Port Bou, Spain

He awakens to discover that overnight he has immigrated to Port Bou, Spain where he will hang himself from the joist over his writing desk. Feeling off and weakly, which he does more oft than oft, he lights a match and breaths in the sulfur, his eyes red against the blue curtains. ‘…I’d give a pocketful of God’s shillings but for one last go at it…’ he says facing the wall opposite to his writing desk. ‘…dog meat, what a sham, $27.50 per half-liter, a sad sate of affairs, sad indeed, awfully…’. Looking piebald, the ceiling black spackle, he lets out a scream ‘…for the love of God let me have one last go at it, I beg you please…’. He awakens face down on the sidewalk to a queue of petty con artists and low-brows waiting for the doors to the soup kitchen to open, today’s offering knuckle broth with carrots and day-old bread, a feast fit for a king. A black tinker with a half moon scar on his cheek baits the others on, screaming at the top of his lungs ‘…soup, give us soup…’. ‘…that’ll be enough…’ challenges another tinker, this one red, ‘…we get fed when the clock strikes noontime, not a minute before…’. ‘…kill the bastard…!’ yells the black tinker, ‘…into the grave with him…’. ‘…killing him won’t do any good…’ says a man in a torn overcoat holding a spineless umbrella. ‘…though it couldn’t hurt…’ says the black tinker, his left eye weeping. ‘…that’ll be that…’ said the man in the hat, his face pressed into the cobblestones.

The Suipacha Bros. of Buenos Aires are in cahoots with the Kent Bros. of Gloucestershire; the Barreiro Setubal Bros., of places near and far, yell screaming ‘…fuck the king…!’ for no other reason than they can and do. A fat yellow sun creeps over the horizon, a slurry of fat gray clouds riding the rays of her back. Squinting, the Greek cranks open the steel gate, the day beginning again.