 
### EROSION

Spider Moon

This book is work of fiction. Any reference to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Pester Skeezle

Copyright © 1998 by Spider Moon

Published by M.H. Dartos

at Smashwords

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I met the man during my twentieth year in California. His name was Emerald Mighty.

He was the president of a large corporation that sold boxes. Containers, he called them.

They made containers of every size. Little ones for radios, and toys, and who knows what. Big ones for televisions, stereos, blah, blah, blah. All shapes and sizes. He talked at great length about his business. He told me with a smile how he had gained the business by screwing the ex-husband of the woman he married. I laughed out of politeness, not really believing him, thinking instead that he was making crude jokes to bridge the gap between us. Anyway, I was wrong. I didn't find that out till much later.

But by then, it didn't matter.

So he tells me his whole story, and then invites me over for dinner. I told him sure, that would be great but first I needed to call home, just to be sure no one would miss me. He commented that he found it very responsible of me to think of such a thing. I smiled and thought what a terrible pain in the ass it was to have to check in like this.

I made the call and nobody answered the phone. I left a message.

"I won't be home for dinner," I said. "So go on without me."

I almost said more, but then I decided against it, figuring I didn't want to concern anyone with the details of my evening.

Dinner came quickly. Not too quickly though. First, he had to show me the whole place. His house was huge. I remember as we drove up to it thinking how the driveway was so long it would never end. His car, Mercedes of course, was equally beautiful. I didn't know that cars were still using wood on the interiors. I inquired about it. He gave me a long explanation about the type of wood, how Mercedes selects it, the manufacturing, everything. I said it was impressive how much he knew about things. He laughed and said he didn't just like to own things, he needed to know everything about them also. That was during our drive into the house, or more aptly, mansion. Compared to what I was used to. I had grown up living in apartments mostly. And the houses I eventually lived in were old, decrepit things. Nothing like this place of his.

It was a mansion.

Once inside, he showed me to his large living room. There, he mixed some drinks, offered me one which I declined, to which he responded that it was a good quality to not drink. That a man should watch his liquor.

"I've seen many a promising young hot-shot get taken out by drink," he said, tapping his fingers on the edge of his glass. "Many good ones."

It looked like he was thinking of someone in particular as his eyes sort of drifted off and his voice faded to a whispering trail. I waited, quietly while he came back around.

"But no problems for you though, right?" he asked, not really asking. "You don't drink. Good quality...fine quality! You'll go far."

He walked me from room to room now, filling me in on the sundry details of his numerous possessions. It was as if he'd birthed each of these items. I said something to that effect. Not exactly like that. That he'd birthed them. But that he seemed to know these items very well, as if they were living things. He said in a way they were because by choosing them to be part of his world he was in some way expressing a normally concealed part of himself. So in that way, yes, he knew these things well because they were really a part of him. I nodded, understanding what he was saying somehow and also being amazed at his ability to infuse the ordinary with so much meaning. As we walked, a young woman appeared. A girl really. She looked to be a bit younger than me. When she saw us heading toward her, she stopped and turned as if she were going to run. I noticed she had a scared look in her eyes, scared but curious, probably as to whom I was. Anyway, she didn't turn fast enough. When the man saw her, he called to her by name.

"Sheila," he said "This is Diesel, a friend of mine."

I liked that, he called me a friend of his, like it put us on the same level. The girl, Sheila, looked at me, smiled faintly and adjusted her dress. I thought it kind of long and matronly for someone so young. But it suited her. Stylish but not flashy. She was pretty in a way, although with those big, round glasses it was hard to tell.

I wondered how she would look. Without them.

At dinner, she was quiet. Her father talked on. And on. Keeping things going. She sat across from me. He sat at the head. Of the table. Every now and then, I'd look up, catch her looking at me, then, she'd look away. I think she liked me, but I couldn't be sure. It could have been that she found me strange.

And so it shall be on that glorious sunrise morning of judgment day that each man, from the lowest to the most valiant, shall stand before his maker, penis in hand, and proclaim himself the birth-spout of all humanity.

Dinner went on for awhile. It probably wasn't as long as I thought, but it seemed like forever. The man kept talking away about one thing after another, making jokes at which he was the first to laugh, then, picking up on another thread of reasoning, he'd branch off into a different topic altogether. I listened as he spoke, half paying attention to him, and half concerning myself with the actions of his daughter. She was a sly one; I'd say, the way she kept sneaking peeks at me, thinking I didn't notice. I could tell she was shy, probably hadn't been around many guys. Although it was hard to figure. I don't want to sound cliché or anything, like I'm focusing on trivial details only because...there was nothing particularly striking about her. But then again, maybe that's it exactly. There was nothing particularly striking about her. But yet, a strong impression remained after just one look at her. Like the way a mark is left on a pillow after someone's been laying on it. She was just like that, her effect on me anyway. And so I listened to her father ramble away while I picked at my dinner and tried to shake this impression that was pushing away at my insides.

After dinner, Sheila disappeared to wherever. Her father took me into a different room this time. His study, he said.

I looked at all the books filling the giant shelves and commented that if someone were to require study, this would certainly fit the bill. He laughed as he packed his pipe. I glanced around the room some more. The wide glass windows revealed a vast amount of light, now soft and amber as the day sank into the hills. From where I sat, I could see straight out back, past the duck pond, the tennis courts, and maybe a shooting range. Beyond that, the ridges of the mountain scraped against the sky. On his desk he had a large ashtray, a wooden mallard duck decoy, and a pen holder. Pretty sparse, really, considering his work. But then, what did I know.

After he filled his pipe, he leaned back in his chair. A large cloud came bursting from his direction as he puffed. For a moment he reminded me of one of those old masters of legerdemain, the kind of magicians who would always be conjuring up thick, blankets of smoke to conceal or produce whatever tricks they were presenting. He took a long pause in conversation. There was a reverential symbolism to the way he enjoyed that moment. I just sat there, glancing outside, taking in the reds, browns, and greens of the curious volumes peeking in from the mahogany bookshelves.

It was then that he looked at me and asked me to fuck his daughter.

At first, I thought I had heard him wrong. Surely I must have been mistaken. I stumbled at my response.

"Excuse me?" I said, my voice breaking like a child.

"I want you to fuck my daughter," he repeated. "You do know what that is, I presume?"

My face rushed with blood. I felt hot and sick.

"Sure, I said, but...I mean..."

The words hung in my throat. He let me finish and trail off to silence before he picked up the conversation.

"Look," he said, leaning forward on his elbows. "Let's talk, okay? We're men, you and I. And my Sheila...well...let's just say the girl needs a bit of...exposure to adult matters. As you no doubt can tell, she's not exactly the outgoing type. I mean, it's not like I'm having to hold the boys at bay or anything. Funny thing is though, as much as I had always dreaded the idea as she was growing up, now I'd rather taken to liking it. At least for awhile."

He leaned back into his chair, mulled this over and took another long puff.

"Look, Diesel," he said. "It's like this. If the girl stays locked up the way she is, here's what will happen. One day, out of boredom, or curiosity, or simply depression at having been alone so long, she'll get an inkling. Maybe even meet somebody. Someone who for that brief moment will open her eyes to the possibilities that lie beyond her narrow view. She'll look at him, then at herself, and at first dismiss the idea out of hand as a bad idea. But eventually, as is destined to happen, she'll reconsider, weaken as they all do. And you know what will happen then? She'll hop in the sack with some good for nothing yo-yo, fall in love, get pregnant, or worse, and the next thing you know, her whole life is spent devoted to some lousy schmuck who'll no longer give her the time of day once he's had his fill. And you know why? Bridled lust, that's why. Keep it bottled up too long and the first chance it gets, it just up and explodes. Trouble is, by then, it's too late. Life's already mapped."

He paused for a moment, looked at me, riveting me to my chair.

I gripped at the cushion right next to my legs. He couldn't see that my knuckles were white.

"Now, Diesel. I've given my little girl a good life. By most standards, a great life, with all the privilege money can buy. But like a rose that refuses to open, the girl just never blossomed, know what I mean? "

He paused again for effect. I remained scared silent.

"So, the way I see it, it's time for someone to push her a little, sway her into the path, nudge her in the right direction. That's what I'd like you to do. Have her once, twice, as many times as you like. I know she'll take to it after a bit...they all do. Then, once she's had the shit knocked out of her system, I can feel safe that she's not going to run off with the first joker who looks her way."

He stopped after these last remarks and I was struck with a sort of dumfounded awe. Here was this man that for all intents and purposes I hardly knew a man who just this very evening had invited me to his house for dinner for the first time and now after the feeding he sits her in the not-so-private privacy of his study and calmly, casually tells me that he'd like me to bed his daughter.

My entire system went into shock. The scene was far too bizarre. Looking around I expected to find her, the object of our discussion crouching in the corner tepid hand clutching at her crotch restraining herself from wetting her pants over my reaction to this obviously horrendous joke the two in tandem were attempting to perpetrate. I looked, carefully, could not discern her presence. Became more sure, then unsure that I was the butt of a joke. Was this guy for real?

Peeling my eyeballs around the room, looking at all of the typical trappings of success, items that screamed, "beware conservative white bourgeois at large," the effect of these surroundings and his unusual request...offer, more to the point, became even more, if that were possible, incongruous; ridiculous, the longer I thought about it.

I glanced back at him unable at first to look him the eye, but then feeling that this shared, perverted intimacy somehow demanded it, searching for something, anything to anchor my rampant emotions, something that would narrow the range of all of the things that were coursing through me violently, paring the muscle from my bone.

His face betrayed nothing, no hint of sarcasm, irony emotion of any kind save a dull placid assurance that what he had spoken was in no way out of the ordinary. And perhaps that more than any immediately assertive look he could have given me, struck me as the most absurd non-sequiter to the entire evening's events. I mean here I was a relative stranger and yet somewhere in that situation-churning brain of his he had decided that I was not one of those "yo-yos" he had so derogatorily dismissed as unworthy of his daughter's feminine delights. If it was a joke he was certainly making a serious show of it. Or maybe, and knowing what little I did of him this thought immediately crossed my mind, this could be some kind of a test. Bait. You know, dangle the sweet fruits before me and see what my character "really" is. Cause me to drop my guard, remove my social armor, get at the heart of the man before going any further. This last idea, that of this being some kind of test was the one that in the end held the most sway for me as it seemed to offer the most reasonable explanation for the absurdities I'd just witnessed.

I must say though, regardless of the growing feeling that I was being tested, the idea of course held appeal. I mean it's not like his daughter was hideous or anything and truly the notion of a little flesh-play was always an appealing aperitif, not to mention the absolute honor I felt at being so quickly chosen as the one to de-flower the stone, so to speak, casting the Arthurian legend in a light of unabashed salacity.

Of course I was very happy to be sitting across the desk from him shielded as I was by the immensity of mahoganized Victorian craftsmanship as it more that adequately hid the engorging member beginning to impel me toward loosening my pants or at least shifting in my seat. It was all so odd. But at the same time, oddly arousing.

I remembered a time in seventh grade and a young teacher; Miss Hezyk. She was quite young I recall and at the time I found her the closest example to an absolute of adult female perfection as I could imagine anyone to be. The numerous tri-fold, ooh-la-la girls I routinely stroked-off to could not in my mind compare to her. Although, thinking back now from this promontory of distance borne clarity, I cannot actually summon any one thing outwardly striking about her.

As I remember she had brown hair; nothing especially assertive. There are certain hair colors that proclaim themselves, jumping up and not only asking your attention but demanding it. And as I think of her it seems that her hair was a bit of a mixture between extremes of the color wheel. Not quite red or any of its outward variants which will leap across an expanse the size of the Grand Canyon and seize you by the throat; nor black, that pitch tar kind of Asian black that sets you to thinking of mystery and coolness and cunt hair straight as a razor's edge. Not that either. But at the other end of the spectrum, her hair was not blonde. No, definitely not. There is a certain ambiance to the naturally blonde hair. A gradation, a waterfall, a cascade of swelling color that rises and falls steadily changing as the filters of sunlight rake across its heavenly strands.

Brown was the color of her hair. I Dream of Jeannie brown, not the TV show, the song, with the Light Brown Hair. What some would call a mousy brown. Again, nothing particularly striking in the way of color. Her eyes were light, and this I recall as one of her most outstanding features given the point of reference that she was somewhat plain, this feature, the translucent eyes, shot out for attention like a jackrabbit out of the underbrush.

Her eyes were a green/blue/gray; hazel I suppose, though for some reason that word, hazel, used to describe so chameleonic a trait never appealed to me as appropriate. Wasn't Hazel an old, tubby, cleaning woman who cleaned her way to TV stardom in the fifties, dust-brooming the houses of popular American culture for a whole generation of pubescent males? She was for me, albeit in reruns. And from that point forward whenever I think of hazel, I think of her. So, non-sequiter aside, her eyes were hazel, light brown/mousy brown hair, chewy-doll face and delicate, china tender hands. Maybe that's it; the hands. I've always had a thing, a fetish you might say in these more "enlightened' times for women's hands. Not that I necessarily find the hands erotic in and of themselves. But a woman with unattractive hands, yeah, worse yet, man-paws fit for meat hooks or cranking the wheel of a big rig semi, these types of mutations, to me, are definitely a turn-off. In fact, all other things being equal if a woman's hands didn't cut it for me, or worse yet, became somewhat of a repulsive influence on my gonadal centers of male response, then at the very least, I would fake a dress-up play at the crucial moment and have her wear gloves as props. At the very worst-and this would be if she didn't appeal to me to begin with-I would refrain from in indulging in sexual pursuit of any kind, fearing the possibility that I might at a crucial moment become disenchanted and lose my desire to continue or at worst unwittingly give myself away thereby causing an unsavory and humiliating embarrassment for both myself and the woman in question. Most unfortunate for all concerned.

So I remember her dainty hands, Miss Hezyk, and then what immediately springs to mind are the things that above all else I attached to my libidinous desires concerning her. You see, the schools I attended during those tender, fantasy engendering years of youthful erectness, were of the Catholic kind; uniformity for all, god and his son omniscient and ubiquitous, the pesky ghosty-holybird hovering nearby, readying to release the poop chute mid flight. There were nuns and priests and the like running amok, causing all manner of spiritual exile for those of us impressionable youths who witnessed their carryings on with the most absolute conviction that whatever circumstances had brought them to this most unfortunate-and I say " unfortunate" because as a youth the thought of deprivations of any kind, especially SEXUAL was unfortunate slash TRAGIC- hideously limited condition of monochrome haberdashery and religious insanity was one that none of my ilk would care to duplicate; not even as a tease. Now, among the cavalcade lunacy I was happy to find myself in the time of modern Catholic history when the pope, bless his congealed and mottled old soul, saw fit to bestow magnanimity upon those formerly called nuns, now called "sisters." This being that they, the "sisters," were no longer expected to adopt that wonderfully restrictive and penquinesque fashion item known as "the habit." That such a conservative enterprise as Catholicism chose to implement such a radical departure from the fascist norm was enough to make one famed Nazarethan rabbi turn in his heavenly throne.

The overall effect was indeed, quite peculiar. On the one hand, you had the old guard; those who had adopted the single color, single god concept millennia ago and in whose mind the devotional aspects of religiosity were inseparable from. While on the other side, those having recently joined the ranks, once given the choice of civilian attire, chose to stay within those equations as these were the ones most comfortable to them. The juxtapositional aspects were remarkable. Nothing could be more incongruous, yet, into this confused psychosexual context strolled good Miss Hezyck; tender as a violet dusk, young, vibrant, appealingly feminine, who by her direct contrast to the rank and file alone made her immediately eligible as masturbatory material. It was like being stranded on a desert island and having a cargo plane drop the first female you had seen in twenty years right upon your doorstep. The usual stages ensued. Shock, followed by slow cognition, followed by the greatest case of unbridled, glory-be-to-God lust imaginable. In an instant, the attainment of her pink center became central to my gonadiest fantasies. My eyes popped, my heart leaped, my mind marched down Main Street, loud proclamations of "Miss Hezyck, Miss Hezyck, hurrah! hurrah!!" peeling from my swollen lips. Aahh, the days of basking sunshine, the sunshine of her love. Lovely Miss Hezyck, desert rose thrust upon a desolate landscape...thrust...thrust.

I thought of her often, thought of her hands, thought of those clunky, monstrous, should-have-been-firewood-but-now-it's-a-desk constructs of medieval torture, the place where she spent most of her days; me, entertaining thoughts of our mutual, greased-up nudity, her shielded from sight, a mysterious allure, visible only from chest to head, upturned breasts supported by the coolness of etched mahogany-oh, to be that desk top-merely the tips of her sensible shoes peeking out from beneath the truncating wooden rampart.

I often found myself drifting in wonderful reverie, a place of serene joyfulness, where I, naked and poking air, the dainty Miss Hezyck, naked and glowing in orgasm's delight would frolic though the waves, or the fields, or whatever place two naked, sexually charged nubiles could reach symbiotic nirvana. And at those times I thought I detected one or the other of her hands disappear beneath the shelter of desk, subtlety her trademark, followed in short call by a faint trembling of her toes, peekingly visible as they were, her face held steady, but increasingly flushed, as she shuddered herself oh-so-discreetly to orgasm in front of the classroom of horniferous, pubescent males. Just the notion of the symphony those delicate hands of hers were conducting, arpeggiating her harmonies in full vibrato, right there in plain sight, was enough to provide me masturbatory material for many enchanted evenings.

Her manner caused me wonder. The lilt of her voice caused me erections. Everything about her caused me anguish. Yet she was so plain, so out in the open, yet so hidden, as if al of her were on display but at the same time, far removed.

After that experience, the reign of Miss Hezyck, it was many years before I became adjusted around females, as the lingering mystery concerning the alleged Masturbate-A-Thon of my seventh grade teacher haunted my sexual landscape, creeping around the circumference of dreams, calling to me like a spectral friend, inviting me to inquire of many surprised young females whether I could sit in on their self explorations, like a medical study, just to match the real world mechanics of the act with the fogginess of fantasy. I found out that young girls are not keen on discussing such matters. And after the bruises from repeated face slaps healed, I decided it best to lock away good old Miss Hezyck's memory until perhaps a more mature cycle of life.

Amazingly, or not so amazingly, it was written into my destiny that the quietest, least outgoing, and yes, "mousy" females became to me the pinnacle of achievement in the companion department. I cannot in looking back recall one girl in my sexual history that was not as plain as the day is fish. And truly, for the record, let me say that every one of them was the most sexually potent, wildly experimental creatures I could ever imagine a female to be. I won't mention names here; you know who you are.

Long before the days of the wild-girls, and genital piercing, and wearing strap-ons to breakfast, the girls of my past were reaching orgasmic and liberational heights that even Cosmo categorically denied as possible, or less yet, advisable. I guessed it had something to do with fermentation. Like wine under storage becoming more rounded and powerful with age, so to did these females display a phenomena I came to refer to as Spontaneous Female Combustion. And in that respect, all of these flashbacks now occurred to me because of this man, the symbol of conservative, affluent, middle-upper-bourgeois Americana offering me first bedding rights with his compelling but still untouched nubile progeny who had the requisite mousy look going for her. My mind raced as my morality recoiled. And oh so interestingly too, as I had never thought of myself as a morally motivated person. I mean if it had been a pimp offering pussy would I be affected in any way but excited? Well, maybe I wouldn't be jumping for my wallet as the idea of a hooker is not something I find ultimately appealing. But if let's say some guy offered his girlfriend? A friend offering another friend? Anybody offering anybody except a father offering his own daughter? Maybe that's the entire objection. Normally it's the fathers who must be overthrown in an effort to steal the peaches from the family tree. That's what I'm most accustomed to. But the scenario I found myself unwittingly and unrelentingly drawn toward was beyond any dream I would dare to have. Could something this bizarre become trendy?

One could only imagine the outcome. Father's lining up to offer the serviceable charms of their young girls. A cavalcade of pristine pussy stretching out beyond the event horizon. Intriguing, yes. But where would the challenge be? No guessing, no wonderment, no sweetly inspired forbidden fruits, no curt slaps across the face when the fragile sensibilities have been violated by a request so vile. Ah, there is something comforting in the mating rituals. But then, my associations were growing linear and I found myself stumbling into the tug of logical stasis. I needed to pull away, far from the deadly coil of those thoughts...

A man leaped on the table and began a rant-a-rat-a-tat- trash. A million years of refined sewage spewed from his lips. But he didn't' care. Couldn't hear himself. Did not understand the depths of his drunken stupidity which had been borne from repugnance and ignorance. He once was poor, and in that poverty had discovered his identity. But that reality was no more. Now the green hills of commerce ruled his primary vision. Hunger lurked somewhere, but no longer in his domain.

He was lame to its cries.

His hands waved wildly, masturbating in a vicious wide arc of motion.

"Do you not know," he said, "do you not hear?"

He spoke to all, spoke to no one. Some looked at him, ashamed that he could be claimed of their lineage. Others felt sorry for the dismal depths of confusion to which he'd sank. Still others, moved by the raging wind of his rhetoric, were driven to madness. Suicide. Within that legion he claimed his victory.

The mountains of verbiage increased. He laughed and prayed. "I am the mock messiah. Do you not recognize me? Do you not understand that I am all that you aspire to, hence have created me as I create myself?"

The masses wavered and slung back upon their collective heels. No one was a match for his squirmy reasoning. No one dared to oppose him.

Suddenly, he let burst a loud cough. The crowd stepped back. He coughed again and spat upon the parting sands a broken doll. Its clothes were ragged and torn. Its face dirty from years of neglect. That man looked at this that he had birthed this vile carnage of his embittered loins. His eyes froze, his tongue silenced, and from the depths of his soul a howling pain erupted like none heard before. The tears streamed from the dark slits of his eyes. Fire burned from his lids; red and green and blue and gold, a swirl of ethereal light, coiled and twisted as it spun from his face. The people wept and when his blood flowed into the gutter, all were renewed with hope...

I left there confused and shaken. So many pictures, so many possibilities yet all of them existing in a simultaneous void, a dreamscape where all the potentialities played in the round, surround-vision, a kaleidoscope of realities crossthreading and interweaving.

I sat down on the dry, sifting earth and looked outward beyond the circle. There in streaming ribbons of color I watched the present and past collide in a brilliant explosion.

I thought about the man, thought about his predecessors, thought about the girl under his auspices. Should I accept his offer? Would I? Could I?

The price of flesh had become cheap. For a few thin nickels or a box of magic powder it is sold. I, in private, rage against the new demonology, but in public feed its degenerate mouth. The dichotomy that exists within finds expression without. I was torn like rat-shit to a spinning fan.

I walked down a lonely road. The sky had become dark. The air thick with grief. Passing a densely congested area I saw that the tall buildings were glued to the ground. Like fly-paper they attracted. All manner of earth's refuse clung to their feet. A pedestal of garbage. People, all shapes and sizes and colors swarmed he base. Old and young. White black and nondescript. Carefully, I sought to disassociate myself. I moved quickly picking up my steps as darkness cloaked the sky, descended like death. From the shadows a voice called out. My name. It spoke my name.

"Where do you run to, man," it said to me. "Are you above the humanity of your peers? Or do you have no peer in this atmosphere you claim as your own?"

This discourse startled me, for I knew not what it referred to.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say."

"And what is that?"

"You ask me?"

"Yes."

"What is that?"

"You heard."

"A question? I do not understand."

"Then go..."

"But!"

"Go...keep going..."

"But...I...I..."

"Yes...go on...get lost."

"I am...lost..."

The words stuck to me. My head hurt from thought. Why did this person assail me, then bid me away?

I squinted into the darkness, saw no one.

A pair of eyes. Yes, I see them. A pair of eyes.

I looked closer, leaning into the pitch, feeling the air closing around my throat. Then I saw them, looking back at me, a pair of eyes, maybe two, maybe more.

"Why do you hide?" I screamed, emboldened by their efforts at staying hidden. I asked, "What are you afraid of?"

The eyes did not blink, simply hung there in the darkness, cold and unfeeling. Clothing or something rustled in the imposing silence.

"There is a dark pride you know nothing of," a voice said, distant but close, hot but tingling with the cold shallowness of the grave. "Know this and you will discover the hidden glory."

I screamed, "I don't like puzzles...don't like puzzles. Do you hear me? Does anyone hear me?"

Squeezing my eyes tightly I screamed and screamed. But no one heard no one came. And when I opened my eyes again the city was gone. Faded like so much dust into the night. Only a songbird dared disturb the emptiness, whistling aloft.

The bird was me afraid and alone.

That night I slept fitfully. Images of destruction played with my sight. Nowhere was there refuge. Nowhere salvation. If I awoke screaming in sweat no peace would follow. Only silence. Darkness and silence. Something was huddling in the corner of the room. It would not show itself. I slept in its presence ignoring the danger. From the shadows I sometimes heard weeping. But that could have been a dream, I don't know.

The next day I stayed home and lay naked in the sun. It was a beautiful hot day. All the neighbors were away. A blanket in the front yard served as curtain. Shield.

I lay shining and reveled in the flesh, watching my lob rolling on its side, lazy and curling like a Siamese. My curly hairs glistened in the slanting sunlight. The hot breeze creased between my legs. The wind scalded in from the desert. I felt good out there alone but unafraid, complete with my silent rhapsody. And then I thought of the girl, the fragile daughter of the big daddy. I wondered how she would look, naked like this. Wondered if she enjoyed her nakedness.

I had only seen her once, briefly. About her I only remember her gentle demeanor, her supple hands. Nice hands. I tried picturing her behind a clunky desk, only the tips of her sensible shoes visible, her face flushed, her skin hot, steam, her legs trembling as her hands worked her f-hole. Her face fit beautifully into that frame. A magic was incipient. Her mystery intriguing.

Staring out across the tautness of my abdomen, I watched my lob rise and dance for her, poking the sky, its plangent wail reaching my tender ears. Behind the curtain, with all the neighbors gone I sprayed my seed into the sun, the hot desert winds lapping at the tendrils, my mind churning strong and wild thinking of her, the mystery girl. Maybe there was much I needed to know about her.

In those next moments, my mouth working still involuntary spasms from the recent quake, I decided to re-decide.

Jazz has a strange possession. A soothing and disturbing quality. I cannot listen without being torn. Its vague urgencies cut me. Even when it whispers I bleed. Yet I cannot avoid its beckoning. Like the dark man of my dreams I fear it yet am propelled towards it, free from the bonds of volition, free from thought, simply a moving form in a formless void of emotion. The body sings. The soul weeps. Somewhere in between the heart bleeds. I hear it all, the many shades and colors. I transcribe it in my spirit. My mind swirls in the chords and melodies. Like Mozart, a walking industry, a production of music: pre-formed, pre-designed, preordained. No one can hear but me. The joys are mine alone, the pains are mine alone. I alone am alone within its oneness.

But the jazz I hear now, here in this smoky blue room, where the trash of the garbage litters the peeling chairs, the sticky tables, I watch the sweating fat man, black and smooth, silky as silk gossamer, gliding, glissading, floating like helium over the cosmic universe. His notes quiver with rage. His tones froth with love, lost lovers. All at once he is all things. Light glances from his horn. So brilliant and crimson its voice, so golden and warm its luster I want to touch it the way it touches me. But in my space I can only exist tangent to it. Untouching its mystery. Yet it retains the power to cut, to gut, and to rip me to shreds. It has. It does. I feel death creeping but yet spring more alive than I can recall. Electricity excites and in its dangerous centrifuge we are made whole. Where does one hide when there is no place to hide? When the tormentor strikes from within. When the flesh is but the circumference, the raging battle pit the center of the soul. On a collision path with a destiny I know nothing of, beyond control of the pilot.

The waitress bumped into my table. I looked up into her cinnamon face. She smiled and bent down, something she'd dropped. The gleam of her breasts' curvature shot at my face. I felt my pants tighten. She lingered there, appeared to be searching. I thought of offering my help, but her breasts held me entranced. When she stood, my eyes were at her waist. She read me like a cookbook.

"Fifty," she said. "Around the world seventy-five."

Later, as I collected collect my things she rolled over and ran her smoky eyes across me, lapping at my tingling flesh, stopping at my lob.

"You ain't bad," she said, lazy like sugar. "For a white boy."

I smiled. I didn't know if I should thank her or wiggle my eyebrows. I did neither.

I paid pay her; she looked at the crumpled bills and threw them at me.

"I was only joking," she said. "Nobody pays me. I do what I want."

My eyes went squinty, looking at her, confused.

"If I call you out again," she said, "you listen...you come, white boy...got it?"

I nodded, pocketed the money and left. She yelled to me from the top of the stairs, her breasts jingling.

"You remember. I say if, I say when. ME! Not you or your dirty money!"

When the bird whistles and the day cracks certain, how far will the money go?

I waited for a sign, waited for something. I didn't know what I waited for, therefore was sure to miss it when it happened.

When WHAT happened?

I didn't know.

Silence...silence...

A sandwich spoke: "Eat me and breathe life."

I laughed at the atrocity. A sandwich speaking to me. So ridiculous looking too; old, soggy in its white bread, bologna or baloney, reddish-pink, curled slightly with a dollop of mustard cool and yellow peeking around the edges.

The sandwich sat upright, reveling in its shock-ability I supposed, with a smug look in its crusty eyes.

"You know you want to," it said, its challenging, mocking tone ringing through my stunned hearing. "Eat me, I mean. They all do...eventually."

My insides repulsed at this notion. Why would I wish to consume this creature as he thought I did, speaking so boldly to action?

I said that, first to myself, then to it...him...her.

"Look, whatever your name is..."

"Mel," it said.

"Okay...Mel. I'm not sure where you get this idea that I wish to consume you or if you merely taunt me as if I've no will of my own, but I assure you that eating right now is the farthest thing from my mind."

The sandwich...Mel, stopped to consider this, then, looking at me again, lifted a corner as if it were an arm, to its mouth.

"Hmmm," he said, "let me get this straight. You're not hungry now so you won't eat me. So, at least for the present, I'm safe. But if I were to linger; if enough time were to pass, then...eventually...maybe...most likely, hunger would beseech you and then...THEN! You would reach a point where consuming me seemed a rational and viable option, correct?"

I don't remember saying that, but he had inferred plenty. I sensed his threat at my presence. I offered to leave.

"Look," I said. "If you feel uncomfortable with me being here I can leave, you know. I mean, why you are so obsessed with this idea I can't figure, but, to each his own, sandwiches included. You certainly have a right to your feelings."

After I said those things, I felt weird. I mean, after all, I was talking to a sandwich! But yet, the longer I sat there, in fact, even in the few seconds it took to relay this report, it was becoming less and less bizarre, talking to this sandwich, and suddenly I found that the fact of our relating seemed the most natural of occurrences, a typical event for a man and sandwich to converse.

"You know," he piped up. "I don't say you'll eat me simply to assail you, nor do I wish to imply that there is something exceptionally base or degenerate about you in particular that would cause me to jump to a conclusion of that sort. It's just that, simply put, by virtue of your lineage, that is man, homo-erectus, anthropoid creature that you are, the odds are certainly greater than mere possibility, probability really, that given enough time and enough pressing against the limits of your hunger quotient, you will in fact consider, then, thought leading to action, act upon this impulse, pounce upon me, employing extreme violence-or care—you do seem somewhat gentle—and in that instant make a simple task of consuming me entirely to quench your driving need. And the most horrible part of this is that no matter our relationship prior to that fate defining moment, the nexus of destinies' collusion, you will commit this act without question or remorse. For it is elementally within your nature to dominate, destroy, feed the desirous cravings of your soul, or stomach, as the case may be."

I looked at Mel, stunned, concerned also at his nightmarish prediction.

"You do think a lot, don't you?" I said.

"For a sandwich, you mean."

"No...well, yes...now see what you've done? You trip me into contradiction."

"It's not hard you know."

"I'm that easy to read?"

"No...my crust, I meant. It's not hard."

"And your point?"

"Only the slightest pressure...the smallest pierce, only this necessary to crush the shield of my armor. Sure you wouldn't like a nibble?"

Horrified, I responded, "Certainly not!! What do you take me for? A barbarian?"

He startled at my response, then sighed.

"Oh...I see...you find me unappealing then..."

His game was convoluting. "No, I said. Not unappealing, as a creature, entity, or something not human, just as a source of sustenance."

"Hmmm...so I don't intrigue you? Inspire your taste buds? Not in the slightest? Not event the most menial of stomach growls in anticipation?"

It seemed I had him at a disadvantage, an awkward moment of self revelation, and I wasn't about to give away the fact that yes, my stomach HAD attempted to persuade me toward devouring him. But I was no mere automaton to the instinctual code. I had logic, and reason, and more than that, I was crafty! The sandwich would not get the better of me, regardless of WHAT name he carried.

"No, I said. I don't find you appealing. In fact, I'm not much of a sandwich person anyway. So you see, you're quite safe around me. Maybe these ideas of yours are the result of old prejudices, notions that would best serve you left behind. I mean, really, if you think about it long enough, and seeing that you are the intellectual type I'm sure you'll heartily agree, that prejudice, like violence, becomes an easier leap with each succession of thought. So why not end the nasty cycle right here? Start a new series of associations. Let your unfounded fears pass away."

Mel looked at me, shook his head, and I noticed what looked like a sandwichy tear escape the perimeter of his eyes. I watched it trail down the down of him, wondering if it were salt, imagining the tang of salt on my tongue. My mouth salivated, purely Pavlovian. He looked at me again and said: "You're right...and beautifully spoken too. Perhaps I've spent so long under siege that I've lost a vital part of my humanity. The very thing I accuse you of, everyone. Forgive me gentle friend."

I smiled, wide and toothy. Then, I seized him, swallowing him full and complete in one decisive chomp. And I must say that after all, he WAS quite tasty, baloney and all.

The distance was murky and gray. Drizzled and grainy like a sprig painted sky. The thick particular matter hung heavy in the dusky air. The fumes of death and decay engulfed my senses.

Looking out across the vastness, I saw a shiver of mountains, broken down the center, jagged breasts cleaving into the void. From its heart a red beacon flared outward. Just visible through the gray speckled mist a rider on a horse. Long haired and female. Naked except for her mane. Her pace was easy. Smooth and certain as she headed toward the inferno jutting forth beyond the rock precipice directly in front of her, a hitcher on the path she must travel out to points beyond.

I felt a strange aura of danger, settling upon me thick as the dappled sky. The oppression seized my throat; my ears rang in response to the sharpness of pain. My crotch tightened at the seams. Thrills of nudity and danger, availability and surreptitious lust flanked my brain. Without thinking, my feet began to move, slide, push forward until I found myself running after her, the lone rider.

The air raced into my beaded face. The heat and cold gray dust covered my flesh, a creeping fungus obliterating all it touched in a carpet of forgotten dreams. Sweat trickled down my back, down the middle of my forehead, balancing on the expanse between my eyes before lurching forward, taking that fatal plunge, lifting off the plane and over the rising slope of my nose bridge, twisting into the corners of my eyes, burning, searing, collecting in pools at the crevice.

A revolution of emotion flooded my emptiness, an anxious refrain echoing over and over again, _you have nothing to lose, nothing to lose, all to gain._ My lust charged unbridled, my fever hot.

Who would know? Who would see? What would it matter anyway? The thought spun around my receptive brain in beautifully terrifying prose, repeating like a bit stream audio jungle. My swollen eyes ached upon her image. My loins pulsed in anticipation. As I ran the though of our nakedness, mutual and resplendent, revealed to me, myself, juxtaposed against the facades and masks that I had worn up until then. It was as if the scorching heat of the core furnace was upon me, burning layer after layer away until all that remained was the fundamental, the primary creature, descendent and antecedent rolled into one chaotic vessel.

Flashing back to LSD trips joyous, stunning imagery, a plethora of different women, most of them partially or fully nude and striking sexual poses.

Now, I was transformed, only animal presiding. Only seething lust driving my forward momentum. I would have her. Totally and completely, without compunction or remorse. Just me and she, alone in the desolation of wilderness, wild and unforgiving, principals given to the roaring commands of bestial violation. Nothing short of absolute possession was possible. And in that possession we would transcend the earthly apparatus which had become an albatross around my neck.

When I reached her, she looked at me with large, deep eyes. I detected what I thought was pity. The zebra she rode twisted its neck around, a long stick of striped gum, then swung back, nose to the horizon, staring straight ahead.

Again she looked at me. Again I sensed a piteous quality to that stare.

I kept pace, running alongside, panting, wanting, feeling the aching need deep in my testicles which by now had grown to three times their size. They swung in short arc, abrading against the inside of my legs, bruising on each swing and counterswing. The animal side of me was neither assuaged nor repelled by her pity, lacking understanding of such high thought processes. The human side was intrigued. I spoke without speaking, inquired as to her intent.

She spun her head towards me, her long hair sweeping around, and a cool breeze doctoring my fevered face, her big eyes sad now, plaintive and wet.

"They all want me," she said. "Animal driven lust, all of them. But it turns out the same. Unfailingly."

I was confused.

Just then, from the distance, a howl erupted. A feral and primitive sound unlike any I'd heard. I stopped for a moment, catching my breath, satisfying my curiosity, attempting to get a lock on this noise. In my stopped condition, she advanced along the path.

She sighed.

"There," she said. "It charges again. Now you will see. Now you will know..."

Far away, among the foothills I saw a figure. It didn't look like anything at all standing there, so small and insignificant against the enormous hillside. It moved. Then moved again. Getting closer now, meter by meter, double time triple time. The distance clocked by, its moves out of proportion to the speed it could have been moving. But yet, its distance to us decreased disproportionate to its lurching gait, advancing like a chess piece, jumping square after square until it was clearly in view. As it came into the light, I saw that it was a man. Not an ordinary man though. A not quite human form. Somehow de-evolved, like it was quickly becoming a mutated creature. Its bulk was great. Its body covered in thatches of bristly hair. From its face, huge red eyes pushed out, direct and intent, unflinching in their monoscopic view of the woman.

She kept riding, glancing at it now and then. I slowed my pace, following close behind, no longer trying to communicate or overtake her. The drama before me was absorbing.

The woman kept riding; the creature kept advancing. I thought I saw her shiver once, in fright perhaps, but I must have been mistaken for when I again looked at her; I saw her sitting tall and straight on the zebra, an air of confident indifference about her.

Suddenly, from the murky shadows, the creature was upon her. He was as wide as a gas tanker. A grunt escaped his trembling lips and pouncing, he lunged at the woman, his large hand grabbing her by the leg, wrenching her from the zebra's back. She fell to her knees. He looked down, drool dripping from his foamy mouth, then, he wrapped his hands around her shoulders and raised her up, one hand moving to her hair, twisting it tightly, pulling it until her head was bent back, her face staring at the red sky. The creature opened his mouth wide, let loose a sonorous howl, baring his razor-yellow teeth as if in defiance to the sun god. Then, in one swift motion, he sunk his teeth into her neck. She shuddered like she had been pushed against a sheet of ice. She writhed, moaned, tried to spin away. The beast tightened his grip. Blood ran down the front of her, rivering between her breasts, pooling at her feet, the sand a sticky mat of life's passing.

My instincts called me to action. I braced against my front foot, preparing to intercede, but she, without words, yet some unspoken and loud voice, communicated that I should stay ready, stand my ground, not interfere. I stopped, using all within me to obey her contrary orders. In the next instant, her eyes came alive, thundering with rage. She slapped at the creature. He slapped her back, knocking her head to an unnatural tilt. Then, when it looked as though she were dead, or fading from extreme blood loss, he threw her down to the ground, her face hitting the ground with a loud slap, and mounted her from behind. He planted his paws on her hips, moving slowly at first, then, building momentum, began thrusting and shaking, pounding into her, clear now that his wish was to obliterate her.

By then, she barely resembled anything of her former self, having sustained the worst part of the round of beating. She lay still, lifeless, only bouncing in response to his violent thrusts.

As the creature neared his climax, his mouth opened, his eyes bulged, his head tilted back and he howled long, and raucous, shrieking in a pleasure like pain. Passing his crescendo, he pushed back off of her, backing up on his knees. Now, one hand reached to his chest, clutching at himself, still howling and staring at the sky. The air grew thick and sinewy, the sky darkened, anger descended in a shroud of mist that fell around everything, obscuring the view. A deep sense of foreboding trembled through me. A chill danced across my soul. I waited and watched, straining into the darkness, fearing the worst, and when the fog lifted, the creature lay dead in the sand, the woman fully restored, sitting atop the zebra, looking down at the creature, that longing, plaintive, big-eyed look of pity on her face.

"Always the same," she said, to herself, soft and resignedly. "Always the same."

I approached her, my face wearing the question mark I felt inside.

She turned to look at me, brushing the hair from her face.

"Sex and death are closely allied. I am the embodiment. All men who know me once meet the same fate. It is the way."

My voice was stunned to silence, but my fear would not remain unheard. "That would have been...could have..."

"Yes," she said. "That is why I stopped you."

She pointed to the creature. "In time, you and he would have been kindred. I stopped you because there was still a thread of humanity in you. For that reason you were spared this cruelty. For that reason alone. Be not afraid."

Her final words hung in the air. Suddenly, I felt sad, like I was giving up someone I loved.

She turned to me once, then, looking ahead toward the burning horizon, rode on, exactly as I had seen her from the first.

In a matter of moments, she was a speck of dust in the swirling atmosphere...

There were moments. Moments where I drifted untethered by neither bond nor reason. Times where the weather patterns within were un-dictated or affected by the weather patterns without. An island unto myself. And although we are taught that this is not so, that in our humanness no such separation is possible, it was indeed precisely the circumstance with me.

In a sketch of a time the full measure of illusions' web prevailed. Entirely sublimating any external colossus into a reality of its own design. Swallowed whole into the mouth of the Sphinx, masticated, digested, belched around and around in dizzying array of confusion.

Where was the line separating fantasy, induced euphoria, objective reality? No answer was offered, nor would any venture forth. I only knew one certain fact: the journeys were become more frequent and unpredictable.

Surmising on the side of rationale, I decided there must be a reasonable explanation. Either that or I had finally blown a major head gasket. But like all humans, my primary impulse was to try and make sense of this mush-paste. Although the other side of me, the irrational child side of my birthright, did not require or believe in such adult foolishness as rationale.

Everything that was occurring was perfectly sound and understood by this second, most impressionable, take it at face value side. The inner conflict was great. The distance between poles increasing daily. Now I was living in two distinct worlds. One, the bright domain of unfettered daylight that all presumably share; reality. The other, a deeper, darker, intuitive landscape where all possibilities collided, transcended time and space, obliterating all sense of linear continuity. There, time was relative, all of life one full revolution of the cosmic wheel. The laws of physics suspended, transmutated, until all was a blur of dimensional noise.

Suns and oceans, flukes of whales, seaport towns, dingy at the dock, felines rolling through the tall snake grass, zebras and giraffes and tigers in the mist. And above all, the giant crocus, holding court, breathing the columns of animated freedom, as alive in the dance of form as immobility would allow.

I sat back this evening on the purple shore of the deserted sand dunes, looking out across the mountains divide, listening to the water lap in white, foamy delight at the flower-brush dusted shore. I dreamt of Manatee beneath the waves, nurturing their young, their fat hammer heads bobbing serenely, thought of leopards stalking prey. Fear trickled through me, lighting down my spine like electricity, then, with the next tidal burst, disappeared from the shorelines of conscience.

A great goldfish sprung from the sea, its wide eyes staring into me. It twisted its massive head from side to side, examining me, a glass encased specimen under its scientific gaze.

Discomfort assaulted. Looking at the sand, trying to ignore the fish-like specter before me, I began counting grains, pushing swirls into its fabric with my finger, attempting an air of controlled insouciance. But when I dared to look up again, there it was, hanging like a boat in the breeze.

Why do you taunt me? I screamed. I have done you no harm! Leave me alone to my merciful peace!!

It shook its head, said something about striped salamanders then shimmying in the breeze, floated downward, back into the black sea which had engendered it. Silent it creased through the waves, disappearing beneath the tide, leaving all in mute suffocation.

This truth that gnaws at me shouts for expression. But there is no longer a focal center to my thoughts. All are but a fragment in the slipstream, a great waterfall unhinged. The focus is weak and blurred, fuzzy as starburst at the juncture of optics and logic. Nothing is perceptible, yet all probability reigns.

Non-linearity has become my tune. Time-shifted, fragmentation my rhythm. These passages are beyond my control. Most days I spend in tormented, post-alcoholic delirium. Sight and sound collide. Present and past melt into future. I have lost the central grip, as my feet slip in the drifting sands...

Meanwhile, back at life central, Mr. Take-My-Daughter-Please was getting a tad pissed off at me. You see, ever since that fateful dinner, he's been on pins and needles as to my decision.

Of course, being the negotiator I am, I refused to clarify my position at the time, deciding instead to let him sit on his extended offer of daughterly flesh, hoping that he may see the absurdity, not to mention the larceny, of his request.

I kind of figured that if I didn't respond that after awhile he would give up trying. I was wrong on both counts.

Needless to say, or not, he was growing impatient. On the machine his voice was morphing, becoming some hideous, chameleonic, other-worldly eructation. I was afraid he would emerge as his alter ego, Dr. Blotto, and sprout long mechanical tentacles, reach through the phone and extract me into the private hell he was stewing in. It was interesting to hear how worked up he was getting. Like if I didn't do this he would take drastic measures of some kind. I ask you, wasn't his offer drastic enough?

Jarring my brain for answers, I couldn't really come up with anything more drastic than his initial play.

But hey! What do I know? Maybe Dr. Blotto had something a bit more sinister up his tentacled sleeve. I searched frantically through my dresser, looking for copies of my old Spiderman comics. It was time for some real super-hero type ponderances, and I pegged Spidey as my man.

I ran the tape machine back and listened again to his breathy soliloquy. Especially the part where he accused me of "leaving him this way." You'd think he was a whining, soon to be "ex" girlfriend. Listening to the tape once more, it dawned on me: he sounded exactly like a whining, soon to be "ex" girlfriend.

I let his words ramble on across the oxide highway until it reached the truncating BEEP!! Then, I sat back against a cushion.

There was something oddly satisfying about leaving him hanging that way. Like by torturing him I was getting even with all the schmos who had fucked me over in my short life. I imagined the answering machine as a secret weapon. That anyone who called, imprinting their voice into its blackness, was somehow held prisoner, floating in abbreviated suspension. The idea was appealing.

There had to be special places designed for such retribution, a virtual limbo, an electronic purgatory, where the evils perpetrated on one sphere were atoned for in another. Cruelty for cruelty, spooned medicine with no amelioration from Mary Poppins' sugar. Could such a simple device as an answering machine really be employed for so glorious a mission? I grew drunk on the concept. The need for revenge evidently greater than I had realized.

But the way I saw it, sticking to the present tense only, this particular guy had definitely earned it. I mean the nerve of him with the daughter business. Just when I thought I was as immoral as they come, along strolls someone who induces the most supreme case of moral outrage I could have ever dreamed possible!

Okay, maybe a slight exaggeration. But I was drunk on creation.

Suddenly a thought occurred to me, which, as soon as it popped up, I was surprised it hadn't occurred sooner. Did she know? Maybe there was something "funny" going on between the two of them?

Ugh!! Sickening. And I though I was an old profligate.

Settling into the overstuffed couch, I kicked my feet up on the armrest and tossed it over; not the couch, the idea of father-daughter wrestling. Something Zen-like happened when I sat that way. As if all of the universal contingencies skated into convergence, cycling forward a powerful communion of intergalactic wisdom within my own feeble, amoebae intellect.

Strange currents of energy raced up my legs. Is this how those special panty hose feel? My arms went light headed, buoyant. My hair tingled for the moon. My eyes grasped at flecks of bursting matter, transposed them into morsels of understanding--

AAARF!! The dog yelped.

Another sublime moment interrupted. I let the dog inside. If I didn't' he would just continue to bay and howl at the door until I finally gave in. Normally, I would be indulgent with the creature and dance the ritual dance which we both have become well acquainted with. But seeing as today there were more important things to consider, I gave in quickly.

He ambled in, droopy and slow. He looked up at me, sadder somehow. I could hear him thinking, "Jeez!! I don't even rate the ritual game?"

He'd forget soon enough. Have a biscuit, lick his balls and get over it. Ahh...the simple life. Me, on the other hand could only manage one of the two without serious injury. If I could manage the other I'd never leave the house.

I thought this and the dog looked at me. As if he knew my envy. And I swear I detected a faint smile cross his black lips.

Lazing around the house waiting for inspiration to strike didn't seem to be working so I booted the dog and went outside for walk. There is something energizing about walking through the city. Compared to places on the east coast, places I was more familiar with, this did lack a certain commotion that was all too prevalent elsewhere. But still, in the uniformity and blank nothingness that screamed out from the plastered, Mardi-Gras-happy colors of the houses, there was a nonetheless refreshing, albeit lonely appeal. The loneliness was soon shattered.

Chewbacca, or Chewie as he was called, was revving his engine across the street. I swear he knew when I was leaving the house and he always waited for me. He was a friendly enough type and he seemed to like me. But somehow I received the distinct impression that he most liked yanking my chain.

I covered my ears as he revved his Chevy. Metallic blue, big, wide tires, low to the ground like the before car you see pictured on those shock absorber commercials. I imagined that all over the southlands of California, right at that moment, mechanics always eager for quick and easy repairs, were listening to that revving engine, knowing it was Chewie, expecting that on the next bump in the road he'd be pulling in for new shocks at the least. Worst case an entire under-chassis rebuild. The air was blistering with electrical anticipation. I could hear the change in the coin pockets tumbling already.

"Hey! Vato!" He called. "How's it hanging?"

"Cool. You?"

"Eh...you know," he said, wiggling his hand side to side in a modified horizontal shimmy.

"Yeah. Heard that."

"So, bro. Any action?"

He always asked me that. I guess he pegged me for a player. Although I don't know why. He never saw me with anyone. But still, he inquired. I guessed that was mighty nice of him.

"Not lately...you?"

He cocked back his head, raised his eyebrows, and glanced around like he was afraid someone might hear him. He leaned in close.

"Listen bro. You know that cute little cholita I came around here with last week? You know? The one with the grande melones?"

I nodded. (I did in fact remember; her breasts were amazing.)

"Well," he said, whispering now, "I think tonight..."

He poked his index finger in and out of his cupped other hand. "You know what I mean?"

He was winking and prodding me in that way that all guys wink and prod when they're sharing spicy details of the sex they may of may not have with a girl who they may or may not have had it with. I nodded, a big stupid grin on my face like all guys do when talking to the guy describing the sex he many or may not have had, the girls who he may or may not have had it with, because we know he may or may not be full of shit and what part of us isn't believing this story is actually laughing at its pathetic familiarity. Or maybe we're just jealous. Maybe... That's only, however, if the sex story is true. Usually, it isn't. Just a dream. An out there kind of wish upon a star kind of thing. But being a guy; animal lust driven, male bonding creatures that we are, I did the typical guy thing. I encouraged him

"Hey man," I said, walking away to my journey. "Get some for me, okay?"

He smiled, threw me the thumbs up. He turned and started walking to his care, then, as if he'd forgotten something, stopped...turned around.

"Hey, bro!" He yelled.

I turned.

"One day. You and me go cruising, eh? You know. Score some tomates?"

"Yeah. Sure thing..."

He winked in that Chewie way of his and went back to revving his car. I walked down the street, heading for the homogenous landscapes, hot breezes, and salty air that were blowing in from the ocean. I knew that once I got to the water the day would be better.

I was right. It was a perfect day for the beach. Not too hot, not too cold. One of those perfect California days you always read about in the travel brochures or those cheesy pulp novels or see on Charlie's Angels or the Beverly Hillbillies. Ellie May's titties busting into the sunshine in all her unabashed Tennessean glory.

This was certainly one of those days. I took a deep gulp of air and plopped down onto the sand. It was cool and moist as I dug my hands and heels in.

Down at the shoreline, a girl and guy were skittering around the curling water. As it rushed into shore, they would jump and dance trying to avoid it. The boy kept nudging the girl, trying to make her go in further than perhaps she was ready to. She laughed nervously, mock chastising him, he laughing and joking every time she did. It was a perfect picture of two young lovers, long before the realities of lost identity and imposing compromise became a self imposing prison.

I watched contentedly, waiting for things to explode. I didn't have to wait long.

At the next wave, the girl stepped back. Sensing his moment, the boy intercepted her right at that precarious stage of fulcrum where the weight is shifting from the front foot to the back, the point where for that brief fragment in time, you are suspended as it were, within the graceful breadth of atmosphere and faith. He seized his moment and pushed her forward. The fulcrum was upset and she tumbled, stumbled, bottled and fell, flat into the curling waves, a blanket of sea and foam and sand enveloping her floundering form.

He startled, looked concerned, and then, understanding the obvious humor of her whale-like beachedness, started laughing like a man before the firing squad. Seconds later, he probably wished for the kindness of that fate.

How sad it is to see young love tested so violently, angered words cast so effortlessly, fists and screams and gobs of saturated sand thrown with such malicious intent and deadly precision.

The first clump struck him in the face, the second, in the nut-basket.

Later, as they both moved away down shore, him limping and groveling, her fuming interspersed with his crying over the possible danger to the storehouse of his as yet uncharted lineage, I thought I heard the bell clanging, the steward calling, the orchestra swelling into another lovely chorus of the _Love Boat_ theme. Sweet melancholia reigned supreme. Caviar anyone?

I closed my eyes after the smoke had cleared and let the soothing keel of the ocean bring me to a place of blissful surrender. Time moved sideways. The earth ceased rotation. And for a moment all was perfectly perfect as every Californian has the right to expect.

When I again opened my eyes, it was clear that all was again unclear; things had gone wobbly.

My hands gripped tightly to the handlebars, my knuckles going white, while I stared in wide eyed terror at the scene unfolding before me.

I was on a bicycle heading down a long, scary, deep and dark hill. Maybe a gorge leading to oblivion. The streets were ominously shadowed. The air was thick with mold inspired dampness. Trees leaned in from the sides of the frame, bending their shaggy green tops into the road, forming a kind of cavern. At the far, far, distant end, a trickle of light peeked through.

The road was slick and gritty. Like a mudslide mixed with sand. The bicycle slid and rolled, charging faster down the hill. I pushed my feet out to stop. But there was no use; my speed increased as I sped toward certain destruction.

Down at the bottom of the street, in a pinhole of sight, I could make out cars, big as pin heads, moving like busy ants. Soon, I would be squashed into one or more of them. I didn't need to wonder who would get the worst of that encounter.

The smell of foliage permeated. The air brushed by my face and nose, damp and heavy with the growing scent of perspiration. I looked around frantically, seeing if anyone, anything could stop my rapid descent.

But nothing availed itself. I was alone, racing down an impossibly steep hill, slick roadway, brakes unresponsive, and hanging on for what was left of life.

As I neared the bottom I braced myself for the impact. At that instant, I heard raucous music pouring toward me. I turned. There was Chewie, heading the opposite direction, up the hill, backwards, hip hippity-hop tunes blaring, him bouncing, bobbing, a human yo-yo on stimulants.

I called to him, desperation in my voice. But he couldn't, wouldn't, didn't hear me.

In the silence of my heart and mind, I said my final goodbye...

Time slipped, the rotational axis twisting into a new dimension. All changed.

Now, I was at the near top of the same hill, or another that looked like it, heading up the incline, peddling slowly in first gear. Behind me, I could ear the snickering of a group of guys. Probably there or four I guessed. They were yelling something. I strained to decipher their words.

"Hey jerk-off! Get off that thing and walk it!!"

They laughed. Somewhere inside determination kicked in. I would show them how it was done.

I dug into the task, pushing hard into the pedals, my thighs burning toward combustion. The top of the hill was near. Maybe ten more feet to go. Almost there.

Turning back, I attempted to ID my antagonizers. The street was empty. Only the loneliness of trees singing into the melancholy stillness. The pit of the deep ravine returned my stare, blank as stone.

Whipping my head around, I continued on my course, glad to be free of my tormentors, aching for hilltop and sweet relief.

Once there, I looked around. The streets were oddly familiar, as if I'd been there before, perhaps lived in this neighborhood, although I couldn't recall when. Yet at the same time something vague and unsettling was striking at my center.

Where was I?

I tried to remember where I was prior to this, but couldn't. It seemed as if I had always been here. Like a continuous loop of the film reel, playing over and over until a wayward projectionist realizes by the clattering ratchet sound that the machine is stuck. It seemed to me that if this segment went on any further, the white hot projector light would melt the frames where they sat.

Looking up past the trees, I investigated for any signs of the telltale brown spot that proceeds and blossoms as the burning takes place. I alerted my senses to the scent of charred acetate. Nothing. No brown blossoms, no acetate barbecue. I was at least for the moment, safe from melt-out.

It was then a gorilla bounced from the trees. He landed with a soft thumping, his feet accustomed to such abrupt changes in latitude. He paused and stared at me, moving his eyebrows quizzically, as if trying to sort out the oddity of seeing the likes of me, a human creature in his presence. Had I breached eminent domain?

I stood frozen, not sure what to do.

He rolled his eyes a bit, then, apparently satisfied at his analysis bounced away down the street, happy to be rid of me. He moved at an easy, rollicking gait, listing side to side, his squatty legs rising and falling in almost military rigidity. Odd. I strictly remembered a policy barring gorillas from the military, something to do with their flat feet.

The gorilla bustled along until, as if he'd found what he had been looking for, ascended the three steps leading up to one of the brownstone buildings, rang once, then, grabbing the door handle, twisted it expertly and let himself in. The door slammed shut behind him, returning the street to its former state of unnerving silence.

I wasn't sure what to make of this gorilla segment. Evidently the time corridor had opened again, spilling me into yet another parallel universe. This was certainly becoming tedious.

I glanced around me, alert for any more surprises of the animal variety, and, seeing I was alone, bounded after the gorilla.

What inspired me to pursue a creature that in all of its primal fury could nimbly destroy me as easily as a shriveled banana? I don't know; I didn't care. Danger ceased to speak to me. A new voice spoke instead. It said, GO!

Opening the door, I was assaulted by a rush of sound and color. Blues and yellows and reds collided. Wind gusted past me. The foyer covered in a dull haze, a fog really, not like the insides of any house I'd ever seen.

Overhead, the distinct sound of buzzing, like a swarm of angry bees, only louder, more mechanical, insistent, urgent.

Stepping cautiously, I heard the dreary floorboards groan and sigh under my weight. Dankness intruded. My nostrils burned as from sulfur. My fingers tingled in anticipation.

Barely visible beyond the murk, I could see a shiver of light expressing itself into the hollow. Part of me said go, the other cautioned a hasty retreat.

I pressed forward, inclined toward the reckless.

A large door swung out, up, blew away in a flash. Silence roared. Then, the walls spun, the floor rattled and Chairman Mao appeared, smiling, martini in hand, extending his free hand toward me for a handshake. I held out a jittery hand toward him. He smiled in that emblazoned, warm the earth beam of his and calmly, bowed at the waist. I felt awkward, not being familiar with greeting international dignitaries. Also, my cultural history was a bit lacking.

Suddenly, my attention was drawn by a commotion in the far corner of the room. No, it was an auditorium. I was backed against the bleachers.

The gorilla stood center stage behind the podium. His arms flailed as he spoke.

Powerful words of freedom, indignation, humiliation, rained upon the assembled by the terroristic government. His teeth glared in the harsh light, he ripped at the tie about his neck...

"I am one...you are one...we all are one, brothers in arms. Look at me...look close. I am the future. The shame of your failed leaders."

A murmur rose through the auditorium.

"This tie I wear is a symbol of my pain. As each second progresses it becomes tighter. As each millimeter of tightness strangles, my resolve shrinks, my testicles dissolve until finally, when at its tightest, no remnant of manhood will be left to assail me. No more resolve to any longer torment me. Then I am complete. A puppet for the controlling forces; greed and prejudice and violence. The glory of mankind. Look...look closely and weep for me...for yourselves. The power we so willingly abdicated is now used against us".

A rabbit leaped from the bushes, a Nazi stomped on its head, splattering its brains across the waxed floors.

"Pathetic capitalists," the bald man raved. "Nothing but pathetic. All of you. Das Fuhrer will crush your laziness."

Everybody stopped their movement, stopped breathing. Insects slammed against the high, multicolored windows. A mountain of hush descended. Life was imperceptible now. The quiet of death hovered.

The bald man stared out across the sea of disbelief. He was used to such happenings, had grown accustomed, inured, contented even. Now, fully contaminated with the perverse power of aversion, his character was formed. The wedge of glass imbedded in his skull shined a beacon of blinding fury across the room.

A rumble arose like a clatter. A stampede. A thunder. The long dead buffalo herds reborn. Scuffling and scraping the boot heels slipped. Creaking and fluid the wide doors swung. Like a blitzkrieg of pain, five rabbis rushed the center, splitting the earmuffs of doom, steering within the grip of religious retribution.

A judge approached the stage, took control of the mindset. His eyes red and puffed, the years and personal agenda waged against his face, stood forward in his features, no mystery hidden, no lies unfolded.

"You...Beast-human...are here sentenced before a biased jury not of your peers but rightfully comprised of those upon whom you have relieved your genocidal homophobic rage. No one hears your whimpers now. No man embroiders mercy upon his robes. Only the lonely sound of your impotence is your companion and ally. How do you plea?"

The bald man quivered, his black lips shivering. Spoke nothing. Eyes still as dead nails.

"Guilty as charged," screamed the judge. "SENTENCE IS DEATH!!"

The rabbis in lined formation blasted into him, a strafing attack that scattered him like filleted tuna. The mutant Nazi disintegrated. Exploded into a thousand fragments. Each one becoming a crawling maggot, squirming across the beautifully waxed floors of the gymnasium.

The screen rose. The audience applauded. Hoots and shouts of celebratory insanity pierced the hollows.

Four rabbis bowed at the waist, made their exit. The room returned to its former disorder.

The gorilla shrieked.

"So!! Watch me now!! Watch as I divest myself of this earth, your desires, only the artifice of pure self motivated avarice driving my train."

A cloud of smoke enveloped him. All eyes took on a reverential air. The new ascension. Cherub sailed past. The trumpet of Gabriel roared. And in the next instant, the transformed gorilla hovered above the tilt of human heads.

When the new eyes swiveled, he bowed in delight. From his attained height, all were but pismire in the rush, dust specks upon the embryonic universe. A tear escaped his eye as he viewed his destruction. His tears multiplied, became an ocean, drowned the assembled, and reduced them to floating debris of putrid flesh among life's wreckage.

My eyes snapped shut. This couldn't be happening. Yet there it was, the pallor of death swamping my nostrils with disgusting effervescence. Ears congealed and went mute into silence. Only the smashing of wave upon wave remained living.

The air grew thick as a clam and the grass of granular sands wetted at my toes. A rebirth of my flesh was reborn to sensation. My eyelids fluttered, my eyebrows pulled north, and there before me, the idyllic trappings of my own, sweet world before me.

I looked up the shoreline at the descending fire ball. Amongst the purple and gold was a couple waddling. The man crouching, stumbling, pleading; the woman strutting, cajoling, not comforting. It looked vaguely familiar. Somehow distant now.

Synaptic contacts began to fire. Rat-a-tat-tat-tat...BOOM!! CHAKA-LAKA, BOOM!! CHAKA-LAKA...BOOM!! Sputter, sputter, sputter...

The splay of momentous electricity churned. Somewhere in the galaxy a new world was forming. Full of life and leisure and creatures big as rusted nails, coughing, fruitful in a new days' drugging

Nobody could see this miracle. Nobody to identify it, thus codify it with import. No one could guess its worth. Assay, assay, no ass could say. But only to those ungathered would the profundity be acknowledged.

I shook my head, sided to side, relieved when the dull rattle became a throb. A sparkle of light was finding its way through me. I was an intergalactic transponder, a neuron in the brainwave universe, xenon in the electron race, a protoplasmic photon.

Where did it all begin? Why? Who am I? What do I mean when I say I? And really, understanding precisely WHAT would clear the static?

So many questions, so little concern.

I rolled leeward, listing to port side and lay my head down in the wet sand. Miles below the earth, the rustle of sand crabs skittering by. In my radioactive brain the cruel reminders of the restructured society lingered. A big gorilla gnashing his teeth, exploding Nazis, murderous rabbis.

All was but a hierarchy of pain.

My logic stumbled and sleep came blissfully quick. The nervous twitters resolved for the time. But deep within this theater of peacefulness lurked the dark robed assassin of terror, waiting the wait, marking the mark, seeking the jointed moment when again his unleashed exile would furl against the hot winds of a parallel universe flinging me once more into the fold, denying me no exposure, sparing no child the rod, bringing all to fruition among the faceless faces sludging through the ash.

Somewhere, he lurked. Somewhere, she moaned.

Ephemeral dreams invaded my soulless slumber. Another night squeaked shut.

People didn't like to call me by name. I don't know why. My name is Diesel. A good, sturdy American name. Okay, I'm not one-hundred percent certain about the American part; but it's certainly NOT Japanese.

But then again, we're all foreigners. At least we were once. But that was long ago, when the eternal ancient white men from across the cold sea, stormed the land. We came here, clothed in ash cloth, penitent and softly plodding. Those were happy days, some of those old world times. Unfortunately, as happy times have a way of doing, they turned bad.

The happy ancient ones, tired of softly plodding, needed a new sound to move to. The old sounds had become dull to their ears. They did not try to think of many ways to augment this rhythm. A least that's what I'm told. In the end, the plan was made to slaughter the natives, steal their soil, and incinerate their souls.

Silly natives. Why couldn't they just go quietly?

Nope. No doing. The stupid natives fought. And they fought like we never expected a good fact for history to record, attributed to them as fitting eulogy.

You see if they hadn't fought so valiantly, so powerfully, so near successfully, well then, we couldn't vilify them with impunity. That's the beauty of the whole plan.

Although, in the end, it was all so unnecessary. If only they had done the RIGHT thing and not fought back. If only. Why couldn't they just die quietly?

Which leads me back to my name; Diesel. I guess that maybe the name is just too old, has too much ugly baggage attached to it, too many reminders that trace back to earlier lineage. Wasn't it the Native Americans who first extracted the bubbling crude from the virgin earth?

I don't know. It's just a guess.

So I don't get my first choice in moniker. But people call me other names instead. Names they maybe are more familiar with, friendly with. Names like, "hey dude," and, 'hey man," or, "what's up bro." Stuff like that. Hardly anyone calls me Diesel. Except sometimes the little kids. Oh sure, there are the occasional little kids that call me mister, or sir, but that happened to me a lot more down south than it does here in California. And it almost never happened in the east.

There, kids call you other names. Snappier names. Things little kids shouldn't be saying when they're so little. That's city life for you. A mélange of people roughed together and getting rougher every day.

I wish more people would call me Diesel though; I really like the name. Even if it IS a bit on the odd side of the frame.

It's a good name. A sturdy American name.

During the summer I got myself a part-time job. It was through a friend of a friend of an uncle of a co-worker of a nephew. That's the way jobs are gotten out here. A lot like the east coast. Except there, the friend of a friend is usually someone in the mob. There were lots of those. You know the type. Not the types like on those old black and white movies with the dizzy blond girlfriends, the long trenchcoats and the crooked fedoras. Guys with names like Lefty and Sludge and Momma. Not that kind. These kinds of gangsters were more like regular guys. Guys in trousers and bowling shirts. Uncles and Grandpas. So normal in every outward respect, that the thought of them being Mafiosi was something that seemed ridiculous and bizarre. But at night, in the quiet of our bedrooms, all of us kids thought about them. And you know what? We found out they were more scary by being so "normal."

Like all mob, if you crossed them, they'd break your legs and throw you in the river. Sometimes through the ice.

That happened to a guy I almost knew. The guy I DID know was the guy who did the throwing. He would be the mobster to be, a recent graduate of the training program. And like all recent graduates, he was anxious to get busy with the business of putting his newly acquired knowledge to use. So, he got himself some toadies, hung around the bad places and started spreading the word that he was ready to make himself a rep.

Of course, no one believed him. The old timers had heard this kind of talk before.

"Just another hot-shot trying to make a name for himself," they said amongst themselves, "Knows just enough to be dangerous."

But, like they say, if you want something bad enough...

Seems there was some kind of drug deal. I'm a little bit fuzzy on the details. But, anyway, the drug deal went bad—I hear that happens a lot—and the guy I knew-we'll call him Theo-he figured the drug connection was taking him for a ride. Playing him for a sap. Yanking his chain. Doing the high five on his noggin. Theo found out the guy gave him stuff cut with talcum powder, pocketing the profit and laughing all the way back to HIS buddies.

But Theo had buddies too; lots of them. And the last thing he needed was word getting around that on his first big deal he was jerked around like a yo-yo. So, badly in need of a rep, Theo figured he caught the guy red handed. Time to pay the mad fiddler.

The guy didn't stand a chance.

Words led to words led to weapons and the next thing the guy knew he was saying bye- bye planet with a forty-five pointed at his head and his teeth chattering under a cold, February moon.

He cried for his momma, cried for mercy. Wasted. Mobsters, especially drug dealing mobsters who've been crossed, are known for lots of things---mercy isn't one of them.

Theo and his boys shot the unlucky slug and dumped him into the river.

Being winter, it was mostly frozen. I heard that when the guy hit, the cracking of the ice sounded just like the crushing of bone.

The boys were happy, Theo was happy. So happy were they that they went out for a drink, then another, and another, and another until the celebration continued sometime well into spring.

They had done a good job, those three. But what they didn't count on, could not possibly foresee, was the coming of an early spring thaw, a fallen tree, two kids fishing one brisk shiny morning, both surprised to see someone out for a swim so early, and fully clothed besides.

Once the body turned up, well preserved from being in frozen storage, the delirious celebration came to a sobering halt.

Maybe they knew it was coming. Maybe that's why they celebrated with such all out abandon, figuring it was their last chance. Or maybe they were just stupid.

Ultimately, that's what everyone said...quietly...amongst themselves...in dark corners and secret places.

Whatever the reason, they're gone now. Out to the big house, making lots of new, hairy friends, perfecting their criminal practice. I suppose it's all for the better. Where else is a young crook supposed to get his training anyway?

It's a catch-twenty-two. Can't get into prison without experience, but it's against the law to do the things that will give you the experience you need. CRAZY!! Poor guys.

So, I guess they're better off where they are. Now at least when they get out, they'll have the experience they need. Then, they can do whatever they want. It won't BE against the law anymore...

Back to me.

So, there I was, getting a job for the summer through a friend of a friend, far from the east and the friends-with-strings jobs I could have gotten and I found myself delivering food. No, not the kind you're thinking, pizzas and chicken. No, this was a bit more down the lines of community service. Altruism. Only for pay.

The lady who ran the operation was Swedish. Not young, not old. Right in between. She ushered me into the green and yellow office, asked me to pull up a vinyl chair and in the middle of the eighty degree, un-air-conditioned office, sit down for a nice sweat. It WOULD have to happen that that particular summer was unusually hot and humid. Isn't this why I left the east to begin with?

The idea of sitting didn't hold much appeal. I resisted; she insisted.

I sat, sliding into the clumpy Naugahyde chair, its sticky arms wrapping around me, holding me like a glue-bath.

Fidgeting, I tried to break free, hoping to remain inconspicuous. But being so hot and sticky, every time I moved the friction made a loud BRAAAPPP!! It sounded like I was farting.

The woman looked at me funny. I wasn't sure if she thought I was blowing or if she knew about the chair. Either way, after the pauses, she kept right on explaining.

"So, you drive to the red brick building, knock twice on the roll-away door, and talk to the person inside. They will give you two large boxes, which you must sign for, each box containing twenty-four individually boxed lunches. Then, you drive back here and distribute them to the children. Okay?"

She looked through me with her big, sparkling, blue eyes. The color of blue I had only seen one other time in my life. They were clear like mountain water. Blue like thunder.

I was speechless.

"Yeah," I finally choked out, finding my tongue. "Sure. I got it. Pick them up and drop them off."

She nodded, smiling at my astute response.

And that's how I got my summer job, delivering food to the hungry masses. Although in this case, the hungry masses were a few neighborhood kids whose parents were on welfare-STATE AID they called it out here.

A word to the wary: Call it WELFARE to any one's face and they'll bite your head off.

The job was pretty cool as summer jobs go. Except that the kids were a bit too much to take. A little too "earthy" for me. Some were in serious need of hygiene. Some smelled like piss. To this day, that particular scent of dried on piss is one I can detect a mile away.

Because of these peculiar fragrances I never ate with them, even if I was starving. And everyone always offered me food, primarily because there were always extra lunches. One of those things I was to learn about later in life. How budgets, in this case lunches, if not used entirely, to the amount allotted, would result in a budget reduction during the next round of yearly budget discussions. One of the many cruel ironies of life. Luckily at the time, I was too young to be affected.

So, I wouldn't, couldn't, even under threat of torture bring myself to eat in that crowd. I did however enjoy helping them out. That and looking at the young assistant that helped run the place. She wasn't hard on the senses at all.

An epiphany.

Blood became brick and brick became sky and all of the earth that was my lust became the gleam of her trailing cunt hair. All of my breath, all of my hate.

I saw her laugh and tasted her vomit.

I heard her scream, I celebrated her rape.

I smelled her orgasm, I squirted into her void.

Smudge it in, smudge it in, I cried.

She spoke of trains and collisions.

I saw only the shaped curve of her legs.

Had her broken with her mouth wide open,

Felt the snap of bone,

Smelled the ordurous carnality beneath the rim of her asshole.

A moon had risen and was howling. Dogs of nocturnium were fucking. In the ooze of life her form transpiring, inspiring, retiring, releasing into herself.

The joys of cunnilingus were never so profound. She was clean and crisp and fleece as white as snow. These thoughts ruptured my patterns, toyed with my proctus-mangate. And on her mangoes as I was poised for takeover my eyes became the mirrors of flesh, lust, hunger.

I wanted her. Wanted to feel her, feed her, break her, stamp her face into my fuck stick. From overriding emotion does dormancy rise. It is a fiction, a world of her creation by the fact of my having been created. For this. For her.

No blood was spilled, much dismissed.

In the end she had only words of removed separation. Words that drove a wedge though the heart of my stake. My fangs receded, her claws struck thunder. No spoils were relinquished yet she flowered my night's consumption.

A joy like rain flowed from my tortured loins. Above it all floated her face, a cloud of poison dust. Meat became the meat of death. The rake of gravity's pull brought the earth to my face, crushed my cartilage against rock and stars, and drowned my omniscience in the raging sands of desire.

How much cunt can a dollar bring?

She told me stories. Stories of her life...before. A war. A time of killing and blood. These things she loved. Hated. Needed to spare her life.

I am dead. Death has released me.

I listened as she moved, crashing thorough the dark light, breathing in through her fingertips.

"You think I'm a whore. But I'm not," she said, loosening her pants. "You think I'm a cunt." Her pants fell around her ankles.

"See these hairs, shiny and red? See it? What does it mean to you?"

I thought. Couldn't think. I stared.

"The world is a joke," I said. Topple all to level earth. Money owned me, no one owned her.

Plucking at herself she handed me some of her cuntal hairs. "Now as fire can burn so can these artifacts of my sex. I give birth. I give death too, by giving birth. Thus by bringing life I kill. I murder. To fuck is to murder. Fuck me and join my misery."

The summer days were long this way. Just us two. Alone in our murderous scheme. Sharing her misery.

My lob became her altar. She worshipped on her knees, hungry as a nun at communion. She provoked my rape, but would not allow me to come.

She told me of the prisons, of her days as a prisoner. She said she came from Indonesia, a prisoner of the war.

I asked, "What war?"

She said, "No matter. Prison is prison."

She spoke. I listened. Put in my place.

Skies were red, purple, and orange as her hair. Flesh fell from the skies. Children screamed into the night, the bloody night. Somewhere in the trenches, past the rotting piles of bodies. A boy wept for his mother. She was dead. Killed. He cried bitterly. A guard came upon the crying boy, asked him why he wept.

"My mother," he said, his eyes steeled with the misery of youth and rage. "Dead. Now the chain is broken. She birthed me to die. She has died first. Don't' you see? It's all wrong. All wrong!!"

The guard was touched. He touched the boy on the shoulder, held him against his barrel chest. They stayed this way, hugging for a long time until the guard realized he hated the boy.

Weakness is for the weak. Kill it we must, lest we become infected by its disease. To be weak is to be feminine, the Guard-Mongoloid thought. I am a Homo. I am a giver.

He bent the boy over the barricade and raped his asshole. Thus he had exposed the weakness with force. The boy did not understand. The guard explained his position. Told the boy he only did what he must. Told him it was the natural order. Ask Darwinians, they know.

The boy wiped his hand across his backside. Blood and sperm were mingled there. The secret of life and death became clear. And in that moment, the boy was freed from his slavery of doubt. He and the guard married.

Her story was enchanted. But I was confused. "You," I said. "What about you? Didn't you say YOU were in the war? Weren't you...?"

"The boy was in the war. The boy was me. No boy was I. That stupid guard, drunk on his ignorance as he was on wurst and beer. He didn't know. Couldn't know."

She paused.

Later, afterwards, she said, "When my identity was no longer secret, I killed the rotten bastard for taking my asshole virginity. I married him and we killed each other. So we agreed. Now I'm free. No more masters can claim me. So I WILL never, CAN never, WILL NOT ever love, because really, I am incapable of love. Only fucking is real. The real deal. My power is here."

She pointed to her cunt.

I understood. Somewhere in me understood. My mind went fuzzy as she jerked my lob, yanking hard and silent. I burst into explosion.

She licked my sperm.

Rocks and trees floated by. Space became confused with motion. A shrill scream ruptured the sky. A dark, pulsating light shot through and made nervous the fallow grasslands.

I sat at the edge of a field, this solitary field, a place of only matter knew what history, this field that existed outside the tractor of time. It was one of the few left, all others being subsumed by the population. I savored these moments above all. These times when he frames of the former life awaited themselves. The world was changing rapidly. One place seemed to remain untouched-this field.

I knew there were others like it. Had to be. But not many. Although I had to remain sure they existed. For sanity. In fact, I believe I may have even seen one.

I was remembering the night I took Chewie up on his offer. The one about going cruising with him.

That night I sat home alone. The loneliness and silence dulled my brain. Only the sound of the hot desert breath lurked across my steps. My dog lay at my feet snoring, rolling, pawing at the air; bad doggy dreams. The phone was mute. It hadn't rang in quite awhile. And so it was that society died before my eyes.

Perhaps E. Mighty was rethinking things. Maybe realized how pathetic and crude the whole idea was. Thoughts swam in unison, blocking any notions of excitement. Dullness is the most intrusive of the dormant states. Nothing but static; white noise.

For the last hour the paint had been peeling in a slow crawl, falling by gravity from the ceiling, curling, curling, curling in a downward spiral.

I watched with both eyes. But they kept flashing back and forth to the TV running low in the background. A man in a polyester suit was asking questions from little white cards he held in front of him. A bony blonde, big chipmunk teeth, manicured hands alight with Lee Press-On splendor was pointing to the monster board. Massive words tried to break free of the tyranny of blankness. They were losing the fight.

A panel of assembled half-wits was trying to guess where the big toothed blonde was pointing.

There! No...There! No...There?

If they guessed wrong, their numbers got smaller. Some went away altogether. I wondered what happened to the contestants when their numbers reached zero. Did a gruesome bailiff scoot onstage and haul them off to the rubbish heap?

This compelling drama occupied a few bytes of my attention. The peeling paint was far more engaging.

A knock shook the door.

It was Chewie. He asked if I was doing anything. I looked around the empty room.

"Yeah," I said. "Kind of."

He asked if I could tear myself away. Would I like to go cruising? I looked back at the room. The dog yelped in his doggy dream world, the TV went to a Doublemint commercial.

"Sure," I said. "Why not."

So there I was an hour later in the back of his Hot Rod Chevy, a scary girl named Roseanne-Rosy X-sitting next to me. The introductions were brief. Rosy just grunted.

Under the bright lights of Hollywood, we ditched and swerved as we drove through the nighttime carnival. Everywhere were strange people. White faces. Green striped hair. Glittery pants. Tits as big as parade balloons. I asked Chewie if it was always this way.

He snickered, "Yeah," he said. "Usually worse."

I looked out the widow wondering how long we would be alive.

After awhile we stopped for something to eat. Chewie wanted chili dogs. Wienerschnitzel chili dogs, he said.

Marta, his girlfriend said she wasn't hungry. One look at her and you would have guessed that was going to be her answer. Cute and skinny, tight little ass jiggling like a Jell-O egg beneath her purple satin pants. She was luscious. I tried not to look at her. I couldn't help myself.

I looked out the window. Marta told Chewie to get her a soda, a diet soda, any kind would do. She was gorgeous, but gorgeously predictable.

Rosy was hungry though. She said she wanted something more. Something she could sink her teeth into. I thought I felt her eyes burning into the back of my head. Sweat rolled down my forehead, a weathered, crusty guy in torn jeans saw me looking at him, mumbled words vaguely threatening. My throat tightened. This was going to be a long night.

Chewie was just trying to be a buddy. I knew that. But I was hoping he didn't have his heart set on me and Rosy being anything more that back seat traveling companions. She didn't interest me; unless I was looking for a body guard. Anyway, she seemed content being left alone. I was happy to oblige.

After eating, we drove for awhile. Then we turned off the main road and headed up a hill. Chewie said there was a nice view from up top. When we got there, he parked at the edge of a steep drop. Looking out over the edge, you could see the entire city as it rolled up for the night. From that distance it existed as a mosaic of rows and columns of blinking lights. It was the most beautiful sight I'd seen the entire evening. There was something awesome about staring over civilization this way. I felt like a pioneer, the first of the settlers to this wild country, or an alien, reaching the human colony after millennia of space travel. I waxed poetic in the silence of my mind. City of Angels? Yeah. I could see that now.

Chewie took Marta for a walk. Rosy and I sat on the hood of the car. As Chewie walked away, he looked back, laughed and said, Behave yourselves, you two kids.

I didn't know what to say. I just nodded. Rosy didn't say a word.

Time lost track, and it seemed like hours had passed. But it couldn't have been that long. Anyway, after what had seemed like hours, Rosy turns to me, holds out her arm and says, "See this here?"

She pointed to a mark on her arm. I couldn't make it out in the dim light. Remembering the phrase, always politeness, I smiled unconvincingly. She didn't look amused.

"Know what this is?" she asked, assuming a definitely confrontational tone.

"No," I responded, hoping it sounded more yin that yang.

"Look closer, pendejo" she said, pushing her arm into my face, almost crushing my nose.

The word "MAYHEM," was tattooed on the inside of her arm, on the soft, smooth underside. It looked jagged and hurried, like it was incomplete. Not a very competent job. It must have hurt like hell.

She read my mind.

"Looks like shit, don't it?" she said, sounding happy to reveal that.

I shrugged. If she was casting bait for a fight, I wasn't going to bite.

"My boyfriend," she said. "EX-boyfriend. He gave me this on our last night together."

"Nice," I said, sounding nauseatingly like a recent graduate of the Tony Robbins school of positive thinking.

"No," she shot back. "NOT nice! He thought I had been cheating on him. Came over with his cholos. Slapped me around. Tied me up. Told me I forgot who he was. Said I would never forget again..."

This story had taken a decidedly bad turn. I looked nervously for Chewie. Where the hell was he? I didn't want to hear this story. For some reason, I got the faint impression that no matter who had wronged her, being the only male around I would become the symbolic BAD GUY! Come on, Chewie! We've got a situation here!!

"...After he beat me up good, he ripped my dress off. Fucked me in the ass. Balls deep in the ass. While he did, one of his cholos tattooed this work of art on my arm. The bastard fucked me hard. Did me till it hurt. Said if I was gonna be a whore learn how to fuck proper. Then, when he was done, the rest took turns fucking me, like a piece of shit, all those bastards in my ass. And when they were done, me lleva la chingada, my ex jammed his meat in my mouth and came!"

"But I didn't cry. Just looked at him, stared him down."

He smiled like a fool, pumped his meat to squeeze out a few more drops, forced it into my mouth again saying, "Suck it dry, whore!" And I did. I was stunned. I didn't know what to say. Ashamed my pussy was dripping wet.

"For a long time after that," she said, looking out across the blazing city, "I was weak. Coiled with anger. Hiding from the world and myself. Then a friend of mine told me about this group of girls who had banded together. Said that similar things had happened to them. She told me that these friends of hers, they all knew the law wouldn't do anything. To them, we were just "dirty Mexican whores."

She took a deep breath.

"So these girls formed a blood bond, vowed to right the wrongs put on us by the male power structure. In our little group we had POWER. We got strong. We trained like guerrillas. And then we hunted those bastards down; one by one. And you know what we did then? Cut their balls off, stuffed them in their mouths while we slit their throats."

My gulp was so loud I knew she musta heard.

"I laughed when I did my boyfriend. He looked so scared. Crying like a little baby. I took my time with him. Cut real slowly so he could feel everything. You ever hear the sound a man makes when he gets his balls cut off?"

I didn't think it was a question so I didn't answer.

"After I finished I asked him how it felt. But he couldn't talk; his balls were choking him."

I felt my food coming up; my head grew light.

"The law never investigated. Just another bunch of dead, piece of shit Mexicans. Less bodies to fill the jail cells."

She lit a cigarette and leaned back against the car. My stomach was doing somersaults. I sat on the ground, glad to feel the cool earth beneath me.

We stayed that way. Her smoking, me sitting, staring at the ground, my feet, out across the glittering city. Somewhere out there, packs of wild girls, maybe her tribe, were avenging themselves on one after another group of unsuspecting ex-bastards. My breaths came heavy and quick. My legs went numb.

On the way back home, no one said much. Chewie seemed happy. Cocky but quiet, post orgasmic by way of his gorgeous girlfriend. Marta just filed her nails, fixed her makeup in the passenger mirror, and straightened her tousled hair.

In the back seat, I looked around at the lights and cars as they flew by on the freeway. Graffiti colored every wall and freeway sign. How did anyone get up there to do that? Maybe once or twice, I glanced at Rosy. She looked different to me now. Tougher yet more vulnerable.

As the flashing yellows and reds and whites streamed across her sharp features, she began to look softer, touchable even. Taking on a—dare I say it?—"rosy" glow. I imagined a time before. Long before life, and boyfriends and violence and the bloodlust of revenge. She had been pretty once. She still carried those reminders. But the sadness and anger had stolen some of those treasures away from her. I didn't know her before, so this was all just guesswork, or misplaced desire posing as clue gathering. I couldn't be sure. But her eyes looked so hard. Dark and hard. Cold. Yet, within that steely frame of chilled provocation, that cover of malicious intent, a deep hurt, pain, a softness that she now protected with urgent ferocity. I began to feel sorry for her. But I was sure she wouldn't care to hear that.

I turned away and stared back out the window. We passed city after city of light and smoke, with factories like industrial whales, belching and spitting fire from their blackened spouts.

The combination of peaceful Rosy thoughts, and the calming effects of the blurred scenery, graced my stomach and nerves with a soothing tranquility.

Then I felt her hand on my thigh.

My heart jumped, my breathing clustered, my balls began to sweat. I was too scared to react. I remembered how with wild animals, if you showed no fear and stood your ground, that often, they would decide you were no threat and go away. I didn't move. I just waited, hoping her attention span was short.

She opened my zipper. I felt every tooth as it split open, letting the cool air rush into my crotch, my exposed lob shivering. Oh shit!! She wanted to cut me!

She placed a knife across my legs. Big and shiny, sparks dancing off its edge as it smiled threateningly in my direction. This was it. Say goodbye, little buddies.

Reaching deep, she expertly scooped my balls out with one hand. She grinned when they popped into the light, she waggled my lob. I felt my balls in my throat.

She whispered, "Beautiful," paused, squeezed hard, then swallowed me. The entire ballgame. Right up to root. They slipped easily into her mouth, her lips like hot butter. I shuddered as her heat mingled with my cold fear. My hands gripped hard to the seat, thinking for sure she would bite them off, a new twist to an old delight. But she was gentle. Surprisingly so. More gentle that I could imagine her being down there at the center of her desecration. She slathered me with her tongue, pulled and nibbled. My breathing slowed. Then, peeling her lips away, she propped herself up on her knees, one hand cradling my balls, her mouth rising and falling in my lap, her pants down around her thighs, her other hand between her legs.

I lost track of the knife, it no longer mattered. My world compressed until all that remained were the sounds of her soft slurping, moaning, and the sweet smell of her cunt juice filling the back seat compartment.

Chewie drove like he was alone. Pretending not to notice. Marta too. Both seemingly oblivious to the activities going on right behind them. I tried to stay quiet, but soon I was moaning like a bitch in heat. Marta turned up the radio.

As Rosy tugged and sucked I kept thinking, "I'll never hurt you, I'll never hurt you!"

I looked at her ass, bent high in the air, her hand buried where my mouth wanted to be. She did have a nice ass. High and round and tight. I wondered what it would feel like to be plugged in there. This last thought toppled me, sent me over the edge. I blasted into her, coming, and coming, continuing to come until I felt my center would collapse. She drank like a desert rat.

She sighed. She moaned. Her legs shook. She pulled my lob out of her mouth, whispered "beautiful," and pumped it hard, sighing as white drops collected on the head. Lizard tongued it up in one sweep. Smiled as it went down her throat. Tugged on me desperately. Then, when I was hard again, she spun around and guided me into her sweet ass. Riding me like there was no tomorrow. Taking me into her mouth to finish me off.

Drained me till my insides hurt.

Afterwards, nothing was said. Like it didn't happen. I started wondering about her story. If it were true. I didn't know. But it didn't matter. She took what she wanted, when she wanted it. Maybe that was her message. The other side of the sexual coin.

So what, I said to myself. Whatever makes her happy.

When they dropped me off, and the car was pulling away, I thought I detected a faint smirk on their faces. But I couldn't be sure; Fear and sex had disoriented me. Nothing made sense anyway.

I lumbered into my bed, tripping over the piles of dirty clothes, and crashed head-first into a powerful, drugged state of sleep, stupefied beyond cognition...

I don't know when. Sometime later. When I don't know. Did I say that already? That's because I don't know. So, at a later time I know not when, someone touched me on the arm. I didn't answer. Someone touched me on the arm again, this time harder.

My eyes opened.

Leather straps bound me. Naked and cold. My head hurt. Twisted and tied to the bed. I turned my head, trying to see. Saw nothing. Only blackness. Then a light in the corner. A red glow burst of flame. I smelled sulfur. Someone was there. Someone. Something.

Floating like into misted marshes came a face, a soft face, a hard face, gleaming like raw lightning. Alive but disembodied. Dead but staring.

It came closer.

Rosy...Rosy X.

Her face drew me in. Her lips, red, tight. No smile. Only the cigarette in her hands, two fingers holding it poised before her. Poised before her like counting digits, two, two. Naziesque. Mein commandant.

She puffed. The head of her cigarette glowed like danger.

Sky opened and sang. Dirge in D-minor. Darkness drifted, fell. Where was I? Who was I?

All was upturned. Nothing was the same.

Anarchy is upsetting the power structures, tossing the status quo into the pit. I was being displaced. Like ideology. Anarchy had arrived at my door.

Cool hands grasped my hips. Lifted. Cut off my pants. A breeze blew across my backside. Sweat tingled with the chill. My balls rocked in suspension. SLAP!! Hard pain across them. Again. SLAAAPP!! Excruciating pain, nausea, stomach went rubbery. Vomit came up my throat. Another slap, this one higher. Sharper. My balls ached of red and purple. Sore, tired, incredulous.

Insistence pushed at my backside. I squeezed my cheeks together. NO!! Insistence pushed more. Spread me wide. A rock hardness entered me. My legs tensed. Asshole screamed. No response. Insistence pushed, pushed, pushed.

Laughing erupted.

Rosy. Rosy?

She had risen, strapped-on the male, entered and shoved with determination. The barrier wouldn't break. She pushed. I pushed back. A struggle. Her outside, me inside. Her thrusting, me counter-thrusting. I shoved, she retorted, slapped at my dangling scrotum. An instant of capitulation. She seized the precious seconds. Drove for the cliffs, hands waving triumphant, Pro-Rodeo champ. She hit bottom. My teeth bit double cracking my lips.

I screamed. "What are you doing? Why? Rosy? Rosy?"

Now she was in front of me, her hammer still in me, her cunt at my face.

"You are mine," her frozen lips pronounced. "When I call...you come. Not before."

I protested...weakly. What could I do?

She smiled. Leaned over me. Pushed the monster further into my ass. My abdomen winced.

Then she grabbed me. Twisted my balls back and away from my body. I heard the glint of steel. The coldness touched my testicles. A knife up to my scrotum.

I yelled, kept yelling. "Murder!! Murderer!!"

The coldness stung me. My crotch was on fire. The narrow edged steel rubbing up and down the crease, burning beneath skin too soft, circling, retracing, dancing around my lob, balls, slicing, dicing, cutting through.

I lost consciousness. I didn't. I don't know.

My eyes opened. Her cunt in front of me. Big as a face. Her fingers working the folds, tickling the lips. Drips hung in her dark curls. Jewels of deadly desires.

She reached for a switch on the wall. Jolts of current ripped through me from my crotch to my throat. I felt myself get hard.

No, I instructed myself. NO!! It's what she wants. Don't!!

My body seceded from the union of flesh and spirit. My lob rose to glory. The tightness held together. I hadn't been cut after all! A cruelty? An inhuman cruelty?? What was she doing??

Turning, she buried my face in wet cunt. I smothered in her honey.

"Lick," she said. "Lick me happy. Erase the pain."

I didn't move. Lip refused lip.

She flipped the switch again. A jolt shot through me to the root.

I licked. She moaned and wriggled in front of me. Then I felt the rock-post in my ass, moving, slowly, but moving. Where were her hands? I looked. They were on the bed, in front of her. Someone else was here, moving in and out of me. I couldn't see who it was.

She slapped my head. Ground her wet cut into my face. She dripped with red lust.

"Lick," she commanded again.

I did, and did, and did.

Her cunt filled my nostrils, filled my brain, my thoughts. What was going to happen? After? Why had she come to me?

Many things; everything; happening at once. Outside me...inside me.

The harsh movements at my backside kept unabated. I felt the heated acceleration. Now, she flipped the switch again. This time, the jolt was softer, kinder, resilient in luxury. My lob engorged, throbbed, pulsed and strained for release.

I licked harder.

Lob grew stronger.

Lick.

Pulse.

Lick.

Pulse.

Close to coming. Both of us. All of us?

Her scream came from deep and raced to the edge of her lips. Silence shattered into focus. She screamed again. Vesuvius mounted.

My hips retracted, shot forward, and unloaded my sperm onto the bed. A river escaped me. A hot stream exploded in my ass.

Cunt on my face. Cum on the bed. Cum in my ass. What had she done to me?

A dream...maybe? Not a dream. A drug? No answers. None offered. The walls held their tongues.

I awoke in my bed. All seemed normal, as monochrome as I had left it. Now I wasn't sure. Perhaps insanity had visited.

Looking at the inside of my arm, I searched for her mark. No tattoo. Here or not here or nightmare or whatever. Gone now. No way to know for sure.

Saturday morning it was, vague and crisp, time of year I can't recall, when I again laid eyes on the young girl, about to be young woman. The very same girl, Sheila, whose father had not too long ago so unceremoniously attempted to hoist me upon. She stood now before me, shadowing the frame of my door. Concrete and toes nudging up against the Welcome to Hell mat. Lonely chocolate drop eyes stared at the ground, fingers curling at her sides.

A picture of complacent femalia; unadorned, uncelebrated, unannounced.

The manner of her arrival was so alarming that immediately I lapsed into an internal monologue of elevated diction. I knew I was in trouble then. This type of solo rambling only happened to me during two distinct emotional states:

Extreme duress

Extreme excitement

Both of the above

In this case, both would be the correct answer. My hair clamored for victory over the lethargy of fitful sleep. My mouth hung waiting for orders, as if all ability to operate had suddenly been suspended barring further instructions from cerebellum central.

The air had a sharp scent of lemons.

The girl stood there before me, blossoming into womanhood right there upon the crude vulnerability of my blessed doorstep, staring at her feet, wordless, soundless, except for the hush of her breathing. Given the barbarous sonority of my dog's exhalations this could have been a case of mistaken identity.

No matter. Breathing was occurring at that time upon my doorstep, within my walls, within the general vicinity or thereabouts. Of these facts I am reasonably certain.

My brain churned together random syllables. Slowly, a concatenation occurred that stumbled toward recognition. The vowel sounds first emerged: A-E-I-O-U, sometimes Y as well, creeping in at the tail end as it is wont to do with its qualifier stringing along for a bit of miserable attention. Oh, to be as lonely as pitiful Y. Caught as it was upon the second string of symbols, solitude its only companion, the others, A-U hogging center stage at the expense of poor, insecure Y. Such a curiosity the vowel chain, remanded to queer hierarchy. One would think that five would be enough to accommodate any possible configuration, any pairing of labia and larynx that could be imagined. Any conceivable sound a human could wish to utter. And why, with such marvelous advances in all areas of pioneering industry, can we not, arguably the most advanced civilization (please suppress your laughter until AFTER the dissertation, thank you), why it is such that we can not get by with less that five, moreover that sixth intermittent, annoying pest at the derriere of language—Y.

Some languages eschew the vowel entirely. But no, not us. We in our capitalistic arrogance, conditioned to believe that "more is more", this perverted logic is behind this sordid inclination.

Surely, a conspiracy of some type. It often makes me wonder if someone—whoever those someone's are—rakes in a tidy sum of royalties with each use of the precious, linguistical commodities here addressed as the vowel contingency.

Were such the case, perhaps a modicum of acceptance could be granted, however blatantly bourgeois the entire matter.

Aside from this, I was baffled. Because here, finding myself still on the outskirts of stringing five sometimes six vowels together for a comprehensive utterance, then and only then was I next to begin the dreaded task of incorporating the remaining twenty sound bits into my recalcitrant vocabulations. Ordinarily an effortless gesture, in my current weakened condition it was proving to be a feat of Herculean proportions.

My tongue slipped. My lips confounded verbalization. I was confounded by the fatal intricacies of my own mother language. Abandoned among the labyrinth of mime, thought paddled into the log jam. Cognition was unbound, drifting toward the rapids.

But then, just as I believed it certain that I would never again return to that sweet, simplicity of rudimentary vernacular, I was only too happy to acknowledge the tumbling of synaptic cogs, restoring the world once again to the order with which I was so well acquainted.

"Sheila?" I said, surprised to see her as I was to finally hear myself speak.

She raised her eyes from the ground, moving beyond the vast interest of her worn shoes which had till this moment contained her gaze.

"Hi," she said. Brief and direct. Lesson taken.

"What are you...?"

The words had barely left my moth when she opened the screen door and pushed past me. She moved to the middles of the room, seeming in a quandary as to whether she should sit or stand, evidenced by her bird-like glances at the couch, the nervous shuffle of her feet, the thinking, then, re-thinking, and ultimately returning to attention at the very spot her initial lunge had place her.

Her hands convulsed at her sides. Or maybe convulsed is too strong a word. Worked, is a good word. Twitched is better. Kneaded, perhaps the most precise.

Yes, that's it. Her hands kneaded at her sides, as if a large dough-ball were being pressed into each palm by the curling fingers. Press, release, press, release. Yes. That's it. Exactly like that. All in a buttery smooth one-two rhythm.

She was clearly in quite a state. I waited for her to speak.

"I came to..."

"Yes?" I said.

"I...came to..."

"I'm listening."

"To...to tell you ...FUCK OFF!!!"

"What??"

My sludge of brain began firing electric contacts faster that a Chinese abacus team. The nervous transfer rate increased logarithmically. Commotion became the defining rule in my processing centers. Operators, busy at coffee break, raced to the bristling switchboards, frantically plugging cable, going into deep cable, plugging and switching and radioing for a response into the black nothingness that was at that moment, me.

My tongue numbed at the challenges of response. Words refused form at my lips. But at least the elevated diction was on the wane.

"Now hold up here," I said. (OOOPS!)

I coughed, hoping to expel the dreaded E.D. once and for all.

Hey! (That's better). "What do you mean coming over her and giving me this kind of shit?"

She stared me down, eyes like BBs, lips tight as Ziplocs.

"You...you...," is all she could muster.

"Yes?" I chided.

"You...my...you and...my father...you...how could you??!!"

"How could I what?"

"I know what he talked to you about," she said. "What he asked you to do. How could you? How??!!"

I didn't know what to say. Was there an answer to such an open ended question? Because really, what was she asking? Was she accosting me simply for talking to the man? Entertaining the notion? Or perhaps because I didn't slam the door on his little head when he began spewing his obscenities of daughterly betrayal?

I didn't know. Her big "what" needed identification. I decided to press her for specifics.

"Listen," I said. "I'm not exactly sure what you're upset at ME about. I didn't actually DO anything! Sounds to me like you need to speak with your father." (One of my favorite techniques. Don't know what to say? Stall with a deep slam across the net.)

She paused to consider, or think about her comeback, I couldn't be sure. At any rate, a period of relative silence followed. Relative because it was only just that. Not actually entirely silent. Her breaths came in hot bursts as she pushed air out and into her engorged nostrils. Reminded me of a cartoon bull right before the charge. You know the kind, face like the five-fifteen train, nostrils flared in a double parachute, eyes red and ragged, steam frothing from the ears. You know. Your basic picture of repressed rage bubbling to the surface.

"Well," she finally said, "I have talked to him. And...you see..."

Her hands came to her face. She began sobbing.

If there's anything that will bring an abrupt halt to my desire to continue a dispute it's the sight of a woman drying. Cliché, but true. My ire thus faded. Her shoulders convulsed. I moved toward her, put my hands on her shoulders.

"There now," I said. Cary Grant style, smooth and gentlemanly.

She pulled away, shrugged me off like a loose brassiere strap. Remaining inactive while she cried was not working for me. And my feelings of helplessness were multiplying by the second. Frustrated compassion was driving me to comatosity. Either I reach out to her in comfort right then and there, or genuflect on one knee and propose marriage. I realize this sounds an extreme reaction. All I can offer in defense is, "What the fuck?"

A quick assessment told me I was in no position to be considering a lifetime commitment, especially with someone I had only known in totality for about two hours. So, pushed to the limit and under the strict tenets of Grantesque chivalry, I attempted a last, desperate move toward her, arms outstretched, hoping to encircle her, my stray pony, within them.

Success could quell the flood of tears that seemed by this point, unstoppable; failure could mean much worse.

I cautiously approached, wary of her condition, looking for signs of the shrug-off move, preparing mentally for a counter-offensive. I steadied my trembling hands, reached forward and grabbed her firmly, but non-threateningly, letting my hands cup around her warm and soft shoulders. An electric charge ran through me. She tried shaking free, loosely, without conviction, then, relented.

She allowed me to draw her into my chest. And, laying her head gently against my shoulder, she let the flood loose again. Her body felt warm and wiry, jiggling as she cried. There was something earthy, exciting about her. Something which compelled my strong masculinity while simultaneously evoking a miraculous tenderness. I wanted both to touch her and at the same time protect her from being touched by the likes of me. It was the oddest feeling I had ever experienced. Attraction and righteous repulsion in one shell. I wondered if this was the plight of men of the cloth. Preachers. At that moment, I'm glad I didn't have to know. I already had far too much to contend with.

We stood for awhile, tucked into unholy embrace, her jiggling as she cried, me holding her close, staring alternately at the ceiling, her hair, concentrating the entire time on not getting a hard-on, wondering just how filling those communion wafers could really be...

"So... how far is it?"

"I don't know."

"Who are we going to see there?"

"I told you."

"Tell me again."

"Mother."

"Your mother? Didn't you say your mother was dead?"

"She might be. But she's still my mother."

"So what you're saying is—"

"Shhh!!!"

Only the hum of the road, the wide whispering plain spoke to me now. She no longer did. Couldn't. Wouldn't.

The question was lingering upon me, weighing like a monstrous fly sitting on my head. Why was I going on this insane journey? With this girl?

I didn't know. Join the confusion. She was running from something. Someone.

I knew, but didn't know. All had come to a great cessation in my pool of ideas. I helped her, I thought, because I wanted to. To do something. To move. Breathe different air.

There were no ties to keep me stationary. The stray cunt possessed me but gave me no head. No cunt. These treasures she kept for herself.

Nighttime, we pulled to the side of the road. Faceless monsters passed us. Some stopped and goobered their eyeballs. Greasy eyes, rotted teeth, breath of foul intent, crawling, sliding, licking at her creamy-sugar thighs.

Her cunt juice dripped.

Sleep visited, but uneasily. Only restlessness in the den of the lion. Always I could hear her, whimpering, begging. She pleaded with herself. Stop. Don't touch me...there. Yes. Better.

In this way she would direct herself, the conductor of orgasm.

Lips of fire rose from between her legs. She thought I didn't know.

I knew. More knowing than she could know. But with her I was her pilot. Flying toward a distant mystery.

Femme fatale, no doubt. A lingering remnant of the past of dreams. Vipers and knights. Places where the images of a thousand broken bodies, bloodied, bleached, trained upon spears of destiny, lay wracked, wretched, seething with maggots the size of jumbo jets. Crooked flies...gnawing, buzzing, plotting. Buzzing as they gnawed. A thousand fragmented eyes from each hideous little creature.

Flies and tongues tore at the air, circling our clustered bodies, as she rubbed, petted, tortured herself.

From where I sat, lay, fighting sleep, I heard. Smelled her results. Flies buzzing louder, zooming in for breakfast. Shit stinking vermin.

Once I turned and said: "Give me your ass."

Ignored. She faded her hearing from me. Like a drunk or stupid or talking in my sleep fantasy. Ignored.

So, I slept on. Cold from warmth.

Those were the nights. Some. But not all.

Other times were days. Then the open road open sky would be witness to our Bedouin travels. Roaming the desert of emotional vagaries. Home a distant memory from a foreign no longer circulated vocabulary.

Home? Does such a place exist? Does any?

We drove for what seemed hours, but were actually just days. At a roadside grill, we stopped. I stopped. Nature was calling my bladder to expulsion. Home.

Two bodies fell from the car. Us, the two who fell. Two drifters amid a graceless landscape.

A crusty man, long gray cackled hair, bulbous, blistering eyes, sipped hot coffee under the desert sun. His sweat beaded and glistened. A woman, hair as red as Hot Tamales, laughed like a sour chicken. Her long fingernails curved under like a raptor.

We glanced at them. Friends maybe. Lovers. Whore and john. If they knew, they weren't saying.

I asked for the bathroom.

"Around back," she said. "Just stroll up to the edge and aim for sky."

She smiled her big teeth. Yellow custard of old age. She had been ugly once. Now she was uglier.

As I pissed out towards the lit horizon, I could hear her whispering behind me. A strange old fart, I thought. Anxious for something. The brittle man she had tethered to the stool was her type. He could break. Fold over into death while they fucked. That's what she wanted. Liked. Her desire found expression in her squealing delight. She was from another time. Not for me.

Walking away, zipping and tripping, I thanked her.

"I'll give you something to thank me for," she said.

We drove away. Me and the crazy girl. As the heat extended, she took her sweater off, enticing the breeze. Sweat poured from her. From both of us. So the Mojave was blistering this time of day.

I knew the miles between now and the next stop were long. The heat was tremendous. Should have left by morning.

Jimmying the radio knobs, I fumbled for sound. This air space was a foreign country. Auditory no mans land. I twirled some more. Static. Peals of static. Then a blip.

A countrified twang filled the cab. This only made me feel hotter.

The music jangled while the wicked breeze flustering around us blew our hair wild, kindling images of bikers on Harleys riding into the barren wilderness of freedom, the girl strapped to my back, spread eagle and rocking, laughing. not crying anymore, the hand between her legs replaced by the thump, thump, thump, and burn of the road; rubber on gravel, flesh on flesh, slipping like honey on the hunger of leather cushions.

Anywhere she was, she wanted to be, she said as she ran away from the life behind her. Guitars rang loud and cat-screech thin. My words became dust in the chaos. She moved her lips in wide "Os," forming sounds I could not hear. She carried the words of the song. Memorized. Written in her soul. Her eyes spoke the refrain.

I looked, listened, tuned my attention back to the road, the sky, the unvarying landscape.

Weasels scurried across the belching clay. Chickens crossed the road. All in search of the missing eggs. All the eggheads. Desperate to answer the burning question.

The desert: Does earth incinerate under your fire?

A thought occurred; that which made me will call me home one day, no use in hiding.

People try though. We all do. Some in logic, philosophy, religion, sex. Try. All try. But all are called back, straight to the root. Our roots of larval beginnings.

Everywhere in this cinder block, were signs of creatures called back to the bosom. The desiccated bosom. Heat and road flattened snakes. Exploded possums. Wide eyed lizards, spilling themselves beneath the tire tracked asphalt. Signs were everywhere. Around me. In my mirror. My face pale with life. We were both being called back. Moment by moment. And though the voice was uncertain, the message was clear.

When we again stopped it was at her urging. She needs to relieve herself.

"Restroom," she said.

I looked around.

Nothing but the flat, decomposing desert, brush, sage. A bustling communion of lizards, and scorpions, snakes and fire ants, all native Mojavians, active and alive, scattering at the advance of shadow, fecundating beneath the grit of boiling sand. They have purpose, all of them. Watch them charging along, frenetic and frantic, imbued with a reason beyond rationale that humans can only guess at.

And only their scale could lessen their threat.

"You sure you want to stop here?" I said. "Now?"

She looked out the window, hair blowing back from her face like wings behind a nose diving osprey.

"Yeah," she said. "It's okay. I like it here."

The car rolled to a stop. The brakes squeaking and groaning. From this stillness, the air took a thick lethargy. Heavy and dull. Impenetrable, dense and hot as molten steel.

Sheila walked into the shifting expanse, unsure at first, looking out of place in her citified heels and skirt, hair done up like no pioneering clanswoman could ever conceive, walk more a saunter, a sashay, as she mingled into the austere environment. This was a harsh land. A land unaccustomed to entertaining the softness she was about to present it.

She settled on a cluster of low flung cactus as suitable cover. I turned away as expected and she went to her business.

Amazing, that even in the dim and fuzzy buzz of noise that is often mistaken for silence among city dwellers, the distinct and sharp sound of urine hitting the hard soil rings clear as a neutron blast.

Finished, she panty patted her pudenda. Then, we again were off into the uncertainty of a beckoning distant voice, faint and warbling across the openness, her attuned to its pitches, I, simply a guide for hire, leading yet following, being pulled into a future that none including ourselves seemed to fully comprehend.

"I don't think I'm ready to sleep yet."

"That's cool I'll just keep driving."

"Are those headlights coming toward us?"

"Yes. But they'll just pass to my left."

"Oh."

"You always like this?"

"What?"

"Suspicious of headlights."

"No. Just lately."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"My pleasure."

Nowhere was there a better mix of company than right here. Me, driving Miss Sheila, her, driving me crazy. She was a cruel little strumpet. Collected and focused on her own ideals and desires. And still she wouldn't tell me where we were going.

"Just keep going this way," she said. "North. Until we have to go a different way. Further out. I'll tell you when."

Driving into oblivion was irritating. But I really didn't care. My attendance wasn't required elsewhere. Besides, she had the money, honey. As long as she was feeding me and my car I figured what the hell. I'm on board for the journey.

So we drove, and drove, and drove. Stopping now and then for rest, or restrooms, or whatever struck the mood. Eventually, she had to tell me what was going on. Where we were going. Why we were going. But what she could never explain to me was why I felt compelled to escort her. I guess deep down I really knew the answer to that one. The mousy thing again. Standing straight up and slapping me across the face with a bag-o-ice bricks. And because of my predisposition she had me-only figuratively at this point "by the balls."

We passed the desert and into a wide break. Cliffs of gold and blood and sweaty trees hung over the sands. Rock flowed like paste. Gulls whipped and skewed into the vortex. Dangerous flutes sailed high over the clouds.

It was heaven in hell's kitchen.

I lay on the beach the sun heating my wet pants. She, the crazy girl, took off her clothes and stared at the sun. Her eyes burned red like the coals of Martian fired cinder. Her teeth mumbled and rattled in the wind. White wind curled up around me, blanketing me in the fiery warmth of mother's tongue. Sheila looked out, beyond, up, her ass gathering sand into the wet crease of her mystery.

All was sex and sand.

While I was engrossed in the frenzied activities of a group of rodents gnawing on the shriveled loins of some lesser creature, she played in the water. Over the hill, a ridge which separated us from the blacktop highway, cops were perched like crows. Their mirrored shades reflected the nudity of the resident female. Their lips parched and still took on moisture. Their hands stroked the bulges in their Government Issue khakis.

As she danced, the gulls cried in their misted shires. The clouds shimmered rain. All around an inhuman breeze was whistling nervous. The living sands reached up from the depths and clutched at my ankles, my wrists.

The cops were on the sand.

They beat me with their fists, kicked we with steel toed black boots. My blood ran as golden henna. Sheila swirled and gyrated in the waves.

I looked at the blood running between my fingers. Endorphins coursed through my veins, sealing nerves beyond sensation.

"You can't bring a whore to this town," the bald cop said.

I, confused, couldn't answer.

He interpreted my silence as a lack of respect. My tongue was cut out from their abuse. "Beating is the language we speak," the black cop said. "Your whore has language of her own."

"Two mouths," the bald cop said. "White can color them both."

They lashed me to some driftwood. Steel bit into my flesh. My eyes stung from the sand, the salt, the blood oozing into them.

Sheila laughed into the water. When they grabbed her, they threw her down.

"I'm calling the cops," she said.

"Too late," the black cop said. "We're here."

Her eyes went soft as putty. Her mouth shaped like and "O."

"You have two mouths," the bald cop said, stuffing his grizzled cock into the one she had opened like an "O."

I heard her slurping. I heard her grunting.

The black cop slapped her ass. The sand reached up and grabbed her legs. Now her knees were read and raw. Death reached up through the ground, attempting to choke her by the cunt.

She pushed the cock from her mouth.

"That mouth doesn't breathe," she said. "You're stupid. My breath will still come with you there, at my cunt."

"So will you," Death said.

Death fucked her in the asshole. She screamed. Her virgin space had been opened. Now she thrashed. Cock filled her mouth. Her cunt cried and moaned. Her asshole dribbled cum on the sand crabs.

Those cops were no cops. They were priests.

Over her head, one said the benediction. The other, buried in her ass, invoked St. Peter.

"Free me, St. Peter," he cried. "Release me from sin." He screamed this entreaty, and then plunged deeper into her.

Death, who was lip-locked at her cuntal lips said, "You have conquered death but death has conquered fucking. Fucking is life masquerading as death. Fuck, you, St. Peter. Fuck your mother too."

"I fucked Mary," the first priest said. "Bled? Yes sir. Her cunt was bloody from my razor's whip. Virgin my ass. Her whore's cunt drained my cock. Fucked her asshole too. Best two dollar whore in town! Desert bitches. All cunt, all the time."

The priests broke communion wafers and shared wine. Sheila didn't. She hadn't confessed.

I tied to the driftwood, could only watch. My lob burst through my pants. The priests, cops, mother-of-god fuckers smiled at my predicament. Their wicked teeth glistened.

The bald cop, squeezing spooge from Sheila's ass, snapped his fingers.

A large crab appeared from the seaweed.

The eyes of the crab were yellow, like mirrors. I saw my face, pale, gray, death waiting for company. In front of my face, superimposed because the crab was in front of me I saw the large, bursting, redness of my swollen lob; it had ruptured and torn through my pants. Levi denim. Unbreakable.

The crab's claw circled my lob. Sheila watched. The claw squeezed, I heard a loud CRAACK!

Sheila began to moan. Her tits swayed, lobsters swinging from her nipples, Death in her ass, priests in her cunt and mouth. Her cunt lips sang like a jazz singer. A scat singing cunt.

When I came, the crab whipped my lob. My semen sprayed at Sheila. She was sinking in a river of sperm. The priests gobbed her with their goo, pissed her.

When they left, she lay in the sand; wet and grizzled, come encrusted sand pouring from every hole. In her hand she clutched a two dollar bill.

"Love me," she said to no one. "Daddy. Daddy. Don't hurt me again."

Her hair reached out and wrapped itself around my bursting lob. The priests climbed the hill and jumped back into their ice cream truck. As they drove away they shouted, Beware of strangers. Tough country out here.

Sheila thanked them through cold tears.

Then, she slapped my balls. The lobsters at her nipples tightened their grips. Blood dripped from them. A red flower blossomed from where each nipple drained into the sand. A blood of springtime. I remembered it was the Vernal Equinox.

"What's that?" She asked although she knew.

"The center," I explained. "Life and death mingled. Like cum and shit."

How happy she was then.

She spit at me.

"Daddy," she called me. "My daddy. You whore me out. Why? Doesn't my cunt please you?"

"I'm not your daddy," I said, sipping a beer while a sea lion nestled on my lap. It licked at my red and dripping lob. It was a female; big eyelashes and breasts like sugar melons.

Now the sea foamed. A crew of black beasts crawled from the mire, slimy and hairy thick with seaweed. They surrounded Sheila, assaulted her cunt. She laughed at them. "You limp weed fuckers. Your mother is manatee shit."

They regaled her with gallons of ocean sperm. Moby Dick's sperm whale soup. Primordial ooze. She almost drowned. Didn't. Then fell asleep in their sewer, their stink, the waves crashing down like a drifter from Mars, California. Somewhere up north.

It was getting late so I washed her in the surf and tied her to some trees. I'd get some sleep tonight. Then later, I would fuck her like raw meat until rats flew from her asshole. I fed her from a gourd. She wanted cum. I fed her with piss.

"If I wore a tie, and beat old women, destroyed old men and shit-layered myself with greed, would you love me then Sheila? You bitch whore cunt singing goddess?"

"No," she said licking her toes. Her hands folded back the petals of her flower. Clit big and bright as rubies. "No, because you would have no cock. No balls. What good could come of it? Get it? She laughed. What good could "come" of it?"

Yeah. Funny. Another beer whore.

She brought beers. Poured them from her cunt. The foamy head rose like Vesuvius.

"I like a woman who can double as a beer tap," I said. "Can I smoke your tits?"

I did. Best smoke I ever had. Fucking Havanas. But I wouldn't tell her that.

Her cunt dripped on my knee. The empty bottle was lonely. I stuffed it into her wet hole, her cunt, to shut her up, keep away the horrors.

And her hands interjected.

Hands like hers; pretty, frail hands; hands that ache for expression in whatever cuntal patch can be found, find no peace in silence. However true that may be, she found no more piece in herself, in her flower, lotus blossom. Her lips quivered from fatigue.

Later that night, when the red eyed black things flew down and fucked her to death in the seaweed, I, bored with her games, went to sleep. I didn't even dream of death, or suicide, or the rape of her beauty. All I remember was the sanctity of peacefulness, untouched by erosion, the continuum simply continuing. And for the remainder of that blessed evening darkness brought only star-lit euphoria. Tall buildings shiver in the lonely coldness of the sea broken sky. Birds of black honesty circle lazily. Street bursts with the activity of the restless, the sleepy eyed corner beggars, and eating breakfast from the gutter.

Rustling bustling tussling frenzy in the little stores. Camcorders, VCRs, TVs for sale. Yellows and blues and the fuzzy gray of the sun-swirling blank screens. Far into the cable spectrum. Deep cable. High band kisses.

Next door, Bok Choy hangs out the day's kill. Fresh, red necked, pink and early to death, the excoriated chickens, blood still vibrating on their plucked exteriors.

The color is in flux. Manicured women stroll in pairs. Some models, some hoping to be confused for one. Models for machinery, heavy machinery; tractors, threshers, bailers. Models for livestock commodities; grains, feed, bovine suppositories, fist first and to the elbow. Real women. Bravura and bravado rolled into a curvy package. And when the demands of work result in fingernails stubbled and brown to the quick, the counter trade responds. For this is the life blood of the Medi-Maxi fingernail repair center.

Towering buildings glow white as bone as they open their sleepy eyes. The sun creeps. A black shadow descends over the narrow street. The rising structures, largest to smallest, shake in fear. The putrid petroleum-lemon scent of skunk rattles the nostrils. Conversations pause meaningfully, allowing imposition of the recurrent intruder. Sound overtakes nerve.

A jumbo jet appears overhead. The tallest of buildings sighs. Straight for the fifth floor the jet sails. People, faces white, eyes frozen in horror glued to the windows, see the pilot, co-pilot, watch the aviators watching them. Can count the eyelashes on each eye. Children wail. Puddle dogs yelp. Cameras click. Pencils chase words across the stark empty pages.

"Barbecue's up!" a man says, holding a rack of ribs above his smiling head.

Capitalism flourishes. Consumerism mounts.

The plane on its mission of destruction peels ahead, banks left, rises on the current, misses the terrified crowds again. Just another day at Kai Tak. A city never more alive than when death is stalking.

Standing among the craziness. There I was. A stranger in a strange land. No man had come her as me before. Now I was her, me as me, a role I was increasingly losing familiarity with.

What was happening now? Erosion? Illusion?

The plane disintegrated into distance. A billboard screamed my name.

It was her. She that called me. Her face blue eyes of crystal. London blue crystal. Angelique. Somebody. I wasn't sure. She came out of nowhere. Shingles and spangles of silver and gold barely covering her nakedness. Legs long as a three-dog night. Pouty, sexy, no cunt hair to interfere with labial explorations. She from the legion of depilated ladies. Delightful sweets.

Breasts exploded from the buffet of her chest. Mother's tits for a drowning man. Dehydrating in the face of nourishment.

I could stay here. Enjoy the butchered incongruities. Become a local, tourist, merchant, shaman, and priest. Kwai Chang Caine; Shao Lin; Kung Fu master.

Or was that Japan? China?

The Dalai Llama's face rose from her cleavage.

Is this what you want? Does your western enlightenment require such earthly pleasures?

Yes. Animalism. Worship the zoomorphic gods, goddesses.

She licks her lips at me, the billboard girl. Angelique. Eva. Nadia. Kiwia. Head-o-my-lobia. Lovely names for purveyors of lust.

Year 2000 will soon arrive. What with it?

Over the internet she trapped me in a chat room. Her words deformed me, crawled over me. Owned me.

I downloaded her picture.

Nice tits. No bush. STRUMPET FOR SALE.
When we met, face to face, she looked different. I looked at the picture, looked at the girl. Only it was no girl. She was a middle aged, balding fat man. Baldificus evil prickius. A mister of foul intent.

He tried to play off the casual interloper.

"Oh," he said. "I thought you were...um..."

"Different looking?" I said.

"No. Younger."

"Oh," I said. "I thought you were different too...Nadia."

He smiled. Rotten teeth.

"Oh well," he said, turning to walk away.

I jittered with anger.

"Sorry fat man. Not over. I'm no youngster. And you're a carnivorous wretch."

He moved faster now, running for his door.

I caught him. Pounced on his fat, sweaty back. His dirty hands clawed at the earth.

"Say hello," shit ball, I screamed. "Mother earth calls you her son. She can have you."

I grabbed his hair, drove his head into the earth. His head exploded into beautiful colors.

What in life eluded you, in death has been found. Scum bag.

Joy effused at breaking open his skull. Penny for your thoughts? Why your mind is an open book. The death of scum and the world unites. Misery and pain no longer could touch me.

So I went back to angel eyes. She told me secrets. Big secrets. Little house, big lies. Cool suburban lawns, a poseur for better delights.

A small round man came to the door.

"Show me," he said.

I flashed him the picture. Her picture.

"More," he said.

I knew. It was the green.

I flashed the money. He smiled.

"You may enter," he said.

Clouds were heavy and light. Light and heavy. Never have such heavy light clouds swayed before me. They sparkled like thunder, tasted like ash.

"The best," he said. "No guarantee."

Falling into the blue cushion, I lay entranced by the warmth or razor and cotton arms. Wrapped around me the girls were twiddling their roses between anxious fingers.

I watched amidst puffing. My head was floating, leaving its tether. Just like Mr. Nadia. The redness of his insides came back to me.

I stared at the cunt, looked at the sky unfolding in my head, looked at her cunt, watched as the dark spot grew beneath her, cunt juices dripping out her profusion.

"Do you love me?"

"No. Not love. Lust."

"Do you love me?"

"Need you. Both of us."

"Both?"

"Me and my lob. Both need you."

When I blasted into her, her eyes went buggy. Not Asian anymore. Big almonds replaced where her eyes before had been slits. No longer cunt faced. Only one cunt now. The right one.

She tickled her slit.

"Thank you," she said, as my milk streamed from her center. "You've opened my eyes. Could this be my enlightenment?"

Her sister laughed, then, plunged a snake inside of herself. I watched its mottled red and black greenness disappear into her dank cave. Hairless and smooth. Pink and subtle.

"Goodbye, Mr. Goodbar," they said, cheery as cheerleaders.

I flashed my passport.

"I'm god," I said. So they would believe me.

Their eyes sparkled. Then they went back to tonguing.

Renting a rickshaw was easy. Beating the rickshaw driver was not. I hated to do it. She was so small. Fragile.

"Why," I asked. "Why did you make me beat you? Why can't you just pull?"

She bowed her head, spoke to her cupped hands, her feet.

"It is our way."

"Cultural relativity you mean?"

"Yes."

Understanding makes it better. Easier with understanding.

I beat her soundly, until she shrieked with the pain of joy. Her little moth quivered with spiritual growth. I envied her.

I told her.

"Now I love you," she said.

"No. Don't love me."

"Masters should be loved."

"Feared. They should be feared."

"To love is to fear."

"I'm afraid for you, Miyako."

"Then, master, you love me."

"I can kill you, cunt."

"You love me so much."

"I'm afraid for you, Miyako."

She wept and thanked me for loving her.

When she dropped me off at the spot I didn't know, Sheila said hello.

"Is it you?" she asked.

"Is it ever?"

"Who knows?"

"Not me."

"That's what she said," she said.

"Not this time," I said. I said it first.

"Oh. And the airport?"

"Loud as ever. Barbecue was good though."

"Did you...?"

"Yes...Some."

"Oh..."

"Don't worry. Nothing's changed."

"Then you were...?"

"Here. Always. I think."

"How did you know?"

She was referring to the time slip. Portals of transfer. Cosmic radiation of the mind shifting field. The frequency of occurrence was becoming harder to track. I was losing my bearings. Sometimes all was rational, linear, following the Cartesian rule.

Other times, chaos.

Reading through a collection of physics journals I found out about time travel. How the basic elements had been found but not been tested in any broad experiment. I wondered if that's what was happening to me. But how could it? I had no control?

I wasn't sure of that or anything. But everything was getting weirder and weirder.

Then we met a man of the desert. A man named Ojai. He set me straight. I had never seen or heard of him before. Neither of us had. And on that night we could have never foreseen such occurrences as we experienced.

But we know it happened. We were both there. Two pairs of eyes as witness...

We stumbled into the dusty bar eager for a cold drink. Something to remove one layer of sediment from our throats. It was a town that time forgot. A rickety construction of discarded wood scraps, tin, cardboard, spit and glue. Bullet holes provided ventilation, lovely vistas of the setting sun. The man at the counter had neither evolved nor advanced from the rudimentary entanglements of the primordial stew. I calculated.

Ten centimeter brain, extended, ridged forehead, deeply set wide spaced eyes, Cro-Magnon man. When he spoke his hair moved.

"What'll it be," he said, drooling over Sheila.

Her ragged dress displayed more flesh than she intended. She pushed the material closed, ushering the ring of aureole behind the mystery of silk.

"Two beers," I said. "Cold."

He smiled, reached down, came up with two. He cracked them open against the counter.

We sat in a corner, drinking not talking. Flies banged at the perforated shutters, futility smothering escape. Fear hung like a bear claw

I knew he was drooling, looking back over his shoulder through the smoke, cracked mirror behind the bar, visions of his cock, Sheila's thigh, screwing and coming and coming and screwing and animal fire rolled into a heap.

She had that effect on men. Myself included. But that's another story.

Meanwhile, at another table, only one of five in the place, two men were talking. They crouched into their seats. Voices low and resonant, keeping the edge softened, even keeled, not moving above a dull whisper, the air barely a ripple as their words logged flight time.

The room was empty except for us. Me and Sheila, the two guys talking, the one behind the bar, glass cleaning, counter pacing, Neanderthal stalking us with his eyes. The broth of his breath was ripe with putrescence. My nostrils were crucified from across the room.

As the two men talked, their ragged, chewed up hats low over their eyes, a stream of words caught my flagging attention.

They spoke of a desert man. A shaman. A seer of things that something, something, and how he lived in a cave near arroyo something and ate mice and snakes and something, something and was like a kind of modern day wandering prophet. A sort of John the Baptist animal hide ensconced Jesuit. Only he was no Baptist. He didn't bathe much, they said. How did they know?

I listened with heightened curiosity. Pictured a man who spoke to the stars, divined water, listened to the buffalo bones as they recounted their history of ritual slaughter, genocidal lunacies of the white masters.

The words of the strangers dripped with intrigue. I wondered if such a man could help me. Bring me to a place of understanding about these time shifts I had been experiencing. Wondering if maybe there was a way to control the occurrences. The ultimate. Could this man of the desert help me?

I had to find out. I told Sheila. She thought I was nuts.

"Where are we going?"

"To find that guy...you know."

"No. What guy?"

"The one from the bar. Remember?"

"No..."

"The one they called Ojai."

"Oh-hi?"

"No. Ojai. O-J-A-I. Weird spelling. Like that."

"Isn't that the guy those two crushed heads were talking about in that seedy ramshackle bar-hole we were in?"

"Yep. The very same."

"Oh...Why?"

"I thought I could get some answers."

"Answers? To what??"

Sheila wasn't sure if she should believe me or not. She didn't understand. I had told her about the time slips. Points where I simply passed through some sort of barrier, exiting this time and space reference and drifting into who knows what other worlds. She listened quietly. Then she told me I was nuts.

"You're on drugs," Diesel.

"I wish that were the case."

"Maybe these are just flashbacks, you know? From all those LSD trips?"

"LSD trips?"

"Yeah. Didn't you take LSD like a few years back or something?"

"Did I tell you I did?"

She shrugged. "No. Just checking."

Trying to explain it to her, when I didn't understand it myself was jut making things more confusing. She couldn't comprehend how I could be time traveling when, according to her recollections I hadn't been out of her sight.

"I mean how could you be having these journeys to parallel universes or galaxies or whatever without disappearing? Don't these time/space interruptions identify themselves a bit more obvious than like, OOPS! Just happened. Did you notice?"

I couldn't answer.

"Maybe you're just dreaming, you know? I mean, it wouldn't be the first time. Look at all these alien abduction people. You think like that's all for real too?"

"Look Sheila. I think I can tell the difference between dreams and reality."

She raised her eyebrows and gave a dismissive shrug of the shoulders.

"Whatever, Diesel. It's your car, your life. What-EVER!"

So we drove, backwards from our north-or-die directive, putting on hold the search for her alive, or dead, or alive but considered dead mother in an attempt to locate the society shunning shaman among the dung heaps and scattered remains of the desert's death and decay.

Never had I gone looking for such a creature. And I had no idea what signs to look for. So, I looked for the obvious-a sign.

"Hey. Look there," I said.

In the near distance, not fifty-yards away was an old, faded, lime green and red sign. The wood was brittle as parchment. Dead Sea scrolls of the highway. The words appeared in a whisper of paint: Ojai the Teller, Next Left.

A rabbit jumped in front of us. I swerved to miss it. Sheila shrieked. Steering hard right, I plunged off the road, grinding onto the narrow trail. Pebble and rock scattered. The angry brush bristled. We were on the way toward Mr. Ojai and maybe some answers.

We found a tent nestled away among a crush of flowering cactus. An oasis in the desolation. On a wrinkled Herman-Tree, not far from the tent, an angry beehive buzzing with activity.

Out in the silence of desert, their buzzing was an air raid.

The tent flap peeled open. A grizzled shape came toward us. He walked with a steady limp. Leaned to the left. His skin brown and red like a sun shorn apple. His face was blotched where sunscreen had been applied in patches. What hadn't been covered was burnt toasty.

When his lips moved, words formed as if by their own volition, crawling like the golden honey of his bee-haven provided nourishment.

"Hello," he said. "I've been expecting you."

I snickered.

"Oh please! Expecting us? You're full of shit. Maybe we've wasted our time coming here."

I took Sheila's arm, started to walk away.

"No, Diesel," he said. "I HAVE been waiting."

That stopped me like a steamroller.

"How did you know my name?"

"Humph," he said, turning his back to us, shuffling toward his tent.

I looked at Sheila, she shrugged mirroring my feelings, and we followed him inside. The tent flaps folded back, crackling as they did. Then something unexplainable occurred. It was as if the floor dropped and the walls slid outward, temperature dropped twenty degrees. Sheila folded her arms tight around her. A shiver ran goose doggy from my neck to my testicles.

As my eyes adjusted to the dark I saw him hovering over a small stone pit in the center of the cavernous room we were now standing in. He waved his hands around him. Sparkles of light flew, cascading from his fingertips. A swirl of pink cosmos dust circled over the pit, alive with jangles of stars.

He didn't look up at us, but instead stared into the pit, then began chanting something...I don't know. Something weird...

ZHIBADE-TIBAK-ULAMANO-PON PON-CHIGADONY

Like that. Only it sounded cooler when he said it. Then the swirling pink dust became dense as fog. The room charged into colors, melting into purples and neons as it bled into streaks over a blackened sky. The room turned into the universe, stars around us 360 degrees. And when the floor pulled away from our feet we were floating space garbage.

We stood as still as our trembling bodies would allow, afraid if we didn't we would upset some delicate ethereal balance. Looking down I could see a million miles between where my feet were and what must have been the earth. All alone out there, spinning and churning in an expanding universe. I was feeling dizzy. Sheila didn't look so hot either.

The critical boundary between protoplasmic discharge and retention of crucial endo-fluids had been reached; it was either stop the space crawl or risk swirling within a radon field of my own vomit. My eyes rolled into the back of my skull, my salivatory glands lit like firecrackers secreting salt liquor by the ton, the universe blurred steamy, my stomach was heaving the heave ho...

Then, it stopped: We were back outside.

"What was that?" I said.

"Oh...nothing," he said, examining his tarry fingernails as though the answer might spring from their fleshtips.

"You call that nothing?"

"Most times."

"What about the other times?"

"Nothing Plus."

"So why have we come here? You surely don't want to talk."

"Talk? What's that? An exchange of mundane ideas that have already been traversed. You know everything. Why do you need me?"

"Look old man," I said, my voice getting louder. "Tell me something or I'll fucking kill your toad slimed rodent shit ass!"

Sheila's eyes shifted from me to him, from him to me, revolving in a semicircular arc of observatory motion, her eyebrows arching and contracting, legs twitching electric.

I couldn't tell if she was scared or excited.

"You don't scare me," he said.

"Oh really?"

"Really. I'm already dead."

Sheila grabbed at my hand, tugged at me as she tried dragging me away. I didn't budge. He wouldn't get rid of me so quickly.

"Listen," I said. "Weird shit is happening. I need answers. I thought you might be able to help. Guess I was wrong."

I turned and walked away, Sheila right next to me. We had already gone about twenty feet when I heard his voice at my ear.

"How weird?"

I froze, turned around.

"What the??!!"

He stood there at my shoulder, his bushy eyebrows laughing.

"Well?"

"Umm...it's nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Yeah. Look. It's just...I don't know...time shifts."

"Oh!" he said. "You're a factory worker. That's your problem."

"NO. Not work shifts. TIME SHIFTS. The real McGill. You know? Back to the Future kind of stuff? Except without the fancy wheels."

His brow twitched and shimmied as he scratched at his temples. "Interesting. How much do you know about this time travel business?"

"Not much. I'm not even sure that's what it is. I'm only guessing."

"Hmm," he said. "Very interesting."

His eyes had gone all gooey and squishy. A plane roared by. The gust of hot wind whipped our faces. An iguana scurried across my bare toes. The old man's eyes were frozen open. Lizard faced. Something in his biomechanism had struck twelve and died.

"Hello," I said, snapping my fingers in his face.

No response.

"Hello," I said, louder, waving my arms in front of him like a maniacal human copter.

He moved.

"Oh," he said, startling. "Where...I mean what...?" The wheels in his brainwork tumbled into gear. "Oh yes. Now I remember. Trans-dimensional extension. Quite odd, though. Very odd. You know I haven't ever spoken to anyone who's done THAT. Fascinating. Quite fascinating. Come with me."

We followed him into the tent. Now it was a normal tent, only bigger. We sat cross-legged on cushions, obedient students waiting for the Budapestian Buddha to lead us into spiritual Nirvana. My thighs were cramping. Sheila giggled at my discomfort.

"Now where is that?" he mumbled as he scanned his bookshelves. "Oh, yes! There you are."

He reached into a densely packed shelf and came out with a dusty, leather bound volume, riffling through the pages as he searched.

I leaned forward trying to absorb the breeze.

His eyes scanned every page, quickly, deftly, as if he knew every inch of the text. I could hear his mind thinking. Then, he popped. "Ah-hah!! That's it! Indee-eeed!! Yes, yes, yes!!"

This guy was as cracked as a dropped egg.

What we've got here, he said, is parallax fluxation. Non-linear compression. Cosmo-magnetic inductive feedback causing a planar shift resulting in a fluid, trans-dimensional window. Phenomenal!!

My head spun in circles. Sheila grabbed my skull to stop the spinning.

"Excuse me?" I said, not wanting to sound ignorant, which I was.

"What do you see?' he asked.

I looked at him.

"A crazy old nut case."

"No, no, no. When it happens. These time events."

"Oh...Lots of things."

"Like?"

"I don't know. People. Places. Things."

"A universe of nouns, then?"

I didn't answer.

"Do you see any human...things? he asked."

"Yeah...no...sometimes."

"Meaning?"

His hand was perched on his chin as he studied me. The creator ogling his Promethean creation. I felt naked.

"Meaning not always people or human people anyway. I don't know what they are. It's all random."

"So, you've seen beings that are definitely not human but given your current parameters of reference, unidentifiable?"

"Yes."

"Any little green ones? With wiggly black eyes and big antennae?"

"What?" I said, incredulous.

"Don't waste your incredulity on me," he said. "Save your big words for someone else. Just testing you, that's all. I need to be sure you're not one of those alien-abducted-rectal -probed-for-the-human-miracle kind of wackos. I get them all the time out here."

"I can imagine."

Sheila looked bored. She played with the buttons on her dress, her nipples poking through like tight little marshmallows. If she was trying to distract me, it was working.

"Good," he said to me. "Good. Now, imagine this."

He reached under the table and produced a string of pearls. Biggest damn pearls I'd ever seen

"These are not pearls," he said. "Just white balls—"

No wonder I'm not a jeweler.

You'll notice they line up, one after the other, drilled though their centers, along this length of coat hanger wire. He turned it one way, then the other, showing me all sides.

"Are you gonna pull a rabbit out of there?" I joked.

He frowned.

"Listen, Diesel. If you're not interested we can stop right now."

"Just kidding...Jeez!"

"Humph," he said. "Now, where was I...? Oh yes. These balls represent different dimensions. In this case, four. Now. Let's say that normally we are limited to our plain old three dimensional world. Quite impressive in itself, but yet, unremarkable. Now, during typical perspective viewing, the dimensions are all together like this."

He turned the contraption so I was looking straight into one end.

"Typically, your view of the world is this way. It doesn't matter if there are one or one thousand balls lined up behind the one you can see. From your perspective, only one exists. Right?"

I nodded.

"Good. Now. Assume that somehow your view changed, doesn't matter how, but it did, and you were no longer limited in the scope of your vision."

"He twisted the row of balls slightly left. Now I could see the edges of each successive ball peeking around the others in front of it. An 80% plastic ball eclipse."

"You can see a bit of all of them now, right?"

I nodded again. My part was easy. Simply sit and shake my head on cue. Mr. Magic had the tough part. I couldn't wait until the finale.

"This is called parallax," he said. "Viewing from and angle instead of dead on. Following me so far?"

He steered his eyes on a collision course with ours. First mine, then Sheila's, who still looked as bored as ever and whose nipples were still poking for the clear blue, dreaming of travel to anywhere but here. He pretended not to notice.

"Okay," he said. "Now, for the coup de grace."

He walked to a large panel display and flipped a switch. From the blackness, a fuzzy grid pattern superimposed itself on the expanse of tent. Then, it morphed, turning into an easily recognizable facsimile of the galaxy. How did he DO these things?

He held a small control in his hand. He pointed to the display.

"You see here," he said pointing to Earth, "is where we are. Third planet from the sun. Nestled quite nicely between Venus and Mars. For a universe founded on chaos, everything moves along quite smoothly. Day after day after year after year the planets spin around elliptical orbits all in cooperation, avoiding each other's airspace as they do-si-do in their cosmic mating dance. Usually, everything progresses in this way. But of course, in every seemingly ordered alliance, it is always the loose cannons that impose their blunders upon the conformational masses.

He zoomed in to a wide, rock field area. "This," he said, "is the asteroid belt."

"I know," said Sheila, "the kind a plumber's supposed to wear but doesn't, thusly flashing his butt crack!" She laughed, then covered her mouth. Stuff ran from her nose.

"I'm glad this is so amusing. Should I finish now?"

"Oh sure, I said. Just, um... a little joke."

"Hmm... Anyway, the asteroid belt."

Sheila started laughing again, the stuff coming out of her nose even harder.

The old man's face turned red.

"This then, this orbit of fragments is of key concern. You see, normally these rocks, pieces of malformed planets, just spin and spin around here, hovering just outside of Jupiter. Very common it is, that many of these fragments spin away, reeling beyond this ordered orbital path, tumbling through space at increasingly faster speeds until they spin out of our galaxy, or hit something."

"Hit something?" I asked.

"Yes. Hit something."

"Like other planets?""

He nodded a grave look of non-humorousness about him.

"Yes. Other planets as well as our own."

Silence...

"It might interest you to know that stray fragments such as these strike the Earth a few thousand times a year. Most burn up in the high atmosphere, miles above our planet. Others however, penetrate further, exploding closer to the ground. Some even strike land."

A cold shiver ran down my back, Sheila's eyes were frozen in shock.

"Generally, we don't get alarmed over these occurrences when they fall over great open areas like most of them have. Places like those in the CI group, below the "tropical convergence zone: Archipelago de los Chonos, De Witt Island and Maatsuyker Island. Places remote and for the most part, uninhabitable. But other times, the hits have been directly on larger, densely populated zones. Either of you ever hear of Peshtigo?"

We both looked at him, blank and unmoving.

"Well, Peshtigo is a city in Pennsylvania. In 1908, Friday the 13th actually, a huge fire swept out of the sky, leveling forests and killing 1,200 people in the process. The heat was so fast, so intense, and so unstoppable; that survivors claimed it was as if the air itself was on fire. At the time, there was no explanation for this. Some, religious zealots no doubt, claimed it was the hand of God descending upon mankind in the first strike of the great Armageddon. But now, years of scientific knowledge later, we firmly believe that what occurred then was actually a fallen asteroid fragment hitting the Earth with such force, a few thousand kilotons to be exact, that a chain reaction like that of a nuclear blast was set off."

I gasped. "That kind of thing happens often?"

He raised his eyebrows and shook his head. "Yes. I'm afraid so. Not with the loss of life I've just described. But yes. Asteroids do strike the planet with alarming regularity."

"Okay. Now you've scared the shit out of us. What's the point? We're all doomed to die from an asteroid strike?"

"No... no. Not the point at all. Although, that is a distinct possibility."

"Thanks for the relief message."

"The point is, when these asteroids break through the atmosphere, a severe and sudden shift in the Earth's magnetic flux occurs. Like dropping a pebble into a still body of water. And just like the ripples that form when the pebble is dropped, emanating out from the center in one great movement, when an asteroid breaks through all manner of things in the electromagnetic spectrum are affected, right down to the subatomic level. We are slaves of the macroscopic, failing to appreciate the overwhelming domination of the microscopic. What I'm saying is, this could explain what's happening to you."

I stared at him, wide eyed, confused, and scared. "Why?"

"Well, it's like this. We know some people are sensitive to certain types of electromagnetic movements. Like those who are susceptible to flux in the psychic energy continuum, or mediums and alike. Not to legitimize all of them, but some bona fide cases exist. But what you're describing, what in fact I'm now proposing to you, is an entirely new twist on this whole scheme. I'm suggesting to you that somehow in your makeup, is a subatomic sensitivity to these molecular shifts in magnetism, which in turn cause a parallel fluxation, thereby opening a portal into other dimensions. A trans-dimensional shift. And you, and perhaps others like you, find yourselves at those times unwilling travelers into worlds that up until now science could only postulate. What I'm saying is this is nothing short of miraculous! If it's true, of course."

"Hey, Mr. Spock. You think I'm bullshitting you?" I yelled.

"Now, now... calm down. If I thought that I wouldn't be wasting my time. Still, it would help if we could somehow get some... proof."

"Proof? You mean like a souvenir?"

"Yes, precisely. Something irrefutably drawn from a dimension beyond the confines of our own. Something definite. Like an unknown mineral or artifact or... creature.

His eyes lit up like a pinball bumper. I could see his brain heading toward a big TILT!

"I don't know," I said. "I mean, all I want to do is figure out how to stop it from happening. It's not the most normal way to live, you know."

He looked around him and swept his arms in a wide arc. "And what is?" he said pointing out the obvious oddity of the environment we were encased within.

"Creature?" I said, just catching up. "Like a dinosaur kind of thing?"

"No, as intriguing as that may be, no. I mean something that clearly and without a doubt could not have come from this planet. Something clearly outside the bounds of our home dimension. Something weird and otherworldly..."

His voice trailed off as he thought of the otherworldly creatures he would perhaps like me to discover. Of course, I was only guessing. I couldn't really know what he was thinking.

"You mean like her? I said pointing at Sheila who only sniggered.

"No. I was just thinking of all the otherworldly creatures I would like to see you discover," he said again proving me wrong. "Just think of the possibilities."

I thought of the possibilities. Weird creatures big and small, some flesh and blood, some green and blue and gray and pink. Some with eyes, some not. Some so bizarre I would not be able to distinguish them from the inanimate. I didn't want to break the news to him, but I can only remember maybe once or twice actually visiting what would be considered, "alternate life forms." Mostly, it seemed as if I were drifting backward and forward in time, hovering within the bounds of our home domain. I didn't want to say it though. I had his interest and needed to keep it. At least until I could figure out how to control these events. My main concern. Fuck his scientific curiosity. I'm no man's guinea pig. Anyway, where did he come up with all this scientific mumbo-jumbo? Wasn't he some kind of sorcerer or something?

He twitched his eyebrows and made a strange gurgling noise. Sheila coughed.

"You're probably wondering where I come up with all this scientific mumbo jumbo, he said, again hitting me over the head with his uncanny accuracy of perception.

"Well... actually, yes."

"I thought so. Well, it's no secret that I dabble in the occult, Black Magic, voodoo, etc... Typically, beyond the rigid confines of the scientific community. But that's just my way. A hobby you might say. Something I do for leisure. Not to mention, one hell of a good living from the tourist trade. You did, I presume, take a gander at my sign? By the road?"

I remembered the decrepit and rotting thing hovering at the roadside. All yellow-green and red once, but now a faint shadow, peeling like an old leper.

"Yeah," we saw it.

He smiled

"Yes. Still pulls them in. Anyway, I have been living out here for about 10 years now, so I've quite a reputation with the locals, who by the way, tipped me to your coming here, hence, as I said at the time, I expected you."

No magic in that little act. Although the telephone is a marvelous invention, thank you Mr. Bell.

"So, I said, quizzing the sorcerer slash scientist a bit for fun and general information. If science is your game, why the Great Merlin bit out here in the middle of nowhere?"

He paced back and forth, hands behind his back, muttering something I could not really make out. His white-gray hair followed in waves behind him, whipping into a sea wind of confused anarchy as he peeled round the turns. If he'd been a teapot, I suspect coils of steam would have been surging from his ears. Since he wasn't, his eyes bulged and his face flushed with red-hued emotion. We both waited, me and Sheila, who was now a bit less bored as before when she thought I was just a weirdo with an odd story. Of course, she wasn't a clear vote for sanity herself. But then, that's another story.

He spoke. "Truth is, I'm somewhat of a pariah in the scientific circles."

"You mean you travel in schools and devour unlucky animals that fall into the waters you inhabit?"

"No, no. Not piranha...pariah. An outcast. Misfit. Loner."

"Oh, that makes more sense."

He straightened his hat.

"You see, my theories, some of which include the very ones I've shared with you, did not exactly garner support in my circle of colleagues. In fact, those who didn't laugh outright accused me of being dangerous, saying that I shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the sophisticated technology we were disposed to lest I impel myself toward actually trying to duplicate the very effects I described, that of trans-dimensional shift. Despite the revolutionary theories by the likes of Einstein, Bohr, Schrödinger, et al, the scientific community is slow to change and accept new thought. As hard as it is to believe, new ideas are thought dangerous. Therefore, even at the advanced degree of the current millennium, few among them readily agreed to the concepts of time travel and fourth dimensions. The theoretical possibility of, if not the actuality. It's almost as if they don't want to know because then they would have to prove it, duplicate it. No one likes to be wrong, less yet, laughed at. Science has taken enough abuse. Now it cowers and waits for whatever grants are provided by the concordant corporate interest. It's all about commerce now. Fund it, we'll find it. The ubiquitous capitalistic machinery marches onward. No one really pursues science anymore simply for the joys of discovery. Now there's always a price tag. So you see my going public with the hypotheses I've just shared would be viewed as a great discredit to the scientific credibility at large as well as a very real threat to the revenue stream. No money, no science. First they muffled me, then, when their fear became too great, they banished me. Tossed me out like yesterday's trash. And since then, I've been living out here, making a living from fundamental trickery, still believing that someday the means to prove my theories would present themselves."

"And then, I showed up," I said.

"Yes. And then you showed up."

His eyes were sparkling now and I could see the entire Milky Way galaxy spinning behind his dark pupils.

"Do you understand what this means? Why, this is as great a revelation as Einstein's theory of relativity! It's relativity times ten!!" He stepped back, spread his arms wide, and began chanting like there was no tomorrow, in this dimension anyway.

We left Ojai's wild ride into the uncharted territories of science, and drove off in search of a place to stay for the evening. Along with us were some books the astronomer/physicist/magician packed for me to read.

"Study up," he said. "The more you know the better."

So, there we were, in search of something, anything, in this God forsaken wilderness, a pile of books, and my head spinning with new ideas. This was still a shock to me. All along, I really thought the answer would be simpler. Organic. Some kind of psychosis. Even that would be a relief. But traveling across the space-time continuum? Whoa. Caught me at a disadvantage with that curve ball.

We found a place about three miles south of where we had met the astronomer/physicist/magician. The place was a gravesite for sore eyes. Not much of a step up from the Blue Hawk Saloon we had visited earlier. Walls tumbled into each other with no apparent geometrical sense. A strong wind could topple the place. I was afraid to breathe heavy. We walked through the scrub and dirt strewn walkway, and stepped gently on the ailing steps. Loud creeks and groans of disapproval issued from each rung. An orchestra of near extinct wailing and yelping animals.

As the rickety screen door banged open, a waft of something old and decomposing hit my nostrils. The place smelled like a mausoleum in need of cleaning. I turned to Sheila. She crept behind me, preparing to run at the first sign of structural collapse, looking in all directions like she was expecting a sniper attack. On the counter, a friendless, rusted bell kept vigil. A solitary nipple of life in the landscape of dead matter linoleum.

I clanged on the bell. A shrill pained sound escaped its tin shell. My insides did the someone-scraping-across-a-blackboard shriek. A breeze winded through the room. The huge red curtains parted. Out stepped something that if I didn't know better I would swear was from another dimension.

She—or at least I thought it was a she—was as crusty a barnacle as old Davy Jones himself had ever seen. Popeye's mother, long exhumed for service. The craggy skin hung in ruins from her bones. Eyes set so deep I felt vertigo forcing me away from the ledge. Her fingernails, yellow, broken, set on jittering fingers, pushed the pen and guest book to me.

"Staying the night," she creaked, not so much a question as a familiar redundancy.

"Yes," I said.

She glanced at Sheila, then at me. She shrugged. She tossed the grimy keys across the counter.

"There you go 12B. Right around back. Just past the pool."

Driving around back we looked for the pool. A nice cold dip sounded refreshing. We looked. All we could find was a big, green and browned cement pit that had become a sanctuary for passing amphibians, fungi, and other goo. I assumed this was the pool. The shower would have to do.

Compared to the rest of the facility, the room was an improvement. At least nothing stray and wandering greeted me when I opened the door. Except the overwhelming scent of too much Clorox and Pine Sol. An unmistakable and unforgettable bouquet. Whatever it was needed killing, that would do it. I was glad the massacre was over when we arrived.

Sheila bounced on the bed, claiming the one by the window. The squeaky springs sounded stressed to the breaking point. She frowned.

"I suppose a Holiday Inn is too much to ask for?"

"Yeah."

The shower was small, but nonetheless, clean and serviceable. Coldwater rushing down my face, neck, and shoulders, was a welcome baptism. I closed my eyes, reeling in this sensation, trying to let my mind wander and swim, floating through the myriad events that had brought me to this point. Everything was in chaos. I didn't have any clear path backward. Like whatever portals of time had opened were only one-dimensional, forward, so that no view to the past was possible. I thought back to the summer, to Mr. Emerald Mighty, to the night he asked me to fuck his daughter, to Rosy-X, to said daughter chasing me down and sending me on a chase that was still in motion. Then I thought about the other business. The business that before this afternoon never had a face, were just odd, perhaps drug-induced hallucinations in an otherwise intolerably Cartesian existence. Ojai, the physicist, had given it a face. Made it tangible and real. And now, in the confined loneliness of the shower stall, its newly discovered face haunted me as I tossed around the possibilities. What would I do now that I knew? What had really changed? On the one hand, I could just forget, proceed like nothing at all had occurred; go back to what I previously had called "a life" as if nothing had transpired. But something had transpired. Something that would forever shift my reality. If this parallax-fluxation were for real, could be anticipated, calculated, and controlled, what benefits would open up for me? What liabilities? Would attempting to harness the power be dangerous? Maybe it was better to just let it be. Maybe it would diminish over time, go away. That certainly was one very appealing solution.

I looked at my hands, wrinkled already from the water. No. That wouldn't work. Now that I knew I could never be content to let it be. It would haunt me eternally, like it already was. Hovering over me beseeching, an affirmative, compelling me to explore its wonders, is potential horrors. No. Ignoring this would get me nowhere but insanity's kitchen. What I needed to do was as the old man suggested: read and learn as much about this as I could, knowledge being power, thereby positioning myself for whatever circumstance would present itself.

I finished up and stepped out onto the cracked tiles. A cockroach skated across the floor, away from my landing pods. I snapped my towel at it. CRACK!! The roach popped like a peanut shell. I watched as it reeled into a corner, legs up twitching, as it frantically grasped at what life force remained in its convulsing exoskeleton body. The yellow custard of its insides leaked like a drainage ditch. Its antenna twisted and tweaked for information. I could almost hear it, spitting out a delirious S.O.S. in Morse Insect Code, "mayday, mayday, I'm hit, send backup, I repeat, I'm hit, send backup." In my mind, a whole squadron of F38 Fighter Roaches were incoming as I remained steady, grasping my towel around me like Poseidon, staring down at the helpless creature who I just sent to Hades twitching its death throes. Pictures of the Pleiades flashed before my eyes, and then, like a thunderbolt from Olympus I saw it clear as day. I don't know what it was. Maybe all of this fourth dimensional malarkey was turning my brain to Jell-O. But for an instant, I got a sparkle of something speaking to me. Something soft but insistent. Something telling me that the creature was my brother, a true brother, that all creatures are in fact my true brothers. I shook my head trying to dislodge whatever water plug had blocked up my auditory canals and caused this ridiculous hallucination. I hit my head against a wall. Except for the dull throb emanating from the point of impact, the little voice was still there, joined by a pulsing concussion of the upper cranium. I looked down again at the small, brown, Blattarian. It was clear that this was an unusually large cockroach, perhaps one of the "amazingly sized" Asian cockroaches of Louisiana, where a few fried in oil with garlic was a large medicinal dose of time-honored treatment for indigestion. And while I repulsed at this very foreign medical practice, somewhere in the back of my mind a slow spiral began, an idea. An idea that quickly became an impulse. An impulse that became a word. A word that became speech.

"Sorry."

What? I reprimanded myself for my unwarranted outburst.

"Sorry." There! I'd said it again!

It was all happening so quickly I couldn't track the events. But the next thing I knew I was fashioning a small raft out of a toilet paper roll, placing my fallen brother on it, floating him in the toilet bowl, and striking a match to the impromptu funeral pyre while "The Ride of the Valkyries" sailed in peaceful elegy from my murmuring lips.

At the conclusion of the honored ritual I flushed him home to Valhalla, an impromptu variation of the ceremony I was sure Odin would forgive.

I know I believe in nothing. But it is MY nothing!

When I walked out of the steaming bathroom, away from the cremation, I found Sheila propped against the bed on all fours, looking out beyond the pink-red-purple haze of the dying day. From where I stood, I had a great glimpse of the landscape as well as a direct view to the wonders of her architecture. She heard me exit the bathroom, yet she didn't move, instead staying fixed to her spot as if frozen, eyes intent on some distant point. Caught in the pull of the thousand yard stare.

Seeing as she was predisposed, I took the opportunity to do some staring of my own.

As I stood there, falling into the valley between her thighs, I remembered back to that night not too long ago. I recalled a mélange of cops and priests and a scene or two where Sheila, displayed in a similarly servile fashion as she was currently, receptive to the idea of being plugged by hard evidence. My attention stuck to her like Perma-Bond. Her dress, in direct opposition, did not stick but rather crept in a continuous line of travel up her legs as her back arched further, offering a clear view of her holiest of holies as I watched. Suddenly, realizing I was no longer holding my towel. I looked down. Nature's hanger was erected, taking over the duties of towel rack. Not wanting to waste a perfectly good boner, and understanding implicitly that a man received only a finite amount of them, I called to her.

"Sheila."

No answer. Maybe she really was frozen.

I tried again. "Sheila?"

This time her ass wriggled, her hips rocked, lazily, unhurriedly. Her shoulders twisted. She looked at me. Her eyes scanned me from head to toe, stopping at the towel doing its mid-air suspension trick. She knew I was no Blackstone. I was sure she'd forgive.

'Hmm," she said. "I knew it would come to this."

Her face adopted a weary, battle-fatigued look, an expression that bespoke the many times she had been so unfortunate as to endure such presumptuousness in her past. I felt like I was being assayed. As if my points were being tallied. Plus points on the left, negative points on the right. I wasn't sure what system she was using. I just hoped I ended up on the plus side.

She turned fully around, sat, crossed her legs, and spoke.

"Well, you presumptuous pig," she said. "Before you proceed to rape me, or at least give it a good try, you can at least tell me who you are and why you called me Sheila."

From the look on my face, she probably guessed I was amused by her witty repartee. She did have a good sense of humor. Imagine turning to find your roommate greeting your upraised and accessible backside with an erection the size of California, a towel hung upon it for effect, his eyes aglow with debauching intent. I hung there now, slightly drooping but still hopeful, a stupid, my-name-is-Gomer smile pasted across my big, dumb, I-got-a-boner-and-I-intend-to-use-it face. I must have looked quite ridiculous.

The humor of the situation was evident. Why then, wasn't she laughing?

"Okay," I said. "I'll play along. I'm Diesel, your travel companion on the road to the motherland, and I called you Sheila because... well... that's your name."

Her face dropped into a deep sneer as she crossed her arms. The words frothed from her lips.

"Look Weasel..."

"Diesel."

"Whatever. If you really were who you say you are and we are involved in some kind of travel together as you say, you would know my name is not Sheila, but Cipher. Always has been. And as far as that weapon you're packing, I wouldn't say it's out of the question. But I'll need to get to know you better. Much better."

I was confused. The mouth hanging open gave it away. Not that I didn't like what might be happening. I just didn't know why it was happening. Maybe I'd been wrong about her. Or right. Or just as confused as I was right at the moment. I looked at her piercing eyes staring through me. Unblinking. Sure and confident in a way I can't recall ever seeing Sheila be.

Something happened. But I was at a loss to say what. So I decided that if role-playing was what she was into, okay. Who am I to judge?

I played along, curious to see where things would lead.

It didn't take long.

"Take me to the roof," she said.

"Are you serious?"

"Do I look like I'm kidding?" she said, shimmying out of her panties, letting then slip to the floor beneath her dress.

Watching them fall caused my lob to shoot straight back to attention.

"Roof? Right this way!"

It was tricky up there. Jagged pieces of ossified tile and sparkling pieces of glass nipped at my feet. The wind blew hot and dusty. The moon, just cresting over the Mountain Ridge hung smirking salaciously against the purple blackness of the descending pitch. Already the stars were assembling into their ancient patterns of the hunt.

The air went thick and murky. Time slowed and mutated into a vast otherworldly frame. I could feel the time space continuum warping to mold itself to our imposed forms. Creaks and groans escaped from the aging world. Coyotes howled in the distance. While on her knees, Cipher had her mouth full of man-meat, milking me like a pro, chugging like steamboat Willie on my alma mater.

The moon, the stars, the earthy sexiness of the whole scene was entrancing. What a wonderful night for a rooftop blowjob; the laughing sky, the crocodile tears of the whispering palms. Earth was alive. No death was calling. Even in those foul winds, the dead fish were hunting tigers, far beyond the blades of grass; jaguars really. Pirate ships raced across deep blue oceans. Never before had such colorful splendor exploded like this. A raven flew by my ear. Invaded my hearing-Nevermore, nevermore. I saw Edgar floating in the ether. Cipher thought I was crazy. Imagine that. But she kept going. Slipping and slurping and pulling the center of myself to her. I closed my eyes. Blackness came over me. A blackness born of night. Baby birds cried for their mother. She was gone. The raptor had ravaged her flesh, devoured her in pieces, and left the remains from the others: Mice, Rats, and Bats. A lion jumped from a tree. A coffee cup tilted and slipped free. Hot black liquid poured over my eyes.

Ouch! I'm burnt, I called to no one.

No one listened. No one answered. And memory drifted from the canals and shores of the inner harbors of me.

I wanted to let fly. "Not now, little boy, not now," said Cipher taking pause. "When I say. Only when I say."

A heavy wooden door slammed into my face. Two big, shining, brass keyholes pressed into my eyes. Lights flickered in the blue haze beyond the doors. Screams and cries and cricket song poured out. The air flooded with vibrations. Looking through the spade-shaped hole I saw nothing. Only black light, then the light shifted, tilted sideways. I saw something. Dogs. Snarling dogs on chains, lining the walls, their teeth white and hungry for meat.

One of the dogs spoke. "Sure like to taste me that woman. Mmm..."

The other one agreed. "Me too. Take turns?"

"Fuck you," the first dog said. "I eat woman. You each shit!"

They both went back to quietude. Man's best friends. Quiet and obsequious as all slaves should be. In the middle of the room a concrete slab covered with pulleys and holes. The young girl chained to it had holes of her own. Her keyhole dripped black sugar. A great puddle lay beneath her. From the shadows an old man appeared. He was hidden in the light. He looked familiar, why I couldn't be sure. His head looked shrunken, a victim of headhunters. Maybe it was just his brain that shrunk. Cotton brain; gentle wash, tumble dry. He wasn't gentle. Not with the girl. Under her stomach, swinging from a rope strapped around her hips, a mess of red bricks. Her back arched like the big dipper.

"Always use lubricant," he said. "Only the best for my whores."

The girl's head spun around. She was scared. Scared when she saw the glory for death in his eyes.

"Don't," she said. "Don't."

The old man did not hear. He was deaf to life. "Fish are the only creatures the ocean produces. Your sex is like a fish. Slimy, alive, soon to be dead."

I smelled something not fishy. Like soap. Lye soap. Acid laced soap. I wanted to vomit. The girl looked at me through the keyhole.

She was trying to be sexy smelling this way. The old man raked his fingers through her open slit. His Mandarin fingernails were like claws. Black and red with the blood of iron. She yelped, howled, the dogs cheered.

"Lots of lubricant, that's the key. You were a nun, now you're my whore. You know what that is. All women know. They whore every day. Everywhere. When we fuck, you'll be one too. My whore. Then you'll see how much you like it. They all do. It's in the genes."

Science has labored long and hard while remaining erect trying to isolate the gene for female sex drive. According to a spokesman from I.N.S.E.R.T, discovery of this gene would revolutionize the world as we know it. The possibilities are endless. Just think: No more roses, begging, foreplay, no more anything resembling bilateral decision. Simply crank up the gene mix, and produce your own super-fuck! What a great day for man that will be! Of course, this could just be a misogynistic fantasy.

"This is your martyrdom. You must be martyred before you can fly. Don't you want to fly whore?"

The young girl hung her head. She wanted to fly. Had wanted to fly since the first time the old man had told her she wanted to fly. But she was too afraid. When she said this to the old man, he spit. The gob of spit slimed her backside.

"Don't tell me that shit. I'm not Erica Jong. Tell her, whore. She fucked herself years ago."

The dogs were howling and hopping now. One of them, the stupid one, had put a quarter in the jukebox. Scott Joplin heliotrope something song rang from the cracked speakers. It was like a bovine in death rattle. The dogs danced in place.

The clock struck one. The girl whimpered. The man impaled her on his cock.

The girl bit her lip. Blood ran down her chin. Red and black ooze poured from her. The old man wept as he fucked her. Soon, his eyes grew large, while from the exertion his balls began to swell. More and more as he fucked, his balls swelled. His eyes bulged. The muscles in his body were tensing up. Now, his arms began flailing out at his sides. I could hear the sticky sound of his cock, opening and closing, opening and closing; preparing to fill the girl with all of his secrets. She was the CIA. She had infiltrated his files. He was being downloaded though he didn't know it.

BANG!! Like a shot went off somewhere. Again: BANG!!

I looked around inside the room. Nothing was clear.

"Where did that some come from?" I said.

The girl said something I couldn't hear. Something that sounded like: "You'll never know, that's for you to find out."

Her face was changing; Like the moon but different. Red and purple charged into the flesh of her cheeks. Her mouth opened big enough for the girth of three men. She squinted her eyes. The old man's neck muscles tightened. His arms flailed out to his sides. The dogs howled.

"I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming," he said, three times.

Three times shall the cock crow and thrice shall you not deny me.

"I'm dying, I'm dying," he screamed. He was coming and going, pulled apart like taffy.

The room was now becoming fluid. I felt a liquid at my feet. Like hot lava, melting and flowing out the door. Layers peeled from the walls. The old man's eyes and mouth were stuck open. Mouth large enough for an elephant dong. The elephant raised its trunk and sprayed water. Melting and melting the room bubbled. A big mess of ooze, running like a stream into the young girl. She was sucking them. Sucking all of them. The old man, the dogs, the clock, the two elephants. Sucking like the four furies. I watched in horror. I watched in excitement. I felt a lava stream rushing out of my center.

The room and everything in it sucked into the girl. The dogs flew into her backside. The last one in took a bite of her. The red chunks of her bare ass glimmered like rubies, diamonds.

The room was pure white. Nothing but white. Just whiteness and the girl. Alone now. Fucked and forgotten. She smiled. Poured another round of lubricant on her treasure and fingered herself. When she came, her eyes exploded.

"You're part of me now. Part of me. Always part of me."

Cipher tugged at me and swallowed.

"You see now," she said. "Don't you? I had to do it. Had to."

I was confused while reeling in post-orgasmic bliss.

"Had to do what?"

"Don't you know?"

"No. What?"

"Kill him. Had to kill him. The old man."

"The old man?"

"The old fuck that fucked me."

"You killed the old man?"

"Yes. My father. My almost-father. Now he's dead. I killed him."

Fear began knocking at my skull. I felt my cerebellum charge with electricity. My balls shivered and shriveled. I sat down on the roof. The tiles bit into my tender skin. A murderer, THE murderer, was with me. Had always been with me. Had used me to abet her escape. Now I knew. What would I do? I wanted to kill her. For not telling me before. Now the murderer had sucked me dry. She had drained my power to react. My power was hers now. I was no murderer.

"So," I said. "Emerald Mighty, your father..."

"Not my father. Just a man."

"Wait a minute," I said. "He said he was your father. You just said you killed your father. Who was Emerald Mighty if not your father? And then, who was your father?"

She swung her long hair away from her face. Her eyes were alive like a raging tigress. She roared. Her teeth were white and dangerous.

"He owned me. In that way he was my father. But you cannot own flesh unless the flesh you attempt to own gives up willingly. I gave up once. When I was young. But later, when I knew his power over me, I rebelled. At first, when I was 12, he tried to touch me. Come here, he said, sit on Daddy's lap. This was before I knew he had married my mother to get to me.

"I sat there and felt a lump. A growing lump in his lap. I asked him what it was. He laughed at me. You'll know soon enough. Then he slid his hand under my skirt and rubbed my pussycat. My pussycat was wet. He pinched my tangerine breasts. He smiled. I was ashamed. He pulled his hand away, made me lick his fingers.

"This is you, he said, good and pure and sweet as the fruit of our garden. Just like the fruit of the garden, it must one day be plucked and harvested so new fruit will grow. You're the garden. I'm the garden master. I will pluck you, plug your fruit, and do it again faster. In this way you will grow. It is the way of all life.

"I listened to his lies. I didn't know then they were lies. He was my Daddy, so I thought. I asked Mommy. Tried to ask Mommy. Is it true what Daddy is telling me? Is it true? Mother didn't answer. Couldn't. Daddy had silenced her tongue. Anesthetized her with threats. Two years after that, my mother disappeared. He said she died. Said it was best for me to do forget about her.

"She's dead, he said, a right dead redhead, ha, ha. No need to worry your pretty behind about this wench. You're mine now. I love you."

"Confusion. Sadness. I don't know what else assaulted me on those dark nights that followed. I was alone. Without my Mommy. But Daddy was there. He told me he loved me. Would take care of me. He did take care of me.

"The first week, he plucked me, plugged me till I screamed. The next week he plugged my bottom. The next week, he plugged my mouth. That was his favorite week. He plugged my mouth for two more weeks after that. I didn't know how other people lived. I was kept away from everybody. I thought, hey, this is normal stuff. A daughter should love her Daddy this way.

"He told me, Daddy loves you. I love you, so I pluck you. You love me back, so you pluck me. This is love. We love each other.

"There was no more confusion after that. Then he plucked me often. Daily. In time I began to enjoy it, crave it, plucking him so fiercely he yelled, Stop, Stop! You'll kill me with your love!

"That was a strange thing to say. You love me so much you'll kill me. I laughed. He didn't. For a while he gave me some time alone. Left me out of every day loving.

"He had a great library. He kept it in his office. I began to read his books. It wasn't long before I discovered his lies. That he had lied to me about the love of father and daughter. I began to see him as an evil man, an evil man who could not stay away from loving me with his plucker. That was when I knew I had his power. Had stolen it from him. I realized his power was in his plucker.

"After many pluckings I had swallowed his power into me. Slowly, slowly it had happened. Now I saw a way out."

She turned at this point and looked wistfully at the moon.

"Now wait a minute," I said. "A way out? You said you were enjoying it by then."

She glared at me. Hissed.

"You fucking narrow minded fuck wad! He's a goddamned rapist, get it? A fucking rapist! Jut because I had found a way to subvert my pain doesn't make what he was doing right! Yes. My pleasure was my own. But already, after a few years had passed, I was beginning to see the truth. Beginning to understand that fathers and daughters should not pluck each other. Yes, I had grown to enjoy fucking. Enjoyed it maybe too much. He had made me into a homegrown whore. Plant them and pluck them. Take them young. Like a white wine. I was no wine. But I was collected, plucked, and harvested, like a goddamned grape. I began to plot my revenge."

She spoke to me now in stops and starts, becoming anxious at one moment, calm, release rushing through her the next. It was like watching three different people telling the same story, each one picking it up where the other one left off. It was a strange assemblage. I listened intently, although by then, I was getting a bit of chill from the windy roof. But the night was warm, the moon was brimming, and the stars twinkled like astral diamonds. I waited and listened as she spun off her tale.

"I knew he couldn't stay away from me," she said. "Knew that he was always watching. Often, I'd be busy doing something, sewing my dresses, reading or playing with the cat. His eyes burned holes through my head, through my clothes. My crotch was on fire with his stares. When I would turn, there he was, looking, lusting, evil intent written all over his sweaty face. Sex is all he wanted, all he could see. Since I had taken all his power, he was mine.

"I used it to my advantage.

"I would always be sure to dress nicely, sexy, short skirts riding high. I made sure to bend a lot when he was around. His cock would get hard when he saw my tight panties climbing up my backside. I always was sure to do it when company was around. Only I did it in secret. Did things only he could see. I drove him crazy. On purpose. I had the power and I enjoyed it."

Her story was intriguing. Looking at her now, the way she looked at me, I could see that she would be very attractive the way she was describing the scenario to me. But I had never seen her like that. Cipher, or Sheila, or whomever it was she called herself, dressed very plain, conservative. Sheila wore glasses. Though I noticed she hadn't worn them lately. I questioned her on this.

"When I met you," I said, "your father was not dead. You say you killed him. Also, I've never seen you dressed any way but the way you are now. And you had glasses before. What gives, Sheila?"

She glared at me and stomped her feet on the roof.

"I told you, dumb ass. I'm not Sheila. I'm Cipher. I came to protect her."

"What?" I was really confused now. I told her so.

"Men," she said. "Think you rule all. But you're so stupid. Don't you know anything? Sheila was weak. Is weak. When her father began to touch her in ways a father should never touch a daughter she folded over like a dying rose, collapsing into herself until their was almost nothing left. She cried and cried and cried. Every minute of everyday. Lonely and broken and scared. She said, please, someone, anyone, help me! Over and over she called, just like that. How long can you listen to someone call for help and not answer?"

I was going to answer, but I guessed this was not really a question.

"Well," she said. "I couldn't listen very long without doing something. So, I came to help her. Took over, let her stay away, peaceful and safe while I took care of father. When he advanced his game to plucking, he wasn't plucking her. He was plucking me. Only me. He never plucked Sheila. Though he wanted to. He would beg me. Please, please, let me pluck her. But I refused. Always. He was so stupid. And so desperate. Any coombe was good enough. So he used mine. Often and without shame. But he never plucked Sheila. No. Never. And it drove him mad with lust that he couldn't have her. So innocent she was; is. He wanted her innocence. Wanted to take it and crush it and strangle it like a little bird, feeling its terrified heart beating wildly as he choked its last breath from it. That's the kind of animal he was, an unchained beast. It drove him mad that he couldn't have her.

"All day, he would see her. Wandering the guardians, reading, studying, and doing whatever it was she did with herself. And he would see her innocence and want to pounce on it. Desperate to crush the life out of it and claim the prize as his own. But I stopped him every time. The moment he got his paws near her, him and his dogs, I would step in to save her, look him in the eyes and tell him, no EM, not today, Sheila's gone out. He would get angry then. But what could he do? I had taken his power by then. My coombe was his universe. The life was slowly being choked from him and he didn't even know it."

"So," I said, "when I met you, was that you, or Sheila?"

She studied me, lit a cigarette, and took a long, slow, drag.

"Oh," she said, matter-of-factly. "That was Sheila, all right. Good old plain old Sheila. Just the way he liked her. She had been around for a few days. EM was miraculously well-behaved for some odd reason and Sheila felt it safe. I felt it safe for her to be present. Of course, that was before I knew the plan he was brewing. Sneaky old bird. He never gave up. Couldn't stand to lose. That's where you came in. He was attempting his brilliant coup de grace. You see, the stupid shit had at least a couple of brain cells that worked independent of his cucumber, although they still were in close contact. He feared that Sheila would stay hidden, as long she felt threatened. And he wanted so bad to pluck her. So he figured if he got someone else to do it first, a strange someone she had no reason to fear, then he would swoop in, catch her off guard, pluck her savage and take her innocence, all at the same time."

"But he asked me to sleep with her... you," I said, getting lost in this whole Sheila as third person trip. "I mean, how would that work? Once I slept with you, it would be all over."

She tilted her head back, laughed, and puffed out a jet stream of smoke.

"Your little wanger would never have touched her; that was his plan. He was a tricky bastard. All he wanted you for, was to get her lubricated, so to speak, get her warm and comfortable and naked and sprawled. And at the last moment, before you actually did anything, he would be there, poker in hand, jumping onto her like a hawk onto its prey. The bastard. You were just a pawn, a means to an end. Once you had her ready, he would have plucked her straight away, and you would no longer have been necessary."

"You mean he was going to...?"

"Yes. Kill you. Murder you and claim he caught you trying to rape her. Sheila, She, weak snatch that she is, would fold and support his claims. That's funny, don't you think? The master rapist crying rape?"

I started to feel the familiar sickness rising in my throat.

"Don't feel bad," she said. "It was nothing personal. He needed a patsy. You were at the wrong place at the right time."

"Well," I said. "I never called him back because I didn't like the idea of him offering his daughter that way. But I just thought he and she were, well, you know. Hollywood and all. But shit!! I never even considered he would try to murder me!"

"No trying about it. He would have. But there was a snag in his plan. You see he didn't plan on Sheila actually liking you. When that happened, I stepped in. With her liking you the way she did, she started taking unnecessary risks. And when you live in a lion's den, that's no time to be sleeping with your legs spread."

"So, what did you do?" I asked, not wanting to hear but needing to by now.

"Well," she continued, stomping her cigarette out on the roof tiles. "As I said, I really could get him going. You know, set him to salivating real Pavlovian like. He put his disease in me. So one night, a few nights after you came by, I made sure to wear a short, red skirt. Real short. So short every time I bent over you could see clean up my middle and through my eyeballs. He had company that night. Some big shot banker. EM was trying to put together some kind of a loan, something to help him bailout of the financial problems he'd been creating at the plant. Anyways, he had this big, fat, cigar smoking eunuch over for drinks. As they were having their drinks, I appeared. Not conspicuously, mind you. But EM knew I was there. I made sure of that. Every time he looked up, I'd be bending over, flashing him my goodies. A few times the banker looked at him, saw his face all flushed and sweaty, and asked him if he needed air.

"But EM always begged off, saying it was just the Scotch.

"Afterward, after drinks and all of the blah blah boring business talk, EM came looking for me, his pants sticking out in front of him like a homing beacon. He was a rabid animal that night. Tore off my clothes like he hadn't had sex in a year. Screaming, I don't care who you are, you little bitch, I'm gonna pluck you till you bleed! I told him it was too late for that. He slapped me, threw me on the floor, and jumped on top of me, sweating and snorting like a stuck pig. He didn't know what he was in for. That sonofabitch was jumping and pumping like crazy, getting all worked up till he was out of control. I was watching closely, saw his eyes in the thousand-yard stare, his face flushed, and his muscles popping and strained. Then, I squeezed his balls, squeezed them hard. He screamed, cried, tried to pull way. But I locked my legs around him. Kept him stuck deep inside me, his aching balls ready to burst. He grunted and groaned as he started up again, building to a fever pitch, but this time I rode him like the Black Mariah. And then it happened. His face went white. His muscles tensed solid, his breathing became heavy, labored. He was having a heart attack.

"He tried to pull way. Yelled, Stop Stop! But I kept going, saying; you wanted it, here it is. Come get it, BIG BOY! He kept bawling, pleading, blowing air like a beached whale.

"I kept riding his poker until the bastard fell over on me. I pushed him off. He was cold, lifeless, staring into dead air like a landed bass. When I stood up and kicked him, to make sure he was dead, I felt kind of disappointed. I mean I let the bastard have death the way he wanted. Between a woman's legs, buried in her coombe. But that's the way it had to be.

"Kind of poetic, don't you think?"

She finished her story and I listened as her words vaporized, joining the thin layer of cumulus clouds that filtered across the hot sky. The image of her under a cold, lifeless, man whose death she had forced, caused me to see her in a way I had up until now never considered. This was definitely a wild and dangerous girl... woman. Something I never would have guessed possible by meeting Sheila. She was so meek, so timid, and so... well... plain.

Now I find out she's schizophrenic?

This was turning out to be a creepier journey than I had planned. Not to mention finding myself companion to a murderous female who shows no compunction about giving a man exactly what he wants, up to and including death. What was happening? Every woman I'd met so far had been murderous and dangerous. California was not turning out to be the Paradise I'd expected. Somehow, I must have missed that lyric in the Beach Boys songs that spoke of the girl castrating her boyfriend, fucking her father to death, and laughing the whole time while fingering herself to explosive orgasm. My fantasy world was crumbling. The music was growing thinner. The water rushing out on the surfer girl sea, pulling away bits of shell and anemone, taking fragments of disintegrating flesh with it. Total breakdown at the molecular level. Mass energy symbiosis taking place in the first person. Drifting away. Drifting away.

If time weren't a problem, then there wouldn't be a problem. Thing was, time was a problem. Roses were a problem. The tall eucalyptus, its slender stalks, and giant leaves were a problem. The red-orange gorilla, following me from field to stream from highway to mountaintop was a problem. He nibbled at my ears. Clung to my toes. Always present. Always following. Everything was in constant flux. Now that I was aware. Now that I knew. The data was taking effect and my eyes were open. More open than I cared them to be. As iguanas of the night stole over the melting desert landscape, trying desperately to avoid the pursuing barbecue pits of the Indian Summer, Ojai, the great physicist/scientist/magician, was chanting to the moon, invoking the river gods, dancing in tribal rapture on the graves of dead men, believers, whose words were now as dead as they, gray and blue and lacking breath, fleshly creatures now green that had gone to the mulch for which they had always been intended. The reaper and sower were on the same team now. One in one, hand in hand, loping down the eternal plank toward extinction.

Cipher had her own agenda. What that was, no one knew. But she was serious in its pursuit. Laughing and dancing and prodding and leading, all the way to hell if necessary. Dead lechers and fathers, and dead soon to be resurrected mothers. Somewhere. Out there. Scattered upon the blistering earth. The radiation of stars and moons at their behest.

Seaplanes ratchet in the distance. The sharp and dull rotation of the rotors sounding like the razor spit of wildfire. Nowhere is safety reflected. All that was safe had been destroyed. The cheerless future is the present. All had stopped an eternal pause.

My footsteps were silent. My thoughts spun like new honey; sweet, bitter, fluid and deadly. No shape absolute, only elasticity. If I thought too long and hard it would hurt. Linear thought interrupted my random life. Only the circular made sense anymore. Girls were women were men were boys were hairy gorillas from other planets dressed as wizards talking like scientists topsy turvy topsy turvy mother's dead from seasick scurvy. What would come of the sweet confusion?

Asian people eat rice, lots of rice; a staple food. With the perfect grain, a healthful simplicity of existence, field upon fields of rice grow. Gliding through the marshes necessary to sustain them. Everyday, the faithful sun greets hordes of peasant workers, sowers, reapers. Those who will harvest the national product, transport it in fine, hand-woven baskets, send it through the machinery of modernalia, producing at the other side all that is good, wholesome, and simple. A noble effort, this; abundant in its miraculous simplicity.

Asian women have straight hair. Asian women have straight pubic hair. They comb it and cut and shape it. Make Hairstyles. In the cities, pubic stylists convene. They discuss the atrocious neglect of the Western world. How all of these years the pubic region has been ignored, an area fertile for imaginative styling. Many salons open, business slow at first. But soon, the popularity takes over. Woman young and old recognize the advantage of this practice. An entire industry springs up; tools, products, magazines, and accessories. Everything the Pubist needs for a successful enterprise. Women are proud to display themselves. Now that order has been imposed. A Panoply of Pudenda has been loosed. Pubic hair gives way to shaved clean and shiny. Coombe is King. Awards are given. Mohawks and Shags once all the rage, make way for smooth and tasty. These Asian are a simple people, but they know an instant winner when they see one. Maybe salon work is a good business for me? Leave all of this raging urban confusion, retreat to the pastoral simplicity of the peasant life. Rice fields and patties, baskets of fish. Fingers and scissors in the pubic patches of the Japanese beauties.

Growing up, the Asian woman was my ideal. The apex of femininity. Mystique elevated to art. If there were a God it would surely be a SHE. The Asian woman is built to please. That's changing now. Western influence has reared its ugliness. Though still, certain cultures are slow to change. Yet, the mystery remains.

The Japanese woman. Face of alabaster and inscrutability, eyes like opals, fingers of porcelain. Place them on the shelf. Bring them out as guests. Trophies. Lovers. Possessions. Beating hearts of goldenrod. Voices like sweet music, siren song. Sparkling and honeyed. A word is all and I'm catapulted into a soft reality, their soft reality, warm and yielding. To die ensconced within such softness is a dream, a Shakespearian dream, dying in the lap of love, their love, their special brand of soft, feminine, Asian type of love. Devotion in femininity. All the power. All the power. This is true power. Not the aggressive, testosterone driven male interpretation of power. Not rage. Not destruction, but true power, the power of understatement. A power that moves slowly, steady, like the stream, the seasons, the days dawning and receding. This is power, unrelenting, and all but invisible. This is mystifying, mesmerizing, and enchanting power of the kind of which magical tales are suffused. No creature possesses this command like the female, especially the Japanese female. For possession of this power men kill. Power they must own; Crush; Kill for fear of parting with it.

But this is simply driven angst, not understanding. The power of femininity must be stepped into. One must become immersed within it to understand it, to benefit. But men cannot control it, ever. Suppressed, subjugated, tormented, destroyed, yes; but never controlled, the great eternal mystery. Mercury relentlessly attempts to rule Venus- impossible. Always the power is with the female. Recognizing this has led me down many wandering roads. Always, I have been in search of this magical combination, contained within one embodiment of flesh, one I could surrender to entirely.

Not yet, I'm afraid.

But she's out there, I know. Even in this hopeless environment, when the spirit of true female power has been subverted into mimicry of male aggression, she's out there, still, silent and complete in her power. I know. I can sense her. And her voice, in sweet dulcet tones, reaches me, soothes me, covers me like a baby blanket. Then I am secure, warm within the womb of her love.

Daruma. In Japan, his likeness is well known. Daruma. His image transposed into many forms. But always, the classic Daruma persists. Large face, mustachioed, scowling, a round head swathed in red garments. It is said, that he is the founder of Zen. A man so devoted to meditation that after sitting in lotus for so long, lotus into nirvana, his legs atrophied. Disappeared entirely. No need for legs. Only the communion of the soul is important now. Daruma is a national symbol. Present in many forms, many sizes this Pensive Pygmy: Pendant, Pocket and Planetoid. When he first enters one's life, his eyes are blank. Two moons of white. Traditionally one pupil is painted in when a goal attainment is wished for. Then one goes on, pursues the goal, and lives life. If the wish is granted, at that time the other pupil is painted in. Daruma symbolic. Daruma can see in stereo.

I too have a Daruma. I believe all Japanese have at least one. Mine has one pupil painted. I painted it in when I wished for the woman of my dreams. That was years ago. My Daruma is still a Cyclops. I'm waiting, searching, waiting. One day, Daruma may see in stereo. On that day, I will rejoice. Dance in the sea of Daruma But for now, only patience. Only the one eye for my benefactor. Steady and stealthy, vigilantly in search of the one. Daruma. Daruma and me. Around the world, beyond the galaxy. Heaven in a grain of sand and Daruma blindly staring.

The road twisted and turned and we blew out past the trailer. A large Bubba in a Dallas Cowboys squinted at us as we went by. We were the enemy, daring to pass the trailer, undeclared king of the highway. I watched him in the review, hands gripping the wheel, waiting for a replay with me cast as David Mann (Dennis Weaver), who finds himself in a deadly cat-and-mouse game with a diabolical diesel truck on a deserted stretch of California Highway. If this confrontation turned out like the movie Duel, this mysterious truck would chase me straight to Hell! The driver snarled at me, looked away, receded into the distance as I pulled away. No chases today. Life and art diverge.

Sheila, I think, sits next to me, casually meandering over the book in her hands, some kind of mystery book. In between, she checks out the landscape, hums a melody or two. Lately, she has seemed peaceful. That's how I guess it must be for, Sheila at rest. Cipher is anything but peaceful. More testosterone than one person should be allowed, that one. I look over at Sheila again. The sun plays on her hair, reds and golds changing fortune, whispering beneath and beyond the fall of her hair. She is cute. When she's like this. Quiet and serene. In her face the unflustered complacency of the Eastern world. I think to ask her if she's Asian. I change my mind. What would it matter? We're from two different worlds. Hers, here and now, past colliding with eternity. Mine; everywhere, anywhere, the next asteroid strike could blast me into tomorrow.

Before getting back onto the asphalt journey, I spoke to Ojai one last time. He said for safety I should wear a metal helmet around my head during times of extreme asteroid activity. I asked him how I would know when those times were. He gave me a meter. A flat, alarm clock sized instrument. This measured radiation levels, milimicrons, he said. The slightest shift will register.

"When the meter starts to move past here," he said, pointing to a spot halfway across the green spectrum range, "Things are going to escalate quickly. Then you should put the helmet on."

I asked him what if it went past that, deep into the red zone.

"Hmmm," he said, rubbing his chain. "That would be bad."

I asked him to clarify "bad."

"Well," he said, "if the meter were to swing extreme into the red zone, the radioactive flux would be so great nothing would stop the influence, I'm afraid."

"So what do I do?"

"Not much to do. Enjoy the ride?"

The last answer did nothing to assuage my fears. But that was all he could say. So, with a pat on the back, a wish of good luck, a reminder to let him know if I seized anything interesting on my journeys beyond the galaxy, we were on our way again, heading north into oblivion, in search of her mother who may or may not be alive, running from death behind, running to death ahead, trying to stay sane in between.

It started to rain. The wipers flailed at the windshield like desperate pigeons. The rain splattered off to the sides, a wall of water, the frantic wings slapping at my face. Vast puddles sprang up from the dry earth. The ground was choking, vomiting blood. Sheila look bored. Rain popped and danced on the hood of the car.

We pulled off the road, an old, rundown shack of a place. It looked strikingly familiar as it seemed all nondescript blasé surroundings did. But we had never been here before; too far north.

The place was dark. Shapes were alive, kinetic cadavers, glowing greenish yellow in the sunken light. The smell of wet flesh, body odor, and bad breath muted the air like wet junkyard dogs. A woman stood poised behind the bar, Popeye's mother, fog eyed and hairy, the warm, humid environment providing an ideal breeding ground for parasites. Her nouveau-oh-no hairstyle looked like a maniac had run berserk through her follicle forest with a McCullough chainsaw. Her name was Marge. They're always named Marge.

"Two beers."

"What kind?"

"What kind you got?"

Blank stare. Marge nods to the cooler.

"Anything will do.'

She grunts. Walks away. Comes back with two greasy brown bottles. Slams them on the counter like a challenge. "$5.50," she says

The beer tastes refreshing after the long drive. No place to stay. No place to be. I look around. Familiar faces I've never seen. In the corner, two ossified derelicts playing pool. They lean too close to the table, cue too sloppy and strike too hard. Rough, aggressive roadhouse types, twisted hats, imminent bloodshed sending a creeping sense of dread onto the felt proving ground. One man sits alone under a solitary light. The deep shadows obscure his face: an artist perhaps, a murderer more likely. His eyes hang from their sockets, his face transforms like clay. The green light plays tricks. The beer makes gurgling noises as it descends my throat.

Sheila has taken up by the jukebox. She likes the neon, the colors. As songs play, she stares at the shining machine, as if it performs for her. Country music by the lonely and wild for the lonely and reckless. Sheila sings along and slides close beside the glass enclosure, pining to the stack of CDs like a lost lover. They notice the eyes of the gathered reckless, the desperados of this desolate stop. The cold unforgiving night has deposited us here and we are on display. Sheila is oblivious to this deadly dance as she moves in seduction, enticing the jukebox to embrace her. Like the magnetic force it is, her energy is being received, pheromones reaching through the isolation of space to call the mating ritual into play. The hot breeze ripples, tingling with unresolved sexual longing. Lips curl, sweat runs, soon a battle will be waged: me on one side, death on the other. Man against man, brother against brother, life against life, the mating ritual that must be carried out to the end where death is the only disqualifier.

The tension mounts. Someone makes a move. A big man, darker than the rest, hat grimy and torn, pulled low over his eyes. He moves in close to her, watches her body wrapping around the receptive machine. His eyes burn with hunger. He reaches out; his dark, strong fingers curl to an open fist and rub against her skin.

"Hot," he says, "your skin is hot, so hot."

She turns, a blank expressionless about her, looks into his jungle eyes, his animal lust.

"No," she says. "I'm okay. Not hot. Not for you."

He flashes a horrible twisted smile, steps toward her.

"Leave her be, Neb," Margie calls from behind the counter. "The lady said leave her be."

The big man, Neb, yells to Marge, stays in place.

"I didn't hear this fine filly say nothin'," he says.

"You just did," says Marge, shouldering a rifle beaded on his head. "Back off!"

The man backs up, hands up and over his head, bumping into tables, knocking over chairs. Marge sneers at me. "Maybe best tell your friend to back away from the machine."

I nod my assent, take the last swig of my beer, and signal to Sheila. Her eyes are alive and gleaming, dangerous. It's not her. The other one again, the one half chained to the grave.

I thank Marge, grab Cipher by the arm, and escort her forcefully out the door.

Stopping has become risky, never sure when the change will take place. I've got my own problems. Asteroids and time shifts. Don't need a schizophrenic woman causing trouble. But I'm trapped now. We both are. Each holds the key to the other. Somehow, I don't know. Just stay out of trouble. Not our home turf anymore, nowhere to turn.

In a nightmare, the waking always comes. Always anxious when it's got so bad you're sure you died. Then the nightmare has no end: only beginnings and middles, but no end. I think about shoes. Mine are full of holes and the blazing asphalt burns my feet. There are better ways to live, but no time to stop now. Every second hangs in the balance. A jackrabbit skitters across a road, skates past the tires, avoiding black rubber death. He gets into the brush. Every day some die. He made it. Why? Maybe there's hope... still: For us; for me.

Under a bruised sky that night, I lie on the hood of the car and stare into the heavens. The paint of the car is red and faded tires thin and warning. But the sky is new, always new. And that night, as I lay there mesmerized by the chaos of stars tumbling across the velvet canvas, I thought of those cheesy Elvis portraits, body, crested paintings him black velvet. I see them sometimes exhibited by roadside gypsies, garage sale packrats, flapjack diners, last chance trailer parks, that same Elvis, silent and sure. Up on his high post he surveys all, from his frame of black and gold, wondering why the fuck he's destined to spend his days on the forgotten walls of forgotten people; cast-off and castaway. Only the marginalized peoples collect such pictures. A desperate stab at touching fame, imagined opulence, by imprisoning the king in a velvet house. I wondered if he was still out there, as some people say, living among the world weary, watching the days drip by, hiding from his past, present, future, a stranger to the world and himself. I thought of him this way, a dethroned monarch sad and lonely. Then I saw all those who claimed him as their prize. No. His presence can only decrease their misery, allay the suffering. Some things are like blood, substitutes for life. For those of the velvet Elvis legion, their blood is loneliness; induced and repeated, over and over until it hurts so badly it feels good. He would not return and take their purpose from them. Don't be cruel, he sang, from the mouth to the ears.

Angular momentum depends upon the mass, size, and rate of rotation of a spinning object. Everything spins. The earth spins, the planets spin, and the galaxies spin. At the sub-atomic and molecular levels, electrons spin around positively charged nuclei. Matter in motion, the continuing dance of attraction and repulsion. We're all moving, like tops, spinning within orbit, creating a self-perpetuating orbit of our own, unique, distinct, yet codependent, mingling and drawing energy from others whose orbits intersect, adding these quanta to our own energy stores, renewing the spin, feeding, nourishing, replenishing. This rate of speed is so fast it cannot be measured accurately. How many miles are traveled in a day, a week, a year? Does anyone know? A mystery that each must absorb. By the twinkling of each day, the spin resumes. But then, it never is at rest. Orbits are continuous. To stop is to die

I am submerged in the water, the air gets jets pulse out at me. A billion bubbles collide, escape, race for the freedom of air. I imagine an asteroid blast. Billions of asteroids striking simultaneously: I am the earth. This is the view from space. Each one of the singular entities contains within it the power to shift the continuum, throwing my orbit into a new spin. It's scary here, alone in space, infinite blackness the solitary companion. I look back and forth in the jet stream, simulating global destruction, then surface to the atmosphere.

Sheila is sitting on a chaise lounge. This new hotel is much better. She insisted on it. "We haven't spent much," she said. "I'm tired of roadhouse diners." So there we were Holiday Inn, a faceless North California town, enjoying the fresh sprung sunshine as if we were vacationing tourists, while all the time being cognizant of fact that we were refugees. Life has become static, stuck like glue, cloven hooves unused, permanent bonding of momentum, converging at the point in time we were at, together, she and me; two females really, and me. The bizarre is everywhere. Dancing Cholla two-step in the sun, a slow melting of red, yellow, and green. Crack of dawn or break of day sunbirds squawk and chirp a Teutonic medley. The hotel is streaming with activity. Old people blinking drinking, belching, and farting. Laughing at un-funny jokes. Laughing at the faces in their heads. Alcohol does that. Distorts the view. Nothing needed for my distortion. That is present always.

The daytime is dragging drag, going, always going, but no distinction. I bound across the street to get a paper. The newsprint reaches across from the stand and strangles me. Loud faces, canted mouths, hands erupting from the colors. Text wraps itself around my ears. I couldn't hear. A big head told me the news. Two dead, vehicle collision, shots fired, dangerous puppies, brain eating virus, mad cows. I thought of that. A herd of stampeding mad cows. Sick cows. Do they cough blood? Phlegm? No, they bark, froth like rabid canines. A herd of them ranged by me, trampling the newsstand next to me, their heavy eyes dripping, their cud chewing black lips barking, frothing. Someone should shoot these cows, I said, out loud. One of the cows looked at me; it's big, watermelon head about a separate from its neck bones. You don't shoot cows, it said. Horses you shoot, then slaughter. This is the only way. Subjugation must be raised to level of horror to be effective.

The cow's words struck me deeply. I realized I love it like a brother. It turned and rejoined the herd. My brother walked away, fading into dry dust. The Chisholm Trail was no longer in use. Trains no longer needed to supply the murderous hunger of the masses. After the cattle drives, many were out of work, Cavalry and Indians. No more feuding on the plains. No more moving bovine roaming the earth. Some of them linger still, cowboys and cows alike in search of the old trail, chiseled eyes peering into the stretch of horizon. If the asteroid strikes just right, they may meet, find that galactic intersection. I'm still looking for mine. Though I don't know what for. Nothing would change. Nothing would matter. What is a life, a world, but the sum of meaning we assign it? I've decided long ago that all is meaningless, so much dust and refuse, passing like a cloud, the ephemeral and crazed, blowing in the blink of a gnat's whiskers. What is life matter then? It doesn't. This life, that life, gold, silver, or black, all the same in the end. Dust and refuse holding ground, the binder at the end of the cycle. Fade to black...

A man walks across the desert. His eyes are burn shut, almost blind. But he knows the desert like a son, can sense the direction, hear the wind as it whispers his name.

A long leash trails from his right hand, dragging behind him. A woman, naked, bound at the wrists is being led. Her skin is warm and tight, her face angelic and on fire. As they walk, she keeps a steady pace, uncomplaining, eyes twisted away from the wind, the swirling sands unaffecting her gaze. She is a goddess, a statue, and an ideal of womanhood. This man is a pirate of some kind, maybe a thief, a flesh trader, perhaps a priest. They come to a deep recession in the sand. As I gaze past them, a city springs up. Life and raucous noise and the sounds of people clamoring slice through the once quiet desert. The man looks up toward the sky, he calls down the sun. Soon, the sun is sinking upon the desert floor, casting long shadows from the buildings. Now the night's turn begins. Howling, screaming, fires burning into the crystal blackness. The woman shivers fright, or in chill. Her nipples like rocks. The man called into the vast and hollow city. The noises halt. All ears attuned. Now, a rumble of activity begins; a massive movement, a stampede, scores upon scores of shouts and cries rise into the sky. The firelight backlights the crowd. Men. Many men. All rushing forward as one, lust and sweat and blood in their hearts, possession on their minds. They have come for the woman. They want to take her by force. Desecrate, denigrate, and rip her to a thousand pieces. Her blood will assuage the pains they have suffered at the hands of others. The innocent must be maligned for the good of the rest.

A cloud of fevered dust rises over the hills. Eyes glaring and shining in the firelight break into the flat distance. The man remains steady, the woman tries to run, can't, feels the tug of leather at her wrists, her neck. The crowd is closer now, closer, running for her, hands out, claws scratching at air, scratching at their eyes, mouths jabbering wild insanities.

The man, the one who had brought her, looks at her expressionless. He raises his hand. A thousand explosions ring through the night. My ears pop. More shots, explosions, small bombs pealing like thunder. The woman falls to the ground, cradles her knees. One after another explosives blast into the air, a circus of lights, body after body falling into the sand. When it is over, all the men lay dead. All but one, the man still holding the leashed woman. They walk away into the city, stepping over mountains of decomposing flesh, vultures already descending and gorging upon the feast.

Fade to black...

Mother Nature calls her sons home, across thundering seas, placid deserts, raped and defiled forests. Her eyes well with tears at the destruction. Her sons hold up their bloody hands, looks of self-pity in their eyes, hearts hard as money. What can we do? They seem to be saying. You know how the world is mother, what the world is, what we must become. Mother knows too well. For the sake of their own hides, her sons have defiled her, continue to do so, and will continue to do so eternally. The mother's heart is broken. And in her bitter tears a thousand generations of death will be redeemed. No stilled forest will raise its severed limbs, no rancid sea will strike at the poison of its loneliness, no desert floor will wonder at the August woman. A command is emanating from the center of creation. But man will not hear, does not possess the ears for it. The crunch and crumble of currency pauses all attention. Only catastrophic subtlety can communicate with such steadfast ignorance. The catastrophic and subtle allure of currency. For this, all ears are attuned.

A fire rose in the sky that day as we drove further into the dark minstrel heartland of the northern world. Neither of us had ever been that far before. San Francisco was a song, the bridge of steel and blood only an image on a postcard. Cable cars and seafood melted in chocolate; none of it real. An old world inhabited by faceless man of lost generations; Steinbeck, Miller, Hemingway. Raving, courageous men of the warring fathers, the best of the passing patriarchy. To us, they spoke only in whispers. Their words only scratching the surface of any world we might come into contact with. But there we were amid a swirl of neon lights and Chinese food, street vendors, and Persian men of fast gibberish pushing to sell us cameras, a flood of cultures careening into the collective consciousness.

We looked at each other gauging reactions as we walked, stepping lightly along the sidewalks, as if it might escape the grip of our feet. We held hands, two lovers on holiday, newlyweds maybe. Nobody here knew us; nobody cared. Only the crush and toil of the city was real here.

We stopped at a window and watched the puppies. The Huskies and collies, jumping and yelping and nuzzling against the glass, straining for touch, connection, yearning for the warmth of mother's teats. Sheila touched her fingers to the glass. A flurry of pink noses pushed against her. The symbiosis was complete. Her affection flowed through her, through the glass, into the puppies' kindness receptors. The moment was forged in red warmth.

After dinner, some greasy Chinese food, we hopped a cable car up the steep hills. Every street is a hill in San Francisco, every hill a street. The cable car up chugged uphill, laboring under its load. A heavy woman sat next to me, occupying two full seats, squeezing me out, pushing me at every step beyond the safety of the cab. I clung to the railing. Sheila glanced at me, helpless and weak. I hung on, keeping an eye on the approaching cable car. Only a foot or two existed between the uphill and downhill going cars. Imminent contact approached. As we brushed by, I swung back into the cable car, landed in the fat woman's lap. She rolled her eyes, shifted uncomfortably. I sat and waited till the top of the hill. Then, after Sheila had exited, I dismounted. The fat woman glared at me, waddled across the street, her wide ass threatening to topple buildings in the perimeter, off to another attempted cable car homicide.

Everywhere there's music. Great rushing tides of sound, untamed and colorful. Converging from all corners of this culture clustered city. The hypnotic swirls of the Greeks, the thumping boom- boom of the oompah bands, the heighdy-heighdy-ho of the Persian nights. Seven veils unfolding around Salome, energy flowing like a monster current of light. We watch like anthropologists, observing but staying distant, knowing that by making contact we risk tumbling the delicate balance that holds all together.

"Look there," Sheila says.

I look. A man is spinning into the street, colorful shirts, vibrant reds, and yellows, shaking head, crazy smiling teeth. He jumps and dances, the mouths and shouts words in a foreign tongue. He squats and rises, squats and rises. The music pulses, sending wave after wave rippling through his erratic motion. Children line the streets, bobbing and shaking, laughing at the crazy man. A festival impromptu and casual, a thrown together assembly. Much like every port in this town. Still we are strangers. To this town, any town, even ourselves. No mystery compels as much. And whoever we are stand back and watch, fascinated and removed understanding but not yet relating, experience unable to overcome distance. As the road unwinds our binds are constrained further, a mass of intention, a swarm of un-actualized potential.

"So, you're Japanese?"

"Well... yes... I suppose."

"What do you mean?" she said, quizzing me with a look of pure annihilation. "Don't you know for sure?"

I tripped on my words as my throat seized with doubt.

"Well, it's just that I never think about it, that's all."

She turned her hands in her lap, as if the answer was contained in the ancient rotation.

'Nothing wrong with Japanese. kinda cool, really. I never would have guessed."

Her sudden curiosity as to my nationality left me dumbfounded. The girl is a walking mystery. Step-Dad, no Dad, dead dad, who knows, and mother? Anybody's guess. Dead or alive or who knows what. She wouldn't tell me. I'm not supposed to ask: the unwritten rule. But as to my origins, well, those are fair game.

"So what did you do? You know... growing up. Any weird customs or stuff?"

I wasn't sure what she was looking for. Maybe the cornucopia of culture we were swimming in had piqued her interest. Maybe something different. I got the feeling she was looking for something in particular. I could not yet be sure what that something was.

"No I said, nothing really. My dad was... is, American. We pretty much stuck to the basics, you know. We were an American family living the day-to-day life of pleasant Americans. That's all."

"Oh," she said, her eyes drifting over my head, setting sail for a distant cloud that now seemed to be getting further away.

She didn't broach the subject again. I didn't bring it up. It's not something I think much about, as I told her. I mean, I know I am, in the sense of origin anyway; Diesel Mukai: half Irish, half Japanese, product of the war generation; prime export "A" from the shores of Nagoya to the shores of California. A life is a life is a life. No big deal.

The balloon lifted off in a sucking WHOOSH! Off we went, skyward, face-to-face with the clouds. The balloon hovered and tilted, its huge green and yellow and red lacerations glowing in the sun. From up here, everything looked tiny, minuscule, and insignificant. I felt I could conquer anything; the asteroids couldn't touch me.

To be safe, I wore the aluminum helmet. The magna-meter had been acting strange lately, coughing and burping, bleating and threatening to cross over into the dreaded "very bad" zone. I took every precaution though I still didn't understand.

The cities look like stains, cancers on the face of Mother Earth. The fields like checkerboards. The ancients drew pictures in the sand, carved likenesses of gods, or space beings or whatever could be seen only from this height. I thought about them, their bronze, compact, little pagan selves pushing sticks and logs and other paraphernalia of ancient industry along the crested plains, each one probably thinking the same thing as the sweat and burn of the continued motion played upon their aching muscles. Thoughts of, "Hey, who's gonna see this shit anyway?" and, "What the fuck are we drawing?"

Something to that effect, although more profound and referential as the text of the ancients repeatedly bear out. I watched the big balloon's shadow casting ominous and black across the dunes, mountains of sand widgets sprung up from nowhere. Now we were over the desert, the Sahara, maybe the Gobi, hard to say. My mouth was getting dry.

A duck flew by, look back, then landed on the basket ledge. Its eyes blinked and stared as it took retinal pictures of us, wedged in the basket, floating in the sky. It quacked, then said, "If man were meant to fly he'd have wings."

That took me by surprise. What to say to a dismissive duck? I thought a moment.

"Well," I pointed out, "as you can see we are in fact suspended quite well. That pretty much shoots your theory, doesn't it?"

The duck blinked, rustled its feathers, then quacked and shat upon the basket ledge.

I'd heard that ducks didn't take graciously to being refuted; now I saw the results. The day was long and the desert endless. I kept flashing back to that malevolent duck, wondering why it was flying over the desert, thinking surely there must be water nearby, the duck being a waterfowl, when suddenly, I detected a mysterious and steady decrease in altitude. I stoked the burner; we both did, furiously attempting to rise back to the height we were quickly descending from. It was no use. Our descent continued steadily, now becoming a decided plummet. Sheila grabbed at me, Dudley Do-Right and Nell, helplessly clinging and precious, racing toward sudden death and the critical loss of a third dimension.

The air WHOOSHED around my face. Sheila's hair stood on end as if jolted by static electricity. Life began flashing before my eyes. Childhood and long-lost friends, moments from school, strange and juxtaposed, mother calling, "are you okay son?" Myself answering, "Yes, just bathing." More recent moments, Sheila in Gilroy, marveling at the garlic bulbs, the dizzying stench of garlic factories, the look on her face at first taste of garlic soufflé. Flashing life passages were not a good sign. I thought this the end. Looking at Sheila, her face frozen in disbelief, her hair reaching for sky pulled me back into the moment.

We fell steadily, but not straight, a horizontally skewed slide. Plummeting regardless. Now the balloon resembled a used condom; flaccid and flabby, flapping in the erect wind like useless wings.

The shapes from the ground were becoming more distinct. The dunes were ridged like washboards, giant washboards, roiling and bending and rising into towering drifts. The wind shifted and we blew sideways across the desert. As if our descent were being controlled. Now the plummet took on the definite aspect of a protracted slide, brushing us along on unseen wheels, brushing the tips of the dunes, spiriting us to an as yet unknown destination.

The crash came abruptly and without warning. One moment we're skating along the sand, the next smack into a wall of hourglass guts. The sands filled our basket, pushing us out. As we crawled around the desert floor we called to each other, attempting to ascertain our bearings. We stood. There we were, not understanding, miles and miles of desert stretching away in its dreary awakening.

"How?" Sheila said, brushing sand from her hair. "Were we just in San Francisco?"

I stopped in my thoughts. That's right. We were just there. And now we we're not. Had she been transported with me on one of my fluxational journeys?

Rhetorical questions lingered profound, but the answer was clear: Yes. Definitely. Something changed. What?

"Well," I said, "it looks as if whatever fluxations have taken me to the past have evidently decided to include you in the travel plans. Like a two-for-one package. The Bonus Plan.'

She looked around. "Where are we?"

"Good question."

"Don't you know?"

"No. Afraid not."

"Where do you think we are?"

"Sahara, I guess. But that is assuming we're still on Earth."

Her eyes went wide.

"You mean, we may not be?"

"Yes."

"I don't understand," she said, sitting down on the sand, her head hung between her knees.

"Look, I don't either." I said. "It just happens. You heard what Ojai said. Anyplace, anytime. Doesn't matter."

She looked up at my shiny head.

"Isn't that what you're supposed to wear that thing for?"

I patted my head. I had forgotten about the chrome dome.

"Didn't help anything, did it? But I still can't understand why you were affected. I mean, up until now, you haven't been."

She squinted into the sun, shielded her eyes, and questioned.

"You've been here before? I mean, while we were together?"

"Yes. I mean, no. Not here specifically, but yes, while we were together. The thing is, I never go to the same place twice. At least I haven't yet. Each trip is an entirely new... threat! I don't know. It's just the unexpected and unusual, that's all. I can't explain it."

"So while we've been together, you like went away, and then came back in an instant? Wouldn't I be aware of that?"

"Not necessarily as I know it's happened more than a few times since we met."

"So it's like an out of body experience?"

I thought about that one before answering.

"No. Not exactly. See, with out of body experience, you actually feel removed from your physical being, like a ghost. You can see yourself wherever you happen to be, but you're removed. Like you're two people, one looking at the other. But with what I experience it's more like an out of time experience. One minute I'm in real-time or linear time as we know it, and the next, I'm in a parallel plane, another dimension that runs on different operatives, has its own rules, beyond anything of our understanding. To anyone with me at the moment, it would seem as if nothing at all occurred. Only I would know that I'd been taken away for while. In that respect it's more like abduction, you know? You've heard about those, right?"

She smiled and shook her head.

"Oh... I see now. You're one of those wacko abducted-by- aliens-who-probe-your-butt-for-answers-of-the-universe people. You're sick, Diesel. You need help."

"What are you talking about _wacko_ , Miss dual-personality? Are you forgetting about your bodyguard friend? Cipher? What's the story there?"

Her smooth face quivered, her lips rattled. Tears welled and threatened a torrent from her eyes. Before I knew what happened I was seated next to her, my arms around her, comforting her for the pain I inflicted upon her fragility.

Diesel's rule No. 5: Never hit a woman's weak spot in the course of an argument. She'll end up making you feel like a schmuck.

So we sat awhile; me and my big schmucky arm around her trembling shoulders, her tears bubbling and dissolving in the hot sand, my brain stuck on pause replay pause replay as I tried to understand how the hell we both came to be where we were and how to get us back where we came from. I suppose you don't have a thing for me in that bag Mr. Wizard. I never worried about getting back before. But then, I was alone. That was before I realized that somehow, like a mutated disease, this thing that I had was contagious. I wondered if Ojai could be any help. But he was miles away from where we had been, not to mention who knew how far from where we were now. I had no clue. But there we were, the two of us, our hell-bent journey toward anarchy subverted on a stop along the way. All we could do for the time was wait until something changed. That had worked before. But there was no way to know what would work this time.

I had never worried about that before: I was worried now.

Darkness fell and with it the torrid landscape was transformed. Suddenly we were on the moon, its mountainous topography scattered around us, the pale and faintly glow of ethereal light dancing in shadows like a dervish across the sand. Ancient peoples walked among us. The Egyptians and the Aztecs, the Mesopotamians and Troglodytes. All time ceased as the earth split rotation. A wondrous calm had settled on the sizzle of day. All was at peace.

I remember from the Boy Scouts that to survive in the desert it's best to travel at night. So, being night, we set out, leaving the relative comfort of our basket hut. If anything were out there, we would have to find it, which of course I preferred to the idea of someone or something finding us. I thought if someone found us it wouldn't be with altruistic intent. And as I wasn't a renegade adventurer of any type, I decided the best weapon in my arsenal was flight, the second half of the fight or flight equation. We walked in spurts, pushing through the cooling sands, ignoring thoughts of disturbing dangerous creatures that may be asleep there, as we grew thirsty and hungry, and slowly growing weary of the circumstances of this adventure. In the movies, it was always a wonderfully, romantic vision, this traipsing through the desert, Lawrence of Arabia, camels and traders and mysterious veiled men invoking the gods of earth and sky on their journeys. We had no camels, no veils, and no shaman in black robes, no magic of any sort; just the two of us, strangers in a strange wherever, one relatively useless metal helmet, a magna- meter, and the limbs of the lifeless which were quickly wearing down. I couldn't believe how tired I felt. As if it had been walking for days. I surmise it was the friction of sand against dragging feet that was making the labors of travel increase exponentially. Soon, we would have to stop, make shelter and catch a bit of sleep before we again would hibernate under the hot sun. Then, only inertia was possible, sleep probable, but unlikely. Water was on the shopping list, although I didn't expect to find a 7-Eleven out here. My minded drifted to the aisles of convenience mart heaven, where only 35 cents could get you enough Slurpee to drown a water buffalo. For 50 cents more they threw in a diving board. Just thinking about it made my mouth water.

I looked over at Sheila.

The fatigue was displayed on her like an engraved emblem. It was time to stop, if only for a while, get some rest, and get our minds off nourishment and think of all the things we would do when got away from here.

"The pool; definitely the pool," she said.

"I'd like a double cheeseburger."

"We're not supposed to be thinking about food, Diesel."

"Oh. Right. Sorry. The pool sounds good."

"Have any other ideas?"

"No. I'm lost for ideas."

"Okay. Just copy me then."

"Can I want the pool too?"

"No."

"Okay. Cotton candy."

"If you die before me, I promise you dumb ass I'll eat you for dinner."

"Hah, Hah. What if you die first?"

"I won't. Women are survivors."

So it went. Entertaining banter one-minute, disintegration the next. Heat and loss of food, water, clothing, and deodorant, was taking its toll. Luckily, we ate a full meal in San Francisco. But that was... two days ago? It was difficult to be certain. Time evolves in funny ways traveling along the time-space continuum. It's like the air became thicker or something, like treacle. Slowing dripping, so viscous it was difficult to breathe. Also energy seemed to be at a premium. I was no triathlete but it seemed the smallest exertion would elicit an unbearable strain on my physical being. Muscles I was never aware of were clamoring for attention, the competition raging among them as to which one could cause the most excruciating pain. Whole sections of my body were rebelling, striking out for secession, blazing a path of autonomy, and pulling away at either side while I was caught in the middle. I was being torn apart.

Sheila, meanwhile, took the entire affair with graceful nonchalance. As if this was a daily occurrence. My testosterone dependant maleness had hoped for a radically different swing of events. The more she espoused contented superiority, the guiltier I became. Her adaptability was bordering smugness. It grated on me. How could she be thrust into this harsh environment and not need assistance? Not need anyone? Me for instance? Isn't this the point in the Drama when I'm supposed to race in to save the day?

I remembered our terrifying descent in what seemed like a freeze-frame memory of something long ago. Hadn't I been the courageous Mountie and her trembling little Nell? What of that?

Ephemeral joys. Not to be again.

I suppose the romance of the moment mixed up my receptors. It's not that she needed me so much; she just didn't want to be flattened into a one-dimensional object alone. I was simply the proverbial company to her misery. Maybe she was right. I would be first; I would die first—period. Thinking about it stewed me like cabbage. I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of acknowledging my defeat. She was the woman, damnit! I would rescue her whether she needed it or not!

And so, with at unfortunate and castrating thought in mind, I entered the second phase of our tribulations. The stage where the frail, helpless female, alone and frightened in the horrors of the barren wilderness is pursued by the overzealous male savior, who despite the female's repeated displays of being quite self-sufficient, ignores these facts and goes about his clumsy, inept way, bumbling and stumbling, attempting to rescue her from the furies of nature, when in reality, the only rescue she needs is from him. The pathetic and all too common drama, destined for all creatures in the animal kingdom who think themselves above instinct. Darwin had postulated evolution. I was the antithesis, reversing, going backwards along the evolutionary scale so rapidly I soon expected to be salving my knuckles for having them scrape along the ground. An image popped into the foreground of my thoughts: bananas. If a tree full were to appear at that moment, I would shimmy up the trunk with all the conviction and dexterity of the greatest primate ever to swing from a vine. At least if I were going to de-evolve, some benefit should come of it; always the opportunist.

Blissfully, the night sky fell and the ceiling folded in on itself. Everywhere, the panorama of new chaos rang. A flurry of night-seeking birds shadowed over the badlands. Evening shifted nervously, stars rocked and danced, unsure whether to exalt the heavens or curse the earth for having bound them to this nightly ritual. As voracity raged rampant, the austere surroundings held a face of complacency. Fear and loathing crept across the glistening stands. Iguanas ran for cover, avoiding the spears and hungry eyes of the blood driven natives. Death sang a song, a plangent melodious refrain, banging away on the wooden string box, oblivious to all but its own inner yearnings. No one had consulted death as to the nature of its identity, had merely assumed that desolation and destruction were worthwhile attainments. Had the post been offered, death was certain the choice on its part would be different. But no longer possible now, the canvas was painted long ago. So, instrument in its palsied and weak hands, death struck up its dour tune, tempering its pain among the soothing strains of a minstrel chorus.

I lay in the weeds of emotional upheaval, reviewing my past. It lied to my present, as history always does.

You desire me, it said to the present.

Maybe, the present said.

No maybes about it. I'm better, stronger, and more vibrant.

I'm starting to believe you.

So it went, in this way. History portraying itself as a grander beauty than it had ever been in its time. Here from a distance of time, its colors were brighter, faces quicker to laughter, life imbued with greater meaning and purpose. The role of history unchanged, it continued its lying advances, stalking my present as I watched. I was attempting to unravel the strategy, thinking perhaps the surface meaning was just a ruse. History is tricky. Best to be ever vigilant in its presence. Admittedly, its lure is provocative. Doesn't it always pretend to be superior elsewhere, even though the grass may be plastic?

That morning, I will up a decoration, a trinket, a knick-knack on a shelf. I felt around with my hands and came up with tinsel, a plastic straw-like constitution. Looking around me, framed within what seemed a wicker enclosure, the impression of form around me was cloudy and indistinct. This place looked familiar, but I cannot recall ever visiting from this particular point of view. My feet were encased. I tried to move them. No luck. Somewhere along the quarters of sleep I had become unabashedly solidified. I tried to move my arms: the same result. What happened? Only my eyes appeared to have range of motion. I moved them side-to-side peering around, try to ascertain my whereabouts. I felt the course textures of straw against me. My nerve endings were in full response. At least I was still alive. My eyes caught a glimpse of something, a shiny article: a mirror. No, something foil wrapped perhaps. What was it? I tried desperately to focus my vision on it. But it was at the edge of peripheral sensation and difficult to do. I would need to catch it in snatches, each time taking a different piece, then, like a jigsaw puzzle, assemble the pieces in my mind's eye I until I arrived at a cohesive whole. I began; with the first glimpse I saw the topmost edge: Round and symmetrical, soft looking, colorful. The casing appeared to be gold. I logged those first details.

-Round

-Soft

-Gold covered

Next, I traced down its sides. Width was negligible, but present enough to provide a definite third dimension. I noted these.

-Thin, but not flat

Moving back toward the front, the side closest to me, I noticed curious squiggles. They were multicolored and numerous. Font size varied. Some were very large words, maybe 48, or 70-point size. Others were considerably smaller, maybe 10 or 12 point. There were a lot of the squiggles present. Evidently, whatever they were attempting to convey must be incredibly important given quantity with which they were expressed. I noted these.

-Squiggles, many

Since these appeared my best clue as to the deciphering the mysterious objects identity, I resolved to scan over the squiggles, which I now realized were words, to arrive at a conclusive answer. Being that my eyes were quickly tiring from strain, I decided it best to avoid looking at the smaller type and concentrate on the larger.

This I did, attempting to capture the words, one letter at a time if necessary, doing the requisite deciphering in a piecemeal fashion. I stared hard at the large words. It was still a difficult angle. Hovering on the edge of recognition. Perhaps if I could maneuver just a bit, a few millimeters, I could achieve an appropriate angle to decode the mysterious words. I decided to try rocking myself into position. I began. Progress was slow at first, seeming that hardly anything at all was happening for the tremendous effort I was exerting. But soon, evidence presented itself and I was in fact, rocking. Slowly, steadily, building momentum. Now, I watched the words, hoping that one of my swings positioned me to read them: but no use. I needed just a little more range. I mustered all my remaining strength in one resounding push. The air took life. My body strained. Everything I had left joined in the effort. As I swung back I produced one grand push. The effect worked, only too well. Helplessly, I was tumbling forward, face, side falling toward the ground, my hands pinned to my sides, like my legs, unable to assist in breaking my fall. I close my eyes, awaiting the tremendous pain that was about to register on the Richter scale. I hit bottom. Nothing. I waited. Surely I must be in shock. I'm so injured that the endorphins are entirely masking the effects of the excruciating pain, I thought. But there was no pain. It couldn't be. Yet it was. Cautiously, I opened my eyes, expecting the worst. There I was, on my side, the object I was attempting to discern now large as a skyscraper in front of me, reaching up into the vastness. I worked my eyes around to look up. Was I just way up there? I looked so immensely far now, that I found great difficulty in believing that I had just moments before been invested at that very height. I glimpsed the top of the large object just at the point before it disappeared into ether. Moments before, that very point was at a direct eye level. Evidently I'd fallen further than I realized. My mind played over these absurd details until finally I interrupted this process to resume the matter at hand: that of identifying the large object, its purpose being to assist in disclosing where I had turned up after embarking on another Trans-dimensional journey.

Lying there on my side, I scanned the object. Its golden veneer was far more richly hued from this angle. The colors were bold and vibrant. The words suddenly took shape. First a capital "N" then a capital "E" then a capital "S" and then... I stopped in horror, my eyes glued to the base of the object before me. There reflected back to me, my eyes, bold and inquisitive, darting around the confines, wide pupils of stark yellow. The boldness of their color was only matched by the sharp intrusion of my face: Dark deep brown. Chocolate brown. Dark grooves edged into my face, a crude attempt at distended whiskers, it looked like, and a nose. Now the terrible realization hit as the fear raged through me. The object before me said NESTLE, and I was a chocolate Easter Bunny, laying in a basket, awaiting certain decimation as the child who I belonged to arrive to devour me, his most sacred Easter treat. Not a sound could I make, only my eyes functioned. I waited, frozen in terror, not sure what could be done, hoping that in the next blink of my eyes I would be transported somewhere else... anywhere else. My mind was frantic with thoughts of escape. Then, I heard. The unmistakable sound of a child's voice, first distant, then getting closer. I closed my eyes anticipating the dreaded and...

So, where do you want to go?

I heard the sounds, distant, indistinct, a hallucinogenic flashback. Years were curling and uncurling in my mind, the brain slow to rise after long dormancy.

Hello... wake-up... can you hear me?

This last address was accompanied by a swift slap across the face. The sting brought my senses around. I opened my eyes.

The image was fuzzy, but it slowly came to me... "Sheila?"

I lay still, remembering my mummification, which as far as I knew, was still in force.

"Sheila," I said with more authority. I wiggled my fingers. I twitched my legs. I was back! To where?

I blinked and the picture came into focus. Looking around, I saw it was our hotel room. The lone, bare bulb, lit and swinging from the center of the room. The pale green drapes, gold speckled, twinkled in the stark light. Sheila hung over me, her hair covering me like a shield.

"You okay?" she said.

"What... what... happened?"

I noticed the light bulb swinging lazily in a small circle.

"Oh, just a minor earthquake. We jumped out of bed and the next thing I knew you hit the floor."

"Hit the floor?"

Yeah. One-minute you're sitting on the edge of the bed and the next minute, BOOM! Dropped like a lead balloon. You kind of laid there, eyes rolling up, frothing at the mouth. I didn't know if you were having a seizure or heart attack or what!"

Her eyes were riveted on me in fear. My mouth tasted like iron shavings.

"Oh?" I said. "I don't remember anything really. But my head feels light."

Foolishly I tried to sit up, her holding my arm. Progress was tentative. As I came to an upright position, my head swam and blackness threatened to overtake me. My face must have gone white.

"Whoa!" Lay back down," she said. "Do you want to hit the floor again?"

I listened to the doctor and lay back down.

The comfortable numbness overtook me. A gallery of images rolled through my mind, before my eyes, threading through my brain like brown-spotted film. And credibly searing void was working itself up from my toes as my scalp curled, feeling as if layer after layer of skin would peel away, leaving only the smooth, white bones, skull, silent domains of muscle and fiber, overlaid in geometrical perfection. The whole inside of me was as if laid bare, naked to the sun, a hideous bight upon the sulphurous planet. Sheila was overexposed, a glowing negative mage against a vast Amazonian jungle landscape.

My hand went up to touch her. Sheila... my... my... you're fading... black... glowing...

Hallucinations overcame me and vomit turned back as it began its race to freedom, threatening to choke me before bursting upon the canvas of light. I felt the wrenching sting as my head found the floor, like a slow motion tumble. Fingers of light reached for my throat. I was going for deep cover, an uncharted journey to a grim reality more frightening than one I could imagine. The room shook. The light bulb exploded. My eyes went black.

Buzz...

An old woman ran screaming from a ramshackle house, her arms waving wildly over her head. Her face wore the bloody stains of a cold tire iron kiss. Her lungs were expelling air in rushes of hysteria, screeching then sputtering, racing for salvation. The screen door behind her slammed against its frame, the dull thud resonating into the chaos. Then the blast came, the thunderous amalgam of cordite and powder, the death casing of steel, the flight of the micro-explosive. When it struck the junction of flesh and bone, the loud crack of a shattered skull rang out. The woman, cut down, fell silent onto the asphalt. Only a reminder of the memories she contained. Flushed out with the refuse.

When the pale blue, '57 Chevy tore away into the night, only the smoldering flesh of a gasoline-doused stranger remained: lone testament to the reaper's footsteps, road kill on the highway. Another breath snuffed like a candlewick. It would be days before anyone found her. Maybe weeks. But nature takes care of its own. And as her charcoaled remnants find their way to the bottom of the food chain; a new cycle begins, replete with a mourning song of life among the ruins.

What to think, what to think, why think anything at all? What purpose would be served? Too much thought already: too much. That's the problem with the world. Much too much thought, nothing being done. I get things done. No thought involved. Animal instinct. Purely beyond reason. Pedantry is putrid. Rotting carrion for the decomposers. I know what has to be: only me and those like me. The few... the very few. But we find each other now and then... now and then. And what do we do? You'll see... you'll all see...

Micki thought these thoughts as she raced down the southbound interstate. Nothing but road now. Mile after faceless mile of road. Ever since leaving Seattle she had driven the widening circle of passage. Many stops along the way. Many diversions. But always the return to this one direction; South. As if some greater destiny had been calling her.

Of course, her escape had been easy. He had tried to stop her. Said she couldn't go anywhere unless he approved it. Said, How the hell you think you're going anywhere anyway? Your ass is mine. Property. And my property don't go nowhere unless I say so.

She remembered the smug, stupid look on his smug, stupid fat face. The deep set eyes. Evil eyes. Cruel eyes. The same ones she had looked into for five years. Long years. Crying years of painful slavery, violence, screaming to God and mother and cursing them both for giving her life. The sweat of her pains was etched into her soul like a tattoo. Shame was branded on her. Fire scorched her insides. And that face. That stupid evil-eyed face.

Once, she looked there and saw something, maybe something good, something clean. But things changed. Didn't they always? Once they thought they owned you? Those eyes of his. Always questioning, insulting, mocking her, calling her cunt, come here cunt. "Fuck me cunt. Cunt. Cunt. AAAGH!!"

So tired of that word, cunt. Now her name was vanquished. Only her sex mattered. Her sole identifier: CUNT. Those times were bleak and degrading. The things he made her do to him... his friends... anyone who paid. She was his cunt. And as such, possessed of no voice, no wishes, duty bound to serve, blind and bound.

But one day a light raced through the window. Maybe it was really her eyes, she thought. Or maybe the universal curtain parted, letting a flood of crystalline truth shine upon her needy soul and the barren land it had become. An idea took seed, and then it grew. Soon, those eyes, those evil condescending eyes that stoned her into hell had became her catalyst, the reason to attack. In those eyes she saw only the pestilence of a blackened soul. No fire of life anymore, no life for her, no life she any longer wishes to be part of.

He'd been so surprised. So incredibly surprised. So surprised that he laughed, out of nervousness, she thought. He's nervous, of course, she rationalized. Thinks I'm kidding. But as he continued laughing, as she pondered the blackness that seeped through his eyes, covering her in sin, peeling away her skin until vulnerability of flesh and bone alone remained, she became angry. An anger that she had repressed for years, Maybe never. An anger that was absolute rage. Rage and hysteria. A deadly combination that sent her on a rampage. Wasn't he surprised then? Wasn't the? She had read weeks before about some events in another part of the world. Events that even when she read them sounded surreal, a fiction, only for sick entertainment. But she realized even then, as the details gained veracity in her mind that something vaguely exciting was stirring within her depths at this most bizarre news. How surprised he was when she overpowered him, tied him down, and watched those wild eyes fill with fear as he understood her intent. Maybe he had read the same article. Perhaps he had. He did always seem to be aware of much more than he ever understood. Or maybe he hadn't read that story, maybe there were others? Many such stories. Wouldn't that be something? Can you imagine a trend like that becoming hip?

She thought these thoughts. Not long, protracted fabrications, not these kind of involved proceedings. No, these all came to her in a flash: the life-show on death's doorstep, the nanosecond flash of all the life that had gone before. That was the way he she expressed her thoughts. Her eyes blinked. His eyes were fixed with horror. She laughed to herself then, giddy with her enormous show of power. Weren't you surprised then, dear Benny? Weren't you, dear? Was it what you always dreamed it would be?

She laid open his trousers, castrating and laughing as she sliced. He screamed, his evil eyes bulging. The shrieking is too much. Such a baby. Then her masterpiece, just like the news story. She stuffed his severed genitals into his mouth, left him to choke on the very member that had for so long been her tormenter. Funny, she thought, how harmless they look that way. Like a saturated napkin.

And that was it for Benny. Good old Ben. My buddy Ben. My pal Ben. What a man, Ben. The man of her nightmares. Now I am unleashed, a lone and wild CUNT on the loose. He has infected me with his disease. Now I am a woman unhinged. A woman who stops at nothing. A woman for whom the existing law is the law of take: she takes and takes and takes until the emptiness can be filled. She doesn't know how much taking this will require. But she doesn't care. The Wild Girls showed her the truth: female power. Freedom is intoxicating, isn't it? She sticks her head out the windows, laughing long and shrill into the battering wind, invoking all of creation to join in her blood-lust frenzy; the beast has come home to Mama. Long live the Wild Girls, she screams. Long live the Wild Girls...

"So where do you want to go?"

Her face is large, looming over me like a full moon.

"I don't want to go."

"Then?"

"Cum. I want to cum."

She takes me into her mouth. I cum feverishly. Shreds of her hair pull away in my hands.

"When you own me," she says, "that way, it makes me crazy."

'You like crazy then?"

"I like you. Crazy or not. It's a gel thing."

"A gel thing?'

"Yeah. You know. Like we _gel_."

Her hip shots were a bit wide-angle for my vision, but I was starting to get the drift of her lingo. "So... that's good then? I return."

"Yeah. Cool. Gelling is cool."

Cool? Yes she is. I zip up as she wipes her lips, ever the lady. She looks great in colors. White and yellow like the sun. And part of me really liked this wild, dangerous side of her. The side of her that attacked, insulted, took what she wanted, like a woman in heat, something magnetic and irresistibly attractive. I hoped she would never change. What was that she had said? Schizophrenia? Traumatically induced? What was she talking about? Describing everyone she was. Didn't even know it. We're all schizophrenic, all somebody else on the fringes of real life. Whatever "real" is. Who's to say what that is? Does anyone have absolute claim to the real? Real or whatever, I liked her personalities, all of them: especially the wanton one.

"I like you," she told me once, "How you can be sexual without being forceful. Not like other men. Men like that need to be instructed. Taught lessons. Not you though. You bend around me, like a boa, squeezing but not choking. I like that. Possess me."

Anyway, there we were, alone and reminiscing about the days when reminiscing was impossible. Mainly because we didn't know each other then. That was long before. Lifetimes ago. Many lifetimes. We had both been through the reincarnation wheel more than once. By some miracle we always seem to find each other. Now, we realize this. Took awhile to understand. But that's what rebirth does to you. Throws you off-balance. We were off-balance. Seriously out of kilter.

We floated across the light of the city. Her hair breezing back, the orange glow of neon fresh on her skin, me diving into her, nuzzling her breasts, sighing, moaning, groping, hoping, high above the clouds were only the thin veil of ozone separated us from disintegration. We bathe in blue and green. Birds whistle by. Is this the way the movie ends?

Hardly. Only a scene change.

"Isn't this from the New Babylonian?" she asked, while stuffing a wad of popcorn into her mouth.

"No," I said. "This is Paradise Of Youth. That new Roxy Fontaine movie. You know. The one were she invites gang sex with killer mutants from Uranus?"

Her eyes go spacey. She's thinking, hey, that sounds like fun. But..."Oh yeah!"

I know what she's thinking now. I can smell her home centers heating up.

When the gang sex scene arrives, I'm arriving between her thighs, screaming for Valhalla, the tight ringlets of her sparse cunt hair pulling at me, locking me to her, pulling me deep inside. Her white teeth gleam in the flickering film light. As the heroine in the movie screams into orgasm, she screams too, life-imitating art, fantasy relived.

Later, she says. "If you live your fantasy, is it fantasy any longer?"

I think.

"Hmm. I suppose there is a certain rolling off of the fantasy power by dropping into the temporal plane."

"Yeah. That's what I was thinking."

A deep concept. I was surprised at her contemplative abilities. Perhaps this duality of persona had a powerful genius lurking behind it.

That night, we discussed many things. Philosophy, astronomy, nuclear physics, the dangers and benefits of macro Biology, the role of media in influencing the status quo political agenda. She says she felt the media contributed to rape, to the objectification of women by glorifying and rewarding those who committed the greatest atrocities against them. She cited as recent evidence the revolutions in the Baltic States. How the media took great pains to repeat ad nauseum the stories and images from the rape camps. The rape camps. The rape camps. Until it was clear that the reason the repetition was occurring at all was because some fatback producer was wanking himself silly enjoying the idea of War justified sex slavery.

I remember those news stories, remember feeling slightly excited at the idea even though I thought it revolting and beyond conscience. Wasn't that wrong? Didn't that make me a hypocrite?

"No," she said. "That is the point. If enough people, men especially, the most influential in the power structure, were forced into a primary response mode, then enough would feel excited/guilty to the point that nothing would be done about it. And isn't that exactly what happened? Nothing?"

"Yes," I said. "You're right. Nothing was done to stop it."

"That's right," she said. "And nothing will be done to prosecute those involved either. The easy way out. Guilt exterminating moral conscience. If you feel guilty about your excitement and guilty because something should be done, they cancel each other. The result? Catatonia: precisely what happened. To open discussion on the topic would be to publicly admit to the base treachery of all mankind. Therefore, the whole thing is ignored. The whole human race would be put on trial, all of creation."

Had to admit, she had a point. Albeit roundabout in getting to it. A point nonetheless. The woman was turning out to be brilliant. A true case of schizo-geniosynchronicity. Fabulous!

And then the blaze of light, the taste of iron shavings, the dull throbbing roar of a split skull expressing itself as a killer headache, her staring at me from above me, the light swinging slowly in the green room, her saying: Are you okay? Are you okay?

I am in multiple time zones, multiple realities, living a life ripped apart by the inconsistencies of the space-time continuum. At moments like this, I fear the worst. That I would miss singularity, be sucked through the center of a black hole, be reduced to Zero volume, end up spinning end over end into the Spiral Nebula, M31, and beyond. Who knows where? Frightening.

Her face was pale, more than I remembered. Like death came back for a good-natured haunt. Only this was no B-movie, any Bella Lugosi and Creature from the Black Lagoon kind of Friday night fright fest. This was life. My life. Real-life. Or was it real? What was real anymore?

Crazy scientists, magicians, time warping sideways, aluminum helmets, asteroids, Japanese cluster fucks. Too much. All too much. An information overload, my brain turning to mush trying to crunch all of the data, most of it conflicting. Slipping back and forth in time. Left. Right. Anywhere but here. No permanence. I hit a flat spot and the voices started in my head again. Old voices. Old but familiar. When... when... you know, diesel. Fuck my daughter? You do know what that is, don't you?

Yeah... I stuttered, unsure what to answer... whether to answer.

Fucked her myself you know. He forgot to add, just looking for a partner in crime.

The miserable lecher. Right. Look at me. Am I any better? Traveling with this girl, professed murderer, known schizophrenic, for what? Adventure? Curiosity? Great and plentiful sex? Most likely the third. When she turned on the heat there was no halfway point. This girl was positively unhinged to the third degree.

Micki was on a roll, traveling at the speed of sound down and through the blurred coastline of the northern environment. She slept in towns, stalls, places forgotten by time, places forgotten by life. Muted little fragments of pain. Shells of observation. In one turned, near Westpark, she wheeled into a shack, a den of disgrace, a place where the wretched came to compare society's mirror of hideousness to what they daily witnessed in mirrors of their own. Ghastly turned ghostly. She ordered a drink, ordered another. Red eyes poked out from her crispy bangs. Greasy eyes shot back at her from the corners of the dying room. Large predatory men were pasted to her every movement, their nostrils already full of her scent. She drank, played vulnerable. A man named Jack Hammer, a tugboat of a man with a face like a fist, invited her to drink. The drink became a contest. They drank. He drank harder, faster, masculinity on the line. She kept pace. He kept watch. His greasy eyes swam in their filth. Her mind clicked like a trip hammer. When she had him lost to his memory, she slammed her shot glass down hard on his hand, glass crushing bone, tearing skin. He sneered, grabbed his paw and howled.

Baby! She cried. You're no man at all.

The ape tried to jump, missed his step, fell in his blood. She spat on his shiny head, kicked him for good measure.

Hope it was as good for you as it was for me! she cooed.

Then she rambled on, southward, destination unknown, clearing coastal towns like used dinner plates: Philo, Colpella, Ukiah, Lakeport, Highland, Cloverdale, and Cobb. Blazing down the 101 like time was firing her backside. The breeze of air rushing in her face screamed liberation. The sparkle of night exhilarated her like a thousand blinding organisms. She fingered herself as she raced on: screaming and crying and remembering and dying. The ball of confused excitement blended in a swirl.

When she stopped for the night, a lonely song on the radio called her back to center. The reel of time came to a halt. The misery of a million escapes turned cold. No more violent raving. No more confused searching. Her home was within her. She reflected. Saw clearly her search for identity. Mistaken as the need for a father. This that she sought to satisfy by her quest of overpowering man. It was clear, in that moment, that flash of time. For a brief moment, she achieved blissful happiness. Like she had never known. Fleeting. All too fleeting. The rat-tat-tat of the announcer's voice flooded the car, rattled her brain, and echoed within her hollow shell until the blissful interlude was a distant hallucination. Once again, night was night was blackness was emptiness. Her search resumed.

As the gravel spit from her rear tires, she saw his face in her mirror, every man who had fathered her. A snap of a switch, the faces covered blood. She smiled, floored the gas pedal, and flew with renewed vengeance into the heartless void, staring down the approaching headlights as a soldier in enemy territory, motivated only by the will to destruction, evoking the very end she sped away from. The Pacific never looked so blue is it did then. The ocean was liberation blue. Blue as hurt. Blue as flame. Blue as the pain of her true lover's kiss. In the night she saw the reflection of her soul.

"If we don't find my mother soon I'm going to die."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. A morbid pain carves my guts. I need connection. My roots are vanquished."

She lit a cigarette, inhaled deep, stared over the balcony at the festering pool of shit.

"We should leave here," I said.

"Where to?"

"You're asking me? This is your trip, remember? I'm just a driver."

"Oh, right..."

"Okay. So where is she, or where do you think she might be?"

She turned away. Then she swung back, lock eyes with mine.

"Diesel... I... I... don't know, I really... I really don't know."

"Don't know?"

"Where she is, where she might be, I just don't know."

I was confused then.

"But wait a minute. All this time we've been going north. Your idea. Why so polarized if you didn't know?"

She straightened her dress, brushed her hair back.

"Look, I don't know. She always talked about the north. Family in the area. San Francisco, somewhere near there. I thought I'd get lucky. Run into her somewhere. Is that silly? Stupid?"

"No, not really. You have to start somewhere. Do you at least remember when she looks like?"

"Her eyes went wide and soft, taking all light into them until they blazed back at me."

"You know. I'm not sure what she looks like. Not anymore. See this?"

She walked over to her purse and pulled out an old yellow and crumpled picture.

"This was her," she said. "Before... before all the bad stuff. She took the picture for the holidays. Sent it to the relatives."

The woman/girl in the picture was beautiful. Wispy brown hair, a green cap, a lonely, yearning look in her eyes, staring far, far away, to a distant dream perhaps that stayed just beyond reach. My heart broke for her.

"This is your mother?"

"Yes."

I looked at Sheila. I could see the resemblance. Definitely. But did Sheila always look this way? Like this picture? Or was I simply projecting this image onto her in my delirium? I looked again at the picture, then at Sheila. They were identical! As if Sheila had looked at the woman in the picture and become her. They could be the same person.

"Sheila," I said. "I don't know what to say... I mean... this woman..."

"Yes?"

"Well... I mean... you... look like her."

"Of course," she said, puffing a cloud of smoke at me, "I'm her daughter. What do you expect?"

"No... I mean... you really look like her... like you could be twins... or the same person."

She turned, surprised. "Really? You think so?"

I look at the picture, her, the picture, her. Yes. Definitely.

"Let me see that." Her face went white like she saw a ghost or was ready to faint.

"Sheila? You okay?" She started falling, grabbing onto the railing.

"Hey. What's wrong?" I moved in behind her, put my arm around her. "Sheila? Sheila?!"

Her head fell back against my shoulder. Out cold. I carried her into the bedroom; lay her down on the bed. I put a cold towel across her forehead, that's what they always do in the movies. And just like in the movies, the trick worked as she soon came around. We both knew some kind of important moment had come for us. Time to lift whatever final veils of deceit lay between us, between our worlds. Time to strip away the rugged casing and get down to where the essence of our beings hid from the light. We packed into the car, tore away from the deathful stench of the seedy motel, headed north again, this time, with renewed conviction that our conclusion would be rewarded.

Along the way, we passed many towns of strangers, people who looked like they had sprung from the manure paneled earth. People as weird and freakish externally as we knew we truly were internally. We were the real freaks, hidden by an implacable exterior, but crumbling slowly inside. Ever since we had met, before even, the erosion had been occurring, ticking each fatal tick until its lonely, insistent, tragedy was the only sound in our distant little worlds. We had both been living with blinders on, ears plugged in our own deceit. Even our observations were tainted. No longer capable of objectivity, lost and alone on a shelf of subjectivity; chaos, turmoil, emanating from the center. We had each become the nexus of our own pain, together and apart. But now, the fulcrum was tilting toward resolution, calling us back to where the paternalistic origins began, permitting us one final and privileged opportunity to set the world—our world— right.

When we pull into the lonely town, its shades drawn closed for the night, the calm settles around us like a warm body. Standing in the middle of the empty, pothole riddled street, a car speeds by, a grim specter at the wheel, and a flash of blue as the '57 Chevy disappears into the brink of invisibility. We look at each other and in that instant, we know. Something that it seemed we knew all long. Knew but were afraid to confront. Through all of the pains and contortions of failed life we had experienced we had fallen in love. Not a perfect love. But an inevitable love. A love born of mutual disease; the disease of need. We had infected each other.

Our lives had been spent pushing away from the world, from ourselves. Now, it was time to return, to heed the homeward call. Look homeward angel and come back wayward children. Buy into all of the corny bullshit we both swore could never touch us.

"That woman in the picture?" she said.

"Yes?"

"It's me."

"I know."

"How?"

"It was obvious at first look."

"Oh," she said, sounding disappointed.

"It's okay," I said, trying to nullify her embarrassment. "You don't have to hide anymore, Sheila. Neither of us has to hide anymore."

She turned her wide, brown and wet eyes up to me. "I don't?"

"No," I said. "We're two of a kind, you, and me. We belong together. And what's more, I love you."

Her lips trembled. She squeezed my hand.

"I don't want to fall in love with you," she said.

I smiled. "It's too late, Sheila. It's already happened."

Her eyes became dewy as she squeezed my hand again. "You're right. I love you too," she said. She wiped at her eyes. "Did you ever think we'd end up like this? Two cynical, nihilistic, adventurers like us really two corny sentimental schmucks at heart?"

I laughed. The stench of love was in the air. "No. I still don't believe it. But...here we are!"

And surely we were. Two misfits on a rapidly deteriorating orbit of misery. Her; multiple personality disorder making any spouse an instant bigamist in some states and me; time-space continuum tripping, candidate for the white lab coat crew, babbling about other dimensions while wearing aluminum helmets provided by desert worshipping physicist/magician/charlatans.

I had to admit, even knowing that it was all true, it sounded pretty weird. And if I didn't know us like I did, if I hadn't been there and seen it with my own eyes, I would lock us both up and swallow the key.

That night, under a twinkling canopy of stars, most beautiful, splendiferous diamonds we had ever seen, we said good night in our traveling truck, our hearts content that a long and grand journey was coming to a close, another even grander one about to begin...

Daruma is graduating from his Cyclops days. Long have I waited, searched, wished to the night sky for her: the one. Daruma now can see in stereo. Today, I rejoice. Dance in the sea of Daruma For after all the years of hoping, steadily, stealthily, and vigilantly searching for the one, she has arrived, transported on the wings of moderately soiled and burnished rebel angels. The lonely days are behind me now, Daruma and me. Around the world, beyond the galaxy, I have searched. And all along, right in front of me, was heaven in a grain of sand, the woman of my dreams, and Daruma with his stereovision.

O, for some sunny spell

To dissipate the shadows of this hell!

Say they are gone, - with the new dawning light

Steps forth my lady bright!

O, let me once more rest

my soul upon that dazzling breast!

Let once again these aching arms be placíd,

The tender gaolets of thy waist!

And let me feel that warm breath here and there

To spread a rapture in my very hair, -

O, the sweetness of the pain!

Give me those lips again!

Enough! Enough! it is enough for me

To dream of thee!
