The first time near death experience was

The first time near death experience was in a hospital that was greyer than tombs but shinier than the morning star. You will never forget this, she said, carving out my belly,

you will learn to live like a room without walls. I wrapped my arms around her, these things that lonely ones do, and

pushed all the air out of my lungs in a big puff. She turned around to face me. I was startled by her dark black eyes. The face was so familiar but her eyes were now strange.

Unblinkingly she took my hand and held it tighter than was comfortable. “Listen to me...we don’t have long...I need to tell you something

I was moved beyond words that she was about to share such a message with me. I leaned in as she whispered, "I slit the sheet, a sheet I slit, and on the slitted sheet I sit."

Properly perplexed, I pondered the phrases passed on by the pariah. "A sheet?" I proposed. She pointed a pasty finger petulantly, provoking me to probe the parcel she possessed.

"But I didn't get you anything!" I squeaked as I backed away from the package, which had started to bubble and seethe dramatically. "Open it," she commanded me. I made the excuse

that commanding people was not an endearing quality and that I didn't feel inclined in enabling such behavior. Meanwhile, a tentacle thingy was extricating itself from the "gift".

Should I decline? Who am I to judge the value of tentacles. Tentacles had their place. Primarily in the sea, or on my plate. Was this tentacle edible? Or an edifice or elucidation.

Whatever the heck it was, it had picked the wrong place to show up. Never bring a tentacle to a knife fight, unless you want to end up as calamari yourself.