It is lonely, underground. Sometimes, I call to people above and bring them down, here, to where I live.

We talk. They tell me of the world above. When we are through, they live on, within me.

The book is what did it, I think. That damnable book I found on Bleecker. I read it and it did things to me. It changed me. The walls of the apartment were white, and soon, so was I. First my nails, then my limbs. Then, my face. Finally, my pupils. In the mirror I cracked (the mirror from Belfast that told me things) I was a shadow of white, on that last night I slept above the street.

I had to eat.

First, birds. Then cats and dogs. Finally a horse. Almost, once, a child. All after the sun went down, In the dark.

This was a long time ago. I am in control of my appetites now, but then, I was nothing more than a ravenous animal. But I have grown into my own.

When I first heard the singing, at night, from the drains, I thought (prayed) I had finally gone mad.

But New York city is alive on all levels. Things walk the streets, and above the streets just as they walk beneath them. They are friends now. Friends. There is Abraham, and Johann, and Markus and Emma.

We sing at night in the tunnels and eat, together. And they tell me of another world beyond this one, a world of dreams. But, they say, I am too young. Too inexperienced to find the tunnels through. Someday. Someday. They smile and show me their teeth.

We eat a great deal, you see.

it is not so different here. Even the immortal dream of an afterlife.