A hot rain danced against the casement as two dogs humped each other playfully on the flaking linoleum of the kitchen floor, unaware that time marked off the minutes of their existence. Odors of ripe bananas and stale smoke permeated through vents, under doors and finally into the private asylum of my bedroom. Blurred light from a naked bulb fused with several cascades of drizzle that skipped down the windowpanes. A pillar of smoke rose from a blushing incense stick and darkness floated across my mind, much like the clouds in the room and beyond the windows. My candle blistered at both ends, while I straddled the middle to avoid pungent flames that beckoned to me from the houses of life and death, and I coldly acknowledged all past encounters, bygone baptisms, and behavior of which I am not proud.
The locusts outside the window talked dirty to each other, while the hot rain subsided and easy sun flakes gently supplanted the dissolving raindrops. Optimistic sparks of daylight enhanced the melancholy room where I imprisoned my physical carcass and mental remains that still ache for restoration. Second chances are difficult to acquire and I am thankful for mine. As I closed my eyes, the trials of recent years came into focus and I remembered the events that brought me to that place.