Last Exit to Brooklyn

by Hubert Selby Jr.

The nightmare wasnt always exactly the same but after it was over it always seemed as if it had been. Year after year Harry would bolt up in bed occasionally, near dead with terror, trying to shove the weight off his chest so he could breathe and then slowly some familiar object would be seen and he would know he was finally awake.

He had another cup of coffee, another cake, gulping them down, still looking at the clock every few minutes feeling a need to rush, no thought from what or to where, but only a vague yet crushing pressure of time, time that seemed to wrap itself around him like a python.