Green Grass

Removing the sound-cancelling headphones clasped lopsidedly to his head, Antony swivels the tattered armchair around, flicking the red-lit switch to the side reading 'off'. He has a way of putting all his actions together into one seamless movement, a skill that I'd never possessed, nor would I ever gain. Snapping off my headphones as well, I fumble with the cord for a moment and replace them on one of our makeshift stands. I tousle my hair and pull a hat back over my head with a shiver; the badly-shuttered back-alley storage shed makes a good base for our little operation, save for the lack of the kind of regulated temperature we've grown so used to.

Antony, on the other hand, barely seems to notice as he rotates in his chair slowly, gazing absent-mindedly into space. He's the type to blend into the background while never going completely unnoticed-- something to do with his heightened sensitivity to all things life, no doubt-- the type to stand for hours in a thunderstorm, just to experience firsthand the feeling of being rain-drenched.

As oddly serendipitous as it may be, we came to know each other over the institution-school break room's lunchtime radio station. It's a terrible information source, and so we found ourselves scoffing and shooting sarcastic remarks at every inappropriate euphemism and hyperbole. To my great astonishment, I was not alone in this cynical and sceptical view of the institutionalized nature of our city. This city is so infested with the walking dead of the working class, it may as well be a rats' nest. The inhabitants feed off each other, gaining from others' fears and failings, but they're too desensitized to even see it happen.

Antony sees this, and we share a friendship of quiet, mutual understanding that is broadcast over the airways. Aside from him, I haven't kept in contact with many-- including Rachelle and Elizabeth-- the effort necessary to make people understand is not an amount that I have or am willing to exert. This way is easier; Antony doesn't have to be made to understand; he has this profound perception of the truth and-- although it may not seem so to him-- his wide-eyed, overly-sensitive awareness may be his greatest asset in these times of deception.

He gestures sharply towards the door, pulling a worn black tarp from under our equipment table and I help him to replace it atop our setup. I exit after him, shutting the door and firmly padlocking the handle behind us. Our shed is, of course, located in the absolute most intimidating part of the city. On one hand, there is the enigma of buildings and city blocks, but where we are, it is an entirely different kind of maze.

We're in rogue territory, so we walk slouched, hands stuffed into pockets, making eye contact with nobody. No respectable citizen would ever entertain the thought of possibly coming even within the boundaries of this shantytown. So naturally, it is exactly where we decide to situate ourselves. It is more than easy to be engulfed by the never-ending clusters of corrugated-tin houses and plywood-boarded makeshift windows.

The inhabitants here are of two kinds. There are those who have been shunned by the city, slipping through the cracks in the perfectly-aligned sidewalk slabs. These people may not have been able to complete their institution-school years, or maybe their job didn't keep them; whatever the situation, they ended up here. There is no place for these people in between the concrete-walled buildings.

Secondly, there are those who try to shrug off the suffocating arm of the streetlamp-lined streets; those who try to make their own way, independent of the system in place. These people end up here because, despite seeming to be outside the city, it is part of the structure too. It is the part of the structure for the people who don't like said structure.

Inside the city, there are three people: those who want to be at the top, those who want to be stable, and those who pretend that they want one of these things. I guess, before we'd drifted, Rachelle and I were the latter, and Elizabeth wanted the stability. But now... now I don't know; since it's just been Antony and I lately, I haven't heard anything of them and I wonder what they've been trapped doing, if not with us.

On the microphone, broadcasting our voices and angers over the too-limited reach of the airwaves, we feel like infinite entities. In between the pristinely whitewashed walls of the institution-school and the suppression of pockmarked ceiling-tiles, caught up in the constant eroding waves of people-- after all that, we are the voices of the disenfranchised masses. Body after body, sweeping past in a tide of non-response, they don't hear us; we are heard by those who want something to hear, who search out that ever-elusive more that there may be out there.

When we take seats in our badly-upholstered, moth-eaten, and time-worn thrones, we feel revolutionary. We feel as though the patchwork we are in, and the labyrinth where we should be are just two illusions: two anti-realities that we have made up in our nightmares. This is closer to the 'real' I have always imagined. This hands-in-pockets, slouching-too-much, walking-too-fast reality, shuffling up the hand-me-down street, after spilling our minds' products into salvaged electronic interpreters. We are the unseen kings of the shantytown, broadcasting our speeches and decrees to self-deafened ears; all we want is to pierce the barrier of ignorance.

So we try, and that is enough for now.