Traveling with Siegfried through Japan. Intimate rooms, golden light sprawling into partitioned shadow, across tatami, spilling through ricepaper all the colours of stained glass. The other guests don't trust my face, and it's easy to see why: streaming tears, eyes strained by rictus of repression, gasping for breath. I feel my self-control slipping. Begin slapping myself. The blows don't land with any force-- because you can't combat yourself. I can't, at any rate, the schizoid impulse to destroy my own reflection stutters, dims, all wind going out of the internal storm. All that's left is sorrow at humiliating Sig, who has to account for my strange behavior in a stranger's home. The scene recedes in my mind as I wake, shaken.
Walk to Montrose bird sanctuary, thinking the whole thing over. When I get there, a finch is on a branch, peering at me. I raise my hand and it flits to light on my fingertips. Flies off. Return home feeling better.
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