I can’t convince you just like no one could have convinced me. Case and point: you can’t convince someone to stop smoking until they get bad news from the doctor. The health and environmental benefits seem like rewards for following the compassion to preserve life. Some don’t care for that reward because medicine is for the sick. Those who do not see that they or the system they are born of are sick have no reason to believe they are doing any harm.

One day, I felt something in my heart that told me that life on earth is precious and that I have a choice to accept the obligation to love it and protect it. And that one day came mostly likely because of all the work people before me did in challenging the status quo. It doesn’t matter if I agree or not with all the points they make about going vegan. I have listened and made up my own mind about what to believe.

Everyone makes the point that plants have lives too, almost vindictively, scoffing, like ‘we got you now, vegans’. To go into sentience and the ability to feel pain is to get snowballed up into that ceaseless logical brawl. That same voice told me that I am also one life on this planet and I should be healthy as well. And I can be, as a vegan. Thus, a choice was made from a simple question someone asked at the right time in my journey, ‘would you kill if you didn’t have to’. To that, I reply, ‘I kill only what I have to.’ To all the plants that nourish me to good health, I humbly bow my soul to you. 

All the data and logical arguments surrounding the battle for veganism are seeds and tools of inspiration. You never know whose mind you can change because of one fringe fact put on the line; one for the power of numbers.

My appeal is to the heart because reason is meaningless unless you feel it in your bones. I want to enlighten the shadows of the world and reveal how compassion, not niceties, not manners, raw and perplexing compassion, is central in every single decision made during the day. Yes, through veganism, through yoga, through meditation, through dance, through music, through being.

Know the choice, make the choice, and help another make her choice.

Kids’ bookbags are no longer "back"packs. They’re so stuffed that they need to be rolled on wheels. Schooling is more slavery than freedom or education, sending students and teachers scuffling to the incessantly consuming rhythm of the business machine. Few ask why or how, most act in scarcity, unable to comprehend the possibility of any cruel intentions or lack of a righteous one. And so it goes, puppets succumb to their master and the master’s power expands generation upon generation, beyond the control of any mortal man. Thus, teaching is a dangerous job. The wrath of the systematic mistake is unfelt until further down the bloodline, until the skies cry black and the souls weep the same.  Salvation is waiting by the hands of the community that must act together to break the chains around our children’s ankles.

There next to a heavy jonesin’ tweaker, a nearly elderly woman puts her disapproval on full display with vicious eye rolls, head shaking, and emotional mumbling. I too, sense a disgust within, at her wrinkled brow that judges his karmic predicament. Mine is contained in my silence. I begin to tap my feet to the rhythm of the man’s patterned tweaking as in some ill-humored music video. We are synchronized. It is moments like these that reveal my allegiance and hypocritical humanity. I sit quietly and reconcile my flaws with the Christ heart.

@{-------

“Boisterously so, my love. I feel a sub-cellular alignment to a big prehistoric animal.”

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A fierce gust blew over me and left a majestic insect on my sleeve. Her black wings glimmer under the overhead sun in blinking emeralds that set in the once dark corners of my eye. The rest of her is red like the Earth and its finest clay. I brush her softly with my finger and she doesn’t fly away, clinging onto the threads like they’re giant rope, perhaps to duck the wind. When it picks up, she holds on as the wings flap about revealing the rest of her like Monroe standing over that sewer gate. I’ll call her Marilyn then. Marilyn’s got antennae that curve out like a water buffalo, but even longer in proportion to the rest of her. There’s this emblem, family crest, that takes the whole of her tiny back. It’s like a Celtic trinity thing, three solid orbs in pyramidal Venn diagram fashion with their intersecting middle red like the rest of her. We have no way of communicating through spoken language, not in the way humans foolishly do with each other, so I go on making assumptions about our friendship and her prolonged refuge that was taking so much more of her short life than mine. She could be caught in the web of my sleeve and there would be no way for me to know. If a mountainous creature leaned my way from the heavens to brush my back, I would be grateful to have the courage Marilyn has to stand her ground. If I could convey anything to her so that she would understand, I would have to apologize for the people whose reflex toward any winged thing is a swat of doom. I give her a love tap to make sure she really isn’t stuck. She walks a few steps lifting all her limbs safely out of the hemp net terrain then settles in her meditation once more. We bask in the sun together. And she’s got me thinking, how could a tiny thing like her bring me so much joy with her company? I’m not the loner type and I’ve got plenty of friends, so this isn’t desperation, I assume. I lift my head up and witness the platoon of hotspot selfie photographers reaping their fifteen minutes trying hectically to look cool and relaxed for the snap second. In the back of them, all around them, wise trees, sage green, flowers, grass, with as much life force as Marilyn, as myself. Even the stones and pebbles are buzzing now, the wooden banisters carved from dead trees not as dead as we think they are, the rubber soles that peer through the gaps between the boarded floor. The wind and sun bring everything to life. With some heart and stillness, it’s all visible, and God is naked, unembarrassed and embracing. Thank you Marilyn with the silver lining wings streaming with green and gold. Watch out for those vicious magpies. I’ve got to go now since the wind is getting to be too much with the sun tucked behind the flats. I need my refuge. So farewell, Marilyn, I’ll see you around. We give her a good gust of wind from our lungs before getting blown away ourselves.

It's too late for eroticism. I only know I'm still awake because I know I'm not asleep. Baby's running her fingers along my morse code tattoo. She doesn't know morse code but she starts tapping where the tattoo ends. It's not a language I speak. I've forgotten my morse code. Left with peaks and valleys that used to mean something very important, so important I had to put it in morse. Maybe the artist knows. I can't think about that now. We're getting into something unsavory at ghoulish hours. Even the bunny thumpers on the other side of the board have come, and gone. And every time my mind is about to spill the beans, baby comes and I start purring, I think in morse code.

This is a story of a table full of spilled coffee that started a revolution. Waiters first pour the mug onto the table, smash it on the floor where the guest sits. This is reality. This is art. I sat there, barefooted, with my toes stuck together, glued by mocha or Irish. A cat came to lick my big toe. It went away wobbling a little. An eagle came swooping down. And as she got close to her drunken feline meal, she breaks her beak into pieces against the cement. A homeless man gives the bird a proper burial with newspaper and he gives the cat a home, also with newspapers. Something of a cliffhanger. The homeless man is actually a rich business mogul. He sticks an instrument that looks like an espresso machine into the eagle's stomach, the whole thing. It's a big fucking eagle and he's got a lot of fucking newspaper. The machine begins to growl and shake. The cat is still drunk and asleep. And I still have coffee feet. I don't really get it, but it happened.

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A man wakes up in a room with a small window he can stick his head out of. There is nothing in the room, no shadows and no reflections. Each morning when he wakes up, he finds a warm plate of food on the windowsill, the same delicious meal he had dreamed of the night before. Each time he sticks his head out of the window to inquire about the origin of the mysterious plate, he is greeted with a balcony in each direction, always vacant and white, like the walls of his room. There is a lid on the floor which opens to a hole big enough to do his business in. On several accounts, the man attempted to make contact with the outside world by shouting into the hole, always hopeful, as if an angelic savior would rise like steam through the pipes and call his name to comfort him and tell him it's all going to be okay. The man spends most of his day staring out of the window into the fog that never dissipates. He experiences subtle spurts of joy when he recognizes the noticeable variation in viscosity of the fog, instead of the mind-numbing homogeneous white blindness that usually occupies his only source of light. He examines the window from different locations around the room, noticing the minute alterations of the square opening that has become his entire world.

Before he woke up in the room, he had many things to worry about. Those worries slowly diminished to a dying nostalgia. He used to spend the least amount of time possible preparing meals, microwaving eggs, microwaving frozen dinners, ordering in, and the like. Now, he spends even less time, eating lavish cuisine from his dreams. The man had developed a new talent, of thinking of his next meal before falling asleep and dreaming of it. Once he dreamt of a door in the wall to let him out. The next morning, he was presented with a cake in the shape of a large gate.

Completely hopeless now, the man struggles to wake up. He sleeps as much as he can, sometimes dreaming of his past. He would wake up to cakes on the windowsill in the shape of his mother, past girlfriends, himself... His hair and nails have grown long. He no longer wears anything. All his clothes have been wrapped together as a pillow.

Since the first moment the man has been in the room, it has always been day, until the man wakes up in the middle of the first night. He's so excited about the first night that he stays up staring into the darkness until he falls asleep, waking up to another bright day outside the window. After that, more nights come, until one morning, he notices how small the room has gotten. Soon, the man wakes up to find that he can touch both walls with his hand at the same time. The man, who is in total despair, falls asleep with his head out the window. When the man wakes up the next morning, the thin walls are broken over his body as the two sides collapse into a singular wall. On either side of the wall is a room that seems to have no end. Absolutely thrilled at the freedom to run free, he takes off in one direction as fast as he can like a mustang in an open field. 

He then realizes he is shrouded in a mist of white with no distinction in any direction. He tries to make his way back to the window, but is more and more lost. He gives up, curls into a naked ball, and cries himself to sleep. He dreams that he is a giant walking through a forest, pulling out trees and eating them like salad. He wakes up to nothing in sight, not a shadow or reflection. He smells a sweet vinaigrette, which he thinks must be coming from the window nearby, so he follows his nose, only to be led on a wild chase that leads him to another empty whiteness. He falls asleep again, in the smell of the vinaigrette. After countless times of sleeping and waking, and dreaming of fantasies, the starving man dreams of the small room he found himself in before. He falls asleep within his dream. Still in his dream, he wakes up to a salad on the windowsill. The window in his dream is large enough to crawl through. And so he does. He chooses to jump into the mist, only to wake up in the same whiteness. Somehow, he wasn't hungry anymore. He wonders arbitrarily in a new direction because he had done his business where he was. He arrives at a new white. He dreams of the white and nothing else. 

He uncurls from his sleep to find the whiteness painted red. His hairs shoot up from his skin. The bumps all over his body multiply. He screams. He cries in anger. And out of that anger, he begins to beat himself. He jumps as high as he could and crashes on the red floor with his head. He goes to sleep. When he wakes up, bruised and lacerated from his rage, he finds the redness of his blood spilt over the now orange floor of the new orange everything. The man drags the blood with his finger in a circle. In the middle of that circle he draws a triangle and a few more oval shapes. He stands up and traces the big circle with his urine. This would be the first reflection he had seen for a while. He cherishes his creation then falls asleep smiling. He wakes up with the same smile. He decides to walk, not too quickly and not too slowly. The image of himself he had tried to create is now buried in the orange. He continues his trek. Then, he notices the orange all around him slowly fading, shedding its pigments, until yellow is born. He turns to walk the other way but it would be a sea of yellow now. 

The man had always known that he would have to fall asleep for something to happen, but now anything could happen. He walks. He sits. He almost drifts off to sleep, but he catches himself and jumps around to stay awake. His skin emits a glow, for his skin is also yellow. He touches his arms gently and begins to examine his body. He notices how his chest expands and contracts when he breathes. He brushes his hand through his long hair then weaves it into many braids. He masturbates then falls asleep. He jumps up in excitement the next time he wakes, for the now all green space had fooled him into thinking that he was in a forest. But instead, he finds a basket with a baby inside, in the place of his ejaculation prior. The baby is too young to bear any resemblance to him or any adult. The man is elated at the company he has been gifted. He holds the sleeping baby with love, as his own. He wonders how this baby can ever survive in this ridiculous place.

Nonetheless, the man is filled with motivation. When his eyes first meet the baby's eyes, he realizes the only real things in this world, the baby, himself, and his dreams. Unable to break free of the prison of the Whimsical room, he sought for an answer in his dream. After many tries, he was never able to find a way out and back to his old life. He dreamed of adventures and eroticism, but would wake up back in the green. He looked at the expressionless baby, who was probably hungry, and he wondered if they could live inside of his dream. He tried. In his dream, he held the baby in his arms in the green room and went to meet every person he could remember, hoping they could just hold onto him and never let them wake up from his dream. They were all there, his family, lovers, even enemies, all circled around him and the baby. The man felt such pure bliss, reconciling all the differences between all the people in his old life, that he had forgotten to stay focused and keep dreaming. He woke up. The baby is still there. The room had turned blue. 

The man longed for the ecstasy of his last dream. He sat still with his eyes closed and tried to go back, but couldn't, for he had just woken up and couldn't fall asleep. He kept trying anyway. He just sat there, staring into the blue. Then, in one blink of the eyes, the blue is no longer. Purple reigned. And each time he blinked, the purple would turn to pink, then back to purple with another blink. And so the world was the switch between the two colors. The man wished so badly to at least see another color when he opened his eyes from another blink. Alas, in surrender, he decides to keep his eyes shut. Even after waking up, he would keep his eyes closed and sit still. The last time he opened his eyes would be to take the baby out of the basket and hold him in his arms. He looked at the baby one last time, noticing how much the baby looks like what he remembered himself to look like. Then, he closed his eyes. 

The man sat there until the room disappeared, and he mastered his dreams, visiting the room that imprisoned him for so long once in a long while to check up on the baby. He had grown used to seeing without seeing and feeling without feeling. One day, the man left the perfection of his dreams and knew the baby was gone. And without reason to return, he went to his dreams, into an endless dark night, like the one in the small room. He held the baby in his heart and waited patiently for a window and the light to give birth to all the colors of his imagination. 

1. They

    There is a prison down there, a place that sucks you in to a hollow center with the addiction of its maze, promising, then promising. What’s there isn’t magic, it isn’t mystery, just a choice, the lies of a life behind a glass house or the bliss of the jungle. The wind howls their names through the night. The chimes knock around endlessly now. There is a storm brewing. 

    The visitors cast their distorted shadows all bent-like over the pulled curtains. Bad omens begin seeping in through the cracks around the door frame. The visitors walk in unannounced as if they owned the place. The rainbow clouds Selena was painting as the three figures walked in are covered by their overcast. There is no longer color, which is all they’ve ever wanted, for everything to be dull and righteous. Two of them remain by the door while one trench coat treads over to Selena, “thud, thud.” He grips her by the arm and throws her to the ground. “Stay down.” He shouts his command, making sure his fingertip is within an inch of Selena’s face. “You know nothing. You will obey. Open your mouth.” What could she do but comply or face a slow grueling torture that would last for years? Stand up and double her sentence? There were three of them and one of her, so in that room, they were more important. 

    Coat 1 puts on one blue rubber glove, the kind that hasn’t changed for decades since conception in some laboratory, stale and unforgiving. With one hand he pushes Selena’s forehead backwards, while the glove yanks out her tongue. He peeps his snout through the dark threshold of his hidden facade and begins sniffing about the pinhead sized square on her tongue like some hound lacking neuter. Freedom is exchanged for the scent-drive. Freedom here is interchangeable with the words convenience, complacency, and comfort. “Your drive doesn’t smell right.”

    She knew right then that she would be subjected to a series of masterfully crafted questions attempting to elicit flaws in logic to be interpreted as grounds for further incrimination. They hold back on the whip to avoid ruffling the beast too much. Selena has heard about them and how they come and go. Now, they were here. Fate has arrived. What they were after and what she had done were equally mysterious. Selena had a hunch that they smelled the lavender, rose-red, and cerulean-blue on her canvas that was still enveloped by the other figures' grim shadows.

    One of the two has a head much larger than the others’. His disproportioned silhouette waddles towards Selena’s tongue, like a circus clown, jittering this way and that. It could have been comical. He bellows out over Selena’s hunched over body, “Yeow! Yeow! It’s wrong! Just wrong!” Coat 1 thrusts Selena’s head towards the dresser while offering no release with the other hand holding her tongue, causing the rubber to slap together to make a snapping sound when her tongue slipped out. She slams against the dresser. “Sit,” he commands her once again, pointing to another part of the the blue velvet. Selena moves over inches to satisfy the command.

    “No meat! Seven days!” Head screams. “Why is that?” Asks number one sternly. Selena fumbles around in her head for the least incriminating response and begins her delivery with the required believable innocence and some type of confident helplessness. “It might have been something coating the meat, I’m not sure, I do my best to eat meat every three days. There was some street vendor, I don’t remember where, but a few days ago, I had some of h…” She decides the character would be a man, “his stuff. It tasted like real meat.” Selena hasn’t had meat for two years.

    “Lies! Liar! Lies!” Barks head.

    Slender silhouette number one further examines the culpable and cross-legged. “The amount of meat on your drive shows evidence of at least a month without consumption. Confess, you fucking shit. Now!”

    Selena draws an excuse from the grab-bag. “I don’t know why. I eat meat every week.” Though excuses can be constructed and presented believably, excessive words cannot be taken back. Selena decided to stop there. The fool speaks, “I don’t know.”

    Command three, “trace.” And so the third figure leaves his post by the door. He was definitely the muscle. They were just shaded outlines, but he took up the most space in the room. Large head might argue other wise, for head often grew amidst intense inquisition and judgement. The giant pulled out a mask from his edgeless obsidian hooded-cloak. Selena saw the sensors for her eyes, the plugs for her ears and nostrils, and scanner for her scent-drive that protruded from the mask a good snout length. With one large paw behind her head, he fit the mask snug over her face, sticking the drive scanner to the back of her throat. She gags. It glowed with the bright red of amber. Tracers shot across his own faceless black mug, like signals ripping through a computer chip, or a night sky gone mad with shooting stars. Selena sits ever so still, unable to gag, one palm pressed against another, clenched and sweaty. She knew in a few moments, they would know the frequency patterns of everything she'd seen, smelled, heard, and tasted in the past thirty days. 

    And as swiftly as they entered, they slithered back out the door after snarling their symphonic slew of convictions, “Weakling! Traitor! Bad! Bad! Idiot! Criminal! Enemy!” Number one announces during his exit in a casual, jokingly tone, “come back in two days and take her.” And as the bad omen drifted away, leaving the door gaping, Selena was filled with a dreaded feeling. But a sliver of silver lining hung on that canvas, because they had left the swirl of unnamable colors unnoticed beneath the cloak of their own eclipse. With the mask out of her throat, she could breathe again. She sat cross-legged and silently. Eventually, she came to the conclusion the story was not over, because some strange force in the Universe had hid that painting from them. That recognition alone was solace; it cried for attention and action. Selena continues to sit silently. 

    Beyond the whirling inside, the blazing winds became inconsequential; they felt soft and embracing. Another pair of wings are swept up and carried away somewhere. Butterflies often come to Selena’s window to die, especially before winter. She has felt the flutter ever since they came. The flashes of consequences are relentlessly pulsating through her thoughts and fingers. She feels them with each step. She begins to construct the possible outcomes. Color offense: up to ten years in prison or however long they decide was appropriate and tens of thousands of bills or however much they needed at the time. It would firmly bury anyone below the wealthy line. Neglecting to consume meat for over a month: they don’t even have a standard punishment for that; anything goes. She thought some more. Listening to unsanctioned music: at least a month in the slammer. She continued her calculations. Very new smells: a slap on the wrist, but that could be very suspicious when linked with other offenses. They could paint a vivid portrait of her villainous alter-ego.

    Engaging in new smells was among the easiest criminal acts to get away with. A hurried stroll through a rose garden right into the den of a baker, who happened to be training a new barista, who made an overly powerful espresso, a green apple lollipop - secondary green of course - that fell on top of a scoop of orange sherbet - though not all orange sherbet is entirely secondary - which fell a day ago and had been left sobbed over then neglected, which sat over the smell of generations of rain and concrete, which clung to foreign scents from foreign winds, are just a minuscule portion of new smells available to the unsuspecting passerby. So new smells were really difficult to contain, compared to the construction of man-made architecture and its color palettes, sounds of the few legal revolutionary horns, and meticulously measured recipes of the properly indoctrinated chef. People liked going for strolls more and more these days.

    She stepped outside, for the first time into agonizing uncertainty, into total paranoia, into a new self, one she thought only criminals with vile intentions could harbor. The streets were splattered with the same piercing invasions; eyes grew on trees, inside stoplights, inside go lights, and inside reflections of herself in sideview mirrors of parked scooters. The eyes of society always menaced, for she teased them with a poverty stricken red hat, almost fading into something pink, and she danced around the idea of a translucent purple left sock and a translucent red right sock, which she slyly let cross one in front of the other on public transportation while she sat in front of the peering eyes, educating the blind about magenta. 

    Fear had all of a suddenly pushed those urges back into the safety of her dreams. And like any other world, dreamers who dream freely paid a steep toll for making those who felt belittled feel more and more so, until the victims must act, to justify their unworthy existence. Fear made rapid her pace home, where she buckled at the tie-dye sky on canvas she had only recently so boldly sprayed onto the emptiness. Fear made her pick up the brush and smother it all in that hungry ravaging red. It was the safest color. All she had to do now was stay away from the underground scent clubs and art houses where the rebels risked everything to taste life. She had become a mark, and marks were always at danger of bringing the shadows to the places of light. They could follow her and mark others too. That scared her more than being locked up.

    Selena sought the comfort of green tea in front of the window and began the two day wait for them to return and bag her up. The last butterflies had withered away for the season, all but one. Its lifeless wing peaked over the window’s bottom and caught Selena’s eye. She leaned over to catch all its glory, and it made her hurry to carry the creature inside. In her hands laid a pair of wings with an uncountable amount of color. Endless hues streak up, down, and around. Ideas within ideas, unfolded and collapsed vividly, eloquently then fumbled, directed yet unfettered. It would be dangerous to keep such a thing in her possession, let alone keep staring at it after they had tagged her. It wasn’t fear that gave her the idea to keep it. It was something much more powerful than fear. 

2. Fear

    “Fear,” exclaimed a talking balloon sporting a very professional head of lettuce. He was not actually a balloon, but his head was above-averagely-bloated with the nourishment of the above-average-supply of daily meats and nutritious others. This shape, this proportion of contours and expressionisms, really sat well on TV and with the majority that let him into their homes through the portals of communication. “Fear, is how we came all this way. Fear, is what told us to run when the vicious grin of the lion crept behind. Fear, of being snuffed out by the competitor, is the source of all creativity. Fear, is what made us put aside our weapons for world peace.” 

    Those who could hoot hooted. Those with flappers flapped. Those who could pout whistled. Those who stayed silent awaited their turn. 

    The molded almond retaliated briskly, “and was it fear that brought your parents together to have you?” He was not actually an almond, but his head was the exact shape of every celebrity in the A-list, except his exhibited some amount of, “I only shave to show that I don’t care to shave” syndrome. 

    “Why not? They were afraid of many things and that drove them to create me to solve their problems.” He pauses. “I did.”

    “Are you saying they don’t love each other? And that they don’t love you?”

    “What’s love got to do with it?” He hums the tune.

    “Calm down, Tina. Are you saying love has nothing to do with why your parents got together? What do we call the thing we do when we get under the sheets? We make?”

    Balloon puffs, “Love, love is something imagined. Fear is real, my friend. We can’t live our lives counting on something imaginary, and therefore unpredictable. Fear is the real deal. We’ve long wished for the power to decide our future, and we’ve had it all along. Fear has guided us from the beginning of our human history and will continue guiding us until we are the only thing left standing in the entire universe.”

    Half of the crowd explodes in uproar while the other half deny with disapproving boos and nays. Half of the judging panel shows their disapproval with light hearted thumb-downs and smiles. The other half jokingly stands in unison to salute their general as it were. It was all a joke to everyone. They all wore bright colors for the show. 

    On this side of reality, Selena lets drop her chin all the way down to the prison of the soul, where she could feel fear, and it did devoured everything else, leaving us to stand alone. The dead moons circle the dying mother.

    It’s been 2 weeks since they came. In that time, Selena kept up with eating meat every three days, stayed away from the scent clubs and art houses, painted using only primary and secondary colors, and listened to the silence of the wind. The clock did tick, and it ticked slowly, dragging its tail along the sands of time. The work did get done, and it was done slowly. She made the teas, the red and the green. She made the coffees black, because cream was not allowed, since it would adulterate the purity with an infinite range of browns. She wondered often what would happen to her and why they didn’t bag her up. Each passing day, the possibility of their return diminishes, only to spike again when she thought to think.

    Tired of mystery meat from the monotonous restaurants that span the length of the street by her apartment, Selena decides to buy and cook her own. She exchanges a friendly hello with the street market grocer, the one she sees almost daily. “Hey. Um, can I get some meat?”

    “Oo, our first time, huh?”

    “Oh, I mean I get my meat.”   

    “From that other guy, right?” She winks.

    “Yea, on the other side. Felt like changing it up today. See what your meat’s like.”

    “Well, I’m grateful. So what will we have?”

    "Um, I don’t know, what do you have?”

    “We got the whole farm, what do you usually get?”

    There, closest to view, a chicken with her neck sliced generously, leaving a trail of that crowd favorite reddish hue down its breast, with some of the blood that made it all the way down to the nails of the lifeless claw tapping silently onto the curious flock stampeding in its own shit in the cage below.

    “Chicken sounds good.” She almost meant it.

    Selena steps in front of the elevator up to her floor and decides it would be better to be facing away, staring out the window, but there was nothing covering her to hide her face, so crouching and tying her shoes instead, just in case. The soothing draft of an empty elevator signals her that it’s ok to come in. As the creaky cables dredge the cargo towards the eleventh, another wave of paranoia shoots her arm out towards the floor dial; ten, no nine. The door slides across to the right under the white overhead light. For just a second, you could catch some mysterious streak of the unspeakable prism bouncing off the reflective door glaring back at you. And you could stop to say hi, but most rush through it too quickly to recognize it. Snails do make the best companions on the grave-bound road.

    Tonight, Selena wished for silence with the dark, so she was granted an empty stairwell to climb in peace. She lifted the grocery high up, cutting the slack that caused the crinkling sounds of swinging plastic bags. She softened her steps by rolling her feet along their outer edges. She arrived at 1102 with her ear pressed gently against the door. She appreciated the quiet and safety it offered her. She then went to another dark place, behind the dead roaches she left in the drawer purposefully, as a burial, but also as a deterrent to anyone wanting to investigate past the pull-out under the bed. Selena went on hands and knees, shined the light into the bed frame and gently brought Bubs out for the night.

    Bubs is a turtle. Bubs likes lettuce and strawberry. Bubs has never had chicken and probably never will. Selena has never had chicken, and tonight, two thighs from a dead one is on the menu. 

    “Can’t they leave a girl alone?”

    Bubs is having trouble climbing the shape shifting plastic wall-mountain-hiding-giant-strawberries-thing. Selena gives the lettuce a quick rinse and puts a couple of leaves on a clear plate for Bubs. 

    The reason why she has to tuck Bubs away is evident when the mellow light trickles down each hill top on his back. Each little mound held within it, edges stitched of lemon-pink, recessions of baby-blue that crashed then crescendoed into fields of copper, which then leaped over to another cluster of canary mixed insolubly alongside stretches of sea-foam camouflage. Turtles had been bred to be green with orange shells. Turtles were bred for soup. 

    “Finish your lettuce, dude. Strawberry for dessert. If you’re hungry, two servings.”

    And through some strange channel, Selena was reminded that she was a fugitive. So she burnt the thighs over heavy flame, left the center raw, and ate it up under dim candle light before Bubs got to the strawberry fields. 

    Selena sits on the bed, quiet, pretending not to be home, this time, with locks securely fastened while Bubs rummages around, probably looking for some more lettuce. There isn’t much to do when you have to pretend you don’t exist. Life all of a sudden happens in your head and in the inches in front of you breath.

    Bang, bang, on the door. Bang, bang, through the kitchen. Bang, bang, in Selena’s chest. They’re back. The end of the world is here. From motionless to frozen, Selena awaits another wave of knocking. There they were with more spacing between each beckoning. Bang, bang… Bang. Curiosity never suited those who lived in the crippling face of fear. She needed to take the chance to get a closer look at those menacing black masks. So, she crept along the bedroom, sliding rather than stepping. Bubs stopped eating and lifted his head in anticipation. Selena could almost reach out and feel the cold steel door. She’s right there, face to face, close enough that another, bang! Another bang would feel like hands patting her on the chest. Selena slowly rises toward the peep hole. It falls and sets upon her eye, second by agonizing second. 

    She’s standing there alone. She takes out a piece of paper from her pocket then matches its message with the number next to the door, double checking, then turns to leave, revealing her side profile. She’s not with them. She had too many piercings on her left ear. If she was undercover, she was a good one. This is where a leap of faith shortens the gap from here to there, from this side of the door to the other. It all happened so fast that all Selena could do was take the blurry snapshot of her back to bed and into the street, and into the night, and try to refine the smudges she makes in her memories each time she refuses to let the stranger go.

A petal for each spring.

a petal for each fall,

a flower that refuses to submit,

followed me from a nightmare,

and laid restlessly blooming,

in my waking dream.

    It started to rain, and it did pour, from a chalice onto the sidewalks. The paint brushes slept early last night and slept-in today. They’re resting for the big picture. The cafe is always empty except for the frequents who together, sought solitude in their own corners. Other than the frequents, no one ever comes in during the rain except the whimsical characters who seem to drop down from the clouds and land right on the door mat. The chime shimmered and two girls walked in and exchanged familiar glances with Selena, before hanging up their over-sized artist type borderline-crimson parkas. To produce totally uniformed colors in apparel manufacturing, the entire assembly line process has to be systematically identical for all factories. And so, the managers wore the same hats and the meetings served the same coffee, black.

    “Selena! Oh my gosh! Where the fuck have you been?”

    The other one leaned in to whisper, “we haven’t seen you at the art houses for weeks.” 

    Selena’s eyes quivered a bit every time someone chooses to say gosh. But, these two were plucked from the bundle that couldn’t spell “rat” to save their lives. They were trusted members of rule breakers anonymous; they were always welcome. 

    Selena leans in too, “The watchers gave me the squeeze. I got the mask.”

    Eyes wide, mouths gaping, they listened. No one had ever heard someone tell the story from the outside, or at all. By the time those who were tossed in got out, they were too exhausted to revisit the experience, even in the comfort of their minds. 

    “I mean, they bought the merch, but not sure why I’m still here.”

    This is where fear changes hands, from the shadows to Selena, now to the two little birds who sat on the wrong branch. It shook their feathers and so they flocked.

    “Head on swivel.”

    “Yea.”

    “Just paint.”

    And they flocked away.

    “Yea, maybe I should.”

    That night, Selena sat, in the pregnant moment. What she really wanted to do was dip the brush in color, then water, then let the chemistry lead the way. If they ever masked her again, she would be gone for a long while, for betraying the fathers, for betraying “them”. In a world where uncertainty was outlawed, Selena wished for a way to express all the irresolution. She scooped the standard issue red and lobs a generous heap of it all over the white. There she was again, the girl at the door to the end of the world.

    Bang, bang. Her heart replays that night over and over. And that too withers. Selena settles into her thoughts, and onto the canvas. She was different from the others, those who cared too much to be different, but tried in their futility regardless, shamelessly. But she was real, shamelessly. You wait for her, because she never waits for you. Now, the blazing portrait of her memory leaned against the warm green wall. 

    Another night pretending to not exist, sitting quietly at home, here, there, thinking, not thinking, painting empty chunks of meaningless color. She was getting worn down, thread by thread, through and through. She slides out into the stairway and slowly shuts the door to avoid any banging of her own. There is still day light left. There’s no need to take the hurried-elevator, so she took to the stairs once again. It’s easy to feel like you’re being hunted when silence is the thing chasing you. When you turn to look for your follower, there’s never anything there, but when there’s also nothing to run to, you hang and float and feel all the possibilities brewing in the pot. 

    Out in the city without a name of its own (because inside the city, it’s just the people and the things), they whizz by. "Must get to the carrot,” they chant. “Must find salvation,” they reserve. “Must, something,” they desperately claw and slash their way around each other behind refurbished frowns. They attract and detract, ignoring the fibers of light threading it all in one place. Atop the quivering ripples, a float begins to bounce. Its red is undeniable. It’s that certain kind of red you never forget, no matter how much other red encircles it, the kind of red to be followed without question. And the quarter-notes begin their staccato in threes, leaving that final fourth space in between each triplet for the observer to ponder and formulate with their own tension. Selena wouldn’t know what to do or say even if she caught the red hare. She chased at a distance until that distance widened out of reach, until the red became a dot, awash.

    Selena looks around as if someone would hop out of the blue and help her continue the search. Selena walks again, aimlessly, with no choice but to enjoy or despise being booted onto the streets by her own inability to withstand weeks inside a vacuum-sealed, dimly lit bunker. She turned left, because why not. She turned rightish, because why not. She stopped walking because she was tired but didn’t want to sit. She kept on, because she wanted a new view, but was still tired. So, she slowed down. An orange little yapper went off like a siren and stood its ground. She had to walk around, but not to the left, because an old lady walking a bigger orange dog was to that side, so she went right, and tripped over a crack in the road, most likely cleaved open by multitudes of little blow horns. Then, someone turned off the chihuahua. She kept walking, slowly, then turned right, because right just seemed better. Selena found herself in a quaint alley, where kids kicked a ball and adults ignored them. She pretended that it was important to weave through, and it was, just as important as it was to turn around and walk the other way, so she did. She stopped to observe an entry, with chipped white paint, intricately carved frame, and a long brick tile path leading into an old tree and a turn at its end. The address read one, one, eight, or possibly one, seven, eight. The middle number had lost its upper half to history.

    “Well, that’s cool.” And she kept with the stroll on a plane with no end. The winds picked up dead leaves and tossed them into corners, while the healthy ones clung dearly to the ground. The city, or those few who made, are making, and will make decisions for everyone else, always had the streets swept meticulously and obsessively of leaves as if to rid the disease of nature. The moon smiled all of a sudden over all its creatures, and Selena felt the bitter cold of not having anywhere to go. She went home to Bubs. Upon stepping into the apartment, the blanket of warmth gave her a second wind and she felt as if she should rest for a while then go back out there. She decided to at least check on Bubs first. As part of her return routine for the past two weeks, ear to the door, hold breath, and hope that they’re not inside somehow. She felt like them, looking for her. Then, she felt like her, looking for whoever she was looking for.

    The marker-written 1102 did look like something else. Selena got the inspiration to sneak over to 1105 and investigate. That room was in the middle among a row of rooms running along the corridor. To the other side, windows reveal the moon’s smile and the world below it. If they walked into the hall there would be no hiding. She placed her bets then stuck her right ear to the door of 1105. Life below the eleventh played accompaniment and 1105 gently plucked with merriment. There were a few voices. They were laughing, free of persecution, with nothing to hide. If the whole world heard them, they would stand up, applaud, and join in, because they didn’t have anything to hide either. She left them to their special un-special occasion, and went back to her room, forgetting the entry routine. Selena opened the door slowly nonetheless, in case Bubs plopped there like a poor puppy waiting to pounce on the first legs in. Bubs and his inexplicably intricate shell just sat in the middle of the kitchen. She picked up the evidence and let it paddle around in the sink for a while. To keep herself company, she read a fashion magazine. The pages tried to be bold within socially accepted and therefore legal boundaries.

    When society obeys the laws set forth by a group, those laws seep into the everyday and the attitudes towards them soften, no matter how harsh they are to begin with, eventually transform into acceptance without question, guaranteed by glass doors. It is then, that society adopts its lawmakers’ decisions and sets them into action as the pervasive majority view. It is then, questions become sin. It is then, after generations of contortions of conformity, it becomes dangerous to be different, because the law of the few have finally soaked the fabric of everyday life through and through. And when true, unbounded diversity is muzzled and chained, the will of the entity will hurl towards its destiny, without heed, like a shooting star. And the pages in the magazine did follow the rules and play the part, and grease the cogs of a bigger machine. The pages danced around the same ideas of accepted form and context, but never dared to step out of line in its ballet, not from fear of persecution, but from the newfound fear of isolation. 

    Selena enjoyed a grand masquerade like any jolly good soul, and wondered what she had really done to be shunned from the ball. She felt vile to be different but she felt obligated. She felt their denial but she felt their love that they wanted to explore themselves. She wanted to unleash all that was tucked away in their wildest dreams. She began melting away into their somber slumber, another dream within a dream. 

    The answer to so many of her questions could never be found in the maze of the mind. Turn after turn, reason beyond reason, another trap lay a foot. To ponder is to wither, to act in accordance is tempting, and to break the rules is most satisfying. She returned to the beginning. Why didn’t they take her? Why did they set her free? Selena refocused to the everyday for the answer. For every wolf, there is a shepherd that must watch the flock. For every shadow, there was something real basking in the light. Even in those menacing silhouettes, there were hearts untended. Selena began to love her oppressors. She always loved those she ought to hate.

3. Sugar

    Bang, bang, bang. Three knocks seem official and neutral, and any more or less probably reveals some hidden intentions ready to wiggle out onto the surface in some malevolent fashion. The door has never been knocked so much that Selena actually enjoyed the dangerous but breathtaking surprises. To her delight, three more follow. She can hear talking through the muffled door, “We’ll come back later.” The motherly voice was comforting. Hurriedly, without even checking the peep hole, Selena lunged at the door knob, twisted, and flung the thing wide open. It wasn’t her, but familiar faces that catch you by surprise fulfill some primal human need.

    “Hey, didn’t know if you were home. We just need a little sugar.”

    Selena quickly ransacked the disorganized pantry. She wanted them to stay, but she needed them to leave. 

    “Thanks! We just need a little bit. I’ll bring back the rest.”

    She couldn’t risk doubling the time the door was left opened, no matter how infinitesimal it was. “No, that’s ok. I’ll get more. You keep it.”

    “Really? No, that’s ok. I’ll bring it back when we’re done.”

    “No, no, really. Keep it. I insist.”

    And when someone says, “I insist,” the opportunity to come off as rude is available for the denier of this coerced hospitality. “Alright then, thanks! I’ll come back, we’re making cake. I’ll save you a slice.”

    Check mate.

    “Oh, that would be lovely.”

    Paranoia is fear-driven. It resides in a funnel where decisions whiz by and whirl all around you. All you can do is reach out and hope for a good one. The paranoid need immediate affirmations from the angst of a never-ending wait for some tragedy to come out of left field. Selena knows it’s possible the shadows can slip in right as the neighbors left. Bad things have a way of finding perfect timing. She lets this one fly and wipes her sweaty palms on her dangerously khaki-coloured pocketless cargo pants and suddenly remembers that she let Bubs roam freely during this whole ordeal. They might have seen him, but then again, they would have made some comment about keeping an animal meant as food as a pet, like, “Oh, that’s cute, is that a turtle? Are you making dinner?” He has managed to lug a leaf twice his size over to the private side, left of the bed. Sometimes Selena forgets that Bubs is a turtle. And paranoia also distorts the perception of the amount of time it takes a turtle to walk across a larger than life room.

    Rather than lying to the neighbors about going out and leaving for the night, Selena decides to acknowledge the itch to pick up the paint brush. Even though she couldn’t let her eyes fix on wild colors, she could at least use her talent to conjure a smile.

Directions:

1. Dip the brush in a cup of water you’ve prepared to get it wet.

2. Slap it against some table edge repeatedly to shake off the excess water.

3. Squeeze out the colors you want for the background onto your palette.

4. Whisk your colors together. Please only use primary colors to achieve secondary colors.

5. Using a steady or shaky hand, or whatever, it’s art, do whatever, smother or brush the desired amount of colour over the desired background area. Please note, some painters never leave the background stage for the whole painting, while some go with one smooth, evenly spread surface. Like the direction says, whatever.

6. Remove the color from current brush by washing in the water cup, or use a new brush, repeating steps 1 and 2.

7. Let the layer dry, keep going, wait a week (the artists with a lot on their minds sometimes do this), or you know the drill, whatever. Creation is action and observation in constant synchronized motion, so be sure to be awake while you paint.

8. Paint whatever you think a cake ought to look like, today, at this very moment, changing lawful colors as often as you would like.

9. Give the painting to the intended recipient, preferably dried, unless, whatever.

    Selena’s read the instructions a few times, so she whipped up the painting before more knocks could bounce around on her door. She didn’t want to risk being heard, so skipping blow-drying, she brought the present to the neighbors. She tiptoes the painting across the corridor, past 1105 and the city below and stands in front of the last door down the hall, anxiously waiting for her knocks to be answered, constantly checking the other end of the hall for unexpected visitors. 

    “Hey! Couldn’t wait for that cake, huh? What is that?”

    “Well, I thought I would paint you guys a cake, since you’re baking me one?”

    “Oh my gosh.” 

    Selena to self, “She’s a gosher.”

    “Come in! Come in!”

    And as the door shut behind her, an episode of paranoia comes to a close, because this place is definitely off the books. Some walls in the main living room is blue, others yellow, the rest green. She may have helped paint every wall in the building. There was no way a watcher would ever visit this place, except to have some green tea poured straight down his abyss behind the snout. This was the cradle of rudimentary colors, lots of it. The neighbor girl notices Selena gawking at the completeness of colored-space, no matter how primary and secondary it was.

    “You like colors? Yea, we’ve got all of them!”

    “Yea, I do. It’s pretty.”

    “Yea, we love all the colors.”

    Selena does her best to contain the yearning to point out the possibility of accidentally mixing any three of these colors.

    “Yea, let’s check on the cake. Here, let me hang that up for us.” 

    The neighbor is one of those people who insists on using inclusive language, replacing singular pronouns with the collective, “us”. On a nail in the middle of the wall above the oven, there was already some space where the bright empty shadow of an older paint still loomed.

    She says, “It’s fate.” They take the moment to exchange friendly glances. 

    She says, “I feel like we’ve met before.” They take the moment to share a friendly laughter.

    “That, banana? Cake smells good.” Selena can’t help but appreciate the saccharine aroma filling the room.

    They take the moment to swallow the savory air.

    The neighbor pokes the cake with a toothpick.

    “Where’s the guy you were with?”

    “That’s my husband, or partner? Are people still doing that? He’s doing some work. He’s pretty busy these days.”

    “What does he do?”

    “He teaches philosophy online. He’s got a class right now.”

    “Wow, that sounds cool.”

    “Sharing unvalidated theories of thought in an intangible space. Yea, it’s as real as my wildest dreams. Get it while it’s hot.”

    Her smile warmed Selena’s soul through and through. She left with some hope, and hope by nature is always unvalidated, so Selena left with nothing but a smile. She followed the painted petals each step of the way back to 1102. The purple paint had dripped and Selena’s flower-bottomed boots had stamped the still wet globs along the moonlit corridor. She did not look down. She went to sleep.

    Sweetness of toxic air singes unsuspecting pedestrians. 

    “Can I get some sugar?”

    Selena walks a few packets of pure cane over to a John Lennon type with a tattoo of an elephant covering the back of his left hand. She returns to her post across from the TV. Sometimes a tune repeats indefinitely. When the owner first found the loop function of the audio system, she could not find the matching un-looping function, no matter how much every one wanted her to and no matter how much she wanted to. Today, it’s the honesty of news media as read by those armed with the illusion of entitlement.

    A reporter reports, emphasizing random syllables of his speech, “as consumption index continues to rise, residents are speaking out.. about just who.. should stop.. over-consuming.” 

    Cut to street-goer interview, “Why the hell should I stop? I work harder, longer hours than all those rich people. They should stop buyin million bill yachts and eatin thousand bill steaks. Why should we, all of us, cut back on the stuff we been eatin? I ain’t stoppin. If anybody should stop, it’s all them rich people who can afford to stop.”

    Cut to Senator Senator interview. He comes from a long line of politicians. Senator the First legally changed his name from Thumb to Senator to establish a clear career path for all his offspring, their offspring, and the offspring of those offspring, etc. The people have elected this year, Senator IV.

    “Senator Senator, how do you respond to the criticism that your own salary is much higher than the national average?”

    “Just Senator is fine. Look, it’s gonna take more than me cutting my salary to fix things. Everyone has to do their part. If we can all consume a little less, together, we’ll be alright, but we gotta act. Look, I don’t live the luxury life. We cook dinner at home. I carpool to work. If we can just do a little more, all of us, together, we can make this work, together. Thank you.”

    As Senator walks off camera, a young drunkard hops into frame shouting Beethoven’s fifth. He is immediately taken away by police and cuffed. 

    “To the victor goes the spoils.”

    The cafe had the homely setting to procure conversation between strangers, even though it rarely happens. Also, Selena felt obligated to return a guest’s unanswered banter. “You mean the fifth?”

    Any talk of the arts is converted to foreign language to the average person. If they listened closely, they might be able to hear the carrots being chopped for stew."

    “You know your history.”

    “Yea, my dad did the whole music thing.”

    “What instrument?”

    Selena hesitated to answer at the sight of the other guests, because although they were attuned to another frequency, certain vocabulary did ferry between worlds, like drums, guitar, exploration, self-discovery, more, surrender, and are arbitrarily associated with the criminal underworld of those who killed people with bare hands and no regrets. The guests all had their ears covered, but some just muffled them a bit for the added silence. “I don’t really know."

    He played lots, all the ones the average person had heard of and many more not even musicians know existed, like the infamous kanjaguan, which was thought to have been left behind by the Venetians from their pre-civilization visit to somewhere in Asia. 

    Lennon goes back to his headphones and sits there with whatever pleasures sailing through his ear canals, staring out the window, probably people watching, and listening intently.

    Selena missed her father. She glanced at the three little birds tattooed down her wrist. She made the pass at some nostalgia, then let it fly before pain got dragged into it.

    About a year before they came, Selena visited her father at Tubman prison for the last time. Her mind couldn’t recognize what the soul felt when their eyes met that day. She sat down. They didn’t say a word. She smiled. He smiled a little too. He hummed something, “C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb-C-G, Eb-F-D-F-G, D-F-Eb-D-D,” then he hummed it again, resolving the second time, like the end of a story. They just looked at each other. Everyone else around them squeezed as many words, emotions, and tears as possible into the little time they had, but these two just looked at the thing in front of them. They watched the cruel world dissolving into air, then reappearing. The man next to Selena buries his head in his arms on the table. Their smiles fade just a little. The woman next to Selena holds her son tightly, as tightly as her teeth are clutching, and looks through the glass. Selena and her father stand. The guard grabs his arm and pulls him away. Their eyes never part ways, not through the glass corner, not through the others, not through the brick walls, not through the distance. Selena stares at the glass-scarred reflection of a face that looks like her own. She never heard him hum another thing again after that day. She never asked anyone in that place what happened to him, because lies aren’t worth hearing. Her father always told her that musicians are tricksters and only the lies we tell ourselves are true lies worth exploring.  

4. Elephants

    After a month of forcing chicken down her throat every three days, painting only with prime-secs, and listening to the sound of the forcefully happy billboards, Selena felt only slightly safer, because after all, they’ve already got her number, and shadows roam freely in the darkness of unseeing. Selena sees a suit toss a barely sipped cup of coffee into a trash bin that a man in rags is digging through. Although there was a cover on the cup, you can always tell a full cup from an empty cup by the way it slices through the air and whether it makes a thud sound when it hits its mark. A robot voice begins singing gaily. Three passer-bys check their hands for a message, but just one holds her hand up to her face to speak. Someone nearby says to his friend, “it is what it is.” That idea used to pervade through the entire fabric, extending through the recyclers, waitresses, brokers, delivery men, and the sweepers. When the food shortage hit, cigarette sales doubled and the smiles of lies quickly grew to manic laughter on the faces of the filthy rich. It no longer is what it is. 

    Selena spots the silhouette of a bird on a branch projected against the wall. When she sees a bird, she always misses her father. 

    “Hey, Victoria from Heaven.”

    “Selena.”

    “What are you doing?”

    “Just walking around.”

    “Let’s go to a show. Right now.”

    When the streets become your new home, answering to spontaneity becomes as brisk as a visit to the kitchen during a B-movie. They walked. He made an observation about how clean the streets were, even though people are dying of hunger. She told him that she liked flutes. They walked. They looked around at all the people and felt alone and unbothered except for a few pairs of eyes in the gutters and on the street lamps. Selena felt safe with him and at the same time felt nervous that he might be taking her somewhere forbidden, but she held her tongue and refrained from any trickery until it was absolutely necessary. 

    The theater was decorated with crowned ceiling fixtures, heavily ornate drapes thick with one shade of red, and senior citizens. She knew at the first sight of the theater’s inside that this was going to be a musical celebrating the glory days of some fight that these old folk had been a part of or at least witnessed. The music would not offer any respite from its gun-ho advance towards victory. It would all feel obnoxiously happy. When tears drip down these reminiscing faces, they would dry as iron dries to become steel, cementing every righteous inclination into place. There would be no doubt that everything is as it should be.

    “I got ten more tickets.” He pulls them out of his breast pocket. “Ask the people next to you if they need tickets. They might have forgotten they’re at the show.”

    Selena disapproves but can’t help but chuckle. 

    They sit through the short show. When the curtains fall, Selena once agains thinks of her father. Even though this music was brash and relentless, if you really listen, it was still someone expressing something. Sometimes, you can hear God in the noise. 

    They walk in the same direction. Selena feels comfortable enough asking about the elephant. 

    “Thanks. I got it a year ago. I felt like I needed a reminder that I like music, in case I got brainwashed.”

    Huh. "What’s your favorite instrument?"

    “I don’t listen to anything anymore.”

    “Except wartime liberation choirs.”

    He stomps his boot and salutes to the setting sun. “The greatest musicians plant trees.” The mood got really serious. “You can’t drag someone underground and torture them for planting trees.”

    They don’t say a word. He smiles. She smiles a little too. He walks her to Heaven. 

    “Well, I’ve never been here as a customer.”

    “I’m going inside for sugar and some coffee. If it’s too weird, you can just guard the door, soldier.”

    “I gotta get going.” Selena says. She says because that’s what people say when they feel new feelings and aren’t ready to embrace then. They go to get away from themselves. He smiles and leaves her at the door and the awkwardness of staring at a door to new feelings. Selena surely needed to get going, but she stood there, for a moment longer, and saw him through the walls that cut the world into little pieces. 

    Selena to self, “Ten tickets?”

    Someone is sobbing and sniffling at the top of the stairs. Stairs, the place to be for solitude, unless more than one person needs it. Stairs, where lonely souls meet destiny. Selena walks next to the undeniably familiar red hair buried in the cradle of her arms.

    “Are you okay?” 

    The red mop nods, but also sort of shakes due to its heavy mopness. Selena really wanted to be a pair of ears, but strangers always have a hard time getting to the safe place. An offering, she thinks, “Let me get you some water. I’m right here.” Out comes the mug that warps like a lava lamp when filled with hot water, and a box of tissues.

    “Here.”

    “Thanks.” 

    Red lifts her head. The red mascara floods down her cheeks. She goes for the total sinus clearing blow over the polite, just enough snuffle. Selena feels appreciated and quickly offers another. 

    “Oh my God, is this one of those lava lamp mugs?”

    They trade glances. A moment later, they’re waiting for the water to boil. It was dangerous to have company but some needs outweigh self-propelled paranoia. 

    “You know what would be cool?” She leans in until Selena feels the hair on her neck shoot straight out. She whispers, “If there were more colors. I mean a lot more, like all of them.”

    They were still chatting in the somber post-tearful place, but it was gleaming with hope, however latent hope tends to get. Cheering someone up 101: don’t talk about the thing. Saved by the whistle. They pour the steaming water and watch the green mug morph over and over, diving into itself and blooming and blooming. Most of the time, when two strangers meet, the energy from the infinite possibilities of how this interaction can go will be too much to handle and immediately ousted by flipping through pages of the book on small talk and randomly pointing to any section. In search of some emotional security, someone will comment on some appeal in the room, including the people themselves. To escape from a potentially nerve-wrecking silence, someone will suggest an activity, sometimes sex, to engage the body and mind. Selena and Red sat on the kitchen counter and enjoyed the pregnant moment before the next. Red left after a while, leaving behind some snotty napkins in the trash bin, red lipstick on the mug’s brim, and a smile that seemed renewed. Her unhurried steps down the stairwell diminished. She listened. Selena waited a while before sneaking over to 1105 and pressing her ear against the door, all the while making sure she still had a view of the end of the corridor because of the residual paranoia. There was silence. 

    Selena felt like she needed to know more, as a friend. She wanted to help, or at least know what made red cry. Maybe poking around the neighbors and casually bringing up other neighbors would do the trick. Do as they have done onto you. She prepared to ask for sugar. She knocked. There was silence. She knocked more times, There was silence. Selena hung her head in disappointment and saw the full moon glaring through the holes in the newspaper on the corridor window. A ray of moon spotlit the yellow door knob, not gold, yellow. Irresistibly as instructed, Selena slowly turned the knob and peered into a dark room. “Hello?” She had no plan, just intuition roping her in. The polygonal block of moon light expanded with the door’s every creaky push. Slowly, it reveals a silhouette, Selena’s silhouette, standing under a noose, used or unused. Selena retracts her curious investigation as carefully as she started. She follows the withering petals back to 1102.

    The next day, Selena poured coffee with the uncertainty of death pulled over her face. Her reluctant smile, her hesitant replies, all reminded her of the tragedy she couldn’t even confirm. The next day was the same, and the next, and the next. Then one day, the rain came, but no strangers came to Heaven, just the regulars. She went home and watched the rain from her balcony. Bubs enjoys the rain. Selena opens the window and let’s the rain in, bubbling on top of Bubs’ shell. She took off her socks and scooted closer to the rain. She wanted to see red, so she painted more red onto the last fragment of memory on canvas, wondering when they’ll meet again. Selena thought about those old time revolutionaries who traded their lives for a piece of real freedom and who shouted manifestos like, “I’d rather die than be the forgotten angel in your bondage.” Some time spent in jail doesn’t stack up against losing your life. She thought about the noose that hung like a question mark. Selena sits in her empty room reflecting on the events of the past two months, trying to shove pieces from different puzzles into one rational image.    

    A man stands next to a poster advertisement hung on a wall. He is dressed in the same fashion as the motionless model. No, they are not the same, but they could be. Selena sat and watched that man smoke a cigarette. Others walking by ignored his secret plead for attention, but every now and then glanced at the poster man, just for a second, and never long enough for the poster to rise into the conscious threshold beyond subliminal. Selena watched them, ignoring him, all the while quivering from the eyes breathing down her neck, because she was being watched too, by something.

    There, at the gate of her building, parks a black van. She passes by and concludes that it is a police van for collecting wanted unwanted people, due to its caged nature. Selena strolls with one eye on the road and one eye on the van until she finds the bench in the park across the street. She watches a figure with red on the top of the head being escorted by figures with black all over into the black cage. Selena draws another conclusion, but is too far to be sure, so she hurries towards the gate, but the red fades and fades, not into another color, just in circumference, in presence. 

    1105 is locked now. Selena can only go home, or knock on the neighbor’s door and ask for sugar or cake or something, and fish for some rumors. She decided rumors were lies, and lies were not worth hearing. The blank laughter heard down below seems to be fixed with horror, like a mad clown who paints his face everyday without ever washing it. He has forgotten his skin and the very thought of exposure is violence. If Bubs could laugh, he would have the same laughter. 

    There are no pictures of Selena’s father anywhere. Holding a picture of a criminal in your possession is equivalent to admitting that you are also guilty of the same crimes. There are no disapproved instruments in the apartment. There are no disapproved colors. There is meat. There is your own flesh. There is hope. They can’t monitor hope. They have a keen sense for tendencies. They have strength. They have love, locked away in their fathers‘ graves, in cages. 

5. Cake

    Selena frequently visits a scenario, the one that ends where they come back and take her away, from her world, from Bubs. They’ll speak of the justice that protects the innocent as they drag Selena away, from the people who are not brave enough to face the full spectrum of the refracted prism. She returns time and time again, back from paranoia. Each day feels like the last day. And each day, she wonders about the noose. There’s a lot going on inside her head, but each day, Selena sees the day as plain and mundane as they always were. 

    Lennon used to make visits every other day, but he hasn’t been to the cafe in two months now. Selena wonders about him too. She wanders the streets looking for red, looking for him, looking for them. They were barely in her life, but the mystery surrounding them was like a half written sentence begging for resolve. One night Selena sat in front of the empty canvas and was visited by an old habit that had not gone to rest. There was so much red in the city that she couldn’t even stand it on her lips, so with black smeared across them, green glazed atop her eye lids, blue dice with blue counting dots dangling from both ears, she listened to the old habit’s beckoning. At night time, the wealthy bankers went back to their lush colonial mansions across the city and the financial district emptied then re-emerged. Service workers don’t have the time, money, and energy to commute, so they stayed and played when the moon rises high. In the crowded after-day, underground spots found their safe-haven, around a bend and behind a wall. 

    Next to a sausage cart, the passage extended into a moon-lit cobble pathway. Selena accepted its invite. She followed it down to the end, made a right, then a left, then another left, then a right, then a right, followed that path to the end, passing by a couple stumbling for a way back to the main street. There, next to a dumpster, the wall was sprayed with the circular peace sign in red. Selena slowed reached out her hand towards it and the wall depressed. A pair of sunglasses fell into the revealed space. She took them, put them on, then faced the large, heavy doors opposite the peace sign. She put the same hand that she used to grab the glasses onto the cold door. Like magic, they opened up a sliver just enough for her to slide in sideways, then they closed not a second later than after she went in. At the end of the dim corridor, a figure stood with its arms out in downward 45 degree angles in front of a circle sprayed on the wall behind him. Selena made her way towards the end and when she arrived, reached out and hugged the figure. The figure raised his arm and directed her to its left. After going down seven steps exactly, she entered the lift. There were two rows of four unmarked buttons to choose from. She pressed the third one down on the left side. She turned around. From the floor rose buckets of paint splotches and music. As the entire wall filled up, the lift came to a jolting halt and the metal doors parted, revealing a rainbow road and setting the treble of the sounds free from behind the walls. The sunglasses Selena picked up from beside the dumpster were engineered to convert all colors to primary, so the rainbow had only three colors. She followed it, dipping her head down for a second to see the road in its full spectrum, then slid her hand past the red curtains. 

    There it was, just as she remembered, the art house in all its glory. The hippie bus and all its passengers were flying throw the 30 feet high warehouse roof. Whatever was going on in there, it got them way above the clouds. A few leather jackets hung on the wall, speaking liberally about whatever they felt like. Pigtails linked by the bunch and skipped through the crowd. Empty spaces filled up and migrated. The cosmic jesters, embracing the baffling contradictions of the art house, laughed while the world outside cried silent night. Selena made her rounds around the first bar, then the second bar, and stumbled upon a hoodie hunched in the fold between the wall and floor, heaving and possessed. She went up close and could smell the strong scent of hard liquor. It further enforced her aversion towards drinking. 

    “Are you ok?” Hoodie continued rolling eyes upwards and backwards. “I’ll get you some water.”

    When Selena returned, two fairies were already tending to hoodie with water and fan, attempting to waft away the possessive spirits. She sipped the water herself and carried on with her tour of the old world. On a blacklight lit wall hung the fluorescent faces of the fallen soldiers who built this place from the ground up, and next to their frames, perched something familiar. A dead butterfly stood on a petrified branch plucked from the desert. Its wings shimmered in the rippling disco light echo and fluttered when the low frequencies from the speakers wafted over in waves. They stood there and watched each other like old friends catching up. That’s when the comforting yet heart-wrenching melody began, "C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb-C-G, Eb-F-D-F-G, D-F-Eb-D-D”. It takes song to bring silence into focus. It takes art to highlight emptiness. It takes cakes to make the air sweet. A masked elephant holding a platter of tiny cakes in the shape of cups taps Selena on the shoulder. 

    “Oh, thanks. What are these?” She takes one closest to her. 

    “Other than cupcakes with mocha frosting, they’re a little bit of victory."

    “Are these?”

    “They’re safe, from them.”

    “Oh, ok.”

    The patrons of the art houses, especially this one, are givers and caretakers. They bring treats and expect nothing in return. Selena always felt safe and would only hesitate to take something because of “their” visit. The guests are also well aware of the dangers of seeing, hearing, and ingesting unlawful substances. She didn’t hesitate and bit into half of the cake with the cup handle. The elephant took one closest to Selena and also bit into half of the cake with the cup handle. 

    The elephant raises his other half and motions for a cheers.

    “Cheers.” Selena tosses her other half back and catches the elephant tattoo on the back of his hand. All the worrying suddenly disappeared. She knew he was safe and well, well enough to be handing out cupcakes. She smiles. He bows, then turns and walks away. She sees him disappear, swallowed by the crowd. Selena had forgotten all about the butterfly behind her, so she looks around, wondering what else the night might bring for her. She looked up, because when good things happen, we look up. Even though the ground is full of a special magic of its own, she didn't need to pluck any flowers from beneath her boot today. There shined a painted arrow, the kind that shoots out of a bow. She placed her sight on the direction it faced and left her post. 

The elephant masked was tilted back and looked to the ceiling. Lennon was holding in his arms someone just tall enough to tuck the head snug against his chin. The unmistakable red had been found. 

Her hands are coarse and Sun-charred. She grips the torch firmly as she makes her way through the dark maze-like cavern in search of the lost soul she is destined to lead back to the light. The boulders she moves show her the power she has. The perplexing puzzle that steers her to the illuminated oasis of deadly human-eating plants shows her cunning mind and heroic heart. All this, so that she may know of her might and purpose of entering the Cave of Life. After many trials and errors that imbue her with gratitude, she arrives at the entrance to the abyss, where a terrified boy stares down the endless pit at the reflection of his fear. He stands there shaking in his cowboy boots, in his jacket that he always shouted was his and his alone, too large for his frame, stitched with patches of all the things boys liked then, tanks, guns, bombs, dinosaurs (even though doesn't believe they were real), ice cream, naked girls to cover his homosexuality, and a portrait of his mother without a father next to her. His toy sword had slipped out of his sweaty hand and was making its way to somewhere with the tears dripping from his chubby chin. He is left with a shield and no enemy but his own desire to jump and hope to end this nightmare. The girl who came for him did not see any of that. She saw a boy who had forgotten to turn around and walk towards the sun. She saw a boy who needed a hand to remind him of its warmth. So, she grabbed him and returned towards the entrance the same way she came in, which happens to be the same way he came in.

Even though the girl is very young, her callous hand reminds the boy of his great-grandmother. He felt safer with each step. At the break of light, the boy takes off running towards the light at the cave’s opening, not noticing his cherished jacket had fallen on the ground. It's possible he may throw a fit later, but he would probably forget about the jacket sooner or later. The girl picks it up and hangs it on a jagged stone hook for others entering the cave, for it had been very cold until now.

Outside, a boy waited for the girl. His face, as orange as the sun, perked up and motioned the words “thank you”. The boy told her that his name was John and his family name begins with the magnificent letter T. She took him by the hand and made their way to the boy's family. Just around the bend, a young man had his head buried in the grass in deep prayer. As they passed by him, he stood up, dipped his head, and said, “Gutentag.” He gave the girl a sketchbook full of wonderful drawings of flowers and people, and he asked if she could give it to the worried family missing their son. He told her the lost boy’s name was Adolf. As the young man made his way toward the entrance, the boy shouted, “If it's too cold, you can wear my jacket!” The young man now faced the terror of the Cave of Life, but he knows at least he would be warm, and that gave him the strength he needed to step into the cave to look for the boy he is destined to bring out of the dark. 

Against all social norms, I smile, walking down this hard pavement, getting a reluctant but good unavoidable whiff of some under-constructions, fresh hawked loogies, burnt rubber, automobile methane, smog from the factories in the town over, vomit spat back at us from the transplanted trees, finding it all just a bit shamefully-romantic, but indeed, romantic. When I walk by the community dumpster and smell the sour, summer drenched watermelon skins, rotting, I am reminded of the undesirable and yet unforgettable smells of my youth.

In my home, where my wife and I live, we are happy. The toilet I am especially grateful for. When I sit there to read about or think about life, sometimes the rats living in the washing machine drain each take their turn crashing into my heel. They make me feel like a tall oak. And I can’t help but think that in a past life or future life, or even now, they are lovers just like us, or we are lovers just like them.

He thumbs through the endless pages of his handheld until, with the nonchalance honed through a decade of drifting through America's west coast, he lobs the book to the side to reveal an open window, unaware and uninterested in the radiance of a pre-dawn sun. As if triggered by the cough of the parking attendant two stories below, he jets off from the couch and bolts through the opening into a three and a half second unregretful leap, onto the dead silent pavement in front of the attendant. He shouldn't be completely dead, but he must have landed wrong.

Cigarette in hand, blood splatter on both shoe-tips, the attendant witnesses the whole thing. He won't even reach for the score cards, unimpressed by the spontaneity of such an ungraceful dive. The cigarette finds his lips dry and unattended. His legs cross. He looks to his right, onto the street of panicking passer-bys, fear-stricken souls quietly straying from infection from whatever spiritual ailment caused such a tragedy. The attendant's expression reveals no sign of shock, nor do the drags of his smoke carry more weight as stressful smokers often submit to.

If not for the leather-seated gas-guzzler that's looking to crawl down to the dungeon, the attendant might not have had to attend to the body at all. "What's going on there?" With his hands locked behind the back in the - on an eternal light-stroll - position, he casually responds to his obligation with an accurate assessment of the situation, "Fell."

"Good then, I'll just park somewhere else tonight."

Not another came before the attendant switched shifts. When the next attendant arrived, he said, "What's going on there?" With both of their hands locked behind the back, the same response follows, "Fell."

Somewhat annoyed that he had to say the same thing twice in such a short amount of time, he left for home, as he does each day, taking the same road, passing the same steamed-bun stands, through the same alleys, past the same steal gates, and onto that same still plastic-wrapped couch from his grandmother's childhood. He crosses his legs and lights the last cigarette of the pack as he takes the minute walk to the same vendor he sees every day and night for the last decade, that same decade the boy on the pavement had spent so tirelessly looking for his father and brother and sister under the mattresses, beyond the veils, and above the black and white of business suits.

Noticing the splatter requires heightened sensitivity now, especially into the night, since its absorption into the inexpensive fabric of the attendant's black slip-shoes. Its shade protects the feeble mind of one who has droned on for an entire three quarters of his life, unaware and uninterested. By morning, the blood will have been swallowed by black, fitting into the unforgiving landscape of the shoes, neatly arranged by the front door, awaiting a pair of feet to drag it to its mold above the parking garage, one firmly glued to pavement and one lifted in air, the affirmation of a hollow vessel.

He skims the surface of a dried red sea, for something ordinary to validate each step away from the vestige of his soul. With his hands locked behind his back, he paces back and forth for the day, wondering if the pack of cigarettes will last him the day, or if he will have to risk seeing a different face before the drunken lounge on the plastic sofa. 

This pizza tastes like soaked biscuits and lime juice. Why would anyone want this, let alone roll it up and use it as a neck pillow? And in first class too. Money does make people crazy.

By some mistake at the administrative level, Aaron McFaus is released from the hospital. He leaves with no belongings and little memory of who he is. He takes the same route he always takes to his apartment, but is rejected by the subway gates for complete ignorance of the public commute system. He cannot operate the immovable baffling gate, for he has no money or the slightest clue as to how the whole thing works. So, after making it out onto street level, his muscle memory automatically pumps his legs toward the same drunken stumbling the night of his last birthday outing. However, he did not stumble or wobble to any degree. In fact, he walked upright, back straight, with a chest turned out like a man with confidence who was on a mission. Nothing out of the ordinary deters Aaron from his walk home. Two absent-minded hours later, he makes it into the apartment after stomping out a 7 flight track. The only possession he had when he was checked out of the hospital was the key. That had now served its purpose. Along with the near emptiness of his dilapidated mind shack went the power of judgment. Here sits on a bed in a room, a giant infant, not cute enough to receive the obsession of a nurse or even and unproud mother. Hunger did not forget. In the pantry are some cans of sardines that he can't figure out how to open and the twigs of uncooked spaghetti that might as well have been twigs. Then, there is the bread and the mold that has taken residence on the bread since he had been gone. Aaron did not buy the bread. He had been away for a few months. And up until a week ago, Michelle, his now ex-girlfriend, had been staying at his apartment and filling it with an assortment of breads, men, women, and transgender celebrities of the underworld.

The moldy bread must have reminded Aaron's nostalgic mind of something nutty, perhaps like a peanut-butter sandwich. He follows his gut and devours the bread and all its moldiness. Unable to recall how to use the faucet because it was Michelle who had poured his every drink and glass of water for the past two years, Aaron could only quench his thirst with the fresh puddle out on the porch. If the porch door had not been opened already, it is possible he could have died of thirst locked in a vaguely familiar studio apartment. He lapped it all up like a dog. Something below catches his attention. The jingling of jars in the milkman's crate gets him riled up like a puppy. He straddles the glass barrier to the open-air without hesitation, free as a bird, enjoying the best 2.47 seconds of his life. This under 3 second joyride is far beyond the nameless, shameless quickie in the unknown closet known only as the heaven of seven minutes, where the six minute fifty-eight second foreplay made him and the girl he was in there with wonder about the point of it. As Aaron’s shattered smile and shattered jaw sprawled out on the concrete below, his playful spirit, free of worry, continued on its journey to follow a memory from long ago. 

I am the bane of Poe's existence. His cheeks never rose this high, I bet. His lips never perked like this. He never made eyes at himself, his sweet self, in a glass of empty water, completely carefree and smitten with loose mania. But I know nothing of Poe. His dark poems may be the light of his sad fucking life.

A shirtless man shoulders a haysack by the Gap and several salmon lunches. If I see him, surely others do too, but they avert their eyes as if they don't, as if there is nothing to see. This seems more fictitious than if everyone stared at the man's hermit crab shell with x-ray eyes. They go about their pacific plates and mash. The man looks in every window past his reflection. Even he's averted his eyes.

They tell you, “Be afraid of the monster.” No one has seen the monster, except the old man who makes up stories to drive points home. It has become his personality. He says he’s seen it, up close. He’s lived with it, his whole life. When he was younger, he tried to feed the monster, many times. And he did so always at night in the shadows of the sun. The monster never peaked out from behind the dark veil and never knew who was feeding him, until one day when he lunged out to get a bite. In his panic, he took the young man’s hand with him into the shadow. Everyday after, the old man hated the monster more and more and made it his mission to warn young ones of the ungrateful monster that bit off the hand that fed him. The old man’s son grew up hating the monster and he warned his son of its terror. 

But since his son still had both of his hands, the youngest boy in the family, the old man’s grandson, grew up wondering why his father was so terrified of the monster. He wondered if there was even a monster at all. He didn’t believe all the myths he heard growing up, but he did feel that there was something all the stories pointed to. He was curious. 

One cold night, the boy heard a howl that echoed from the face of the moon. He followed it into a maze that led to a dungeon. There in the heart of the cave next to where the fire was dying laid a monster. One of his hands was smaller than the other. The monster mustered up enough strength to open one eye and saw something familiar in the boy’s face, a curiosity long lost. They saw eye to eye.

The boy ran back into the world and returned with the bread his father baked for tomorrow and slid a piece of it into the monster’s mouth then held his surprisingly soft face. The monster began to chew and the boy saw him smile. The boy came back night after night and raised the monster and knew him as a gentle monster. He wanted everyone to see the monster and know him as he knows him, especially his grandfather, who was sick in his deathbed with remorse.

One night, under the brightness of the moon, the boy walked home from the case with the monster weaving through the forest along the road. People walking by were terrified of the rustling among the trees and ran home. They were even terrified of the boy who didn’t seem to notice the monster in the woods. When they got to the boy’s room, he took all his clothes and made the monster a bed in his closet. There the monster stayed for many days because the boy’s father still cursed the monster from time to time for making grandfather a miserable old man.

One night, the boy’s father broke down in dread and told the boy of his buried resentment for how grandfather raised him. He didn’t blame the monster. He said the monster wasn’t real and that grandfather is a crazy old fool who needed something to point his finger at. The boy wiped away his father’s tears and brought him up to his room and knocked on the closet door. They opened the door and felt the warm breath wash over them. His father wasn’t afraid, for all the sorrow he felt had drained his whole capacity to feel fear. The boy pulled the chain that lit the room, and there with his back against the wall, the monster sat without fear, for all the love he felt from the boy had taken up all the space in his heart. 

The father reached out and held the monster’s hands and brought him out from the closet. The three of them walked down the hall and gently knocked on the door at the end. Grandfather had drifted into delirium in his final hours and was very weak. Father said, “Father, I want you to meet a friend of ours.” He brought out from behind him the face that grandfather longed to see.  Grandfather wasn’t afraid, for he had secretly been waiting to see the monster one more time before he left this world. The gentle monster touched grandfather’s face with his smaller hand and grandfather held it against his face for a while, then fell into a deep reverie. He dreamed of a maze that led to a dungeon. In the back of the dungeon was a path that opened to a world he could have never imagined. In his last breath, he said, “don’t forget to feed the monster.”

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