Bedbugs XX

Bedbugs XX

20 is the total number of digits on the human body.

In the former British currency system, there were twenty shillings in a pound.

The number 20 is used as an index in measuring visual acuity.

Twenty is the age of majority in Japanese tradition. Someone who is
exactly twenty years old is described as hatachi.

In the roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons, twenty-sided dice
play a pivotal role in gameplay, and to "roll a twenty" is significant
to the point that it is sometimes used in other, usually related, contexts,
similar to the use of "doubles" in reference to Monopoly.




Click here for an explanation of how Bedbugs is created.

Click here for last week's Bedbugs.



Something or someone is dragged through the next room.
The oscillating sound in my head resembles Tibetan
singing bowls. Though it may be my canals collapsing.
How we rationalize beauty in danger and decay; after all this
time, minds change. Shutting splintered doors to keep
myself from getting in. It waits until I leave
when I think it is safe but no matter, it's on me
as soon as I think it. No room for you anymore, I
say and it mimics my speech as I do it.
Next morning golden lillies are growing on the
walls- the sound is still there. Uninspired crowds
are waiting in all of the pictures someone left me.
Energy in short supply, everyone in the leaf-strewn
park gathered for a reason taken from them.
Red covers atop every car can't be unstrapped.
Youth is wasted without a proper stopwatch, the
lighted sign flashes repeatedly. Wait outside the old
house until I know it's safe, was the last thing
I ever got to tell her. I wonder if she's safe.
She's wearing glasses and eleven shades of black.
Somewhere, she is smiling. Dead by any measure, if
emotional memory serves me. Daniel doesn't care
if the flowered hills watch me, what I forgot
to tell people whose 'souls for sale' signs stapled
to them was all they needed to say. You won't trick us again.




Next week's seven phrases/groups of words:




-downbeat flatearthers gather
-raining and misty all week
-smiled in the back of the European shop
-how many hallways
-best smile was rented for the occasion
-dead center
-in the middle of town


-Adam Barnick