Stay Vital

In line for examination, I jump excitedly. Vitals, my favorite part of the day. Staunch nurses look at digits and scribble in files. Who, at such a time as this, could be more alive than me? I am the sun and my potential is eminent.

I see the television room, full of patients, from my throne of faux-leather and metal. I sit, strapped in. Velcro bands tighten around my left bicep and lifeblood pulses through my body, charged with manic adrenaline. A bionic clip attaches to my right pointer finger and glows eerie red, testing oxygen levels that leak ghostlike through my pores. My lungs breathe silent, but strong. Pharisees see a deranged extra-terrestrial, though my vitals display perfection. If I weren’t tied down, I would float. The assessor, a dinosaur wearing a white jacket, asks if I’m even alive.

Seated, regally, smiling. I live. More than ever before. The numbers say so. And I calculate 22.5678 years of success. It is my answer. It is August. The month of broad, warm, zephyr strokes. I am enveloped in the unknown and I am genius. I ensue, indispensable. My eyes dart to targets of empathy and wrath. I believe, for a fleeting moment, that I prevail a god; Athena, Nike, Aphrodite, or Ra. Perhaps the Son Himself. I am heat, radiating with gleams of iridescent energy.

A young soldier asks me to light his horse cigarette. I say I’ve never done this before. He says, use your power.