbing — until this week I slept more than seven hours in a row — which won’t sound like much until you’ve spent two years with an unrequited yearning for just three hours of sleep in a row.
I was right: Those 250 words were easy. Love you all.
Here’s this story on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paul.stark.104/posts/10166061919095254
