System

She plods across the midnight pavement in the shadows of skyscrapers laid out in a grid ahead of her. Even at the foot of these dead winter obelisks, filled to the stars with degree-toting throwaways, there is a trustful presumptuousness in her step. I'm going to show her how invisible the world really is. I'm going to show her that civilization is just something we teach ourselves, like wrapping a brick in an old handkerchief to deaden the sound it makes against cheekbones, teeth rolling into the gutter like dice.