things move around

Two jackets hang in the windowless, striplit room which is the tax guys’ locale and universe. The younger one - Mike, I think he’s called - leans back in his cheap office chair and feigns consciousness as his cellmate describes, in depth, the symptoms of his arthritis. Mike scratches the back of his head, just below his thin patch. Mike nods lightly and habitually, a pale flame writhing in his skull and spine, lashing his brain, gnawing at his sense of self, flaying his dreams into a thin colourless gruel which sloshes when he turns, seeping from his eyeballs, spilling from his nostrils unseen onto his thighs and groin.