|
Moody
K.C. Collins "We don't call it manic depression anymore," he told my mother in sales-pitch tones, "It's bipolar disorder." A polite way to say I swing from the treetops and wallow in the mud. Last week I slew 1,036 dragons (some of them co-workers, some merely bystanders) and their lives ran down the blood-groove of my sword. They were righteous murders, full of honor and justice with enough meat to feed my clan the whole winter and all the starving children in China with no meat to go with their tea. How much does it cost today? Well, no one minded when I suffocated myself in the sludgy marsh drowning my spirit in bracken water... but pull out a blade or burst into song, and suddenly the alarms sound and the torches and pitchforks come out... lesser demons in white coats, sheep in wolves' clothing. They do not fight fair. On a better day I could beat you with both hands tied behind my back as they are now. Their commander is a fine young man who has not seen many battles and doesn't understand allegory or metaphor in the common tongue. He speaks of a potion to take the curves out of the road, overlooking the fact that I am a mountain goat. I know these foul philters that take the shine off my sword, and I would rather spend years commuting between Dante's inferno and Milton's paradise than to dwell in a lithium purgatory. Besides, tomorrow I have plans to embark upon a tour of Antarctica and Zaire with no stops planned in Austria before I go hiking in the Himalayas. Would you care to join me? © Copyright 2002, 2003, 2004, 2011 by K.C. Collins |