Chapter 1

An Urbane tale in 24 parts


Picture in your head if you will... No, you must. A city. The City. Viewed from afar. Viewed from space. Viewed from Space like you're Buzz-Fucking-Aldrin falling headlong towards it. You sped uncontrollably downwards each blink a snapshot of the pavement 700 feet closer to your teary drunken bloodshot eyes. You saw an island, and a coastline, and a dense urban grouping of buildings. Buildings cloistered together like high school students smoking beside the English Wing tight with excitement and rebellion. Your final sight was a weather-beaten tenement, - old, grey and coming up fast. 6 stories you passed before, exploding onto the street, your melon flesh splashing, worthy of Uncle Bob's bellyflops into the pool over summer vacation. Back when there was Summer vacation

Back when there was Summer.

PAN UP to the 5th floor, a grimy pollution and bird shit stained window obfuscates the movement of a figure inside.

CLOSE UP: of a Mans hand, It is hairy and pitted, Browned by the sun. A Workman's hand.. It's gnarled fingers hold a French Press of tar black coffee whose plunger has just been thrust downward.

The Man begins to pour the coffee into a chipped white mug stained with the specks of past drips of java, The dishwasher abraded text on it reads “Insert witty comment regarding coffee here.” As the hot beverage cascades into the mug it makes a sound akin to pissing into a shallow pot and this causes The Man's bladder to contract ever so slightly.

The Man sighed. He knew he had a long day ahead of him and the sun was only just cracking at the horizon, thin trickles of light dancing through the open window illuminating the small single room apartment in which he resides.

Smells like piss and fresh dew.

Across the street a trio of hookers shy away from the coming day, their night just ending as a low rumble of commuter cars begins to fill the air like the uneasy groans of a drunk's stomach as she rolls out of bed. The neon lights that filled the street begin to wink out as the morning light drowns them in golden swaths. One of the whores lights a cigarette, bringing it to chapped lips that look like 20 miles of bloodstained asphalt. Chipped and rugged they have seen to(o) much traffic in to short a period of time. She bids farewell to her compatriots and crosses the still still street, entering her apartment block and climbing the Five (5) flights of stairs to the room she shares with The Man.

It is 7am.