Bender

All night a sleepwalking death stumbled in and out of his prone body. He had been drinking again, whisky fumes rolled around a dry, thick tongue. The air in the room wavered from hot to cold, feverish self-repeating scenes of Paganini trilling a fiery violin haunted his aching brow. A sledgehammer dawn hit him. Death withdrew from dulled senses, yet it lingered like a bloodshot eye, at the bottom of a half-full decenter.