Have you ever felt being locked up behind the bars of your own mind? This is how Trico was feeling, staring at the elongated shadows of his window frames against the ceiling of his crammy studio. Outside, the streetlamp was old and needed new bulbs. It was whizzing on and off, much like prisons do every time there is an execution.

Trico feared the unknown stretching on from then on, until the blurry moment of his death. He felt like the writer at work who looks down at the menacing blank space, at the bottom of every page. What should he fill this future nothing with?

What's weird is that this nothing had an edge, a border. And the border was him, then, at the very moment of his breathing and from nothing it was gradually becoming something, growing in substance, in contour, in color. The color of his crumbling yellow ceiling, grayed by obscurity and darkened from time to time by the electrical whiz of the street lamp. The contour of the window frames shadowed against the paint. The substance of his lips touched by his moisturizing tongue. He can't really tell whether he was feeling his lips with his tongue, or his tongue with his lips. He was confused. His limbs were agitated.

For a few moments his mind became still. He turned on the other side, puffed up his pillow and closed his eyes, trying to force himself to sleep. But his mind resumed the chase, sending barking thoughts after him, following the scent of his soul.