Interlude: Poem

You can't touch me, bastard corporations of America

You can't touch me with your jute ropes and tire spray;

You can't touch me with your revolving loans and gift-card displays;

Whatever golden thread that you pull from the world does not pull from me;

Because I am not you,

Because 10-year roadshow heart machine is not my path.

You can't touch me, bastard corporations of America

Chapter Five

Dark Angel Neversleep is keen to get his bearings. From the copper wire implanted under the skin behind his ear, he can tell that the barometric pressure has dropped. He feels this through the tension in the wire and knows a storm is coming - soon. Since he heard the homing-whistle on his dark technologies belt, he's made several discoveries:

-the Revolutionary guards patrol in groups of three, an effort to keep their ideology pure.
-judging by the sound, his dark technology belt must be over a mile away. This would put it outside the camp walls that he's seen throw the slots of his barrack.
-it hasn't been more than a day since he was captured, which means he still has another day before his conspirators, back at the aerodrome, realize he's missing.

Dark Angel Neversleep rolls over on his belly, feeling the chill earth through his wool cloak and jacket. Focusing his eyes on the slit of light beneath the wooden door, his lips begin to quietly chant, "Never give up, never give up - never sleep!". Suddenly, the colors of the room fade. The pine walls begin to creak and whistle and it seems as if the whole building is tensing up, ready to cough. A flash of light, and he's out. In a rush Dark Angel Neversleep finds himself standing outside on the wet gravel. Now is the time, run!

Chapter Four

I know I am awake and find it easy to open my eyes. The room is very dark, I feel like I've only been asleep for a few hours. The tiny light on my clock shows me that it's just a few minutes before my alarm is set to go off. I set the clock back down and pull my arm back under the covers, waiting for the alarm to actually go off.

These dark moments are precious. I think of where my train ticket is - inside the main pocket of my backpack. I think of what I need to do this morning - eat breakfast and mail a letter off to my family. I think of Ernest Hemingway and why he spent the end of his life in Cuba. I don't think that's something I'd do, but I often feel so close to him. The alarm goes off.

Once I'm ready to leave, I quietly head downstairs and open the door. The cold air hovers all around me. It will get much warmer today, but in the morning it is still quite cold. The street lamps are still on, though I can see the dawn colors on the horizon. The sidewalk is frosty. I have 45 minutes to get to the station, it should take me about 20 on the bus.

Chapter Three

I turn the book face down on my bed and head downstairs to make some dinner. After turning on the electric burner, I start a pot of rice and heat up a can of coconut vegetable korma to go on top. I hear my landlady watching TV with her ex-husband Wally next door. For some reason, they still spend all their time together after 10 years of divorce.

With the rice done, I take my plate of hot dinner upstairs to eat. I think about reading more Dark Angel Neversleep, but my mind is too busy. I always get like this before I leave on a trip - full of energy and nervous about every detail.

I can fit everything in my daypack. Two clean shirts, a winter hat, a water bottle, my CD player, 3 cheese-rolls from work, a can of peanut butter, and two bananas (I bought these at the super-market during my lunch break).

Before taking a shower, I walk to the window and look down on the coludasac flooded in yellow lamp light. I hear a door shut carefully and Wally walks down the path below me. He opens and closes the gate then turns towards his apartment several blocks away. Wally is recovering from heart surgery and needs regular excercise in order to recover.

I look up and try to make out a few stars through the city lights. I think I can see Jupiter and close my eyes to pray. When I pray, I wait until I feel completely alone. I think about the ceiling and the entire world peeling back to leave me alone with the night sky. The feeling is cool and refreshing. I think about this cool sky watching me, and it's kind of like how Yoda and Obi Wan Kenobi watch Luke in Star Wars. Just watching, without saying a word.

I've got to get to bed early if I'm going to stay awake on the train tomorrow.

Chapter Two

I open my door, put my backpack on the bed and take out volume 3 of Dark Angel Neversleep. Wanting to relax before dinner, I flop down on the bed and start reading right away.

Dark Angel Neversleep has been captured by the Stalinist Revotionary guard. In fact, he's being held in a scientific time-camp. Outside the sky is a dark watercolor and Dark Angel Neversleep is left to ponder his fate. By this point he has realized that the guards must have taken his Dark technologies while he was unconscious. He strains his ears to search for the high frequency locator whistle that would sound as soon as his Dark technology belt failed to syncronize with his heartbeart.

His well trained hearing grasps out like a blind hand - groping for that reassuring whistle. He hears the boots of a Revolutionary guard on the wet gravel outside. He picks up the creak of a door on an outhouse. A bird flits the air with it's wings, and far behind this all, Dark Angel Neversleep picks up the tiniest shrill whistle of his Dark technologies locating device. All is not lost.

Chapter One

There is a time when I am on my bike. My pant leg is rolled up to keep off the grease from the chain. I am riding home. It is spring and I do not take the bus any more. In winter, I took the bus everyday and spent more time indoors, turning pale.

As I ride, my eyes start to tear up from the wind. The air is different today. Maybe the wind is coming from the sea and this is unusual. If I think about it, I can smell the ocean through the air, and this makes sense because the ocean is not far away.

I will see the ocean soon. I will not work for another week, as tomorrow I will be catching the 8:05 northbound train. I stand up on the pedals as I coast down the hill. I like standing up, because I suddenly feel like my bike fits me. Usually I cannot make the seat high enough and I really hate pedaling with my legs always bent - never able to straighten them out.

I shift my backpack as the #3 bus passes me. This is the bus I would take, and it seems to accelerate as it passes me, with misty black fumes and a mechanical roar. Like a tiger. The bus is red, and it would be a good tiger. A gigantic mechanical red tiger. It would thrash through the woods and pick up passengers that didn't want to be passengers. It would be vicious.

In my backpack are 3 cheese rolls that I got from work. At the end of the day, employees are allowed to take home extra bread, and I was happy to get 3 of the cheese rolls. Normally I would want something sweeter, so I could have a bigger breakfast, but I am saving today's bread for tomorrow's train ride.

At work, the extra bread is kept in a black plastic bag. Something is wrong with this, because it's the same kind of bag we put all our trash in. Still, it seems clean as long as there is only bread in it.

Getting ready to make the turn into my neighborhood, I ease out into the lane, look down the oncoming traffic and ride through the gates to my subdivision. Maybe it's not a subdivision, but I'm pretty sure that all the houses were built around the same time. 30 years ago, this area was probably all farmland. It's my home, though I'm not so sure that I like it. I park my bike in the small wooden shed outside the house and scour my pockets for the house key.