The lump is less noticeable now, although perhaps it's just that it's so familiar to me that I can actually go for full minutes without thinking about it. It's too early to classify it as "in remission", but I can attest that it doesn't occupy my attention the way it did when it first appeared, several years ago. But still, in my every waking moment, it lies in the shadow of consciousness, purring with murderous satisfaction. A chance remark, a moment of torpor, and I'm again focused on it, I remember this thing that is part of me now, this lump.

I put my hand to my neck, aligning my index finger along my jaw line and wrapping my thumb across the front of my throat. The lump is in there somewhere; I can imagine I feel it. Throbbing, malevolent, a jealous, greedy cluster of need.

Its avarice is insatiable, its resolve unrelenting. Sensing uncorrupted regions nearby, it reaches out with microscopically thin tendrils, testing resistance, sampling the reward that invasion would bring. In tiny increments it penetrates, seemingly innocent, ostensibly beneficial. At some point during the occupation, the afflicted organ realizes its peril, and attempts to rebel. The invader is too entrenched by then, however. Indeed, it considers resistance an affront, as an attack on its natural right to overtake and rule the lesser organ. It considers any act contrary to its own ends as one of unforgivable aggression, and responds with sanctimonious, ruthless devastation.

Strategically located, the lump perches equidistant from the two vital organs that are the ultimate objects of its appetite, the brain and the heart. My brain, my heart. In moments of weakness, I succumb to its insistent demands, and in micrometers it marches, the lump overwhelms me. It takes a Herculean explosion of will to cast it back to shadow, to stop its advance and force it into snarling retreat, where it throbs, patiently, waiting for the next opportunity to further corrupt me. The lump can afford to be patient, its victory seems inevitable. As long as I can concentrate against it, though, I can prevail, and that's enough to retain hope.

The best antidote for nostalgia is indulgence. I took the cure in a tract-ghetto clubhouse on an eternal Friday night, surrounded by similaricons of the children with whom I endured enforced social indoctrination 30 years before. In my giddy optimism, I had convinced myself there was actually a chance that at least one of the three people I actually cared to see again would be there, even though they were on the "missing" list. Instead, of course, I was confronted by the condescending cheer squad, the aged but unmatured Eloi I avoided then and disdain now, people with whom I had nothing in common save geography, history, and economics. The same heirs who ruled the halls of Westminster High School three decades ago now controlled the class reunions, and although I was welcome, I certainly wasn't invited. So I left. Headed out. Cut class. Skated. Peeled rubber. Adiosed. Made egress. Staged left. Vaporized. Blew town. Hauled ass. Clocked out. Passed waivers. Kept truckin'. Slipped away. Beamed up. Pedaled metal. Migrated. Beat feet.

I seem to be over it now, but as Chuck Berry (and the lump in my throat) warns us, "you never can tell."

That's all I have. There are a couple amusing addendums for online readers, minor writing projects that occupied small windows of my time this year. Visit www.dennisp.com/xmas if you have time and inclination.