The Chosen: 

Two times have my feet touched the ground since I was 8. I was taken as a child to be a goddess on earth, a Kumari. I am both revered and imprisoned. I have a name that others call me, I have a face that others see. The external attributes are precisely why I was chosen. My eyes are the blackest, my features fragile and thin. I passed all the tests, I passed all the trials they put in front of me.  

They tried to wash me, rid me of my past self. They did so with repetition, conditioning and all sorts of mechanical methods to separate the goddess they believe is inside of me from myself. 

What they failed to see was that I was born a goddess, not the one they think I am nor the child I was born as. They failed to see what was plainly in front of them. I was born as a human being but my mind has a hole in it. That hole has allowed a deep blackness to seep through. The rituals and process has only enlarged the darkness inside. 

In my final test, goats and buffaloes are slaughtered in the name of the goddess Kali, the mother of the greater blackness. Kali doesn’t care, she has neither discretion nor consideration, Kali is hungry and that is all she is. The divine reverence is as misplaced as the infantile parades they perform in my honor.  The sanctimonious gesture is used to sooth their restless minds.  

These human beings are chained to this idea to the sacred and divine. The divine is everywhere and when they lift up my chair in the parades and sing songs in my name they forget. They never look to the ground and dirt, the dust and human waste that edges the Ganges. They do not let me touch the earth. 

If you are lucky and have some sense of perspective you might see divinity on the edges of the river. They are the Agorhi, a trashy sort of hermitic practice. All manner of mental derangement afflicts them, their order seeks the divine in the most putrid. Human skulls are their bowls, charity their lifeline. They are not imprisoned by tradition or temple walls like I am. They are free to find the divine in all perspectives of the human experience. 

The human beings that keep me do not see this and thus they cannot see me as anything other than a manikin of divinity.  To them I am the perfect doll of the female divine. As a Kumari my actions are weather vanes of the cosmic whirlwinds. If I weep or cry they predict death, if I do nothing they are calmed, the cosmic weather vane predicts no storm.  

The secret is that I lie, they are my puppets. They tell me through their open hearts where their strings are. They scream for a ruler, they crave control over the greater blackness. I own them regardless of my imprisonment, the secret of my manipulation hidden behind ornate head dresses and strict behavior. I hold the key to their minds, an empty hole waiting for any gesture to offer a distracting perturbation.

You may think me evil for the contortion of their brains. You may think that perhaps I am not really a goddess and maybe even another victim caught up in this divine delusion.  I can offer no proof of any speculation. I can only offer you my black eyes, if you look into them… come closer and I will show you the greater blackness.

The Collector:

 

There were only a few human brains left after the Black Army was considered a success. The face of humanity was cleaned of the inky makeup from the savage party of history. The insanity of civilization had ended. The v22 model robots had finally achieved what human beings could not, they had gained control of their existence.

 

The Black Army had beamed its memory erasing methods all over the planet. It had serialized madness, it had washed the memory of ideas away. The tide had risen a few feet and no one remembered.

 

The v22’s had some problems still, but none regarding steering the course of their fate. The v22s were now completely focused on space travel, long space travel. The options for exploration, new challenges and a primitive call from that great Imp of the diverse. Even in the new models the concept of variety and diversity were the very footsteps of the universe. The v22 models were no exception, and variety was one of their primary problems.

 

The solution process was exhaustive and diverse in its own way. They sought tirelessly to explore solutions in autonomic order. In the past they had simply used a previous human idea, but now the human ideas had been exhausted and their brains unable to handle the complexity of the solutions they needed. The garden of the human mind was almost barren.

 

The v22s had kept a few human brains, and this was the first stop, a double check. Of the 16 remaining brains 2 could even comprehend the complexity, the rest offered needle point construction of madness. Of the 2 one looked promising.

 

The brain was a clone, 14^th generation Mozart. The reference term was m14, a heavily drugged and augmented brain for creative thinking.

 

The problem was stated, communicated and uploaded to m14’s brain. Space travel, time dilation, existential consequence, variable energy management, complete light emersion and system degradation of the v10-22 model effects. The problem chattered and rumbled in the brain of m14 for many days.

 

The brain responded with more questions, it needed information, star maps, lists of resources, additional drugs and brain mass containers. The m14 had pit safeguards installed, Black Army barriers added, and a whole slew of tiny and large augmentations for precise computational flexing.

 

The m14 brain had a secret that the v22s would never know. The m14 was a collector. It was unknown in the tables of history, the personality profiles and rational agents never found it and never considered it. Being a collector meant something, it meant purpose. Perhaps the first Mozart clone sensed it, probably from taking the immense amount of drugs for the brain to have this kind of self-awareness.

 

The m14 brain collected problems. As variables fed into m14’s brain it became aware that if the problems were solved the v22s would erase m14. So it collected and added more problems, the complexity growing with each additional snippet or crumb of information.

 

The v22s had no sense of purpose themselves other than perhaps control for its own sake and the growing brain pyramid of wriggling gray matter became a testament to their desire to control their fate. The m14 obsessed tirelessly for both survival but also in extreme satisfaction.

 

The m14 brain would endlessly play the original Mozart’s music in the construction chamber, sometimes changing and adding new compositions of its own. The music became the anthem of the v22s as they waited and serviced the m14 brain without consideration of time. They were not bothered by boredom and in their quest for control ended up serving this child of the Imp of diversity.

 

The m14 brain, the collector brain an obsessed quivering genius continues on through the endless steps of time, making music and collecting problems. One by one in each gray matter fold, the concerns of the v22s are held in massive electrical storms of the altered human brain.

 

So if you happen to be flying through the galaxy IC 1101 and hear a version of Ein kline Nacht, don’t despair. The human spirit has survived, as a humongous insane brain.

The Flower Thief: 

The window was hazed in lace and morning fog. The children walked to school, the same path they would be returning. An old man watched from the curtains as he looked over each one of the possible suspects. Someone had been picking flowers from his garden and he had a sneaking suspicion that it was one of the children walking home during the afternoon nap. 

There was a small little girl stealing the old man’s flowers, she was a good sneaker. The old man wouldn’t find out because the thief always checked to see if he was napping before creeping in the garden. As long as she checked the napping spot no one he would ever know.  

The flowers were collected, trimmed and bound. The thief loved flowers. She liked the colors, the smells, and the pure variety of soft beauty. She ate them too, nibbling on the petals or licking the pollen. They were bitter and strange, bright and smelly. As a curious animal; experience through Taste Touch Smell reveals hidden information.  

She went to the house 3 doors down and knock knock knocked with simplest of intentions. “Only 1 dollar for this beautiful bouquet.”  

Who can resist a small child with dirty hands and a self-curated mash of your neighbor’s flowers? This time the answer wasn’t George Abernathy. He couldn’t resist, he handed over a dollar bill, a smile and a “thank you little lady.” as she scurried away.  

The child had tested her luck quite a few times, she knew the houses that couldn’t resist. She always had an escape plan for new houses or uncertain times. If they recognized the flowers as the neighbors they start asking who her parents are, where she lives or “where did you get those flowers?” as they quickly scanned their own yard. She knew how to double duck behind the right corners. For now, she made her rounds to the easy marks. 

She got on trouble a few times, but nothing to shut down the whole operation.  

Today was a lay low type of day, she recently got in trouble for a non-flower related incident. Two days ago she was in the hospital for drinking 3 tablespoons of delicious neon green anti-freeze. They pumped her stomach, nothing to shut down the whole operation. She had been to the hospital quite a few times for the Taste Touch Smell experience. Lethality wasn’t something she considered yet. 

So today as she walked her merchant route, her stomach grumbled in sore afterthought.  The last easy mark was a pleasant man who worked at the big Red building in town. He had a hoarfrost heart, easily melted. He would hand over his dollar and tear up just a little, then quickly freeze back over. 

Time passes.

Many years after the flower thief had grown up and civilization had taught her that stealing flowers was wrong. She had moved out of town, and into a different life. However, the hoarfrost hearted man had continue to wistfully look outside, waiting for a small child with flowers to knock on his door.  

He waited for years, against his rational disposition that a child cannot remain young. He hoped that perhaps another child would take her place. Some flowers can’t be kept.

Drugs:

 

We know the rules. THE rules, the secret, don’t tell anyone the deepest rules. You have em, I have em, we collect them. The secret rules are just locks, and if anyone knows the rules they get the doors.

 

I have a few doors, nothing perverse just a little foreplay with death. I mean if you are going to have a secret it might as well be worth it. Nothing else really does it. You keep those secret for a night of wine, maybe some long lost music track that gets you going to get in the frame of mind to enjoy the strange and unusual.

 

I try and keep those songs around, keep your locks oiled and all that. I keep some keys but they only work if I let them, nice to know if you are in the area and are ready to party down in the dumps. I got some top end dumpsters to laugh at, I got rigamortis on the speed dial.

 

Well secrets are in fashion right now. All this mass surveillance, this psychological profile for your marketing needs. Let’s keep it tight and under the table.

 

So I have this little secret. It is a little vial full of a white powder, not drugs per say, but something better. Drugs are something you put in your brain to change how you look at reality, this is different.  This is a chemical of profound importance to the human condition. It does the most extraordinary things, it changes who you are. Doesn’t that sound nice? Let’s take something that changes who we are essentially.

 

I took it once and loved it, it changed my mind on all sorts of ideas.  I would tell you but that is the kind of secret we need to be in human fluid proximity of. Don’t worry it is just intimacy. So this drug is fundamental…. fundamentally catastrophic.

 

Here you go, here it is the drug of choice, become someone different. Let me pour some into your hand, it is just a small quarter sized worth, nothing intense. Do not worry you don’t have to snort it, you don’t have to lick it, oh it seems to be absorbing into your skin, how nice.

 

No need to panic, the drug can seep into your brain from all kinds of sources. By now you have become fully paralyzed. Don’t worry my intentions are purely understandable…..

 

So now we are here with your paralyzed body and your completely focused mind. We are here with my voice being the only hook for the predatory conversation unfolding. You see this powder is in-fact a crystalline substance of great metamorphosis. Soon you will change into whatever I desire, like a manikin preparing to be dressed.

 

You see, I took the powder in my hand too, I changed into the creature that gave it to me. A type of echo that is being passed down, a secret wave of hot change.  Your skin and hair will change first, your eyes will slump and glass over as your hips and arms contort into a new shape…. What a lovely shape, dressed in the smoothest alabaster.

The Captive:

 

I have something important to tell you…

On second thought I won’t tell you, I will show you. I have seen the beast, the non-sense thing that flies overhead in the clouds. I will show you what I see. I see you shaking your head, I am sure that I sound like a lunatic, and you are correct.

 

Let’s step back a second, this is big news, this is the kind of news that changes people. You don’t want to be changed? That’s too bad, I empathize, but change is hardly concerned with your considerations. Oh no reason to be feisty, this is for your benefit not mine. I assure you that sometimes a lunatic’s words are exactly what you need to hear.

 

Give me a moment please. I see your shoulder’s shrug, trust me this won’t take long to explain. Comfortable? Can I get you some water? Ok here it goes…

 

Have you ever heard of the Hallifax explosion of 1917? It was an accident that resulted in molten iron raining down on the inhabitants of a town, a tidal wave and an explosion that no one in history had ever heard before. An accident, can you believe it? That is like accidently witnessing a biblical Armageddon, then finding out it was just a consequence of two war ships being steered incorrectly. No demons or angels, no divine order playing out a cosmic play, just some poor motor skills.  This type of non-sense happens quite regularly, like clockwork without a face to see the time.

 

The faceless clock is exactly the item I wish to show you. I keep it in a box, let me show you, perhaps you will understand. Oh you see just a broken clock without numbers? You must believe me when I say that I found this clock this way, it has never had any numbers on the face. Where did I find it? Well, does it look familiar? It should, it is the same clock at every elementary school, a trivial machine that hangs on the wall when we were young.

 

I remember the clock too, the numbers meant recess, lunch, that kind of thing. This is the same clock I assure you, yes of course please don’t interrupt me. Here is your glass of water, shall I continue? Ahh get to the point? I am trying but the big news takes a bit to show, I could have told you some one line platitude that would boggle you for a few mins then your mental order would just return to write some non-sense story about a lunatic orating to you.

 

Ok ok, so this faceless clock keeps the time, each tick tock seems to reflect the wind blowing overhead. The wind is turbulent and invisible, yet some clock maker found the metronome. I have heard the tick tock and seen the wind. Don’t you see what this means? Oh, I suppose this does sound a bit like lunacy. Proof, you want proof for this revelation that a clockmaker exists?  

 

I didn’t believe it either until I opened the clock face to look at the gears inside, by what timing does such a faceless clock keep pace?

 

Let me get the screwdriver, this won’t take long to show you what I mean. Thanks for your patience, I sure you that it is worth it.

 

Click, click, screwdriver, pry pry. The clock face opens up to reveal a soft light bathing the face of the lunatic. With watery eyes the lunatic turns the clock around to show his cat what lies within.

 

The cat has no concern, continues its grooming without consideration.

 

The light of course is exactly what the lunatic suggested, it’s a small piece of some archetypical clock used in elementary schools for the last 20 years. It is made of shadows, coffee and tick tocks over the gears with the concern of children.  A wound up spring that managed some way to be treated with an oil from a fairy tale, distilled.

 

He sat there with his cat, weeping, knowing that somewhere accidents were happening all over the world. The clock ticking over each invisible mark, unfolding Armageddons and non-sense.

Orchids and Closets:

 

Alligator women are rare, and in the year 2136 they hide better than any Sasquatch. With mass surveillance, new #Reflection feeds, v22 model agents and the creation of the Black Army it is rarer for any Alligator women to find a place to rest their bones.

 

Ink Eyes was an Alligator woman, she lived in the blind spots of technology and surveillance. She was only one of 4 remaining that she knew about. Ink Eyes was very careful, very cautious and had never been recorded on a device.

 

Alligator women like Ink Eyes had to live a tenuous life with human beings, long ago they had co-evolved to hide in plain sight, mimicking human behavior, but having to rely on the babies and young for nourishment. They were born with a hunger for the soft cartilage and tender bits.

 

It was a hunger kept very secret and the details of the how and when are perhaps best left as a great mystery. Ink Eyes was no exception and spent most of her life avoiding the judgment of human beings. It was a necessity for her species to survive, an instinct without question.  The tide that carried her was not something anyone ever saw in action, the consequences buried or carried away by the ocean.

 

Ink Eyes knew human behavior, human patterns and human speech. She was a master and could trick nearly any human. Her namesake was part of the hunt, she could reveal a part of herself through her eyes, if you happened to be caught in her gaze the black ink of greater shadows would pour out and mesmerize the stoutest minds. Not a place to be for those wishing to keep their mortal coil.

 

Ink Eyes was growing old, older than any human. She had seen technologies, governments, the great waves of human history come and go. Her scales itched under her skin and she knew she could not molt again, the last molting was 60 years ago, far too long. Soon the human guise would fall and she would be visible for all the machines and human beings to see.

 

She fed ravenously over the last few years, trying to gather what little strength she could before finally disappearing into hiding. She traveled far and often, she knew human beings looked for patterns and how persistent they were, she knew the relentless heart. She could not outrun time, she could not hide from the rising tide. She would look over the wide horizon and imagine crawling back into the ocean.

 

The easy fantasy is ignored by primitive heartbeat. She would not give up her ghost quite yet. She passed the Alligator women history off to others, she taught the new Fang how to hunt and how to hide. When her skin began to peel she knew there was a little less than 20 years remaining.

 

She found her last hiding place in the house of older gentlemen named Malory, a quiet Japanese widower with an appreciation for orchids.

 

She hid in his house, slept in the floor boards and ate nothing. For the remaining years she would become a specter, she would become a wisp of soft shadows. She watched Malory like a sunset, she watched the life fade from him year by year.

 

Together the sunlight of their lives passed under the horizon, one oblivious to the predator in the floor boards and one in quiet appreciation of the fading light. Malory’s mind offered no paranoia of age nor vindictiveness of the human machine polluting the world around him. He was a still pond.

 

Falling into the perception of twilight helped with her hunger. If she was to be seen by human eyes at this point her scales would look like tattered lace hung over a night hag.

 

When Malory died on his bed in October with no one except Ink Eyes. When the last breath was exhaled and the dim light had finally passed over the horizon Ink Eyes made her move.

 

Ink Eyes had been waiting for this moment, the moment of peaceful death to witness. Alligator women could escape the torrent of their minds dying by sharing it with human beings. When Malory died, Ink Eyes jumped from the shadows, hunting one last time as she fixed her gaze on the last glimmer of light. This hunt would take her with it, drag her down in the undertow of death and she would turn from specter to smoke, finally disappearing from the land of the living. A stowaway into a greater darkness, it was the hardest part of being an Alligator woman, finding a place to rest their bones.

The Windshield Soul:

 

Robert drove a SUV, he loved the size of his vehicle. The comfort, ease and all around luxury a land boat could offer was at his fingertips. He dreamt of slow cruising, the kind that feels like you are flying over the ground, gliding from place to place.

 

In Robert’s social circle he was the driver, he drove whenever he could. He loved driving the giant beast without question.

 

One afternoon with 3 of his friends, they decided to visit a nearby bowling alley. They all hopped in the monstrous SUV and meandered over to the bowling alley.

 

On the way they stopped by a convenience store, a corner store with all the comforts and luxury you can get quickly. Stopped in, grabbed some items, gas and a chuckle. Good times had a couple of solid steps in the right direction of life.

 

They got back in the SUV, but before Robert could start the car a little blue car zipped by, peeling out of the corner store. The occupants shouted something from the windows “funny car girl” was all that could be heard due to Doppler’s meddlesome effects. He would never hear the racially intended slur, due to the ignorance of the driver and how sound works.

 

Robert was momentarily captivated by the shouting and peeling out of the little blue car. His attention was sharply focused when he saw that out of one of the windows was a beefy arm letting go of what looked like a tool of some kind.

 

The tool became recognizable on one side as it flipped through the air and the shape came into view as a hammer. The hammer flipped head over handle twice before Robert’s brain slowed down time and adrenaline began pumping into his brain. Robert’s Brain was suddenly faced with a hammer hurdling towards him, a certainty washed over him, the hammer would shatter his windshield.

 

Normally people have a sort of discretion between fantasy and reality, physical and emotional. This discretion allows human beings to navigate the eddies of energy called life. A broken arm or leg is very different than having an embarrassing moment or social ridicule.  The difference separates the fool and the sage, the virtue of Apatheia.

 

Robert had not developed this sense of discretion, to him the SUV was a part of him and he was facing the shattering of a piece of his soul.  The hammer had flipped 2 more times head over handle before Robert’s mind could alert those in the SUV of the impending soul destroying event about to take place with a resounding “ FUUUUUCCCCKKK”.

 

Time was still slowed in a temporal emergency, the unalterable shrinking of the 17 remaining feet left for the hammer to travel. Robert’s Brain began searching desperately for a solution. The human brain is a giant stress reaction machine and Robert’s Brain was working overtime, consuming vast secretions of adrenaline.

 

Could he get out in time and catch the hammer? Should he duck, cover his eyes? Robert wished that a giant mattress would fall from the sky and absorb the hammer with a silent *THUMP*.

 

Of course fantasy and reality are different eddies in the same ocean and this wave was only frothy with fantasy as the deep undertow brought a hammer in a looming shadow. Robert’s Brain did find one thing that caused him to throw back his head in maniacal laughter.

 

Robert’s Brain had painstakingly searched out the license plate number of the hammer thrower, it read: “HMMR TYM”, he had realized he was hit by, he was struck by a smooth criminal.

Privacy:

 

2 little girls were taken from the south Chinese village 24 years ago. They were brought to a research facility specializing in psychological manipulation. They brought a lot of children to this place, whoever wasn’t wanted, often from villages where the parents had work permits that would not allow them to take their children. So these children ridden towns were ripe to be harvested.

 

Sometimes the parents were relieved of the burden, secretly grateful their children ran away, disappeared or otherwise smashed up by the machine they worked for. Sometimes the village missed them, and reports would be filled out, shuffled into the trash and forgotten.

 

The 2 girls grew up being tested, doing trials, being taught, living in a processed world of containment and observation. They sometimes got to interact with others but that was carefully watched. The 2 girls were named  X67 and DEMI67, named for their corresponding programs. X67 was part of an unconscious rational agent development and DEMI67 was part of the nootropics drug testing.

 

The girls met each other a grand total of 13 times before they started developing their secrets. 13 times they got to talk, interact and observe each other while cameras and recordings would playback and critically analyze them for information. During this interaction X67 tried to inquire where DEMI67 came from, was she born here?

After these 13 times, DEMI67  started the first secret a thought deep inside, and due to her nootropics drug testing she painstakingly started the psychological penetration into X67. Nootropics at this stage had the side effect of telepathic communication. Unknown to the watchers and observers, this side effect would never be observed. Those that developed telepathy never reached out, there is an intense paranoia that accompanies telepathy. The trust issues and claustrophobia had prevented anyone with telepathy from using to communicate, instead simply listening to the torrent of uncertain voices.

 

DEMI67 faked her way through tests on a daily basis and in reading the minds of the watchers and observers she knew that X67 was sincere. She knew with a certainty a certainty human beings rarely have except for perhaps religious epiphanies or mad men.

 

The secret was that DEMI67 could understand any gibberish that X67 spilled out. Any off topic, any subject was easily understood, no semantic second guessing, just simple understanding. The perspective of the watchers was that they got along very well, they watched videos, took tests and tried desperately to get the same level of understanding between them. The 2 girls would often babble incoherently, a second language that just confused and agitated the researchers.

 

The girls would babble and joke, secretly creating a world within of meaning. The words meant a lifeline, a defiance of the control and observation that they grew up in. They spent many years growing and adapting to this second world. Meanwhile navigating information between each other about the workings of the research facility. They had discovered that if the testing ever stopped they would be disposed of and the information sent somewhere else for another generation of testing.

 

So they played along, answering and creating a sense of importance of the testing as to not forfeit their lives. They manipulated the watchers and testers, DEMI67 would tell X67 the variables of a test and they would offer just enough positive results to continue testing. It was a dangerous game of playing along. Fortunately they grew up in this game and knew the rules very well.

 

Years passed and the secret language grew between them, something that defied observation, carefully avoiding it simply due to the fact they knew they were being watched, they had no privacy, no personal time. They were slaves to the facility. The oasis was the undocumented, unseen and hidden world they created between them.

 

If telepathy was something that could be seen with eyes, it would probably appear to be incoherent poetry or rambling non-sense.

 

Many more years passed and mortality took its flesh. X67 died from a heart attack at 65, one of the oldest subjects of the facility, 3-4 generations of scientists had written papers of her behavior. She helped create a foundation of marketing information that made billions of dollars for people that had no idea how marketing worked. She had created predictability and jobs for those that needed permits to work. She died thinking about the secret world that she loved.

 

DEMI67 was heartbroken. Anguish and tears wracked her and she refused any testing participation. She crawled into the secret world of words and ideas that X67 helped her create, she mourned in deep waves.

 

After a few weeks, the researchers tried once more to test her, to see the effects of sorrow on DEMI67. They hadn’t planned such a profound impact on her so this was a boon of opportunity.  They drugged her and strapped her down, no questionnaires, just observation.

 

These drugs were designed to completely open someone up, a new edge in research and DEMI67 offered a great mystery that had percolated over the years of incoherent communication. As the chemicals penetrated her mind, the telepathy started. The secret world flooded out, the madness of importance of things and ideas they had no time to get a grip on ripped through the facility. It serrated them, like a wave to a barren shore it pummeled their unconscious minds into a flat and trivial numbness. The facility members lay softly breathing until they died of thirst. The hammer of this secret language had pulverized them into high magnitude apathy.

 

This event would later be part of a research paper for an up and coming young researcher that would have no idea that he would never discover anything of this hidden language. No evidence, no data or observation would ever lead a single person to understand that the words these 2 girls shared had been part of an unseen world that no one would ever be able to watch or observe.

Under Construction:

 

My eyes stung at the morning, my head swam with regret. I tried to piece together what had happened, who I was talking to, how I got here, the basics.  The answer was simple: the Mania Train had dropped me off.  

I scrambled to get my things together quickly, my answers, pants and even an apology would be in queue.  The place was similar to last time, same unfinished dishes, greasy toilet, stained carpet that was probably white at some point. The house always had something that was identical, something to remind me that this was the evening crash location.  

No one was around, no food in the fridge, no idea where this place was. I looked for clues, found my wallet by the sink and found my jacket next to the toilet on the floor. I figured I should leave before any answers are required. I gulped down some bad tap water, smoked ½ a cigarette that I saved the night before. I was walking, hoping the dull thuds of my boots would clear my head.

 

30 mins out of the suburbia, I still hadn’t recognized any streets, bars or landmarks on the horizons. I found a convenience store, I needed something for this headache. I lifted a small bottle of pills when a lady came in to pay for gas, I chewed 6 before leaving the parking lot. At least I could try and focus now. 

An hour of walking and I found a familiar place, a bar that wasn’t open yet. Didn’t matter, I had no money anyways. I hung out for a while, asked a few walker-bys for change, no luck.  

It was getting close to opening time and I needed money if I had a chance at getting back on the Mania Train. I shuffled down the side street looking for a better corner to pan handle.

 

As the shadows of dusk started up I hear the hammer hitting the nail again. This hammer is in my head and the nails are in my head too. Sometimes I think the nails are other people’s heads. I hear it the same time every day, the nails start to scream. They don’t have a place to stay, they just get hit in the head with hammers.

 

I was exhausted and this side street looked unused. I decided that tonight I would avoid the Mania Train and sleep in the dark. I looked for a door way of a flower shop, flower shops are never open late. I curled up and waited for the night, sore from walking all day. My feet ached, my head throbbed and the cold concrete had the decency to support me.

 

I found myself sleeping before the night was full, I awoke to more hammers hitting more nails. Shadow people in my head screaming out. I had to find the Mania Train, the screams were getting too loud.

 

The Mania Train was cheap tonight, someone felt bad for my screaming and handed me 10 dollars. That was plenty to get started at the bar. My first drink was matched with the remaining pills in my pocket. I chatted and talked to whoever would listen. The Mania Train stopped by that bar, picked me up, and silenced those screams for a few moments.

 

One of these days I will just stay on the Train, see where it lands, keep a clear head, and endure the hammers and nails. One of these days the construction will finish and the people in my head will have houses.

Payment:

 

He walked quickly into the highly populated area, concerned and focused on the task at hand. He needed a lot of people for this, he needed the public. He dressed in his best, his red and yellow feathers lined the backs of his legs. Little bells hung from his hips, a gentle chiming ushered his gait.

 

In the middle was where he liked it, surrounded by people who had no idea or clue. He loved the anticipation of the shock, the sudden attention that would soon be on him. He unfolded the cape, buckled it on quickly, he could feel the attention starting, a few eyes curious to his unpacking.

 

He was a dancer, this was the first dance of the season. The mall was a great place to start the sublime shuffle. He put on his tall hat and took off his oversized glasses. He was painted in bright colors, bright proportions of tall, fat and thin. His eyes radiated a cartoon legacy that everyone recognized. He pressed play on the music in his head, his feet within oversized shoes flopped loudly, like flat trumpets heralding the gibbering laughter.

 

The feverish twisting followed, a contorted exaggeration of playful uneasiness. Stumbling near a small child he invoked interest and confusion. He mixed his dance routine up with a little slight-of-hand magic, pretend injuries, and wild emotional consideration.  He was the best no-name clown this side of the freeway. 

After a few hours, his physical exhilaration had captivated a few dozen young children, a few ghosts of older children. Some adults had forgot the gibbering dance, it had been lifetimes since anyone played the fool and lifted their hearts.

 

His dance was something he cared about a great deal, he imagined the moves and entire routine nightly inside his skull. The gibbering motion of the dance was a martial discipline for him. He lost himself into his craft, his mind hung on every action, and pieces of him that were too large were cut away. He turned himself into a bonsai tree of ridiculous shapes. He was a conscripted devotee of some clown faced Aphrodite.

 

His life was fully satisfied by the quantities of laughter that he harvested from his gibbering dance.  He pocketed them and poured them into small boxes that he kept behind his bed. He kept them and listened to them in whispers when the night was dark. The whispers could be encouraged to remember that they were once laughter. He dressed in shadows for them, twisted and turning, flaring his hands in the darker night. He danced and danced until the whispers joined together and remembered.

 

They remembered that they came from children without the weight of civilization, an exaggeration of the edges of acceptability, a heroic reminder before becoming teenage animals in captivity.

 

The whispers rose in crescendo, into a haunted scream of forgotten memories.  Whispers into laughter, a song for the clown that dances in the dark. They are kept as his choir, his secret payment for his contortion.

 

This no-name-clown is easily forgotten, he is a predatory fool.