Wednesday, July 1, 2009

South quadrant, third level, Section139


In this building, in the basement, is a cadre of thugs, planning the kidnapping of the Haitian ambassador's daughter. They are smoking cheap cardboard cigars and making margaritas.

On the first floor lives a small lonely brown dragon. He broke his wing against an antenna, when he got turned around in the fog, and has been surviving on rats and possums while it heals. The security staff has been leaving it the occasional sandwich as well, and is trying to sell it's picture to Perez Hilton.

The second floor is for lost children.

The third floor is for clandestine coke deals in tinted Buicks. They also manufacture fake nikes using stolen Filipinos. The denizens of this floor are looked down upon by the Haitian thugs, who wish the neighborhood wasn't going to such shit.

The fourth floor is not your friend.

On the fifth floor, in the center of the parking pillars, is a very old tree who's branches wrap around the reinforced steel and concrete like poisonous vines into the bricks of a house. The tree smells like licorice, and bleeds silver sap which pools on the floor like tiny mercury fish. The fish shiver and sliver their bodies into the cracks of the building, where they glow incandescent as the cells of their bodies multiply, divide, and fall away. They are seeding the electrical wires. On the branches of the tree grow golden apples, heavy and rich. They roll easily into crowds. Once picked, they will not rot for at least 20 years, but once they hit thirty, they instantly become moldy black piles of sewage inside, though they may keep their golden glow for another 100 years.

The 6th Floor is for aspiring photographers and latent republicans.

The 7th Floor promises a lot more than it offers.

On the roof, once you have climbed the well lit, incredibly empty stairways and emerged into the starless city night, there is a large computer with a steady blinking light. This computer has been waiting for you. It smells you as you approach, and hums happily, its screen flashing electric joy. You stand in front of it, and its insides can barely take the proximity, as all its wiring and fans and chips vibrate violently. You touch it, and it explodes into a million tiny contented pieces.

2 comments:

  1. Bravo, Bridget. Love it, absolutely. I love the apples that turn to sewage at 30. Love the overly-ok-computer.

    ReplyDelete

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