Fixture
by Tom Lichtenberg
When a city commissioned a famous artist to create a masterpiece for their newly refurbished downtown, they only forgot one thing: to tell him when to stop. Now his greatest work is threatening to take over everywhere. It's a race against time and space and dimensions nobody even knew were there!This is the story of Joao, an uninspiring country boy who moves to a slum in the city with his drunken father and falls for amiable prostitute named Charity.All João ever wanted was to be of some use. All he ever wanted was to belong. And far away from the molesting lick of the sun, where his brothers and sisters toil upon the arid earth, in a dank café in the very worst part of town, and working as a barrista, João will himself, inside the sediment of a city, at the bottom of a ceramic cup.And a minister, a chef, and a whore, they will all taste him on their lips, long after he is gone.