A small desert shack sits idle by the tracks with the dust and debris pounding hard on its rickety door and my fingers add their force, gritty hand on gritty wood, and the slab answers with a crack crack crack. No light but the soft sun that falls in through the spaces in the ceiling and the windows on the walls, and through the sandy air a few meek men shuffle their cards and crinkle their wrappers and I walk by their tired faces, sunken and beat by the harsh winds and realities that that they left out there in the dunes. A leather lady with needle bangs peeks from behind the counter, eyes shifting this and that, pupil reflections on the greasy countertop, and asks what I would like to order off the mildew madness signs that hang and sway ready to rip and fall, but the tape does its job and the burrito sounds alright. So a lanky dood with that same leather skin smiles up with his non teeth non smile and scratches my order on a pad with a pen that he points back over his shoulder to a paper in the wind grips, anchored by a tack and the ink that droops down all water logged and tattered. The sign offers two choices, I take a hit for a discount, or I toke for a buck. Discount sounds good and I’m handed a magic marker with a bowl at the end packed up with a single rip, carb on the left but no breather at the end and the guy motions to his lips and I see the blue stained tongue he offers out, so I take the hit through the marker end, smoke seeping through the felt, azure fumes taring my throat apart and I feel the unadulterated blues, heavy iris that sinks hard into my brows and I take off to the bathroom to collect myself and wash out my eyes.

No light in the bathroom, same as the shop. Water peers down the drain, soap does too, knobs turned to the fullest and the soap just keeps on dripping down the broken porcelain.

Cliffside, my elbows are locked behind me and I rest on my shoulders, watching the ocean move all slow and tired over a small, pearly beach. A man in a grey business suit runs past me, index finger giving a tug on his necktie like taffy as he leaps off the edge of the embankment. I watch him fall for a few seconds but turn away right before his head makes contact with a cluster of rocks.

The froth that crawls over tide pools picks up a pink hue that matches the clouds and his blood can be seen seeping between the bubbles as it’s strung back to sea, like yarn.

The ocean floor is makin’ it hard to walk when every footstep births a cloud of dust and debri that settles on my eyes, and I can’t see much farther than a few feet in front of me and a few feet above me, just the brown as it becomes black and the occasional outline of another person making the journey. I unpocket my phone and give Ryan a call, hoping he made it through the histeria and body overload back at that chromed-out bridge that stretched to the other world across the water. Sound moves in slow motion through the murk and I can hear Ryan’s voice penetrating it, but it’s unintelligible and piercing, like it’s been pancaked by all the the floating junk. Even though I can’t understand him, I feel okay that he can even answer, and then I see his face a ways away peeking through the haze, like one would a curtain, smiling.

I can see the cliffs making their way through the distortion of the water and a small path wrapping ‘round the side of them, up to the low glow nestled-in near the middle of the mountain that defines the shape of a few welcoming cottages and a dry place to sleep.

I walk up the cobblestone path, water running off my shoes and onto to the street, to the warmth coming from the fire where Alicia’s and others’ faces are smiling big. She hands me a tab of acid, I tear it in half, put it on my tongue, and answer to the surprised glances, “Well, there’s nothin’ to do but enjoy it.”

I kick through the creamy stall door and whip around to my right, with the pistol weighing heavy in my hand as I lift it up and place it gently on the forehead of the disheveled man crouching in the corner. I yell behind me, “Is this really necessary?”. My determination was at this point outweighing my qualms with killing this man, so I was ready to do it if I had the OK. I wasn’t gonna risk the world because of my own personal guilt, and he stared at me, knowing that, ready to take it, when the answer echoed over the stall walls, and I stepped back and didn’t fire.

A slab lowers from the cieling and I reach far back into the space left over, and nestled in dirt I find the fleshy, pink box that’ll save the world.

Hollow click-clacks poke and prod every surface underneath; wood, paper, flesh all take a beating. I swim through the top-most alcove of my bookcase, trying to avoid stabbing my eyes with the colored pencils that are falling down on me after every tiring stroke. The flow is never-ending.