every summer afternoon like clock work it rains. clouds from the gulf of mexico and the atlantic ocean engulf that overgrown sandbar of a state. they eclipse the sun with countless shades of gray... not to mention blue. some call it rain, but me... i call it sweat... the type of sweat that one gets from working all day outside in that unforgiving sun. the type that beads up on your forehead in such overwhelming humidity, until it finally makes a break for breathable air. Florida doesn't rain... it sweats. it leaks from a heat so intense that it eventually collapses upon itself, and yells out in anger, frustration, and even sadness... some call that cry thunder... a thunder storm/temper tantrum... what's the difference? all i know is that the sky opens up and screams.

it opens like the water does when it swallows up the life of an angel.

and that is what he saw with his own eyes as he gripped the belly of that overturned boat. he saw his angel consumed by the darkness of the deep... and somehow he survived. i don't remember what they were doing out there. i don't even remember if it was the ocean or just a lake (not just any lake), but for reasons unknown their boat capsized and one man lost his life, while another helplessly watched. and like the cries of a thunderstorm that suddenly manifests itself overhead, screams fill his ears and then begin to echo off into the distance... if you could imagine bearing witness to your best friends demise and not being able to lift a finger... if you could only imagine.

earlier i mentioned 'sandbar' but i think the word 'graveyard' would be more sufficient.

car accidents, drug overdoses, murder, suicide, shark attacks, hurricanes, drowning, and of course old age... just to name a few.

speaking of old age... what a beautiful place to come to die. more cue-tips than you could shake a stick at ('cue-tip' is a reference to the elderly with their white hair). this is 'heaven's waiting room', as so many like to jokingly call it. but if you ask me... it's more like hell's sauna... i guess no one ever noticed the irony in the fact that 'heaven's waiting room' was so goddamn hot! anyways... i feel myself drifting like some distant storm.

... he stayed in our workshop for a little while, even though you couldn't really call it a workshop because no work was ever done within it... more like a big empty room. but like a workshop or a shed it was separate from the house and didn't have all those things you'd expect to see in any normal room like insulation, wiring, foundation, or even a roof that didn't leak. it was basically an overgrown outhouse minus the plumming, with the occasional frog or snake successfully making its way inside...

it was almost as if he wrote his little notes as two different people. the same sentence written in two different shades of ink...

For thou art my lamp, O lord. and the Lord will lighten my darkness

For thou art my lamp, O lord. and the Lord will lighten my darkness

... and so on.

(these are not an actual lines taken from his notes, but it is worthy of mention that he did often copy, if not paraphrase, passages from the Bible.)

no one knew exacly what he meant, but experience shows that he was succumbing to the depths of dementia. and when i say 'experience' i only say it because i knew someone who went through the same exact thing. he liked to let the wind thumb through Bible pages until it finally stopped on something... where he'd continue to read and most likely misinterpret its meaning. but thanks to the many psychiatrists, and other countless doctors, they were able to subdue him and turn him back into a functioning member of today's society... and, appropriately enough, he became a zombie who preferred sleep over anything else. but i guess disconnected is better than psychotic (what's the difference?). over-the-counter prescriptions are equivalent today to a mother bear's tongue licking her cubs wounds... but instead of saliva we have pills...

Neuroleptics like: pimozide, flupenthixol, and chlorpromazine...

or Antiparkinsonian Agents like: benztropine, and mesylate...

... and not to forget the many sedatives, antidepressants, and mood stabilizers... way too many to list here.

... more notes kept appearing and my mother began to worry about our guest. it almost seemed like each and every new note was even more disturbing than the last... and that is when they began to disappear... instead of finding new discarded pieces of paper we found little piles of ashes in random locations. some on the lanai and some lie in the grass out back, which was already burnt up by the sun... a dehydrated lawn i guess i should say. anyways... it was all ash, no matter how you looked at it.

... and that angel who drowned? he wasn't an angel until now... and i don't even know his name. i do know that our guest keeps a newspaper clipping of that day... he blames himself and i can only imagine why.

"he's my guardian angel" he writes. "he kept me alive."

along with other illegible memoirs... some half eaten by fire.

"WATER... it bubbles all around me... and his final thoughts burst upon the surface. COLD, unneeded... i never wanted to hear them. NOT today."

"My guardian angel... he..."

(memories erased by ash)

"... Lord, you are my shepard..."

and the paper turns to dust within my fingers.