True Chapter Two -- Torero

Torero
stares out
into the dark.

Below,
the city
sleeps and dreams.

At this time
of night
remembrance

visits
and reminds
Torero of possibilities.

Could have beens
he's left
behind.

Tomorrow's
routine lies
mapped inside the

circuits
of his
good left brain.

Tick
through lists:
things to do,

things to say,
things to
recall,

deactivate,
assimilate, revalidate,
deconstruct, reconstruct, reactivate.

His
life ruled
by these lists

they never let
go, not
even

in the dark
of night
when

all
the city
lies sleeping, dreaming,

tossing,
turning on
the currents of

lost
hopes and
empty pocket promises.

Torero closes his eyes and makes a wish.

#

Long ago, when
he was
new

a young rebuild
filled with
dreams

he
thought the
city was more

than this assemblage
of metal
struts

decaying
corpses of
dead and gutted

utility
vehicles. Discards
of another earth.

Someone told him.
He laughed,
looked

up at the
memory tower
imagined he could

reach up to
the very
top

thought
he could
see the future

shining
down on
him, beckoning him

to fulfill his
full potential.
Be

what you were
created to
be.

So the slogan
goes. He
bought

it all. Hook,
line and
sinker.

Believed
because he
didn't dare to

look
beyond what
they wanted him

to.
The mechanics,
old slogan masters,

builders
and sustainers
of a lifestyle

existing only on
this side
of

the paradise wall.

No
one ever
breaches the wall

they told him.
and he
would

have
kept the
faith, 100% believing.

If not for
her. She
haunts

him still. The
only one
who

ever got away.
He'll never
forget

her
face or
the serial number

on a plate
now part
of

the shielding over
his heart.
Betrayal

or
hope. He
can only keep

on believing she's
somewhere out
beyond

the paradise wall
living the
dream

she always talked
about. Alternate
Girl.

He speaks her
name aloud
cherishing

this secret moment
before he
erases

it from the
memory loop.
Maybe...

falls
into the
labyrinth of mangled

wishes
never spoken
aloud, just in

case someone hears.

##

forgiveness

forgive
the author
who has sinned

committed
this act
of secret violence

against the form
committed trespass
without

the reader's knowledge
and so
compromised

a story's heart
for the
sake

of
a vision
the creature thought

existed.
Let us
proceed as intended

by
story undirected
by the author's

manipulations.
Release story
into this form

This is the
act of
penance.

The previous chapter
erased as
if

it had never
been told
or

written
or thought
or brought to

life.
Let us
proceed as story

intended
before human
thought stepped in.