An urban setting and an overdone steak to set the mood. The perfect meal to personify the smog that chokes out the streets. Might as well get some ketchup to top off this terrible, horrible meal. I don't think I have ever seen so many different shades of brown, gray and green all in one setting. The water splashing off of the street disturbing it from its stagnant state. An illustration of pestilence and disease. I take a bite of my plated sadness and swallow some water to accompany it. This will be my last day like this. Tomorrow they plan on locking me up for good. I passed the interviews and they called me back saying I got the job. I plan on spending the rest of my life staring at beige walls all around me. I plan on listening to Susan from accounting bitch about how her husband can't please her anymore and how she is more than willing to take me to bed in his place. I find her all too boring to actually take her upon her offer. I look forward to seeing Jeff hold on to his job on a dream and a prayer because his age makes him obsolete. He will stand at the photo copier on a daily basis struggling and hoping someone will help him out of pity. He is always letting technology get the best of him but because he has some sort of fake tenure he feels like he has earned his keep when in all reality he is just dead weight. That is right, they are going to lock me in this building that is filled with windows. A facade, teasing escape from a mundane world that I whole-heartedly fought for and worked years to get. I complain but I know that I have only brought this upon myself. Day after day of routine. That is why I sit here with my overcooked steak and ketchup to prepare myself for the mundane and boring. i will just have to get over it.

A dash of red in a crowd. A blip of purple on the sea. The eyes are drawn to it. Catching attention and taking command. The singing sound sweeping over the stream of people. Minerals, metals from the Earth, melted, cast and bonded together. Taking shape into something familiar. Into something that can be seen as beautiful in our eyes. A curly "J" full of dreams, loss, emotion. The sound rises up, wisply rising with the warmth of the shops behind me and cools. The warm tones begin to cool and cool and cool; dropping down on the passers-by with the consistency of syrup. Most just walk through the molasses-like sound and then on sticks. Legs turning, toes facing me the rest of the body to follow in line. A clog ever so subtle, in the stream of people flowing in front of me. I breathe and then release. Another string of notes, attempting to lasso in another. Soon the people, like pebbles, begin to clump, congregate, flock. They stand and listen. My heart splits and pours out through my fingertips. My lungs take flight and make the once meaningless metal sing. Vibrating through my body I try to make my thoughts be heard. I dance my fingers up and down, pressing and releasing. A tear forms and drops. The time of control has passed. Another drop and the music begins to take shape. First, the onlookers see the hands start to form in front of them. Palms open and accepting. Then the feet start to trace the paving stones on the walkway. It begins as a ghostly apparition and then it starts to become believable. Arms and legs bow and bend, stiff at first and then fluid. Then las the soul and heart become one. The mind is not needed in this moment. It is lost, waiting to be found and returned home. Now everything moves as one, rising and then collapsing. Having purpose and then losing it all at once. Then everything began to make sense. Coming together as a full package at last and then silence. The echo gives a reminder and then what once existed, exists no more. A bow, applause and then a break. The clump starts to dissolve and disperse. A few linger hoping for a deeper connection. Longing for that moment of clarity. I have already offered everything I wanted to and they leave thinking and hopefully changed. I glance at my case of leather and place my precious metal friend in its spot it has been in so many times before. Purple velvet, soft to the touch rubs the backs of my fingers and my red jacket snags on the metal clamp. My back straightens and I ease myself back against the cool bricks behind me. A bottle at my feet seems inviting and pulls me back down again welcoming itself into my hand. Water, I unscrew the cap and drink. A flash of red in the crowd catches my attention, pull my eyes in its direction. Then a bang of yellow across the way. Then a different stream of red. I am frozen. My arms are locked. The once steady stream of people in front of me has now parted. Involuntarily my foot lifts and moves forward. Then the other. Again and again and again. The storefronts look on with innocence. Yellow light warming the stone through clear and lettered glass. A pebble and a puddle lay in front of me. I force my knee to bend and I kneel. My hand meets the pebble and strokes its cheek. She is cold. Tears form and then disappear. I bring my cheek to her chest and listen to the absent rhythm. Silenced used to be affirmation for me. This silence means absence. I grab her hand, palm to palm. Limp to firm, I urge my heart to beat for her. I try to pass my soul through my hands like I did with my instrument just moments ago. Stillness met with sadness. I have become the dam in the stream. A crowd has gathered but a distance is still observed. I was the only one daring enough to break the barrier. Hand placed on heart and then my knees steadily raise me back to the level of the crowd. I turn and look but I don't see the faces I saw before. A flake drops and warms on my cheek followed by another, then another. White covers red and then nature comes to shield us. A blanket for the lost. She existed and now she exists no more. I go back to my spot, the crowd making a path for me to pass. My friend is waiting for me faithfully, as always. I close the marvelous metal in its pink-purple velvet home and then turn. A sharp revolving noise intrudes upon my somber walk and hastens my gait. The familiar spots I pass give me fleeting comforting but her cold cheek brings me back to reality. A scratch to the chin, my finger meeting uneven bristles and then a pause in front of the ladder stairs. Once hunks of iron now cast and positioned to bring people closer to home. One step first and then the inviting creak of step one. Step two is automatic as always and then three and four. My window cracked as usual and a push to open the portal from this reality to the next. The moon was a reflection in her eyes. A detail I can't forget. The last hope of escape. Lying on her back and feeling her own heart leave. Waving the whole way, up towards the moon. A bitter parting but a happy thought of passing. Cold cheek turning colder and hands once able to grasp only show palms open and wanting. Help could be given but wasn't able to be accepted. I saw the warning and did nothing. A flash of red in a crowd. A glint of anger on another's face. The Earth spinning slow enough for this to be seen but not fast enough to act. My soul stretches but can never reach her. I wake and then cry. Did she let out one last sigh of relief or was the breath that was held in a struggle? My hand reaches and the yellow splashes over me again. My eyes flex and then relax. The blackness focusing and becoming light. A layer of coolness soaks my skin and I, I, I don't know. Sitting is all I can do. Looking across the room, memories laid out before me. Frames in time bringing me to reminisce of happy and sad. I hold the memories with me, a time capsule that only I can open. Moments in time that I can pull from at will. Some more precious than others and some so that have become something completely different. Corrupted thoughts that I validate with truth and then fill in with fiction. Happy follies that could have once been sad. My pillow keeps it indent and is waiting patiently for my return. Warmth begins to take over and then a weight is placed on top of my thoughts. Bobbing, fading, falling and then a welcoming passage into the void.  Light greets me once again. Orange fills my world and then a crease brings in yellow and white. The crack widens and a new day is brought before me.

Imagine a white wall, smooth, flawless. Fingers run across its smooth plane and no blemishes can be found. A feeling of comfort under the fingertips. All though the surface is cold warmth can be felt. There is no sense of sterility, isolation, or confinement. The yellow light from a lamp washes the wall in different hues of yellow and gray. Simulated sun. A speck catches the eye. A nuisance? A break in the calming fabric of continuation? No, a welcome difference. Standing in solidarity. The speck knows it is not permanent. It knows eventually it will be wiped away but it does not care. The speck is proud. The speck knows that even though in one moment or another it will cease to exist but at least it existed. Existence is not pain. Like the speck, we do not belong but we persist until we are wiped away. Our existence lasting only a blink in time or an eternity to the speck. Like boundless gods deciding its fate. Go ahead, wipe it away. Just remember, you noticed the little speck. The speck did not move, disappear. The speck was physically removed. The speck required a passage that could not be chosen by itself. The speck required external motivation to cease existing. Is the speck remembered? Yes! The speck has permanently left its mark on this world and the next. No matter what, that impression can never be wiped away. It is permanent, persisting through time.                 

I can feel colors. I can taste thoughts. I can move through dreams. There was a time when I was completely in order. Nothing was out of the ordinary and I could pass through the streets like the simple pedestrian I was. Now, I long for those days. I long for those amazingly simple times where I could be as productive as I wanted. I float through this void and tell myself that I have obtained true freedom. I know I am just a prisoner of my own creation. Let it be known to all. I am trapped, cornered in a cornerless realm. I cry out and not even an echo greets me. A void, dark, absent of temperature. I feel neither warmth nor cold. I feel no pain and yet no comfort. I am neither happy nor sad. I exist and yet I don't exist all at once. I pass the time with my thoughts and count the seconds with my eyes. I can look out but no one can look in. I am able to watch the world I once lived in age and die before me. Those that I loved at one time have long passed and all of those that pass by are just blurred faces now. I wish I could warn them about what happens in the end. God is nothing but a comfort. Maybe this is hell, purgatory. Maybe this is heaven and there could have been something much worse for me on the other side. Maybe this reality is none of those realms and it is like I said before, this is a prison of my own creation. I don't know whether I am alive or dead. All I can do is wait, wait for time to pass and watch others not knowing what possibly awaits.                

It has been a long time since I felt like I was being watched. I come here to ramble but now I know that my ramblings have finally paid off. Someone is paying attention to me. I came home today and the door to my apartment was ajar. I peered in and entered cautiously but I couldn't hear any movement. Really, I couldn't hear any noise in general. I do live with roommates but I do know that they weren't home. Someone was in my place, or someone was here at one point. I closed the door behind me and locked it. I have been sitting alone at my computer ever since. Someone was here. Someone was paying attention. I will have to be more vigilant. Someday, they will return and I will be ready. I will strike first, or maybe I will just welcome them and let them break my loneliness. Either way, someone noticed.

I think therefore I am. Individual thought being the definition for life, or is it the definition for existence? We can break every living thing down into cells. Cells are defined as the smallest unit, or form, of life. They reproduce, eat, adapt and die. They, however, do not have individual, quantified thought. Or do they? To think that we all are made up of these tiny little units of life. They all form us. Does that mean that possibly these cells do technically have individual thought? They form together and blast out this large that we all think, feel, or react to. Electrical pulses, chemical releases, we all feel them. So what happens the day that man creates life. What happens when we create something that transcends everything we know that defines life. Will we give it rights, treat it as equals? Will we enslave it thinking that since we are the creator we have the power to make this new form of life inferior?

We all succumb to our delinquencies eventually. I find it easier just to embrace my own. After 40 Hail Mary's and a flogging to match I find myself sitting in a shadowed room with a smile on my face. I accept the pain, the sin, the . I love it all too much. I accept the absence of good and evil for at this moment my body is relaxed and I have no worries. Then the climax. The feeling of euphoria married to guilt and shame. Such a swirl of emotions all bursting out of me at once and illustrated so perfectly on my lap. Just a mess that needs to be cleaned up. Once wiped away only a lasting memory and a phantom stain on my skin. Nothing that time can't wash away for me as it has many times before. Father time is such an old and dear friend I now welcome him instead of trying to outpace him. He is always allowed to sit at my table. He no longer has to pick at my scraps. I will serve him a four course meal and we can try to have a laugh. I know time is my enemy deep down but I so longingly want time to be my friend.