there was a four-foot tube going from my nostril to my small intestine, and i pulled it out, twice, once while vomiting.
i figured out how to work some of the blinking, sucking, beeping machinery, and when i'd had enough, i switched it off.
i took the loudly ticking clock down from its high place on the wall and removed its battery.
i signed a waiver of liability so that i could be allowed to sit up in bed.
i told them i wanted ativan, and a full milligram, not a child's dose.
i allowed a young male nurse to wrap me with a vinyl leash and walk me up and down the corridor.
i became conscious well into a narrative with a daisy miller-like subplot.
there in trinidad and tobago, i gave her one more chance to choose between the hipster boyfriend and the security of her father.
i drifted in the streets after they made their choice and moved inland, toward the volcano.
i evaded pickpockets and thugs in a dark terrain of campfires, our shadows splaying against the outer city walls.
i got a ride in a jeep full of local teenagers speaking tagalog.
i cooked a pork shoulder in an aluminum pan at an outdoor community kitchen.
i slept in a flophouse full of mattresses in wall alcoves and flashlights and men.
i met the girl who was going to solve the problem of the tracking wires embedded in everyone's eyeglasses or canes.
i was desperate to find an overall solution, but i could only wander from situation to situation.
by Donna