They were only unshed tears brushed under a rug, but to him, they felt like thousands of tiny moons filling up a grave in a gift-wrapped burden. Co-existing amidst dust balls born out of boredom, he was barely half-man but brightly haunted by forsaken prophecies. The fading velvet blues of his bruises tasted like laundered requiems sinking ships beneath the Seven Seas. Howling at the rising tide that prodded his abdomen, he kneeled before the harpsichord and belted out an anthem submerged in sepia tones. Time ground to a halt between the pinched strings where he sought to embrace his next of kin only to find his distilled self staring right back at him. Closing in on the next incumbent, he yelled “This one is mine!” to a spectre handing out newborn mugshots in exchange for penicillin kisses. There was now only one eulogy left to read: “Tomorrow, same time, same place, we’ll do it all over again.”