'Epilogue / Prologue'

.. But I am too old, I said to myself as accompanying back-mind whispers splintered into a variety of stray sounds - it was all gradually amalgamating within minutes; contents of white-noise, a talk-show, explosions and gunfire. Then it was no more. A vacuum to still myself, I had made in surprise. In the following silence, all animated and inanimated yielded their immense detail (in the same fashion that rain shows you writing, that lightning gives you codes). You stood with a creased expression, and that was all. Where you were, it was too dark for me to make anything of. And as I turned to the world beyond the window panes, a view of a lost boy making his way to Anywhere caught me: a prince with a well worn umbrella - clutched in a fierce grip, eyes mad with red and tears, his stature hunched in his brisk walk. Poor boy I remarked to myself.

Poor thing you said as you approached me and I turned back to face you. You reached out your hand, and I let you touch my face. I led you to touch my face. It is a face with age I said in my head and you shook yours. I stared into your eyes, with these thoughts; my secret whispers: I used to be lightning, I used to have wings - and then, you cried. You cried and sat. From your seat, you gave me these words:

"It was a world I had left asunder this noon. And fortunately; or sometimes sadly, I leave, all the time."

I nodded.

"I do that too. Sometimes. I'm sorry," I replied.

In that instance, morning became night; her seat, where she was - empty.

He felt as though a form of screen-radiation had been at his eyes, now raw, but he knew (though it was with uncertainty:) that that did not happen. It was the Mobius strip dying; being born again, and now he would run through the similars; the steps in which cause and effect were tailored specifically for him: his own Grand Design.

No mistakes would ever be made - You would need choices for that to happen.

He stepped out from the diner then, giving his grayish coat a collar-tug before burying his hands into his pockets. He looked up at the swaying trees and then at the half crescent moon - in a way inwardly disquiet and outwardly: lunatic-calm. He felt the caress of random light winds and distant song: the one only heard this time of year, a song for comprehension: acceptance; one for obscurity.

While descending a flight of stairs, a small case catches his attention. He passes a sweeper-woman making her way up with a broom. Just then, as she picks up the object with her older curiosity, something tugs at his heart - he turns and claims it. He takes it from her wrinkled hands - a careful and seemingly owning reception, that she doesn't think twice to hand it over, and then, he continues walking in the direction of the music, examining its contents having taken twenty steps or so from the place.

He opens it to find a slight displacement of cigarettes.

And then, he goes on to juxtapose them...

( _")