In an empty house near a sugarcane field
She felt guilty for hating them. They were nature’s defective machines bringing mechanically into existence defective beings, lost soldiers born into a raging war they were not taught to understand, thrown into a battle they were not trained to fight. What forlorn creatures they were! Their eyes stretched from mountain range to mountain range, troubled pools of melancholy. Their smiles stopped at their lips, caused no ripples in their eyes, no wrinkles in their cheeks. Smiles were lips, sometimes teeth, but mostly lips. Just lips. Lips moved with more ease than words, slid across wet teeth, parted like a charm. Lips were there, took no effort, no need to search for them. Words were different. Words came from a faraway place, crawling out of rabbit holes, tumbling down hillsides of a vast wasteland, always disorderly, never quiet, never in place, never at the right time, never the right ones. Confusion is a sure way to lose a war. Victory belongs to those prepared, those ready, those brave. And so she smiled bravely, and hated the machines a little bit more.