The smell crawls in concentric circles, and tickles my lips as I sleep. The taste is all wrong. Languages dance with tangled toes, in erratic patterns traced by the wildest ruminations of a tattered streetchild. We step lightly from our lofty castles into heat-baked gullies, surrounded by mudhuts and hungry eyes. Duty-bound, we do what we must.

The smile on your face hurts me, you know.