My phone flashes to life with a jarring hum and a message from a man whose current concerns are of none to me. Concern that is. The block of glass and metal is promptly locked and stashed away by hands not quite at rest in their respective pockets. ″It′s cold.″ Muttering the phrase comes almost as a surprise to myself, but to my immense relief none of the people on the train platform turn around in wonder of what strange being just noted the temperature to itself out loud. Without audience as it may be, the action is made even sillier by the fact that in the truest of ways ″it″ is cold. Some undefined external thing. Having just left a heated carriage, my clothes are still suffused with stale, warm air, so it is only breathing which alerts to the notion that other things , not me and out here things, might be cold. Thick, opaque and with a slight glimmer as though crystals of ice were forming within it the moment it escapes my mouth, the clouds billow forth and with them a chuckle. The realization of just how much of this place is not me, how small and free I am within it, tentatively makes its uneasy way across a mental landscape utterly unaccustomed to, and unprepared for, such notions. Only another odd, faceless entity laughing to itself outside a train station. Another person. Taking in the deep comfort of this idea, along another lungful of the crisp autumn night, reveals with burning satisfaction just how cold this marvelously alien city is, and at once a passionate desire for the chill to permeate coat and shirt, to absorb me into it as a newborn stranger, to wash away the stuffy, tepid cabin gasses for the sake of belonging, clean and without baggage, takes hold. A five-dollar bill is unceremoniously stuffed down the cup a homeless man is holding, his face only registered as much as the action itself, which is to say barely at all, before I properly exit the station. Deep-hanging clouds make the visibility somewhat poor, but it suffices to reaffirm already-known information: there is not much of a skyline to behold in Rasten or at least none which is impressive at all to someone with prior experiences of such. If one were to lower their standards though, it might be said that there is a lack of absence of skyline. Most buildings are certainly a few stories higher than I am accustomed to and so the sheer amount of humanity does illicit some sense of pensive awe. The clouds are tinged red with the last vestiges of a setting sun still barely visible above the horizon as the city falls into twilight. Further inspection reveals a more well-lit area up ahead which must be the city center, I conclude, not quite familiar enough to say for sure but making my languid way toward the light regardless. I am in no particular rush to arrive at my destination. I am in no particular rush to arrive at a place. I don′t know why I fear getting to the apartment I have chosen as my goal, or getting there now, or getting there like this, whatever any of these are even supposed to mean. I merely know that I fear and have begun to fear recently and without noticing. A stranger as I may be, I am in no way one to fear or even to fear of unknown origin for that matter, and with all experience comes a carefully honed response. A chess piece moved in a familiar way is countered with a familiar move in return. Focusing on the physical symptoms; numb extremities, racing heartbeat, unsteady gait, desire to throw up into a nearby garbage can before crawling into it. These are things which can be seen as ″just happening″ to oneself without cause. Things to get annoyed by. Things to curse one′s body over. Sensations to distract from thinking about their cause until they are things in themselves rather than the result of any specific thought to be considered and found deeply unpleasant. To stick with the chess metaphor, I consider this the emotional equivalent of castling, which is to say that it is always a good move and should be done whenever one is given the opportunity. Descending toward the city center reveals that these roads are old. Not badly maintained, but forking, ending, and turning, at no point granting straight view at the destination, now that my, in more ways than one, staggering progress has cost me the advantage of altitude. Considering it a bit more, I think I prefer it that way. The rigid grid structure of more modern cities might be convenient, but it also feels exposed. Like a place one could fall out of, the way one can with smaller towns. In a way the buildings enveloping me as they do here is comfortable. ″-cuse me.″ My finger is pointed at my own chest in the universally understood ″I am incredulous at the idea that I might be addressed despite that obviously being the case″ gesture. It′s the middle of the night and this is a residential area. No one′s around. Of course he means me. ″Yeah. You happen to know where the station is?″ The finger previously aimed at my person now points over my shoulder in a way that I only realize too late might look a bit silly. ″Just up there, ten minutes or so maybe.″ ″Oh good, good. Been astray in this cold for too long, you know?″ ″It is quite frigid.″ ″Hm.″ There′s something odd about the way he looks at me. Uncomfortably appraising with his sharp, brown eyes, but also sad in a way. Kind but oppressive. Rather than leave it at the superficial remark about the weather and go he just stands there, staring, and I cannot bring myself to avert my eyes or carry on my way because of an inscrutable feeling that doing so would negatively impact his assessment of my person. So I continue returning his gaze, taking in the scraggly beard, the pronounced cheekbones, the wrinkles on his forehead. Early forties definitely, maybe... ″You smoke, kid?″ I don′t. Not out of some moral opposition or regard for my physical health, it has just never been a thing I did and yet... ″Yes.″ Showing what might be the hint of a smile, the stranger produces a cigarette from his coat and hands it to me. ″Thanks, safe travels.″ It′s a platitude, but something in his pause and way of navigating the syllables endows it with an almost intimate sincerity the phrase doesn′t rightfully deserve. Always envied people who can speak like that, like some radio personalities whose greetings can bring a smile to your lips like those of a close friend. I′ve only ever been able to do the opposite: make the heartfelt sound jejune and shallow. With that he leaves and surrenders me to the night again with nothing but a suitcase and a cigarette. Unequipped to light the thing I just twirl it between my fingers with the sort of dazed fascination this mundane artefact clearly warrants. The scent of tobacco is barely detectable in the cold. Not a pleasant smell as far as I remember but always kind of homely. Like old fabric, yellowed and stuffy. Things the great temporal current simply passed by, but which aged none the less. Stuck and comfortably uncomfortable until the day they realize that everything around them had eroded. that their place in the world did not exist anymore and that they didn′t meaningfully withstand the current. That there was a very crucial distinction between withstanding and standing by. You′re harvested, you age and then one day you are set aflame. As with people, as with old furniture, as with cigarettes. I think I will prefer the scent once it is lit. That is probably why I took it. As the meditation on grandfatherly sofas and cancerous inhalants draws to a close, the tip of the television tower gradually emerges behind a building. From there it should only be a few minutes to... Didn′t I want to explore? Didn′t I want to not go there? Why was I just blindly walking towards the only area of this town I know? ″The place where you find your destiny won′t be around a familiar corner″ as it were, so why am I here. I turn on the spot and walk left, choosing the lateral move over a simple regression that would only render the past few minutes of walking a waste. It is not often that I lose sight of my impulse toward self-sabotage, but the feeling of betrayal is no less gut wrenching for it. An emotion cutting bone deep is not much of an accomplishment considering the skeletal state of my frame and yet just that fact might cut a good bit deeper; how shallow all the things that hurt me are. I don′t fail to notice my hand clutching the phone in my pocket a little tighter and I am momentarily tempted to throw the piece of blameless tech against a wall before reconsidering and loosening my grip. Perhaps the cell phone tower has already vanished in the distance behind me. I resist the urge to look back in fear that I might reestablish a sense for my geographic position and am temporarily reminded of a thing the flame used to say when high: ″To feel is to feel lost, always and from the start″. I could never quite bring myself to agree, but then again perhaps I never allowed myself to be lost enough to feel. Branching out from the center, the architecture loses purposefulness. Things no longer appear as though they were placed in service of cohesion and more like they were just built because there was space, making use of the gaps in what already was. I guess that′s how cities form; adding on at the periphery, never quite fitting perfectly, degradation increasing with each layer until you reach white noise. With real cities at least. If you plan the whole complex, plan for it to be a city, then you can just expand as though building with lego bricks, following the despotic auto-governing pattern of self-similarity, synecdoche, forever negating any real liminality, but that feels insincere in a way. There is something, a certain very human quality, to a settlement growing despite expectations, perfectly exemplified in a town encasing its own city walls within itself, redefining their function, reincorporating them: No longer fortification but landmark, perhaps even art. It leaves room for people inhabiting it despite expectations. There′s a real warmth to the idea that anything has a place, any degradation is already accommodated since conceptomic decay is the modus operandi. Every broken bottle, every graffitied wall, every abandoned building is an invitation to the ill-fitting to badly fit beside them and make a new whole. Like this bridge. My line of flight seems to have taken me far enough out from Rasten′s core that streetlights are necessary for illumination since display windows and other inside-lighting has seized to suffice. The dirty orange casts its beam upon a roughly hewn stone bridge over a charming canal. Though canal might be going a bit far, as able-bodied folks could easily jump across what meager current passes below the arch. By no means am I far enough out for something so rural to fit in, and the city apparently agrees, shielding itself from the anachronistic rocks with layers and layers of neon spray paint. Symbols and names and pictures covering and intertwining so that the result can′t rightly be called either. More than colours, less than meaning, or maybe not. If the words were legible, they would likely make far less sense than they do painted over and repurposed as they are. The way the verisimilitude of an ancient tablet is diminished if one can read it. Perfectly reasonable as gibberish but always somewhat false-feeling when understood: ″was it really like that? Did people talk this way?″. Makes me glad to have forgotten Latin, though maybe that′s an excuse. I don′t regret it at least. Perhaps then meaning can be meaning without one being able to put their finger on it or to disentangle the images from each other and the bridge. What might be a raised digit flowing into either a barely recognizable signature or a vine of sorts even dares to suggest that one′s finger is of more use somewhere else entirely. My chuckle is reflected by the underside of the bridge to sound slightly fuller and I can′t help but interpret that as agreement. It feels like a question or a strange sort of Rorschach test perhaps, where the answer for once isn′t ″moth″ but ″all of the above, and more underneath″. ″Hey, you got a phone?″ He′s lanky, unhealthily so, with long, tangled hair haphazardly stuffed into a messy bun. At some point I must have sat down next to the bridge as the boy′s figure arches over me in such a way that I can only see his silhouette cast against the streetlight, stiff and uneven. While the nasally voice is certainly deep enough to belong to a young adult, he doesn′t know how to use it yet. ″Sure.″ I get a better look at his face once he sits down and unsteadily grabs the device. Dark eyes, hard jaw and a long, sharp, distinctly broken nose with the bruise to go with it. ″Jesus Christ, what did you make that stint from?″ ″Stint?″ ″The piece of rubber on the outside, you know. The bridge-thing to stabilize.″ ″Oh, I think that′s a bit of bike tire.″ ″That should work... We cut apart a phone case once.″ ″You had your nose broken?″ ″Nah, just fixed two. Not for lack of opportunities though.″ ″Hm... They also stuffed it.″ ″Good, good. I mean, I can see that, but still... Thoughtful friends you have.″ ″Yeah... I... Yeah. My name′s Percy by the way.″ ″Alright Percy, do your call, I′ll get you some ice. Just stay there.″ ″But your phone.″ ″Please don′t throw it in the river while I′m gone, I guess? Just a minute, I think I saw a kiosk somewhere around here.″ ″Oh, just up that road, but...″ ″Thanks″ Most things are unreasonably expensive in the city, including stuff like ice which couldn′t possibly cost more to produce in Rasten than in the countryside. Of course that′s because any purchase has to pay for a part of the significantly higher rent on the shop itself, but knowing the reason doesn′t mean that I′ll get used to it any quicker. Percy still sits hunched over next to the bridge, cradling my cellphone in his hands, but opposite him, on the other side of the stream now stands a woman with a very punk-looking haircut. Despite the cold, her arms are bare, showcasing impressive musculature and a number of tattoos. I would probably not pay her much attention if it weren′t for the fact that she is flashing the screen of her phone towards us with an outstretched arm, the words on it reading ″we will meet again″. Assumably this is a warning directed at Percy, as the moment my eyes meet hers, she stashes the phone away and moves on. ″Who was that?″ ″Who?″ ″The lady with the tattoos″ ″Sorry, I wasn′t... I wasn′t really paying attention.″ ″Is anyone after you? Should we go to the police?″ He tenses up at this. ″No, no I don′t think so. If anyone′s looking for me it′s the police, but I doubt it, they haven′t... no.″ ″Jesus, what happened? Wait, no, here′s some ice and pain meds, then tell me what happened.″ The first three digits of a phone number had been entered before the pursuit was apparently abandoned. I decide against bringing it up just yet. ″You′ve heard of the soul chain, right?″ ″Nope. Not exactly from here.″ I smile to introduce some levity, but instead Percy looks dazed for a moment. ″Huh″ His eyes attempt to find some pattern in the current. ″Should I have?″ ″Guess not. Just weird to think about. How things can be so localized when they fully encompass you.″ ″Yeah... I′d say I recommend moving but it seems like you′ve tried that.″ ″Running away isn′t the same as moving.″ ″It can be... with some luck and some commitment.″ ″I guess. Didn′t run from the soul chain though, that′s where I moved to. Everyone kind of wants to be encompassed, I think, they just want to choose by what.″ ″They rarely know the options.″ ″Sometimes you only need to know that one of them is ″anything else″.″ ″Huh. Suppose I′m a coward then. So, the Soul chain.″ ″The chain... I guess the term comes with a lot of baggage and that′s fine. It should. We′re certainly self-aware about it, but the soul chain is kind of a cult. It′s a cult of empaths, except it isn′t because one out of five people there doesn′t believe in empaths and only like half of them think that there′s anything spiritual to it. I want to say that it′s more of a support network for people who were diagnosed as empaths, by themselves or others whether they agree or not, but that would also be misleading because most self help groups don′t have sermons. They don′t go around proselytizing. Some of the people there who really, really don′t want it to be a cult call it a political movement advocating for better treatment of empaths, but some of the members are literal children who just fucking need a roof over their head. Political movements also don′t have priests. Sorry if I′m nuance-dumping here but it′s really strange to have someone whose perspective on this isn′t already poisoned one way or another so I feel like I have to make the most of that opportunity. What′s the soul chain? Fuck if I know. A bunch of people who were looking for stability or meaning or whatever and built a community around it without ever agreeing what type of community it is. That make sense?″ ″Yeah, yeah it does. It′s one of those things where something slots in really well with the context you have through the news or such but really badly with your personal experience. Makes you sort of aware of how ″I only believe what I see with my own eyes″ your thinking really is just under the hood. Of course you believe the other things, the news-things, but it′s not the same type of believing. It′s shallower, easily pushed aside. When we, outside of the cities, hear about empaths; the danger they pose and the gangs and such, we cant really appreciate what that means because it immediately triggers this disconnect. Like of course there would have to be empaths on the countryside. It makes no sense that they would only exist in cities and people who move to the city sure get diagnosed from time to time, but none of the issues associated seem to exist in that world. It′s almost like ESP only starts being a thing once you test for it. That′s how a lot of people see it; that it′s nothing more than a plot by the government to atomize people. Others just say that it′s naturally more of a problem with high population density and leave it at that, but either way: Everyone chats with the butcher without fear of being manipulated. It′s treated as an abstract political thing, not something that exists. We′d have to see it for that.″ ″Gang. Yeah that′s another one. I mean you know the demographics, most people with ESP related issues are relatively young, and what′s a gang if not the young political movement of a marginalized group that can′t really coherently articulate their demands yet. How do you even make demands if you internally can′t agree on whether you exist or not? Or if your existence, should it be the case, ″means″ something. That′s the political movement section. Or current I guess. They aren′t really sectioned off but you know what I mean. I think a gang earns the title of ″political movement″ once their message become more specific than ″stop fucking with us″ and I don′t think we′re there yet.″ ″It′s a good message for what it′s worth.″ ″It is, right? I don′t think that barrier to entry is justified. It′s literally that easy. And I don′t think any of this would go away if we stopped testing kids on how good they are at reading emotions. That might have done something years ago, but it′s far to late now because anyone with half a brain cell can fail on purpose. You don′t know if you might pass, so it′s safer to err on the side of caution for literally everyone, and as a result everyone does horribly. What that means though is that the baseline gets lower and lower and what was perfectly normal one year is ESP the next until all that is being tested for is your acting ability. Anyone who doesn′t pretend to be a robot would be an empath by now, it′s a fucking death spiral. But the thing is that the public know this. Worse than that: they spin it as some insidious plot of empaths subverting the system even though they give their own fucking kids pointers on how to fail the tests. It′s goddamn mental. But here′s why stopping the tests won′t do shit: It seized being a news-thing and started being real to people. Properly ″see with your own eyes″-real where data is useless. I′ve never gotten a positive test result. It doesn′t matter. At all. Because no one believes in the tests anymore. Instead they diagnose the old fashioned way; through biased, amateur, paranoid observation and hearsay. Once that ball gets rolling, once a single person points out that you seem a bit more social than your peers, you′re fucked. And it self-perpetuates: More allegations means more paranoia means more allegations. It′s too fast and too stupid for the soul chain to be anything but incoherent.″ ″Well shit... You want a beer?″ ″I′m fifteen.″ ″And apparently old enough to get your nose broken while involved with something that is at least partially a cult. Judging by the looks of it you don′t really have to worry about blood thinning anymore either.″ ″Forgot about how the legality of drinking is determined by trauma, physical and otherwise.″ ″It′s just an offer. I′ve always thought that if anyone should get to drink it′s teenagers, you know. Adults at least kind of have options for dealing with their problems, mostly bad ones, though options nonetheless, but childhood is an authoritarian state and all you can really do is try to survive until you get some marginal freedom. At least let them have drugs for god′s sake.″ ″Huh, guess I′ll take one, thanks... First real opinion I got out of you and then it′s such a strong one and on this of all subjects.″ ″I guess it really is these days. I′m honestly just plagiarizing a monologue the crow used to give, but it has crawled its way into my bones. One of my most foundational beliefs now probably.″ ″Sounds like this crow character is one of the people whose noses you would have had to fix.″ ″She was. Both times actually.″ My smile almost manages to be warm, but I feel the need not to allow a pause anyway. Talking about her is already making me keenly aware of the man attempting to establish contact through the phone in Percy′s hands again, and I would prefer not to be. ″You never actually told me if you believe in the more spiritual branch, whatever that means.″ ″It′s tempting, you know? I think I went in wanting to believe that ESP is some higher divine connection. It′s nice to think that you were at least kicked out of school for something that′s real and that matters, but once you actually get together with people it′s very clear that they′re making it up as they go. If ten ″priests″ have visions giving them all the answers, but they′re ten different sets of answers and then they spend the rest of the time arguing it out and negotiating, that doesn′t exactly inspire confidence in the folks around to witness it. We are a resourceful people. We′ll make our own god of none is provided, but it is difficult to be a true believer while the whole thing is still very much under construction. The last step of creating magic is forgetting how the gears work, I think, and we haven′t even entirely put them together yet.″ ″Sounds like an interesting bunch.″ ″Yeah, I hope they′re alright.″ ″What happened?″ ″My chapter was moving to a different out-church. They′re essentially warehouses repurposed to provide shelter and a space for meetings and such, and we have to cycle through them constantly, since again: in the eyes of the police we are a gang. A local taxi driver helped us get a truck and move everyone and everything over, but well, they apparently got wind somehow and the place was raided a few days later.″ ″You think he-″ ″No, no. he′s pretty much an honorary member. He wouldn′t. Either way, I got roughed up a bit, we managed to escape to some alley, they stuffed my nose and we decided that it was safer to scatter for a while. Moving as a group′s too conspicuous. Now I′m here.″ ″Escaped?″ ″Well, we ran. They can′t really lock us up since we didn′t do anything illegal, so the job is kinda just making our lives as precarious as possible. Still good to book it; you don′t want them to have your picture on file... I could probably find them now. Should be long enough, but I don′t know if I want to. Some meager safety is nice, don′t get me wrong, but that′s not really what I was looking for. I still think there might be an actual point out there. Some mechanism whose internal workings have successfully faded into obscurity.″ ″Fuck...Maybe.″ He looks at me sadly. ″It′s not healthy you know. I don′t think it is.″ ″What isn′t?″ ″Being so quiet. Only listening. Shit, what′s the point of walking through the night; through the city when it belongs to drunks, ghosts and noncommittal teenagers with nowhere to go if you aren′t gonna at least scream your lungs out at the sky. This... This everything: The colours and sounds and the bullshit of it all gets into you. It seeps in through your skin, your pores, every second of every day, and the only way to get it out is to... Well to get it out. Maybe that′s why we run, because the world accumulates in our godforsaken bitch of a system, bodily speaking, and we don′t know where to fucking put it. So we look for a new world which can accumulate in turn because we haven′t fixed fuck. Sorry, I guess this is about me now and how stupid I am for only now getting that. You′re an adult, I′m sure your reasons are better than this half-baked mopey bullshit. God, I feel like a tool.″ This fucking kid. Can′t really tell him that age doesn′t improve your reasons. Can′t really tell him that it′s not an endless cycle, because that′s no more than an unfounded hope on my part. Yelling at the sky sounds nice, but I don′t quite know what to tell it either. ″You′re not, or at least I don′t get the feeling that you are. Maybe it is the same shit again and again, I hope it isn′t. Maybe actually fixing something is impossible, maybe you just haven′t found the tools yet, could be either, but hey, you started running. That′s better than most people.″ ″Is it?″ ″Sure. Can′t help but think that it′s easier to find those tools if you′re moving. Not like they′re gonna just appear in front of you.″ ″Guess so.″ I have never seen someone drink beer this slowly in my life. His eyes are still captured by the undulating patterns in the stream. ″About that call... you can keep the phone in case you ever do decide to make it.″ ″I can′t- You can′t just-″ ″Sure I can. Been thinking of smashing the damn thing all night and this is way more productive. Its old either way... There is one condition though.″ ″And what′s that?″ ″If some guy messages you asking for me, tell him to fuck off.″ ″Heh, thanks″ I first realized it in the store; how much lighter everything felt without the cursed device in my pocket. Just a case, a cigarette and the clothes on my body. While the sun has set a while ago, it is only now that the last of its light has been purged from the sky. Still young, the night. I wonder where the moon will lead me.