The Shrieking Sheikh
The sheikh was so loud my
ears were bleeding. Exact
ly what he was saying I’ll
never know. Just that it
was something about how
I’d been shirking my resp
onsibilities. And since that
is a punch from which I can
never duck quite fast enough,
there was a resignation in me
that would come to me, meta
phorically, in that PTSD way, a
nagging wave that would sweep
through my body that would start
at the soles of my feet and rise
slowly to my scalp, as if a sweat
were being released from my
senses, until I’d be flooded with
that familiar anxiety-riddled sen
sation that would render me inert,
immobile, until I could finally
come to terms with each defeat.
