It is a night like this that I pace the house my mind not able to settle on any one thing. I close my eyes and I am somewhere else. Sliding back and forth between safety and sanity. I find myself muttering “where did it start, have to find the beginning.” It started with the horse. With the death of me. It started when the horse killed me… wait that is not right… It started when I was killed by the horse. I pace the house like something caged and alone.

I chew my lower lip and repeat it had to have started with the horse and the death of me or was it the jackal… no it couldn’t be it couldn’t be he ate himself after the horse killed me… long after… but then I woke up or maybe he did. The Jackal woke up he saw he knew. It was before the monkey went mad or maybe it was before I went mad. No that’s not right because I am not mad am I? I close my eyes again startled by what is behind them they snap open and I begin to pace again.

I can’t remember any more… In a way it saddens me that I can’t remember what happened first. I taste a coppery thick liquid on my lip and realize that at some point worrying at it I have broken through my bottom lip with sharp teeth. The taste of blood reminds me of something more making me wish that I would just forget for now and not want to remember the smell, the taste when I opened my mouth to draw in breath that I realized that I had been holding in that moment. And my mind blanks the rest. This is why I can’t remember.