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 ^{(it's beta!)}

Down the street and the sky isn’t the way it used to be, the moon and the stars newly aligned and none of the constellations provide ease; not a simple rotation but hand-plucked and rearranged, someone thinking now an intervention would be best. Looking up at the falling sky, and falling down the street, into and out of blinded alleys and blinded beggars looking for change creating a symphony of calls, minimalist and repetitive and new, and a steeple rises in the dark with a cross invisible in the clear sky alone but now lit by a searchlight on the lawn, projecting it against new stars.

Sara says none of what I say is honest, always hidden, always guarded, so I change her name and resume my course now. Black moleskin faded yellow, drenched in sweat and ink, sitting in my back pocket and I read the pen scratches, running and fading, with no clear intent as to read anything, but simply to have the comfort of my own thoughts that now seem so foreign.

Light becomes captured under a convenience store awning so underneath a spark flies and I have a cigarette and I try to catch my bearings. There is nothing wrong, repeating, there is nothing wrong, this is good, and I don’t believe it and I take a drag, try a French inhale, fail, catch my breath, and there is nothing wrong.

Sky seems intent on changing each night so nothing stays the same; underneath new stars, maybe new planets, every evening the magic is quickly lost in exploration and the world becomes an eventual apocalypse. Newspapers rattle their racks in the machines outside diners, and this morning I went in to have eggs and coffee and the machine was full, and car engines fell, stopped and groaned each minute outside, and leaving no papers were left. I had a cigarette with a man who told me about rain coats, and how if the atmosphere is torn apart he will be out of business as all clouds will evaporate, and I wondered, and I hope he isn’t right.

A girl in the convenience store runs out to my side. She kisses my cheek and asks if I have anything with a filter, her boyfriend only smokes unfiltered, and I say yes, and I hand her a filter from a rusting metal pocket case. Her uniform is covered in gasoline stains from pumping during the day shift, and I ask why she is still here, and she says “I needed the extra hours and Carey wanted to leave early so I took her shift after the overlap ended and I think John’ll be angry but it’s not like I’m getting overtime ya know and he’s a bastard anyway and it doesn’t matter but yeah I got the extra hours.”

That is good, I say, and I wet the filter from the unexpected company and some of the tobacco drifts into my mouth and I spit it out. The girl sits with her back to the wall and legs fully extended, too short jeans riding up pale legs to the lower calf, and she smiles up until I smile back.

I say, you can see the steeple from here you know.

“It’s a good steeple. It looks nice against the sky.”

I try not to look anymore, disorientation approaching with each extra glance outside the landmark.

“Are you worried about all this?”

I say, yeah, yeah, I think so.