Sofia lived on Chryssen Street, where the houses folded themselves out like they came out of pop-up books and the alleys were nothing but pencil lines on maps: erasable, here one day and gone the next, filled with trash and turned inside out, turned into quagmires and marshes of garbage.

She lived on the fourth floor, room number four-three-three. It was a room into where the moon liked to shine. On nights like these, when she didn't feel like doing anything and Gray was off on another of his last full shows, she liked to sit where the moonlight was brightest and watch everything fall into half-shadow around her.

Tonight, the moonlight favored the terrace.

She trod barefoot onto the cold cement of the open terrace.

It was a small place, some would call it cramped while others called it cozy. She was never good with words. Everything in her world was an outline, a picture, a silhouette that didn't need to be described; it simply was and there was no need to make existence any more profound than it already was.

The moonlight always made her think of charcoal and chalk. The black iron railing against the light of the moon. It formed a nice little picture in her head. She leaned forward and gripped the shiny railing, Monster's leaves feeling like fluff against her legs.

Monster was the large potted plant that had always maintained its residence on the terrace even before she moved in. Monster, although lovingly called as such for lack of names and pets, often went unwatered and unnoticed and being left to its own devices, decided to stay true to its name and had developed a massive leaf-span. The terrace had barely enough space for it much less for Sofia herself.

Slowly and with great effort, she heaved Monster aside, to make way for the ratty felt green armchair she always sat on when she felt like watching the world. It was a long journey but once the plant was inside, an almost menacing growth sitting in a corner of the living room, she made a beeline for the armchair's usual spot next to the unplugged TV.

The armchair was mercilessly dislodged from its position and was then dragged across the apartment, running over little toy mice and crushing leftover pretzel crumbs as it went. Sofia managed to get its seat through the entryway. Just the seat. The back of the chair was too wide.

The cold moonlight was shining down in bright hard rays into the outside world and Sofia wasn't going to let an oversized chair keep her from seeing that in action.

She gripped the chair's arms and gave it one good yank.

She stopped, thinking she heard something. It sounded strangely like a very loud zipper. She shrugged and resumed her aggressive coercion of the innocent chair.

She pulled.

One.

Two.

Three.

And the seat was through.

Just the seat.

The back of the chair was a green felt slab on the floor, everything under it flattened. Toy mice, pretzel bits and all; none were spared.

Sofia looked at the chair she just destroyed, bit her lip, tilted her head, blinked a few times. She then pulled what was left of the armchair--that is to say, the seat and the arms--closer to the iron railing, sat down with her back to the debris and looked at Chryssen Street stretching out below her in both directions, a long strip of asphalt whose solid blackness was only interrupted by the sharp glow of the streetlights and the occasional car speeding past.