Bee Bitter

Windows, gone. Not only windows, the floor itself, planks of wood, a rough pine, weather beaten, stained, black smudges, scratches, and now the floor was caving in on and of itself.

Miles had made himself a home beneath one of the planks. He took scraps of cloth, mainly from Harold, the roommate’s, old shirt, stained red with blood around the collar, and decaying along with the rest of the cabin. Harold struggled to keep the shirt on his torso, but it fell off as if Harold were invisible. Actually, Harold was a ghost. And positively see through.

His shirt, once a blue and green polo shirt, gave Miles the cush he desired in his little hidey-hole. Green, his favorite color, made him feel good, and it helped him sleep.

That’s what he was trying to do when a noise, a screech, a menace to his ears, woke him up from dreams of cheese and chocolate.

“Oh balderdash,” squeaked Miles, whiskers jumping on his face like pellets of hail on pavement. His eyes, two black dots, blinked… Be bitter be better write a red letter. "That's the end of my nap," Miles said, picking up his darning needles.

“Am I bitter? Who would care? I am bitter; nobody loves me; I’m pathetic.”

“That’s more like it old boy,” Miles said, packrat hands weaving strands of navy blue thread together, finishing the blanket for his bed.

“To be bitter, or not to be bitter, that’s not the question. Whether it is nobler to martyr myself and wreak the rewards of insanity, or march forward and finish my masterpiece of a poem. Bitter bee bitter boo-hoo.”