Here is the next installment of First Pages.  This one got a so-so reception. It spurred a bit of discussion.

Palmervision

When I woke two Tuesdays ago and removed my earplugs, I heard Hole blathering on as usual; day and night, she never stops.

I call her “Hole” because that’s what she is; she’s a hole in my bathroom wall in the shape of a feminine mouth: bright red lips, impeccably clean and straight teeth, and a pink tongue. Besides being twice the size of my entire head, and embedded in a wall rather than a face, she is a perfectly normal human mouth.

Her voice has a decidedly Southern accent — perhaps Georgian, or Louisianian — and she periodically injects normal prose into her constant stream of nonsensical lyrical madness.

“Snicker bars and matchbox cars,” Hole volunteered as I rolled my considerable girth out of bed. “Peanut butter hair gel. All’s well.” As she detected my presence, she said, “Oh hey, Palmer. How you doing, baby doll? Did you know there’s a fly in here. Blue suede shoe fly. Cherry-flavored insecticide.”

Hole’s morning greeting was but a sampling of the twenty-four hour lunatic talk show which has been piped directly into my bathroom; it’s like a mental patient was installed above my towel rack for my inconvenience.

I walked past Hole wordlessly, stepped into the shower and blared a classic rock station on the wet radio.