Limbo.

                Five in the morning and already the air smothers me. Sun peaks beyond the cloudless horizon and the sky is in that weird transition between night and a new day. Not blue. Not black. Not anything, really.

                I look up. Dried leaves rustle in the light breeze. I can see the translucent dawn between the bug-eaten holes of leaves baked in summer sun. They sway to a tune I cannot hear, to a rhythm I cannot groove to. A friend falls now and again to its concrete doom.

                How is it this hot already?

                I can’t help but feel like there’s some secret I’m missing out on. When the birds chirp, the wind rustles the leaves, the cicadas screech, I feel out of the conversation. I’m sitting in the middle of dozens of people, all talking about the same thing, and I’m completely out of the loop. They don’t include me in this conversation.

                So I sit and listen. I strain to focus on the main theme.

                Lives consumed by the three “f’s”. Every chirp, rustle, screech, and death of a leaf are directly linked to one of the three “f’s.”

                Fighting.

                Food.

                Fucking.

                The former greatly influencing and affecting the latter.

                It probably wouldn’t feel so hot if it weren’t so damn humid.

                There’s got to be more to it than this. Is there a deeper meaning? A code that needs decrypting? A secret buried beneath the obvious? Maybe even a practical joke?

                Five in the morning and already the air smothers me. The sky’s in that weird transition. Not blue. Not black.

                Not anything, really.