Plurality

He lit it spill all over the floor.

"There," he said. "Finally, some water."

The concrete darkens where the water fell. The dust gets cleaned off.

Flies buzz around aimless trash. Some of it gets stuck, worn out and torn up on the metal fence. The wind pushes garbage and dust together until they become the same. Just a grey, greasy mess.

"Was it really worth spilling that much water?"

"To prove a point, I think so. I feel much better now."

"I'm happy you do."

There was still some water left, but the gamble may have paid off for now.

***

"Watch me. Watch me now, as I let this drip fall. Wash me. Wash me now as I let this siphon all that remains. Gather and regather your strength lost to the times but returned in ashes. Rather than before, your essence is purified once more. Lift up and rise again, oh spirit of the long dead."

The altar rises above the ground. Its reliefs have faded into simple and obscure shapes. But you can still see the chaotic imagery of some arcane and macabre worship.

He claimed to be an expert. Having studied it for years now. But even he seemed surprised when something took effect. The green oozing of a wispy ectoplasm coming out of the altar like a fountain.

"What is this?"

"What I've always longed for," he says.

A voice replies, "As have I."

***

Her hands hold the cup softly together with the tips of her fingers gingerly grasping it.

"It wasn't my idea, but the prerogative of the committee was always to reward its oldest members. You included, even in spite of your past trangressions committee has found ways to exclude it from your reports. Now, I would assume that this would offer enough benefit that you would feel convinced to resign on your own. But you've thus far failed to do so, and we want an amicable way of attaining that."

"You want an amicable way of getting rid of me?"

"Yes."

"For me to just abandon all the things I've worked for, all because we need to save face? After all the shit I've put up with..."

He doesn't look at her anymore. She's too scared to check. But she can feel his anger emanating.

"With all due respect, it wasn't my idea."

"Yeah? Well, go fuck whoever thought of it."

With that, he got up and left.

***

When he spoke to me for the last time, I didn't realize how much he had fought back to hide those tears. There was something he said that I can't remember now. It was muttered by him as he was leaving and the train was loud. But I feel I knew what it was. Some part of me understood him well that day, even if he didn't notice that.

He never told me how much time he had left. This limit he put on himself; I hadn't known anything about it. It was supposed to just be another day. But maybe that's what made it so special for him. That each and every ordinary day could be so spectacular in so many small ways. Maybe that was gift on its own. He wanted to appreciate it with me one last time.

I gave him that time. We sat together for a long time, asking each other questions we had always been too afraid to ask.

To this day, I wish I had asked him to stay.

***

Concrete walls surround the city. It's large exteriors have rain drip down from it in near perpetuity. If you drink from this cubic limestone rock, you'll taste something very bitter. It was completely abandoned some odd centuries ago. Yet its brooding presence remains unfazed by time. Remaining elegant as it stood as it has always stood.

I got lost in its gates and mazes many nights ago. I'm not sure how I got here, but at this point, I don't think I can escape. I have but bits and pieces of information about even why or what this place is.

From my best understanding, they were mostly built haphazardly with no regards or design. It was just waste. Pure necessitated waste that demanded an area. And so this was their best solution. Like someone took decades practicing how to build the same ominous wall over and over all over the place.

Until one day, something else led to something else, which led to everything stopping. The grass and foliage were allowed to grow back. The people left, but the life returned. Then somehow, I woke up and here I was.

***

"Radio. Turn on the radio."

The heavy plastic switch flips, and you can hear the electrical circuits whirr and buzz to life. Smaller metal toggles are turned on one by one with a satisfying click. Above each one is some sort of faded acronym. More sounds are made, and the needle starts moving. The antenna flings up on its own, and its aluminium sheen shines bright against the setting sun. It had a bent at the tip, though, and something seemed to be missing from it like it broke off.

Some tuning is needed. I grab one of the knobs and feel its grooved edge against my tired fingers. Some parts of it had been flattened out from its previous gripping power. I turn it until the white noise turns into some grainy melody. Eventually, I find something and narrow in on the numbers. The lights behind the radio flicker one more time to let me see them better.

"There, it's done", I tell him.

"Thank you."

He rolls over to his side and goes back to sleep. I dim the lights and sit on a chair across the room. It's comfy enough for me to doze off too.

***

I used to think about how easy it would be. So easy. Too easy.

The black vector aesthetic of streamlined edges and of corrupted visions of digital progress. The ascetics I've seen that corroborate it are linked followers. Each is a node. And each is node is capable of such wondrous things. So is told, but the root is all that matters unless it's always been a loop.

I accuse it of lying to me. There's something about it, and that's what makes it too easy even. A prolonged protraction of which the inevitable contraction results in an assumed rigidity of overtures. It's a liability, but one of which can be something velvet-like in its application. Estranged consumers would rather not betray their palettes though, so it remains to be seen if it can ever be effective.

Still, it would be sooooo easy.

***

A state of decay. Unpleasant aroma of rot and gangrene. The sounds of a thousand flies.

"Was this murder?"

The old man gives no response. He stares intently at the body. Naked flesh strewn across the floor like some macabre dance. Appendages laced with bandages, dangling and split in all different directions. Blood markers stained a deep crimson ink on the floor, seeping in between the floor boards. Black red syrup.

That stench grew more and more, viscous fluids releasing gases of fermentation and condemnation. A greater mercy comes from the burial it so deserved but never received. It was hard to be any closer.

"Yes. This was murder."

***

When the ships fell from the archaic sky, black rain danced in the fallen spectre. An acidic flavour that trips down your throat and expires you down to copper. Carbon and carbonic attitudes that flutter and trip the oesophagus like bondage. Utter calamity of five different degrees in astral inflammation and disease.

Paramount is the way in which we formulate the exhaustion sequence. Round trips of dances in dim rooms of burnt rubber fumes and liquor, liquorice and ice cubes. Take two or more and you're good to go for another few hours of triumphant elegance. Vectral anticipation of viral amalgamation.

***

I whispered in the dead body's ear.

"I've got you. I finally got you. You wretched fucking turd. Little worth and small-minded squeak. Your ignorance has cost you for the last time. I will never have to see you again. What remains of my life will be at peace, knowing you have met your deserved fate."

I prance around as the body lies naked but covered in translucent plastic covers. Blurry specks of blood and dirt and maybe other things. The ritual has begun, and I recite the rites as I go in feverish circles around the body. Each word summons something deeper from a dark place I haven't been to before.

Just then, the body awakes and screams out.

***

He comes walking backwards through the fires.

Five thousand. Five hundred. Fifty. Five.

The nameless and the breathless. Light and warmth extinguished.

Skin split gently along the seams. Go with him.

When the silence is at its peak, speak his name.

Burn until ashes. Let the smoke spread. Summon and open the eye.

Rejoice, for all is undone once more.

***

I found you there with peonies flowering around you.

You taught me to dance and fly. You took me across the oceans and into the stars.

The lights of yesterday wane now, faint illumination.

Concords of the bliss you sought are finally arriving.

Can chords of the rest you bought be idly surviving?

Something in two steps took three this time.

Maybe the strides of your gait break apart the ties of your gate.

Like there is anything about it that would concern you.

Since the only thing that is left for you now.

Is who I am to be.

***

The smell was unpleasant, like some meat gone foul over days out in the sun. The odour was so thick you could almost see it. Green methane hue.

I wish there were some breeze. The room had no window. Its mouldy walls peeled back and cracked.

"God, how long do you think it was waiting for us? How did it even get up here?"

"I don't know. I'm not shocked no one found out until now. Look at that, the room's festering."

That gagging sensation comes involuntarily. Feel my lunch come back with an acidic taste.

"Alright. Let's start the process then. Before the sun goes down."

***

Pensive pen in the sieve of Pennsylvania, someone from Romania is in a pending patent pertaining to personal matters. Pertinent to this was his pale partner partitioned by polemic police in parabolic penitentiaries. Perhaps the proctored problem was probable.

Something was amiss. Viral and visceral flu of violence flew all through the view and the floor of the vivarium's vivasected uvuvla. The vibrance of the vectorized Venn diagram of vehicular volition. Vain velocity towards the vuluptous Venusians.

Eerie too was the exceptional epitath entombed on the entrance of the enigmatic man's engraved grave. Excess was extreme and expected with excitement still to exasperate the exhausted. Extinguish the distinguished guests and erudites.

***

"Hey, how are you?"

"Good, good. It's been... too long, I think. Much too long. I know it wasn't easy the last few years. But I'm happy - I think you're in a good place now."

"Thank you, I appreciate hearing that."

"No-no, I'm serious. There were things I know I said before that maybe weren't good. You may know by now, it was about you. But understand it was because I was worried. Always."

"Yes, of course. I understand."

"Good, I'm glad. Now, let's get back to this party."

They leave back inside with a smile. All alone now, the other person spits at the ground.

***

"So I told him, no. I cannot just obfuscate this part of the equation and expect things to be equivocal. It's just insane. The sort of calculations we'd need to put in, it's far too complex and unwieldy. Sure, the irrational values can be proved inductively, but I hardly find such geometric patterns to be useful in topological situations. Too many times have I seen such a fault anti-pattern at play, messing things up. So I told him, no, it can't and shouldn't be done."