Day 8—All This World Falls Away

It was visible all over. Undying apathy. From the tiny trees tentatively cracking up through the concrete to the garbage trucks and landfills and upper crust high-rises. The sinister cloud rode powerfully in, guiding everyone’s activity. Drivers became especially distracted, average citizens felt sleepy and unaware. The ritual blindness saddened and mellowed. Lovers slowed down, down to find their consciousness turned inward and distance between each other. Church bells sounded, but it was a Wednesday and they fell on deafer ears than usual.

All these things of the city have ebb and flow, even the most monstrously banal. And among these cracks and crags of apathy walked the forgotten. The transients, the sex workers, the runaways. Who needs a zombie movie when you have drugs, smartphones and the daily lulls. A man stands by his open window doing the same masturbatory ritual he does every day. Children fall off the monkey bars and scrape their elbows.

And so the sun’s rays disabled the people more, and they were increasingly prevented from breaking out of their shallow sleepwalking. The time was tight and the time was tired. And no citizen was spared. Only within the everyday music did people take courage in creating, but most were unconscious. Last night’s party revelers were dragging home. Unwieldy and sick, their privilege oozed out via toxins. A lone woman does yoga in the park while her dog rests. 3 teenagers fight for drugs and the two walk away with the stash while the other one lies punched out. The elderly Roma fortuneteller shivers in her front room because she forgot to make a few phonecalls this month and her heating got turned off. “Bag of bones, bag of bones.”

Use your words to remember it in mockery, for those are your true feelings, and they should be honored. Tell not merciful and social things to your neighbor if you do not love him. Love thyself and take out thy own garbage first.