The inanimate object lay under the vendors arm until the man came, the man who bought the dirty magazine for three dollars and fifty cents. The vendor tucked the flat, silent shape near the center-fold. The man took the magazine and greedily tucked it under his arm, peering left and right to see whoever may be coveting his newly purchased treasure. His bulging belly bolstered his posture as he walked down the street and waited for the five o’clock bus. A man with a face hidden behind a beard of hair and dirt approach him and asked him for spare change. The man denied his request and annoyed he muttered under his breath. Just then a large, shining automobile splashed the man with the collected rain water that had stood thick and glimmering with oil, menacingly rippling with any small vibration. The man stood up and shouted then sat back down defeated as the driver drove on to what the man presumed was a large, fancy house--nice enough to match the over-luxurized vehicle that had just drenched him in a dark wet that made him cold. He envied the driver for having riches and treasures even better than his dirty magazine. The bus squealed to a halt and the doors opened mechanically and mechanically the passengers shuffled down the steps and moved in differing directions, blending into clutters of bodies moving throughout the streets. The man got onto the bus and found himself sitting next to black woman who shifted her purse as he sat down. Just as the bus pulled forward and blended into the traffic a young pregnant woman peered down the narrow hallway for a seat, one which the man was certain she would not find. He motioned for her to come and proudly he gave his seat to her and as she passed him to take it he thrusted his crotch forward into her plump behind, his hand grazing it gently as he apologized. A reveling smile crossed his face as he grasped the handle above her seat, her face covered in discontent and disgust. The bus weaved in and out of the traffic and made its way over the bridge, making several stops before finally reaching that where the man would get off. He turned his head to take one last look at the pregnant woman and found her glaring back at him. He smiled and fell in line with the rest of the passengers as they followed in a conveyor belt-like shuffle. He walked four and a half blocks before reaching the brick apartment building that housed him and his seventeen neighbors. He unlocked the front door and stepped up the fourteen steps that lead to his door. He opened it and set his dirty magazine upon the kitchen table. He put a microwave dinner into the microwave, the beep of the buttons breaking the thickness of the silence in the dead house. He took off his tie; he swept his hair across his forehead and sneezed at the smell of upturned dust as he aimlessly shuffled books on a shelf in a darkened corner of the dining room. The ding penetrated whatever thought he was deep in and he drug his feet across the carpet with his hands in his pockets. He removed the dinner, he removed the plastic covering of the dinner, he removed a fork from a drawer to use to eat his dinner, the dinner that he paid one dollar for--one dollar and twenty-two cents counting tax. He plopped down at the table and thumbed through the magazine as he shoveled a mixture of white and brown into his gaping mouth, his eyes fixated on the images of the women presenting themselves to him. He licked the black container clean of the gravy left over and tossed it across the table. He flipped the page and found there, obstructing the parts he wanted to see the most, a filthy paper cross. He tossed it to the side and unzipped his pants. He continued flipping until he found himself obsessively staring at two women pleasuring each other, their buttocks exposed, their breast beckoning his lips for a taste. He grunted and groaned as he rubbed furiously until he exhausted himself and lay sprawled out in his chair, not zipping or cleaning himself up. He stood up suddenly, his shoes thudding on the hardwood floor. He took a step forward and slipped on the thin yellowed piece of paper that lay innocently on the floor. His feet flew out from under him and as he desperately attempted to grab a hold of the table, the slippery magazine forcing him to lose his grip, his neck suddenly snapping sharply on the back of the slated wooden chair where he had recently rested. His body fell to the floor hard and his head smacked the wood, his eyes shaking in their sockets, glassy and absent.
