This guy is one of my better friends out there and I think his work should be a little more widely read. If you haven't done it yet visit his website http://www.theusualmadman.net
From THE WHIRLWIND IN THE THORN TREE
THE SOUND OF GUNFIRE startled him awake, but instead of his bed, he was underwater. Lucidity came at him from every angle, a silent flock of doves converging on his confusion, and brought him to a diamond clarity. A dark and subtle landscape of undulating blue, red, and green materialized from the nothing-world that was his slumber, and the cold water threatened to take his breath away. Somehow he'd gone fromhis bedroom to the brook out back, and shot in the neck somewhere between the two...
WHEN MIKE ELLINGTON WOKE up, he was naked and couldn't move. Not that he was paralyzed--he could feel the cold surface of the table against his back--but he was wrapped in a ton of Christmas lights. His own lights, he realized as he angled his head to look at his bonds. He had been bound to the dining room table with his own damn Christmas lights, the green cords looping over and over and over around his legs, midsection, and arms until he was completely immobilized...
"VERY GOOD, BLANCO," I SAID, praising my subject. I held up another card, this one with a picture of a Bengal tiger on it. He leaned closer, and I could hear his eyes focus more precisely on the card. He seemed to be processing it, and then said, "It is an image of a tiger."...
