He stepped out on the street and felt his eyes trying to murder his face. Then there were his arms, these spindly shits he tried to pass off as a gang bang. There was at once all the diamonds of the world casting light onto the street and every manhole cover exposed, casting sticky black night onto the people walking their dogs and naming their horses Polo and Chess. Nature and light made him sick. He once thought about developing an addiction; he could have ended his life and subscriptions long ago. So chest expanded and hair rising to meet the diamonds, he kissed a woman named Harriet, but she had kissed a dog once so many people discouraged him, and he moved forward. Each window made him older. His teeth began to loosen in his mouth and blood pooled in his shoes. "No one loves rain when you're being sarcastic," that was his motto. He envisioned cellars, casting a damp green light between here and the place you would like to be, as the lungs of old people. Only in his dreams there was no blood, and, clearly, there was blood lining the streets. There was also an indecisive bird with a limp and a tendency to store love and leave less behind. He ignored all except two downward vertical lines. When he asked what was wrong, it said nothing because it was a tree. He wanted to save someone, even if it meant they had to die. "Kiss me, Paul." "I will bury you in blood as someone else's life goes by." Just like that, one day he was fireman and now he digs holes to impress a baby. He has a tension between his toes. A gnome gets off a blue bus. There is chaos because someone is shooting people over a warmed spoon. "It wasn't easy for me, why should it be easier for you?" Youth is blasted over the speakers and light cuts at his hands. No one, if gypsies can be believed, ever spilled salt over the death of a metal band. He rehearsed a dance with Gabe, reserved a hall made of velvet and organs, and split cotton all along the border between Nevada and the ocean. This is an impressionist field being split open by two men who love pears. There goes a train bound for heaven and there goes a cat bound for Santa Claus. He liked being stupid for a while. Now it is winter and he feels it through his coat. Harriet made a sound like she was splitting in half. There are no such things as sad malls, he said. Then all the televisions in the world turned on, and his lungs collapsed.