There was a city engraved in the ice. We had clawed mazes in the windshield with our fingernails to see. She tells me I'm looking at it inside out.

Not enough daylight shines through to read my thoughts and when I step outside it's always nighttime. I've crashed the car a dozen times now and the headlight tells me that he left the city because there wasn't any work. For the life of me, I can't make out the sun through the trees and there is still this fear of wild animals when I look at lawn ornaments. They are crawling on top. Sweat-matted fur froze to the windshield and they stared at the sun with their legs upward while we sing to them on lyre. I can't understand any of the sounds coming from the radio.

Melissa, I'm locking myself in the cupboard and crawling through the tunnels in the walls to find a world of stained glass in the foyer. There is so much clumsiness on the piano's end. I jumped through the chandelier covered in bulletproof vests but they removed it when I was a child so we could buy food. I shine a flashlight through it to verify this but my flashlight is full of plates. I don't understand the question.

Melissa, I try to reminisce but I can only remember today and what use is yesterday, anyway? She hangs fabric over our cups so that they look like ghosts but I still find myself frightened every morning. Why are there so many wires coming out of the drawers? I want to use pans in an innovative way and so I turn them over but the water just pours off the edge.

Melissa, the kitchen is filling with steam. I want to cut through it and escape but I've misplaced the scissors. I'm going to carve out the inside of trees for shelter but the landlords are persistent and will find me no matter which I choose. I try to carve my address in the bark but it all chips off and it's too cold out to be out here without gloves, anyway. I want the highways to be Cubist masterpieces but that's quite a hurdle in public policy. Help me to become a senator so that I can do this. Melissa, they'll never elect me.

Melissa, we're using the scholars as combines to harvest the text and they dare to complain about intestinal disorders. You sing me your songs but the notes are out of tune and there are compression artifacts but maybe it's all the better. I've only started writing this chapter. I've been carving stories out of the walls and I tell you that my wrists are sore but I can't type anymore, and you look at me and sigh and there are doves outside the window but the CD is always skipping and so they flutter in place.