"...the sky was sporting lenticular clouds, wispy streams of condensed air, azure undergarments, and other pieces of transitory clothing that hid its true body from the terrestrial-bound peepers. The moon was visible in the corner of the sky. It resembled a milky and luminous toenail. Inside the painting the sky had made, birds were roaming. The secret language they hid behind the art of the flap was only recognizable to the grand painter, the sky itself. The terrestrial-bound peepers weren’t privy to the language of the birds. But nobody cared anyways. The terrestrial-bound thought they were strictly subject to the laws of the terrestrial. They thought gravity ruled the roost, even though it was only one facet of an epic creation ongoing. The terrestrial-bound loved their illusions, their clocks, their budding but never fruit-bearing dreams, their jobs, their toils and troubles, and their worries concerning the inevitability of death. Little did they know, all these things kept them from entering the sky painting, and the perpetual festivities of the gods and goddesses.
On this very day, a lanky man named Boris procured a new radio. The thing was ushered into the bazaar like it was powerful deity. Everybody gathered around. Boris turned the dial, pushed passed dead channels of sonic spume, and put on the news. The news was unequivocally grim. The bodies were really piling up. Such mayhem. Bio-terrorism, religious fanaticism, the science of excessive and unnecessary violence…all the pieces were splayed out on the ominous chessboard of warfare. Journalists were dropping like flies. Some had to pick up guns just to defend themselves from roving bands of militants. Stuff was getting crazy. Too crazy.
Johnny wanted nothing to do with the radio worship. In his humble opinion, the radio was manufactured to harness the ominous messages of evil empires. The news was a type of “mind pollutant,” an external broadcast that turned into a neurotoxin when blindly accepted by the populace. The neurotoxin wouldn’t kill the populace, of course. It would simply keep the populace asleep. It would deaden the neurotransmitters of the imagination, the synapses of salvation. Nothing good could come from it.
Around midday, the news broadcast had faded into the background due to the hustle and bustle of the bazaar. But it was still there. It became like a subliminal code of doom. Boris would occasionally shake his head in dismay upon hearing about the death toll mounting. He became angry about the world beyond the horizon, the world turning into rubble. “I wish to do something about this,” he said only occasionally. “I want to help out all the poor souls.” When he wasn’t saying anything, Boris anchored the anger that welled up inside of him to his heart and helped customers when the opportunity arose to do so. He felt the pain of the world on the brink of total chaos, dissolution, and decimation.
Night came quickly. The stars appeared behind a veil of clouds. Johnny took the two hundred dollars out of his shoe and analyzed it. Boredom had set in. The day was inauspicious. No inquisitive customers led to no money gained. Johnny put the money back in his shoe, packed up his bottles and perfumed paper, and set off to leave the bazaar. Just as he was about to leave the bazaar, Johnny accidentally bumped into a darkened form. The form smelled like cinnamon and fragrant flowers. “Sorry,” Johnny said. “I should watch where I am going.” The darkened form said nothing. However, the form gently smiled. The teeth were luminous and clean.
Upon exiting the bazaar, Johnny entered a nameless corridor in the labyrinthine city made of countless corridors that never ended or waned. The toenail moon was out. People blocks away were laughing about something a dog was barking about. Johnny brushed passed a couple having unprotected sex. When he turned around to catch sight of them again, he realized they weren’t even there in the first place. “What hallucinations the city holds,” Johnny muttered to himself. While he muttered to himself, the people continued laughing. The city, like a projection unit set on repeat, continued on with its cyclical dream, its expansive movie of strange imaginings and happenings and everything in between."
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