This is something new, I'll be posting this as I write it. Tell me what you think, be brutally honest. Thanks!

Otis Blue

Confused and sitting straight up in bed, Otis was mesmerized by the nighttime orange sun humming soothingly outside of his window. What the hell is goin on here? Otis looks over his shoulder, behind him, pushing aside the paisley window curtain and reaches back into the deep corner of the window sill. Both grape juice cartons are still there.

Still cookin. That fat Mexican Junior aint found these. Son of bitch aint gonna get these neitha, he says.

Turning back around, Otis sees himself in the window and doesn’t recognize the man staring back. He’s gaunt, cotton topped, and thin.

That cancer ain’t gonna leave nuthin, he says.

His overlarge blue and white striped pajamas fall away from his body, nearly standing on their own.

Too much damned starch. I tell them wimen, but they ain’t listen.

He looks like a sail boat. He reminds himself of the ship in the painting in Hubert’s room. The painting Hubert made with a brush in his mouth after his stroke. It’s a small sail boat, with a blue sail, the sky is dark and there’s nothing on the horizon.

Just driftin man, he’d told his roommate Lovitz after he’d seen it, Ain’t nowhere to go, ain’t nuthin ta see. Just a yellow boat with a blue sail, looks like a storm comin to.

Otis checks behind the curtain one last time, satisfied that his contraband is safe, he lays back down and closes his eyes and says a prayer.

Lord, just give me back 5 years, that’s all I ask, just 5 and I’ll whup Juniors ass up and down these halls with his own mopstick. Thas all Lord, I ain’t askin for mercy or salvation, just strenth enough to get that fat bastard for stealin my hooch. I know he ain’t turned me in Lord cuz there ain’t been no warnins from the nurses. Junior just be stealin it. Just 5 years lord, only 5. That’s enough. Amen.