To enter out into that silence that was the city at eight o’clock of a misty evening in November, to put your feet upon that buckling concrete walk, to step over grassy seams and make your way, hands in pockets, through the silences, that was what Mr. Leonard Mead most dearly loved to do. He would stand upon the corner of an intersection and peer down long moonlit avenues of sidewalk in four directions, deciding which way to go, but it really made no difference; he was alone in this world of A.D. 2053, or as good as alone, and with a final decision made, a path selected, he would stride off, sending patterns of frosty air before him like the smoke of a cigar.

Sometimes he would walk for hours and miles and return only at midnight to his house. And on his way he would see the cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard where only the faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the windows. Sudden gray phantoms seemed to manifest upon inner room walls where a curtain was still undrawn against the night, or there were whisperings and murmurs where a window in a tomblike building was still open.

Mr. Leonard Mead would pause, cock his head, listen, look, and march on, his feet making no noise on the lumpy walk. For long ago he had wisely changed to sneakers when strolling at night, because the dogs in intermittent squads would parallel his journey with barkings if he wore hard heels, and lights might click on and faces appear and an entire street be startled by the passing of a lone figure, himself, in the early November evening.

‘the pedestrian’

WOLFHOUND

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA

2018 A.D.

RYAN CECILIUS STARSAILOR

LOCAL IDIOT

FAILED NOVELIST

DISAPPOINTING SON

BAD CRAZINESS ALL AROUND

IN THE WOMEN’S RESTROOM CUZ SORRY, IT’S MUCH CLEANER IN HERE AND IT WAS ONLY GROSS DUDES IN THE JOINT SO I FIGURED IT WAS PROBABLY OK

i have for various reasons over the years been punched and cut and split open

i also naturally have dark sadness marks beneath my eyes and have since i was a kid

well: due to a massive black eye i sustained during those dark days in ghost town, which is a truly miserable part of oakland, i now have a permanent slightly-more-shut-than-my-left-eye edgar-allan-poe-ass drooping right eye, and the broken capillaries beneath have never healed correctly, which looks ghoulish as hell all on its own

but! when i am extremely exhausted, like i am tonight, it looks like i have that same black eye all over again . . . five and a half godforsaken years later!

creeping jesus! i haven’t slept in six days. you should see this son of a bitch tonight!