.. to this world, alien to both of them. And here a
monstrous thing had brought them together like an interlocking
fungus--their sex-union ... a function that monstrously held together
two different species of animals that should not even be on meeting
terms.
Thus my morbid fancy ran, as I entered slowly my father's room.
He slept.
On a chair by his bed lay a copy of _Hamlet_, his favourite
Shakespearean play. I picked it up, read in it, waiting for him to wake,
while he breathed laboriously.
I became absorbed in the play ... I must write a poem, some time, called
"Hamlet's Last Soliliquy."
* * * * *
My father was awake.
I did not know how long he had been so, for his breathing had not
changed and the only difference from his sleeping state was that his
eyes stared, wide and glassy, at the ceiling, as if they comprehended
nothing.
A feeling of horror crept over my body. This was more than I had counted
on.. my father, helpless on his back and his wits off gathering wool....
"Father!" I put my hand on a talon of his.
He turned his head slightly. Smiled vacuously.
"Father!"
A perturbation clouded his eyes ... that painful struggle toward
comprehension observed in an infant's face.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
"I'm your son--Johnnie!... and I've come back to take care of you.
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