One or many, they are dressed like monks, or soldiers. They walk up the stairs. Another group walks down the stairs, which surround a courtyard. They are trapped. One group forever going up, the other forever going down the stairs. As a boy, when I first saw it, I wondered what these men said to each other for the hundredth, the millionth time they saw each other. Perhaps they were too embarrassed. Perhaps they could not break the cycle they found themselves in because they were too afraid to stop. I will break this cycle. Perhaps not one or many, perhaps one and many. One man, many times. I have not slept for days. I write it and I know it is a lie. I have woken up – come to – in places aware of what has gone before but not able to remember falling asleep. Does one ever remember falling asleep? The awareness of it depends on the absence of something to be aware of. I wake, too, in places I don’t remember being in before I slept. I am being watched, like I have been my whole life.
