Out There

Alex Keegan

Showering made him think of rain, places it didn't rain, Eritreia, Somalia, bloated bellies, arms and legs like sticks, flies on babies' faces. He stopped.

He no longer switched on the radio or television---to hear of famine, disease, mass-murder, rape, oppression. He didn't play music, because his CDs were possessions. He didn't dress because some went naked; speak, because some were dumbed; nor walk, because elsewhere some were chained; nor look at the sun, because some were blind.

When he stopped eating (because he knew excess) first came a purity. Then, in his lightless house he gave up water. He died and was thought mad.

He made a tiny space in the papers, a sound-bite on the radio.

But his death was too small for television.

Copyright ©1998 Alex Keegan. All Rights Reserved.

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November, 1998 Issue #31

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