bert,you got me thinking,again,half asleep,at 1.30.am

you described my use of the word "maelstrom"as excellent.
and then you attached the word "sinister" to it.
i found that interesting,
and it gnawed at me.
why sinister?
and why excellent?

was he ( you ) wondering if there had been sinister forces at work in my subconscious,controlling,manipulating,and ultimately inflicting that "head-mess" that i incurred the othernight?
after much soul-searching,i let it lie.

but again,why sinister?

"below the surface" you said,
way down into the blackness perhaps?
of the abyss?
plumbing the depths of one's self.
where we can neither touch,or be touched.
but they are there,ghosts,and gouls,with their gargoylie-heads, inflated car-tyre inner-tube lips, those big bulging eyes ,on pale expressionless faces,like you're there,but you're not there,swirling around inside your head,as if in some over-crowded fish bowl.

what do they see?
what are they thinking?
why are they there?
why me?

and all because of those three words.

maelstrom,excellent,and sinister.

weird huh!

delirium?

night'night.

no need for an apology.

right then,
back to my dog-blanket.
woof!woof!

"Sinister" because like I said, Eric, a tornado you can see what it's doing and how big or small it is. A maelstrom could be anything from a sink plug to Charybdis and you don't know until you're in it and you still mightn't know even then.

The perfect metaphor for what you were going through, hence "excellent".

Now, how many of you went and looked up Charybdis?

well,
i haven't looked it up.
haven't a clue what it means though.

maelstrom's dad?

No-one reads The Odyssey any more, Eric. Scylla and Charybdis were two sea monsters living in a strait not far enough apart to make them a threat to every sailor's passage (always the innuendo...). Charybdis used to create a maelstrom that would drag everything down with it.

bert,
nobody reads ANYTHING anymore.
and it's a shame.

a maelstrom is unpredictable therefore physically can't be controlled like a wild animal or indeed a monster.you are at its mercy.