Landon rode.  Sliding down the center of a walkway, Landon comes to a stop.  The hallway levels itself out, normalizing from a steep incline.  Seated, Landon looks around.  Behind him the hallway is plugged up with cement.  Below him cement covers the floor.  Above him milky glass circles line a black ceiling.  Inside are blurred swirls of fire that spread light through the corridor.
  The sides of the hallway are an elaborate mural.  Landon knows a secret: if you stand in the middle of the walk-way and squint, the rough surface of the paint disappears.  It looks, for a second, like there's a suburban neighborhood on either side.  To the left is the road and the houses beyond.  To the right, the houses look closer.  When the cement floor is blurred, it looks like you're walking down a sidewalk.  The black roof is night.  The glass lights are stars.
  Landon gets up and squints.  The outlines of the walls disappear.  The blue and green paint of the houses becomes brighter.  Some of the people standing in lawns or looking out windows become fuller.  The dogs, cars, and grass all seem to move, like they're trying to stand in place or being rustled by a wind.
  Landon opens his eyes and the paintbrush strokes return.  He's back in a cramped walkway.  There's never wind and sound seems hollow.  Landon cups his hands to his mouth and breathes warmth into his fingers.  He puts a hand in the pocket of his coat and pulls out pennies and roses.
  Landon rode.  Hands in the pockets of his puffy cobalt coat he keeps warm.  He has full blond hair swept to the side.  Pale skin and green olive eyes.
  He turns to the left when the hallway turns, where the mural on the wall is a convincing four-way street.  Walking further a little ways he sees an old friend, wrapped in a green dress-suit under an archway.
  "Splendid you came," she says.  Her breath puffs into the air and reminds Landon of the cigarettes in his pants pocket.  She grins at him.  Her hair is short and black with a sheen.  She's even shorter than Landon, a mere five foot three.
  Landon nods and pulls out two cigarette sticks.  He lights them with his tongue.  She takes one and puts it in her mouth.  "Do your feet hurt?" she says.  This time the fog coming from her mouth smells like nicotine and fades slower.  "You've been walking a while."
  (I've been walking my entire life), he thinks.  To him, an inside voice is speaking in your head.  He can't speak soft because his vocal chords are fragile.  He can't speak loud because it hurts too much.
  She hears it anyway and gives him a sour face.  He knows she's disappointed in him.  Landon goes to speak up, to use his actual voice, but stops.  He notices something:  the paper of her cigarette only has a few centimeters left before it's a column of ash.  He pinches the filter, all that's left, and pulls it from her lips.  He stares at the snake of ash in his palm.
  "Don't you want to leave?"
  (No), he thinks.  (Not yet.)
  He seats himself cross-legged on the cement.  She stays upright, staring at him.  He pulls the hood of his coat over his head, furry white around the edge, and tightens it so only his eyes show.  The girl in the green dress sighs, the last of the smoke emptying.
  He smokes a cigarette down to the filter and puts another one in.  She begins tracing her finger on the mural, making a little circle, like the ring of burning he stopped from getting to her lips.
  "Death by fire isn't what you think it is," she says.  Her words are flat, the walls absorb most of the sound.  "If someone is young and they get cremated, it's not like something otherworldly was preserved before it got all sour.  I mean, they weren't an ice cube, Landon.  Burning a person is always fighting fire with fire."
  Landon's thoughts are blocked from her, like the neighborhood screened by the paint-strokes.  She sets herself next to him.  "I'm saying people are always made of the same stuff.  Children are just sparks.  Or maybe a small little bush fire."
  Landon stares at the plugged up cement.
  "Landon, what I'm trying to say is we're all fire.  We can burn things up, you're right.  But fire can be used for warmth, too."
  (Fire isn't a good analogy), he thinks.  (We're made of water, Anne).
  "That works, I guess," she says and trails off.  She makes a small ring on the cement.  Sitting next to Landon she can feel him fester.  He gives off a weird vibration, like a washing machine or the dials that log home electricity.  The walls give her the same feeling.
  "But it doesn't work as well.  Water can give life and take it, yeah, but a flood leaves things under the surface.  It's all damaged, but still there.  Fire can wipe something out forever."
  She pulls back Landon's hood to make sure he hears.
  "We might come from water, Landon, but we're not as good as water.  Not even when it floods."
  (You're right), he thinks.  He thinks for a long time.  "Humans are bad."
  He said it aloud.  It was the only thing Landon had ever said in the hallways.  He looks over and sees Anne is gone.  His throat starts to itch.  He squints but can't make the illusion work.  He puts his hood back on and lays on his side.  He coughs, pulls a quarter from his mouth, looks at it in the light, and puts it back in.