Broken Ballad

Left the hum of my cubicle, at three thirty am.

Seconds later I felt the slight chill of an empty night, and cried out "all hail the American night!"
Walked into a fluorescent lit pizzeria. One look at the police officer talking on his walkie and the stale margarita pizza on display and I was back on the road with a terse apology to the man working there. I would not be hustled into swallowing unpalatable Italian food, made and served by a servile chinaman.

In third world countries stadiums fill up for politicians.

I cast an abject glance towards the north and abruptly picked up pace, running to my house. A quick shower and some grub awaited me. Got to my house and realized I had left my keys.

I laughed out loud. I was going to trounce the night!
My spirits hadn't dropped yet. I walked to an old friend, Timmy's. This is where the night really threw me a look.

In I walked, looked around, attempting to mimick the keen observance of a writer.
There stood the beatest old timer with some very respectable mutton chops, talking to this old short four foot pudgy lady. As I began to survey the empty racks, where hot rasberry muffins usually sit during the day, I heard him say: You seen this guy, Morrocan lookin fella with a reeeal nice suite (he gestures at his faded black shirt)? She slowly sways her greasy crown like a pendulum. It was like as if the great wired sieve of toronto had placed within the grimy of walls of this establishment its finest characters. On a table to my left was a balding character with a stained white shirt and bushy eyebrows toiling over math problems; on my right a young gal with a white dress rocking languidly to a tune in her headphones working on some fashion sketches in a great large drawing book; surveying her, and then shifting his glare towards me, is this other old thin hipster, his hair slicked back in grease, headphones on, with a small notebook (could he be sketching my character in this notebook, as I sit down with my mocha?).

Pervez Musharraf resigns on the tele, as I type this up proclaiming his humanity. Bhutto is dead, and Sharif is lurking around the corner. Pakistan's politics is laconic and dead. They recyle the old faces, like an old czech writer who loathes to baptise new characters in a novel he's been working on during the long cold years of Soviet occupation.