A Yawning Pit in My Stomach

Is how I feel now. A loss of all sense, reason, direction, momentum. A disturbing feeling that yes, this is a nightmare, and no, there is no way to pinch myself and wake up. A brutish, non-intelligent animal-like level of moving from one moment to the next based on fear, instinct, self-defense and keeping low. Hiding alongside the lower trunks of trees, avoiding headlights in the rain kind of shit.

I had a bad spell two weeks ago when a regulatory decision by the Maine Board of Environmental Protection to sanction the continued slaughter of American eels in my local river, the Androscoggin, caused me that evening to repeatedly punch myself in the face. I had eggs and welts and cuts on my face that took 4 days to come down. I thought I was going insane. Newton was right. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Mothers of dead U.S. Marines contemplate suicide. Mothers of dead Iraqi men and women contemplate suicide. At least Hitler had the fucking decency to commit suicide.