Thursday, January 10

St. Louis, Missouri

White video static raked itself across the barely-focused television screen in a free-for-all wrestling match with overblown chroma and luminance. The brightest spot on the tube fell somewhere near the center where the thick dust had been haphazardly wiped away by a bare hand. As if actively seeking this small porthole, the oddly hued video flickered in random bursts through greasy fingerprints to create angry shadows dancing throughout the confines of the small room.

Splotchy stains washed across the walls, illuminated by the swiftly shifting silhouettes. Most of them had long ago been rendered unidentifiable by the growing layers of filth. They now competed for attention with their more recent counterparts. Some of them looked as though they could be the remnants of foodstuffs, possibly hurled in anger or disgust. Others bore more than a passing resemblance to various bodily excretions better left unconsidered by those easily sickened-or in at least one instance, horrified. Still others might simply be nothing more than the result of water damage from the sieve-like roof. Whatever they had each been in their individual existences, they now blended to become a single stomach-turning mosaic.