I coughed once last September and the pain struck for seven months, singeing the meaning out of every word I spoke --evaporations sulking in my cavernous skull like a loose wind.  This was very similar to that.  I was bereft, just above the right temple.  A wandering soullessness stroked over me like an open palm while consciousness walked in and out like some woman or God.  Like waking up and your mother doesn't love you anymore, like walking around with a dead or drunken limb.  Naivety was not a flint-like substance.  It was leafy and debonair, and probably had no concept of being sunken in a warm bathtub or thrown over a bridge with all your belongings.  My greatest asset had been reduced to a fear of ghosts.  Dwarfed in a corner with porous walls, I locked my eyes shut and heard sounds of women smiling.  I made that up about the cough and crept up to the roof.  I pretended you were painting fake French poetry in a flowery font on the stone floor-- But you didn't know any French, and I was still wearing the same clothes from yesterday.