Quest for Sex, Truth & Reality

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“What is real?” he wondered aloud.

Then Smith heard the words: Revere me. Make me real. Not his words, but a muffled hiss, like someone whispering on the other side of the wall…

The wall was nightmare: tremoring flesh, skin sweating in turmoil, pain, despair. So I’m dreaming standing up now, Smith thought. Wide awake, in daylight.

Flecks of mica glittered up from the sidewalk. The sun raged. Old man, he thought. City cops cruised by, eyeing him, squab faces dark behind tinted glass. “Frog, Ice, Cokesmoke?” a hand-pocketed black man asked him. By a newspaper stand, where headlines blared MAN SETS WIFE & CHILDREN ON FIRE, a raddled prostitute twitched, scratching at needlemarks inside of her thigh. In the mouth of a brick, urine-soaked alley, a woman in rags vomited up blood as rats the size of small puppies boldly approached the emesis, to eat.

Smith hated the sun. It seemed bright with life, which made him feel even older, more depleted. Where am I going? The question didn’t mean now, today, this minute. Where am I going forever? he wondered. Where have I been?

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