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Stigma.

Open the newspaper. The Fall Festival is here. What an oddly wholesome event for an unfortunately unwholesome town. A maze in the sunflowers, you like getting lost. You want to meet people in this crooked burg don't you? There was the young pub lad not too long ago, maybe there are others that are decent. Get dressed, try and appear friendly. That's difficult. Put on some plaid, polish your aching nails, perhaps straighten your hair. Lift it to your head and PAIN. Broken, one half hasn't closed and presses against your forehead. A burn mark lies there, above the patch. Another thing to stare at eh? What a bum deal. Walk out your apartment door, past the cockroaches. Walk out of the building door, past the rats. Walk there, why not? The weather is tolerable, not terribly grey, and the only exercise you ever get is from lifting patients. A newspaper stand advertises war. The stand's owner smiles as busy pedestrians flood him with cheap nickels. Enabler. Closer to the fest...
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Fitness.

Powerless. Well, Anna, you are in many ways powerless but specifically you have no power in your apartment. One could say it was caused by the storm but the wire to the building was cut clean in half, not knocked down like it would from a falling limb. Odd. Don't think now. Leave now. Leave the building because outside there is sun, however grey its light can be. There, as it always is, is the fountain. "Soon you all shall see!" yells one of the cultists form their police designated fountain zone roughly 10 meters from the pitiful structure that vomits stagnant water. Most days there are only one or two in the zone, but today would appear to be almost a holiday for the cooks. Fifteen this morning. At least. And then another, not a cultist. Not in the silver tunic or with the gel-plastic masks. A green corduroy set of trousers with a ruffled and yellowed shirt and suspenders. Young but with thinning hair. He's the barman's boy, seen him on the odd break of sobrie...
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Rotation.

The day starts with the fan. That fan. That damned fan. Every morning, as the sun rises to taunt you and the city births a new track of noise, that fan is there. A reminder that you are still here. That a brighter life has not emerged from the ether overnight. You are here, in this rotting stomach of an apartment, in this mad cow of a town. I apologize for such imagery, the mind gets dark. The day gets dark. Storm clouds are forming above. A tree falls. A siren erupts. Lightning erupts. Open the eye on the soft paisley of the peeling wallpaper. Pinned haphazardly to the wall are a few photographs from days gone by. The waterfall near my childhood home, my brother Sinclair posing in front of his auto, me looking out over the Appalachian Mountains. Better times than today. Sit up. Look to the nightstand and see an ember still burning. You could have died lat night, how blind are you? Pretty blind, actually, I am rather blind. Put on the eyepatch. Quit smoking. Well, grab the butt and tak...
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