This City

Marrow, Extracted

1.
    The limbs are on fire with the heat of a hundred million imploding suns. The muscles feel as though they are gripped tightly by vices, or perhaps by the hands of a giant, fingers meaty and thick, his primitive brain not comprehending how tremendously powerful he really is. The head is being ripped open with a hacksaw, blood and brain matter oozing out all over the cannibal committing the act. We are all pain, manifest.

2.
    The hellspawn are chasing me. I lead the pack, the alpha male, a massive wooden target strapped to my back, slowing me down. Ostensibly, someone is in control here. Ostensibly, there is order and peace. Ostensibly. There is nothing in this world or any other that could control us now.

    The hellspawn are right behind me, and they decide that they won’t wait any longer. Their ashen tendrils lift off the ground and eviscerate the target. Their claws dig into my back. I shake them off and start to run. What else is there in this world if not competition?

3.
    My mother once told me:

    “There is one safe place in every hostile land. Bury yourself in the swamps of Cambodia and breathe softly through a reed. Hide in a kind man’s basement as the Germans murder your people. Death itself is just an oasis in the ocean of life. If you must, cut the skin of another man and wear it as your own. Become him as flesh becomes earth.”

4.
    This place is run like a slaughterhouse. We are nothing more than cuts of meat to them; a few dollars here, a few dollars there. The butcher will be here soon. He wears a crimson apron, but once it was white. The alcoholics are the prime rib. Women are tenderloin. The teenagers are nothing more than cube steak.

    A doe could walk on water, and even then, these people would not care.