Dion pushed a small coffin in front of him as he walked down 18th Street toward Castro. The small silver grayish coffin contained his inner child. Maybe it was excessive abuse that caused his demise. Lack of affection he thought. Even the twitching muscles in his hand didn't bother him as much as this death of self he carried around with him.

A Man in Black, who was nameless, accompanied him. The streets were crowded with men of all sizes, shapes, and preferences of sexual appetites sauntered by. None commented on Dion's activities. Their eyes were empty, lips parted as if breathing in the air, staled of sexual releases. Music from the bars were thickening the mixture of air, making it heavy because discordant music was breaking down the structure of the air, feeling it with vibrations affecting the immune system.

Dion was not without a blank stare. He stood at the corner of 18th and Castro. Where to go now? It was awkward moving through the sea of flesh.

The Man In Black looked about at the carnage of flesh. These men were dead. This was the hell their consciousness was drawn to when their body functions ceased. Their collective guilt created this space, this astral dimension. His assignment was to follow this soul, document its sojourn through states of death on its journey to the light.

"You're not so talkative now," Dion said.

"These men move like they did in their previous life. There is no clue in them that they have made a transition from that life to this astral hell."

"Maybe that life was a daydream. Daydreams are easy to discard. Daydreams are wishes that became crippled. Daydreams are washed away with a sigh."

"'The voice of the philosopher rises in you."

"No, just borrowed words. So where do I go from here," hands stroking the coffin unconsciously.

"I can't give you a direction. That is something you must define for yourself," the Man In Black said.

"Wish you'd take on the characteristics I once knew."

There was no facial reaction from the Man In Black. The response held no emotional curves, twist, highs or low but had the effect of being a straight line. As if the response was prerecorded, "That person was a part of me, the part exploring emotion. I have assimilated that consciousness within my holographic mind. It allows me to project into various realities. In a sense, I am a raider of consciousness."

"So am I to be assimilated into this spider consciousness you are connected to?"

"You're not ready."

"Why are you here and don't give me that reason again for observation. You accompany me like a shadow."

"Consider me a voice in the ear or if you prefer, the angel on your shoulder."

"As a child, angels had wings, were blonde, sort of male, female, full of blinding light and broadcasting music. You don't fit the stereotype."

"Everything evolves or ceases to function when its program is no longer necessary."

"Every since we entered this place, your voice has taken on a mechanical quality."

"Emotions have been redirected. I need to maintain distance."

"Afraid your emotions might make you a fallen angel again."

"Maybe, I don't want to be a little gray box. I still feel I have functions to the purpose of the collective."

A pain raced through Dion. He touched the coffin as if it was a lover's soft skin. "I can't bring back the dead." This was when he wanted tears. He was empty.

They stood silent on the corner, being ignored by the crowd. Dion began pushing his small coffin. The Man In Black looked at his reflection in a nearby window and he saw his features change for a moment into a black man, and he heard a name resound gentle within him like a gentle nudging, "Michael."

Man In Black Monologue. "There are rules, there are systems. You don't question these things or your superiors. I know the places of designation for myself. This is where I am stationed in life. These things are decided at birth. Therefore, there is no confusion. You have the primary focus of your birth designation.

I am of the warrior class - in the covert operations. I am a Sleeper.

I take on the form of my enemies, my consciousness is made dormant and I am awakened by a frequency or a verbal command and wake up to my true self and mission. I learn the tactics of my enemy and apply his defenses against him. This way, he becomes his own worst enemy.

When one goes against the collective, there is a disruption to the flow of things. You must understand everything has its place, its purpose, its order. If we did not stay within the designated space, there would be chaos in our system. This would not keep our people in alignment to serve the purpose of our existence.

We are connected, in the sense, that each class has its own frequency that we feed from and crossing into another area destroys the flow of energy necessary to maintain the life flow.

View your world of ants to get a clear understanding. We are like workers for the greater good of our hive.

What has caused a problem in our system is some of our people have broken away from their designated space. These rebellious forces have been terminated in most case though some have escaped. We have sought to return these factions back to our existence.

There is a disturbance in the pattern.

As we have explored life forms, we have found humans are emotional carriers which help them to access other dimensions and consciousness. Humans emit a frequency, like a call, that attracts all life forms to want to integrate their consciousness into humans. Human minds are like your internet, a biological multi-dimensional computer that transmits and alter frequencies and create new sounds that become new forms of existence.

We realize our race was dying because it was not evolving become of emotion. As we have experimented and learned about the human form, we see you as a frequency collector, transducer moving frequencies to a higher form of existence. Though there are forms of existence that do not hold to your principles, they to must answer the summons humans are broadcasting.

Life forms are answering humans' broadcast. You do not realize this. We do not understand human emotions, especially when we consider you to be low on the evolutionary scale but something within the human makeup is moving all forms of creation into the human consciousness.

Who are you? This is what we want to know. Some species, including us, are attempting to affect the frequency and influence the human carrier. Control is an issue with us since we are not emotional beings. We respond to a frequency pattern and do not move from it.

What has caused a disruption in our system is a new influence has permeated our children. It was subtle at first and then we realized the children were not following our line of thinking, they begin to question, and then demanding their own opinions, espousing philosophies, theologies that were not part of our teachings.

These children were aliens to us. It's as if they had our physical attributes but their minds were not of our world. There were many failed attempts to manipulate births but all experiments failed. Therefore, we created mutant forms of ourselves; but we could not control these mental deviants. As this population increased, it started creating a breakdown in our system. As these new beings sought control, separation, we began wars based on genetics. It was father against son and mothers against daughters. The Family was falling apart. We attempted to eradicate all forms that did not adhere to our programming. You would call this race wars and/or genocide as is being practiced on your world.

As difference became prominent so did the need to have a superior, dominant race over the other races. The repercussions have moved to other systems. As some of these races ventured off the homeworld, they established their own worlds, and so began the galactic wars to destroy our enemies, our mutated creations so we could maintain a pure strain.

These attempts have failed. As the wars continued, in its causalities, the vibrations grew denser and the fallen did not incarnate into our world but into lower forms of existence which is where you exist.

We have been linked too many levels of existence. If we do not heal the fracture in our DNA pattern, we will cease to exist. Humans hold a pattern that can attract all forms of frequency and transduced them into one single tone, sound and move creation beyond the density it is enmeshed in once they have remembered who they are and begin gathering their selves back into one.

Humans express emotions. Emotions are all in the human framework not other forms.

An emotion may be expressed in physical form. But it is a singular emotion.

This is important to know: Different species are different emotions.

Humans are emotional collectors and this is why they are multidimensional.

Some beings, as they evolve and take on various emotions can ride those emotions into other worlds. Humans can access all realities. But they must learn to gain control of their faculties and not relinquish control to others. Some of us believe humans are the true parents. That is why, we are here!

A pain seared through the heart, he gasped. His senses were momentarily distorted.

"What is it," asked Dion.

"Don't know. It was like someone pulling at my heart."

"You need to leave those poppers along. You ain't a spring chicken. Trying to keep up with these party boys will put your ass in a grave."

"One must keep oneself open to possibilities. I refuse to suffocate myself behind four walls depending on my hand for release."

"At least I know where my hand has been. You don't know where so and so dick has been dipping."

"Every time I stand in fear, I imagine I am standing at the edge of a cliff and I leap. Instead of falling, I am flying."

"Yeah, one day one of these bed wenches will shoot your ass down with some infected bullets."

"My honey is still sweet. You old friend are bitter and false. So is your phone bill high again. Those sex phone lines can play havoc with your checkbook."

Laughingly replying, "You're evil and need to be destroyed."

"See how you are when you don't take your medication regularly."

"I'll be dead soon enough, what's the point."

"The point is tomorrow they may find a cure, you may fall in love."

"And I could be dead."

"There's no room in hell for you. You'd out devil the devil."

"Miss being touched."

"You could say that about most people. No one wants to touch, might mean denying themselves their fuck quota. Romance is about finance."

"Maybe your honey is making the tea bitter."

A pain crossed his heart. He grimaced.

"You should see a doctor. I don't need competition to lie in the arms of death."

Michael closed his eyes to center his breath. He found himself sitting in space in a lotus position surrounded by white light. Low guttural sounds approached him from space which seemed to shake his bubble of light. Then he saw a planet, a dark planet approach. A voice whispered, "The Dead and Dreaming are returning."

"You okay."

Opening his eyes, "Yeah, think its just heartburn."

"Maybe you should take a few days off from visiting."

"And deny you my pleasure."

"I've had more pleasure from a bowel movement."

"Well at least, you're using your ass. Must run, fame and fortune are calling. See you tomorrow."

"You know, he began slowly, "I do appreciate…."

"I know. I love you and are time together…"

"Leave before we have a family moment," said Dion.

"I will not leave you alone, you know that."

"When I'm dead, I'm dead, and it is the end of the story."

"And maybe the beginning of a new story," Michael said as he faded away.