Excerpt from Whited Sepulchre…

Let me bring you in; it’s been a hard day.

Through battle lines, barriers, walls, a hall, corridors and doors. To the insular protection. To the quiet of a thick-bricked room. To shut-in anonymity. To the comfort and warmth of mattress, and—soon to be bloodied—linen. To be overwhelmed into unconsciousness, and to the absence of thought.

To the process:

Sluice gates shut, your adrenal glands go dormant, your pulse decelerates and your veins pull parity to your blood pressure. Near all autonomic systems de-stress, dial themselves down, and strive for routine so as to free up the fixers.

Breathing: steadies enough to hold a sigh.

Muscles: from an eternity of being taut, loosen their grip on your tendons—which ease their own tension on your bones.

Your lacerations: edges tending towards pink and freshly scab-capped, clot more so, and be mucosal neath their new roofs. Protein-rich fluids and histamines flood and gloop and marinate the damaged fibres. Macrophages—all-consuming beasts, first on scene, plentiful and active in the mire, pre-cursors to their brethren: the ‘cytes’ for the sites. They scurry, they scavenge, eating red, dead, cells and any dirt borne invaders they chance on. Purging for the places’ salvation, oozing chemicals—elixirs to your tissues that infuse these potions and compel themselves to react.

Fibroblasts spawn—granular and rice-like—they themselves motivated to string out collagen factories, that further string out a webbing for your wounds.

Yes, the wounds—your wounds—they’re darned while you sleep…