Nemo - 1

I wake up small. Barely four feet. Female, thin. A child. I wonder what it is like to wake up the same as when one lies down to sleep. That body was tall, slightly cramped even in this large crate. It is but an idle thought, not made for following, though.

I put my nose to the hole in the crate. No new smells, good. I am still alone here. With care, I swing out the side of my crate and roll into this cold place. Wood instead of concrete. An old, abandoned warehouse building. Safest, for now. Perhaps soon, something without dust.

The rats here are healthy, unlike the ones in Manila. Many things are different here than they were there, or in the other places I have been. But they are not like how those other places think it is here. I expected to be shot at within moments of arriving. Instead, I have seen no guns, and practically have to seek out violence anywhere except on the media.

I only have one left, though, in my little larder. One fuzzy little rat to eat. Two slices of the cheesecake left, but my body says protein instead of sugars right now. I start chewing, while thinking about my day.

I have alcohol enough to last for a few days. The good stuff, not what they sell to each other for drinking. Isopropanol seems like a very deustche word. Longer than it needs to be. Best flavor, best food value for the volume. Takes me an entire bottle of the browner ones to match a single pint of the alcohol from the pharmacy.

Walking to the window, I let clothing flow from my skin. Grey, like the outside of the building. My skin follows suit as I step through the swinging window and plant my feet on the outside of the wall. Squatting there, with twenty meters of air below me, I watch you.

It is a time for watching and listening, now. Not for the research I would like to do. Searches here will be studied, reported, logged and tracked. I will have to be careful to do them in many different places. Libraries here will be good for that. Universities, perhaps. They were good in Munchen and Lisbon. But not so much in other places.

The language here is strange. It is as if it cannot decide what it wishes to be, and so it is something of everything. Even its own speakers do not understand how it works or why.

I think I like that.

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