I hear the floors creak, footsteps of others, alien people invading my tiny world, this box-apartment above the porn shop. They may as well be poking me with sticks, saying, "Hey, hey, you are not alone." The floors are constantly creaking, I hear muffled voices through the walls, sometimes there will be a grunting man in the peepshow downstairs, sometimes the bedsprings in the other apartments will squeak. For here we are, all thrown together with a square of space for each, made to live by and through one another, made to live in a system of minds, with all this interplay of consciousness--each telling the others, "Hey, hey, you are not alone; hey, hey, I see you, I hear you." It is almost as if we all fell from the heavens complete with a box of space to each, as if our box-apartments landed down on earth with one or two people to a box; as if we found ourselves suddenly in these ridiculous little rooms, each intruding upon every other, each drawing his consciousness from the interplay of the whole system, no one alone and no one what he really is, but for the others around him, who transform him into something altogether different from what his inner nature would determine could it flow out from him without the interference of all these others. This is how madness slowly overcomes us; this is how we slowly turn to monsters in the quiet of the night.