I am flesh. Nothing but flesh. From what I can remember I might be a time traveler. From the past or from the future I cannot tell. I could also be a traveler in my present. This document, my text is written to find answers for an incessant itch I cannot soothe. It lives in the centre of my brain-corrupting mind deforming the landscape, freezing choice and decision. Growing up a social worker said that my world was and would always be dysfunctional. Therefore, I took that to mean I would never be free. Like my hero (not my father), The Man in Black I could never walk the line.

The tram was crowded with street dust blowing through and the odour of urine and sweat, some of which must surely be my own suffocated any semblance of afternoon joy. People around me dressed up in bulky suits and over facilitated dresses. Hair growth, pasty demeanours with an overwhelming ambiance of stiff gutted frustration. Their looks despised the generosity of the sun and sky above the dust and clashing bell tinging movement of the tram. Sitting compliant I focused on parched spotted lips of the woman sitting before me. I smiled but was indifferent. Her dress was simple and I think made of what I can only describe as heavy cotton. 

I coughed and coughed. Blobby blood splatters my palms. The woman is horrified and clutches her purse to her mouth. Her movement reverberates at cultural schism and the area around me is cleared. Panic. Sweat gushes from my bothersome clothing an instinctive urge to take a shit overcomes my frantic efforts not to. I soil my pants and collapse. I hear voices and see faces. I think I recognise old familiar eyes, they do not have the pallid death masks I have been accustomed to these past few weeks. They mingle in and out with the others and I cannot be sure who they are. Is this time travelling? Im convinced I am coming from the past into the future. I am convinced I am coming from the future into the past. As for the present I am unable to make any recommendation. I feel the shit in my legs dribbling into my boots but the people are not so traumatised. They lift me up and call me their good brother and fellow man. They smile laying me down on one of the longer family seats. The stern woman graces my face with a lace oiled fragrant handkerchief. She grows more beautiful with each stroke of my hair. The hair on her face thins, he thick spotted lips encourage red blowing her machinist stench sweet. Perhaps I will not die on this tram. Where is my family?

Two bilious men goose step towards me and reef me up. The tram crowd protest but are set right by these men flashing badges. 'We don't need no stinking badges.' That's a flash memory. The passengers return to their seats. Obedient to the point of fiction. As I am carried off into the sun bake sandy streets the badge carriers strap me to a gurney and roll me into the traffic. My sweet woman leans from the windowless frame waving her scented handkerchief and calls out words that carry no meaning as the heat and dust blow them away. The city breathes no more and the citizens watch as I am whipped in and out of the data surrounding the spaces between the lines of travel. I remained conscious and my coughing and spluttering of blood sent shards of red across my mouth and down the front of the sheet. Even though I was in pain I was not afraid. Confusion blocks fear from realising itself in reality and so I clung onto this confusion because I had no choice. There was still the issue of my time travel status to consider. Was I traveling the the past or future or is this present where I belonged and lived. I enjoyed the idea that I could time travel but couldn't recall where I left my machine. Though do you truly need a time travel machine to go back and forth through time? Perhaps I have a biological anomaly or a superpower? Time will tell.

They drove me through the light into the cool darkness of a large building. The doors closing behind us as we pushed over the threshold. There was no light inside other than splices forcing space between the wood and brick structure's hull. Drops tapped and echoed and sounds of puckered voices working machinery as doors closed and opened in a rhythm of a hardy working business. Strapped to the gurney was uncomfortable and I was thirsty and hungry. My coughing and bloody sputum continued.

Footsteps appeared from all around me. Walking with intent. Out of the desert I could barely make out their faces as they leaned in closer to examine my eyeballs and pull my lips to uncover my gums. Was I their horse? I didn't understand their commentary or their intention. It was as if I was a lesson in anatomy. Hands lifted, head pulled, toes stretched and muscles tinged by gloved hands. Or hands without fingerprints as they were smooth and dead cold. Chattering is all they could offer me by way of help. My sense of helplessness deepened by them stepping back into the darkness. They did not go away but silently looked on just at the fringes of bearable light bordering the darkness the edge of concern.  

A voice broke my heart. "Kronos controls all major communication because it is the leading company. Hardcase is an outsider albeit a survivor but the technicians working this business model think that he lacks the mature outlook and is free of sophistication. Kronos, as we all well too know only commits himself to 'doing' business with 'suave mother fuckers' with an eye for adventure. This specimen is failing. Kronos enjoys the odd financial playful risk because this company has the power, financial backing as well as the means to take advantage of smaller leaner companies. Hardcase we feel has developed an identity problem. Indeed, he has survived storms both physical and alphanumeric in fashion. But, surviving is only one step closer to partial shut down leading to death. In time Hardcase will eventually fold under time's pressure and give away what we've been doing. How long? What is time to us? How does time measure against this experiment? 

Kronos was initially weary, then joyfully accepting and now he is aloof and making moves to do some 'other' experiment.