She slides a warm venom arm around his waist as he falls forward. Falls like bomb shell, screaming-whistle through quiet-time air. Giggles as he explodes, amusedly dusts the rising clouds from his back. No movement. Quiet town. Quiet again. Frown tips her quivering lips flesh. Bend down crouch cautiously peer uncertainly into foamy moist eyes. Davie. She shakes him. Davie! She shakes him. Sigh. Stands, slow liquid shifts towards dented Cadillac fender. Stars rising distant-like in an old-time-movie sky, all crisp yellow and faded around the edges.

Davie floats at the edge of a Hell, a little past insecurity, a bit distant from fear. Legs feel all drippy, can't feel the blood flow anymore. Wonders if he is blind. All he sees before him and behind him and to either side of him is runny-milky-white goo. A something gently touches his shoulder and he rolls a few feet before crashing to a full-backwards stop against an intrusive rough surface. Cricket-whisper slips into his ear, builds in his gray cheeks and formulates into a sigh on his tongue. New vision. Milky-white wipes to gray reflection of cheeks fades to emaciated skeleton skyscrapers interwoven with putrid scent of hot dog and death. Crimson skies encompass.

Davie quivers with a passing stale wind, pulls empty air into fire-lungs. Curled in vulnerable fetus ball, he touches soft face for reassurance. Sudden wave of cold nausea washes his hands and feet, and he dispels his innards on the littered pavement before shakily lifting his frame.

Great glass structures resembling painstakingly detailed erect phalluses sprout from the ground beside where he has emptied himself. Hovering blank men with set jaws and hairless faces, pressed suits and weather-worn briefcases float around him, in and out of glass, up down, through each other.

He taps a man on the shoulder and is slapped in response. Trips on gaping sidewalk crack and bumps into building, slight tremor and spinning sensation shifting his bones and face muscles. "Zane," says the man and spits in his face. Turns, drifts back into conformity.

Frightened Davie wipes himself clean with trembling fingers, touches another man with same face and response. Taste of honey fills his mouth. He slips quietly as mime into crowd, blending and floatwalking till he is not.

White stumps of plastered buildings. Women screeching from rooftops and shattered windows, screeches like dying cats being impaled on rusty nails. Gun smoke on the southern horizon.

Johnny feels on the floor for a match, lights it with his teeth. Touches to his finger and begins to inhale with erotic satisfaction. Alls he got left is a thumb two pinkies (one of which he is inhaling) and a coupla toes. Laughs and proclaims ostentatiously that he plans to smoke 'em all before sunset. "Far better than FAGS." They all grow back within a week, and it starts again. Lives in the moment, forgets in the hour.

Davie grins and chews on a piece of glass, spitting out shards occasionally. "Wots say we go scavenging on Beckman's and borrow up some pay-waste?" He's not-been for a month.

They stalk down unlit streets, bypassing the whores with their assortment of toys and junkies with frozen needles and mushy wet faces. This is the far side of town. Sun only shines for an hour a day and burns the civilians sprawled across the cracking streets in unmeditated siesta. Resuscitate to hot blistering faces and sunny-side-up egg eyes.

Black man carves messages into his naked flesh with razors and dirty needles, a diary of sorts which fades in a few hours. Computers are outdated, human flesh is the chic bit. New stream-of-consciousness prophesies on the hour. The word ZANE is tattooed in garish gold lettering across his back.

Another man throws sharp metal stakes at his wife, impaling her against a plaster building. She moans in delight and withdrawals the staves, throw back at him with girlish giggle. Catches him direct in the eye.

Davie climbs a trash heap, stands up still and straight on top nostrils flared out in superior triumph. Music whistles in from all sides, clashing and undulating perversely in discordant notes. Johnny pulls on a musty disposed bandanna and plays cops'n'robbers with the shadows, kick-boxing them clear across the night sky alive with the buzz and rattle of bugs and helicopters.

Other shapes move in distant refuse piles, hunting scraps of metal and shredded glass to be auctioned in Market tomorrow. Money is used to buy junk and sex and time in order to go scavaging again and get money to buy more junk and sex and time. Vicious cycle.

J pick up rusty bedpost between his blackened palms, throw hard at D. One hand catch and topple down the hill backwards, laughing and shrieking like old woman. J grin and kick hard in the stomach when D come crawling round. D punch in groin and J fall hard on old fence-iron, head splatter in slo-mo. Brains ooze out, dim gray matter feel for the crumbling ground. Johnny slump like rag-lady post push in harder and spit out an eye with audible POP.

Movement from the right, Davie looks up into illuminated green orbs. Grin flash beneath the orbs and D is on his feet and tripping through wasteland zig-zagging like pursued rabbit. Toe hits lump and his face smacks against an alcohol bottle. Wavers dreamlike, looks sluggishly around with bloodshot eyes. Nothing. Detached sirens. Music swelling bruises.

"Dog." Word hits him with a flash and sharp pop like eye only louder. Falls forward. Falls like bombshell, screaming-whistle through thick air of wailing sirens and pops. Clouds rise. Bloated caked plaster fades to Johnny-gray-brain wipes to white pistol-smoke puffs.

Soft hum in his ears. Cadillac fender seems to shimmer, glinting and reflecting the headlights of the police car in the dents. Tell-all in a nothing-world. So much and so little hide in that dazzle.

Davie tries to move his face to see the lights from other angles. Finds he is frozen to dust. Ashes.

Policeman and girl shift into view. Look him over and shake heads sadly. Cop clicks his tongue.

The lights are switched off and the world transfers into focus again. Someone pushes a button. Davie sighs and stares at the stars as they stream through the sky on fast-forward. Rush hour in heaven.

© 1997, Barbara C.B. Steele