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I ate some cake last night that tasted like cigarettes

I dubbed it an ashen dump cake

Even though it was supposed to be lemon

It reminded me of a church cavern

One with green carpeting and porcelain statues of bleeding saints and such

And there was that tall priest who enjoyed drinking cola and smoking cigarettes

Maybe he made the cake

I don’t know, my brains are like raw meat, and I have suddenly decided that I don’t have a personality, and I need to invent one, quickly, so that I can mesh with society and be a well-adjusted human being who participates in the wonders of life.

What were they laughing about? Those two women in the cafeteria with the glass walls and beams of orange-colored wood. The view outside was of a late-summer forest eager to change its skin. I had a plastic tray with a little carton of milk and a hot dog with only ketchup on a paper plate beside a small mountain of plain potato chips. The sound of the gong boomed through the hall, a deep vibrato that could be felt in one’s guts. The women exchanged whispers between glances at me. I found an empty table and sat down alone. The chair made a noise when I pulled it out. Everyone there stopped what they were doing and stared at me. I was horribly embarrassed, but for what, I did not fully understand. Maybe it was my weird hair or unfashionable clothing. One of the women stood up and walked over to me. She handed me a piece of paper and then went back to her table. I opened the note, and it read: You should kill yourself.

The cafeteria was suddenly empty and void of any sound. The wall of glass was still there. The ornate beams of orange-colored wood were still there. The tables and the chairs remained, but there were no longer any people. I stood up and said aloud, “Hello…” I went to the windows and looked out at the forest. It looked like winter has caressed it. Leafless limbs of crooked black scratched at the cold blue sky. I went to an emergency exit door and pushed on it. An alarm sounded. I stepped outside into the cold, but I did not feel chilled. The door closed. The alarm went silent. I stood on a patio of geometric flagstones painted the color of spit. A wide swath of neatly clipped lawn encompassed the space between the patio and the edge of the forest. Voices came from there along the misfit mist. I could not understand them. Did I want to?  Paper love notes then fell from the sky. I suddenly turned around and looked back at the building. People. Different kinds of people. And they were pressed up against the windows and watching me. They didn’t seem alive, but they didn’t seem dead. Was it all a dream?

And then there I was, an escape artist with a tattoo of a blue skeleton and I sat on a dark brown wooden bench in a marbled train station deep in the big, big city and I listened to the announcements: Atlanta, Baltimore, Albuquerque…

I recall the memory of a weird man I once knew who was obsessed with Albuquerque. He was hip and super fresh and had a lover by the name of Moonbeam. They lived together in the Nob Hill area and often enjoyed a few brews at the pub with friends, or bros. Why was I thinking about him? Why was I thinking about such an inconsequential being that had entered my field of vision in the arena of life? Snow globes suddenly came to mind, and I wanted to live inside one. I wanted to be lost in the watery snowfall and live in a quaint Norwegian reindeer house on Claus Island and everything in life would be perfect and there would be no human stains to ruin it…

I woke up at my desk and nearly knocked over an open bottle of hot sauce. The plate beside me had food residue on it. I ate dinner alone again inside a locked room with the curtains drawn and all the sound turned down. The world outside is a chaotic disaster right now. Everyone has gone crazy. The ghosts are hiding. The devils are cowering. For the inhumane insane have become both.

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