A teenager fling means nothing in the sense that a book or a movie with a great start has no ending

Useless and mind-numbing images at the megaplex flash through an audience’s mind, capturing souls and releasing robots in their place

People walk with grins on their faces, grins formed by teeth set straight and skin still tanned from a bed that becomes a tomb in one terrifying instant

Jokes are told in the bars, or the escapes, and the movie theaters become just another mall or shopping center with no sense of distinction from any other place that could become a church,

Because the churches are the malls, and the people glorify their gods with no sense of shame, no sense of remorse in a world that breeds only hatred and contempt for those who think outside of the proverbial box

But there’s an upside to the madness

And the upside swings the tears and regrets away, as a man walks along a noisy, crowded, nature-less street and ignores the sounds of the forest for the sounds of cars filled with people who only want to return or escape from home

The concrete walls mean something to him, and he keeps walking past on the shadowed sidewalks, listening to the sounds of street vendors and enjoying the glory that is urban sprawl

And the moments become meaningless, especially when, just like a little kid, he thinks that every day is an adventure, and that every moment is a chance, every breath a reality, every thought a feeling, and nothing but the sound of footsteps following his on the road match the sound of soft dirt kept in the air of the farmers

The windows light with his reflection, and he opens some doors, while others close,

Like experiences they swing forward and back, and like opportunities, he opens some and ignores others

It’s a hard world, he thinks, but one that can easily be lived in

Not like the ancient worlds of worlds past, where man survived on his arms or his gun or his head

In these days and in these times, all a man needs is a heart, and a hope, and a gun or his arms, but always his head

Or his friends or family, unless the solitary figure walking along Corporate America has no friends, and no family, and lives his life like a walking city

The wind catches his hair, and briefly brings back thoughts of the morning without a coffee and a kiss and hug goodbye

Or a morning without the rush and bustle found only in the go-get-ers society, the one in which he lives life as voraciously as a hound, always searching for a happiness that continues to elude him no matter what and no matter how far he runs, like smoke caught in a bar that wafts slowly away, leaving no traces of its existence

He is the same, and he walks through this world surrounded by those like him, but apart from their destinies, as he is only one man, he thinks, and only man can do nothing

But only one man means everything to someone somewhere, and if he ever has a gun to his temple, or a knife at his throat, he’ll know the power contained in one man’s life,

By those who would take it away