“Life is not what we live; it is what we imagine we are living,” said a note Prado’s book.

from Pascal Mercier’s Night Train to Lisbon.

Chapter 1

 

Lying in bed at three in the morning naked, sweating and swatting a lone fly biting his ankle, Morgan Shores could not sleep, so he tried to dissect the pockets of parasites that gorged off the fear swelling in his brain.

 

First, the facts.  Uncle Virgil died nine months ago.  He promised Morgan with his last breath he would be back.  He lied.  He died.  They buried him.  And on the third day, he did not rise.  What was resurrected plagued him with a vengeance.

  

Second, the problem.  Delusions of the most extraordinary kind.  Soon as Uncle Virgil died, Morgan’s lifelong battle with tricks of the mind reappeared.  Marauding strangers provided a delightful Promethean theme:  blood and guts at night, milk and honey during the day.  The combinations proved lethal and drove him to the brink of madness, especially since the milk and honey had now turned to piss and vinegar.

  

Third, the solution.  Acceptance seemed a slick trick.  Why fight it?  He couldn’t run and hide because wherever he went, there they were.  Yet, Morgan argued, did prisoners-of-war locked away in solitary confinement with bamboo shoots hammered up their butts accept the fact that they were helpless slugs and moved on with their lives?

  

Oh sure, he could move on all right.  Right back to the insane asylum he called home for ten years–The Wholesome Living Sanitarium in Poughkeepsie, New York.  That glorious day of discharge sparkled clearly in his mind.  Even though it was three long years ago, he could never forget that momentous occasion when the good doctor gave him such a promising prognosis.

  

“Beware.  Delusions breed like fleas multiplying on a mangy dog’s back.  No amount of fairy dust is going to keep you from scratching sores already infected with a yellow bile that attracts flies from miles around.  Maggots lay eggs.  So does insanity.  If  you don’t snap out of it, when you return, Morgan, and I’m certain that you will, we will be forced to lance it out like a boil and drain all the pussy fluids infecting the remaining  pieces of your brain.