A bump—a thump—a ghost you suggest I didn’t hear anything myself probably a squirrel running loose in the attic rifling through old Uncle Edward’s credenza looking for acorns or wayward pecans—
it’s funny though how the mind takes in matter and sorts it all out like a comic book collector and the stuff that doesn’t fall neatly in slots we assume made its way from some far netherworld—
or some lost weekend perhaps instead it’s bim from that movie I’m thinking of here bim the male nurse and his speech on DTs they come in the night bim tells ray milland that’s the bunk about pink elephants it’s little things he says tiny turkeys in hats little monkeys and elves that come through the keyhole—
and what you may ask has that got to with the price of fish eggs in Sweden or palm kernel oil in Sudan—
well that bump you heard or that thump or that squirrel or the screams of a man with mice in his head whatever it was people imagine all sorts of things that’s how come we have bridges and blackberry cobbler bump stocks and bomb pops and ladies' night at a gentlemen’s club—
people imagine all manner of things from leukemia cures to what color panties their sister has on the mind takes in matter and sorts it all out like a man who sells dope and while any right-thinking drug dealer knows you should never get high on your own supply the mind breaks that rule all the time—
the mind makes up questions and then comes up with answers like a take-home exam or an open-book test and its greatest wisdom says think for yourself but it hears bumps and thumps in the night and thinks ghosts and sees turkeys in hats midget monkeys and elves.