I need to have my mind space before I sleep. I separate myself from my wife and daughter. I meditate in the toilet. We’re in Vancouver Canada at the St. Regis Hotel.
We are in a city and can see the mountain range across the river.  My wife Sheila thinks the mountains are called the Rocky mountains. I know that this isn’t possible. The rocky mountains are in Colorado. I was there with my parents as a child.
Sheila and I wrestle in the room with the pulled out bed. She slaps me
in the face. Thea sleeps in the room with the queen sized bed. I slap Sheila on her ass she does the same to me. I can hear people walking and talking in their rooms. It sounds like they are walking and talking through our walls. Sheila goes to sleep with Thea.
I need to have the light on in my room. I have to wait for awhile. Only when Sheila is sound asleep can I do as I please. I can’t leave the room. I would like to go out into the night. Maybe I will. We’ll see. Usually meditating helps to put me to sleep. I’m tired
of living in my head. I don’t want to give or receive a disease. I only want to love my wife. I don’t want to leave my room because I have nowhere to go. It feels good when you have somewhere to go. Sometimes I can feel I have been somewhere after meditation.
I liked the way our server bent over to speak to me. I could feel her breath and the opening of her pores on my face. She was in her thirties. Sheila thought that she was in her early twenties. She had marmoreal skin and had her hair cut short in an elegant manner.
When I turned to meet her face I did see that the unseemly large pores looked black in the middle of her face but then when I saw her standing up on the other side of the table with my wife her skin was white and perfect. She had muscular wrists and short manicured nails. When she opened her mouth she has large ugly teeth. I didn’t know what to make of them. I think I liked them because I couldn’t not think about them. I felt that they were the entrance to her and her history that had been difficult and rewarding. I envied her professionalism and the fact that she and her togetherness had a promising future. I felt that for me life has settled and will settle more and more even though I heard someone say that life really begins at fifty. I wanted to stick my tongue in her asshole. I couldn’t tell if she liked me. It reminded me of the seamless professionalism of my psychiatrist.
Why did you turn on the light motherfucker, Sheila said. Clearly Sheila is upset I woke her with my reading.
Keep it down.
You know I have to drive for six hours tomorrow.
Do you want a divorce?
I’ll give you a divorce.
I know that I’m the bad guy but I don’t feel it. I haven’t felt bad about myself for the six months that I have been meditating. I want to walk into the woods and melt.
Sheila wants to buy a house we agreed on and then she doesn’t want to buy it. She calls me an idiot when she explains to me what a short sale is and all she gets in return is  a blank stare. There’s no reason to name call I tell her.
It’s clear that the kinder I am the meaner she is. Only when we have
it out and we are at each other’s throat is she not insecure. She doesn’t want me at a remove. I don’t want myself at a remove. I take medication to keep my anguish at a remove. I’m abusive and kind to keep my wife at a distance that doesn’t threaten my existence. I fear that meditating and praying will wipe me out even though I like the idea of negation. I experience meditating on my own death in an erotic and liberating manner. I prefer it to the abuse and neglect my ego has suffered at the hands of my father and stepfather.
I tell my wife I want to quit meditation and prayer. She hates me without knowing it. She hurts herself because of it and I tell her I love her when I have turned her against
herself. The best I can do is to do nothing and to do as she says when she says it.
I turn off the light.