saffron robes with strapped metallic bowls dangling from their
shoulders in which shopkeepers requiring blessings placed rice; the
sweet taste of rambutans when the spiky core was broken and the
transparent succulent egg was overtaken; and motorcycle taxi drivers
with cardboard and pop bottle games that, with the tap of the nails of
their fingers, kept their time of waiting from overwhelming them in
boredom. A persistent fly over the table made him nervous and he
thought that perhaps to counter the truths his subconscious spewed out
in the form of the insect and his own need for stability (not just his
environment changing but he, himself, was continually changing) he
needed to invent a god for himself if nothing other than the God of
Dirty Underwear. The persistent fly continued to besiege him so he
left the department store and returned to his friends.
The "friends"--he did not know their names--seemed content with
their circumstances. They, like he, were cuddled together under the
overpass consuming and inhaling their amphetamine and glue molecule
treats, which inadvertently gave them ice cream headaches. This intake
delivered them from bleak realities to that of twirling and dizzy
children while fantasies stepped forward as emperors of the spinning
domain. At times when they were more conscious of their existence and
surroundings (especially when feeling intensely hungry) these
transients would beg. They had a method. If someone in a suit
carrying a cellular telephone were standing in front of the cash
register at a nearby convenience store with a long serpentine tail of
customers waiting behind him, one of them would enter the store.
Shocked by such a lugubrious display and needing to quickly expedite
his exit with his bags, such an individual would give generously so as
to not be perceived as parsimonious or niggard in the reaction.
It occurred to him that this word, "friend," was not really what
it at first seemed. If indeed people were all users attracted to