Empire Of The Senseless

There’s a little boy on the trolley. He has a yellow cassette player clipped to his hip. He grabs the bar above his head with both hands. His fingers are peaking out of cutoff leather gloves. He’s very strong. I can’t take my eyes off of his chin bobbing. I imagine what he’s listening to. I think of Michael Jackson. I start singing Tina Turner. He turns toward me. He doesn’t stop dancing. He changes his rhythm to match my melody. “Its like we were destined to move toward each other.” I’m whispering. He pushes a plastic button and the tapes stops spinning. “What did you say?” I stand up and put my hands on his cheeks. “I said, don’t stop dancing. When you leave this train, you’ll step into a City of perpetual sunlight who’s never seen the light of day. As soon as they lay their filthy eyes on you, they’ll know, you and you alone remember the light. They will try to take everything. Your physical body will be of no concern to them. They wont feed you. They wont let you drink the water running from their facet.