Such a Thing as an Enemy

I awoke on a black-and-white tiled bathroom floor, my left cheek numb, my right eye shut, my left arm missing. In the brief moment I was seesawing between conciousness and void, I saw the dress of my enemy; shirtless in jeans, brown prison boots and a ski mask with a blue bob. He stood in the doorway and breathed deep, white eyes as light as bone, a hairless cousin of a werewolf. The last time we met, he attacked me through the back door of my parents' house. He has stalked me through urban alleyways on a motorcycle and choked me in a four-star Venetian hotel. The demon in a dream is a recurring character, lying in wait for the changing of the seasons, plotting, training, scanning the blueprints of my mind.

Photograph by Thomas Wheatley/"Rong Rong's Glossies" Athens, Ga. 12/04