All the characters in the soap operas on television cared about was the truth. They cried, shouted, and even killed for it. Acquisition of the truth was the golden thing that kept them moving through their overcomplicated, plot ridden lives.

And all the television really played was soap operas or infomercials when you had the smallest cable package. Daiman got an earful about the perfection of truth whenever he went downstairs, how it would bathe the lives of the soap-opera people in absolving light.

Daiman didn't give a shit about the truth. It was the truth that had put him in a narrow blue bed in the trauma ward.

It was the truth that had acquired him a long list of injuries six months ago. A concussion, six broken ribs; all on the left side, a punctured lung, some cuts on his face, a fractured forearm, a bruised kidney. They'd kicked him until something in him split and spilled the blackness inside him out of his mouth.

On the television, a woman in a silky white dress sauntered down an elegant staircase. Earrings as sharp and gleaming as knives swayed from her head. Her gore colored lips said: tell me the truth, enrique.

The truth was shit and so was this stupid soap opera. He snatched up the remote with as much violence as he could muster, which wasn't much when he was as tired as he'd been since December. He felt like a declawed cat or a dog that had had all its teeth pulled with rusty pliers.

The woman on the television stopped her pouting wails as the screen went black. The silence was comforting but Daiman didn't want comfort. He wanted resolution. . .