12b.

Pablo loved admiring the black chickens as they ran around his feet in the evenings. They blended in with the black asphalt of the city streets, and the moon made their plumage glimmer like a night time lake. He felt as if he were walking on water, a steady sea of feathers extending in every direction, the occasional sharp claw pattering across his bare feet, the occasional beak caught in the skin of his calves.

He thought of rats. He thought of cockroaches skittering across sub-tropical alleyways, a clacky-clack sound like clocks, like machinery. He thought of the worst kinds of vermin, caked black and gleaming of filth, always emerging in the high-contrast portrait of night-time to break the darkness with their shine. Seas of cucarachas, seas of lao-shu.

He thought of black marbles, spilt, rolling across the carpet, of Maria's voice seeping through the walls, of the fear he felt when he knew that Maria would see the mess he had made. Of black dress shoes scraping around on the floor of a dance hall, and a young Pablo sitting cross-legged amidst the feet, too utterly afraid to stand, and too utterly trapped in the jungle of legs to be alone.

1, 2, 3,

, and with all of his strength, kicked his own leg forward, and heard one loud squawk of pain from one particularly large chicken, and his joy at seeing the trembling bird scurry about, bruised, bumping and pecking his comrades.

1, 2, 3,

, and a fine dinner he and his mother would soon enjoy.

longing to escape...

I want to be beautiful, but my mind...!

My mind and my ego, should they be the same? They couldn't be more disparate, and this is a cry for help. The masses, the sheep, where do their minds lead them? They are not led by their minds, their own ambitions or dreams; they are led by the shepherds.

And the good shepherds... where do their minds lead them? Are they not, like I am, but a slave to the all-powerful coersion of the mind's directive? The will stands such little chance.

I want to be everything, for you, but in the final analysis I am nothing, and whatever I might have wished is of little consequence.

the forgotten sense

The street light above flickered a little, but it hardly made a difference with the full moon shining with enough intensity to illuminate even the farthest recesses of this famously dark alley. I was leaning against a wall smoking a cigarette, one foot flush against the brick with my knee jutting out in front of me.

A tall man with a very sharply fitting-trenchcoat and a broad jawline suddenly came through the door just to my left. My back arched slightly, and a slight jet of adrenaline pumped through my body. Naturally, I didn't want to be seen in this place, and at this hour...! When he appeared he was facing away from me, and I thought for a moment with a sigh of relief that he wouldn't take notice of me at all. However, just as he took his first couple steps down the street leading away from me and into more welcoming quarters, he spun around quickly, as though he had been planning to do so at that moment, and looked directly at me. He spoke while he was still approaching, rearing up glaring down at me about a foot from my face.

"What are you?"

I wasn't sure what to make of this question: "I'm sorry?"

"You have to know what you are not. You will not experience any sense of joy, accomplishment, or connection with other people as long as you fail to realize this."

I ignored him, shaking my head. I just wanted to be left alone. That seems to be an impossible feat in this city, even in those narrow streets and back alleys that would seem specifically made for lonely people to wallow in their remorse and cathartic self-pity.

He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me vigorously. I could feel pain shoot through the back of my neck and my eyes watered a little. I guessed I was here at this moment for a reason, so I didn't make any action whatsoever to fight back or even to defend myself.

"What do you want?" he asked.

Images of everything, images of nothing flashed through my mind. People I've met. Material things. Dreams, journeys, and real emotions, all things that I once knew. There were a lot of things that I wanted, I realized. However, when I tried to answer his question, no single thing, not even a random selection from the infinite list of desired things that I had formed in my mind almost as a reflex, could be uttered. Indeed, all of my powerful desires were stirred into a concoction of filthy grey soup, like the puddle in front of us along the curb left over by the rain of earlier this evening. Mostly I wanted to be left alone.

"Leave me alone. Who the fuck are you, anyway?"

Just then, I realized that I lacked a desire to hear the answer to that question. What was I doing here with this man? Did I, or did I not want to learn his identity? I could feel the weight of my desires descend upon me, as though the Earth had suddenly swelled in mass and the gravity coefficient had increased proportionately.

Before another moment had passed, I turned away from the man and ran down the street without looking back. I sprinted until my mind was clear. I sprinted until I felt my heart would explode. I sprinted until I saw the sky fading from black to the grey of a crisp pre-dawn, and sensed the indiscriminate warming blanket of the sun fluttering down on all things, living and non-living, anything with a surface. I tumbled into the dewy chill of a small patch of grass between the north- and southbound lanes of a major boulevard.

I realized at that moment that I, too, had a surface, and all at once I was freed from desire.