too-shawnt

Just remember, there are no ghosts, save perhaps those which lurk silently with hollow eyes in the catacombs of your own subconscious.

All street scenes are essentially the same

Among a murky mid September night, I was found wandering amongst the old rowhomes and storefronts of a landlocked neighborhood tucked between the slurry East River and the white toothed maw of the slowly cooling Atlantic. Passing cracked windows, my worn shoes kicking up spent newspaper, I alighted briefly in an old doorway to an unopened burnt out and abandoned bakery. The entry was sealed shut by hard wrought iron bars imperceptibly blossoming into rust. From somewhere in a backroom a single bulb burned, casting long thick shadows ‘round corners, against counters. There was no noise, not of footsteps or hammers, only the light rustle loose cellophane strips make in a breeze.

sic transit gloria mundi or: collective nouns

finally all arrived. don't worry, this won't be too long now. i've always felt slightly transient, wandering out of utter randomness from against the storms and the shoals, whatever shoals are anymore. is it a spit of sand, or a wild and glittering catch of fish? i dunno, just ask orson. the roof of my mouth, it's all scratched and burnt. i'll be quick about all this though. i said it had to be. that tide we lucked out on, well it's roaring back with a vengeance and i guess it's ready to swallow up whatever old island we've been left to cling to. abandoning our park lives to the rats and the idle glance of stone-faced denizens, it's all so derivative; what measure does that notch up for you? it's all just some poisonous slime to consider and condescend. but we'll be bombed off the map by bedtime, dear. atlas can just scratch us off his burden like the scabby old blight we've a little to quickly become. i've turned in on myself, but turned into something else. no time left for regrets though. we've just boiled up some tea. and i've one of those fancy stack like trays all covered with strumpety things and those thin white sandwiches what have the crusts cut off from them. fresh strawberries too. ripe but not overripe, when they develop those maroon spots right before the rot sets in.

the 'x' on my keyboard sticks. i use it far more often than i would have imagined. an abomination of bishops. i awoke kindly and still sleepy in an entirely empty and infinitely claustrophobic room. my legs didn't work, or maybe i willed them to never work again. i still see your sister. i see the two of you laughing in tandem with the same shaped mouths and the corresponding crooked teeth.

all in? you bet, kiddo. and away we go...