Been craving a burger. Big cheeseburger with bacon. Maybe avocado too, but avocado is so expensive now. Doesn't matter anyway. When the Mad Cow came across they pulled all the beef. All the beef. No more real burgers in America.
Maybe a Soy burger will do it. They can make them look really real now. I have to rush over to the subway because of the rain. The rain is heavy. Thick and dirty. Cold. So cold. So cold it freezes and bounces off my back like little bullets; angry angel tears.
Hot down in the subway station. The rainwater pools greasy down in the track bed and boils when it laps up on the third rail. Makes a sizzle sound like bloody beef on a grill. Makes me hungry.
There are big jumping creatures down there in the bed. Devil frogs so big they eat the rats. No one knows where they come from. Up from hell maybe. Or down from the end of the world. They burp and gurgle.
So hungry when the train sloshes in. The TVs onboard play the news on a loop. We invaded another country. Another desert. Another thirsty place. Our consumer-industrial complex is thirsty for more black crude. It guzzles oil like water but sweats it out in blood.
The reporter—imbedded like a tick—sings the praises of our new cluster bombs. In D.O.D. stock footage they burst open and buzz to the ground in a million fast black specks. They are called Locust.
But progress impeded! The train jerks to a stop. The lights go out. People sigh and bitch. This happens all the time. We are stuck underground without light.
Scratch my scalp in the dark. The stress, the angry, the disappointment. They tickle my skin. They have legs like bugs on my body. I scratch and scratch but it doesn't go away. When will this go away?
Why does it feel like this more and more? Why do I feel guilty? I voted. I tried. I always voted. Always did my part. So how did we get here? My house is the bank's and only my debt is my own. The fear is constant, the shame complete. My country dead, my national anthem a death-knell. Our first born hope of a better way aborted. The fondest hopes of forefathers forestalled.
Finally freed from dark delay. I make my way up the street, through the rain to the little soy hut in the Village. Order my burger and it even almost smells right. I bite and try to savor.
It tastes bad and feels funny and moves in my mouth and when I spit it out I see that even the soy is rotten, filled with bugs. White and moving.
It just breaks me and makes me cry.