They found me in the gutter. The night was the only thing I had left and not much of it at that. I heard the car stop, the doors open and shut and two voices talking. A pair of arms jerked me to my feet and held me there. 'Drunk,' the cop said. The other one turned me around into the light. 'He don't smell bad. That cut on his head didn't come from a fall either.' 'Mugged?' 'Maybe.' I didn't give a damn which way they called it. They were both wrong anyhow. Two hours ago I was drunk. Not now. Two hours ago I was a roaring lion. Then the bottle sailed across the room. No lion left now. Now was a time when I wasn't anything. Nothing was left inside except the feeling a ship must have when it's torpedoed, sinks and hits bottom.

She begged me to say something, but I let her squeeze it out herself. ' The police came again, but Berga wouldn't tell them anything.' The tongue moistened the…

I sat there as if I were paralyzed; for a second totally immobilized, a suddenly frozen mind and body that had solidified into one great silent scream at the m…

All I saw was the dame standing there in the glare of the headlights waving her arms like a huge puppet and the curse I spit out filled the car and my own ears…

I swear that I'm dying slowly but it's happening, and if the perfect spring is waiting somewhere... just take me there.

My wind is turned to bitter north, That was so soft a south before; My sky, that shone so sunny bright, With foggy gloom is clouded o'er My gay green leaves ar…

And truth severe, by fairy fiction drest.