!vOrTeX! 09.05

In creeping crawlspaces we lay in wait, taking sustenance from tree roots that penetrate the foundation. Our hands are rainbow paint guns, fingertips stained permanently; the police took our prints and were highly amused. As if on cue, he was late, not for the last time; and the second hand sweeps like a windshield wiper, keeping time in a twenty-one tick tape loop, we see what we want to see and then we see it again. Climbing, can't get a toe-hold in the chain link fence, dogs getting closer, moving away, slipping down, climbing.