Chapter 2

I grow uglier with each passing day. The bathroom light bulb was totally emotionally detached. Staring in the mirror, I noted the mound of blood making its way from the side of my nose, passing below my left eye, bringing the swelling in its wake. It struck me as some kind of blue burrowing creature, like an animal burrowing under the snow across a white landscape.

A fly weakly collided with the bathroom mirror and flew erratically away.

On either side of the broken nose, two eyes stared back at me, one dark and swollen, the other light and intact. With a nod to William Blake, I christened my eyes: the light eye was the Eye of Innocence; the dark eye was the Eye of Experience.

And the Eye of Innocence said back to me:

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee.
He is called by thy name,
He is meek and he is mild,
He became a little child;
I a child and thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.

And the Eye of Experience said back to me:

Little Fly
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brush'd away

Am I not
a fly like thee?

For I dance
And drink & sing,
Til some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.