What a brilliant thing to happen at this point. I'm in love.

In love with my computer, with the outside, with everyone whose eyes have never alighted on this face. They know me by my words, not who I am. Yet perhaps these things are the clearest impression of what or who I have become.

I found one of my old files. From before. I was different. Another person. She died. Right alongside her mother and father and baby sister. Gone in an instant, a cough. A rat's bite.

The things she wrote about were different, too. They were silly things, about her friends or a boy she hardly knew anyway. Now those memories are dust. Ashes on the giant funeral pyre. But all that is behind me now. I'm different. I...don't know who I am right now. I still wait to find my place. For the time being, I'm Media, semi-insane hacker of the Wharf Rats. Silly rodents don't understand me. I can't say I blame them. No one does any more. No one except the people who read my words.

Another circle.

-Media

Where will we go when we're gone? Will we go poof up to heaven or down to hell because of all the killing we do here every day? Really, we're saints. It's a favor to kill somebody in this place. Saves them from the starving or the torture or the loss. Pleasant thought, that.

Or it could be argued that we take away contributions by doing that. Yes, let's contribute to a dying city. Concrete wasteland. Icy burning prison. The steam will choke us all.

I'm going mad. Madder than mad. Oh, joy.

I don't think anyone believed my article at CNN. I should correspond anonymously. Maybe I'll get a pen-pal from the outside. That'd be fun. Faintly disturbing for them, probably, but I could amuse myself writing letters.

Now I'm going to have to check a website for that.

-Media

What an odd place this is. Ripping apart. Paper without glue. Because the match-boy and the dark birdy and the skittering rodentia and the prowling kitty cats are stealing it all for themselves. They'll eat it, maybe? Mouths to feed, not enough freeze-dried to go around. Let's eat paste. Like little kiddies making mother's day cards.

And where will these cards go if all the mothers are dead? The crow hatched, the rat was mass-produced, and the kitty was born with all its fangs and claws. I wonder if the caged flaming boy grew out of the ground on a tobacco plantation? That would be funny. Then maybe the dead dove came along and picked him out of the ground. But the dove was shot down by the little bloddy handprint and the tobacco stem sits on the throne. But the throne fell over and the flame was enveloped by the shadows, and now the voice of reason leads the white-faces until the broken flame followers light the candle and take him back.

Circles. All in circles. And around the edges, the rodents evade the paws of the kitty cats. I'm a rodent. I don't like to be, really. But the whispers are everywhere in the stinking palace and I hear them, sometimes. Interesting, indeed.

Funny place, this. Concrete sty of pigs. New Pork and Lost Angels. And we're the little piggies, oink oink. I'd rather be one of the fallen flock, but that would mean being cut to bits in a lab or on a fence and trying to get across the country. Maybe it's blown up by now. I'll check CNN.

-Media

Why does everyone insist on hiding? I hide, as well, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, but no one else does. I can offer little insight, as some do, but I can listen. I'm a good listener. Passive, people used to say. I think they meant that I don't like to become a part. When I become a part I start acting with a whole. Like a machine, perfect, and fluid. Then it's obvious when a tiny mistake is made. I think I'm a whole bundle of these mistakes all rolled into one. Nothing about me is just right. I'm not all that pretty, though that doesn't seem to matter any more, it would give some personal satisfaction, and I'm not particularly eloquent. I'm not tough or ruthless enough to be completely fit for this cold concrete hell, and I'm not soft enough to be completely out of place. I can't cope with emotion at all and I run away if something gets too complicated. Imperfect. Like the piece that wouldn't fit. The gear that wouldn't work perfectly in time. The tired goose that the flock stuck at the back of the 'V' because her wingbeats were slightly off, or she wasn't focusing on the small world of the flock with single-minded intensity, and cared too much about what the other flocks were up to. Sometimes this goose meddled a bit. Just small things, at first. Gossip, articles of false information. But suppose she wanted to help just a bit more. What if the ducks were attacking and wanted to take the flock away, split up the beautiful V formation. And this off-kilter goose had the power to change that. Just so that the duck military strategy was ineffective enough to keep them away.

Suppose this goose's name was Media and she didn't know what to do about any of the events in this new world called New Pork. Her flock that she doesn't want to be taken away by the ducks. What if, despite how she is imperfect and doesn't fit, the Goose-Media wants things to stay as they are until she does?

It can't happen. No peace, but not ful-on war, either. We're stuck in between in this city. Like we're in between in the world. We have no say. None of us except the weirdo eggheads with technology, like me. And right now I'm wondering if any of them are having the same debate as I am.

It won't last, this precarious balance we have. It can't. Something will tip. And then I wonder where I'll stand. On which side? Or will I just toe the line?

-Media

I wonder what would happen if the sky fell. Blue everywhere, crashing down around our ears like a tidal wave. Except right now the tidal wave would be grey. And very, very wet. Disgustingly damp.

What a sad thought. If we died right now, it would be to crashing storms and the thunderous applause of nations. We're gone. Finally, the freaks have disappeared.

Why do I always think like this? It hurts to remember everything, yet I do it anyway. Do I enjoy the pain? Of course I do. Someone could torture me to the ends of the earth and I would still adore it. I'm shuddering with desire just thinking of it now.

Please hurt me. I'd enjoy it.

-Media

Oh, dear god. Don't keep raining. My soul is dying already from all this rain. The thunder is really starting to scare me. Every time I hear it, I think of people coming into the city. They're coming to take me back. I just know it.

I want to know what happens outside. Firsthand.

I'm going to go now. Wandering. Please don't follow me. Or find an excuse to tear us apart.

-Media

I gave CNN a new article today. It just might ruin the career of the reporter I gave credit to. And wouldn't that be amusing?

Well. The Tribes are in uproar over something or other. The Cigarettes' pyromaniac leader went g'bye, and I think the Vampires've got 'im. Not sure, though. Hope he gets out. Charismatic kid. Younger'n me, I think. Probably scarier.

I wonder what would happen if everyone died. Would the world care? Prolly not. Far as they're concerned, we're already dead. I wish we were. It's tearing me up to see all this. And mom and dad and 'Licia are already gone. Sometimes I want to climb up one of those buildings and jump. Falling, falling, falling. Smash. Silence.

Everything gone.

My world's already crumbled. I used to love the city. Now I want out. Please, somebody, let me out. I want a free world, where there are no bio-bombs or razor wire fences to cut through to get anywhere. I still remember tearing up my skin getting through those fences. I'm shivering as I type.

Time to go. I'm going to wander the sewers now. No more plots, please.

-Media