A Naked Singularity

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My getting out or what?!

Eleven hours and Thirty-Three minutes since meridian said the clock perched high atop a ledge on the wall and positioned to look down on us all meaning we were well into hour seven of this particular battle between Good and Evil and, oh yeah, that was Good taking a terrific beating with the poultry-shaped ref looking intently at its eyes and asking if it wanted to continue. We were what passed for Good there: the three of us and anyone we stood beside when we rose to speak for the mute in that decaying room (10 °Centre Street’s AR-3); and in that place, at that moment, Evil had us surrounded.

The puppetmaster pulling strings from behind the bench was a bloated pink one on loan from the Bronx. The nameplate directly before him announced J. MANOS in calligraphic gold. Its owner and referent had decided no one would taste freedom that arctic night and had been slowly apprising us of that decision for the aforementioned seven-plus hours. And all that while he fostered this ugly habit of echoing the end of his sentences, but only after the kind of delay that fooled you into thinking you were in the clear, as in bail is set in the amount of ten thousand dollars… ten thousand dollars and often all emphatic(!) too.

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