The old man said "Son, they’re before and behind you. Astride and above you. Pay them no heed and they will take you! Oh, and you shall suffer!"

I ignored him. He was old, but not wise. You can just tell these things.

Fuck him anyway. People are never as interesting as you hope. I could talk to him… Gimme five minutes; I’ll have his entire personality nailed down.

The subways are dirtier in new york.

I just visited washington (you know, DC, not the state). Their subways are pristine and slick. It’s more disney world than a city. At least near the government buildings.

The man wasn’t wise, but he knew things. Maybe he was preaching about them, or maybe about demons that only exist in closets and crap like that. None of my concern.

I like downtown, near wall street. So many stuffed shirts – no confusion. Just work lunch work.

Once I worked, but not here. Now, how could I? I know what the crazy subway people couldn’t handle. Them! They hark of the greatest atrocities and dangers anywhere! Not here.

Here is everywhere. Where you are. Where I am. There really is nowhere else, but why believe that?

They are everywhere. Not the fucking tunnel people. Them. They don’t even have a name, and tunnel people are just that; I speak of something much worse. You do not, for I haven’t told you.

You’re trying to think. "What the hell is he talking about?"

I’m talking about an empty glass.

Santa, dried and crusty with no snowstorm – a cracked dome.

A wolf biting off the phallus of her mate.

The vacuum of space, filled only with your own puss blood and fat, oozing out your mouth but you can’t see it because your eyes have burst and your lungs are filled with bloody mucus cause you forgot to exhale and your toenails flip up allowing the muscle below to excrete forth to join the contents of your bladder and intestines to now float forever in emptiness -- the only testament to your existence.

Only worse.

When I was in DC, we took a tour of the pentagon. Inside are pictures of all the great men and women to have served this country. Models of ships and submarines. Offices of people who would decide when to launch. All I remember from that place is the painting of Colonel Spatz. (And I don’t even know what the hell he looked like – there’s patriotism for you).

End.

The rest is irrelevant anyway. We all die, with the name of Colonel Spaz on our tongues. 


				SMR 1998.05.11