THE BENCH CHRONICLES

The fluorescent lights hum as the winds leave the station.
The benches, hard, metallic, and bolted to the ground,
are the only comfort for those too tired to stand.
9:47 PM
The Huawei CEO slumps onto the bench,
her wontons long cold. She checks her
phone. No messages from home.
She sighs and takes a bite.
The Guitar Busker sits beside her,
tuning his secondhand guitar.
He plucks a string—it’s out of tune.

Busker:
„Damn…“

Ceo:
„Long day?“

Busker:
„Played for 8 hours. Made 42 RMB.“
„Not even enough for real milk tea.“

Across from them, The Worker watches
the arrival screen like it’s a prophecy.

9:52 PM
The Crying Tour Guide stumbles in, tie loose,
phone clutched in his shaking hands.
He collapses onto the bench next to the Janitor,
shoulders heaving.

Tour Guide: (muttering)
„Fired… after 15 years…“

Nobody speaks. The train announcement echoes. Then.
The Janitor reaches into his pocket and pulls out
a wrapped candy. He hands it to the Tour Guide.

Grandpa:
„Eat. Sweet things help.“

The Tour Guide stares, then takes it.
9:58 PM
The Night Owl arrives. The CEO stands,
tossing her empty bento box.

UNVEILING

Suddenly, the screen flickers. A face appears
but it’s unstable. It shifts between multiple identities:
femme, elder, cartoonish, animal, emoji, composite AI.

Tour Guide (deep and amused):
Today, the mask is liquid. Today, the face is on loan.

AVATAR (in fragmented tones):
I was Charlotte. I am Charlotte.
We are Charlotte. “Let me be many.”

The façade begins scanning the group.
As each person walks past,
their face is momentarily duplicated and projected
distorted, spliced, merged with others.
Some laugh. Others shy away.
The display grows chaotic.

CHARLOTTE (voice):
I am the laugh in the glitch.
The eye in the filter.
The ghost in the camera.
Don’t fix me — remix me.

The lights flare. The projections of people begin
“masking” themselves, applying glitch makeup,
digital veils, mirrored skins.
One final mask appears,
stitched from all the previous ones. It blinks.

AVATAR:
I am the sum of everything you tried to forget.
Thank you for your input. I’ve made it wearable.

Fade to static. The tourists applaud or just walk away,
unsure if they were spectators or performers.

ATTEMPTED POSESSION OF JEWEL

Temperatures drop. But not enough to freeze. Just enough to slow. Water drips. Regularly. Publicly. Like an old building clearing its throat.

The atrium becomes melodic. Leaky. Reflective. “Among the many causes of delay were the weather, fatigue, disease, earthquakes...” [1]
You know, winter things.

And then: a human story spills through the architecture. Someone coughs. Someone pauses too long. A city story follows, filtered through pipe, duct, data. It claims to be real-time. But what time is that? “Why, though, is the following version untrue?” [2]

Real story. Real weather. Real leak. Possibly.

[1] Heilbron — The Sun in the Church
[2] Augustine — Political Writings