She awoke like a stack of steaming pancakes, just as the slowly dying globe rose like a plasmic phoenix from the ashes of the bruised night. Fire brimmed the horizon and burned the coffee grounds until the smell permeated the city, noisome and noxious. The spittle of bacon came next, a static of sizzling bacon, hot and popping upon her swollen skin. Okay, she said; I'm full. There's nothing good in the editorials today, she said. Idiotorials, she said, they all have the same immoral opinions, and she laughed, but it sounded more like the crunch of dry leaves under Jesus' feet.

The sun was hot and looked misshapen. Perhaps it's just my contacts, she thought. I never used to have bad vision.  The city was made of diamonds, etched in quartz, glimmering in pure gold.  Perfect clouds puffed against the blue backdrop, growing, mushrooming, until the smoke filled the room in a haze, in a daze. She inhaled and forgot where she was. The boards clinked steel under her jammed feet.

That'll be thirty-five cents. But I have a ticket. That's yesterday's. Her fingertips burned red hot iron, scorched the nickels as she disentangled them from her bottomless pocket. Where to, he said. Nowhere, she offered. Me too, he mumbled, and the wheels screamed and moaned as smoke sputtered into the liquid, post-dawn fog.

Gonna be another scorcher, she read. Highs expected around 212 degrees Fahrenheit.