Pulsing forward in semaphore script, I can see scattered code amidst the lights just beyond those walls out there. And they’re calling in the guard that’s coming down out of the skies in their stealth and stammer, unfurling banners and dropping rope ladders for the citizenry.

And I’m watching it from my window, having just awoken from my nap at dusk, the orange light arranging itself in shafts on my wall as it marches in through the iron frames, and the music is building steady waves of choruses, over and over and over and—

In the breakdown the cover’s ripped off and I can see the stark steel skeleton framework, and I hear someone say “this is good, we can do something with this … ”

So I stand still and continue observing the academics marching to the mess, while I stay behind and drink my tea, watching the brilliant blue crackling sky come pouring up and out of the horizon towards me, the autos skidding on capillaries below my window, the lights flipping on and dancing diagonally towards me, shuttling before me from north to south, and down the hill and under the bridge, across the river into further winter darkness.

And the orange veins in the clouds pulse ever on. She couldn’t take it, I figure, she went away—so you cry and cry … no mistaking, you can hear the sirens, I can hear them still in the wake of years, whining and crying out in troubling tones while the string section builds in thirds, towards a halfhearted collapse …

And I lie back down … forget eating … close my window so I can’t hear the cars anymore … they pitter patter away home.