Naked Lunch by William Burroughs

Birds don’t know they sing. They don’t know anything. They don’t have a word for what they do or words at all. Humans write, talk and sing words. The singing stands out against talking which, I think uniquely in the animal kingdom, becomes a loud buzzing when a lot of humans talk simultaneously.

“Like snowflakes,” my parents said, “no two human faces are the same.”

When you first hear this you ask what about identical twins?

Now I ask who cares.

You see so many they all merge into one, an every-face; a buzzing mash of grease, sinew, eyeball and fat. You give up on voices, then faces. This is how they get you.

There’s a reason they’re called the heat. I feel them, can’t spot the faces.

They’ve got the spoon and dropper I dropped, but I get away on the subway.