The man looks to my left shoulder and walks away. Another man is speaking to him. He wades out into the water. The room is resplendent with plant life, although the walls are rotten and flake. He seems drunk. He leans on a stump that points from the water. There is a rancid fireplace over his right shoulder. His trench coat is soaked around the trimming. He takes a cigarette from a packet, looks at me speaking a language I don't understand. Holding the lighter in one hand, he smiles through me. Lights the cigarette as drops fall from high and upon his coat, his scarf. A child's voice. Upon an altar. Wearing Wellington boots. He winks, the water casts its light across the area where the child is sitting. We gaze into the water. There is only water. Beneath; the old sedimentary objects of lost memory. A book burns. The flames lick the words from it. A bench saw is being used somewhere.
An alleyway littered with papers and laundry. Scaffold and mattresses. As though all the apartments have vomited their contents across the town. Empty shoes upon the cobblestones.