Rebirth Station

The small brightly lit room is just off a highly trafficked street, but it is late night and the cars are no longer passing by with their screeching tires and rumbling engines.  The pedestrians have all long gone home and the street is almost eerily quiet. 
The room used to be a store front of some kind, but those days are long gone and now it stands almost devoid of personality.  The walls are white and bare- the overhead lighting is blunt in its effectiveness, just bare bulbs screwed into the ceiling.  It is basic at its more stark- like a prison cell.  There are bars over the front plate glass window, which in theory protects the inhabitants from any wandering predators outside.  The window is blocked from the street not just by metal bars but also by a large single piece of white painted particle board. The room is rectangular, efficient in its size. 
Half a dozen people fill the room, all of them sitting in cheap cushioned chairs that are decades old.  There is a heavy set young woman sitting on a chair towards the back left corner,  she has a crocheted multicolored blanket across her knees.  Her skin is pale and her hair is dark and stringy- she looks sixteen or seventeen and very small.  She looks lost in the expanse of the room, lost even though I can see her and she can see me. 
Five feet away from her is a man in his 20s, he has a scraggly blond beard and a tiny pot belly covered by a blue tank top with orange edging.  Next to him, his 2 year old son sits happily on a chair.  Almost all the eyes in the room are on the boy, a somewhat happy and clueless child who does not seem to mind being in the white vacuum of the space.
There is a young woman with dark hair closer to the door.  Her arms are on her knees as she leans over, looking into my eyes. Her face is desolate, her eyes dull and without any expression, like she has seen a thousand horrible acts and closed herself off to all of them, resigned to her fate now.
In front of me, the only thing on the wall, is a cardboard cutout of a TV set.  It is designed to look like an old fashioned analog TV with two knobs that were once used to change channels.  It looks like something left over from an art class, perhaps a project critical of the media. The screen area is grayed out and the entire thing is two dimensional.
It is silent in the room.  I can’t even hear the buzzing of the lights.

IRS Office

The room is windowless and gray.  There are gray fabric paneled cubicle walls, gray carpeting, and a low ceiling.
The center of the large square room is lined with eight rows of chairs.  The chairs are padded and covered with a patchwork fabric design in deep purple hues.  Each seat is latched to the chair beside it by a metal hook along its edge, creating straight rows of eight. 
Along the periphery of the room are cubicles separated by thick gray fabric covered walls. Each separated desk faces the center of the room, though there are walls designed like sliding doors which can be opened or closed. 
There are three cubicles that are open, the rest are blocked by the portable walls.  There is one woman behind each visible desk, each with varying pale skin tones, but with the same portly figure and plump cheeks. 
The desks are gray and long and uniform.  There is a computer with a raised glowing screen and a wired telephone.  Each different desk is decorated with the snapshots of loved ones and tiny figurines and mugs full of pencils. 
Behind the perimeter of desks is another narrow perimeter of walking space which allows movement from desk to desk or easy reference to the several bookcases full of thick tax code books and reference material.
Beside the front door is a black man sitting behind the oversized receptionist desk.  A rope barrier starts at the door and leads towards the reception desk, forcing anyone who might enter the double glass doors to head in one direction.  As patrons enter he hands each one a paper number and motions for them to watch the glowing screen with red numerals. 
Mounted to one of the walls is a large flat screen tv, it faces the rows of chairs and is tuned to a news station.  Close-captioned subtitles move across the bottom of the screen and there are no speakers. Half a dozen people sit scattered among the chairs, each holding a number and staring straight ahead into the glowing monitor. 
Mumbled voices and the muted tap of the women typing on their keyboards is the only sound.

Rocky Sea

The building has the aesthetic of 70s style architecture with flat rooftops and minimal flair, a structure that does not hide its boxiness, but rather flaunts it. It is an apartment building with about 60 individual units organized into three structures of 30 apartments each. The three distinct box-shaped areas are pushed together like cluster squares; from above, they look like a disjointed letter T.  Each building has three stories. Along the edge of each level is a hallway-balcony in front of the doors that lead to each unit, a style popular in motels across the United States. The hallway/balcony is about four feet wide and has a three foot tall black iron fence which delineates the edge. 
The building is constructed and decorated with differing shades and types of wood.  The front doors of each unit are a deep cherry wood which are trimmed along the edges with a paler blond wood with a glossy veneer. The walls of the building which face the balcony are lined with alternating planks of wood, each with a unique wood grain and color.  Each is shined to perfection.
I am standing on the balcony of the third story and look down from what seems like a great distance. Earth is not below, rather, I see a ragged reef of huge gray and white boulders with waves that lap against their sides. 
The assemblage of rocks stretches into the distance and fades into the horizon. The ocean water is a mixture of different colors, in places looking dark blue, in others spotted with turquoise. White surf spreads along the edges of the boulders. From where I stand, it looks like sea and stone, dry land is a memory.  Some of the giant rocks are in a haphazard circle and have created small, protected swimming holes delineated from the larger sea.  I can see three people in one of the swimming holes. From where I stand, their bodies are small as dust.
I hold on to the balcony railing, afraid I will somehow fall off and into the water.  My knuckles are pale and my hands dig into the blunt edges of the metal bars.  It seems like the entire complex is tipping, like at any moment my feet might come off the ground and only my grip can protect me from flipping out and crashing into the rocky water below.

Indoor Pool

The enclosed pool area is delineated from the hotel lobby by a set of four French doors.  Cherry wood framed panes of glass stretch for twenty feet, giving anyone interested a view of the interior space.  The heavy doors and thick glass keep a tight seal on the warm, contained moist air and the heavy chlorinated smell that is all pervasive, air that seems more tangible and easier to grab. 
The indoor pool is enclosed on all sides.  Above it is a solid ceiling thirty feet high painted in pastel tones.  The ceiling gives way to large squares of glass that taper at a 15 degree angle towards the ground, creating the greenhouse heat and light that pervades the room.
Immediately inside the French doors is a cement walkway that is three feet wide.  It leads up to the cement lip of the pool and continues around the hard right angles on all four sides. The cement is wet and cool, an intense contrast from the humidity in the air.  Along the walkway, spaced at uneven intervals, are plastic white lawn chairs, some with gray scratches on the legs and back.  One of the chairs has a pile of three folded blue and white striped beach towels on the seat, another has a used looking towel draped over its back.
The pool is long, designed for laps and swimming caps. On one end, in the corner, are three steps.  On the other end are two metal bars and embedded steps in the underwater wall.  There are three lights on in the pool, they illuminate the painted blue sides and bottom, creating the illusion of yellowish-green water.  Steam rises from the surface, dancing, twirling gently as it disperses into the thick air of the enclosed space.
Behind the pool are two Jacuzzi. Empty, they gurgle wildly from the mighty force of their underwater jets.  Heat leaps from the roaring water, twisting violently into the cooler air it meets above the surface. White and ice-blue colored water bubbles over the smooth cement sides of the hot tubs, spreading out onto the already wet cement floor beyond its walls.
Between the two Jacuzzi is a narrow walkway that slopes upward at a 10 degree angle.  Fifteen feet long, it leads to a long narrow room with glass walls on all sides. There is a row of running machines, stair climbers, weight benches, and free weights.  Each piece of equipment is lined up, facing the side-street. A lone woman in tight lycra pants and a long red baggy t-shirt is on the stairmaster, moving at a steady rhythm as she reads a magazine spread open before her. 
Parallel to the narrower ends of the pool are two tall walls that face each other like mirrors.  At their base is a ledge of tropical plants with wide bright shiny green leaves and pungent soil.  Behind the plants, stretching five feet up is a checkerboard pattern of pink and blue tiles.  They reflect the diffused afternoon light coming through the glass ceiling.  Where the tiles end, a mural begins.  It is a beach scene painted in pastel colors.  There is a bright sun, an ocean in the distance, and three bright pink flamingoes in the foreground.  The image is mirrored on both walls.
Posted on several walls beside the pool are signs saying, “NO Diving” and “USE at your own risk.”

Apartment

I am standing in the kitchen of a small apartment. I am leaning against the cool metal siding of a stainless steel sink embedded in a long white Formica countertop. The sink is clean and shiny, all remnants of past meals and dishes have long ago been scrubbed, dried and put in their spots behind white painted cupboards.
There is a window behind the sink. A crystal clear single-pane window that is uncluttered by curtains or shades. In perfect view is the gray cement rooftop of a tall red brick building across the street. It is so close I could jump from the window onto its sun-baked roof.
Two men sit on the cement, looking at each other, blocking the sun from their eyes with the aid of their cupped hands. Sunlight covers their legs and arms, brushing their already tanned skin. Just behind them are two wooden patio chairs which they have ignored, worn but well maintained red wood that lets off waves of glimmering heat.
Along the edges of the rooftop are red and pink geraniums in evenly spaced wide terracotta pots. The colorful petals are illuminated like stained glass, glowing in the afternoon light.
The sunlight streaming into the kitchen has taken on a pale blue color, verging on ice. The few appliances on the countertop are muted and fuzzy, seeming almost ghostly in shape and color.
To my right is a man. I can’t see his face, though I can see that his hair is dark and short, his skin is olive and tan. He wears red running shorts that reach his knees and a long white T-shirt that is baggy and slightly wrinkled. His eyes are fixed on the roof, at the two men sitting on the cement rooftop, on the one in red running shorts and a baggy white T-shirt.
Down the hallway from the kitchen is an open sliding glass door. A warm, yet slightly cool breeze blows through the open doorway. The wind plays with my hair. A black dog runs in circles on the balcony, barking excitedly in intervals to things I cannot see. The balcony is a mixture of sunlight and speckled shade. Any view from the high-rise apartment is blocked by tall, leafy trees and the thick interweaving vines that wrap around their boughs.

Strip Mall

The sun has just left the sky, leaving the faintest glow of yellow hovering close to the horizon. Twilight is all around. Feathering out from the yellow-lit hue is a pale blue which fades abruptly into deep cobalt and purple-black. Several seagulls cross the sky silhouetted against the pale blue night.

I am sitting under the thick metal awning of a short strip mall on the outskirts of a sprawling apartment complex. Squat, two-story condos and tall apartment buildings are interspersed like a twenty minute long checkers match, they stretch for blocks and blocks, creating a mini-city. To the left, several hundred feet behind the grocery store at the end of the strip mall, is an apartment building standing twenty stories tall. A few of the windows are lit from inside, though the majority of them are dark. In front of me, just beyond the parking lot, is a long two-story apartment building that vaguely references Greek architecture with its two white pillars on either side of the main front door.

There are twelve different businesses all sharing the same long florescent-lit awning. At one end is the mid-sized supermarket with a front-facing glass wall. Covering the glass wall are an assortment of neon beer signs that each vie for attention. They blare their colorful message into the night, looking for thirsty eyes and loose wallets. On the other end of the strip-mall is a lonely-singular ATM that stands unprotected against the night. A solitary bulb embedded in the awning shines down, illuminating the money machine.

Between the two anchor points are a dozen storefronts. I sit out front, at the only outdoor table drenched in the glow of an arabica bean-scented coffee shop. My white paper to-go cup of milk-drenched tea rests on the table to my left, the cup still too hot for my fingers to hold. Two men play chess at a small table directly behind me, we are separated only by a thick glass pane and a thousand other invisible walls. Next door, a brightly-lit laundromat hums with the sound of tumbling clothes and a screeching baby that takes short breaths between wails. Three young Asian guys are standing just outside the open doorway to the laundromat. They talk amongst themselves in gangsta accents, simultaneously laughing together and making fun of each other.

Closer to the market at the end is a burger place with a sporty, Hall of Fame theme. There is an ice cream parlor, a smoke shop that sends the constant perfume of nagchampa drifting out its open door, a pizza place, a kick boxing school and two other small storefronts under construction. The steady tap and boom of the construction work mingles with the insistent hum of dryers and swishing washers. Somewhere above, a jumbo jet cuts through the sky, its noisy engines rattling the metal table and the contents of my paper cup.

Beyond the storefronts and sidewalk is a small parking lot with a hundred spaces, though only a handful are occupied by silent cars. Just beyond the lot is a narrow street lined with glowing street lamps and one large silhouetted cypress stands tall and dark against the changing sky.

Convention Hall

The large convention hall is shaped like a rectangle, though there are many banisters and stairs to divide it into multiple chambers, giving the impression of many rooms and divided spaces. The only windows and natural light come from the four sets of glass doors on the south side of the building which are spread every one hundred feet. Besides the exit doors which provide only minimal light through the tempered glass, there are the front glass double-doors and its overhead windows on the western face of the building.

Interior light mostly comes from the intensely bright white spotlights that dangle from the wooden ceiling. The light is directed downwards by large metal lampshades with a diameter of two feet.

The space has a cozy modern feel with angled beams of thick wood that jut out from the ceiling at 35 degree angles and end at the floor of thin gray carpet or ¾ of the way up the vertical beams which are spaced evenly along the sides of the hall, standing every twenty feet and providing structural support for the roof and foundation.

Twenty steps from the front glass doors is a 15-step staircase covered in blue carpet. It leads to a small annex above the main space of the convention hall. The annex has an a-frame shaped rooftop and opposite the front staircase is a maroon railing with a view of the convention hall and another set of stairs that lead directly down to the main lower floor.

The heart of the convention hall is sunk a bit deeper into the earth than the two long sections on either side of it which are elevated by four feet. The three distinct spaces are separated by metal banisters. The outer raised sections are accessible by several equally spaced 5-step staircases that lead to the middle section. There are three staircases on each side of the interior space.

Throughout the three sections are eight-foot wooden tables. Each table is uniquely decorated and covered with varying styles of table clothes. Some are black, others white, some in colorful fabric or cluttered with felt letters or plastic-wrapped artwork. There are hundreds of tables lined up one next to the other. Along the exterior the tables are set up a few feet from the wooden walls. In the center of all three chambers, the tables are aligned to create a large island or donut in the center of the space.

On every table there is some form of artwork. There are books and thin glossy comics. There are dolls, key chains, buttons and shirts available for purchase. There are hundreds of handcrafted goods, all sewn, pasted, drawn, or painted. There are small paper zines and stuffed animals made out of plaid fabric, buttons and stickers and knitted mittens and artwork in mats and wrapped in protective plastic.

Behind every table there is at least one person, though several have two or three. Some people behind the booths smile brightly and try and make eye contact with the people milling about the space. Others stare into books of their own, trying to appear disinterested and distracted. Several are in conversation with their table-mates and others engage actively with the people in front of their table, encouraging them to leaf through books or try on jewelry.

An intense hum of conversation and activity fills the space. It is like the low drone of an airplane, its decibel only detectable once it’s gone.

Show

I stand in a dimly lit room alive with the sound of gentle murmuring from a few dozen men. They are all dressed in a similar way. Dark shirts and jeans, black shoes and thin dark jackets. They all have dark, dirty hair that has been styled by the salt-drenched wind, left wild and crusted with the taste of tears.
The room is crowded, already filled beyond the capacity of the short walls and uneven floor and more men enter every few minutes having paid the entry fee at the door. They enter through an open doorway off to one side of the room, a man stands just outside the doorway collecting money in a wide coffee can.
Beyond the doorway the night is dark. A wide, flat parking lot sits empty, the black tar and white lines of demarcation are illuminated by a lone double-bulbed lamp that towers thirty feet in the air. The lot looks forlorn in the yellow light, missing cars, people and trash.
The small single-storied room packed with men is attached to a larger structure, having been built at the same time decades before. Through the wide rectangular window facing the parking lot, I can see the larger structure since the entire building is shaped like an L. The surface of the larger structure is covered in corrugated metal, though the small room where I stand seems like an afterthought, a janitor’s closet that has been forgotten, appropriated by a handful of young men in the dark night. The windows of the larger building are dark and I know that we are the only ones here.
I look around and realize I am the only woman in the tightly packed room. There are young men sitting on the floor, others leaning against the wall in silent pensiveness. Others have merged into small huddles talking quietly, filling the air with a gentle murmur of anticipation.
While most of the men sit or stand, there are five among the dozens that move, setting up their musical equipment against one of the walls. At their feet are several amps, half a dozen microphone stands and a crate of miscellaneous cords. There are other hard black cases on the worn blue rug waiting to be opened, waiting for electricity and skilled hands that know all the right knobs and switches to make them come alive.
I look at the various men leaning against one of the walls and see a familiar face. Pale white skin and a long dark beard, his eyes look around the crowd observing it all in interested delight. I know that in this crowded space, among this many men, there will not be any place for me to hide.

Confectionery

On the edge of a worn asphalt driveway, embedded in the graying tar substance that was new and fresh decades before, is a large sign atop a wide cream-white metal post. The sign sits thirty feet above the parking lot that is littered with crumbling pebbles of asphalt.
The sign is unlike most, neither a rectangle or square, neither circle or oval. It is at least four feet across and three feet high and it is a blend of many shapes. Its right side is curved like a circle, though it extends down into a point both above and below. The left side is a mix of curve and point as well. The interior space is painted in a creamy white. The edging around the sign is painted pale pink as is the vertical script lettering in the center which reads, ‘Shaw’s Plaza.’ The shape and style and lettering of the sign speaks of a by-gone era of architecture, but the sign and post itself are in good form without any signs of rust or wear besides a general fading of color.
Below the sign is a another smaller rectangular white sign that is painted and has black lettering that is a little to the left of center. It says, ‘Sweet Memories Confectionery.’ The letters are spelled with the kind of temporary plastic letters used in movie theater marquees, though the letters themselves look static and slightly worn and small compared to the painted sign above.
The parking lot itself is large and mostly bare without any distinguishing lines to delineate individual parking spots. A single blue minivan is parked. It’s side door is open and a Latin man with tan skin sits on the floor of the van, his feet finding comfort on the asphalt driveway. Two children hover around him with half-eaten ice cream cones in their sticky hands.
Across the parking lot from the sign and the minivan is a building whose front is made of plate glass windows and whose wooden sides take turns between blue, white and pink. The edges of the building are lined with light bulbs in precise intervals, looking like permanent, over-sized Christmas lights. The bulbs line the thin, flat roof and they line the vertical edge where two walls meet. Some of the bulbs are gray, some are missing, but most remain in place, perhaps waiting for darkness.
The building faces the street and sidewalk, looking at the world through glass windows. From the street in front, it is hard to see inside the store because of the flat roof that extends over the building and to the edge of the sidewalk. The extended flat roof provides the thick shade for the patio, which sits between the sidewalk and the actual entrance to the shop which at least fifteen feet from the sidewalk.
There are 6 circular white metal tables on the cement patio. Four hard plastic chairs are clustered around each table, each chair being either pink, blue or white. The legs for each chair are not singular metal legs, but instead are wide metal triangles. Two metal triangles emerge from the bottom of each seat, they extend at an 35 degree angle and the base of the triangle rests along the patio floor. The tables are unoccupied and covered with the shade of the thick flat roof above.
Beyond the plate glass windows is a fully stocked candy shop. Bins of liquorice, peppermint and strawberry taffy sit in individual wooden baskets. By the long counter beside the register is a glass case full of fudge in different forms, some white, some marbled, some mixed with nuts or topped with toffee. The simple glass shelves that line the walls facing the street are crowded with bags of jelly candies in every imaginable shape and color. There are green beans, blue sharks, pink bears, rainbow colored ropes, orange smiles, and purple worms.
Towards the side of the shop is a glass wall facing the parking lot. There are several more circular white metal table on that bright end of the shop. Surrounding each table are four white metal chairs with red vinyl seats.
The smell of sugar escapes from the open glass door and into the front patio, as does the loud metal music coming from a radio behind the counter. A man’s gravelly voice bellows, ‘search aaaannnd seek and destroooyyyyyyy!”

Invasion

There is a building, the only building on a barren earth that is covered in long-forgotten yellowed plains and dried up grassy hillsides. The building is a tall rectangle that reaches for the clouds, but finds itself stuck ten stories high. It is simple and made of brick, with several windows on each floor. It is lacking any embellishment on the outside surface, there are simply old red bricks that have gotten more brown with each kiss of the sun. It is a simple rectangle reaching upward, pure right angles that flaunt function over form.

Within, the structure is stuffed with people and furniture. The ecstatic energy inside is frantic and crowded, like a third-world bazaar or market. Each floor is crowded with old wooden hand-crafted furniture from Russia. There are decorative couches with broad armrests made of wood and padded fabric. Embroidered cross-stitched pillows sit on every chair, coughing up floral patterns. Crocheted doilies rest on top of hand-carved armoires and dressers, protecting the delicate, shiny surfaces from plastic flower stuffed vases and old picture frames.

Rugs of many sizes cover the floors; tiny rugs big enough for a pair of feet in front of grand one-person chairs; large monumental weavings that sit below a set of three couches. Rugs of all shapes and earth-toned hues.
Struggling for breathing space among all the furniture are the throngs of people, all of them moving in the same direction. The one set of stairs wrapping the length of the building from the first floor to the tenth is overwrought with a mad panic. Men and women jump over the stagnant pieces of furniture to find a bit of footing on the stairs. Small children are left to fend for themselves as people clamor to the top.

Visible beyond the sparse windows are the series of hillsides on all sides of the building. The sky above is blue, yet a thin layer of white brushes everything in its soft stroke, muting out the sun just slightly. The hills are soft mounds of yellowed grass that continue towards the horizon like a monumental mountain range, continuing on and on past the line of sight. Coming over the crests of the dead grassy hills are men and women on horseback.

Most of the mounted riders are holding long poles with thin triangular ribbons attached to the tops of each pole. The ribbons flutter in the breeze like thunder, stretching a hundred feet behind each mounted rider. The men on horseback are dressed like Mongolians, wearing thick leather pants and jackets that are lined with pale brown fur. Their features are wide and their skin is like burnt copper. Their feet are covered in leather boots that reach their knees and they kick horse bellies with their boot heels, urging them on shouting “haw!” Between the sweaty horse breasts are more women on foot. They climb and conquer the hillsides in bare feet, running towards the building holding their square flags high above them. The cries and hoots of the invaders compete with the fluttering of the ribbons and flags and a chorus fills the valley.

Hallway

A young woman stands in a dim hallway. She is on the seventh floor of an old apartment building built with a communist aesthetic. The building is tall, narrow and long. She stands in the hallway, a long corridor lit only by a few small windows on each side of the buildings’ length, beside the stairs. A pale light seeps in and bits of dust travel in its rays.

The young woman is slender and pale, her shoulders revealing the pointed bones just below the skin. Over her slender frame is a red 1920s flapper dress. The fit is baggy, hiding all of her curves, though its low neckline begins to hint at her pointed breasts. The hemline reaches to her knees, where several inches of gold trim sway with each movement of her body. The dress has signs of wear and the seams along the sides have begun to loosen. A thin stretched out spaghetti strap keeps sliding off her bony pale shoulder, exposing the black strap of her bra. The girl’s hair is short, cut just below her ears, it is a messy head of wavy hair. Her cropped bangs hide the shy pale skin of her forehead.

Balanced in the palm of her left hand is a large plastic serving tray. The tray is long, wide, and oval, its shape providing the flooring for several dishes displayed on white porcelain plates. Each plate holds a different type of egg. Sunny side up, poached, boiled, soft boiled, she holds them all on the tray, attempting every now and then to replace the red strap of her dress to her shoulder with her right hand. It slides off quickly and when it does, she lets it be.

She stands in front of apartment #4 with the tray of eggs. Not far from her, in the doorway of a different apartment a few doors down, an older white man in a white tank top and a protruding pot belly stands silently. His large shape and broad shoulders almost block the entire doorway, covering everything behind the threshold. Without any words, with just a cold, indifferent stare, he watches the waiting girl.

The girl looks down at the worn dark carpet in the hallway, then back to the door of apartment #4. There is a small square glass window two-thirds of the way up the wooden door. She peers in, sneaking a glance at four young blond men putting on their military coats. The uniforms are maroon, decorative coats with metal buttons and bits of embroidery along the shoulders. She peeks into their space, then returns her gaze back to the worn carpet at her feet.

The Edge Of The Mountain

A young woman is standing in a small room drenched in soft blue light. It is the kind of light that can only be created without bulbs and switches. It is light that streams in from the single tall and narrow window that hugs the corner edge of one wall. The walls are bare, white when illuminated, but now, in the dimness, they are a pale gray-blue. The floor is covered by dark blue carpet. It is a covering without plushness or comfort, carpet that is just one step above the hardness of stone.

Foam blue yoga mats are laid out on the floor, four of them lined up vertically to one wall, another four across from them against the other cool wall. In the room are several young men in white linen pants that are held up with red rope. Baggy white T-shirts cover their muscular chests. The men look like copies of each other, each having short dark brown hair and olive skin. Each with a solid stare of brown eyes and covered with thick, bulging muscles.

The young woman looks out the room’s only window. The view outside is of wilderness. The sky is blue, though the sun has fallen behind a mountain peak, on its way to the other side of the world. A few meters beyond the window, a grassy clearing has turned yellow and limp, the long stalks of grass laying down like a mass suicide. On the edge of the clearing, a thick forest begins. Tall green pines stand tall and vertical, covering the mountain behind them in a dense green blanket. The gaps between the thick trunks are dark, nearly black, with hardly any light making it through the thick canopy to the forest floor.

Wandering around the clearing are a cluster of at least twenty bears. They swirl around each other, moaning and roaring, sniffing the air. They walk slowly, maintaining the dense cluster though there is plenty of room in the clearing. There are two types of bears, each in equal number. Half have dark chocolate fur, the others have light tan fur with a golden sheen. The bears mingle, sniffing the air and each other, walking slowly and deliberately around the area, stopping every few feet to look around, roar and huff or raise their nose into the air.

Gallery

The double glass doors sit closed on the front left corner of the building, they face a deserted sidewalk and a few tall pines. On the left wall, just beyond the door, is a long piece of rectangular black fabric hanging from the place where wall and ceiling meet. The fabric is four feet wide and hangs without a wrinkle, attempting to cover the dirty white walls underneath. The left wall is over fifty feet long and besides the one piece of fabric, it is streaked with light brown fingerprints, tiny dots of paint and grease that shine at certain angles. Like the pock-marked traces from a gopher, the walls are covered with black holes from nails used long ago. Surrounding them like tiny moons are the smaller pin pricks from plastic push pins. The ceiling above towers in a plain of darkness, without lamps or dangling bulbs. It is just the long rows of track lights that shine on each wall, pointing to them like spotlights on 2 dimensional actors.
On the back wall, just beside the right corner, is another long rectangular piece of black fabric. It is slightly wrinkled and has accumulated dust at the hem. To the left of it, tacked to a dirty wall, are a series of paper plates that have been taped together, forming a row three feet long. On the center circle of each white plate are colorful drawings in children’s colors: bright green, yellow and red, all etched in long thick strokes with crayons and colored pencil.
The centermost paper plate holds the image of an abstract woman. She sits on the ground, reclining back slightly, the weight of her torso supported by her arms and hands. Her large legs and thick thighs are spread, revealing her femininity in bright color. In black block letters, on the right side of her head, is the word: “PUSSY.”
Besides the fabric, the paper plates are the only things on the long, dirty walls. Along the right side of the room, there is a huge wall of black velvet curtains that hang from the ceiling, cutting the room in two. There is the gentle murmuring of voices coming from just beyond the curtain. A female’s voice punctuates the murmur, using the words: “oil”, “naked”, and “clothes.” The deep bass of a man responds, using the words: “trust” and “issues.”

Discount Store

A large warehouse space is dimly lit. The overall space is submerged in a grayish hue, though sparse yellow bulbs hang from single black wires clinging to the ceiling every fifteen feet. They hang like the stars, thirty feet from the ground, their light flickering like distant voices from eons past. Gray comes from the high cinderblock walls without windows and the cement floor that breaths a cold, unrelenting truth.
The space is divided into thirty long aisles by twelve-foot tall metal shelves. They shelves are heavy and solid, built for industry and the test of time. Each shelving unit has ten individual shelves packed with old cans of vegetables and beans, fruit cocktail, and dusty sacks of rice and dried lentils. Thirty rows fill the warehouse space, each one thirty feet long.
The discount store is empty of people, though full of old dented goods that await use, to have just one more moment of life. A refrigerated section hums in the far left corner, it alone emitting bright white florescent light, like the opening of a tunnel to another plane of reality. The cold section is stocked with several varieties of packaged tofu, still within their expiration date. There are cartons of milk and large chunks of yellow cheese packaged in cellophane. The light radiates out a few dozen steps from the cold section, illuminating a few hand-made ceramic sinks that sit on the ground beside a tall metal shelf propped against the wall.
In the first aisle from the wall, a magical knife rests on the floor below the first shelf of the unit. It stands out like a giant phallus in the store of mass production, one of only two things made with human hands and careful attention. It is large and mostly flat, curved like a bow, with a long dragon-like head at one point. It is made of silvery-black clay and a small careful sigil is carved into the forehead of the creature. It sits without a speck of dust in the shadow of the tall shelves piled high with cans of black garbanzo beans and peas.
A lone worker stands in the front of the store, behind a row of elevated cash registers, like silent players on a stage. The young man stands ready for a store of empty customers. His black hair manages to shine in the dim yellow light, somehow coming alive despite the gray of the walls and floor and absence of fresh new life. His tan skin pops out of his thin, tight white t-shirt, a testament to sun and melanin and vigor. He is comfortable here in his place, a king in this square castle of old goods and their hidden treasures.

Steeple

The sun reached its peak hours before and the light that now spills over the city is gold and fleeting. The walls of the many downtown buildings glow in a muted shade of orange and the sky above has turned a shade of pale blue that only holds the promise of darkness to come. There are no clouds, just endless pale blue. The street is wide and made of multiple lanes of traffic going in both directions. The city is a mixture of ancient and new, old edifices and architecture combined with new street lamps and signs. The street itself is covered with a fresh black layer of asphalt, but the sidewalks on the side are old cobblestone, worn to a shiny finish from years of use. Modern buses wait patiently in traffic beside buildings hundreds of years old. The street is exact and completely straight, breaking from its course only when it meets perpendicularly with another wide road at an intersection. Each lane is full of cars. They wait bumper to bumper, occasionally letting out a desperate honk that does nothing to move the cars ahead of them along. Dark exhaust streams from the back of the city buses. They wait as still as the cars and nearly hidden inside them are scores of passengers that stare out from the tinted windows with a mixture of helplessness and resigned desperation, unable to do anything to change their fate. An occasional motorcycle weaves its way through the congestion, finding the small pockets of space within the mess of metal and exhaust and beeping exasperation of horns. It is not just crowded streets, the sidewalks on either side of the traffic are full of pedestrians. Many of them are tourists, clinging to their maps and cameras and staring open-mouthed at the architecture. There are large baroque buildings that take up entire blocks and between them are grand cathedrals on every other corner. The tourists walk in small groups, adorned with hats and water bottles. Locals weave through them like motorcycles, finding the spaces between the gawking groups of picture-happy tourists. One of the oldest buildings in the downtown area is an old church with a long, narrow steeple made of metal. The building itself is constructed from bricks and rises five stories high. On the body of the building, but close to the steeple, are open square windows. Inside the windows, within the church, are the silhouettes of old people. The church building sways softly in the wind, moving slightly to the right and left, then forwards and backwards.

The Plaza

The early evening light is the palest of blues. It marks closing time, the end of another cycle of light, to be replaced by twelve hours of darkness. The sun has just begun to fall behind the wall of straight buildings. Dozens and dozens of them make the city skyline. There are the large mirrored homes of finance that reach towards the clouds, the more squat government buildings and the high-rise condos marked on each level by balconies. Interspersed among the modern buildings are the few brick constructions that have managed to survive earthquakes and fires. Adorned with the marks of their craftsmen, they contrast with the straight, sleek lines of modern architecture.
Cutting through the clustered marks of men are geometrical streets. Black and marked with yellow lines, the roads sit without the faintest curve, providing only 90 degree angles in evenly divided intervals. The low golden sun shines against the reflected glass of the downtown buildings like light on sequins, calling out for one last acknowledgment before it says goodnight. Ample rectangles and squares shine like electric gold with its last rays.
The downtown streets are bustling. Men in dark tailored suits and women wearing black heels and fitted skirts flow out of the buildings and into the crowded sidewalks. They are like rivers that ebb and flow with the alarm clock’s set intervals.
In the middle of the financial center is a large cement plaza. The periphery of the plaza is a single row of green grass and sparsely planted trees that are thin and tall as some of the shortest buildings. Two sides of the plaza have buildings that create a wall behind it, but the other two connected sides are open and face two streets perpendicular from each other.
One of the open sides has a single doorway with an open wrought iron gate. The doorway is made of stacked rocks and mortar, but the long walls around it have fallen long ago, leaving only the frame of the doorway and the tall gate itself.
The flow of business people walk through the square diagonally, coming from the corner beside the wall and the street and flowing out through the wrought iron gate. Close to the center of the plaza is a young blond woman with a microphone. She is talking and pointing to the moveable statue of a thick man with a trombone held to his mouth. Coming out of the trombone is a large fake tuna fish. A small crowd of business people are gathered around the woman and the statue. They are laughing at each pause in her speech, nearly doubling over with her jokes.

Gilded Building

A dark narrow street opens and expands into a large open air plaza. The large square space is covered in smooth pale bricks that approximate the colors of earth and clay and dried grass. The differently hued bricks trade places with each other and create a speckled palette for the eye. There are dozens of tourists and gray pigeons that mingle in the plaza, all of them walking slowly, gazing at the ground, at the buildings, taking in the bright sunny day. In the center of the plaza is a short waterless round fountain that is nearly invisible with the throngs of people surrounding it. Men in shorts and T-shirts have their cameras in front of their eyes, attempting to capture the architecture around them.
To the left of the entrance and on the right side of the plaza is a simple one-story building which has an open, dark hallway cut through the middle of it. It houses the maintenance supply room and a small gift shop. There is an air of stillness and mystery that surrounds the darkened hallway. There is no one moving through it, either into or out of the square. Directly in front of the entrance are two tall rectangular buildings, each covered in white stucco. To the left of the entranceway is a grand and imposing building covered in smooth white stucco. Its bottom resembles a rectangle and in the center is a large arched doorway made of planked wood. Many thin plate-glass windows line the front face of the building, each one is outlined in dark blue trim. The center of the roof is domed and covered in gild. In each of the four corners there are clusters of squat gilded towers of varying heights. The dome and towers gleam in the bright sunlight.
Inside, the domed building is crowded with row after row of long wooden bench tables and back-less wooden benches acting as seats. Upon all the tables are place-settings of tan porcelain and white linen napkins and crystal goblets. The seats are occupied by men and women who sit shoulder to shoulder. The women are in matching maroon dresses that have low horizontal necklines and reveal plump bosoms and lacy camisoles tucked beneath the maroon satin. The bust-lines are tight and synch at the waist, but the skirts are made full with white petticoats. Each woman has her hair held back in a woven hairnet that has pearls embedded in each crossing thread. The men’s suits are made from the same maroon satin. There are matching trousers and blazers and white shirts with ruffles that protrude from the chest and rise to the collar. On their heads are brown brimmed hats adorned with red feathers on the right side.
Each man and woman practices lifting their spoons in perfect unison. The lifting of their hands, the way each expertly holds their spoon, reveals the insignia tattooed on the small piece of skin between their thumbs and index fingers. There is a maestro at the front of the room, a thin woman who has the posture, body, and dress of a man. She holds a thin metal rod to communicate with the group in unison.

Mural of Ships

The sun beats down on the roof of the car, not a cloud disrupts the clear line from the fiery orb to the thin metal plate. The heat is not blocked by the overhead covering, but is instead filtered and absorbed by the car, making both the interior and exterior painful to the touch. The hot red car is in the single lane, behind it five lanes of cars are attempting to merge into the single lane, but no one is moving. There is a young woman in the passenger seat, both her feet are in the driver’s foot area, ready to accelerate or brake when necessary. A twelve year old girl is sitting in the driver’s seat. She is slightly portly, wearing glasses that make her eyes look glassy and magnified and slightly disfigured. The fabric covered backseat is empty of possessions or people, it is slightly more shaded than the front and a degree cooler. Waves of exhaust shimmy from the asphalt and rise above the vibrating back fenders of the idling cars. The motors of many cars are purring, but the surroundings are silent. There are no impatient horns, no children on the side of the road selling candy or sliced fruit. Just the lanes of cars, waiting patiently to reach the unknown that lays ahead. There are buildings on either side of the car. Some are short and made of wood, others tall and made of metal and glass, some are covered in stucco, some have crumbling sides. There is not a space in between then, they all share a wall. No matter how high or how low they rise, the buildings on the left side of the car are covered in a continuous mural. The oversized picture, spanning miles and raised thirty feet off the ground, depicts large wooden ships. They ride the waves, one after the other, clustered like an army of marching soldiers. The ships are pointed in the same direction as the waiting cars. Some ships have pink hulls and magenta ropes hanging from their masts, an intangible wind catches sails of pink and white lace. There are other ships painted in blue and green, others are black. One ship after another sails, painted in solemn colors or bright as rainbows. The ships are crowded together, ocean waves poke out occasionally from the massed hulls, but mostly, the ocean blue is buried beneath their weight and color. On the right side of the car, the buildings remain in their unadorned gray state.

Studio

In an old apartment building, eleven stories high, the clear canvases of windows are painted black by the night. Not a star shines through in the darkness, not one light from another building breaks through the thick color. The black windows are the only color on the white walls, walls which have taken a yellow glow from the single overhead lamp, illuminating every corner of the large square living room. The space has the empty power of a dance studio, bare, yet so empty as to be of complete service to anything that enters and moves within it. The room is devoid of clutter, no leather couches, no wooden end tables or entertainment stands littered with DVDs, just a dark wooden piano that leans against the wall closest to the front door. The floor of the room is wooden and old, the blond planks have streaks and scratches that have accumulated for decades, but in the yellow light, a sheen still exudes as though they were just installed.
At the far end of the room is a kitchen illuminated by bright white florescent bulbs, gleaming light dances off shiny tiles and chrome fixtures and creates an aura of sterilization. There is a hip-high wall that separates the kitchen from the living room and with the absence of a barrier, the bright white of the kitchen mixes with the subdued yellow glow from the living room. There is a woman in the kitchen who wears a black evening dress from the late 50s, her hair matches the dress in color and sophistication. She has a small cocktail glass in her hand and stares out expressionless into the living room.
In the bare room, a large circle of people sit on the floor, each one holding a musical instrument. At the far end of the circle, closest to the kitchen, a young woman sits on a plastic chair holding a violin. She plays a well practiced solo, her blond hair tilting to the side as she bends her chin towards the instrument. I am sitting cross-legged on the ground within the ring. On the floor in front of me is a guitar. The woman in the chair plays loudly and I bang on the body of the guitar in intervals. My two friends compose pieces of the human circle, they are separated from me by a stranger on my left. We all play with quiet anticipation, holding the moment that is building quietly and thoughtfully, like a well tended fire.

The Hidden Room

The exterior of the imposing apartment building looks just like an oversized cinder block. It is large and sterile and bleak, its façade devoid of any feature or embellishment. It is clean and gray and practical, a building to live in, nothing more. No craftsmanship to admire, nothing added besides the necessities; the angles of the apartment building are sharp and hard, 90 degrees protrude with the practicality of an iron fist. It’s bare bones architecture, humorless and without emotion. It simply is a block, a square implanted within the soil and erected on the stretch of cold land without nostalgia or sentimentality. On each of the seven floors, there are simple square windows every 10 feet.
On ground level, there is a single metal door that leads in and out…either outside to the silent streets of a gray midmorning, or inside, in to the dark, cold palace of practicality.
Within the building is the hidden unpractical, the one great flourish of the architect who screamed silently into his plans and burst forth with a glimmer of possibility. It is the hidden room, the room of quiet existence, masked from observation on the ground floor by a wall that hides its entrance. Behind the thin façade of cinderblock is a large, two level room built halfway above the earth and partly within the cold soil. Spanning the entire length of the room, from end to end, is a narrow flight of stairs made from a shiny blend of cement and crushed rock. Upstairs, (the level above ground) is a single twin sized bed and a red velvet loveseat with curved wooden arm rests beside it. Twenty feet from the bed is a single wooden desk with a single wooden straight backed chair pushed into it. Upon the desk is a wrought iron lamp without a lampshade or light bulb and a single piece of clean white paper and a pencil laying beside it.
Downstairs, the part of the room submerged within the earth, there are six wooden dressers filled with clothes clustered in the center of the room. Within the dressers are men’s slacks and button up black shirts, there are clothes for little girls, pink party dresses and small white socks. There is a sequined evening gown and a stained apron and an entire drawer of silk lingerie and lacy brassieres. There is no division or organization within the drawers or dressers between sex or age, all the clothes are mixed up and wrinkled…socks next to shirts next to fur coats. Scattered next to the dressers and piled in heaps upon the cement floor are more clothes. Polo shirts and Batman underpants and silk pajamas and cotton T-shirts. All the clothes are clean, but wrinkled. On the second floor of the room (the ground floor of the apartment building), there are two windows that open directly to the gray sidewalk above.
A single daisy pokes its yellow from the space in between two large slabs of cement, the flower stands like a survivor of color in the square frame of the window. The light in the room comes solely from the two windows which casts the space in a bluish hue that is accentuated by the cement flooring.