SUDDEN FICTION #1 'The Jester, The Joke'

 'The Jester, The Joke'
By Jesse Young (Circa 2006)

Grouchy flies dance ceaselessly.
I see their darting bodies, they do not buzz.
I lie outstretched in a pool - thick foamy substance, floating.
Eyes sunk far back into their sockets.
I squander my time, listlessly, needy, hoping.
Palatable - worry pierces my hardened exterior,
My eyelids flicker tentatively.
Straining, a murky outline,
A marble dais rises above the center of the pool.
A jester takes the stage,
Frolics in an unnerving pantomime,
Transfixed by his deft movements,
I lose myself.
The jester points, into the cold distance, far away.
His cap's bells jingle silently.
I turn, but the darkness that greets me, haunts me.
He urges my attention outward into the nothingness,
I balk, unwilling to explore further.
“Who’s the fool?” his lips jerk, mouthing noiselessly.
Yet I hear his words drift down to me, I know he is right, compounding my ire.
I shut him out, merge with the pool.
I lie outstretched in a pool thick foamy substance, floating
Eyes sunk far back into their sockets
I squander my time, listlessly, gloomily, expiring.
Groping at indefinite ideas,
Please, a vestige of coherence.
Hands feeling, searchingly appealing,
The jester’s face is caked in slime,
The countenance his, for though I no longer see,
The slanted, crooked smile meets my fingers,
The darkness is absolute.