(work in progress)

He walked in the forest, deep and quiet, leaving the wooden cabin. There his beauties remained, waiting to be claimed by the police. Dead marionettes whose spinal strings he'd cut buried in a furtive location. 1

Beside them was the motherless young fox, looking at him as soullessly as a reflection of himself. Torn from its mother, with a serial killer for a father, who he thought with enough contemplation he could understand himself. A mortal tombstone to reflect, waiting to die of its own disease. 2

But the realizations were vague--his soulless, cold steel eyes like a blade scraping too hard into the mirror, to only see it all shatter--and hungry for more blood to fuel epiphanies he left. 3

He entered the cabin, moved through the living room, into his room. Within was a miniature stage with marionettes strewn all about. 4

He turned on the sound system in the room, and Dave Mustaine sang, "You take a mortal man. . .And put him in control. . .Watch him become a God. . ."5

With his hands, he created their life. . .Strings like the cords of lives in his hands, movement and a plastic dance of mockery. All of these, mere actors upon a stage that had no lines of individuality to read whatsoever. 6

The song ended. . .and he cut the strings. God was finished here, and moved on to other disease--7

The virus slept, permeating in darkness, its cardboard tongue DNA streets neon-lit amidst pitter-patter storm. 8

Prometheus had been rising, long since the discovery of fire. Society teemed in closed-eyed actualities, as an open-eyed personality wandered in the termite hive. 9

The city slept and a pyromaniac was wide, irascibly awake. . .10

The buildings were alive. . .Had energies netted into them. They breathed the flesh and thoughts of termites. . .The federal ones had the haunting energies of bees that stung those who kept them from the honey of avarice, which they consumed and consumed. . .And so it was this building that most deserved predation, the hive that housed these ruiners. . .11

With the flick of a finger and the spilling of some oil did its flesh of amputated trees burn. Glorious destruction flashing on grey eyes. 12

Somewhere far away, the wailing of sirens--wolves howling at the moon of "crime," like the myth of the cheddar craters of Luna. 13

He was far, far away, however. . .Onto the highway, away from the virus, on one of its arteries. . .Its vena cava bleeding bloody great. . .14

The storm had cleared by now, and the stars shone above: valiant flares dazzling razor eyes. 15

It was near dawn when he finally returned to his reclusive cabin. Instead of entering into the cabin, however, he returned into the now-darkened forest without a single fear of dark. 16

He found the fox sleeping next to his other sleeping beauties.17

He searched within the pockets of his jeans, procuring a small baggie labeled as "medicinal cannabis" containing the reproductive buds of plant matter with crystalline covering like beautiful snow pornography. 18

He was a medical patient, and had been using marijuana long ago, as a juvenile. 19

He took out a blood-stained pipe, blackened and color-changed due to repeated use. Loading the cannabis in the bowl, he took a green (meekly seen in the light, other than when it was lit) bic lighter to it. 20

In the quietude of the forest, breath-in-and-breath-out, he had what were the most meditative moments of his entire life.21

Here, amongst the fox, he reflected and reflected. He tried desperately to understand the word Empathy. He tried so hard to understand the urges. 22

The cannabis helped precipitate a much greater mindstate for him. 23

One part of him wished to slit the fox's throat. Somewhere deep down he understood that that would be to kill these moments and their significance. 24

It would be only a matter of time before they found him. He knew this, and felt his time was fleeting. As much as he could muster, this spiritual side of himself--for as much of that as it was, any way--was one he spent every night with. 25

The urges out of the way, this was a time ripe with progress, but repugnant and verbose and intensive. It was at time frustrating. He would sometimes trip over himself. He would sometimes feel so hurt in himself that he could go on no longer, and would simply surrender himself to the rapturous bliss of cannabis. 26