Cerpin Taxt stood high above the wobbling miscarriage of oncoming traffic. The rail that adorned the top of the bridge pulsed a cape of winced-shut onlooking. He had managed to get this far, without hesitation. He didn’t stretch his arms in some lame Christ pose. He had more class than that. Standing perfectly still, he disassembled his flag, blew his nose into it and shoved it back in his front left pocket. He wore a pair of black slip-on winos. His jeans, stained by a sweating reaction to his mission, fell in normal rotation around his waist. They were black. His skin parted to a smear of candle wax abandonment. Cerpin’s head became interchangeable... sometimes monk-shaven, other times a long black shoe-polish shine. The nostrils on his grill flared ape-ways. His lips had a cleft wound that had been tapered by a lacerating tailor. What room was there for such a creature? In his mind he thought it would be a good idea if he burned all of his ID bracelets and cards, so that when they blew away they would end up in the landfill on the other side of town. Surely Neuralgia would find them there in a projected state of astral wondering. No money in his pockets, no letter of reckoning. All the plans had accumulated in a warp round of loose-change thinking. He had wished to teach more to his friends about the meaning of it all...yet with all three of his eyes constantly blinking...who could ever tell if he could see at all... his body hadn’t really expected much less, but this one paved the way for a last meal. He began walking it like a tightrope. From the coma came a limp strut not too familiar to his body before the accident. His arms carved to a rat-poisoned shrivel, parked themselves neatly to his sides. In the distance came the grunting of a vehicle semi-seismic in its size. The driver slowly brought his truck to a halt. Cerpin just stared marble-eyed, holding on to nothing. The driver looked up at him, hoping he wouldn’t do it. Nothing could rewrite the previous pages, quietly standing there. Within seconds Cerpin would make up his mind.

A light breeze simmered around the balance of his stance. Each closing second opened up a dilation to the blinking that only he could see. Everyone froze, collapsing, lungs full of sighs. An application had been turned in while others turned away. Like the hands of a clock seeping forward his body began to slide into a centrifugal force. He knew the routine... no panic had its way, just a calm throbbing on the door knob. He had made a skeleton key made of cobwebs and hair, and from up on the roof of his mouth did he pull it out, hair-balled to the gag. Swiftly moving now, as his body gained momentum, he held the pick-lock with a vengeance, fists pointing at a sea of mayday handling. He promised to come fighting with a silence most deafening... no loose muscles, no more dents... a torpedo gaining on them... Tremula had not the faintest idea what was in store for them. Faster he sank towards the medium exit of the concrete. He bared no thoughts in mind. He had erased himself from the directory with amnesia as an asthmatic anesthetic, while the portal craved a gaping penetration coughing right before his remorse struck gold. Within one gulp Cerpin Taxt had hit the ground. The cracking of the marrow. The boils roaring up on the shores. One side of his face had collapsed inwards, while the rest of his body remained intact. His limbs slightly mumbled an escape act... and the puppet strings fell behind the ragman of Mundy, tangled and defaced. People turned away in disgust. The driver of the truck that had stopped to watch him came over to his side. He whispered in his ears, "Dios mio que esistes?" to no response. Cerpin’s right eye was left open, not a murmur, now without blinks. All that was left was a uniform, which he had no use for keeping. His essence unglued itself from the asphalt, leaving behind a syrup of red, for his body was the feast, served on beds of ancestral curses. Now, that feared chalk outline would close in circumference only around the temple of his ruins. On the underpass in downtown Rezjua, Cerpin left a tale, as it forever stained the ground he hit on that jealous cold leach afternoon. No one knew what hit them.

-thread end-