Living in the Under As I slept, I dreamt. I had a dream that I was living on the sidewalk, on a corner on a rainy day. People passed, unseen, not noting our being there. As I looked down the walk, I could see a tarp, dozens of feet long, covering an encampment, where we huddled, together barely touching, slyly acknowledging each other's presence, and silently schemed to move outward and find new ground. Passers-by kicked up puddle water and splattered us as I covered myself more fully in canvas. We, having a loose gang, moved on as it is in dreams. There was an apartment with a sad man and plastic food. Men touched women's covered breasts, the implication of a nipple showing on a full chest. Needles full of drugs manifested and disappeared, as things do in dreams. We were here and there, and alliances were born and faded away. And while on the surface it seems a sad dream, or a bad dream, it was clarifying in a way. It was revealing. I composed the start of this as I lay in bed. The rest I finished this morning. We live in the Under. Under, over the ground, touching a little to feel a connection. We huddle with the debris of life coming down on us, and are pelted by the mess of living. We team and scheme and venture into the cacophony of existing, peering forward while watching our back. We visit the plastic fortress up the stairs to conclave, in the unnatural quiet that is here. Its own private noise. Each one a royal in their cube, a clergy presiding over a synod, and turning to master the maze. All while the laity each see their own circle and their own intent. Plan, confer, execute, wheel and deal, a billion plans, a billion ends. None quite what they wished, none done to spec. No end meeting the desire, and the train rolls on and on, not noting the mosquito on the windshield clinging to nothing for dear life.