Prologue

The saddest people have the happiest faces. They've never told a lie. If you lined up ten people, and put their faces in front of a mirror, you can know everything, it's nothing short of miraculous. Once, I looked into the boyish face of a man I knew. His lips gave written text laden with all kinds of nomenclature that Something where, it just turned into an exotic animal at the zoo that just everyone had to see. His eyes took the whole prose-verse/verse-prose thing and set it on its head (And my, those whites were so bright from that view I was such a babbling fool!). But with the pieces off the page, what are we left with? Words I guess. All our lives, we arrange and rearrange the 26 letters of the alphabet to do this.

Sometimes, I find stand-alone letters to be more effective. In my life, four have been important to be A, B, C, and D. After my dad (D-letter word) left, there was just A, B, and C. Mom (M-letter word) took the lead, so it was always A-for Alpha. Sister (S-letter word) was older than me, tried to take the lead, but proved to be the weakest in many respects. B-for Beta. Then, there's me, C-anomaly. When you get hit in the gut enough times, your spine gets a curve with a lowly air; always an empty breeze in your stomach, always hungry for something. When your heart's always festering, and you think you're strong, you get heavy, almost like exterior tumors. You're a leper in your own right. And when Alphas get angry, eyebrows get arched (A-letter word) and never relax. They force Betas to be betas, and can't seem to get why C's don't seem to move. (Actually, they move but don't follow). I guess it's like watching the wind stop rustling through the trees and you're like "Where did it all go?" Are you following?