the sun's embers burn into my flesh as i'm rudely awoken by the commotion that paints the streets crimson. these voices consume me like the plague, and spit me out on the pavement the same way fall chews up summer. i walk the same ten steps i do every morning and greet the magic mirror before me. it's compact, it's discreet. i knock three times, curse twice. it echoes the same words it did yesterday. it echoes the same words it did the day before. its voice never changes; it is always stern, always heavy. it demands all satisfaction be ceased while i drown in my silent pleas. the solution is easy, there is only one— "listen to my message and the curse will come undone". that is what the magic mirror tells me. i never listen, though. i bury myself in a synthetic cotton field, hoping to be consumed by my reveries and my reveries alone. the voices on the street have simmered down, but i know they'll ring like an alarm come dawn. the voices haunt me on the streets, the voices haunt me in my bed, they keep ringing and they'll never get out of my head.