Work In Progress

He wore a suit and dark sunglasses, espying the subway with briefcase in black-gloved hand. He was here for the Hiders, the ones whose time it was to go, who stayed attached to this mortal coil despite their necessitation to leave it. 1

Surrounding him was a world of mirrors and costumes, games and plastic. Chess and checkers, kings and queens; the quaint pleasures and the small things that kept people attached to the ever-persistent dream of their consensual reality.2

Any one of these masks in the ancient gallery could be on the list within the suitcase. It dangled to and fro as the suited man gained composure, secretly watching behind those sunglasses. 3

He boarded the subway, quickly and surely, and was off deeper into the city. The nexus-one's new eyes, hidden behind their mirrored lenses, marveled at the man-made jungle the flesh-one had built for themselves. The little rituals which seemed to keep them alive, keep them going, little machines with their sub-routines (which was so quaint, even strange to a heretofore bodiless entity). 4

A ticket-marker for the mega conglo-corp stood above the suited man's head as he left the subway tunnel and emerged into the neon-lit hedon-cerebral core of the jungle, dense with lights like leaves and differing species of buildings. There were few signs others than those talking of the "Mega Conglomeration Corporation" --the next-seeming Reich that never was for the Disunited States of America---at its slaughterous play of business.5

It's why businessmen wear ties, the suited man thought. Noosing. He walked off the main street and down a minor artery of it, espying a hotel in the distance. He strode in, credit card ready to pay. He secretly knew nothing of fixed finance rates or percentage growths, for this was not his world. . . But he heard the whispers of his brethren, fleshlessly secreted in the flesh-ones' machines, making them run. He listened, and thus got the idea of what to do.6

"Thank you Mr. Nearple," said the hotel's cashier, handing him the key to room 55. 7

He was merely an emissary of destruction for the deserving unlocking a deserved den of rest. 8

The card flung out, and the green light blinked confirmation. He pushed the door and stepped in, flinging the suitcase in an occasioned way on top of the table. He quickly drew down the shades, phone book spread eagle open on the bed as he leaned over, searching through data for the names he knew needed exorcising. . .9

In his sleep, he roamed the prairie as a not-so-lone coyote, who, with the help of a snake, was able to obtain his prey. The snakes' tongue spoke Do not forsake me in your time of need.