Dazzling lights surround a dark hall ready to celebrate. Every nook and cranny yearns for the human touch that will arrive in a few hours. I stand alone by a balcony, with curtains flailing towards me, away from the breeze, as if I was their only comfort. The harsh wind raged but I could not shut the windows. The glamorous occasion would surely be ruined if I simply let the wind destroy the site. Maybe that was what I wanted all along. Before I could figure out what it was I truly wanted, I hear heavy footsteps. I cannot look into his eyes. I never could, for they are filled with judgement as cold and harsh as the raging wind, yet they own a subtle pain. A tinge of regret which I could never face. I attempt to take flight but never make it past the door. I can never make it past the door to darkness, away from the mock animosity of the lonely lights and painful eyes. I am fully aware of this dream and it replays in my head every night. Lucid dreaming is not always pleasant because you can never truly escape. The things you wish to do in dreams cannot be done because you are aware of them and so become guilty. Conscience is guilt. Awakening every day from my nonexistent escape I begin to feel lonely and envious of those who can create an imaginative paradise. Ignorance must be bliss because awareness only creates grievances. People are said to be stuck in a dream when death arrives. Will I be aware of death, then? I ponder too much and too often. I willfully awaken to a frayed apartment. The air is stuffy and grey. Cracks line the walls behind the shelves, masked behind books and shelves, attempting to convince a nonexistent visitor that this place is worth more than a sneer. The furniture is as raggedy as a veteran that had served in two world wars. The carpet is the best actor you've ever seen, for it emanates the best portrayal of moss anyone's ever seen, damp, green, and mysteriously sickening. There are no dazzling lights here, but it seems I am more aware and awake in my dreams than my reality. The pollution of reality seeps in through the cracked walls and beckons me outside, to hell. Don't ask me for my name for I don't have one. I lost it in a fire a while back. Seems I remember everything about my life and everything about that fire except my name. A block of wood came crashing onto my head and snatched my name from me. Of course who would notice? My subtle presence doesn't present people with many questions such as my name. I am just another spectator, for presence is the next thing I lack. As I step out into the bleak city the only thing I can think of is the dazzling lights from the lucid dream I'd had last night. They contrast enough with the polluted view that it could cause depression. A sprawling metropolis with the need to control its citizens with a facade of opportune hope. The place where one can start small and end with a bang. A bang indeed, the bang of a nameless corpse against the dirt. However, citizen hopefuls keep moving in and keep trying to make something of themselves hoping to flourish an empire. They do not realize it has all been done before and that by moving in, they keep widening the social gap and are lessening their chances of being innovators. Their stubbornness does not allow them these thoughts so they trudge on, starry eyed and fresh minded. Sneering at these fools is the distinct upper class, pretending they never had humble beginnings. Riots break out with no middle class to prevent the balancing act to fall on where there is no safety net. Money is everything and nothing. Just as I am nobody surrounded by everybody. The pollution follows me to my place of office, a toll booth on the side of a major interstate. Thousands of faces pass me daily, exasperated to jubilant are their ranges. Soon, I will be out of a job to a machine but until then I have no thought of job stability. I never thought of anything of my job or life until a man pulled up with painfully regretful eyes. Eyes I could not meet.
