A desolate greenhouse in a sun-scorched field of sand grass. Can't find the dusty road that led you to this place; it was one of those temporary things that don't make sense in the long run. The place was meant to disappear right after waking up, but you got there even though everybody else had already left. Getting caught in a technicality, as if you were a lucky coin that someone used in a vending machine. That's just how it is, that's how it really is; the deep foundations don't answer to your code of ethics. They simply act the way they are supposed to - and so must you. Except that you're going to do it by hand like the person that you claim to be. You have all the time in the world, after all.

No, before that.

It got to my head. The water is in my lungs now and there's nothing I can do to keep myself from coughing uncontrollably. Can you at least let me drown, please? It's unbearable; breathing water hurts like hell. I wasn't meant to be here, to survive for such a long time, permanently strangled. Why can't I die? Where am I, really? Is this inner or outer space? Had I entered a number, a point, a line? Is this where fever dreams begin? The ones in which you're stuck in the void of space; falling, perhaps, inescapably into a dense sphere of red-brown clouds? Or the ones that have you meet that primordial, overwhelming geometry, those inhuman platonic solids of immense size; terrifyingly simple, impossibly heavy, maddeningly slow? They are all that remains. There is no path that doesn't lead back inside.

No. Before that.

What would I do without you?

That’s more like it.

I was seriously obsessed. Don’t say that. Why not? It’s understandable, under the circumstances. Anyone would get obsessed. You would get obsessed. I wouldn’t. You would. Okay, maybe. So there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You’re delusional. Oh, shut it, will you.

A world reduced to her-- To her. A world reduced to her feet. But you don’t know what I know. You have a different idea. No, we have the same idea. Yes, but it’s easy to exaggerate; the context is important, don’t you realize? Alright. So what’s the context?

It can’t be just words. Nobody could ever understand. Unless they have spent centuries following each ridge, furrow, and wrinkle. Unless they have learned to tell the difference between her heel and her toe by taste alone. Unless they have stayed beneath the soft and warm and good and right - you’re drifting away - eternal - subjugating - but divine - everyone says that - but nobody means it - beneath the lowest point of her (of Her); of her body (nothing but Her); of her being (you don’t exist without Her; the lint between Her toes is more real than you).

Cut it out, will you. Now is hardly the time.

Don't act like you'll ever be able to leave it behind. Did you enjoy the life of a mite? That’s seriously inappropriate. That’s not an answer; did you enjoy the life of a mite?

Did you enjoy the life of a mite?

Why not go back? Please stop.

You're not meant to live outside. p l e a s e s t o p

They'll put you back. they won't

Martyna

you belong under her

you're her favorite foot mite

look

this isn't real, see?

you never left

you're still there

you'll always be there

under her foot

forever

"What happened to the girl?"

"Well, what law did she break?"

"Surely s o m e law."

"I believe she got sued for a… negligently inflicted psychiatric injury."

"Is that something serious?"

"No, not really. Just some pocket change."

"Oh, that's reassuring."

"A million years, though. Sassy!"

"And here I thought giving our boys a thousand each time was a bit mean."