The city was hot with people tonight. They pressed around me as I walked toward Times Square dodging elbows and omnipresent scaffolding. The Square was on fire with familiar advertising. The latest fashion, the newest phone, the next summer blockbuster. The people around me were painted in the same garish colors. In front of me a guy’s jacket shimmered with a company’s logo in smooth animated frames. Next to him a group of girls giggled amongst themselves as a commercial for a local club wound its way around them.

Above our heads a traffic jam of competing ads hung in the way of the sky. It was so invasive. It was like this always. It gave me a headache.

I turned it off.

I looked again, naked. The same people milled about in between boulevards of dull concrete lit by nothing save for passing headlights. The man’s jacket was dead. The girls giggled at air.

I looked up and saw the stars.