 
Thousand

Glenn Ingersoll

Copyright © 2010-2018, Glenn Ingersoll

Mel C. Thompson Publishing

3559 Mount Diablo Boulevard, #112

Lafayette, California 94549

melcthompson@yahoo.com

Publisher's Notes

This massive 100,000-word epic prose-poem, "Thousand," by Glenn Ingersoll, was created when the author decided he would commit himself to writing one 100-word segment per day for one thousand straight days, a commitment he kept. This work, Christo-like in its ambition and Proust-like in it's thoroughness, inspired me from the moment I first heard about it. Several years after the writing was completed, I resolved to publish it in paperback form on Amazon. It is now available in ten volumes. The author had hoped there might one day be a simple ebook version of "Thousand," and so we decided to publish this edition on Smashwords.

For More Information

To find out more about this project, or projects by other authors on this label, or to get information on the many ways you can help the ongoing efforts of Mel C. Thompson Publishing, please use the contact information above.

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Thousand

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Thousand: One

Thousand thousand. You don't have to be happy, mon ami. The happier, the crueler, I used to say, until the boom got lowered and I had to crawl around on all fours and I discovered the necessity of reserving words for torturing small animals and children. The wind blows, the air shakes sand out of its skirts, and a legless lizard disappears into the downslope. You never know what is going to happen. You'll hear that a lot. Frequently you know what is going to happen. What is going to happen has happened to someone else who you ought to

Thousand: Two

know by now, being familiar with the experience of humanity. A bug is a bug, or so they say. Once one was wonderful. Then one became wretched, and after looking the body over, one was amazed by the miracle of misery, what perfect drama it created, or if not perfect, then meticulously crafted. Someone is going to write your story up. I have a lead or two. I will get it out of my supernal box then swoop it over your nose—swoop swoop—while the angels of hootenanny repose in their ordnance. I'm sorry I'm going to have to

Thousand: Three

apologize again. That's what's going to happen between now and November, more frequently than either of us would prefer. This means I'm going to insult you repeatedly? That's not the plan. But things I don't think bad will turn out bad and I will come to see the error of my ways and, all things being equal, will search my drawers for an apology as sincere as any other, clean and uncreased, and I will offer that to you. I promise. OK? That out of the way, let's look at the inventory of celestial items. I understand fresh produce will

Thousand: Four

be dropped off on a nearby doorstep. We can pilfer that. The stars will need to be replenished from the bucket out back. A rare religious exception will be made for the rinderpest to recede to its original hosts without exacting divine punishment from the wicked. Why? Don't ask why. The reasons are among the stars, I mean the way they are distributed. It's a pattern. A completely random and arbitrary pattern meaning nothing, but a pattern nonetheless, one you can read by, the future, the past, and certain recipes, the ones that have been passed from hand to hand

Thousand: Five

and mouth to mouth and sea to shining sea. Grandma, you know what I'm talking about! Meanwhile, in the laundry, one red sock turns every fucking white cat pink. You throw them all in together, hold the lid down, maybe you have to put a few bricks on top to keep the lid on, and when you go to put them in the dryer, they're pink because some shithead left a red sock from the last load down there in the bottom of the tub. You wanna kill him. Cuz what are you going to do with a passel of

Thousand: Six

pink kitties? Who wants pink kitties? You can't sell them. You can't get money for them. You put them in a box by the supermarket and they squall and roll their bloodshot little eyes and the cute little girls bend over the box only to jump back and begin to wail, clutching their mothers' legs. So you take a tranquilizer. That's really your only choice. Faced with a preventable accident like pinkness in cats so freshly laundered. You go to the medicine cabinet, you don't even let yourself meet your blue eyes in the warped mirror as you pull the

Thousand: Seven

door open, as the reveal takes place, the chemistry constructed for your mental construction, for the relief of your aches and cooling of your cough. You didn't expect the leprechaun. He's not dead, but the signs of life are few. You consider CPR, which suddenly makes you think it's an abbreviation of coprolite or, even worse, coprophile. Well, can't have any of that. So you put the leprechaun aside and move on to the red-capped gnome who also is looking unwell. Were they at each other's throats? Or at your drugs! You don't even have good drugs. You stack the

Thousand: Eight

gnome on the leprechaun which is face down on the toilet's lid. The day is looking up. A new dawn is already crawling into the sky. You draw the curtains. A cold wind is blowing. It gets in through cracks in the walls. Soon something mythical will begin its dark rounds. The leprechaun and gnome, despite being mythical, don't look like they'd be up to dark rounds. The gnome groans and squirms atop the leprechaun, then, with a long sigh, seems to fall back into unconsciousness. The idea of taking drugs in order to improve one's situation—is it the

Thousand: Nine

sort of idea one clings to in the face of contrary evidence? Then you remember: you haven't taken any. So the leprechaun business—you're facing it straight. "It might be a dream," offers the gnome. No. It wasn't the gnome. Its eyes are closed, its breathing slow and even. Maybe the cat? The cat who lives in the dell? It is time to be naked and empty so the butterfly within you breaks out via your forehead, sloughing the material that held it back, but which held it safe so it could grow, restrained it in order that it could

Thousand: Ten

achieve its beauty, unmarked, unmarred, made. Now, having flexed, it cracked your skull open, pulled itself, wet and purposeful, from the chrysalis. Which it leaves on the accent rug. Next to a curl of hairs and dust beside the shower stall. How does it feel to be emerged from? To be left by your inner child? For starters maybe you're wondering what's left of you. It's all rather sudden. One must take a moment. You blink your eyes. Yes, your eyes blink. You remember who the president is, then decide, no, you'd rather remember who your mother is. Was she

Thousand: Eleven

the mother of presidents? Presidents stand for something. It would be nice to be able to stand. Later, after a good night's rest, you are rinsing your mouth with detergent and alcohol when there is a knock at the door. You think, "I'm not going to get that. It's way too early to see humans." But again there's the knocking and this time a voice seems to accompany it. You stop swishing and spit, then cock an ear. That voice is familiar? If so, she'll just have to wait a minute while you strap on your weapons. Is that thing

Thousand: Twelve

loaded? And what about that one? It's heavy enough. OK. Shark hat, octopus gloves, dragon breath, supersonic goggles, DNA-disruptors. Check, check, and, oh, no more breath in the dragon breath bottle. You listen again. Yes, the knocking is still going on, and the shouting. It might even be your name. But your name sounds like all sorts of common noises; you've heard your name in the sounds of subway trains, the troubling through underbrush of ground animals, and the squeaks of the clouds rubbing against the sky. So you've learned to be cautious, not to jump to conclusions without putting

Thousand: Thirteen

your hands inside the launch car, and loose articles under the seat. Besides, who cares if it's your name. Your name could be anywhere, could go anywhere, could be living a life separated from you by miles and attitude. You realize your brow is wrinkled. That is what happens when you concentrate or when you're upset, and when the botulism injections have been neutralized by your immune system. If I had allergies, I would take something for my allergies, you say to yourself. The latch is almost off the trapdoor to heaven, you note, as you look up. Put that

Thousand: Fourteen

on the list of things to do. There are always so many things to do. No matter how many of them you've done! You go to the door. It's the foremost thing on today's agenda, it seems, though you'd been thinking earlier that riding the new slide down from the highest turret at the Castle of Nowundaid with the kids from the Knitting Club or putting in your application for tusk polisher at the Mega Large Elephant Array could fill that ungainly space between the usual chores, the cats needing to be watered, for instance, or the heads of the

Thousand: Fifteen

roses fluffed. The door. Here it is. Standing before you in its gatekeeper way, there to keep things out and in and to provide egress. No, I'm not stalling. Wait, yes, I'm getting a transmission. All that caterwauling that supposedly sounds like it's calling for you? All that banging and thumping like a crowd of elders on mission after somebody's slipped triple cap shots in their chamomile tea? Pay no attention. Sh. We're going to go over to the couch now. Sit down. Let me unlace those hobnailed boots. I'm hanging your chain mail on the hook by the door.

Thousand: Sixteen

See, just here. The portrait of George "The Slugmullion" Washington will watch over it. I'm going to make you a cup of tea. Coffee? Sure. Cream and sugar? You take it with what? God's everlasting glory? Sounds great. This blue mug okay, the one with the Live Fish logo? You know, you look beautiful like that, sipping coffee gone to glory. The way the steam paints a soft mist across your bifocals, the way the halo orbits your neck, its counterclockwise motion revealed by the blue bead caught in the inevitable pull of your fine gravity. I, too, am unable

Thousand: Seventeen

escape you, despite my velocity. Not that I'm in any hurry to leave you. No no. I could stay all afternoon. Work? Don't worry! I called your boss to let her know you wouldn't be in today. You have the sweetest boss. I would dip her in my bitter dregs any day. Would you like to watch some TV? No? Why are you staring at me like that! I know, what we really need is a transdimensional shift. Yes, I have one. It's in my bag. Don't let out the caiman. She's very sweet but toothy. I don't know if

Thousand: Eighteen

you've ever seen a cathedral in blue? Yes. No, I don't mean a cathedral painted blue. Never mind. I saw a book once that was all in blue; it was adapted from a major motion picture that was all in blue, which was inspired by a very rainy day. The shift? Look for something that does not look like clothes. Does not. I realize many things do not look like clothes. A fire hyrdant does not look like clothes, a beach ball does not look clothes. A cathedral? Some cathedrals are ready to wear, don't you think? I guess I'm

Thousand: Nineteen

thinking of those buttresses, flying up like shoulder pads, and those dazzling windows that draw your eye to as much as from the cleavage between breasts lifted, gently together pressed and held, the display of patience before God like that of a bustier before three candles which raise gold flames, unflickering in the warm boudoir. There you go. You found it. It was the best clue one could offer. The transdimensional shift! Beautiful, isn't it! I know. It's hard to tell. But it's more fun to say it's beautiful than that it's ugly. In some stories the Devil is beautiful

Thousand: Twenty

and in some stories the Devil is hideous. It seems more reasonable to me that he is beautiful if he's in the business of temptation. But then, he would have to be a really great salesman if he was hideous. And isn't he supposed to be? Or maybe he's supposed to be a great buyer. Although it isn't right to say a salesmen doesn't buy things. He buys things for a little and sells them for a lot. Even if the Devil gets a soul cheap, who would want it? Of what use is it? Is a soul beautiful? Decorative?

Thousand: Twenty-One

How many would it take to make nice drapes? I wonder if souls melted down would make an alloy with gold. Could there be a metal more likely to be the soul's mate? Does "transdimensional" sound more scientific than "soul"? Here, pass it to me. Yes, you have a perfectly good grip on it. The thing about "transdimensional", it sounds explanatory. But it isn't, really. Might as well call it a "bunduggle wah zinswitz". Euphonious, no? Harder to remember, though. What does it do? Do? I'm tempted to say it doesn't do anything. But if I were to say that

Thousand: Twenty-Two

a magnet doesn't do anything, that it's passive, the lines that iron filings gather into around the magnet being nothing having to do with action but rather automatic sorting via unvarying, unwilled natural laws, you'd roll your eyes at my weirdly restrictive definition of "doing." Huh-chew! Sorry. Do you have a tissue? Thanks. Huh-huh- CHEFFFF! Whew. That was a big one. Hm. Would you look at that! See? A prophecy in the spittle pattern captured by the tissue. I can see that reading, but I think it has more to do with whether the weather tomorrow will be good for boating.

Thousand: Twenty-Three

I had been thinking about boating. There is a lot of water in the world and it would be a darn shame not to be able to step about on it. Move about on it, I mean. Swim? I'm afraid I don't know how to swim. I know how to flail and flounder without quite failing and foundering. Not swimming, really. I probably wouldn't last long out in the great sea unsupported, even if the waters were shark-uninfested. Sharks always infest the better water, the kind we like to hie over, wind and sea spray, joy of a horizon blemished

Thousand: Twenty-Four

just slightly, like the smudge of a word incompletely erased, by a distant island. It's not always easy to get to an island, you know. Some of them are protected by reefs with teeth as jagged as any shark's. You sail your ship around a surf that pounds a half mile from the sand and palms, a wild white surf bashing away on its own skirts while underneath the clown fish and octopus, the parrot and eel nip about among anemones and the coral that grew upon coral that grew upon coral, lumping and branching bonily in a slow secretive

Thousand: Twenty-Five

contortion toward the light while below an ancient volcano washes gently, gradually, roundly down. Try to cross that coral and it will shred the ship's hull, and then where will you be! On permanent vacation, marooned desert island style. Got sunscreen? Umbrellas? Hurricane waders? Yes, you have a transdimensional shift. Go ahead. Put it on. How? It doesn't look like clothes, right? You don't put it on like clothes. Again, you're looking at me like I'm not being helpful. I would demonstrate but. I have an idea. Give me the TDL satchel. T for Trans, D for Dimension, L for

Thousand: Twenty-Six

L for L for L for leather? I don't know. L for love? L for El Gran Idea! Something like that. Eh. It's on the clasp, a logo. I bought the bag in a specialty shop. It was given to me. Things are beautiful and then respond well to caresses. A night draws the dawn back toward itself but there is always a struggle. Always a struggle! People have been known to weep over nothing then stand stoically amid clamorous death. Oh hello, it's Velma the Caiman. She's right on top. She usually is. What green eyes you have, my

Thousand: Twenty-Seven

honey, my sweet, my precious. I want to eat you up. I want to slup your entrails, nibble the webbing from between your toes, gnaw the teeth I've worked from those powerful jaws, tickle your tendons with my raspy tongue. All in good fun, my dear. Here, I'm going to put you by the fireplace. Watch out for the firedogs! Kidding, kidding! Sh. Just rest there. I'm going to show our new friend the TDL basics. It won't take but a moment. Have a shrimp. OK. Besides the distractions of the manor estates with their beard moss festooned oaks and

Thousand: Twenty-Eight

the treacle in a glass jar, you will see a newspaper truck idling in front of a fire hydrant. Turn your eyes in a leftward direction but without pivoting. You should be able to spot a child sitting on the grass. If that child is made of straw you will need to count the stop signs at the next three intersections. If the child is constructed completely of bird seed there will be a ladder nearby leading up into an apple tree. There will be no apples on the tree but for one at the very top out of reach.

Thousand: Twenty-Nine

Consider the apple. Would it be sweet or sour? Is the skin puckered, like it's drying out? On a table on a nearby porch is a pair of binoculars. Do your feet hurt? What time is it? The door is ajar. As you step on one of the porch's creaking boards, a cat darts out of the house. Then a dog. The dog shoots right past you, almost making you stumble. When you pick up the binoculars you find the neck strap is caught on something under the table. You give a tug. Whatever below has hold of the strap

Thousand: Thirty

tugs back. Do you wonder if it's dangerous? Or do you bend down to look? While you are hesitating a comet sheds molecules of water, steaming coldly toward the sun. While you think about the fruit's possible states and the safety of a home swing set made of aluminum, a bell signals the opening of the stock exchange on an island nation too small to support sales of annuities. The strap's slack is again taken up, but gently. When you peek under the table a little girl in a flouncy yellow dress and white sandals decorated with colored glass gems

Thousand: Thirty-One

curls one hand around the strap from the binoculars and holds the other over her mouth. She's smiling, clearly. It's not possible to hide that big of a grin. But when she sees your face the girl quickly purses her lips and puts her index finger in front of them. She gives you a slow blink. A tattered straw hat covers her hair but for wisps at her ears. Around the hat a once white ribbon culminates in a flower, battered, blowzy, and unforgiving. Without letting go the strap the girl drops forward and crawls on hands and knees toward

Thousand: Thirty-Two

the porch steps. The binoculars lurch off the table. Do you grab them to keep them from thumping onto the boards? Or do you figure, they're not your binoculars, presumably they belong to the girl, she must know what she's doing? She gets to the porch steps and tugs the strap again as though it were a leash. Does that mean she pulls you along? Or do you watch the binoculars rumble forth at your feet? Is there anything important about using the binoculars? You were going to use them to check out that apple. Maybe a message was scarred

Thousand: Thirty-Three

into its skin by a pelting of hail. There's no way you'd be able to read that message without the binoculars. On the other hand, it's just a fucking apple. Who needs it! It's not like you'd be able to reach it anyway. The ladder doesn't go near high enough. If it did someone long since would have had the thing in hand, bitten it, sucked its juices, and dropped what of the woody core they didn't want there among the foxtails and star thistle. The little girl looks over her shoulder at you, beckons with a theatrically crooked finger,

Thousand: Thirty-Four

then makes a break for it, thudding down the steps, dashing across the lawn. She's left the binoculars behind! Do you look through them now? Or should you follow her? If you are tired of this game, step into the house. There is a pitcher of iced lemonade on the dining table and plastic tumblers stacked upside down next to it. If, however, you can't resist the girl's invitation, she seems taken with you after all, make haste. If neither of these options quite sounds like you and you would like a third, reach inside your pocket. Pull out the

Thousand: Thirty-Five

first thing you find there. It should be a pearl. If it is a dirigible or a rubber octopus, please put it back. If it is something like a pearl, even if not exactly a pearl, it will do. Insert the pearl (or pearl-like object) into your ear. It should settle securely into the ear canal. Do not push it in deeply, as the pearl needs time to adjust to its new environment. If you have already shoved the pearl into your ear as deep as it will go, what can I say. Don't be in such a rush. Take

Thousand: Thirty-Six

your time next time. Consider the consequences of your actions, even if you have no evidence to evaluate or precedent to refer to. Even if, after racking your brains until it's obvious no strategy is apropos, consider the apple, the consequences, I mean. If all you have to go on is your imagination and you're likely to get the reality wrong by using it, thrust forth with it anyway, no matter how distantly it takes you, and wander in that realm awhile before doing a thing. Perhaps then you'll clutch your pearls a little tighter ere you are given the

Thousand: Thirty-Seven

leave to escape across the border of the boundless territory of your inherent limitations that you may submit to a greater other. A wise elder. An oracle. A wind in the pines or willows or the voice of the turtle, song of the eagle, the whisper of the siege machine. The pitcher of lemonade is sweating your decision. A little girl sitting beside it draws trails in its chill anxiety with a pink finger. She tastes the finger. This can't be the girl who ran off across the lawn, can it? She can't have got back so fast. She had

Thousand: Thirty-Eight

a mission! This must be her doppelganger, her evil twin, a changeling. Her hair is nicely brushed and braided into pigtails that drop just to her shoulders, each braid bound near the end with a clean white ribbon, at the end a tuft tidy as an artist's brush. She has on a flouncy yellow dress, the same as the other girl. Is it Sunday before church? Or is mother planning a party? There is a stuffed bear, clean but not new, propped up on one of the other chairs. None of the tumblers waiting upside down has yet been turned

Thousand: Thirty-Nine

over to receive that cold refreshment. The girl lays her head down on her arm, her cheek resting on the thickest part above the elbow. She's feeling sleepy, or a little cross. Her eyes close then open, close then open, a gesture as unconscious as her sister's slow blink was deliberate. She draws swirls on the side of the pitcher, and the condensation, gathered together by her finger, suddenly has the weight to rush down the glass. When the girl next touches it, ever so lightly, the pitcher turns and travels two, three inches across the table. Fascinated, the girl

Thousand: Forty

holds her finger up, inclines it toward the pitcher, and brings her finger right up to the pitcher's side. But she lets it hover there, feeling the cooler air, then, just as she's going to touch it, the pitcher moves again. Not as much this time, and it turns again, too. The girl sits up and looks over the thick wet trail the pitcher made on the table as it moved. Light gets in it and squiggles but doesn't stay. She sighs. She is thinking about something, but whatever it is does not show on her face. Distantly, she hears

Thousand: Forty-One

a radio. She seems to recognize one of the voices on the radio, but the sound fades quickly, its source traveling. The girl lowers her head. She pushes the lemonade pitcher back up its own trail and lets it go again. But this time it doesn't move. When it continues to sit as a pitcher typically sits, with no sense it's got anywhere to go, the girl jabs it with a finger. Stubborn thing. She touches it once more, this time lightly, apologizing. One of the ice cubes that had been buried beneath the others breaks free, and cubes jostle

Thousand: Forty-Two

into new positions. How much water in that comet, you think? How long will it take before it all blows away? A cold mist spraying out from the comet's body, spreading around the shadow, whether the comet hurtles toward or away from the sun. It's not like a peacock's tail, always behind. When the comet's come its closest, and all that's left is to turn away, the sun behind it at last and dwindling, dwindling gradually until it burns only slightly warmer than stars that are so much farther away but bigger, hungrier, younger, the comet's tail hurries ahead, the

Thousand: Forty-Three

comet coming after it, eating it, eating it until it's gone. Ouroboros sleeps, wandering in sleep. The little girl removes a tumbler from the stack, turns it over and sets it on the table next to the pitcher of lemonade. She takes a breath. It's a heavy pitcher and she has skinny little girl arms. She wraps both hands around the handle and tips the pitcher, and the lemonade slides smoothly out, the first splash tossing up a big yellow drop which falls neatly back into the filling vessel. The little girl settles the pitcher back into the wet ring,

Thousand: Forty-Four

pauses for a breath to see if it will wander again (it doesn't), then picks up the glass. She filled it almost to the top so she needs to carry it carefully, and soon it is uncomfortably cold, so she puts one hand under the bottom, the other gripping the rim. Slowly, even dreamily, she passes down the hall to the still open front door. One jacket sleeve from the overloaded coat tree catches on her shoulder, then, ignored, drops away. A porch board creaks under her, a tired old board, its give and protest as familiar as the cat's

Thousand: Forty-Five

fuss-fuss when upside down in her arms. There you are out in the yard squinting through binoculars at something high up. The girl walks the lemonade right to you. She stands there, barefoot in the drying grass, waiting for you to notice. Maybe you will at last. You are awfully focused on that apple, I guess. What's it say? I mean, is there a message scarred into its rosy skin like I thought? Tagged by a graffiti artist bee? Scored by the tongue of a hummingbird? Or is the damn thing that pretty, that perfect a specimen of appleness! If

Thousand: Forty-Six

a god (or God) were to reach a skinny hand out of the sky and pluck that apple, haul it up to a divine tooth, chomp it down to seeds, then drop those seeds one by one into your satchel, would you come home with them, and plant each reverently in a different corner of the little back yard you get in the city, a yard no way big enough for one apple tree, let alone three. Would you water each with precious bodily fluids or water blessed by a priest? Would you lie down under their shade as they

Thousand: Forty-Seven

waggled their leaves in spring breezes and bees tumbled out of their blossoms? I bet you'd write poems about how fine the flowers are, white blushing inside, shy at being looked into, at being seen before they could apple up. You're still not taking the lemonade. Come to think of it, you haven't moved. The little girl nudges you with a toe. Take the glass already! The wind toys with your hair, just at the fringes. Still, nothing. You haven't adjusted the focus on the binoculars; everybody does that. You haven't shifted your weight even slightly. Standing like that gets

Thousand: Forty-Eight

to be a stress position, you know. You could injure yourself, edema in the legs, bloodshot eyes, tremor in the ribs, echoes, octopus hand, vagaries in the vocal chords, excess sincerity, dropsy, ague, unquenchable thirst, and perspiration. Other things even worse. Like transdimensional deshabille. I didn't want to mention that, but you forced it out of me. You know, it's really boring you just standing there, big black goggly telescopes jutting from your face, your lips tense in concentration. I know what would shake you from this stasis! A werewolf! Trust me, they are totally cute. If you rub them

Thousand: Forty-Nine

briskly they shoot sparks from their silvery fur! And they have sweet human eyes in their canine faces, kind of like bears. I mean, I get that a lot of werewolves are angry, and not all of them effect the transformation from man to beast in a voluntary manner but there are medicines for that. There's a pill for everything! I bet there's a pill for this frozen quality you're exhibiting. One must go on a quest for it, I suppose. Or a kiss, perhaps? The handsome prince planting a big smooch on those cold lips, the kiss that rouses

Thousand: Fifty

kingdoms, the kiss that wakes mountains. The kiss, once planted, grows in concentric smackeroo circles, ripples widening, widening, until your life is contained, the world, too. I don't know. Velma, what do you think? Ask the girl? I should ask the girl? The one with the lemonade? Isn't she the evil twin? I don't know. Personally, I think we need a change of scene. A pond. A monk is sprinkling rice among the lily pads, red and black and silver koi touch the surface with their mouths and the grains of rice disappear. It's like magic. Maybe you need a

Thousand: Fifty-One

good kiss from a fat koi. Or a monk. You know, I think I'd take a kiss from a monk over a kiss from a handsome prince. Although, generalizations being what they are, I suppose one should refrain from predicting and go by the individual case. Koi are bottom feeders. They eat algae and snails and smaller fish, including baby koi. But they don't begrudge the rice the monk offers from his bowl before he's had a bite himself. The monk gathers his robe and sits on the boards beneath the roof overhang, sunlight striking his knees. From a small

Thousand: Fifty-Two

round hat perched on the side of the monk's shaved head a soothing hum emanates. The monk eats the rice grain by grain, picking out one at a time, plucking each from the mound in the bowl with red enameled chopsticks. He regards the rice with affectionate interest, reviewing the available grains for the qualities that will make it an appropriate choice for the next to raise above its fellows. The monk is not seeking perfection. He does not want to hold up one particular grain of rice as best or even to pronounce one ever so slightly preferable to

Thousand: Fifty-Three

the others. And it's not like he's a metronome, measuring each grain its own morsel of time in which to be ruminated upon. No, he may pick up only one at a time, he may give each some consideration, but that does not mean he spends an equal amount of time contemplating every grain. Most of them go in, pop pop pop, the tiny ends of the sticks nicking into the bowl, snatching up the eyed grain, and with an almost invisibly quick flip sending them to a ready tongue. The monk will save a batch there, then rest his

Thousand: Fifty-Four

tired hand, while savoring the starches as they break down into sugars. It is true, though, that there is the occasional grain of rice that captures the monk's attention completely, and he gazes, transfixed, as the world's possibilities, the intricate connections of the cosmos, unfold and refold. After eating, the monk puts the bowl aside, closes his eyes, and lays his hands loosely upon his knees. Bloop! goes a frog into the pond. It plops out immediately on a lily pad and one of the larger koi spins just beneath. A dragonfly's thrum hangs over the frog, which is far

Thousand: Fifty-Five

too small to make a meal of it. Did you know the dragonfly larva, which lives several times as long as the end-stage flying version, is the real dragon, gobbling up baby koi and tadpoles, and, no doubt, little frogs, as it lords over the bottom of the pond? Perhaps one of them big koi would eat a nymph, which is what a dragonfly larva is called, but somebody gotta eat somebody, else a belly go empty. Poor belly, always wanting to be full, and always going about emptying itself. That's how these jobs go. You dirty a dish, you

Thousand: Fifty-Six

got to clean it. Unless you don't. You can choose not to. It may be flouting the conventions of the time. On the other hand, there are plenty of eras (and areas) where cleanliness is next to the sort of godliness no one has any respect for. My point is: you do something and it doesn't stay done. Except in that moment in time and space the earth in her peregrinations has spiraled away from. It may be that each thing that happens has as precise a place as a time. We could log our history by coordinates that affix

Thousand: Fifty-Seven

an event not just by date but by where in the universe it took place. The toppling of the milk bottle from which, even as we speak, milk is glunking out, that toppling took place not just seconds ago but some hundreds of miles away at least. The earth having continued to rotate, the bumping of the bottle would have taken place some fraction of a rotation away. The earth having continued to move through its orbit about the sun, the leaning of the bottle would have taken place some fraction of the solar cycle away. The sun having continued

Thousand: Fifty-Eight

its gravitational negotiation with the galactic core, not to mention other stars should she happen upon them (not that that's likely, apparently, considering the paucity of stars and the great number of non-places to strew them), the first drops hitting the table would have entirely different coordinates than every other point in the milk spilling process. Let's say these coordinates were plotted. And that there was a book to look them up in. Everything from a child stamping its foot in anger to the signing of the Declaration of Independence to, let's face it, the happy discovery of the blood

Thousand: Fifty-Nine

meal by the ancestor of the flea, or, being less parochial, the first manifestation of the clockwise-turning gyre in a storm on a yellow-orange gas giant circling a star so many billion light years distant from the John Hancock adding his flourish at the bottom of a hemp parchment while wearing knee stockings. All of that and, as they say, more! An unwieldy book. If not written transdimensionally! The transdimensional index is, like the transdimensional map, essentially indistinguishable from the universe. The advantage the transdimensional index has over the universe is that, with a basic grasp of the cataloging system,

Thousand: Sixty

you can find anything. A basic grasp of the cataloging system is, however, unattainable. A hit-and-miss blind grasping is about the best we can achieve. That's okay. This makes it not much different than most of our strategies. The rewards can be great. Or disaster. Tonight there will be no disasters, you might intone as you unfold the transdimensional shift and take the lemonade from the hand of the very patient little girl and answer the door where a dear friend is waiting, worried, calling your name. You walk back to the place you were happiest and everything is exactly

Thousand: Sixty-One

as you remember it, at least in so far as what is there is happiness, the very happiness you expect. That may not sound like sufficient velocity to break free from the present. Walking wouldn't get you off the earth even if a ladder stretched so high. Would it? Drink your lemonade. Ah. Isn't that refreshing! The girl's sister, Emily, is in a tree. It's down the block a piece. A sycamore. Or an elk. I mean, an oak. Or elm. I don't know. What's the difference? Anyway, sturdy limbs, few really vertical, bark not painfully rough or sticky, no

Thousand: Sixty-Two

thorns or needles, and tall. She's way up there. She has the binoculars. That's what you get for standing put, all stiff like a dummy. A little girl comes back and gets her binoculars. Then again maybe she always had them. This could be a version where she gathered them up quick, just as she dashed from the porch. In this version maybe she didn't give a rat's ass whether you followed her flouncy yellow skirt as it bobbed around her like a splendid jellyfish rising from the midnight depths, its yellow brilliance shocking the upper waters. But I will

Thousand: Sixty-Three

leave such speculations to another. For now, it is enough that Emily has her own apple. Yes, everyone has an apple all their own. No doubt the apple tastes like knowledge, provided one can ever get it to the mouth. My own apple is shriveling on a high branch beyond my reach. I have shot at it with various small weapons, graduating from an air pistol to a shoulder-launched cruise missile, but it has, as yet, had the ally of a gentle zephyr, which, each time, has nudged the apple aside as whatever projectile I've sent up has zinged (or

Thousand: Sixty-Four

screamed or sizzled) harmlessly past. That is my problem. Emily, however, is yawning. She lowers the binoculars and rubs her eyes. It is not an apple tree, this tree she has climbed high into the skinny branches. It is not a fruit tree at all, unless you mean the bats. Nobody knows they are there. Being green they disappear among the leaves. When autumn comes around the bats fly south for the winter, except for one freak who lingers, having the chameleon-like (or, why not, octopus- like) ability to change its colors to whatever gaudy spangle of yellows and reds this

Thousand: Sixty-Five

sort of tree has decided on this sort of year. I imagine once winter has crept in, all the leaves having drifted away to their earthly reward, a burnished red bundle hanging by its long toes from a high branch would look apple-like from a distance. Emily raises the binoculars to her face again. She's not training them on a bat. But is it an apple? It's another of those way up in the tippy-top twigs, that, were this an apple tree, could easily have proved out of reach of the most determined and resourceful apple-picker. It is red, a

Thousand: Sixty-Six

bit more heart-shaped than spherical, dangles from a stem. But what's this? A door opening in its face? The door inclining like one of those castle doors that drops down to cover a moat. A line of tiny lights begins to flash in sequence along the edges of the door. Emily leans forward, adjusting the focus on the binoculars. Something is moving on the door, a spider? a gnat? No. It's an biplane, one of those early 20th century planes with a long heavy propeller on its nose and two broad wings, one wing affixed to the underside of the

Thousand: Sixty-Seven

carriage, the other to the top like an airplane sandwich. There's even meat in the middle in the form of a pilot. He is wearing lettuce and is slathered with mayonnaise. A large slice of tomato occupies the passenger seat, which is in front of the pilot, interfering with visibility. The little girl's tummy growls. She could bite an apple or a sandwich or swallow some of that lemonade sitting in a pool of condensation on a table in a house over which the sign of the zebra is being drawn by a clandestine operative, codename: Fluffy Cats. By day

Thousand: Sixty-Eight

Cats is a burning beacon, by night a tender ember. By day she is the ends to the earth's means, by night the meaning of this end of the earth. By day she is tall as a rocket, by night squat as a candle stub. Fluffy Cats is out of the boxers. Fluffy Cats has moved the goalie. Fluffy Cats claws the bejeezus out of the social order and pees on your grandmother's dicta. Her secret identity is classified by thirty- two governments and in each bureau a drawer is set aside for passwords to the programs that allow her messages to

Thousand: Sixty-Nine

be deciphered. Tomorrow or days from now the sign of the zebra will take on the greatest of significance. In the meantime, Eula, Emily's sister, scoops vanilla ice cream into a cup. Over it she splashes lemonade, just enough for the yellow and the tartness. She takes it out to the porch and sits down to eat. The birdseed boy is being pecked apart by robins. Somebody lives purely because of a terrible illness. The sentient bastards, parsed by the tailor and lined up along the city limits, fade exactly. A newly built catapult shivers with presentiments. What elbowed out

Thousand: Seventy

the savage fair cost little. What shouldered in the average tin, the friendship had to bear. A vile exhaust and a pleasant ancestry had separately been compiled, posted on the ages, and returned as the years wrinkled. The wind fills the sock. It is a size twelve wind, a red-and-white striped sock. After everything, even after the stumps had been blasted from the field, and the holes filled with gravel and compacted, the landing was rough. Rain wasn't falling but hanging around in several loose sheets, as though waiting to be creased, as though waiting for hands which could direct

Thousand: Seventy-One

them into patterns, weave a thread to a thread, a cloud to a cloud, press them into bends, and bend them into bows. After everything the airfield, pocked with puddles, rutted with runnels, let the machines rise and caught them when they fell. A youth, naked to the waist, sploshes out to the biplane as its heavy propeller strikes a few more raindrops. Fire waits in pockets. A pot of coffee. Animals. The two transepts. Banished fangs. Absolute fortune composed of carhops. Hit the whisk. Farther in the distance a near thing throttles down. He wants to know something

Thousand: Seventy-Two

about things, the things like that, the things like it, what carries and what follows through. He wants to know the ABCs of the saturated fist. He wants to know the fantastic aperture, including the welts but leaving out the field trip. A noggin of wood versus a capsule gradient. Those among the chariots versus those uglies flopping in the gullies. A lightning strike is followed in rapid succession by a lightning demonstration, a lightning sidewalk, and a lightening of the burden the thunder must labor under. The tenderizer of the heart sprinkles over the virgin liver with an insouciance

Thousand: Seventy-Three

born of fragility and wine. A theater of excellence engages the rabble in a dialectic of forms. A house of pencils rubs wrong the testy fabulist of fate. A husky youngster lugging lug nuts to the pizza place wears on his fair face an expression usually fit to the margins of a dog. Goofy? Or melancholy? Which day will see the end of the rain? In her younger days the grandmother was known as "The Tomato." Once upon a time there was a dog. It had to be disclosed, that secret. Her buddies still, joshingly, call her "The Tomato." One

Thousand: Seventy-Four

gives oneself up to the gods, who poke around the piles of human souls like heaps of fruit at the harvest fair. Another sanctuary burned to the ground and out of the ashes phoenix flowers bloomed, burned like sterno cans. What city was situated at the mouths of two rivers, at the feet of two mountains, at the elbows of two kings, and at the ass end of the universe? The rain-wet boy helps The Tomato down from the biplane while lightning sways her serpentine dance and thunder his big bronze gong bangs. Some soaked seed bursts its coat. Wild

Thousand: Seventy-Five

as a Winchester, the frantic immigration control official raves over the market rates. A night, then another night. Two abut. A third lingers somewhat near but a fragrant day intervenes, brief and bare, but not to be denied. It has denial written all over it. NO stitched among its stars. Not one of its thous shalt. All for naught, all for naught. Do not ask for room for the bell's bowls, they nestle, one outside, one within, then within, then further in. Do not howl for the tongue, it's wrung for free, all its speeches free, lost and fast and

Thousand: Seventy-Six

loose and bound for glory, glorioski, rounded with an O! Do not flinch from your duty, nor ask not, nor sasquatch that joint, my friend, nor end where end and commencement bend to mend, but sally forth, rally, excelsior! Take on the next take with the true zest of grit! Expound, propound, and make the hills resound! Draw your word from your sword as a blade from a sheaf of pleats and brandish its might with meat and main, for foe nor feckless friend may stay the frightful will from its progress, in deed, in derring-do, in delights and nights

Thousand: Seventy-Seven

and heart-stopping heights. Are you roused? Is the blood within you surging? Good. Pretty good. Pretty fairly good in a nice fashion. Terrif! Splendi! Perfec! Whatever is new is new is now newer is no. The old no. Good. The old no. Good as gold gravy. Good as golly. Good as gone. Good as the way through the wild wood by the old fair path. Good as a foot. You are the measure. The two fingers of whiskey in the glass. The rain gauge making inches out of water the sky's done with. Stand up for the rain! Stand sentry

Thousand: Seventy-Eight

at the Gate of Heavenly Aches. Allow to pass only those who fit. Look yonder, lo!, approaching, a caravan of Harvard graduates and art students led by a bold slave, black as Denver, his glasses smoked blue, his staff of office twined with crepe serpents and capped by fleur-de-lis. He wearies, his tread thickened by the flour of age, his wisdom clear even across mirages, his camels bound by ancient contracts to this road of ice and tubers. A divine spirit tugs him by the nose, and the educated children of privilege bounce behind him, even beneath their packs bulging

Thousand: Seventy-Nine

with good luck, bad choices, and adobe bricks. A comet has been hanging in the midnight sky for weeks. Who will climb the Tree of Divine Convention to tickle the comet's tail? A white plume from that tail would make a nice accoutrement to a tall helmet. The sun must be walking, too, in no hurry to cross a sky bleached sand white. Perhaps the stars have been smeared together. Night will show. Night hides so many things, until it's ready, itself prime among them. How many years have dripped down these walls? There are cracks ancient as the bricks,

Thousand: Eighty

and shrubs, gnarled, with bitter black berries (from which is made a sacred tea), have twined their roots through those cracks for time out of mind. There is much here out of mind, sharp and blunt objects, sour fruits and slow syrups, the lost eye, the wandering knuckle. The Slave taps his staff and a parrot you hadn't noticed squawks from the carved lintel above your head. The Slave speaks. "Have you have hurt me?" he says. You look down the interstate of his gaze. I would soothe you with sweet unguents. Somebody famous said that? The Salve smells of

Thousand: Eighty-One

myrrh. His lips are moving and they remind you of the shapes of clouds at sunset, the way the last colors turn a strange dimension. You think of light lingering on a lake, the earth gone dark, stars pricking out their patterns one by one. You think of sheep- cropped knolls, hills pocked by ancient rock recently exposed, and the dawn still cold. You might be looking down on rivers that have cut their own routes, that will cut new ones, entirely new, when they've tired of their beds. Or perhaps it is the hem of a dress you see, the

Thousand: Eighty-Two

dust stirred by its edge, by the movement of the body hidden behind its swirl. The Slave is speaking. It's not that his mouth moves and nothing comes out. If that were the case you'd just be amused or confused, instead of seeing things, landscapes, the transport of bodies, the tearing of the heavens, a new hurt or comfort. A Harvard grad turns a somersault. It's cute. An art student strips off her shirt and another fills in the color of her dragon's eye tattoo. What is he saying? You look at him again, the Salve of your pain. The

Thousand: Eighty-Three

superhighway of his gaze is empty, isn't it? Or is there something traveling it? There's a. There's a. A shadow? Is it him, his caravan, the camels with tasseled blankets over their humps, bells strapped to their knees, cavorting ivy leaguers and kids charging toward their bliss? Is that what is resolving from the mystery of his distance? You blink. He is offering a muffin, a dark muffin studded with raisins and dried cranberries. Then there is the black coffee sweetened to the depths of its ground. You are sitting on a round cushion. When did that happen? A hookah,

Thousand: Eighty-Four

curvy as a girl, glints from the middle of a blue carpet, its pipes slinking out to soft young mouths, including yours. You feel young again, if you ever felt young. You feel young in a way you never felt young, you just know it's new and young and fresh and innocent, naïve, immortal. There are stars in your eyes, comets even. There are bangles and coins rolling on the carpet, catching the light and letting it go, playing with it, tossing it from concave to convex to concentrate on the dimple of her cheek, his chin, the hookah's polished

Thousand: Eighty-Five

skin. You look back at your childhood, which you haven't thought about lately. Where is it? No, it's okay. It's okay that you don't remember where you last saw it. You were carrying something, something important?, or you had to make a call, and there was your childhood, crystallized in a pure nostalgia. You put it aside in order to take care of that thing, the call or the broken cup, whatever. You could retrace your steps. One of the art students breaks a stiff shining leaf and rubs it between his fingers, his hand curving under your nose. Don't

Thousand: Eighty-Six

forget to breathe. It's an intricate process, requiring vast attention. The sky, again, is vast, though day after day, with its coin-sized star and its battered button moon, it can seem small as a leaky boat. There are some things that take too much attention, that it would be best to ignore. The smell from the leaf so heady you blink and gasp. The pipe's warm mouth touches your own and you begin to suck from it. What comes at first is harsh, even bitter, and you want to cough it out, but your lips tighten on the brass, not

Thousand: Eighty-Seven

letting go of the breath that is moving into you. There's a long moment where what happened, you realize, has been destroyed. Something was here. You were making something or something was being made for you. It's gone. It was something that took a lot of effort. You were tired, you didn't really want to do it, but the effort produced something, and, you remember, it wasn't too bad. It was worth it. You look around. But something closed. Yes, your eyes are closed. You are just noticing that your eyes are closed. Perhaps here in the dark the thing

Thousand: Eighty-Eight

is nearby, after all. Should you reach out a hand? What if a monster bites it off? The Slave's voice. Remember its landscapes? You begin to seek them. Weren't they all face? Your feet carry you lightly, no problem. You've shed your last gravity. But weren't you sitting among crazy kids and their dancing and performative nudity, a drug barging through your system, breaking things? You had a box of spectacles of the finest rose. You would offer them to whoever came to the gate. They always looked sad. Who else would wish to enter through the Gate of Heavenly

Thousand: Eighty-Nine

Sighs? "You hurt me," said the man who traveled across stones hot as tears, who had beaten his camels with a switch cut from a tree that all the time weeps, its sobs shaking it to the hollow. They would not go faster. They would scream, raising their ululations to the camel god who seemed to be taking a mercy fast. "I didn't hurt you," you want to say, but where is he? He limped off into the maze, leaning on a silver crutch that had a toe of sore flesh, the hurt man's own toe, the one that, torn

Thousand: Ninety

from his foot, had offered in exchange a limp. Around your feet are the bread crumbs that lead off to the left. Tied to a stone is a pink thread that zigzags away over the rubble, circles a tree, then disappears into a hole. The stars, as usual, have been aligned into a northward pointing arrow. There is an envelope pinned to your collar. Breathe, remember? It's not the sort of thing one remembers. Breathing. If one were to remember every breath the memory would have room for what else? The action. Breathing. That's what you have to remember. Did

Thousand: Ninety-One

you prick your thumb? A trail of blood leads down to your elbow from which two drops have already leapt the gap between your flesh and the earth. It was the rose you fondled. So pretty. It was as though the world, swaddled in its soft red petals, were a sleepy bee. That's when the thorn gets you, dips its fang into your sap, and draws the poison out. The darkness is drawn to the beckoning needle of the rose. It emerges in beads. You forgot the thread. Thread? Do you lean over now and pluck the stone from its

Thousand: Ninety-Two

setting in the silver dust, untie from the stone the ready pink thread, and begin to add to it the beads of your inner darkness, one by one, to make a necklace? Are you a do-it-yourself type who would snag a curl of cloud and twist it between your fingers into the thread that would pass through the needle's hungry eye? What better spine for the bead of secrets? You catch one of these ruby beads as it drops from your arm. You roll it around in your palm. It scurries over your girdle of venus then follows the line

Thousand: Ninety-Three

of fate until it hits the sun, sweeps just shy of the heel and touches venus' mount, before turning back up the life. Oh, what a tickle! And it so knows you. This little bead has bobbed about your ankle and cycled up and down the inside of your nose. This little bead's been squeezed through the left ventricle of your twisting heart and lingered in a lung to exchange some gases. It knows your prefrontal lobe and your middle frontal gyrus. And, yes, it's helped warm your hairy genitals. This bead knows you. What gem could be so intimate?

Thousand: Ninety-Four

What metal could prove itself, clean as mercury, toothsome as gold? What joy has been cut to accentuate its facets? But just then, the heroic anthem strikes up and a banner unfurls over a castle just stormed. The rain is falling on a drought-stricken postage stamp. And the sinecure provided an aged actuary proves just slightly inadequate such that he must downgrade his trip to the French Rivera to a trip to the Balkan Riviera, Montenegro's Adriatic which, he tells his youthful protégé, Elizabeth Taylor thought was worth an afternoon or two. Meanwhile, you hear a different drummer chasing an

Thousand: Ninety-Five

indifferent drummer just off the altiplano. There are so many ways to go. Perhaps you should let a coin choose your path. The road less traveled, though not much less traveled, really, as neither's been traveled much at all to judge by the grass growth, presents the attraction of being a shortcut to the ancient healer in the woods, a hag of withered countenance and prominent physiognomy, with two cats of dubious manufacture, a haint, as well as several organs and oranges drying on strings next to the gleaming ropes of peppers on her verandah. You are bleeding. You continue

Thousand: Ninety-Six

to breathe, although, frankly, not everyone would. The other road leads to the beginning of something. It will get there eventually, which is why this road is used. The way, however, is roundabout. It wanders, its destination is its determination not to get any particular where any particular soon, and it's pretty good about making that destination in good time. There are those who like that. Maybe more than like to be healed or who think they are ailing, alone in the woods, with the option of an ugly old woman to save them, or going forward toward the place

Thousand: Ninety-Seven

that might be the better choice, really, considering the unappetizing sway of dried kidneys on a string. A dilapidated cottage in dark woods or that distant thing that might be something. The wear of the paths suggests a preference. Although it could be more travelers than not are lost and a house of that sort encourages one to keep going. Not to say the less traveled path comes to a stop at the stoop. It goes on beyond, too. Above your head evergreens drag needled crowns in a fog. Down in the bushes birds rustle and mice build toothpick houses.

Thousand: Ninety-Eight

An elm, a citrus fir, and a summer plum walk into a bar. The bartender says, "What'll you have?" The elm says, "Water." "OK," says the bartender. "Water it is." Then, turning to the citrus fir, the bartender asks the same question, "What will you have?" The citrus fir thinks for a moment as though it hadn't anticipated having to answer exactly that question. "Water," after due consideration the citrus fir says. "Great!" says the bartender. "We have very fine water here." Now it's the turn of the summer plum. But before the plum has a chance to place its

Thousand: Ninety-Nine

drink order the bartender reaches up and plucks from the tree's branches one of its fine fat fruits. The bartender puts the plum to her mouth and bites. Plum juice sluices down her chin and, as she chews and bites and bites and chews, working her way through the slippery, softening plum, the juice drips from her chin, and the juice runs down her bare arm to the elbow where sweet golden drops gather and fall. "I'll have what they're having," says the tree. Once upon a time there was a dog. The dog had begun its story by digging

Thousand: One Hundred

up the tomato beds. And biting off all the squash blossoms. This was not a good beginning to the dog's story. However, after it was dropped off at the crossroads in the middle of the night, the dog learned the ways of the country dogs, which was to chase sheep, tear open the hutches of tame rabbits in order to eat them, and steal food from the bowls of cowering poodles, that and rack up karma points for their next lifetime when they would be (and here they were given a choice) wolves (a very limited number of wolf slots

Thousand: One Hundred One

available), a gnat (brief turnaround time could be an advantage), a basilisk (tempting for the vengeful but may not actually exist), a tree (you are not allowed to specify a species), or a Catholic. The dog, upon its death, chose Catholic. The child did not know he had been a dog in a previous life, although during communion a priest did get bitten. The Catholic position rotates with Hindu, Muslim, Animist, and Zoroastrian. Many dogs go for gnat. Gnat is not as low a rung on the karma wheel as you may think. Plus, there's little waiting. The dog's best

Thousand: One Hundred Two

pal, a doberman-labrador-greyhound- schnauzer mix, liked the idea of tree, having peed on many a tree during his time, pee for a dog being no insult but rather a prime component of the communication repertoire. Dogs have real respect for trees. The dlgs mix was also tired of having to run around all day, sniffing, biting, scratching. It's not that there weren't satisfactions to a good gnaw or to the tingle in the nose brought on by a whiff of dog butt gland, indeed, it was hard to imagine a life that didn't include such wonders, but the dlgs mix had

Thousand: One Hundred Three

a deep admiration for patience, not having much himself. There were dogs with patience, he knew, dogs who could wait hours, even days, for the beloved to return, and wait without complaint, patiently, gazing off into a future so assured nothing made them nervous. The dlgs mix knew he could never be like that. A tree, however, was patience. It was essential tree nature. No matter the species, if it was a tree it was patient. A tree planned for the long term, reaching deep for the resources that stayed put, spreading wide to catch the resources more fleeting. That

Thousand: One Hundred Four

seemed impossible to the dlgs mix, yet you could not deny that all around there were trees. Packs of them. And that appealed to the social animal. A forest is the most faithful of packs. Only in death does your neighbor abandon you. The dog imagined a tree doesn't feel the pangs of hunger the way a dog does. A dog feels the pangs of hunger pretty darn pangily, let me tell you. So it was both dogs were given opportunity to cash in their karma on a new go-round by a sheep farmer and the sheep farmer's shotgun. The dlgs

Thousand: One Hundred Five

mix had been the first one to the ewe, the lamb she was birthing still stretching out the wet birthsack. The dlgs mix grabbed the lamb by one hind leg, while his buddy got hold of the other, and, not wanting to share, each pulled in his own direction. The ewe wailed. The farmer was on watch as he knew the ewe was sure to drop any day. He'd even patrolled the fence, but the feral dogs found a hole hidden under a shrub, and the farmer came running too late to save the lamb who hadn't opened one eye.

Thousand: One Hundred Six

The very next day the sheep farmer received a summons. His service was requested on behalf of the City of Reds and Blues. The farmer's daughter tried to look on the bright side. The civil unrest had recently been decided in favor of power sharing. The army of the Reds having been demobilized and disarmed, their followers were allowed to reclaim the homes and property that had been stolen from them when the head general of the Blues went bad in the head and sent his soldiers on a killing and looting spree that no one could have predicted. If

Thousand: One Hundred Seven

you were a Red this did not necessarily mean you got your old house back, as someone might be living in it who now considered it their house and the government wasn't interested in pushing people around, but it did mean you could apply for compensation from a special fund created by an additional tax on the importation of milk, milk being a product the country just held its own on producing, which meant as supply fluctuated money would move into the fund, though not as much as was needed to cover all claims or even very many claims. It

Thousand: One Hundred Eight

also was a pleasant spring with lots of flowers on the hedges, the Truth Commission hearings were winding down (the ratings for which had hit a nadir), and the new Red vice president (the former rebel commander) and the Blue president (the previous administration's minister of argument) had been seen at state dinners civilly passing a basket of sourdough. The farmer's summons likely involved jury duty, ceremonial guard duty at one of the nation's monuments, museums, or sacred cenotes, or drinking. None of these, the daughter reasoned, was high risk at present, what with the recent victory of the national

Thousand: One Hundred Nine

ablution team at the World Ablution Championships, an event that comes around every six and a half years. Cheering for spiritual cleanliness seemed to have a greater social import after the bloody unrest. Or so she thought aloud, while washing the baby's bottles, her left hand smarting from a speckling of freshly boiled water. When she shook the bottles out and leaned them in the dish drainer, she turned to her father, and found he'd left the room. The daughter sighed, pushed behind an ear a few strands of auburn hair that had been tickling her nose, and went to

Thousand: One Hundred Ten

check on the baby who usually woke from its nap at about this time. In the crib instead of a baby a dusty brown turtle was burrowing under the fuzzy blanket. The daughter pushed the blanket aside and lifted the turtle to her shoulder. She patted its shell gently. A month ago the daughter had gone to the nursery and found a rock dove nestled under the blanket, its head neatly tucked under one wing. She had screamed, which caused the dove to burst into flight. It rushed about the room, brushing knick-knacks off the bookcase and sending the star

Thousand: One Hundred Eleven

mobile into a spin, tossing off a comet that hasn't yet been reattached. Later, she learned, her baby was merely going through a rock dove mood. They do that. Moods, phases, whims. The mood is of relatively short duration, usually passing within an afternoon. If the turtle was a phase it could last weeks. Infants typically don't experience whims. Whims are too sophisticated. Whims tend to come on sometime around 30 months. The daughter's cousin, a school teacher, once had a student whose whims had to be separately housed, with attendants. It wasn't that they lasted long, but the child

Thousand: One Hundred Twelve

could not restrain herself from the most elaborate and various whims. They ranged from elephants made of cotton candy to water in anatomically correct globes that do-si-do'd with smoke armadillos. Even if none of this lasted more than a few minutes it still sounded dangerous. Disruptive anyway. How did multiplication tables get memorized? Besides, didn't this seem more whimsy than whim? And everyone knows that whimsy doesn't come on until middle age. A child's whim is more along the lines of smearing eyebrows with lipstick or pouring lemonade on the dog. A ballerina made completely of paper clips was the

Thousand: One Hundred Thirteen

kind of whimsy an office manager would enjoy, or a VP in charge of marketing, not a five-year-old. The daughter sniffed the turtle's diaper (smelled clean) then returned to the kitchen. Meanwhile among the leprechauns one of the least inebriated began counting noses. He had done this a few times and each time had come up with a number. Just when he grew confident that he had the right number, the next count, a count merely to confirm, a count to make sure there was no mistake, would turn out slightly different. The leprechaun would slap his forehead, stagger over

Thousand: One Hundred Fourteen

to a wall or toadstool and slump, sigh, drool a little, sniffle, rub his eyes, one of which had invariably wandered away from its brow and had to be nudged back, then pinch his cheeks until the red in them gleamed like apples slapped with a strop. Taking courage from a swallow of fermented aphid juice and a chaser of deoxygenated brown recluse venom, the leprechaun would rub his nipples absently, squint at least one of his unsteady eyes, and return to the scene of the count. A square-tipped finger picked out the first of his fellow leprechauns, this one

Thousand: One Hundred Fifteen

snoring in a pool of green vomit, his beard wrapped three times around his neck, cold vodka dripping from a cracked vase onto his chest. Number two hung by a toe twisted into the beads of a chandelier. Numbers three and four were squeezing hallucinogenic pus from the sores of number five who had been tied to a fireplace grating. The blue slick fingers were then lapped at by whichever tongue happened to be closest. Though tempted, the counting leprechaun only paused for a connoisseur's sniff before moving on to the flooded bedrooms. The hours passed as he checked old

Thousand: One Hundred Sixteen

familiar faces drinking turpentine and less familiar faces drinking turpentine with cream. Thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five. Number thirty-six was an ashy blue and displayed no familiarity with breath. The counting leprechaun rolled this one over and kicked the empty tequila bottle thus revealed. With a slow yawn, which exposed black and yellow teeth chummy as headstones in a pioneer cemetery, the counting leprechaun pissed into the tequila dregs. He grabbed the blue leprechaun by his matted scalp and poured the piss-tequila mixture down his cold throat, then he shook him and pounded him against the wall, tied a power cord around

Thousand: One Hundred Seventeen

his head just under the nose, so the upper lip curled back and the pointy nose jutted out, then from a picture hook strung him up. The counting leprechaun looked at the teeth the curled lip hid no more. They were quite nice. Capped with gold. Even and clean. Dazzled, the counting leprechaun leaned close and tapped a tooth with his cracked fingernail. He smiled a Mona Lisa smile and into the mouth of the blue, unbreathing leprechaun he let a warm wayward breath find its way. This breath knew what to do; he felt it orient, begin to probe.

Thousand: One Hundred Eighteen

After giving it a head start, the counting leprechaun warmed another lungful, leaned forward, put his fist under the other's chin to lessen the slack mouth's gape, and covered it with his own. The second breath he forced in with a sudden whoosh. Then (as long as we're counting) he sent a third, a fourth, and, after a pause, a fifth, though this last was slow slow, and finished up what lingered deep in the counting leprechaun's doughy belly. As he stepped back, someone nearby applauded languidly. That dull slap of hand against hand could only be the fisher gnome.

Thousand: One Hundred Nineteen

The leprechaun listened to the sound of the fisher gnome's skin, his meat and skin. Plap plap. Plap. But he watched the work the breath he'd given was taking on. It was not easy work. The chest heaved, the belly poked out, pulled in. A sickly yellow-green, the color of a healing bruise, began to underlie the ashy blue. The nostrils twitched, the tongue jerked. The eyelids had once settled neatly over the eyes, but the eyes had sunk into the head, and the lids had remained in position, stiff, bloodless, and ajar. But now the lids fluttered, snapped open,

Thousand: One Hundred Twenty

and the eyes bulged, staring, lightless. "Yep, yep," said a voice behind the counting leprechaun. "Doing good so far." A deep, reverberant moan from the hanging body. "I bet he could carry a tune," the voice continued. "I have some sticks. You could knock on the empty noggin. Bone makes good drum. Notes, not just percussion. It's the crystalline nature of the structure. There are probably bones lying around here, too. You lepers got not much covering you bones either. You could bang on him with that bony arm of your." Another sound from the body, this one a hiss

Thousand: One Hundred Twenty-One

that sidled into a whistle which rose and rose in pitch until stopping abruptly. "Fish good drummers too. Good singers, you know. If you know fish, not just eat but get to know, you know. Not all fish same, you know that. Silly to think else. All birds same? All four-footy beasts? Ha! And Ha! Crawdads not much into music. Except dancing. Crawdad like to dance, you know. Somebody else gotta set the tune? Maybe. They got rhythm in the head maybe, or the tail maybe. All those feet. Many feet. Better for dancing to have more feet, eh? Good

Thousand: One Hundred Twenty-Two

for feet for dancing. Head good. Especially you have pointy head like me, heh heh. Spin like a top. Like a top!" From the leprechaun into which life may or may not have been returning, a new sound, a groan, or a creak. Which becomes a snore-like snort. "I like the songs of trees. They need the wind so maybe it's the wind that's playing the trees like they big instruments. The creak like that. The long groan as the big limb swing, the wind taking they arm, the wind saying, let's dance, you me, let's take it to the

Thousand: One Hundred Twenty-Three

floor, let's shake some leaf, let's let's." The body is silent but some drool falls from the mouth and the joints begin to quiver. The counting leprechaun yawns. Ah, wah wah, he says. He rubs his eyes which the yawn made water. "I know, I know," says the fisher gnome standing right beside him. They are both small creatures, this gnome comes up to the counting leprechaun's shoulder, the gnome's nose is bigger both in length and width, neither would make you think of a child, more a cat mixed with a crow and rolled out on a clay river

Thousand: One Hundred Twenty-Four

bank (leprechaun), and a gnawed shrub crossed with a toothless beaver stuffed in a thrift shop pillow case (gnome, natch), the leprechaun's fingers can bend backwards at every joint. "I know what you're counting for. There's one missing, in there? There's a leprechaun be gone, eh? There's a leper abroad. Eh? I'm right, eh?" The fisher gnome's self-satisfied chuckle was overdubbed by a whooping gasp and a violent blat of a fart. The dead leprechaun was not, it seemed, dead in the manner one expects of the dead. The counting leprechaun looked at last into the eyes of the fisher

Thousand: One Hundred Twenty-Five

gnome. He saw in them something distant and misshapen. He squinted. Yes, there was something in them that was coming soon. On its head a city fixed in place with silver screws housed a nation of refugees from a plague that had burned through mountains and avenues. The counting leprechaun yawned again, which gave the fisher gnome a good view of what of the leprechaun's last meal lingered in the festering pockets of his gums. There was a new sound from the reviving body. It could have been, was it?, a whimper. The counting leprechaun tilted his head and rubbed

Thousand: One Hundred Twenty-Six

his chin, picked his nose and nibbled the finger, pinched his lip on which a ragged nail caught and blood welled at the wound, scratched his ear with a knife, squatted and rubbed his lower back against a broken chair, spat a tooth, and yanked thirteen hairs from his left brow in a precise exercise of hunt down and root out, no one of the thirteen to be suffered, only surprising they had survived to now. The fisher gnome watched this set of behaviors with flared nostrils and a quivering lip, muttering softly, though not so softly as to go

Thousand: One Hundred Twenty-Seven

unnoticed, "I know. I know. Leper's gone. Leper's gone. Gone, leper, gone. I know, I know. One less. Count 'em all up. And you get one less. I know I know. Why I know? Why why? I've got a reason. A reason reason. I know, you know. Do you know? Who but me knows the reason reason? Who who?" This went on rather longer than it ought to have, frankly, the counting leprechaun investigating an uncountable series of minor discomforts, the fisher gnome burbling on and on about some special knowledge, the Lazarusing leprechaun hung up by a power cord.

Thousand: One Hundred Twenty-Eight

In the back of the fisher gnome's mind there's a fish. Once the gnome came upon a puddle in which a tiny copper fish was circling. The puddle had been abandoned when a sudden flood almost as suddenly went back to bed, its dreams calling it. There were puddles left after the flood and the one in which the tiny copper fish was warming did not happen to be one of the bigger. The sun shaved the skin off the puddles with a blade so sharp the water didn't notice. The tiny fish, startled at the shadow cast by the

Thousand: One Hundred Twenty-Nine

fisher gnome, scoots, but there's no place to scoot to. It quivers in its last shallow. Into the puddle the fisher gnome slides his hand, water pouring into a bowl in the middle of his hand. The little copper fish is heartened to see all that darkness suddenly available and rushes to hide his shiny body in it. The fisher gnome leans over his palm and breathes on the water, ripples dancing its surface. Then he snorts it all up. Just like that! This is how a fish came to be in the back of the fisher gnome's mind. It

Thousand: One Hundred Thirty

gives him ideas sometimes. Sometimes, though, it steals and feeds on them. A body's gotta eat. Emily raises a slice of apple to her lips and sucks on it. She closes her eyes. Once she saw a tiny copper fish in the shallows of a river. The fish nibbled on her ankle, which made her giggle. The next day, her mother said, a flash flood took out the campground where they'd pitched a tent. Emily nibbles the apple. Flecks of white flesh on her tongue. She presses them against the roof of her mouth. "Did anybody get wet?" her sister

Thousand: One Hundred Thirty-One

asked. Emily pushes the rest of the apple slice into her mouth. It's a little too big, and makes her cheeks bulge. When Emily was at Ti Ti's house that morning the TV news interrupted Tom & Jerry with special alert news bulletins about the flash flood that ripped through the campground and the twenty or more people who were missing. One body had been found dead in a tree. So Emily wondered what Mother was going to say. Maybe if we had a television, you wouldn't have to tell us everything like you're the only one who can know

Thousand: One Hundred Thirty-Two

anything, Emily remembers thinking. She remembers thinking this so fiercely she doesn't remember what her mother said. She vaguely remembers Eula crying. Maybe she was crying about something else. Eula is the cryingest! Working the apple around in her mouth without spilling it, or choking on it, takes Emily's concentration for a moment. She holds her hand up in case she has to push something back in. Two drops of juice and saliva slip from the corner of her mouth. She dabs at the escape with a red napkin. The napkin has party balloons on it and is left over

Thousand: One Hundred Thirty-Three

from a party that was supposed to be a surprise but the guest of honor flew to Europe on short notice and the party didn't happen. So it was a disappointment party, that's what Emily called it. A few of Mother's friends came to commiserate. And ate half the cake. Mother made like they were doing her a big favor because there was no way she was going to let the girls eat that much cake. "Terrible! So much fat and sugar!" Mother's best friend said, shoveling a second big piece into her maw. She had the audacity to wink

Thousand: One Hundred Thirty-Four

at Emily as she said this. I hope you choke, Emily thought at the time. This she does not remember. In fact, she remembers herself a most gracious host. Perhaps the champagne glass in front of "Aunt Lolly" repeatedly emptying, its scum of foam replaced by an amber swirl and the tiny bubbles rushing to get out of the liquid before it slipped past Lolly's gleaming lips, distracted Emily from her less friendly thoughts. For she was the one who tipped the heavy green bottle to make sure Aunt Lolly (and her own mother) did not want for celebration. The

Thousand: One Hundred Thirty-Five

bottle was big. The bottle was slippery, and, even as it gave up glass after glass, it was heavy. Mother didn't notice when Emily splashed some into her own waxy cup. She imagined how wonderful it would taste, the delights of every birthday party condensed into a water, all the cries of pleasure and giggles of joy injected as a gas into that water. It smelled kind of funny. Funny. Ha ha. With the liquid fun's first touch to her tongue Emily's mouth puckered. She was drinking punch, sweet red punch, she reminded herself. Nobody chokes on punch. Punch doesn't

Thousand: One Hundred Thirty-Six

jab you in the mouth. Ti Ti says it makes your mouth red, like you're bleeding. We could pretend we're vampires, Emily says, letting some of the red red liquid drip out of the corner of her mouth. But right now, Emily is finishing off her surreptitious champagne, and wondering where they hid all that fun. It tastes nasty. She narrows her eyes at her mother and Polly. But she refills their glasses, while they both laugh laugh laugh about something stupid. Shoes or something. You're going to end up a grown-up someday, and for a really long time, so

Thousand: One Hundred Thirty-Seven

you watch what they do and try to figure it out and no matter what some of it just stays dumb. Or boring. But you have to be so old in order to drive and Emily wants to drive because when you can drive you go where you want to go, not where somebody else thinks you ought to go. There are highways to everywhere, and if the road runs out, and it's hard to imagine the roads ever running out because there's always just another one you can turn onto which will take you someplace else, but if the

Thousand: One Hundred Thirty-Eight

roads run out, you can get on a boat or a plane or a helicopter or even an elephant or a camel and go on farther. There's always somewhere else. But grown-ups won't let kids just go wherever they want. No, it's like when you get a certain height you're given permission to poke into the business of everybody shorter than you. You could pretend you're a midget, Ti Ti would say, Ti Ti who never let there not be a solution, no matter how ridiculous. I bet an old dwarf would rat you out, thought Emily. Freedom is not

Thousand: One Hundred Thirty-Nine

for kids. And people think that's reasonable! There's always some category of person that's disallowed equality, that it seems perfectly natural to discriminate against, any other way of organizing society so unthinkable bringing it up is a total joke. Everybody knows children can't be allowed to make decisions for themselves, or decisions of any sort! Women! Blacks! Indians! They were denied their rights as autonomous persons because, everybody knew, they were as good as children! How ridiculous is that! I mean, isn't that the most ridiculous part? There's nobody who wasn't a kid once. And for a long time! For

Thousand: One Hundred Forty

a long time! Emily considers the prospect of being a kid for a long time. It's like a prison sentence, isn't it? "Schools look just like prisons." When Emily said that Ti Ti passed her a plate of cake and ice cream and said, "I am going to be Jesus when I grow up." Emily said something through a mouth full of cake and ice cream. Ti Ti turned on the make-up mirror and began experimenting with mascara. Strudel poked her wet black nose out from under the bed and licked Emily's bare ankle. A newspaper truck idles next to

Thousand: One Hundred Forty-One

a fire hydrant, while the nearest house, having long burned to see the hydrant spew, listens to the internal combustion engine with a wistful wall. Somebody needs to count higher. A version of the bill was settled in committee then reverberated throughout the halls of Congress with rubber-ball-like boings. Sincerity leaps. We who have stood the test of time sit down as midnight approaches. We raise a toast to legs, strong, steady legs. A nuance was left on the road. Falls compel us to succumb to the treble compare. What you watch consists of what you sacrifice toward wearing a

Thousand: One Hundred Forty-Two

toga and singing alive alive O! A bailiff enters wearing a hat. The hat falls from his head. He stoops to pick it up. While the bailiff stoops a shot rings out, the bullet shattering a vase on a mantle just behind where the bailiff's head had been. Ow! cries the bailiff as a substantial chunk of vase bounces off his skull. A congressmember enters through the door open at the opposite side of the room. He is bearing a pistol. "Just like that your honor," the youth says at his side. The bailiff, shards of porcelain in his hand

Thousand: One Hundred Forty-Three

(one especially sharp piece wet with his blood), glares at the congressmember and his young friend. "And what would you say you are?" The congressmember directs this haughty query at the bailiff who is naked except for a row of peacock plumes which make a colorful and swaying crest down the center of his back. The congressmember adjusts his Groucho goggles, the black caterpillar of a moustache rippling in his huffs. A purple crow, having been released from the prison of the vase by its shatter, toddles groggily across the lime green and apple green malachite tiles, croaking as it

Thousand: One Hundred Forty-Four

goes, "Whatever for? Whatever for?" A second bailiff enters. She is wearing a toga as a turban and, like the first bailiff, is largely naked. Her main accoutrement is a fine gold chain which, every few inches, has been glued to her skin so that the chain hangs in scallops around her body, creating from a distance a perception of scales. When she sees her colleague bleeding she draws a sharp breath and yanks from the coat rack a scimitar gleaming with fury and one prominent nick. "Give 'im what for! Give 'im what for!" the purple crow croaks from

Thousand: One Hundred Forty-Five

a teetering stack of colored blocks. A brown dog trussed up in a set of fluffy angel wings staggers in behind the congressmember. The dog, clearly, is as drunk as a skunk, which fact need hardly be contested as a skunk carrying a bottle of whiskey takes two steps into the room, raises a foot to take another step, loses its balance and quicksteps backward, which exit is punctuated by the thump of the bottle striking the skunk's head as the head hits the floor and the meandering into the room of the essence for which skunk is so well

Thousand: One Hundred Forty-Six

known and loved throughout the world, in pool rooms, and among the cognoscenti. The dog dips its head, fitting its muzzle into a loop at its chest. One tug unfurls the angel wings, which are far larger than one might have supposed seeing them tucked against the dog's back. Once the wings are raised, seemingly ready to lift the dog into a sky full of noon and floss, the dog need merely nod, a gesture gentle and assured, and the wings beat. Beat. Perhaps that is the wrong word, as it suggests a mindless pounding away at the air. Conduct.

Thousand: One Hundred Forty-Seven

That would be what a conductor does. Not a train conductor, because when you punch a ticket you're using a small grasping motion with an even-less- dramatic-than-blunt-nosed-scissors hole punch in your hand. Not a copper wire, for, although a copper wire is a good conductor, it can be charged with thousands of electrons and pretty much remain inert. The conductor before the symphony orchestra. That guy. A slim white baton in one hand, reaching with both arms into the music to raise it, to lower it, to rush it forth, to pull it back. Like that. The wings. The long feathers

Thousand: One Hundred Forty-Eight

at the tips rise to the ceiling, the big white wings rippling away below, taking up much of the room. Then with a light toss of the head the dog brings the wings down and they scoop up the air that had been waiting to be moved. The congressmember and the youth hit the floor. The black bailiff in gold chain crouches behind the scimitar's broad blade. The injured bailiff licks his own blood from the porcelain shard, gets hair on his tongue. The first wave of skunk odor hits all of them at once. What you don't know about

Thousand: One Hundred Forty-Nine

an angel's wing is probably this: it will transform a skunk's weapon into a gift of love. Let's back up a moment. Remember Abraham Lincoln? One day while walking in the forest the young Abe came upon an angel who had fallen from a tree onto a skunk. The angel was insensible, but Abe could see the skunk was conscious and desperate. The golden heap had dropped upon the woodland creature's brilliant tail, and its forepaws scrabbled now at the loose scurf, panicked squeals alternating with frantic grunts, as it failed to gain the purchase it needed to pull itself

Thousand: One Hundred Fifty

out from under all that angel. Young Abe covered his mouth but couldn't hold in his barking laugh. The skunk, frightened anew by this sudden sound, redoubled its efforts, but the flailing only brought more tatters of leaf and mold and dust into its face. Shortly, the skunk's head was completely covered up. Exhausted panting made the forest floor fluff flutter until the breath caught and the fresh mound exploded with a sneeze, exposing a skunk face, usually so sleek with its black and white stripes, sadly speckled and dimmed. So tired was it that the skunk only rolled its

Thousand: One Hundred Fifty-One

black eyes at Abe as he approached. Abe was a real nature boy. Soon's he set one long-toed foot in the woods, some fern tickling his ankle, as he wanted to strip off every stitch and feel the breezes feeling him up, the low shrubs nipping at his knees, the tassled grasses brushing their beards against his foreskin. The skunk lay there, pressed flat by a collapsed angel and its own exhaustion, and stared up at all that future-presidential nakedness. The skunk didn't know it but Abe was in love. Not just with life, for like many a depressive Abe

Thousand: One Hundred Fifty-Two

was in love with life, then in despair over it, hating it, wishing it would leave him, then LOVE!!! again, but what Abe now found was profound, he realized. He was in love with a skunk. For this skunk, he leaned over and began stroking its triangular head, he would move mountains, divert rivers, make the world safe for skunkkind, and weave a thousand daisy chains. The skunk considered making a threatening noise, but it had already shot its cloud, might as well give itself up to fate. So it was, after thrashing the American South properly, Abraham Lincoln asked

Thousand: One Hundred Fifty-Three

Congress to replace the eagle as the official animal emblem of the United States. Senators Revels of Mississippi and Passions of New South Florida introduced the legislation so the first black man and first white woman elected to that august body would reinforce the symbolism provided by a national animal that united both black and white. With the post-war exposure of the South's system of death camps in which life depended upon the relative whiteness of one's musical scale, few disagreed that the relative proportions of the black and the white on the skunk was appropriate. Those who argued that

Thousand: One Hundred Fifty-Four

the skunk is a white animal with flair for the bold black gesture and those who argued that the skunk is a black animal who knows how to accentuate its blackness with a bolt or two of white were given skittish skunks to take home so they could investigate their theories further. Although through his fourth term President Lincoln presided over a nation at peace, unified and prosperous, which demonstrated to the entire world a system of liberty and social justice to envy and emulate, Lincoln is also and more darkly known for beginning the U.S.'s fascination with chemical weapons

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research and development. You hear about the end of the world. It's nearby, people say. You ask for directions. The man is selling a map. It's expensive. You talk him down to three dollars. He wanted six! But once you're stumbling down the path, the map doesn't seem to correspond to anything. The fork that takes off over the hill, is it even drawn on this thing? There's the marsh and the path seems to skirt it. But where's the bridge? Ahead. Is that it? No, it's a sunken rowboat. You finally fold the map (a feat in itself) and

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stop paying attention to the way. There are flowers here that are remarkably ugly, probably live nowhere else. What bee would bother tiptoeing through that hairy blue-green splatter of petals? Would a butterfly want to unroll her long tongue into those tiny black dead- looking knuckles? The one you lean over to sniff has the air of a fart too fat and lazy even to let the wind carry it. Maybe the bugs that pollinate the plants at the end of the world don't have anywhere else to go, take what they can get. You pass a wispy column of some

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insubstantial fly; a few follow you and get in your hair. You step faster, waving your hands in front of your face. But that's kind of it. The weather's nice. The sun feels good; a bit of a nip in the air. You took off that sweater on the last rise, tied the sleeves across your chest. After the marsh and the stinky blossom you thought it would get worse, but the wind is blowing fresh and clean, and it makes you giddy, frankly. The smile on your face, it doesn't quite fit it's so grand but what the heck,

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let it get as big and freaky as it wants. The wind is playing with your ears; are those the songs you last heard in bed, a tear in your eye? You feel like dancing! When was the last time? You touch your lip with a finger and feel the quiver there of a word you said once that gave such joy the vibrations have been rocking back through you ever since. You step off the path onto rock. It's a big rock so you have to crouch and use your hands to get to the top. Meadows and marshes

Thousand: One Hundred Fifty-Nine

and old oaks standing in loose groups, and the wind making the grasses and wildflowers shake and bow. The path you took to get here is a scar but a faded scar. If you're not looking for it you don't see it. You turn around and around, not at all afraid of getting dizzy. The world could go on like this forever. But then you see it. The end. The end of the world. What set your feet in this direction. Would you have said it was the end of the world if you hadn't been looking for the world

Thousand: One Hundred Sixty

to end? Hard to say. But now that you see it, what else could it be? And it's so close. So close. Really! From this little rock you can see the end of the world! Oh yes. It makes perfect sense. How close you are to the end! Move your feet. That's all it will take to get you there. You remember to breathe. So much to remember this close to the end. Prophets have declared the imminence of the world's end, declared it and described it, raised a righteous finger and pointed as though it were not we who

Thousand: One Hundred Sixty-One

were approaching it but it that came for us. There, the speed! There, the power! Every way forward had been filled by the body of this terrific mechanism. There was nothing for us to do. Run? Crawl? Stand! The future this prophet's rage-honed finger pointed out was too great, too complete, too damnably thrilling to avoid. There was nowhere to go. We could not even fall back. What was behind us was past, we couldn't go there. The future in full reverse, its engines screaming at the insult, pressed every iota of its power into the mission. Crush the present.

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You spin, slowly, once more. You close your eyes to do it. You breathe consciously to keep yourself steady. You keep your head up, your arms out for balance, your feet feeling the way on the uneven surface of the rock. When you open your eyes you can see it in your peripheral vision. It's still there. And it's not roaring toward you. It's not some great machine, belching smoke and spinning belts, lubricated and powered up. It's just there. Waiting, maybe. Indifferent, maybe. It expects you, you think. It won't take long to get there. You step down from

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the rock and lose the view, you are surrounded by the blond stone for a moment, and in the shadow it feels cool, almost chill. There's rubble in the path and you stumble, put your hand against the big rock to keep from falling. This isn't the way you came. Must have been all that spinning around. Well, what's the difference? When you were at your highest, you weren't very high. If you follow the rock around to the right, there! The path is relatively smooth and it's downhill all the way. You're walking again, which feels good. You're a

Thousand: One Hundred Sixty-Four

little hungry, aren't you? Yes. Tired, too. How funny that your feet have gotten heavy; pushing them forward is like kicking a medicine ball. Earlier it was as though no foot even existed! The world flitted by while you turned your head to admire it. There's an ache in your side. This breathing business is getting to be trouble. It was better when you forgot it, right? You pass a hand over your face and find it's bunched up, so you massage your cheeks, your forehead. That smile seems to have stretched things beyond their ability to settle back into

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place. Tears begin to hurt in your eyes. One escapes, rushing down your nose and flinging itself toward the earth. It strikes the toe of your left shoe with an audible tump. You cross your arms over your chest and walk bent over. Your stomach twists. Are you hungry or are you ill? A ringing in your ears, you feel dizzy. "Hello, my name is Liz! Welcome to the End of the World!" A young woman with a polite smile, bright eyes, and a uniform jacket, knee-length skirt, black leather shoes with buckles, beckons from a boardwalk. "Yes," she says,

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taking your hand, helping you up, "You have arrived! Would you like a complimentary beverage?" You glance down at the blue drink ticket she's slipped you. Her smile does not waver as you contemplate her existence, which seems persistent and likely. You are thirsty, so you go on down the boardwalk to the drink stand before which are three unoccupied tables with umbrellas. At a fourth an older man holds an unlit cigarette, and a clear plastic cup with nothing in it but ice sweats on the table. The youth at the drink stand is wiping down the counter with

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a leprechaun's jacket. "How ever did you get that clean in the first place?" asks a magpie, which you notice for the first time. The youth dips the green rag in a bowl of suds, wrings it out, then hangs it from a blunt red hook. "Did you want something? Hell! Oh! Hello, you, did you want something? Something to drink? We also have biscotti and bags of potato chips and cheese twirls and rubbery candies. Pheh! What does anybody see in that gunk? Cat got yer tongue?" You realize the magpie is talking to you. Your hands close around

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the blue ticket, and you smile nervously. "Cat! Always there's a cat that's at the bottom of things! You go on. You go on to the end of the world. It's just down the way. Yes, yes. You go on to the end of the world and you'll find a cat, I'll bet you a dollar and a quarter. You go on to the end of the world and you'll find a big fat ugly vicious cat sinking its nasty claws into the world's tender, innocent flesh, and drawing the world to its cavernous mouth filled with needles and knives

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and a tongue covered with spines. That's an end for you! So you gonna get something to drink or what? Ain't ya thirsty? I'd be thirsty come all that way over the moors, wind blowing in my monkey face, hot sun poking in my eyes like a stick. We got sodas and juices and waters in variety. We got teas and tinctures, tisanes and elixirs. No? I can tell you a story. That'll parch ya. Once upon a time. Once upon a time there was a cat! And the cat got run down by a car and then its split- open

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skull was cleaned of its evil evil brain by tidy good samaritan magpies. The end! And its eyes, too. Plucked right out of their little bowls, like ordurves. The end!" The magpie bursts into a series of screeches, which, only after it stops and eyes you from its perch on the cash register, do you recognize as magpie laughter. The magpie turns its back on you with one hop, preens its breast, lifting a wing to probe under it, and dropping a turd on the boardwalk, which lands on older black turds centered in splashes of white. The magpie looks

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over a wing at you, flashes a white underlid over its black eye, says, "Raak! Raak! Raak!" and wanders off among the condiments. You take a step backward and bump into the youth who slipped out of the drinks stand to wipe down the tables. "Oh! I'm sorry," you say. "You will have to forgive me. It was what I wanted least to do in this world. The day will come when the Lord returns in glory, flames of gold cushioning his naked soles, sparrows carrying a pot of tea, his eyeglasses of purest rose, and I will be forced

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to atone for such transgressions as these I have committed against you." What? You doubt you'd say that? Even if it was in the script and you were on the stage in a community theater? Everybody likes community theater. Maybe you've been cast in a major motion picture as an actor in a community theater through the outer wall of which the hero bursts his white Range Rover and you get only three words of this spiel out of your mouth before the styrofoam bricks rain down, supposedly leaving you with a cut on the head the paramedic and

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love interest has to dab at lightly with a cotton ball before turning to the apologetic hero and whatever else you are contracted to say falls away before the editor's snips. But these lines entitle you to a union card, which means you get an agent and residuals, you get a royalty check every time the movie shows on late night TV, and surely you get a cut when the DVD comes out or the streaming video, don't you think? I don't know. Digital rights might still be up in the air. You'd say that stuff for a movie, wouldn't

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you? Everybody wants to be in pictures. You're more real that way. It's not that you aren't real, right now, standing at the end of the world, or rather, near the end of the world. The end of the world promises to be just down the boardwalk. Yet in a room dark but for the light of your face, who could deny you enhanced reality? OK, say you refuse that whole Lord returning business. Say you keep it simple, "Oops. My bad." Or. "Pardon me." Or. "Hey. What the fuck! You tryin' to trip me or something?" Fine. Go with

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what works for you. Be true to your own special, unique self. Don't let anybody force you into some generic cookie-cutter version of a person. Don't let anybody open your mouth, cram down your throat the soliloquy from Biloxi Blues, and permit yourself unthinkingly to throw it out as though your own heart (or a region nearby) contained naught but those words, those very only very you words which all these years had been waiting for the right moment to arrive, to set up shop, to hang out a shingle, to jump out in spangles and bows. Be yourself cuz

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ain't nobody gonna be it for you. When else you gonna be genuine, huh? The end of the world oughta sober up anybody, make 'em think about what they been doing. What they been wastin' time at? Did they make some love along the way? You're alone at the end of the world. Unless you count the magpie. And the kid cleaning tables. And the old guy. You glance at him. He's staring at his glass of ice. If you are the gregarious type you might go up to him, ask him what brought him to this, or maybe he

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has snapshots of his handsome children in his wallet that he'll offer up, a story with each, or who knows, he's the devil. Or an angel. Could be. It is the end of the world, after all. Who knows who hangs out at the end of the world! But I suspect you are shy, that talking to strangers has always made you uncomfortable. And there's something about the man's silence and concentration that adds a wall you don't feel you should break through to disturb him. You look over a shoulder. Where did that girl go? The one in the

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uniform. She was an angel, surely. She gave you a drink ticket. She didn't have to do that. She could have stabbed you in the heart with a pitchfork. The kid drops his rag back on the counter and gives you a curious look. It's as though he were looking at something left behind that it really seems unlikely anyone would abandon. Like a television sitting on the curb playing the world series. Or an obelisk woven from disposable chopsticks. He gives a nod to the old man who stands abruptly, rocking the table and upsetting the glass of ice,

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and suddenly the boy is in your face. Gently, he takes your left arm and folds it across your breast. He takes your right arm, folds it across the left. He moistens his thumb with a kiss and to a spot directly between your brows presses it. With the thumb resting in that place, you begin to tip back. The view is tilting, filling up with sky. You look to the boy's eyes and you see safety there. But eyes are replaced by clouds, clouds taking on the fruit colors of a yummy sunset, the day's blue transmogrifying also, an

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animal standing in the forest, the yellow orange of a gimbe, calamansi orange, gentle pitaya reds, the deeper gumichama reds, purples of jambul, so bright, so distracting, that the animal standing in the forest cannot be seen but for its immensity, its breathing, its confident strength. Lightly, like the tickle of a moth, you notice at the base of your skull a touching. The old man. Your feet stick straight out, and you remember the assistant in the magic act who is rendered stiff as a board and stretched out flat on a bed of absolutely nothing. How funny. The

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man and the boy are carrying you. What are they going to do, waft you down to the end of the world and toss you over the edge? You remember those paintings of ships toppling down the great waterfall the oceans come to at the edge of a flat earth. Lying on air, even paralyzed, isn't a bad deal, really. Makes one sleepy. A cat curls up on your belly next to a curly-haired little dog. The cat, eyes squeezed shut, purring, kneads away with its forepaws and through your sweater the pricks of claws tickle your skin. The dog

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growls in its sleep, which makes the cat turn and look. But the growl quickly fades, the dog raises its head, blinks, then returns the head to cushioning paws and sighs with satisfaction. This is how the world ends? Not with a bang-a-lang or boom-shakka-la, not with a sob or shudder, but with a contented sleep. OK. Done with that world. We could come back to it? We'll see. First, we need to dream something up. Dreams are unreliable guides to the new. They tend to be knotted with aches of the past, echoes of terrors, the smarting scar of

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an old anger, the shame that hurts every time it's touched. I don't know that the new has ever been created out of nothing. Except in the beginning? In the beginning there was. There was no there there. There was no here here, for that matter. There was no matter to matter. There was no one to know the difference. In the beginning a dream disturbed the contentment. All was without form and void where not prohibited. A twitch. Was that what initiated? Starting too far back, you know, it deprives the story of anything we could recognize, anything with

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which we can identify. It's all very well to say that virtually as soon as one puddle on a still-steaming earth slackened its rolling boil life found its chance and billions of years of successful being fruitful and multiplying began in that moment. Life! Who doesn't love life! But how much family feeling do you get for a stromatolite? Maybe a gnome, a creature partial to toadstools and creeping slimes, would get misty over the "columnar calcium-containing mass of many layers." But blue-green algae growing on a mound built up from the bodies of older algae, whatever it does for a

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future atmosphere of healthful oxygen, provides nor comedy nor drama nor bewildered fascination to the modern audience. So. Consciousness. Start there? I don't know. There was light. And it was on an automatic timer because in the middle of winter the transcendental butler had to get up before dawn and he had that depression caused by lack of light in winter so had a rough time shaking the weight of sleep without the help of electric light. So it was good? He saw the light. And it was too bright. Groaning and hacking to get out the phlegm, the butler

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dropped his legs over the side of the bed and, after gingerly coaxing, added the rest of his body to his feet's obligations. Over the boxers rumpled on the rug, he tottered, side-stepped the belt buckle, and got to the toilet before his sleep extension had wilted enough to allow him to hit the bowl. Pressing his forehead against the wall tile's cool yellow, the transcendental butler waited for consciousness to drive away whatever sleep spirit conjured his genitals into a firm chaise longue for its comfort. There was more than one, he knew. He'd met someone else's. It was

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yellow and vaguely barbell-shaped. As the transcendental butler is called upon to bring all the client's service spirits into a harmonic working relationship and the sleep spirit was introducing a note of discord ("In the morning I can only piss in the shower," the client explained) the sleep spirit department was called to a meeting. Which was promptly commandeered by dream spirits complaining about their work being disregarded. "He tells people he doesn't dream! After we've put in such a long night!" one howled, to much nodding and applause. The butler was still thinking about work while munching poached egg

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and toast and sipping at a tiny foam-topped espresso. Though dawn had managed and the curtains were drawn from the windows, lamps had to be lit. The butler squinted at his day book, then, with a disapproving grunt, opened his electronic personal assistant, so-called, to make sure the two agreed. For several years he had relied upon a spiritual back up, but it took sides in a conflict between clients getting a divorce and began feeding them bogus appointments. It's only so humorous to discover $50 charges on the phone bill for ten minutes talking to Paradise or twenty to

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Paradise Falls or twenty-three to Paradise Lake. Paradise Park, Paradise Valley, Paradise Hill, it adds up. Then there are the transdimensional charges, discounted for spirit callers, true, but not negligible. Transdimensional calling is surprisingly affordable, although technically impossible. The transcendental butler's spirit advisor had been talking to its own future self ensconced in paradise. Yes, the real paradise, where everything's perfect and the lion lies down with the lamb in an only incidentally sexual manner, the heavens rain lemonade, and everyone lives forever as far as it possible to determine. The advisor in paradise offered a few perspectives worth considering,

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it said, or would say to a future self, which, the spirit advisor did not tell the transcendental butler, would be the transcendental butler at some point, although describing the events that would bring that about, while laid out with the lucid perfection of paradise, remained somewhat mysterious to the spirit advisor. When it tried in a roundabout way to share with the transcendental butler the insights afforded by a conversation with one's paradisal self the butler got grumpy, snappish, claimed he was fine, thank you, not bothered by any of this, but he had a schedule to maintain and

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could the spirit please check November 11th for an afternoon interview as he was to meet a potential client that day, he is sure, yet can find but no mention of it in his day book. It's okay, the spirit advisor wanted to say, that client was an ephemeral manifestation of the coming change that will reorder the world, not an ending but a realignment that will benefit some and be worse for others. The client exists, yes, and last week you rescheduled her for December 10th per a request from her son who called to say she was needed

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at a conference on business ethics under the dome, peaceful as a pizza, with the end result known only to the calculator. The spirit remembers, vaguely, what it will be like to remember experiencing the emotions of flesh, although much of history won't yet have been written, writing being invented by parrots in a negotiation with crows. Writing has been invented several times by writers who never heard of each other, never read anything, and are too busy masturbating to understand the language of signs. Nevertheless, in paradise, the wise advisor explained, everyone is a word, and their meanings all

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sum up creation, creation's purposes, and the context of creation within the greater realms. Spirit is not more important than flesh, but it is more durable. The transcendental butler is a practical man. He doesn't like long explications of systems, how future meshes with parafuture, past with pastime, present with omnipresent or subpresent. He's found some things that work and he sticks with them, whatever the ultimate culmination explanation is. He calls himself a "butler" because he sees you as a house, a big house, in which various entities come and go. There are those who are permanent residents, but

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there also are those who are guests. There are invaders, too, but a butler is not an exorcist. You can't do everything. The spirits of the throat want to work with the spirits of the lungs, but misunderstandings can occur. A butler's job is to make sure the household runs smoothly, that the spirits who need to work together know their jobs and the spirits who oughtn't be in each other's business are occupied with their own. He's more a consultant than a servant; he reviews the comity and efficiency of your spirit community, makes recommendations, oversees the implementation of

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new policies that improve the interplay of spirit forces, that create the optimal environment for spirit entities, so far as can be determined considering the current state of things. He's done pretty well for himself. Travels the world. Fucks beautiful women, occasionally hires a boy for himself. Just to carry his luggage. And for the nude massages. Plus he likes to be paternal. He doesn't like children. But he likes to help people. Samuel Obie. Mr Obie. It's not actually his name. O and B are his initials. Or they used to be. He doesn't go by that other name

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anymore. It's like he never had it. It was a mirage. After he'd walked through it he looked back and nothing was there. How could it be real? It left a residue, a new last name. "Obie. Is that Irish?" "Obie. Are you related to the Obie of the Obie Awards?" Once he dreamt he was flying. He soared over a bright checkerboard of green and greener fields. A city appeared on the horizon. As it came closer he lost altitude. The air grew bumpy. A skyscraper of blue glass loomed. As soon as he realized he was going to

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bang into it, he struggled. He struggled against the inevitable. This was not how it would end. What was about to happen, no. The great blue face of glass stared his death at him. Only, it wasn't death. That's not what he thought was coming. Perhaps he would not have recognized death if he had been awake and launched on a collision course with 182 stories of financial district. It's not that he knew what it was, but when he was sitting in a board room in the building, looking out at the distant fields, he realized it had not

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been dying he feared. Rather, he said to himself, getting up from the black leather office chair, he was afraid to leave the world of sensation. He pressed his hand against the glass, its blue no more blue from this side than any sky when you are in it. The hand held to the window encountered not a surface but resistance, an unwillingness to go on. The body he had been flying was still in the phenomenal world, stretched out, suspended. No, that was wrong. It wasn't suspended, it was flying. The wind it rode blew with the same strength

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that had whipped his hair against his cheeks, that had rippled and puffed his shirt, that had tugged at his pants (wasn't he glad he'd worn a snug belt!), that had rushed through the seams of his shoes and cooled the sweat in the toes of his socks. The wind had not quit, hadn't stood aside in favor of some other power. That body was still on target to slam into the side of the building, was heading there directly. If something wasn't done in less than a second, he'd be fly on the windshield, a smoosh the window washers

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would curse as they scraped it away. No worries. It's only a dream. Nothing bad can happen in a dream. Samuel is walking to his meeting. He remembers reaching through the resistance, stroking the cheek of the man he had been, the man who was afraid. That makes his lips curl. Afraid! Fear real things. Not spirits. His career is predicated on the unreal these days. It was that dream that dispelled the wall, what had seemed solid becoming a passage. Whenever he has to cross from the here and now to the other realm he feels again in his

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fingers a hint of that ancient obstacle. This world or the other one, you can't have both. You can't have both. He is humming this as though it were the lyric to a pop song. You can't have both you can't you can't you can't have both, baby. If you were to get there before me, I'd find you there, I'd find you there. I'll take you there. The billionaire mayor whose spirit house the transcendental butler is to put back in order has not yet been found drowned in his bathtub. The telephone in the bathroom coos its dove-like

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ringtone. "Odd," says the appointment secretary. "He has voice control answering." She whispers the next, "He will pick up no matter what he's doing. Sometimes I hear him farting. Panting." Resuming a normal volume, "So far as I can tell he doesn't care who hears. He likes us to know where he is, so has the penthouse rigged to capture his movements. A red dot on this schematic is him. Yes, always. Guests are randomly assigned other colors. It is that sophisticated. I'm trying a louder alarm now. Mr Rumiere, Mr Rumiere. OK. Pardon me." Ms L snatches up a

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walkie talkie and runs from the room. Mr Obie, the transcendental butler, rubs an eyebrow and watches the unmoving red dot. It may not be moving but it is not dead. The dot. The man, yes, the mayor is dead. Of what did he die? He drowned. But that only means his lungs filled up with water. Did he overdose on medications? On contraband? Did someone push the old man under, hold him down so the water could find its way where the air used to, could enter him and take up the space his life occupied? The red dot

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throbs. The red dot. Is it whispering? Is it growing? Fatter. Thicker. Deeper. Samuel hears laughter. He closes his eyes. The darkness is red. Red and spreading. He puts out his hand. There is no resistance. Maybe this isn't the spirit world. He opens his eyes. That, however, is not easy. He opens his eyes. He tries again, expelling his breath in the effort. The laughter, distant, then close, soft, is it even there?, then parked in his ear like a motor revving in a garage. The darkness is red, but it is not a dark red now. It is

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gleaming, pulsing. It has muscle, this red. It has strength, this red. Heat. Are those flames? Skinny, velvet flames, like the ribbons on a present. It's funny. A gift of love. From me to you. Nobody's laughing at you. We are all laughing together. It's funny. It's a funny life, isn't it? Sammy, Sammy. It's a funny life, is it not? Way down in the pit, way down at the bottom, a white glimmer, he sees the spread of his teeth. His practiced, professional smile relaxing into joy. Yes, the transcendental butler is off duty. Or maybe this is just

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the way one should feel, the way one should always feel. O! That is how a name used to begin, the one that drew him. What does it mean to him now? O circle, start on you anywhere and go on from there, go on, go on. No stopping until the traveler decides to, until he puts his foot down and points it in a new direction. The hand he is holding is not his own. A youth, his soft cheeks unbearded, dark curls around big ears, his eyes bright as in a photograph, his long neck descending to shoulders

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newly spread and muscled, his hand squeezing the butler's. A reassurance. And the eyes, like in a photograph, red. A red glowing at the center of each. Samuel lifts his free hand to touch a cheek, but the youth steps back. He pulls Samuel by the hand, and Samuel follows, readily. The youth's first steps are backwards so he can continue to look Samuel over. Samuel feels caressed by the look, not exposed, received rather, accepted? Which feels wonderful. You think you don't need anyone's approval, but when you feel it, feel it so thoroughly, you tremble, you laugh. They

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walk, the youth knowing where they are going. Fields of grass, a red grass, not red all the way through, not like they've been splashed with paint left over from the candy store or even a barn, but a rough grass that scratches against Samuel's pant legs, a species of grass that's got a hint of red in its green, like a presentiment of something unexpected that becomes banal before one has taken ten steps. And the air, too, has taken on a gold, which begins to accept its own red, a sunset combination, isn't it? The young man's naked

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back, shadows touching its curves, flickering over the valley down its center, becomes a new landscape that Samuel sees himself wandering across, a landscape of yielding stone, warm and comforting, where he can explore his solitude. The young man glances over his shoulder, bemused, and Samuel grins sheepishly, as though his every thought were being read already by the young man's skin. The golden light penetrates the hair at his crown, illumining a circle. Where the hair is thinning? So young and beautiful and balding? The ground becomes hummocky now, which makes it more difficult to hold the other's hand.

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They lurch and stumble from lump to bump. Samuel sits suddenly, a foot having slipped on the grass, and he loses his grip. Oh, he says. That was. That was. He looks up. The young man is smiling mildly down at him, his skin creased at the edges of his lips, crinkling by his eyes, his chin roughened with reddish beard. And how his hairline has receded! The body is thicker. More than full, it seems to be carrying a weight it hasn't grown used to. Samuel takes the offered hand and rises again. The ground beneath the hummocks is

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going to marsh, and they are surprised by puddles they don't see until they've stepped in up to the knee in grass that looked as firm as lawn. They are slogging now, not bothering to pull their bodies onto the relatively dry, solid humps because they'd just have to step right off again. In this increasingly difficult trek Samuel wonders where they are going. He slows, though the muck has already slowed them, and his tiring would be expected, and he watches the back ahead. The pink skin, once rosy from too much sun, perhaps, has gone pale and faintly

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spotted, and the skin isn't flattering the muscles of the back but sagging, not hanging off, this is no sudden horror, but the skin betrays a looseness Samuel notices, he decides, only because he has been admiring the back's shape and movement. When did the hair go? It's gone. The youth might have been bald for years. Samuel looks down at the hand pulling him along. He follows willingly enough. The hand is cool now and dry. His own is sweaty and must feel hot because his clothes stick to him and they itch. Let's take off all our clothes,

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Samuel wants to say. Let's strip naked and wallow in the mud. But the youth. Youth? Has drawn them to a pool, a swimming hole under a spreading oak. A slow moving stream spreads into a wide half circle. He steps out of his trousers and underwear. The chest is sunken, the hair on it gray. His lips are thin, his cheekbones jutting. This is an old man. But when he looks over at Samuel his smile is as warm as before, the same smile, unhurt by the bodily transformation. He sloshes into the shallows. The water ascends his calves

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quickly. He bends his knees, and dives. Samuel reaches to unbutton his collar. His tie is in the way. It's a red tie with tiny yellow paiselys. His mother-in-law gave it to him before she died. She was standing on the roof, which was where his birthday party was being thrown, and she was laughing as she tossed the wrapped box in the air, catching it, tossing it, laughing. Something tickles his fingers. A spider. Tiny and red, bigger than a mite, easily. Must have been living in the red grass. The back of his hand is dotted with red

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bug bites, which are starting to itch. He pulls a handkerchief out of the pocket of his pea coat and, mopping his brow, knocks off his fedora. The wool scarf, fine as it is, is also itchy, so Samuel whips it off and drops it in the mud. He takes off his glasses, having never needed glasses. He peels off the swim cap that was hiding under the fedora and the yarmulke that was bobby- pinned to his scalp under the cap. He dangles from two fingers the toupee to which the yarmulke is pinned. The other hand probes his damp

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head, feeling for the thread that will start the raveling. There is no such thread. However, he does find a zipper. He fingers its rough teeth, edges along them until they run out at the base of his skull. Then he fumbles forward, trembling, he has to take off the heavy work gloves in order to feel every tooth of the zipper. The grip will be where? He traces the zipper over the top of his head, down his forehead, down the nose, over the lip. Like train tracks into a tunnel it plunges into the hidden world of his

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inner body. You think the soul resides somewhere inside. It doesn't. The spirit body resonates on the spirit plane, coterminous with the physical body on the plane we consider reality. Samuel runs his tongue over the zipper where it cinches his upper lip. Yet another thing that's always been there that he's never noticed. The red dot is blinking. Other dots are converging upon it. Dots of different and uncomfortable color. The water is up to his knees, the water is up to his ass, the water tips into his navel, a closed port. An apple bobs like an iceberg

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in the bath. If he were to try to bite it, it would bounce away before his jaws, too small to encompass it, its skin too resistant to his blunt human teeth to be caught and held. But that doesn't mean it isn't tempting to try. He closes his eyes and the water closes over his head. Is it leaking through the zipper? When he opens his eyes Ms L the mayor's appointment secretary is squeezing his hand. "Mayor Rumiere is asking for you." Samuel Obie nods. He follows her to the private penthouse elevator. The elevator's rise is so

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rapid that Samuel's spiritual and physical bodies move out of sync. Ms L also doubles, then triples, although her emotional affect does not alter. Not so far as Samuel can tell, anyway. And he has the advantage of being able to compare her spirit versions to her physical version or versions. In that rapidly rising elevator there seem to be multiple realities, each the sort to which we apply the term readily, a world one apprehends with the senses, a shared world, a world that behaves. Samuel hears resonances, some as song, some as noise, which might also be song

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if heard with an ear he doesn't yet have access to. Although he has been working this terrain for years now, he isn't ready. His own spirits (or, better, one might say, those spirits that have chosen to cooperate with his business) have negotiated positive outcomes for over one hundred clients, and his reputation has been well regarded across two planes. This reality and the spirit world have been enough to deal with. But as the elevator barrels upward, at least four realities and eight spirit worlds are sliding apart and in conjunction. His stomach lurches as the elevator pulls

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up short of heaven, and the toe of an angel jabs him in the eye. Ms L's third form steps out, followed by her second form. The angel, leaning from a mattress of unknowing cloud, nibbles on Samuel's ear, the one that seems most relevant at the moment. Three emergency medical technicians are smoking in the penthouse foyer and chatting about seraphim classes. The prettiest looks Samuel over as, distracted by the nudging of the angel, he bumps a potted fern. "I don't know," the EMT says, "if another certification is absolutely necessary. The daylight model is a frame around

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the errand, like an abraxas, know what I mean, a grand refibrillator in the sense a symbolist might enhance with a parabolic wave and a parson's whip. Friends occasionally recompense the fandango, okay, but what I'm really after is a pulchritude bombarded with the vagaries of wine and Roosevelt heat. I don't see why elderberries knock spiral-bound salt savages for a loop in a novena. It just isn't video. The far version. What has to happen, even in these benighted orgiastic avenues, is welt gravy parboiled, vanishing specks of garden art." One of the other EMTs, a black boy so

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beautiful he combines two realities, puts the stem of a striped lily to his lips and draws deep into his third spirit self its silvery smoke. "Allegro," he says. "Another one unctuous." But Samuel moves on across valleys of burnishment and glacial esprit. A nervous elegance destroys a stolid blanch at the union of the avalanche and the nostrum. Ms L's face stands for the revolutionary in hard candies, but for the red stripes of the white peppermint wheel. After the rebuff of two and the commission of a lightly greased ceiling, a candled chandelier hungers into the master bath.

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The august retrovert, supplied by the near term servant class, ordered by cinder by, a newsy crew flattering tidy teak ash avocets. Wonder of partners, the green whiff of the merry eventuality. I see you've returned with that headache. Let me put it to you this way. Another bath. Yes, you have not a corpse but a tinsel. Samuel takes off his shoes and settles down on the flooded tile floor of the bath. The bloated body of the billionaire mayor, neatly covered with a sheet, stretches full length on a pink rug. Samuel tucks his legs into one of

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those painful-looking yogic positions that takes so much work to achieve. Being able to still the body does help one escape distraction when keying into the subtle vibrations. Something about this client has destabilized the expected connections. The worlds are no longer aligned. Hopefully it's a localized phenomenon. In any case it wouldn't be the first time. Samuel has had hints of this on previous jobs, a little doubling of the person, phantom scents and voices. Could throw you if you hadn't any training. Samuel is listening past several conversations, most of them not taking place where the surveillance system

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can catch a peep. This one can hear you, you know. What attitude! You wonder what a meat is thinking, don't you. You can lay thought eggs in their heads. I've done it. Makes 'em writhe in bed, it does. The other day a Jesus was sitting with us, we're poking it in the belly, poking it in the belly, we are, and it keeps hissing at us, hissing! Like it's going to scare somebody. Not a demon, one of the Jesuses, blood dripping from its hands and all, gash in the side, crown of thorns, the whole bit. You

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know. Muhammads? Haven't seen one. Not lately. There was a spate. There are places in the world. A capital attitude. That's what she told me. You are angry at me over nothing, she said. A death in the family and then what? You expect sympathy for every sob. It's not going to happen. The world is a hard place. The stones crumble along the rim. Those are the obvious ones. But down here, hidden under the grass, the stones below, cracks here too, and all the way through. Samuel. That's his name. The name he's chosen for himself. The truer

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name is the name you give yourself. Or the name pressed on you when you're born? You grow into your name. It's a hope. It's a dream. It's a change. It's tradition. Gathered into the tribe. Your story is the name's story. All story gets name. Names weren't the first words. Nowhere near. If they were, they'd be easy to remember. And you know they are hard! You should earn a name. You should pay for a name. A name should eat your breakfast. Or be breakfast. I been crossin' names off de liss ah day. And adding them up.

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What do they come to? You mean, when do they come to? There's nothing letting the light in. The dark room has your name on it. Things develop in the dark. Pictures come out of it to the slightly less dark. Eyes lose their red eye. Ah, yes. Look into the red, my love. Let the red rise, full of head, and spill over. Blink. Remember to breathe. Put that out there. The first breath of winter. The cloud doesn't know its linings. Are they green? Growing and leaved, fruited and fresh. Are they black? Samuel. Listen to the green

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leanings. Watch the red line. No, take the red line. Line up in yellow. The linings of clouds are of a spongy material that naturally holds heat and repels cold. The ignorance of the other side has often been likened to a pizza, particularly with basil and olives, more rarely with three kinds of cheese. And this, said the angel, is what your tears taste like. Ethereal eternal tears, the tears that have been stowed in the box of destiny just for you. When did you say that? I always say that. You say that to all the dead? Is

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there dead about? I wouldn't know dead. Dead is done, isn't it? What is dead going to do with tears! The day is measured out in soup spoons, coffee cups, ampoules, and seed pods. We carry our houses on our heads, the rain sloughing off the shingles, sluicing down the gutters onto the nice shirts our mothers pressed for us. Frankly, I think you are too tall. 3900 feet and rising? My name is Samuel P. Good4U. Isn't. A new tolerance shall be construed over the objections of sundry restrictionists. The nice thing about asceticism is the et. It's the

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end of the lining, isn't it. Shut up. The tranquility, then, was amazing, wouldn't you say? The solar disk ceased to ripple. The wind quit moaning and lay down in its own dust. The water going into the drain whispered as closely against the drainpipe's wall as it could navigate to do. Very little splashing. The dying became circumspect. The angels, yes, even the angels, lowered their incessant and essential gossiping to a low background murmur. And what of you, Samuel, service worker, organizer, butler? How is the shine on the art pottery? And the drapes, upon the drawing, don't

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they glide apart with the grace of elephants and the sun stretch its long warm legs upon the tiles like a proud spider? What do you think? Tell us. I think he took too many theoceuticals. Entheogens? God is a chemical. Who? The mayor takes Samuel's hand and leads him out of the bathroom, both stepping carefully over the draped corpse. I'm sorry, he says. The noise in there could wake Brahma. At the window, a very nice window, you can easily forget it and drift over the city, the mayor, call me Ed, kisses Samuel's palm, no, he's biting

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into the flesh, digging with his teeth. Samuel feels a gentle pressure, like a massage, and a wetness. He looks out over the city. Half of it is in darkness and atwinkle with lights. On the other half the sun blazes, washing the shadows until they are sheer and hide nothing. Samuel looks down again and sees Mayor Rumiere, Ed, has located the pull cord; the yellow ring grip protrudes from the palm while the injured flesh drips a watery blood. There, Ed, says, wiping his mouth. He stands up, facing Samuel, naked. No surprise that it's the youth who

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led him through the red land, who disappeared into the pool. The blond curls, the shoulders, and he has a good-sized cock, too. Well. You look good dead, Mayor. Call me Ed. Ed. You look good. Yes. Thanks. I never really looked like this. This is my Peter Frampton spirit self. Peter Frampton lost his hair, too. Are you ashamed of what you really looked like? The now- familiar smile. Not at all. But are you your face? Are these limbs, this (he glances down at his sex) endowment, the blue paint on my toenails (yes, Samuel notes, blue polish and

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sparkly at that), or the number of cilia in my intestines, are these me? It's an old question. I could count back to the first year it was asked. I'm spirit, we can do things like that. Though it involves more travel than I'm interested in at the moment. He takes a deep breath. A necessary breath or one for show? Are you doubting my sincerity? I didn't say anything. Samuel isn't even sure he thought something. Samuel has trained his mind to ride the currents at the border between the spirit and the concrete. He doesn't doubt, he opens

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up to the flow, and becomes one with it. One is such a lonely number. So you imagine the spirit world to be essentially the same world as the one you're familiar with, that's right, Samuel? Only to the left, just off stage, running parallel. Concurrent with, hewing to somewhat different laws. Laws a mercy. That's not totally wrong. Who could ever be totally wrong! It's not like the universe doesn't have enough space for every wrong to be right. Or the multitude of universes stacked upon, within, below and through. I'm going to get didactic here for a sec.

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In the physical world you are driving along in your Toyota sedan convertible XL3 turbo hybrid with racing stripes. The spirit realm is the next lane over and your spirit self is piloting the spirit equivalent of a Toyota Cressilantro. If you take your eyes off the road you can glance over at your spirit self and maybe your spirit self glances back, there's an immediate connection, and sparks fly. In your case you try to get the two drivers to coordinate who perhaps weren't, who were racing each other, say, or drifting apart. You want to make sure there

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are no crashes. Keep your eyes on the road! There are no airbags in spirit world! Uh. I call myself a butler, not a driving instructor. Butler? That's weird. Why would you do that? I consider the person a house which is inhabited and visited by spirits. Keeping those spirits in harmony, working together for the good of all, that is what I advertise. I used to advertise, but now I get all my work via referral. I assumed you knew what I did. Why hire me otherwise? I see. Yes. We're inhabiting different worlds. You see, what I was

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trying to get across, utilizing a metaphor with which you were familiar (but I seem to have been thinking of a metaphor with which someone else I once knew was familiar, he was big into cars, big cars, and fast cars), was a different way of looking at the interaction between the worlds. Let me go back to the highway you're driving down, right, I don't get the house thing, sue me, and your spirit self careens out of the right lane, the fast lane, and plows right into you, only instead of you guys getting in a big wreck,

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spirit car and driver goes right through you, right! Maybe you notice. Maybe no. But then spirit goes off on his own track, one completely perpendicular to yours, maybe all the way to the next town or he crosses three borders, showing his passport at each one and getting his passport stamped with artful rubber stamps. He jokes with the border agents about how the passport photo doesn't look like him at all. He buys some groceries or souvenirs or invests in spiritual real estate. Eventually he comes back and this time he's pacing you on the left. He's wearing

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a new white cowboy hat with a rattlesnake band, and he's got a feather dangling on a silver chain from his left earlobe. His eyes are full of stars, his pants are full of the galactic swirl, his lips move to the words of the song about your high school girlfriend who went on to greater anonymity as a body, beautiful, naked, and framed for murder. Your spirit weaves a bit in that classic Cadillac (he left the Cressilantro in a garage in Vegas) and the sun glints off so much chrome at once that it's like the stars have

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sent emissaries. He's drinking while he drives. He's smoking! Did you see that! Smoking while he drives. Doesn't he know that's illegal? Where is smoking while driving illegal? The spirit plane? It is? What do you smoke on the spirit plane? Oh, the usual. A lot of smoke reaches the spirit plane. Many an offering is made in the form of smoke. So your spirit self is weaving like crazy and, what do you know, he swoops back into your lane, brushing your front bumper. Let me guess. The spirit car and my car pass harmlessly through one another? You're

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getting ahead of the story, but, yes, one could say "harmlessly." Let me take a detour. You seem to be getting impatient, as though my little car story were keeping you from something. Is that so? I. Well. Shouldn't we worry about the disposition of the body? Um. Your body? I see. You are preoccupied with what is going on in the physical plane. Speaking of planes, look out there. Do you see that passenger airliner? Banking around the blobby cloud over the harbor. It's full to capacity, and it's embarking on a flight over the pole to Paris. Which

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means its fuel tanks have been topped off, its galley is loaded with fresh gouda and real champagne from Champagne, the slight flight attendant has already given his number to the executive in 3B (this is the second time they've remembered that they went to the same high school, twelve years apart), and the captain is flicking one more switch of the many switches she has been flicking since the plane began its taxi. There aren't that many switches. A few switches. The copilot flicks a few switches. They look at dials and readouts. Remember when you did that? You

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were standing in your playpen, banging away at big buttons, turning ratchety knobs, and twirling those ring-a-ding dials! Samuel steps through the naked young spirit body of the billionaire mayor, as easily as the cars in Ed's metaphor passed into and through each other. He walks right through a couch and through a hardwood table and a porcelain vase throwing out gigantic blossoms. He stops at the window. There are thirteen airliners now, all the same size and model. One is making the turn Ed pointed out. Another seems poised to follow it. But the one that concerns Samuel is

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diving out of the sun, its nose pointed right at the building he's standing in. There's a terrorist piloting that, he thinks. The plane is going to obliterate us, everyone aboard will die. Oddly, this thought does not terrify. Oughtn't it? It does puzzle him a little. The thought itself, not the plane. That we are thinking and that our thinking takes time. One could probably divide a thought into components. Somebody probably's already had a go at that. The sort of thing people get up to. Philosophers. Here, now, Ed says, placing his hands on Samuel's shoulders and nudging

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him to the left until they are standing in the night half. The city lights. Don't they dazzle! The burning building down town. The flames fill the smoke with an orange glow at its base, though as it rises Samuel loses track of it. Did the plane crash there? he asks. Ed shakes his head. You're not following me. This is all show. Alternate realities intersect repeatedly every day. If something terrible happens to you, say you are tortured to death by the fanatical followers of the dictator, in another version of your life you escape to exile with hundreds

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of millions of dollars secure in untraceable accounts in a country that, first, offers you political asylum, then solicits your advice on the invasion that will topple the tyrant, adding that a very important post in the reconstituted government is yours for the asking. Naturally, you beg off such an ethically dubious proposition, but the wife demands you reconsider. She ought to take the position, then, you tell her; you will take charge of the children, or, at least, keep account of the nanny who comes with a Ph.D. and years of experience in training geniuses. It's a good thing I

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wasn't tortured to death in that reality. Yes, torture isn't good for you. Neither is starving to death. There are many very painful diseases. The spirit body also is not without its ailments. Samuel looks out at the city, though he can see the room as well. Every object in it has its counterpart in the glass. Which alternate universe is that? He sees himself, a Samuel who looks well enough like Samuel, a Samuel who sees him looking and acknowledges the attention with a slight inclination of his head, a Samuel wearing. What is he wearing? Samuel runs his

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hand over his chest. The material feels soft, then prickly, then smooth. He feels buttons, a heavy knit, a tie, ruffles, some at the same time, some seem quickly to vanish. On the version of himself he sees in the window his clothes are a blur. This is all getting a bit much. Look, he says. In my reality, the one in which I'm sitting on your bathroom floor and you are dead, Ed, is there a big passenger airliner about to slam into the building? Oh, you aren't sitting on the bathroom floor. What? You are not sitting on

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any bathroom floor. No, no. We are way beyond that. A sudden rage. Samuel balls his fists, his lips press into a line, his eyes flash, he swings. Ed goes off to the cleaning closet and comes back with a bucket and scrub brush. He scrubs away at the pigeon shit accumulated on Samuel's extended arm and hand, then scrubs away at the shoulder. A pigeon, its head bobbing, steps around to the opposite shoulder and watches Ed work the layers of white and flecks of black off Samuel's nose and cheeks. Ed stands back and clucks. Better, he says.

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Samuel completes the swing, disturbing the pigeon which flutters to recover its balance. Samuel staggers, also a little off balance. He glares at the naked youth holding a bucket in one hand, a dripping steel brush in the other. Samuel now notices that his sleeve is soaked through. And his nose is dripping. He wipes water from his eyes and sees a strange white painted on his knuckles. Sorry, Ed says. Didn't get to those. Your other shoulder either. And your hair. I meant to get back sooner, but you know how these things go. Go? Yes, as far as

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things go, you know. The going of things. The things that go. For example. The sun. And the moon. They both go without going. What does this have to do with bird shit in my hair? Time. It takes time for that much pigeon crap to build up. As far as the pigeons were concerned, you were a good place to hang out, to rest. The pigeon on Samuel's shoulder coos suddenly, puffing up its chest and thrusting its bill rhythmically. To court and mate. Not so good for nesting or eating, but you can't have everything. But I don't

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think my taking a swing at you took. You're telling me I was frozen in time here? Which is where. Out in the air. I'm not even inside the building anymore? Time didn't stop. The time you were in went on just as it had. To the pigeons, and to me, frankly, you were a statue. Your new friend, the one who's rubbing against your ear and cooing, poor guy has left all his friends behind in the other time. Or. Ed shrugs. Anyway. Ed takes Samuel's hand, and, even though he is wary, doesn't think he really has basis

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to trust this man, spirit, whatever he is, Samuel lets himself be led. Down what seems to be a long, gradual staircase they step. Samuel can't see the stairs, perhaps they are entirely invisible and only the darkness of the night prevents vertigo. He's stood on the very edge of cliffs and high building ledges and the drop has seemed to draw him, making him breathless, dizzy. He does glance back, the penthouse already so far above, and he sees something dimly illuminated by the lights pouring out the picture windows. A figure? Standing. Out in the air? It's okay.

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It's okay whatever happens. Samuel doesn't know why he feels so secure, so looked after. Hasn't he just learned that for years he was alone, frozen in some purgatory of pigeons, unseen, it seemed, by anyone who might have decided it was dangerous to have a statue hovering above the city? Maybe he had been spotted, after all, had become a tourist attraction even, everyone fascinated by the trick but assuming a billionaire had the resources to place a man firmly in ether. Maybe there were souvenir postcards taken in various lights. This was the first thing that amused him

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since. Since. Since he got up this morning? Samuel doesn't look up again. If that is him, a statue for birds to rest and shit on, then it's a version of him he feels no loyalty to. Ed's hand steadies him. Samuel runs his free hand through his hair. It's clean. The pigeon opens its wings again to balance itself, not apparently disturbed to find its inanimate roost walking about. When they get to street level Ed stops at a sidewalk coffee bar and picks up doughnuts, two tall lattes, and a packet of pretzels. Samuel doesn't like doughnuts. But

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he eats them, as though ravenous, spilling flakes of glaze and doughnut crumbs, powdered sugar and jam filling flecking his lips. The pigeon hops down to peck away at the pretzels Ed has crumbled and spread on the soft top of the Maserati convertible they are using as a table. I have a mission for you, Ed says. Samuel crams three doughnut holes in his mouth. I need you to find something. Something that will affect the harmony of the universe. Samuel slurps latte, burns his tongue, which makes his eyes water and his jaws tense up. His eyes blaze

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and teeth grind. An eyelid twitches. He gulps the coffee now, heedless of the damage it will do to the sensitive skin of his mouth and throat. Mission, Samuel hisses. Ed reaches out and squeezes Samuel's shoulder but Samuel shrugs off the touch. What mission! What mission! In this doughnut, Ed says, picking one up so full of cream it oozes white goo from its injection hole at the pressure of Ed's fingers, in this doughnut is a secret hidden esoteric message that will explain it all. Samuel casts a withering gaze upon the doughy shell and its cargo of

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glop, mission, and expectation. What kind of fucking doughnut is that? A krizzlekroo. Samuel snatches the cream-stuffed confection from Ed's hand. Hah! he says and squeezes it. It is, he discovers, rock hard. He tries not to flinch as his hand cramps around it. Arg! He bites it but his teeth can't pierce the doughnut's skin, and only leave trails in the powdered sugar as they drag across the surface. He pounds the doughnut with a fist, smacks it against his forehead, which action staggers him, then bangs it against the flagstone sidewalk. Whang! Whang! Finally, with all the strength

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he can muster Samuel hurls the doughnut into the air. It steaks upward with a fierce zizz. Ed shakes his head. A krizzlekroo, he says softly, having come up behind Samuel, and lowered his lips to Samuel's ear. Yearragagrugg!!! Lasers blast from Samuel's eyes as the doughnut punches out of the stratosphere, burning into the mesosphere. The lasers intercept the doughnut and blow it smithereens. Samuel sinks to his knees, spent, his jaw quivering, his skin pale and blotchy. He bites at a breath, as though the air were too large to get his mouth around. Remember to breathe, Ed

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whispers. The pigeon blinks, turns its head one way then other, then settles down on the roof of the Maserati, while Samuel rages up and down the block punching parking meters. A soft spiritual rain begins to fall. Samuel drops to his knees again, gasping. Then he jumps up and rushes over to the coffee bar and demands a triple cap latte. The barista holds up his hands, shakes his head. No, senhor, no. An alarm goes off. It's one of those old fashioned bank alarms, isn't it? The insistent tapping of metal hammer against metal bowl. A car alarm

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starts up its cycle: woop woop reedle reedle reedle woop woop reedle reedle reedle woop de woop de woop a doop- doop reedle reedle reedle a ruddle de ruddle de roo. The tower bell bongs some aged hour. The air raid siren commences its rising tone, which will continue to rise until it tickles the underbellies of the bombers with its dreamy vibration. A woman screams. A child, at a higher pitch, whines, tugging on her purse. A lion roars. A mouse shrieks. Four boys gather in a doorway, snap their fingers, and launch into "Wait 'Til The Sun Shines Nellie."

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It actually sounds pretty good but one of them stops and says, "Guys! Guys! Hold on. I think we're singing 'Stairway to Heaven' to the tune of 'Wait 'Til the Sun Shines Nellie.'" But the others roll their eyes and an argument starts up about the real lyrics to "Stairway to Heaven" as opposed to the secret initiate lyrics to "Stairway to Heaven" which are probably sung backwards. That they can hear themselves over the klaxon of the submarine's dive warning just proves the amazing strengths of the youthful ear. None of this disturbs the pigeon sleepily blinking in the

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spiritual rain. The rain soothes everything, even the noises of the night, even the bumps in the night, even the murders and the rapes and the slow succumbing to decades of wrongs. The spiritual rain comes softly down to the world, filling open sores, smoothing out scars, pooling in the open mouths of the dead. Samuel closes his mouth. His mouth tastes awful. Where is all this music coming from? It's like he's lying under an orchestra that's being strafed by jumbo jets and bombed by daft leprechauns in spangled blimps. And the band plays on. Where is my deck

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chair! If this is the Titanic, and icy water will soon be slopping over my knees, I want to go down in a deck chair! The sidewalk is rather hard. Coo, says the pigeon into Samuel's ear, having hopped down from the Maserati roof. We should go somewhere, you and me, Samuel says. You are the only one who understands me. When I was a child, for example, you knew exactly what kind of cheese I preferred on my macaroni. When I was first learning computer programming, you were the only one who pecked through my code without clucking in

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a condescending manner. You were the only one who believed in me when most were convinced I was merely a myth. It was you for whom I built the pyramids, the smaller pyramids, yes, but they were ready a lot faster. Why? Because I knew you knew that I knew nothing really about you but you pretended it was the perfect gift, thus salving the hurt I felt once I clued in to your aversion to slanted surfaces. I remember that night, dressing for the prom, you taught me to knot my very first bowtie, and how to outdraw the

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desperado with a six-shooter and the sun in my eyes. How could I forget our first instant communication across planets when you were lonesome on Enceladus and I was lonesome on the floor of the disco, poppers up my nose, the high energy rhythm of the ages pulsing in my sinews. If not for you, my dove, I wouldn't have written the mash note to the baroness at the opera. It was you who gave me that courage. And when she (he, rather) heard from my midnight lips that I could see his spiritual house was not in order, the

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baroness begged me to right it for her (him), got down on her knees and after that begged me. She gave me the start- up capital and her connections. She bragged to all her friends about me. And slagged me to those she knew did not respect her opinion. The years go by I'm flipping through a girly magazine and there is the duchess' daughter with a staple in her navel. Used to be her son, or so she thought. When I asked the duchess how'd she felt, had it been a surprise, she arched a painted brow, and said, Darling,

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the house is immaterial, you taught me that. If you've got to have it renovated so you can really live in it, so you can call it home, that's what you've got to do. We are all made in God's image, you know, but do we all look the same? I wanted to ask if she approved, not of the body adjustment, but of the baring of it all. She probably saw it in my face, for she smiled and kissed me softly and fluttered her eyelashes and swept away. That was the day before the comet slammed Saturn, and

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knocked off its rings. I get a lot of calls after celestial incidents. My calendar filled up after the comet Xuxek. But the more interesting coincidence was Rhea's call. The girl in the magazine, the daughter of my benefactor. I'd met her before, when she was, I must admit I recognized, quite a girly sort of boy, Ray, her boy name. The voice on the phone purred the way Ray's had, husky for a woman, warm for a boy. When she showed up at my office, though I had seen her naked, though I'd seen her as a long-haired youth

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with a sparse moustache and a pedigree, I did not know her. I introduced myself and when she smiled I saw a flash of the duchess. I was startled. Yes, I was. Sammy, she said softly. I am in trouble. I am in ever so much trouble. I. You see. I started a cult. I did not mean it to be a cult! No! I. I only wanted to be worshipped. Is that so bad? But it was! At first the adoration was like a spa. I soaked in it and felt more beautiful every moment. My hair, my lips,

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my eyes, even the mirror agreed they were finer, more desirable. It was a flying saucer. That's what started it. A UFO. It abducted me. I didn't actually see it. I was asleep at the time. But in the middle of the night I awoke and there was this bright light shining right in my face. I was rigid, frozen, not from fright, no, I wasn't quite frightened, I could feel my heart thumping in my chest, not fast, each thump like a fist pounding on a door, like there was a big man on the far side of me, raising his big fist and going WHOMP with it

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on the door WHOMP on the door, my whole body quivering with the impact. Why don't you come in already, I remember thinking, it's not like I ever lock anything. My life is an open book, you know. It's like a diary with one of those little locks on it but there's no key to it because it's never locked. I have no secrets. If anybody wants to know anything, they can just ask me. But the aliens, maybe they didn't understand that, or maybe they just don't understand human language, because I levitated, like Linda Blair in The Exorcist,

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only without the wires making little tents on my nightgown, and I was borne by unseen hands into the light which totally blinded me. I was on a table, cold and hard, like stainless steel, and these strange beings with swimming pool eyes, mouths that looked like they'd been dug out of a potato with a butter knife, completely hairless, no color at all, with pulsing bulbs and throbbing rods probed every one of my orifices. They were trying to make sure of something they knew already. I screamed but not even my ears could hear my screams. Just then

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two of the beings moved aside and, bathed in glory, a man stepped between my feet, my legs being too long for the table, and he looked down at me with the most piercing eyes such that I felt shot through with a bolt of blue, which was secured at one end to the foundations of heaven, at the other to the holy mother herself who was using it to climb out of the catacombs. He reached an incredibly long arm out and touched my chest, which made my heart, I had forgotten about my heart, my heart his touch

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beckoned. I felt it rise from my chest and burst open in his hand, a white white lily. The visitors must then have returned me to my bed, for I remember watching the digits on the clock radio slowly count toward dawn, my body aching as though fevered, but weighted down. I could hardly move. When at last I stumbled from my bed, I found on the floor of the bathroom a broken vase and in a pool of water a lily, whole and undamaged. So this led to your starting a cult? Samuel asked, after a pause in which

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the lovely Rhea gazed pensively at the Des Moines skyline. Yes, she said, slowly. She blinked, then rummaged through her bag for a tissue, which she used to catch a tear Samuel didn't see. She drew a deep breath. I told my story. As I told it to you now. That's all. That's all I meant to do. I was in rehab. Yes, I. I got into meth. I thought it agreed with me. I thought it made me real, the woman I'd never been allowed to be. The feminine finally broke through. I'd built up a wall against it,

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a wall I tried to make man-shaped. But I knew people saw through it. They called me names. You know, when a boy in gym class in high school, thinking to insult me, maybe it was the worst thing he could think of to say, called me Woman. Called me woman. I remember. I was puzzled that he thought that was a bad thing. But what I remember most was the feeling, how right it was. Woman. That was what I was. Would be someday. If I was luckier than I'd ever been up to that point. I almost loved

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him for that. For giving me that. You know. It almost shattered the wall. But, you know, it didn't. It was just a chink. A little more light came through. You see the light, you know. But it doesn't always light up the whole. You start to see something but it's not. It seems totally obvious now. But it wasn't then. I was able to pretend I couldn't see what was looking me in the face. For a long time. When I told about what happened, you know. The aliens. I stopped at the florist first and got a lily.

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When I told my story at group, I held the lily to my breast, and when when I when I got to that point in the story where that amazing man touched me, I extended the lily and I could see everybody's eyes were fixed on the lily. It was like my heart was coming out of me again, like they were seeing the real me. One of the men, his name was James, he asked, Was it Jesus? And I said, I don't know. But I could see he was so eager, he didn't hear me. It was Jesus,

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he said. It was Jesus! He has risen and returned. He came to you in that flying saucer, didn't he? James was so pressing, so certain. Everyone had tuned into his energy, as though what I'd brought with me was no mystery, it was clear. James knew what it was. It was Jesus! It couldn't be anything else! He began to weep. Right there! Of course, it wasn't unusual to cry in the group. People had such sad stories. They'd lost so many things to the drugs. Divorce, children, their parents disowned them. I almost felt bad, my story was

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not tragic. I mean, my father sat me down one day and said, "Rhea, I need you to look at something for me. A consultation, as it were." And he gave me a hand mirror. You know my father. That is why I came to you about this matter, Sammy. She laughed. We are old friends, Sammy! Where was I? I looked in the mirror. I felt silly doing it. What was I going to see? My own face! What a trick Daddy was playing on me. But it wasn't my face. No. He was right. It wasn't the face

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I owned. It was a lost thing; whosoever it was, she needed it back. Someone with sense could save it, could make it work for them. I wasn't shocked, looking at that meth-ravaged thing. My artist's eye saw it; it was like Daddy'd handed over a photo of an ugly room, and I could see immediately how the elements already there could be rearranged to make a good place. A little care, a little attention, a little presence of mind. That's what was missing. I handed the mirror back. The next day I found a 12-step group for meth fiends.

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And that's where I am today. Didn't you come about a cult? Samuel asked, refilling Rhea's teacup with Constant Comment. Oh. That's a sad story. It's also scary. A rival cult is hunting me. They've already taken out James and four others. I know the news programs say that that was a mass suicide, that James recorded a video for distribution over the internet saying he was going to meet the aliens under Jesus' command but I know for a fact that it was the Tralfamadurians. The Tralfamadurians have been tracking us for months. The son of a very powerful

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financier, I can't mention his name, was kidnapped from one of our compounds and ransomed for twenty- three million dollars. His father wasn't going to pay a thing. You don't negotiate with terrorists! he said. But then he started getting. Started getting. Rhea's lip trembles. Body. Body. He started getting body parts. In the mail. They were cutting pieces off him and mailing the pieces to his father. And he paid up. He paid the whole thing. He was able to replace his son's body parts with superior technology, which was pretty neat. Joey showed me his um things. He looked

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kinda hot that way. I could have gone for him, I guess. But his dad found out he was sneaking out to see me. I was in hiding, didn't I say, and we were taking lots of precautions, but he found out. Now Joey's in Eastern Europe or somewhere farther. Meanwhile Banana Li, our attorney, was honing her sixth sense, she joined the organization because when she met me she developed a sixth sense, which she'd never had before, it made her see auras around people's eyeballs and she could tell whether somebody was lying to her, if so she'd

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charge them more. It was called "the organization" because we didn't want anybody to know what we were really talking about, you know. Inside we called it Jesus' Extra-Terrestrials or J.E.T. I didn't like that name very much. But Jesus' Ear or J.E. (that was his code name) was the CEO of a leading Fortune 500 company and paid for the secret hideaways, some of which were pretty nice. How did he join? Um. I think it was his daughter who was one of my classmates at Smith. Yes. That was it. Brenda said it all made perfect sense to

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her that Jesus would return with extra- terrestrials because they are the 21st century version of angels, and a former methamphetamine user transitioning from her biological givens toward spiritual and physical realness would be an obvious choice for prophet. Brenda knows how to sum things up, Samuel observed. OMG! Rhea agreed. Girl can see! She's top pilot in her father's space venture. She's already flown to the edge of space four times. She says you don't believe in gravity up there. You look down on Earth and it's a pretty bubble that could pop at any time. J.E. let her land

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a plane all by herself when she was nine! Her daddy was copilot, she said, but he took his hands off the controls and she brought the twin engine on down to a landing "smooth as any ten- year-old would make." Why is it, Rhea, that you came to me? Samuel pushed his teacup and saucer away and leaned his elbows on the desk. I know I'm your father's friend. And, as you say, I consider myself your friend, even though, till now, I can't say as I knew you. But all this sounds beyond my ken. I help a client

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put her house in order, Rhea finished for him. My house is not in order. Won't you help me? Did I help her? The spiritual rain doesn't bother the pigeon blinking sleepily, nestled on Samuel's chest where he lies under the crossing shadows of a parking meter, each shadow from a different street lamp. The spiritual rain doesn't bother Samuel either. The nausea has passed, though he still feels a bit wired. All this duplication of realities is more trouble than existence ought to go to, it seems to me. "Excuse me, sir?" A little girl leans over him. "Are

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you still using that?" Her face is hard to make out, the street lamp creating a glow behind her head that Samuel doesn't find mystical. "Sorry," Samuel says, "just wondering if I'm supposed to know what 'that' is." The girl nods. "It can be difficult to separate," she agrees. "I did, in fact, mean the totality, the gestalt, as it were. But we can bring it down to the more immediate problem. I have a hand cart, which is too wide to get around you stretched out like that. If you aren't needing to use these coordinates of the space-time

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continuum, could you take advantage of one of the many others?" "I'm on a mission," Samuel says firmly. "So is a sperm," says the girl. "Uh. Ed is around here somewhere. Ed Rumiere. The Mayor." "Of what?" "I forget. But he's the mayor of this. Place. Town. City. And he's the one who sent me on the mission." "Which is to lie in the way on the sidewalk?" "No." Samuel glares at her shadowed face. "It involved drinking a lot of coffee." "Does this mean you have to pee?" "Do you have to pee in the spirit world? Can't you

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just walk through me with your pushcart anyway?" The girl shook her head. "Your body is too lumpy and the cart too heavy for me to get it over you. But, if you like, I can deflate you, roll you up, and stow you against the wall over there." She nodded toward a boarded up storefront. "Have the sirens stopped?" "Only the ones that have been taken out. What impresses me are the shudders in the earth from the explosions of the bombs." "That's evidence then, isn't it? As far as my ear is concerned there's nothing but the silence

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of suspense. I think we're not in the same war zone." "So you'd prefer I dragged my cart right over you than get out of the way?" "That's what I'm saying, yeah." The test was conducted, the evidence gathered, and a conclusion reached. In a garden in the southern hemisphere a gnome carried a tea tray down the path to the gazebo. He got some help carrying it up the steps of the gazebo, for the fisher gnome, a cousin of the gnome's sister, had stopped by on his way to the next exceptional event, an event limned by the

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author of a well-thumbed, gilt-edged, green leather bound volume of futures the fisher gnome had laid out on the little round gazebo table, a yellow silk ribbon marking the page he most wanted to show his host. The fisher gnome snatched from the tea tray as it wobbled a pitcher of milk that threatened to spill, thus catching a few freed drops with his fluffy beard, and preventing a lamentable situation that might have involved tears, the garden gnome being, the fisher gnome seemed to recall, one of the sensitive multiply removed cousins. When the garden gnome set the tray

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down he gazed at it, puzzled, put his hands on his hips, tapped his foot, then raised the tray and looked under it. Not seeing what he was looking for there, he put the tray back and ducked his head under the table. Remaining stooped he nosed around the floor of the gazebo until he got to the stairs. Under each step with pudgy fingers he groped. He sniffed the cobwebs he dragged out, but they gave no clues. Glancing from side to side he worked his way up the path toward the main house, then shrugged, sighed, and, muttering,

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returned to the gazebo and his guest who had already poured the tea and was dunking a madeleine. "This reminds me of something," said the fisher gnome, gazing into the distance where the Andes sawed away at the sky. The garden gnome squinted at his teacup. "There's," he began then gave a yelp which made the fisher gnome tremble. "There's the milk!" the garden gnome shouted, pointing a finger around which a loose thread of dusty web swirled. The fisher gnome patted his forehead with a blue linen napkin, not bothering to look where he had placed the milk, even

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though the way the garden gnome was carrying on, you'd think a dormouse had been stuffed in it. "A lump of sugar?" the fisher gnome inquired, holding one out with a pair of tongs. "Yes, please," said the garden gnome, and stirred it into his tea with the clink clink clink of a pewter spoon with a hanged leprechaun handle. The leprechaun cast on the fisher gnome's spoon had been crucified, he noted with a peculiar twinge. There was something familiar about it. "My dear boy," said the fisher gnome, tapping the green bound volume under his right hand, "what

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do you think will become of you?" He gazed out upon a bumblebee grazing in a daisy that swayed and bobbed, as the bumblebee shifted its great body from foot to foot. The world once was young; a beautiful thing it was. But God was ever so easily disappointed. His anger flashed and in a fit, he battered the world with his fists. He splashed water on it from a boiling sea, melting its face. He kicked it, stomped all over it with boots of a leather of shame stitched with the stout thread of fear. "Dum de dum. Dum

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de dum," burbled the garden gnome, driving a shortbread in the shape of an octopus around his plate. The fisher gnome blinked. He remembered where he was with distaste. God and his dangers! The fisher gnome dropped three lumps of sugar into his tea, to follow the four he'd already stirred in. He clattered the spoon around so furiously the garden gnome looked up from his octopus, he'd nibbled off two of its arms and was planning to see how it got along with just six before he nibbled two more, but something was going on in the fisher gnome's

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teacup, he craned his neck to see. Hot tea had slopped over into the saucer, but that was all. The garden gnome yawned. Hah ho hum. A zephyr rattled the roses. "I was saying," the fisher gnome continued, trying to find where he'd left off, "your future you have to look forward to, it's coming up, and, lucky you, I have right here," he tapped the tome of futures with a round knuckle, "thumbnail sketches of the ones possible, including your very own own." Seeing he was about to lose the garden gnome's attention to an octopus-shaped shortbread cookie, the

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fisher gnome added, "And it's terrible! The heavens will open and dirt will rain down instead of water. Asps will snap out of petunias. Dogs will bark backwards. But the worst of it will come to roost on your clever little cottage. A swamp monster tall as a mizzen mast, breathing green gas, will squat over your chimney and." And what? Why was he making things up? He had the book right there. Hurriedly the fisher gnome pawed through the whisper-thin pages. "And the Achilles tendon will ache," he finished lamely. His host moaned. That did the trick then. The

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asps? The dogs? Which? Could it have been the Achilles tendon? That part was in the book, after all. "But that's why I'm here!" the fisher gnome protested. "I have come to help head it off, if at all possible, or, if no can do on that, to help reconcile you. Fate is fate." The garden gnome was trolling the bottom of his teacup with a spoon. Looking for something? It was the fisher gnome's turn to lean forward and peer into the other's cup. "'Snot there!" wailed the garden gnome. The fisher gnome felt queasy. "I was just dipping,

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dipping it. And its head. Its head fall off! Where's the head now? I push around with the spoon but the head doesn't come up. Mush!" The garden gnome's chin quivered and tears swam in his eyes. Not at all wanting to observe it, the fisher gnome saw the octopus tentacles made of shortbread on the garden gnome's plate and the damp line where the octopus' head must have attached. He looked at his own plate with its partly nibbled madeleine. Other cookies waited on the tray, including a shortbread giraffe, a shortbread sunfish, a shortbread palm tree, more madeleines,

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something with jelly pooled in the center, what looked like a brittle humped up with nuts from nine continents, and a sugar-dusted mushroom. The fisher gnome nicked a sliver from the mushroom and popped it in his mouth. He hoped it was angelic. It tasted vaguely angelic, the kind he'd seen buried after one of those fests from which angels fall, stoned on ambrosia and charged particles. Like snow. Or like neon plumes. What future would fit it? He flipped to the index. Under "angel" there were 84 entries. Under "mushroom" there were 34. Under "eat" there were. There were

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many many entries. Under "garden gnome" there were only three. And the fisher gnome had pored over each of these before coming on this visit. The subject, living under the sway of mountains, shall eat of the sea. Another cloud will succumb to the blandishments of a solitary pass, the caresses of old verses oceans have long traded over the beaten body of earth. A garden gnome, bearing witness, will delight in flame. Nothing, however, may emerge from the cold pot but fences. The care required to maintain a field must be put aside. That was all well and good,

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but what did it mean? The fisher gnome had, however, been delighted upon coming upon another entry. A garden gnome's last words are worn at the end of a line fishing. That which waits is readiest when comes the collapse. The subject must release from silver cages the fetching surfaces. The garden gnome hurries, but it is too late unless the subject offers a gloved tendency. Clearly, the fisher gnome said to himself upon reading this, I am "the subject" and it is to me my little garden gnome will have to turn else be out of luck. Who but

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a fisher gnome could suit up a fishing line? And I do have a way with words, if I do so say myself, the fisher gnome said to himself several times, rolling the words about on his tongue, spitting them, snorting them, yelling them to make the hills resound. If! I! Oo! Ay! Oh! I! Elf! came back the hills. I make words that last. And I'm always ready for the end of the world. I'm prepared. The "silver cages" must be fish traps. The fisher gnome didn't know of any silver ones, but they could look silvered in dawn

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llight, or perhaps it's the flashing scales of the trapped fish. Fish certainly have lovely, that is, "fetching" skins with those overlapping little rainbow-infused scales. And the fish trapped are for the fetching, aren't they? This garden gnome is sure a dunderhead, the fisher gnome thinks. Nothing he could do would be on time. Unless somebody offered him some help, a hand, so to speak, a gentle hand, perhaps, so "gloved." A tendency is a "character or quality that tends toward some result" or "gradual progress." So, a "gloved tendency" would be gradualized gradualness. That does seem at odds with

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the "too late" part, except, now that the fisher gnome is having his first sit- down with the garden gnome for many inches of the glacier, rings of the tree, layers of the alluvial fan, and, oy. The fisher gnome gobbles the madeleines and they don't remind him of anything. Of course! The garden gnome is slow, but he must be slowed further yet, else even in his ponderousness he is as lightning to the unfavorable goal. Yes, that was what he'd thought the future meant when he came upon it in the book. The garden gnome must be prevented from

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hurrying! In order to what? I must release the fish from the fish cages before the garden gnome can stop me. The garden gnome will then resort to a fishing line, needing fish, who doesn't need fish? The "last words" are at the garden gnome's end of the line, not the fish end, the end with that questing hook, the hook with the promise on it. A promise, the fisher gnome reflects, with betrayal built right in. "Would you like some more tea? Madeleines?" The fisher gnome narrowed his eyes. "What are you asking?" The garden gnome tapped the teapot.

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"All gone," he sang. He turned the pot upside down and shook it and a spider dropped from a web woven inside. A wind blew down from the mountains carrying the scent of parsnips and rutabagas. The brook that ran by the garden burbled its suicidal ideation, fire or ice, fire or ice. A butterfly dipped down to the daisy the bumblebee had lately abandoned and rolled out its great curl of tongue, probing for deep sweetness the bee hadn't delved. "Wouldn't you like to know?" the fisher gnome asked. "I have the future right here. Right here!" He shook

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the book at the garden gnome so vigorously it went wubba wubba and wubba wubba. "Wubba wubba," repeated the garden gnome. "Wubba wubba wubba." He mimicked so perfectly the sound the text made as it flexed that the fisher gnome thought he'd shaken the book three more times than he had. "I have the future," said the fisher gnome again, limply. "The future." The garden gnome sighed, a cozy murmur that made a nap seem inevitable. That night, lying in the guest bedroom, after such adventures as would make an infant chortle, the fisher gnome glared at the ceiling where

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the soft light of the river of heaven stretched upon the gleaming grains of the stars. Slowly the fisher gnome's scowl unknitted. This is really a good likeness of the night sky, he allowed. A streak of spark. Then another far off at the edge of the room near the door. Then a flurry. The fisher gnome smiled. A meteor shower to put me to sleep, sweet. And so he did. And dreamed of ravenous dogs gnawing on his knees. But that was toward morning. Mostly, he slept well. The garden gnome worked at his drafting table all night, redrawing

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the plans for the final conquest. The moon looked in at the window and saw the gnome biting his lip as he drew a line here, an angle there, as he slid the T-square along. Now, you may think the garden gnome not very bright, judging by what we've seen of him so far, and in this you would be largely correct. However, he had certain capacities that employers could use to their advantage. The garden gnome could arrange things so they grew. This skill came in handy in the garden, as you'd expect. It took a leap of imagination

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to apply it to things that needed to grow far from the literal garden. What was the garden gnome to grow? A characteristic, one already well rooted in man but which the gnome's employer wished to see burgeon like a vine, curling around and clinging, to grow stout like a tree trunk, impassive, inflexible, to grow leafy like a bush, every spot the sun reaches for reaching back, to blossom, heady aroma that banishes sense, to fruit. Obedience. The gnome had been hired to coax obedience from its present hardy but weedy natural state to a commercial form, a reliable

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producer, a uniform product. He had several promising herbs going in the garden. Under the house where the fungi flourished, fruiting bodies would erupt that offered great potential. And in the pond there were frogs that secreted will-sapping compounds and tiny shrimp-like crustaceans that, when dried and mixed with fermented algae, stank deliciously of submission. The goal wasn't near, true, but it doesn't pay to be in a hurry if you want to be thorough. Besides, the garden gnome's employer had the same garden gnome in several alternate universes working on the problem. You may object that the nuances of

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obedience differ in each universe; it may be, however, that when the results are collated, differences cancel themselves out. In one universe the garden gnome is more closely related to snails than to crows so eats at night. In another universe the garden gnome is a girl with an unpronounceable name wearing spikes in her hair. In a universe in which the earth is made of gold the garden gnome is also made of gold and is working with gold, which, you might note, is an unusually obedient metal. In a universe without garden gnomes a badger has eaten the

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contract and, perhaps, the employer. It is the middle of the night somewhere. Years have elapsed. Then contracted into a tight spiral. At one end is the revenant leprechaun wearing lederhosen. His cold limp hand is being clutched by the fisher gnome whose smile is rigid as a clock. Their portrait, stroke by stroke, is being applied to the face of a stone by the soft bristles of a paintbrush. The artist, a girl with a pronounceable name, one like "Emily," say, though when she is doing portraits she responds only to her nom de arte, "Butternut," touches the brush

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to a palette of pigments, stirring a little black together with much white, then dabbing at the stone to fix the fisher gnome's beard. Butternut, a name she chose from among the dishes served in the art school cafeteria, nibbles on the tip of the brush handle and thinks about the path her life has taken. A path rubbled with stone like the one to which she applies colors, serving up a simulacrum of life. Some life. Not hers. Her life is concrete, too concrete to be pumiced down to a picture. Broken and dusty and shot through with disobedient

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grasses, perhaps. Uneven. She thinks about it. Walked on. Yup. Pretty much walked all over. She turns the stone in her hand to make sure she's incorporated its dent into the slouch of the leprechaun. "OK!" she says. The leprechaun yawns, or just lets his jaw hang, it's hard to tell. The fisher gnome raises an iguana leather bota and squirts an eye-wateringly powerful jolt of a fermented fish and algae brew into his mouth. Taking advantage of the leprechaun's slack maw, he squirts some into it and pushes the jaw back in place. The drops that spill out the fisher

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gnome licks from his wrist. The girl waves off the bota with a rueful smile. The fisher gnome sniffs the painted stone, then holds it up. "Careful, you'll smudge the paint." "Ain't," says the fisher gnome. He puts the fresh one aside and looks down the portraits lined up along the soft log. Two are of the leprechaun's face only, three of the fisher gnome's, one profile, one all nose, the third cartoonish. He points at that one. "Disney," the girl acknowledges. He plucks the top stone from the ones in her basket, runs his finger over its lush pad

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of moss and grunts at feeling bare stone. He nods and picks up a stone with a red centipede curled on its damp underside. He tickles the centipede's back. All stone and paint. The fish in the gnome's head nibbles on a nerve and the gnome flinches. "Are you all right?" Butternut asks. "Fish," says the fisher gnome. "There's a storm on the mountain." The girl is looking up toward a dark cloud that seems to be squeezed around the middle of the slope. The gnome picks up the girl's basket and hangs it around the neck of the leprechaun.

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This bends the leprechaun forward, but he struggles with the weight and manages to lift his head, his eyelids fluttering. The fisher gnome adds to the basket the stones that have been drying on the log, then he scoops Butternut's unopened tubes of paint into her satchel and hangs that over the leprechaun's left shoulder. The leprechaun leans to the left, sways a moment, then regains his balance. A moan, low and deep. The fisher gnome takes the leprechaun's right hand and begins leading him away from the creek. Butternut has been munching dried apple slices, but now she sees

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the party is breaking up, and walking off with her things. In no hurry, it looks easy enough to catch up, Butternut puts another slice of apple in her mouth, draws the string of the pouch and drops it into the pocket of her skirt. She recaps the remaining paints, slides them into her other pocket, then, laying the palette on her head, she steps, stone by polished stone, out of the creek bed. Twice she squats delicately to keep the palette balanced while picking up a promising portrait holder. The leaf-strewn grass of the bank squishes under her hop.

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The palette spins off Butternut's head and does a little glide, thumping into a tree. As the girl leans over to get it, she hears a rushing of wind in the trees. The gnome and leprechaun have moved out of sight. That wind rush, she notices, is not heralding a breeze. A breeze? She feels silly. Wasn't she the one who pointed it out? Most the trees are not easily climbed, full of prickly needles and close-set branches. But she spots one that has potential. A firm and barkless limb juts out just at chin height. Butternut hits it at

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a run and swings up. The next higher is offset enough to seem a step in a staircase and a third limb confirms the resemblance. She spirals around the massive trunk, its clothing of bark red and soft. Each step up is easy or not so difficult she can't make it, adding some lunge. When the flood smacks into the tree the tree doesn't shudder, though the waft of cold wet air dragged along behind the water brushes at Butternut and she leans into the tree to wait it out. The tree has been through this sort of thing, ages

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of floods, fires, ages of wind and rain, lightning strikes to number in the hundreds. Or more, perhaps. Who can have counted them? Hafta to get a new palette, too bad. Butternut figures she will catch up with the fisher gnome to get her paints. Or she doesn't think about it. Butternut is used to things coming and going, mostly going. You know the old saw about they can't take away your education? Butternut figures she might as well learn what she can about what's in front of her. Like as not it won't be there tomorrow, especially if it's

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a person. At a place where three limbs grow close together debris of leaves and twigs and evergreen needles have gathered to make a cushy mat. Butternut steps across it cautiously; it holds her weight. She's been circling this tree for some time, she realizes. She pokes her nose over the far side of the mat and for the first time really looks down. Down has a lot to it. There are treetops below and they are looking rather more like kale or broccoli than like trees. Which is to say, if you were to take a gliding way to

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earth you would pass over many a trail and wonder. "If you think you are going to stay here, you will have to reformulate the thought with the likelihood of coming to an alternate conclusion." The voice sounds like a jay, although the wordiness of the challenge suggests not. "To come to a conclusion one way or another I'd have to have a little more information," Butternut says. She looks around the sheltered pad but when the voice comes again she doesn't see who is using it. "Information is dear! Why should I give such a thing away?" "Oh," says

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Butternut. "It is possible that I have information, you know. To trade. Not living in a tree, I might know a thing or two." The pause before the response is so long Butternut has a chance to prod about more thoroughly. Indeed, the pad seems firm enough to have been woven. You can never be too sure, considering. But Butternut is feeling snoozy. A nap, even under the eye of an unfriendly talking squirrel, is the sort of activity Butternut could indulge in just about now. Likelihoods. Dear, dear. "Tell me about this," comes the voice, and an object flashes

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as it falls. "Oh!" says Butternut, this time sharply, putting a hand to her tummy where it hit her. It seems however, to have slid right off, and she runs her fingers over the pad alongside to find it. A lady's watch. Slim and gold. its narrow black face numberless. One slender gold hand points just to the left of a tiny inset jewel, the one less slender gestures just to the right as though the two, when they come together, will pluck the sparkle out. Butternut touches the watch to her ear. No ticking. So she twists the fob.

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There is some resistance. Maybe not broken, then. She holds it to her ear again. "What is it telling you!" comes the voice, all anxious. "Shh," says Butternut. "If you talk I can't hear the crystal!" The ticking of the watch is so quiet she has to close her eyes to hear it. It sounds like sheets wrinkling while they dry. It sounds like a hair tapping against a hair as a lover breathes over a shoulder. It sounds like muscular contractions of the iris as the train crosses a bridge, the metal beams of the bridge flickering shadow shadow

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shadow. It sounds like the barking of a dog on a street corner in Kathmandu to a man in orbit. It sounds like an idea you've had, been obsessed by, then completely forgotten until one night you dream about something unrelated, losing a button on a cuff, say, and you suddenly remember there was an idea that almost drove you nuts, and now you have no clue what it was, thank god. It sounds like a jackhammer tearing up concrete in a documentary playing on a channel the TV hasn't received since the dispute with the cable company. It sounds

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like a leprechaun drummer beating a tattoo on a hollow mushroom three doors down from the sobbing singer whose lover has left her on the altar which alteration finds a bit bony, scrawny, skinny, down to its last, fading away, and so on. You think you hear the fish song until you realize the public address system has given up the ghost, the ghost of many squeezed into one, the secondary duty of the public address system having been to store this concentrated ghost, the land of the dead being already overbooked. It's safe to say, then, that the fish

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song plays well along several continua. This is the beginning of the reach across worlds, one fish banging out a melody another learns the water carries. "Is it telling you something, you can tell me?" says the voice to Butternut. Butternut notes the tentative tone. "It is telling me all sorts of things," Butternut says. "It is telling me, for instance, that you are sweeter than bitter, that you are handsomer than rude, that to be adorable is easier far for you than horrible." "That's not true!" the voice squeaks. "That last one. I can be horrible! It's not hard

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to be horrible! Everybody thinks I'm horrible. I AM horrible! Why shouldn't I be horrible! It is necessary!" "Achieving horrible, it's a cinch?" This seems to quiet the voice. And, for awhile, all voices go quiet. Hard to say that, I know. Harder than being horrible, could be. The hardest part having no voice to say it with? An obstacle, indeed. An arrogant figure of speech erect among the downtrodden, boots mucked up with the mud of the rash emphatic? A sly silver mention continues what action, commenced by the twelfth absolute, contributed to the growth of a new family

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paradigm which, significantly, had been a well settled matter among implements, those used in the production of august condiments and complementary seasonings, and those used year to year. What occurred was rectified, it's true, first by alleviation, then by the ultimate atmospheres of the upper layers of contrition, a naked drawing of fire to the tear duct. If you were a missing person, would you have to miss everything? Or could your missing be sufficiently notable held to two or one? The little noises of everyday motion haven't eclipsed the mouth yet, though, as mentioned previously, the communicative regime has

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been interrupted, if only temporarily, by fiat, if not by decree, decree also being suspended. If we were to talk only about what we know we would also remain silent, settled in our convictions. If we were to talk about the mysteries our mouths would be operative 24/7, though not always active, the unexplained making its many sounds in unpin-downable ways via culture and artifacts of nature. The environment provides links between what we grow and what we don't manage to grow into, one foot or another with cramped toe. What does it take to perform sorrow in the

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abstract, frosted bulbs in the frame, a fright shimmering in the periphery? It takes time times two plus fours, two fives, and a single, the suicide king, the double-faced savior. You can see there are cats. And cats have, with pigeons, the fortitude necessary for one more efflorescence. By one, I do not mean a thing with easily defined borders. One in this case could mean two, or even three, depending. Yet a continuous progression from one ill-defined end to the other cannot be counted out. It is unlikely. That's all. No one pays you to listen. Your ear, an

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operant conditioner, needs rest between the august freight of an intonation and the fizz of such sillier insinuations as are known in girls' schools and golf academies. Recovery remains inevitable, but expect instantaneous results to be retarded when implemented by unskilled etiquette. Testimony in favor of prayer delights the glossy inner regions of publications catering to a self-selecting audience. It is largely unequivocal. Scheduled weeping may be postponed but not indefinitely. A limited number of violent misapprehensions has been budgeted for, there having been no fiscal year in which such were avoided successfully. Expecting to get by with less than

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the requisite number can be achieved, although sacrifice cannot be avoided. In order to climb the highest mountain, breast the turbulent waves, walk the longest road, or bear the heaviest burden, touch bases with your habits of avoidance, making sure you are well acquainted with them. Knowledge is the best aphrodisiac. Assumption of the throne confirms the altitude. Ripening ears of corn freshen the lifestyle of the jungle oriented. Water begets water. Ice from the far north costs a pretty penny. Friends often confer on ulterior motives. A loud remonstration calls attention to the varieties of injustice. Laments cool the

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agonies of the saved, although it's a given that those are fun. What had to be factored in was first set aside in jars, the ingredients preserving gracefully toward the fine fizz connoisseurs grade on scales of confection and label with descriptors alternately floral, glandular, and tidal. No one ultimately has responsibility. A few seek it in vain. The wealth flows to the top where it is transmuted into perfumed waters; only urine trickles down. The bubbles were effervescent and maintained a flavor distinct from the background. Animals strike curious poses. Future heroes wait in the wings wearing garments hand-crafted

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from the skulls of heroes of old. This sort of thing grants surprising new powers, like laser beams from the eyes and the ability to multiply computations per second in the latest generation of supercomputers. You'd never guess, right? On the other hand, there are powers granted the wearer of a cloak sewn from the skins of leprechauns that are shockingly mild considering the ickiness of the source, like being able to make thistles more thorny and causing dark-skinned people to sunburn as fast as blonds. People have conquered the world with less! Never underestimate the power of a few

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nincompoops to dawdle overlong at the sunset buffet. They aren't the only ones who ever have. You may, in fact, find them less objectionable than the dedicated people with admirable ideals who also eat more than their share of the breaded shrimp and soft serve. The hungry we shall always have holding fresh plates at the back of the line. Still, the nice thing about the world changing is it will go about it without you. Do Not Get Involved, the slogan of the pancreas. We should all have a business as discrete and essential as the secretion of glucagon.

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Too many organs act like everything's their business. Last night, lying in bed, I imagined I knew the very next act of the guardians of the gate. We left the scene bloody and scummy with lymph. The heart had skipped a beat and was trying to catch up. The liver was working on a fifth of scotch, and in the lungs a sweet and oily smoke swirled from bronchiole to bronchiole. Deep in the marrow a new generation of whites was being born, preparing, no doubt, to battle the dread pathogens. I dipped into the transdimensional snuff box, a gift

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of my godfather. I sometimes doubted it was anything special. But I would use my imagination and the pinch I'd snort would be a way to new dimensions. Right past the gate I'd go, snubbing the guards, waggling my ass like I just didn't care. And then I'd be in the new universe, with the unfamiliar objects (which were pieced together from the old familiar objects), and the strange customs (which were exaggerated versions of what I grew up with). Another pinch and I would forget what universe I'd started from, or pretend I had. "Who are you?" the natives

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inquire. "I am the God, a Lord, Your Jesus Christ." They look at me, uncomprehending. "I'm sorry," I say. "I am the Lord, Your God, Jesus Christ. Did I get it right that time?" "Where's your costume?" "I'm supposed to have a costume?" "The Messiah has a costume." "What's it look like?" "It's sort of red, a dark color," says a native. "More brown," another interjects. "Silver stripes on the sleeve?" "The shoulder." "Isn't the shoulder the sleeve?" "A hat." "I thought it was a crown." "Thorns? You know, like a crown of thorns." "Those aren't done." "With the blood

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trickling?" "I like those. Very dramatic." "Like stripes! I bet that's where stripes came from. For authority." "I've never seen God. How do you know he looks like that?" "A brown robe." "A cape." "A cape? Really?" "Why would God wear clothes? That's ridiculous. God wouldn't hide his body." "Is anybody else thirsty? I have some nog back at the hut." "I've never been into nog." "Nog makes me nod!" "If you're God, could you make it rain?" "Isn't it wet enough for you?" "It's for the fish." "What? They're in water already. They need to get wet?" "You want

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to eat, don't you?" "Hey, he's the Jesus. He can do fish." "And wine! We've got plenty of water. It's kind of brackish and there are bugs in it." "We need a miracle." "I have a bible for that. It's called The Bible for Miracles. It shows you exactly how to make a miracle." Eventually I start to wonder where the religion of this strange land came from. "Missionaries! You know they planted that thorny shrub because they thought it was indecent we went around all the time without shoes? Can you imagine!" "I tried to learn their language in

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twelve easy lessons. There were audiotapes that asked me to repeat things like, 'My name is Imelda. What is your name?' and 'Where is the bathroom?'" "Did you learn how to say, 'What is the name of your God?'" "No. But I did learn to say, 'My God is the only God there is. If you insist on pretending that there is any other God you will be nailed to a wall with red hot iron spikes, your eyeballs scooped out with an ice cream scoop, and probing worms introduced into the open sockets.'" "How many opportunities did you get

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to say that?" "It was quite the favorite at parties." Being Jesus I had to test the walkability of the swamps. Springy! The water tasted all right as wine, but I have to tell you, it made much better gin. The people had heard of me, sort of. I healed a few sick, just to show them how it worked, and it wasn't as hard as last time. On my first visit to earth a smidgen of healing took it right out of me! I had to scold some of the suffering for being so selfish. Raising the dead is

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easy in comparison. Just kidding. It's especially icky if they've been dead awhile. Though in some places the dead are kept prettier than the living. They think they are entitled to revival. Who isn't? Don't we all get tortured to death before our time? Sacrifice to rapacious mortality. I suppose a few linger, being uninteresting all their days, stretching it out. But when with quaking spotted hands they turn back the pages of their vast book, what is scrawled there? "Sun with variable clouds like yesterday." "Sun with variable clouds like tomorrow." You know so much about tomorrow by that

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time, all those pages along. It will be much like yesterday. Used to be there weren't fancy new gadgets every few months. Used to be you'd feed the goat, comb off the moulted tufts of goat hair, spin some yarn from it, weave up a soft shawl from dyed strands. That would nestle, pretty and fresh, around your neck; it would get dirty, be cleaned, dirty up and be cleaned, and holes would wear in it, and you'd be weaving another. People didn't seem much different. They'd wear out around you and somebody'd be putting together new ones, which, if

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things went well, turned out much like the earlier batch. Oh, I suppose stuff would happen, temples would get knocked down, communities would be slaughtered and enslaved, diseases would ravage the cities, but most of that didn't happen to most people. Most people just went along doing what they were doing. What their grandfolks did. What their grandkids would do. So I'm back to tell you eternal life has been going on longer than memories can catalog. I'm back to tell you I never left. Yup. The cross was hurty, but my hands don't smart anymore. I don't need to

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get out of bed, if I'm in a soft bed. If I'm camping in warm sand I can watch the stars all night. If I'm in a prison cell, well, I've been in prison cells before. Many. Down through the years. And if I'm God, okay. I die and rise again. I die and rise again. That's not what I mean by eternal life, though. It's that I meet people like myself. I still marvel at it. The man, the woman, once in awhile even a child, who knows what I will say next because that's what they're thinking, too.

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You can finish your husband's sentences? Yes. I mean that, but I also mean what you'd thought your unique take on the world is someone else's too. Someone hurts the way you do, schemes the way you do, laughs until she cries so much the way you do that it's scary. Get to know a deer or a mouse or a crow and get to know an individual. Every crow, even every mouse, is not every other. I've been executed, I've starved to death, I've shivered in fever and pustules have burst in my skin. Sometimes when I revive I

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am a little different. Bigger nose. Smaller eyes. Tinier pores. But I feel a continuity. When you look at the crowd, the herd, the swarm, it's hard to see individuals. I usually don't introduce myself as "Jesus" these days. I trot out the name when I figure it doesn't mean much. If you go into a cathedral and start shaking hands, calling yourself "Jesus," people can get pissy. Sometimes I pronounce it the Spanish way, "Hey-Zeus." For some reason that doesn't rankle anybody. Why shouldn't there be many Jesuses in the world? I lost a hand once. It got chopped

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off as punishment for stealing. I was in a Moslem country, just traveling through, you know, and a beggar woman stood accused of stealing fruit from the bazaar. When I saw her dragged before the man with the sword, I stepped up to them, saying it was not she who had stolen the fruit. Perhaps no one had stolen anything. She was a beggar, people could be generous, why shouldn't she be carrying a bagful of dates and dried apples? There was a witness, the apple vendor, who insisted differently. He did not look like a reliable man to me,

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but perhaps he was telling truth. Liars can tell the truth. So, as I say, I protested that this poor woman was not the thief, it was I. I had seen her bony hand outstretched at the entrance to the bazaar, and, having nothing of my own to give, had taken from one who seemed to have plenty. Who am I to accuse another of lying? I was seized and a stout cord cinched over my hand, squeezing the bones together. I gasped. The swordsman unsheathed his blade and laid it naked upon my skin. They held the woman, too,

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one patting her on the head, a smile cold his face. "I suppose if I were to call on God to save us both, to send a lightning bolt from the clear sky and strike down only the unjust, or only you, the man who dares threaten me with steel, you would laugh, sure God and I had no arrangement." They laughed. Indeed, they laughed. But it wasn't at anything I said. I didn't say anything. Wouldn't it have been fun if I had, and that a jagged stripe of light would spear down from Heaven and turn crispy whomever

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I pointed at with a sneer? No, they were laughing at something else. Having the power of fate at their disposal, perhaps. One made a joke about about the other's nose? I don't remember. The woman looked at me but her eyes were dull. They might as well have been painted on stone. I did not recant. And lost my hand to the transaction. I wonder if they allowed the beggar woman her bag of dried apples and dates? I believe someone helped stanch the blood. I believe I was not thrust out the city gates with a curse. I

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don't think I was left to slump into unconsciousness there in the street, blood pooling around my suddenly open wrist. But there are things I do not remember. Perhaps I died. I do know that when I could, I left that place behind. I should have stayed and showed them a miracle? I hid my miracle in a bag, like some Indian renunciates. You've seen them, haven't you? They walk about with a lightweight cloth bag cinched constantly over one hand and make do in life as though they had one hand only. I do remember the pain as the

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new flesh burgeoned on the bones of the old, how tender was the new. When bumped I yelped! The buds of fingers began to form and stretch out. At first they would twitch or jerk by themselves, but gradually they began to obey my commands. I did not keep the hand hidden until it was the perfect match for the other. Who knew if that would happen? I did not mind the eyes that touched my seeming deformity. I was no longer seen as one who had been judged by man and punished, yet I was seen easily as one

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whom God disdained. As often happens, some few believed the opposite, that my deviation from the norm made me lucky. Bad luck is better than no luck at all? How many Jesuses could there be? I did wonder about the hand. If it were God's hand, would it fester and rot away like any other flesh? Perhaps it grew a replacement man, as I grew a replacement hand. I haven't run into this twin in the centuries since. What would he know of himself? Not much, I suppose. I've never lost my head in all these years. There's an experiment

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to run! I've yet to be cremated, too. Not to say I haven't been badly burned, and died once because of it, but. But nothing. God's plan has not been written out even for me, so I haven't read ahead. If, perchance, a plan has been written and it was I who wrote it, I took care to write in a good stretch of forgetting all about it. Glory to God. Few places I can announce myself so grandly as I did today and not make a big mess of it. The people have heard of me here? I apologize.

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"Excuse me, Mr Christ?" "Actually, 'Christ' is a title. 'Jesus' is the name." "Oh. OK." "What is it you wanted?" "Well, we're having a barbecue and we'd like to know if you want cole slaw." Once upon a time there was a dog. This dog had been to heaven on a dare and come back to bark and wag his tail about it. This dog had also been to hell. The trip to hell had been repeated several times. The trip had been repeated so many times that the dog hung out a shingle offering guided tours of the road

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to hell. He didn't charge much. A full belly, a pat on the head. The closer you get to hell the less likely you are to pay. The dog knew this on some level, but he would forget in the excitement of getting a customer and a bowl of ground chuck. It's true he ate as much as his tummy could take, then lay down in the sun for a snooze, which tended to make his customers antsy. But the road to hell was long, usually, and if you knew the smells of the way it was just as well

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traveled in the dark as in the heat of the day. The sun can get blinding midday anyway. The hours near dawn are probably best. Coolest then, plus you get some light to stumble by. You're going to hell and you want to sleep in? Wake up slobber is available from your guide. You may have to camp but along the route there are often abandoned tents, sometimes in surprisingly habitable condition, occasionally with accompanying campfire still burning. What happened to the campers? They were too eager to get to hell to get their beauty rest? But there are hotels,

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as well, so you don't have to rough it, necessarily. And there are motels in various states. There are spas, too, and resorts (every one claiming to be the last). You can buy a bus ticket. You can fly first class or be borne on a wicker chair towed through fogs by a swarm of bats, or you can book a cruise, or you can step through a transdimensional gateway. Each of these options has its advantages and disadvantages. Some cost an arm and a leg, some your soul, some hours of aggravation and privation, some will just mislead you

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into thinking you are having a good time when really it's to hell you are driving yourself. Under the sign for Guide Dog to Hell there was a little red door with one of those old fashioned peepholes attached to a knocker. The man who raised the brass knocker and tapped away with it had been young once and handsome, but was sagging now, like an old porch, and he sighed frequently, like a sofa cushion. The woman who peeped at him through the hole in the door didn't like the look of him, so she opened the door and,

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one hand on her hip, an eyebrow arched, stood aside to let him in. Tied over her tight black hair, the woman wore a red and white spangled bandana. "Pardon me, ma'am," said the man in a voice dripping with sarcasm or servility. "The sign said there's a dog here who. Who will take you to hell." With a soft white cloth the woman patted the shine of perspiration from her skin, which made her seem either darker or lighter depending. Depending on the way the sunlight touched her. Depending on your attitude. The woman treated her visitor to a

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long, evaluating look and a lemonade, which he drank sitting on her lumpy couch. Three dogs came into the room. One, a miniature pinscher, jumped onto a couch cushion and curled up beside the man, but otherwise seemed not to notice him. A German Shepherd and a large nondescript yellow dog stuffed their noses in his crotch. The shepherd also sniffed his lips. The yellow dog went back over to the woman and sat on her feet. She was standing, sipping her own lemonade. It was from a mix, the man noted, very sweet, and still gritty. He looked down

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into the ice, which was a series of short fat tubes through which messages passed, sweet, cold, yellow. He smiled weakly. When he looked up he was alone in the room but for the pinscher. He touched the dog's head. It didn't tense up so he let his fingers wander back and forth across the pelt. He sipped his lemonade, dissolving the crystals on his tongue. A comet of the Oort cloud is turning back toward the sun. Sitting on the side of the bathtub she'd just cleaned, a girl runs a blade lightly over her wrist. Once a dream

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curdles, it is difficult to clean the deep ill stink away. The man on the couch felt groggy, dizzy. He pressed the cool glass against his cheek. There was a roar in his head. The yellow dog had come back in and was sitting on the other side of the coffee table staring at him. The man nodded, put the glass down on a cardboard coaster advertising Gelato Beer ("Colder than a Witch's Tit!"), and stood. His head thrust through the ceiling. He closed then opened his eyes and each eyelid rose with the windy gasp of the lid of

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a traveling trunk. A gust rushed the room, the walls rippling with its force, a painting of horses seemed to paw and neigh, the window curtains flexed like biceps, and the front door ground against its latch. Yet on the man's head only his beard moved, growing rapidly, itching. Arrows impaled an Old Joker magazine on the coffee table and on the cover a naked youth bled from the mouth. Storm clouds crept into the man's teeth and lightning jolted his fillings. He smiled and the sea rushed in. A dog was sending him postcards from a house in a

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shoe which had been built on a golden wave under a sun pasted together from older suns that had begun to sputter in their particular skies so had been cut into strips, into corners and squares, which pieces were sorted into lighter and darker, warmer and chiller, then matched to make more suns, each for a realm specially designed by a dull clockmaker who was good at chance operations and indifferent diamond rooms. The man flipped through the cards that had come so far. What a fine beach covered with bones and thistles! What majestic ferns arching over plangent hotels

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in a swirl of colored balls! Here is the card that shows how, in cartoon diagram, chocolate bunnies have their organs inserted. Here is the card with the facades of three museums, the Museum of Old Useless Crap, the Museum of Unbelievable Messes, and the Museum of Matilda Wilcox and Her Kin. That name sounded familiar. Where had he heard it before? Perhaps she was his fifth grade teacher. He turned the stack of cards over so he could reread the messages. That dog was so considerate, sending capsule versions of all the exciting things he'd been up to in

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each distant place, wishing you were here, having a great time, looking forward to seeing you in all the old familiar places. Like on the way to hell. "Dear Bernie," said one card, "You should open your eyes now and look around. Please do it quickly." Curious. How can you read with your eyes closed? "We are on the road, Bernie," the card continued. "You signed the contract for a round trip, which I will do my best to provide, although there's no guarantee for that sort of thing, you know. No guarantees. You acknowledged that when you signed the

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contract." Contract? The man's cheek pains him. He touches it gently, rubbing at it to brush away whatever is bringing this hurt. Ooh, he groans. His whole head throbs. It seems to swell, then drain, collapsing in on itself. He pries his eyes open, flinches at a desert brightness. He lifts his cheek off the gravel by the side of the road, which he seems to have been sleeping on. Unconscious on. When he feels dampness on his forehead he squints at the fingers that found it, sees nothing, nothing but a sore blur. But when he sniffs them his

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fingers smell of blood. Blood! Great. As he investigates again, his fingers trembling, he doesn't find much. Must not be a big gash, he thinks. A scalp wound bleeds a lot, even if it's just a scratch. Urf, says a dog softly but with a sense of urgency. Dog? The yellow dog. The yellow dog he'd last seen sitting on a black woman's carpet slippers. Before the weather invaded. "I signed a contract with you?" the man says. The dog stands in front of him, straddling the white line at the edge of the lane, curly tail raised and wagging

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tensely, his jaw ajar, ears perked up, head turned to look down the road. The man groans again, rubs his arm which is scraped up. Fortunately his sport coat took the brunt of the gravel. He looks himself over, now that his eyes have adjusted to the glare. A couple small rips in his pants, skin scrapes on his hands and forearms, and his face, he's sure, though it's harder to assess that damage without a mirror. Well. Hell. What got into his head? He crawls out in the road to retrieve a shoe. If he'd known he was leaving

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right from the tour office he would have gone there prepared. But no, he thought he was just going to pick up a brochure, flip through glossy photos of the sights on the road to hell, the flames and tortures of hell itself maybe, looking as attractive and enticing as only the monuments and unique cultural costumes of hell can look. Slutty bitches? Rapacious philanderers? Moping suicides. Liars, hypocrites. Use your imagination. The shoe doesn't want to go on his foot. Then when it does there's a pebble in it. A tiny sharp pebble that won't shake loose. He peers

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into the shadowy interior, but can't see anything. Nothing. Just a blank of darkness. Wait. A movement? He puts the shoe to his ear and shakes it again. It's a loafer. He wore it to the office. Imagine going to hell in a loafer. And chinos. Although, he thinks, I guess you go to hell in whatever you happen to be wearing. What's making that whispery sound? No laces to lash. He upends the shoe and whacks the heel. A little red scorpion hits the road on its back, flips over and waves its pinchers, arches its tail and points

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the barb. "My name is Bernie," says the man to the scorpion. "I don't know how you survived my big squishing foot, dear fellow, but it's over now. No hitchhiking to hell in this leather boat." Says the dog again, "Urf!" this time following with a growl. And Bernice recognizes another growl in the distance. A truck. The road shoots down a long slope, hunches over two hills without turning, then lunges off left. The truck is cresting the further of the two hills, and it is huge. The dog turns his head to look at Bernie. "I don't suppose

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that's our ride?" The dog's tail is almost still and the growl is joined by pricked up hackles. "You're the boss." He reaches into the inner pocket of his coat and pulls out a wallet. He takes out a pink business card and uses the card to shoo the scorpion onto the loafer's upturned sole. He blows on it, keeping it corraled, while he shuffles over to a thorny shrub, right for a scorpion?, and drops it off. The dog is already bouncing away through the bushes, curl of yellow tail beckoning, so Bernie puts on the shoe (it slips

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on easily) and bops after. Least as much bopping as one can do who's just stirred his bruised lump from unconsciousness and gravel. Then there's the brush his guide seems blithely unconscious of, but which keeps snagging and yanking on Bernie's clothes. He's sweating, a black fly likes smacking against his brow, and there's this roar. He swivels his head. The truck, truly gigantic, what is it? three stories? each tire as tall as a mansion door, has pulled up to the place in the road he and the dog just abandoned. It's snorting, the orange flames painted on its

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nose seem to darken as a ray of sunlight streaks down from a break in the clouds. But the ray fades and the flames glow and writhe. Where's the dog? Bernie stumbles and the bushes grab at him, poking him in the face, a thorn reopens the wound on his forehead. He pushes forward and branches give way, raking more scratches on his arms, and tearing his clothes. "Oof," says the dog softly. Right at Bernie's feet there's a hole. No, a gully. Grabbing the stout stem of the bush that just scraped him, Bernie lowers himself. The idle of

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the truck's tremendous engine shifts suddenly into roar and Bernie's sure the truck is turning off the road. Toward them? His ankle turns on a stone and he slides onto his ass. The engine roar reverberates through the gully. Bernie scrambles into a spray of sand. The dog is digging at a log jammed into the gully wall. Bernie yanks the log out and a crumbling of dirt reveals an entry. A cave? He's about to crawl in when the dog grabs his arm, firmly, teeth pressing into his flesh. "What? What?" The dog pulls him back. The crashing and

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crackling as the truck crushes the brittle shrubs. Bernie crawls sidewise, his arm in the dog's mouth until he has been dragged under an awning of roots, a hollowing out of the wall. He pulls his legs in and curls up against the dog. The truck is idling again. This gully seemed so hidden, Bernie thought the driver might barrel right into it. He hears the cab door slam. So there is a driver. It's not just a demon truck driving itself. "Bernard Went!" Bernie looks at the dog. The dog's head is tucked under Bernie's shoulder, not looking at

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him, but those brown eyes are looking out at something. Bernie wants to ask the dog who that guy is, the one who called his name, wants to ask what they're going to do, you are the guide on this adventure, dog, this round trip adventure. Bernie's mind seems to be holding onto some assurance of survival, though otherwise his mind has come down to the two brown eyes of a dog and the rumble of a tremendous motor. "Fucking Went!" A shotgun fires. "I ain't fuckin' kidding, Went! Get out where I can see you!" The pupils in the

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dog's eyes dilate. Something is reflected across the curve of the wet surface. The dog tenses but doesn't move. Bernie watches the thing reflected in the dog's eyes as it expands. He listens to the strange whuffling thumps that might be footfalls. Gasps and grunts at every thump as though there were faces being punched. Then two shotgun blasts. A scream. Is that his name again? The engine chokes then roars. Glass breaking, metal squealing. Gigantic tires gripping, spinning. The engine goes from roar to shriek. The dog lifts his head, ears perked. Bernie thinks he asks the dog a

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question. He feels his mouth move and. But he doesn't hear his own voice. Maybe it's just too noisy with the demolition going on. And the screaming. The dog wriggles out from under him and trots across the gully to the cave. The soft opening has been considerably widened by the passage of something large and rough. Or many things. There are round indented prints all around the cave, as though a ball has been pounded on the sand. He looks closer, it's more an oblong, and here on a sharp stone long hairs have caught. As the dog goes

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on in, Bernie takes a shaky breath. The air feels unfamiliar in his lungs. Smells like a locker room. Sweat, rank and fresh. Just as he steps out of the day he glances back and sees a great muscular question mark raised against the sky, clenched in its curve the shabby crunkle of the roof of the truck's cobalt blue cab. So many questions, he thinks as he notices again the soreness in his ankle and drags one hand along the wall, extending the other in front. He bumps against the dog who grunts and whaps him with his tail.

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Gratefully, Bernie grasps the tail and the dog moves on, setting a pace that doesn't deprive his charge of footing or hold. It is not long before sounds from the world above dwindle and all there is to hear is stirred by feet and breath. Though the tunnel is without light, it is not true that Bernie sees nothing, for internal lights swirl before and around him. Nor is the dog's progress tentative. Footfall after footfall, his hand sweating in the hair of the dog, Bernie walks on in reverie. Once upon a time there was a boy who climbed

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a tree. It was, as far as he was concerned, the tree that touched heaven. That the twigs tickling the angels' toes were too delicate to stand up to the weight of a boy was further proof that their job was finer than flesh. That the tree graciously allowed the boy so close kept his hopes from falling to earth. On an overcast morning in July the boy did not climb as high as he could. One day he would and, reclining on a branch that swayed if he scratched his nose, the boy scouted possible routes with a pointing

Thousand: Three Hundred Ninety-Nine

finger. "When I get to heaven, first thing I'll do," he hummed to himself, "get me a horn and blow f'rol' blue." He drew one way up around, yup, then if you cross over and, uh huh, supposing a ledge were just there. The boy had closed one eye, the better to sight along his finger, his tongue protruding just a bit as he concentrated. Something stirred behind his finger. He moved it. A foot. There was a foot right above the tip of the highest twig. The big toe of the foot was touching the twig. The twig was

Thousand: Four Hundred

holding the weight. It's only a foot, the boy thought to himself. If it were a whole body that would be harder. Then a hand appeared and scratched the exposed ankle. Must be itchy, thought the boy. Another foot descended from the cloud and rested on a twig slightly lower. The first foot moved to a twig slightly lower. Then a hand, slender and pale, slid down between the feet, index finger extended, the twig it touched bending less than under the tiniest of sparrows. The arm showed all the way up to the elbow. It began to angle. "Oh!"

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The boy watched a face come down from the cloud, lowering toward the finger. It was a boy's face. The turned up little nose touched the twig and the hand whipped away, both arms spreading wide in a grand Ta Dah! "Wow," said the boy. He wanted to applaud. So he did. The boy from the sky grinned, grabbed the twig in both fists and swung into the tree. Down he scrambled. As he got to where the boy from the earth was sitting, the boy from the sky swirled around the trunk and seemed to disappear. The boy from

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earth sat up. Had the sky boy shimmied all the way down? He leaned out so he could look around the trunk, which didn't look quite thick enough to hide a whole boy. Nobody there. He leaned around in the other direction. "Hello? Are you still here?" When he sat back, he bit his lip. Was he dreaming? Cool air blew on his neck and he shivered. Then a tickle on his ear made him scratch. Then, "Hello? Are you here?" whispered along the back of his neck, a cadence far softer and sweeter than his own squeaky, uncertain voice.

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He shivered. And a warmth spread through him. He opened his eyes. Had he closed them? Looking down into those now open eyes others, gray as rain clouds, gray in white, blinked gold eyelashes. Above him lips broke into a smile, which lit the face like a night's first lamp. The lips drew nearer and the boy felt the air move. A breath could send a seed away. In his chest he felt the press of distant rain. The weeds would have to grow. The gutters would have to run and leaves would have to hurry to the grates and

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press themselves against the bars. The sky boy sniffed the earth boy's ear, which brought on another shiver. He laid his fingers on the earth boy's hair, spread it, and sniffed the scalp. "What are you doing?" asked the earth boy. Then the sky boy began to crowd onto the earth boy's branch. "Hey! Hey! I'm falling off!" But he wasn't. The sky boy was under him, wrapping the earth boy in his arms and whispering into his hair. "I'm falling falling falling." It was like a song. "I'm falling falling falling," the earth boy sang along. They lay together

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on the branch so steep and wobbly that one boy had felt daring leaning there, a foot hooked under another branch to keep his balance. "When the bough breaks," murmured the earth boy. "When the boy breaks. When the boy leaps. The fate of us all. Down will come. Down will come." The sky boy hummed along. "Bernie!" called a mother's voice. "Bernie! Your friend Emily brought over a pie." He heard the back door's squeal. "Mom!" the two boys called out. "I'm up the tree!" continued the earth boy. "Down will come!" finished the sky boy. "I'm getting out

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the ice cream," the mother said. The two boys sat up and began to work their way down the tree. Where one put a hand, the other put his hand just above. Where one put a foot, the other put his foot next to it. Until hand covered hand gripping branch and foot lay atop foot as it touched down. The sky boy slid an arm under the earth boy's shirt and it glided out the right sleeve and right hand and right hand interwove fingers. The earth boy felt the sky boy's naked foot wriggling down his pantleg, then

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nudge into his shoe. It tickled but it wasn't uncomfortable. There was plenty of room. "I'm getting out," crooned the sky boy in the earth boy's ear. "I'm getting out," agreed the earth boy, wanting to giggle, "the ice cream." "Aye aye aye yeah yeah yesk reeeeeeeeemmmm!" they sang together, using one tongue, one strong throat. One boy dropped from the tree's lowest limb, wearing the earth boy's clothes. And bounced. Oh he could bounce right back up to heaven, couldn't he! But he didn't. He did a little spin, arms out, eyes closed, the soft earth obligingly holding each

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foot as it turned. There is a light in the darkness. So tiny and so like the cold sparks of his optic nerve that Bernie tells himself it's not there. Until, step by careful step, it gets nearer. Although he keeps hoping it is the end of the tunnel until long past realistic, now that he faces the dull green bulb and the credit card sized metal sign it illuminates, he feels a little bit better. LADDER. Under that is taped a yellow note. Bernie holds down a curling corner with a finger as he squints at the scrawl. "You'll

Thousand: Four Hundred Nine

have to carry the dog." Ladder. Yes. Metal rungs protrude from the wall. The rungs proceed into the upper darkness. Dog. Yes. Bernie imagines the kind of ladder that is more like stairs. A dog could do that. Maybe? He doesn't think a dog could do this totally vertical thing. So the carrying is. The only way. Really. He tries to picture ways of balancing a big yellow dog across his arms or chest. Over the shoulder? When he raises one hand he sees the dog slipping to one side. He raises the other and. And. You kinda need both

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hands to climb. He looks down at the dog in question, who seems uninterested in Bernie's internal debate. Bernie heaves a sigh. "Well," he says, "let's give it a try." He kneels beside the dog and reaches his arms around the dog's body to lift him up. But the dog backs away. "I gotta carry you. The sign says." The dog settles once again on his haunches so Bernie crawls closer to attempt the lift. But again the dog avoids him, this time going around to stand under the green bulb. The dog puts a forepaw on the rung second

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from the bottom and looks at Bernie. "Uh. You want a boost?" Bernie starts to crouch to hoist the dog up, but the dog ducks around him and butts him with a hard yellow head. "Hey! OK! The sign said. But you say. No carrying dog, right?" Bernie puts a hand on a rung and a foot. He lifts himself up. The dog claps his jaws together under Bernie's ass; thus encouraged Bernie mounts higher. Higher. He looks down. The dog is watching. "Are you sure?" Bernie asks. The dog drops his head and trots on into the darkness. "I

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guess he's sure." Bernie reaches up, he can't see anything up there, so he flails a bit, and panics, and finds the next rung, and feels how sweaty his hand's gotten, he lets go the rung and wipes his hand on his shirt, and thinks he's probably getting a big smudge of rust on his shirt, and he reaches up again and there's the rung where he left it, no problem, and he raises a foot and puts it on a higher rung and pushes himself up. "Well, Bernie, here we go. Here we go to hell, all expenses paid,

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better be, cuz I have fuck all my wallet, at least I have my wallet, unless it fell out in that scramble through the bushes and, I wonder if hell takes American Express, oh these rungs are whew are cold. Up we go. Hell's supposed to be hot. Damn, it's. Cold. Shit. This wind is blowing right down my shirt. Blowing. Down." Bernie pauses and sniffs the air. Smells like the great outside world. So he climbs faster. A faint glow shows him his hands. Then, staggered, he almost loses his grip. Gasping, he rests his chin on the rung

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and the lights in his brain fade to an ache. "Shit!" He rubs his head. "I'm not bleeding. For once. Get a nice bump, maybe." Bernie tips his head back and sees the shape of the grill covering the hole. "You better not be locked, you fucker." He eases himself up, pushes with a hand. Nothing. So he moves closer, maneuvers his shoulder against the grill, takes a deep breath, and heaves with legs and back. And the grill shifts. Half clinging to the grill, Bernie feels around until he finds the new gap. He heaves again and lid grinds

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aside. Bernie pops his head out and takes deep breaths, gives the grate one more shove, then scrambles free of the earth. It's dark up top. Except for a night sky blasted with stars. No moon. You only know a cloud by the way it hides stars. And in the distance one light, yellow and weak, loomed over by humps of shadow. Could be trees, a porchlight. Bernie looks back down at the grate and the hole. Should he put it back? He really thinks about it. Nobody to say he has to. He rubs his hands together to warm

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them. His hands, not really warmed, grip the grate and he rocks it back into place. Then he rubs his hands together again. They are starting to ache. "OK, dog," Bernie says, as the wind picks up and the blobs thrusting up here and there over the paler soil quake and sway. His jaw quivers, he tightens his thin sport coat around himself, and, shoving his hands under his armpits, he tries to trot, but gives that up for a brisk shuffle after kicking a cactus and tearing a pant cuff on a spiny twig. "I bet there's a trail

Thousand: Four Hundred Seventeen

here. I bet it winds safely through the prickly bushes and skirts the rattlesnakes and if there's a big crevasse at the bottom of which lurk sharp rocks, the path takes you to a tidily constructed steel bridge. I bet when day comes it will be obvious and I'll kick myself for not seeing it. For not seeing it at all." Having to detour around murky threats increases the sense that the yellow light is not getting closer. Bernie has to keep his eyes low; when he looks up to reorient himself there are times he is sure he has

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lost track of his goal. "Serious hypothermia is cozy. You feel all relaxed and comfortable and unmotivated, and who would want not to feel so nice. You sit down and smile and congratulate yourself on finding your way to the frozen waste that will creep into your bones, loving you, taking your life in its fine white hands." Bernie isn't even listening to himself by this time, but talking keeps his teeth from banging together in violent shivers. Then he notices that he hasn't had to step around anything, that one foot is able to follow the line the other

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followed in following the first. This makes Bernie feel better. The sudden revelation of the porch and the yellow light bathing the two steps up to it, those help, too. He picks up the pace, huffing up the drive. A bell pull hangs just to the left of the light. He tugs it. And is rewarded with a jingle. It sounds cute. It makes him laugh. He tugs it again, gently. Jingle. He hears a voice calling out from within. He leans forward. Listens. He reaches again for the pull, then changes his mind and tries the screen door. It

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swings out with the quietest creak. He touches the knob of the wooden door. The voice inside, is it inviting him in? The knob turns and Bernie pushes, the warmth and light reminding him how cold he is. He steps into a shabby lobby. A slouching couch, a shag rug of tangled orange, a dusty floor lamp with a cracked shade, a wooden counter worn three colors. "Close the door!" says the voice which Bernie sees belongs to a man with a long black beard, two precise gray stripes framing the chin. A deep scowl line striking up from his

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nose softens some when he yawns. His teeth are yellow and crooked, but they're all there. Scratching his cheek, the man flips through a canvas bound ledger he's flopped open on the wooden counter. "You Went?" says the man, frowning at the page. "Came?" says Bernie. "Came?" The man echoes the word, mystified. "Went! Your name! Went!" "Oh! Oh, yes. Yes. Went. That's me. Bern. Bernard. Bernard Went." Bernie thinks the warmth has calmed the shivering, but a sudden violent shake suggests it was just the surprise. "Didn't dress for the desert," observes the man with what Bernie hopes is

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a sympathetic tone. Although. What? "You know my," he begins, but, having made a checkmark in the book, the man slams it shut, and interrupts, "Anything else with you?" "My. Uh." "Yes, yes," the man says, waving off Bernie's attempt to speak. He steps from behind the counter and puts an arm around Bernie's shoulders. A big old fashioned key on a necklace sized ring swings from the man's hand. His rumpled robe, Bernie notices, pressed against it as he finds himself, smells much worn, but strangely comforting. The smell under a hen may be gamey, but you couldn't be

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cozier. Bernie lets his head fall on the man's chest and gets a squeeze and tut- tut. "Come along, come along. We have a room for you. Sir has it all arranged. He will meet you in the morning." "Sir?" "Sir. Yes. Your tour guide." "The dog? That's the dog's name? Sir?" Bernie has let himself be led by the hand from the warm building back onto the porch. He watches the man's carpet slippers kick through weeds and gravel as they leave the yellow light behind. "Why is the dog called 'Sir'?" Bernie almost adds, "sir," but closes his mouth

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on the word. There are other buildings, shacks, in the darkness. Bernie can't make out how many. Two? Twelve? The man's firm grip pulls Bernie completely out of the light and now only by keeping pace can he hope to avoid stumbling. The man is. Whistling? He's whistling. Bernie imagines whistling along. He even puckers his lips. But he needs his breath for other things. The man pulls Bernie alongside and puts his arm again around Bernie's shoulders. "Step," he says, and Bernie lifts a foot. "Step step step." Then the rattle of a key, a door sweeps back, Bernie

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smells the warmth of the room. A wood stove's shifting glow faces him as the man seats Bernie on the bed. Soon a kerosene lamp adds a brighter and friendly light to quilt-covered bed, a small dresser, wood floor with throw rugs. Dazed, Bernie listens to the soft splash of water in the next room. The man bustles back and slips Bernie's shoes from his feet, his torn jacket from his back, and is busily unbuttoning his white shirt when Bernie says, "I. I think I can do that." But the man brushes away Bernie's hands. The man raises him

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to his feet and strips off Bernie's pants. He takes Bernie's hand and leads him naked to the bathroom. In one corner, taking up most of the small space, is a round wooden tub set into the floor. Wisps of steam loll upon an unstill surface under the mild light of three candles. The man whirls out a dark towel and wraps it around Bernie's chest. It is heavy, damp and so warm Bernie shudders, the last of the cold lifting off like moths. In another corner waits a low stool with a hole in the middle, a porcelain pot

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under it painted with violets. The innkeeper pulls Bernie to this, and he goes willingly enough, relieved to be offered something like it. The hands pressing him onto it are, perhaps, unnecessary. The mug pushed into his hands is, one might not unreasonably protest, a distraction rather than a help. But Bernie is so disarmed by the warmth that's just wrapped him that obediently he puts the mug to his lips for a sip. The brew's aroma swirls into his head and his body responds with an inhale so grateful and extended that the little chapel of his meat unfolds

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into a cathedral, buttresses flying, nave oppressed with tunes. How can you not drink after that? The liquid is almost painfully sweet. After two swallows Bernie pauses and the bitter comes on. That makes him shake his head. He blinks, opens his mouth for another swallow, and the sweetness relieves the bitterness. Until the liquid has gone down. Then he shudders again. And holds the mug away from his mouth. "All of it," the man says. Gazing at the mug Bernie remembers the last horribly sweet thing he swilled. Earlier that day? The lemonade from hell. He puts the mug

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on the floor. His head is already larger than it was, the cathedral's second storey, as it were. His feet would be a long way away if that didn't include all of him. If your ears are a long way away, what does that mean for toenails? But that's okay. An atom is almost empty, and it doesn't think of itself as empty. An atom feels rather full, Bernie decided. Definitively. He came to this conclusion a long time past. A half a breath ago. I know the feeling, Bernie imagines saying to the atom, which has confided in him.

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It's all points and the distances between them. How large something is. Whether you get past a point or never get to it makes a difference in determining your experience of the size of the world those points describe. Bernie is looking at the mug, the mug which the man put in his hands, the mug which he held under his nose, etc. Each point the mug inhabited presented a meaning congruent with its moment. The atoms in that mug were relatively excited, Bernie wants to tell the man, but an angel is standing on his tongue. Not that Bernie

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could explain that. Who could explain that? An angel standing on your tongue! What, in boots? Feeling the toes wiggle? No, no, Bernie's thinking, no angel in high heels standing at attention. A weight, a vertical weight, holding me to the earth, my mouth the point most likely to submit to pressure. Otherwise, my body may lose its sense of gravity. Bernie closes his eyes. He breathes. A vortex gathers around his stomach. He feels it progress, engaging every organ, incorporating every particle as it travels. When his abdomen expands to receive a breath the swirling vortex moves farther from

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that foreign air, turns in its deepening gyre toward the base of his spine, sweeping cleanly through the coils of his tract, the small, then the large of it. A divine hand has been dipped into him, as into a bath, and there it makes wide slow circles, gentle, implacable circles. It is the most pleasant, relaxing, most complete and freeing shit. It feels so nice Bernie is proud of it. How long does it take? How long does it take to wash out the last old hurt, the regret like a stain, the humiliations that knotted together? It's not

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easy, dumping all that baggage. It's not all easy flow. Bernie grimaces, sucks a breath, bears down, gasps, clenches his fists as a trapped bubble fights through a kink in his colon, slumps, as one more release seems to finish it off, he's done, he feels wrung, what an experience, it's psychedelic, his head throbs and blue and red paisleys dart like minnows around lotus leaf shadows. He's thirsty. And the mug with that cloying, bitter, wondrous liquid in it refuses to return to the floor. He yanks it from the square hairy hand in which it hovers and in

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one sustained gulp gets it down. Then he pushes it back and says, "Water now, please." The man chuckles, which sounds to Bernie rather the thumping of apples in a barrel. An apple. One could eat an apple. The man is drawing Bernie from the seat, rubbing his buttocks with a soft cloth. He takes Bernie to the tub and eases him in. "Didn't I just drink more of that laxative?" Bernie says. The man is shaking his head. And as the water closes around Bernie's body, he loses interest in speaking. The man gently lifts Bernie's arms and slips

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a padded rope around his chest. Pleasantly dazed, Bernie wonders if he's now being tied up. But the water is calling to him, all cozy and comforting, so he goes down into it with a contented little hum. Not until his chin touches the water and his head falls back against a waterproof pillow, the padded rope holding onto him, does Bernie realize that he could go to sleep right here, in the bath. And it would be very nice indeed. A few things that might be dreams: A yellow dog wearing a red vest and waving a furled umbrella

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toward a hill upon which three dripping crosses stand illumined by colored spotlights while he shouts, "This way, folks! We're going to have to run across the park to get there before the switch up of the centurions!" Two sparrows battling over a grain of rice. Being borne across the desert on a throne strapped to the back of a gigantic worm, the thumping of its round-bottomed feet accompanied by grunts and gasps. As he leans over to see what is making those pained sounds one leg jerks up, one leg fewer seems not to impede the worm's progress, and

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Bernie finds himself facing, not the pad of a caterpillar foot or the claw of centipede, he finds himself face to face with a grimacing woman. Tears stream from her eyes and make tracks in the dust on her forehead. Her chin trembles and he sees where spittle also has traced trails from the corners of her lips up her cheeks. He makes to lean over again, but a bark from the woman arrests him. "Don't! Don't look! Don't look at them! Yes! Yes! The foot at the end of every leg is a skull. Like me. My hair long

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and shining and beautiful, how I brushed it, tending to its climates, how proud of it I was, and now, NOW!, it is bound atop my head, tightly bound with straps, yet it can so little protect my fragile scalp from the roughness of the earth. With every step the worm drops me to the ground and presses its weight upon me. It lifts me and, what can I do, I hope, I hope it is for the last time, this relentless march will cease and my wounds heal, but every time my hopes are crushed, crushed!, as the leg

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as the leg as the leg!" The head's last words are torn into a shriek as the leg provides a demonstration. Down the head goes. When it strikes a stone, Bernie flinches, and the shriek abruptly ceases. Bernie leans to the side, his seat belt cutting into his belly as he tries to catch a glimpse of the tortured face rising for another step. "Ha!" Bernie jerks around and finds himself facing another head at the end of another leg. This one's twitching smile, surrounded by a dusty patch of beard, spits out, "Don't believe that bitch! Damned soul! She

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thinks she doesn't deserve this! She thinks she should have gone to heaven, eh? Gone to heaven! Well, she was judged, her sins weighed, her past reviewed, her thoughts combed through, held up to the light, and, what do you think, flaws! Riddled with flaws and holes and evil! Evil!" Bernie blinks. "Where are we going?" he asks. "She thinks her shit don't stink! She thinks she oughta be pampered and fawned over in death like she was in life. The little people she stepped on? She thinks they should be her cobblestones still!" Bernie waves his hand in front

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of the ranting face. "Nothing will satisfy her but a big fat apology from the deeeeeevvvi—" at which point the leg whisks the head back to its duties as a foot. There was also a long and heavy rain. This came later. Or thousands of years before. It was difficult to date by the animals, clearly of a variety of species and, perhaps, epochs. Waves crash on a beach, washing over sexy people writhing fully clothed in a libidinous passion. Near each other. A dog was sitting on a fur rug, watching him. Bernie blinks. Is that happening now?

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A small gray bird dips a bill into the pond, then tips it up to swallow the drop. At the carnival passengers bound into cages rise on a wheel. A great trench had to be dug so the top of the wheel would not scrape away the sky's fine patina of blue. At the front of the line a naked beast takes Bernie's hand and helps him into the cage. Bernie's arms are spread wide and strapped down. A gag slips into his mouth and a leather mask drops over his eyes. He feels straps tighten around his legs and

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he squirms to keep them from cutting into his flesh. The gag is an orange lollipop, the mask lined with chinchilla. From the china cup in Bernie's hand a train of ants begins to crawl. One by one they cross to a hole in his wrist and descend into the warm darkness of the interior. They are tapping out a work song. The cage clangs shut and locks. To Bernie's surprise he is not alone. Another passenger is strapped into the cage; when the cage closes their two bodies are pressed together. Bernie tries to speak, but his tongue can

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only lap at the lollipop and he makes a kazoo-like humming through his nose. The breath of the other passenger moistens Bernie's neck. They shift what little they can, each figuring out the shape of the other. The great wheel begins to move. The other passenger laughs, a deep chuckle. The laughter transfers to Bernie's belly but comes out his nose in crickety chirps, which, of course, sounds ridiculous and hilarious. The cheek of the other rasps against Bernie's, which tickles almost painfully. He can't stop laughing. Neither of them can. When did he buy the ticket to this ride?

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In a rickety gazebo ("It's a collectible!") in a field back of the main house ("Cut down the weeds and we have hoedowns.") the innkeeper ("'Inn The Way,' haha. Funny, no? Inn the way to hell! Hell! You crazy kids. Why the hell you want go there?") brings Bernie and Sir ("What you need, my dear Sir, is a good brushing.") ham and cheese omelettes ("Hard to slice pig thin when he struggle, but I do it because ham best fresh.") with Sir served on the floor and Bernie served on a rusting metal table. "You already put sugar in

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the coffee?" Bernie says. The man frowns. "Sugar! No! No sugar." "Oh," says Bernie, wanting to ask why then the coffee tastes so sweet. It is coffee, isn't it? He looks into his cup. Whatever is in it looks like coffee. He lifts it to his nose. Smells like coffee. He takes another sip, a tiny, tiny sip. Rolls that around on his tongue. Sir has finished his serving of egg already and is slopping at the bowl of water. When he got out of bed, Bernie put on clothes that had been laid out for him. Jeans, a soft

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tshirt, a baseball cap, lightweight athletic shoes and white tube socks, a cotton flannel overshirt. He felt self- conscious dressing in front of the dog, so he took the clothes to the bathroom with him. The chamber pot was clean, the tub (he felt its walls) was dry. There were fresh unlit candles, a grass basket filled with a spicy potpourri. A dome of glass in the ceiling lit the room with a pearly glow. Bernie couldn't see a filament, but it was too bright to look at closely. When he pulled the tshirt over his head a shadowy movement made

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him glance upward. Filling a corner at the ceiling was a tarantula the size of a dinner plate. Bernie froze, the shirt a rumpled wad against his belly. He stared at the hairy creature and, if it was staring back, Bernie couldn't really tell. There was a scratching at the bathroom door and a doggy whine. Keeping his eye on the spider Bernie shuffled backward and pulled the door open. The dog walked in, strode right to the corner below the spider and sat down, looking up at Bernie expectantly. Bernie looked from dog to spider and back. "OK," he

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said and pulled up his pants. He hasn't told the innkeeper ("Call me Ishmael!") about the spider. He is just hoping what he is eating is what it looks like. That the omelette is made of eggs. That the ham is ham and not, oh, human, say. The wheat toast provides yeoman support for the homemade jam. Everything, he can't but admit, is heavenly. Sweeter, richer, more complex, more interesting to nose and palate than anything they've come to before. He closes his eyes and lives a few lives in a mouthful. When he opens his eyes he sees a

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cowboy. He closes his eyes. When he opens his eyes he sees a cowboy. Over the cowboy's shoulder bulky saddle bags sway. The bags and the cream-colored hat with the sweat-darkened band around the forehead make him look slender as a fence post. Bernie looks down at his plate. Shoveling up the last of the hash browns, Bernie feels absurdly self-conscious, as though the cowboy, at the end of the field, could tell that man in the gazebo was gobbling something that could be offered graciously to a hungry stranger. Nobody would want my leftovers, Bernie thinks, blushing, uncertain about

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that. He closes his eyes. Damn good hash browns. Crispy, melts in the mouth, is that garlic? The innkeeper bustles out of the house and grasps the cowboy's hand, giving it a brief pump, then holding onto it while he talks, laughing, nodding. Bernie squints. The cowboy is smiling, isn't he? Perhaps they know each other. He hears a thump thump on the boards and sees Sir's tail lightly swinging, though the dog hasn't gotten up. Sir glances up at him, but when Bernie raises an eyebrow the dog turns away and yawns. "Do we get to hell today?" Bernie

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asks. He doesn't really expect to get an answer. "I didn't know I was going to be buying a trip to hell when I visited that lady. I mean, it's not like I read an account written by a travel writer in one of those glossy magazines in the dentist's office and said to myself, 'Bernie old man, that's the ticket. You want to buy a round tripper to HELL!' I mean, I heard you can get to the End of the World. I read about somebody doing that. It didn't exactly sound fun. Far as I could tell, you

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never quite got there. What was it? I think they have a snack bar. Does hell have a snack bar?" Sir gets up, scratches his chin with a back foot, shakes his head, and pops down the steps of the gazebo. The cowboy and the innkeeper went into the house while Bernie was talking to the dog, or to himself, more likely. There being no food left to pick at, other than salt cellar and pepper grinder, Bernie drives a spoon in circles around his empty plate. The dog has disappeared into the high grass, though Bernie thinks he sees

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the wiggle of dog tail off over there by the trees. But, now that he's looking, Bernie thinks he sees a movement in the grass near the house and a movement to the left and a. If he's not careful, Bernie realizes, he's going to imagine up all sorts of monsters. He closes his eyes, then opens them, because all sorts of monsters can creep up on you when your eyes are closed. Indeed. Standing on his plate is a creature part feral cat, part strangled raven, and all fungus. Which does not keep it from speaking. "You Went?" "I

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have been known to come and go." There is more to the conversation. Later Bernie will try to remember what he decides right then he will do his best to forget. He doesn't try to remember in order to get back to the leprechaun's words but to see how good his powers of amnesia are. Super. It just goes to show, you can get away with all sorts of things with your mind if you ask it not to be there. You kinda have to be prepared, though. All of a sudden something happens and you're paying attention, why, it

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sticks with you, maybe like a sharp stick. It can be painful, a memory like that. Some people think a super memory would be the best, remembering every name, hanging onto every address you threw a paper at as you whizzed by on your bike, recalling the dimple of every girl you poked in the ribs playing tag in third grade, unable to let go the moment of terror you felt when an ill-propped broom fell to the floor in the middle of the night. Every tear you ever shed. Every smile that lit your face. When Bernie woke one

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morning feeling pretty good and got up and zapped a muffin, spread some butter on it, sat down at the little white table in the corner of his kitchen, and gazed out over the board fence into his neighbor's garden, the red of the peppers, the red and yellow of the tomatoes among all the green, and picked the crusty top of the muffin into small pieces, he was puzzled that he had been up half the night agonizing over something. Something he could no longer remember. Wasn't that supposed to worry him even more? That whatever it was that

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had been so important he'd had to work on it during those most precious nighttime hours was now so cleanly gone, wasn't that itself frightening? Imagine forgetting all the plans for a party. A party for which you are the host becomes a surprise party? How pleasant! Imagine forgetting the subject of your dissertation. You step into the faculty office to be quizzed and can only smile dumbly as the professors probe your knowledge of gender pronouns in Dickinson. The stuff of nightmares! As Bernie poured himself a second coffee and picked away at the heart of the muffin, he

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enjoyed the pleasant buzz from the first cup and savored the squishy sweetness of the baked blueberries. He did not worry. It was nice. After that he tried to achieve it through conscious means. Usually he was unsuccessful. But forgetting proved to be a skill that got better with practice. He did worry his new power was a symptom of pathology. Alzheimer's? Mini strokes, otherwise unnoticeable? But, looking over the shoulder of the ranting leprechaun Bernie sees the cowboy emerge from the back door of the house, followed by the innkeeper, and feels only the satisfaction of a well- developed skill

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employed at the right time for the right purpose. The leprechaun, reading the significance of Bernie's glance, shakes his finger under Bernie's nose, reiterates whatever it is that's so important he has to stand in the gooey remains of an omelette to say it, then reaches one arm over his head and makes a sharp pulling gesture. The leprechaun folds his gnarled arms across his knotted chest and the braid of black greasy hair that hangs down his back snaps straight up, a thread must be woven into it, a thread which now whisks the leprechaun smoothly and soundlessly high

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into the gazebo's rafters. Bernie is examining the plate for footprints as the new guest steps onto the boards. "Pleased tuh meet yew," the cowboy says, offering a long freckled hand. "Mah name is Darn." Darn? Bernie takes the hand and is pleased that his own is not crushed in the greeting. "Nice to meet you," Bernie says, giving his name, his whole name, half expecting the young man's eyes to light. But the cowboy nods mildly, seating himself on the gazebo's built-in bench next to Bernie. With a flourish, the innkeeper drops down before the cowboy a fresh plate,

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cheese still melting from a hole in the omelette. The innkeeper removes Bernie's and slides from a pocket of his pantaloons a perfect orange. He lays this in the plate's place and nods rather more significantly than had the cowboy, Bernie thinks, especially considering the addition of an exaggerated wink. He looks from Ishmael to the orange and nods, figuring he can nod too when it comes to that. If there were a cockatoo at the table the nods would be more than a few, more than a few, yes sir. Bernie glances around to see if Sir has returned.

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"Y'ever seen one o' them lepers?" the cowboy asks. The innkeeper's nose flares (even though it's a bit flared already, it's easy to see the nostrils twitching) and his lip curls (which makes his bristling black moustache rise in the middle and decline at the ends). "You shooting the lepers?" Darn shakes his head. "Not today. Not in uh while. I jes wonder, that's all. You know, where they byin." "Lepers?" wonders Bernie, not sure he should. "Little demuns," the cowboy explains, making a patting motion with his hand. "Little ones." "Are they ugly?" The cowboy thinks about this. "Guess

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so. Not all wuss." He shrugs and stabs a wedge of gleaming yellow omelette. "They're not," Bernie hesitates. "They're not, you know, people with leprosy, then? Lepers?" Ishmael chuckles. "Polio. Polio," he says. "This is good ay yugg," says the cowboy. Jump ahead to something happening. The Tomato's escape. The mayor's heart attack. Pink kittens squalling. Bernie rubs his eyes. He either feels wonderful, or he feels sick. He stands up, the cowboy's hand slipping from his thigh. Bernie's head tugs at his spine like a party balloon the knot that holds it to the garden gate. "I," Bernie says,

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stumbling over one of the longer and more difficult words in his vocabulary. Did he even get it out? The word seems to have several syllables with eccentric stresses, consonants both implied and not optional, and a tonal quality that could be picked up only by gnomes. The cowboy is peeling the orange with a paring knife. The sharp sweet scent of it loops around and begins to cinch in Bernie's expanding sense of connection to the universe. What cowboy ballad is that? "Hard, ain't it hard, ain't it hard," Darn is murmuring. Am I really hearing it way up

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here in the rafters? Bernie wonders. As the cowboy pulls the orange apart, its white-skinned sections occasionally spurting fragrant juice, Bernie feels the table draw closer and closer until he is once more looking into Darn's gray eyes. He is so grateful not to be lost in the rafters with that hideous leprechaun that, instead of taking an offered piece with his hand, Bernie opens his mouth. Like a baby. And Darn slides it in, pushing the section of orange gently into place on Bernie's tongue. Bernie bites and the juice floods his mouth. He remembers the angel stepping on

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his tongue, holding him to the earth. Wasn't that just yesterday? How often is he going to be in danger of drifting into the stratosphere? Rather annoyed with himself Bernie now imagines he could have pushed away the rafters and coasted out into the air, bobbed off into the clouds. How far would his internal helium have carried him? He takes a deep breath, which, by the way, feels great, like he's going to breathe out halos. I don't suppose I was ever really off the ground, Bernie thinks. He leans forward, opening his mouth for the next piece of

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orange. He nibbles the fingers holding it. The cowboy withdraws his hand and touches the fingers to his own tongue, then he peels off another section and puts it between his lips. Bernie moves in and takes the protruding part into his mouth and bites it off. Slapping his thighs, the innkeeper rises and bustles off, muttering something about a fresh pot of coffee. "This is a really good orange," Bernie says, although the words come out more like, "Un um mernsh." He feels very down to earth, practical, like nothing could come up that he couldn't handle, couldn't take

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one look at and know what to do. Leprechaun, shmeprechaun. Giant worm with human heads for feet? Pah! This sudden confidence does not come with concrete plans, but Bernie is kissing a cowboy and that seems like something to be proud of. If you were to ask Bernie if he thinks cowboys are special, if snogging one is a grander accomplishment than getting an accountant to bat his eyes or fondling a giggling traffic cop, Bernie would at least have to think about the question. It's not like cowboys are his ideal. But this one sure is pretty, what with

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long slender nose, the shimmering gray eyes fringed by blond lashes, these firm lips. I suppose I could cut away to the comet again. Turning slowing back toward the sun, etc. It's not that I'm squeamish or uninterested in the growing connection between these two boys. But I've already spent so darn much time on this scene and here in my box of rain on the dark side of the moon, twisting knobs and tapping dials, I have limited resources to devote to any one thing. Hang on, Emily is coming in on the next channel. "Did you leave me

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any ice cream?" she's asking her sister. Eula shrugs and spoons up a curl of vanilla, a stripe of chocolate syrup stretching thin and breaking as she raises it to her mouth. "You never leave me any ice cream!" says Emily. "You never do. If you've had a bowl then there isn't any left for me. There! See! You put it in. You. OK, there's a little. Not very much. Where's the chocolate syrup?" "On the door," says Eula as she scrapes the bottom of the blue bowl. Emily opens the refrigerator and looks at the sticky-mouthed bottle of chocolate

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syrup and changes her mind. Is this scene contemporaneous with the gazebo make-out session? Let's check back in on that for a sec. Yes, tongue sliding against tongue, a hand slid into a waistband. Nice weather. Desert conditions. Hot. Just gonna get hotter. I wonder if I can tune in Sir. Hm. Is that? Is. No. No. It's another dog entirely. Doesn't look healthy, patchy hair, a torn lip healed so the yellow canines show in a perpetual tired snarl, the lower eyelid on the left sags and the eye looks watery. Nerve damage on that side of the face?

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Once upon a time there was a dog. But is it even a dog? Check out the little wings that are shaking out from the dog's shoulder blades. I didn't see them at first, the same gray motley as the rest of the shaggy mess. Plus they were neatly folded against the body. There's no bird hiding on the dog's back, unless there's a hollow it can plunge its whole body and head into. Dogasus? Or dog angel? The worlds are infested with angels! An angel wouldn't shamble, stiff-hipped like that, though, would it? I see it has to prop

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itself against a fence when it wants to raise a back leg for a scratch. Besides, those wings. Nothing glorious about them. I mean, the hummingbird-sized wings on Mercury's heels are metaphors for fleet-footedness. What are these pigeon-sized wings on a dog's back supposed to symbolize? Not that there's anything unusual about novel creatures made from the parts of ones more familiar, the griffin's lion body and eagle head, for instance, the chimera with its goat body, serpent's tail, and lion head. Sphinxes have lion bodies, human heads, and wings. Lions go with everything, don't they! I would add the

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caveat that uh. Forget the dog with wings, there's a monkey crossing a wire between the two tallest buildings in the world, one in Dubai, the other in Bahrain. It's always raining in Bahrain! Once upon a time there was a chimney sweep who dripped slowly into the repaired cheese, so much better to amplify the barium accent in tense objects, a new revelation potentially compressed. We who love ancestry abound! The vagrant tic calls a newer mate with a vibrating mandible and a noodle scented with patchouli albumen. Down among the yards wander the robots, sentient as cemetery roses.

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After noxious elements of the green perfection erupt in baritone wattles, the present collapses into three precise yet flexible performances of the rare amusement boutique, sometimes known alternately and sometimes incognito. We who love catalepsy recline! A fair wind begins again its riotous scribble across Martian faces, while the novena disliked by generations of hare-lipped children has been pared and pared and pared until the sounds no longer move one to the next but wander betwixt barricaded silences. Look, thou, upon the bearded menace of the gentle intelligence officer, his barred and vaporous bad thoughts, his thinning nonchalance, the smile

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darned by a violet thread to a glacial physiognomy. You never know what is going to happen, except when it has been written on three by five cards, or it's a movie. Those are easy. The Tomato is taxiing for a loop-de-loop. What a daredevil! A lot of those earlier aviators made derring do look like a daily spin around the block on a bicycle, the front wheel of which stood tall as a man. What was that about? The wheel's radius had to be as long as a man's leg? I'm just guessing here. I spend my entire life

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guessing. Weigh a fact gathered here against a fact gathered there and wonder if either is true. Here in my mirrorcade, the windows looking into windows, the voices speaking words and phrases other voices have already worn soft and vague. Here in my safe house, far from the madding cloud, perfect storms pretty pinwheels over distant seas, the hail hale and elsewhere. Are my eyes closed or open? Do I have eyes or is all visual information being loaded directly into my neocortex via third party vendors? Such questions! Wouldn't you torment yourself all day with this sort of thing

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if you were in a box on a hostile satellite, traveling alone around a foreign sun? Wouldn't you? Sure you would! I used to be able to get around. Yeah. I did. Used to be I had a transdimensional shift. It was very handy. Fact is. Yes. It's what got me here in the first place. Or rather. I made a bad business decision. I traded knowledge of certain things. Which I won't go into. They were very super secret things that nobody knows, so this is valuable information I'm talking about. And. And what happened is. I made a

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mistake. I trusted someone who I shouldn't a trusted. You know how that goes, right? Wouldn't you rather believe someone than go around all the time suspicious? People tell you the truth most the time, right? Right, right. Well, water under the troll. Comet vaporized in the solar corona. What's done is a future don't. Can't undo the past. Although, if you have your transdimensional shift in hand you can reach through to the space-time coordinates that correspond to the moment you made the fateful decision and touch your fingers to the exposed wires and complete a different circuit. It

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won't effect an immediate change on present circumstances, the past that led to where one is today has not been altered. This does not, on the other hand, mean that no past has been altered. Having a transdimensional shift in the first place means you have access to many alternate paths through space-time. The road less traveled is the one you take because it will make all the difference. Tell the truth, though. Deciding which road is the one fewer have trod is less about the relative abundance of weeds in the ruts than about your need to groom a

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myth about yourself as not of the herd, unique, a maverick, if you will. Wandering off after your own drummer, who is, no doubt, slapping bongos painted all over with colorful rain forest animals and fruit, while the rest of them in their drab uniforms march dolefully and mindlessly after the tat-a-tat-tat tat-a-tat-tat of the snare, you stop to smell the wild white roses, disturbing a bumblebee which rises up and hovers before you as though to say, "Ah, it is you, the seeker, not the lost." You find yourself before a shack almost buried in roses and honeysuckle, the

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picket fence mottled with lichen and moss, one cat so still and unnatural- looking on its fence post perch that you think it bad art until it hops down and disappears into the tall grass. Whoever lives there must really be quirky and original and ready to take under her wing some other individual of special talents and fresh ideas who could use a mentor, a guide over the rough patches on the tarmac of life, a listener, a thought-provoker, a spiritual wise woman who has communed with good ghosts happy to snuggle up to you on the windowseat and trot

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out a few cute anecdotes about the afterworld. There's the time I met my great great grandmother on my great grandfather's side, having never met her during my time on earth, of course, one ghost might say, slipping her arm through yours, pressing her ectoplasmic eyebrow against your shoulder and looking up at you through dark lashes, she was so surprised she had a Japanese granddaughter, though I'm really only a quarter Japanese, and that I'm a poet, too, because, she said, nobody in her family could ever read or write or did anything but flick a switch across the

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buttocks of an ox. I miss my transdimensional shift. In toggling through scenes offered me by remote sensing apparatus of fine and improbable range and access, I came once upon a scene in a shabby apartment wherein a young woman claimed to be showing her friend, sprawled on the dilapidated sofa, her very own transdimensional shift. I could not believe my eyes or my technology or my ears. A transdimensional shift is so rare I have a strong suspicion there is, in fact, but one! Should you spot a second you have merely come upon the only one in existence

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doing what it does, that is, existing simultaneously in multiple coordinates of space-time. I don't know who made it. Unless it was me. I was quite a weaver in my day. Once upon a time there was a dog somebody tried to store in a. In a. That's what brought up the girl with the shift. She claimed to have a transdimensional satchel, too. Now. Now, that just isn't possible, you know. I don't really believe she had the shift, either. It's true I saw her pull from the satchel an apple she said she had plucked from the top

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of a tree, the very tip top, she said, where no one could reach it, though it is so beautiful, it must be delicious. Ha! It is not an apple at all but an aerodrome, cleverly designed to look like an apple from the ground. You look up into a tree and you see the apple and maybe a fly comes out of a hole in it, if you can see it up that high, and around the apple whirls the fly, making a distant little whine, as flies do, and you think nothing of it, spy for the enemy

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though you be. What a disguise! I think it's ingenious myself. Yes, I just reached into my transdimensional satchel and grabbed it. No, the people aren't the size of gnats. Well, to us they are, but just because we are reaching through from this end of the dimension. This apple, I mean, aerodrome is still where it belongs. I've just displaced a photonic emanation, you know, the light particles bouncing off the object; it looks like I am holding it because the light has not escaped the transdimensional field generated by the satchel. Or something like that. It's all so

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complicated, isn't it? Suppose I were to take a bite of it. It sure does look tasty. Oh, what the heck. If it's just light particles, it's not like I'm gonna hurt anything biting them. The caiman named Velma has recovered from her transdimensional torpor and is scooting across the carpet, headed for the kitchen. This raises the ire of the mastiff which has been sleeping in the hall. He jumps up, hackles spiky, growl full in his throat. Another dog? Are there really this many dogs in the world? Once upon a time there was a caiman. She was

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a beautiful crocodilian, sleek and lustrous, with eyes like limpid pools into which a frog has just leaped and a joyful smile shining with the most serious teeth. A wicked old fairy transformed her into a princess for a time. She had to live in a palace and be waited on hand and foot by awed and resentful servants. Her father the king promised to marry her to a handsome prince who would inherit the kingdom on the other side of the mountain. This prince, what was his name?, Reginald? something like that, this prince had come over the mountain

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with his father when Velma was still a child but, so charmed was he by her grace and beauty, her manners, her erudition, her talents, the way the sun shone on her hair, the way the wind blew the hair out of her eyes, the way the dust of the road made him blink and cough and how she expressed the perfect amount of sympathy by gently lifting her hair away from her temples thus demonstrating to the prince who had come so far and over such rough terrain that she, though as yet an untraveled little girl, truly understood the

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dangers and hardships he faced. In a word, he was smitten. He swooned, too. He sat down on a bench. He and his manservant had been strolling in the gardens while the father of the prince and the father of the princess put their official seals and signatures to some big deal treaty or whatever. Prince Reginald knew that what really mattered was the heart, and Prince Reginald knew his heart would break were he deprived of his beloved, who had just been pointed out to him while her maids were realizing there was company in the garden (and a

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fine expansive garden it was, fully large enough for throngs of adoring admirers, though it rarely hosted more than a handful) and bundled up their picnic things and the princess and hurried her off to her rooms lest propriety be offended by the male gaze. "Fan me, Pitty Pat," gasped Reginald as he lay back on the bench, his eyes yet filled with every gesture the reluctant princess displayed as her tenders hustled her away. She had even, was it true?, looked over her shoulder at him, her future (he knew this now) king and liege, lover and husband, and

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smiled, yes, he saw it in the sway of her hair. That evening at the state dinner Reginald stood and proposed a toast to his host's exquisite daughter, the finest example of womanhood that presently existed, why, one glance at the elegance of her golden tresses and there was no way a witness could deny that an intellect of true discernment, a wit of honed sharpness, a modesty most fetching. While this was going on and on and on some more, Velma turned to her cousin who was scratching behind her ear with a fork, and whispered, "What the

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fuck?" The cousin slid the handle of the fork in and out of tightened lips. In and out, in and out the fork went and Velma watched its glistening progress with moist eyes. "Hear, hear," chorused the assembled nobles at the conclusion of the toast. The princess belatedly bobbled her goblet like a rubber ball on the face of a disturbed pond. A pond. This was the same girl who rejected the advances of a frog that raised its head from the garden pond one day, eyed her hungrily, and declared that he would grant any wish if only she

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would touch her tongue to his. "Never," she said, coldly, then reflected. "Touching tongues. Does that break an enchantment? I mean, suppose you were really a handsome prince who'd accidentally offended some thin- skinned fairy and she turned you into a toad. ('Frog,' said the frog.) Would you turn back into a handsome prince after the tongue thing?" "Let's find out," said the frog. "That might be worth doing something disgusting, I guess," the girl said, nodding soberly. She patted the grass at her side. "Climb out here next to me. I'm not going to lean over that slimy old water.

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I could fall in." So the frog clambered across the spongy weeds at the water's edge and hop hop hopped to the side of the princess who so delighted him. The frog closed his eyes and opened his mouth, his tongue lolling. Velma shook her head. "No," she said. "This isn't a good place. If you were to transform into a prince, it wouldn't look good. You'd probably be naked, for one thing, and for another, how would we explain it, you just suddenly showing up in the middle of the garden, chatting up the king's favorite daughter. They'd drive

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a stake through your heart right here, rightful resident of the pond or no. And who's to say you've a right to a dip in the king's pond? Just cuz yer a frog? Suppose I was a, what, a alligator or a crocodile or something. The king'd be in his rights to hunt me right down and turn me in a handbag. Or cowboy boots. Or whatever. So don't go thinking just cuz you've been living here since you was a tadpole, don't go thinking that makes you entitled to proposition the princess. Even if was born yesterday I'd still

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outrank you. So shush and don't go ribbit or anything. We gotta sneak you up to my room. Then. I guess. Then I guess we wait for the perfect moment. Cuz having a prince suddenly show up in my room, yeah, that would be kinda worse than a prince showing up all wet from the pond." The frog mumbled from where Velma had stuffed him between her petticoats. "Shush!" hissed the princess, figuring her posture, thighs-together, hands folded tightly against them, would be approved, demure and all, finally acting the proper lady rather than the disgraceful loose-limbed, devil-may-care, impertinent, cold-blooded

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little predator people always cast a gimlet eye upon. When Velma got to her room she hid the frog in her jewelry case, and fetched a big iron pot from the kitchen. "This will be your pond," she told the frog, plunking him into it, "until such time as it will be most appropriate to return you to your natural form." Then, saying nothing about it to the frog, the princess turned the electric hot plate on low, the electric hot plate on which she had settled the iron pot. "Nice froggy," said the girl. Rather discombobulated by the manner

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of the transportation, the frog spun slowly in the water. He closed one eye, then the other, then opened them back up again. After several minutes of this seemingly stunned silence, Velma watching him as she knitted, the frog floated to the edge of the pot, looked up at her with an unfrog-like tenderness and said, "Thank you, Princess." Velma nodded and smiled and later, when the frog had boiled, not having noticed the water heating up, it happened so gradually, she hummed to herself as she smuggled the body into the pocket of the chamberlain's favorite dressing gown. When

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the king told her he had found her a match, the prince from the other side of the mountain would be her lord and master when she came of age, Velma arched one eyebrow. "Whatever," she said. Does the caiman Velma remember when she was a human princess? She has her eye set on the cat in the kitchen. The cat is arched, hairs on end, mouth drawn open in a hiss and long, slow ehrrr. The woman with the transdimensional shift tuts as she steps over her pet. "Play nice, girls," she says, opening cupboards in search of tea

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kettle and box of tea bags. The first door she opens reveals neatly stacked plates and platters and bowls, the second door glasses and mugs and on the highest shelf the rarely used juicer. The third door she has to close quickly to prevent the gnome from falling out, but the door won't latch. Ah, a toe is in the way. She tries to poke it back in but there's more to it than that, it seems. The woman chews her lower lip. Of gnomes she can't say she's ever been a fan. She had a friend who had a strange

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attraction to gnomes, but every story the friend would tell about her dysfunctional relationships with gnomes, the verbal abuse, the practical jokes, the indifference to human emotion, were examples of what to avoid in life, not what one had to keep going after, hungrily, ever hopeful, dreaming only of the next, surely better connection. The friend, who knows what became of her? If she never gave up her unhealthy obsession with gnomes, nothing good! Gnomes, thinks the woman who is currently trying to close a door on a gnome's toe, are bad news. With her free hand she grabs a

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fork and jabs away at the offending toe. It won't move. It won't move, dammit. Get! Back! In! There! Ugh. Drops of blood on the counter. She looks at the end of the fork. Blood there, too. Oh. OK. She steps back, holding up the fork like a weapon. As the door swings open and the gnome falls out, the inadequacy of dessert fork as weapon becomes quickly apparent. Not that the gnome attacks. The gnome drops like a ton of bricks, striking the counter and doing a somewhat brick-like somersault on his way to the floor. He lands face

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first on the linoleum. And that's the whole production. The cat and caiman hiss and skedaddle, the dog in the hall yawns and lays his head on his paws. "Where's the remote?" asks a voice from the front room. "I'm making tea!" calls the woman, as she kneels to prod the unconscious gnome with her little fork. When he fails to flinch or groan, the woman gets out some pot lids and balances them precariously on his back. If he should move, there'll be warning. Gnomes can be sneaky. She finds a kettle, fills it with water from the faucet,

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and puts it over a blue flame. Having found the box of teas and the square tin of teas and the small cans of teas, she considers her options. There are black teas, green teas, and white teas. There are five oolongs and one small can of the sacred puerh. There are more than a few herbal teas, but those would more properly be called tisanes. Among the black teas she looks over tattered bags of darjeeling, bags of nilgiri in crisp cellophane, fresh bags of dooars and assam, both in red labels, a suspicious keeman in a black wrapper,

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and a guangxi in a triangular pouch. Among the green teas she considers the jade and the jasmine but without enthusiasm, sniffs the gunpowder before deciding it's a bit much, and puts aside a dragonwell and a bancha as possibilities. The choice of whites is only two, peony or sunshine. All the herbal teas feature hibiscus. She has never liked hibiscus. While leafing through the tisanes, she comes across a foil wrapper that's already been opened. Couldn't the tea get damp then, and moldy? Maybe mold would improve hibiscus. Some molds are even psychedelic. The young woman holds the wrapper

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under her nose. Hints of concision, suggestions of illusion, lost memories scratching across frictionless barriers, light delayed, a welter of anxieties, tooth decay, sincerity, dried and waxed old tears, white (but only in an abstract sense), burning summer beach boys, lacquer, liquorice, violent respect, a stooped vendor stirring the coals under chestnuts, water with many surfaces, bartender sweat, a silver coin commemorating the coronation of William XI, passels of castles, sleight of hand, weird warmth under a red stone on a frozen plain, alligators wearing fur, miles of chain mail, neither snow nor rain except in dark of night, plaque,

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a pulsating sense of impending virtue, eclectic talents, whispered statistics, and, far in the back, so far back it might not even be there, it might be the shadow of something else, she has the feeling the unnamed god lurks under a tree in a skirt of purple feathers. She puts that tea bag down and returns to the bancha. Subtle and familiar. The dragonwell? Smooth and dependable. But that odd tea, the one without a label. There's something about it she can't put aside. The young woman tugs the bag by its string from the foil pouch. Free of

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its wrapping the bag spins slowly on the end of the string. The colors. Are there any? When the light falls on the bag. Brown like a grocery bag. Delicate as skin flayed from a morel. The night could wander for days in the forest looking for a clearing to dance in, the moon curled around the hole the great root of a three hundred year old tree jerked out of as the tree fell. Loosened from the grip of a tight little foil packet, the tea bag, the string that ties it shut, the string that hangs it from

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a paper label, turns and turns, and as it turns the world turns (neat trick) and as the world turns like one grain of sand washed by the waves, the ripples from the bang that made us possible continue to pass through us on their way to the making possible, like the m the eye looks across to see what is coming, what can be done about it. As it turns it reveals its facets, each dark and tangled and riddled with surfaces, the better for the water, off the boil, to fall onto, to enter, to weave from fragrances

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new clothes for the soul. The young woman lowers the tea bag into a pot, adds the water, and puts on the lid. The label hangs down the side. She looks at it more closely. There's a symbol on it she's never seen before. A logo? It's not Chinese or Korean or Thai. A fanciful rune? Is it supposed to represent something? An animal. If it's an animal. A plant. A fungus. An alien from outer space. A motif from an oriental rug. She shrugs and looks out the kitchen window. There are flying saucers skimming the flat undersides of

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towering storm clouds. The invasion has started? She looks at her watch. A pale shadow indicates its absence from her wrist. That's right. She took it off. Something to do with all that time travel, transformations, dimension- hopping, and the need to take a bath, no doubt. Maybe we can probe her mind from here. Tease her name from her frontal lobes, at least. X-ray vision might reveal her business card. We could send an emissary to ask around. The gnome is suckling on the knob of one of the lids. How he got it in his mouth without making that

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lovely cymbal-like crash we know the stainless steel kettle lid loves to make toppling and bouncing across the floor is a mystery. One lid yet balances precariously on the gnome's left shoulder, another wobbles on his butt, looks like it will slide off any moment. His eyes are shut in what must be bliss. At some point I suppose one must find out more about these gnomes and leprechauns. They seem to be infesting this house, the medicine cabinet over the bathroom basin, the kitchen cupboards (yes, another is curled around the waffle press in the cupboard above the stove),

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under the futon in the guest room, and dangling from a clothes hanger over the washing machine. I forget which is which. Leprechaun, gnome, does anybody really care? The Ugly Dog of Heaven lifts an ear when the counting gnome stops talking. The dog turns her head and looks searchingly into his scrunched up little face. She's not a small dog, about the size of a German Shepherd, maybe, but no identifiable breed, pelt patchy, scaly, mottled skin easily visible beneath the sparse hair on her hips, one ear torn, watery, red- rimmed eyes. Ugly. Like I said. Even with her

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wings. At her shoulder blades she has wings, lichen-like in coloring, dull and speckled, about the size of a pigeon's wings. Nothing like that could generate the lift required for a dog, let alone one of this size. They make her look more like one of those fakes you see in a curio cabinet. You've seen the monkey- fish, haven't you? Monkey head and arms glued to a fish body. When the gnome scowls, angry at some thought, the dog goes into a stretch, extended forelegs, raised butt, the wings opened wide. Dog shakes her head, the wings fold themselves back

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tidily, and she yawns. The counting gnome coughs twice. He lowers his head to the ground and listens to vibrations in the earth. His scowl lightens and he hits his head with his fists. The dog whines. The gnome sighs. "I didn't find them all. All the leprechauns," says the gno, oh, no, this must be the leprechaun, the one was going around counting leprechauns. "I counted four times. Each time I got the same number. Except the last time. When there was one fewer." The leprechaun shrugs. "I wanted to count again, but I was afraid I was right."

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The leprechaun hits himself in the head again and a hair falls loose. "Whenever I am right, it's bad. It's bad. When I am wrong, it is better. I say it is going to be a terrible stormy day and I am wrong. It is not a terrible stormy day. It rains. But the winds don't knock down a tree. Not one tree. I say we will go hungry. But we do not go hungry. There is fungus, a new crop, yellow and moist. We do not go hungry. I am wrong. You understand? It is good to be so

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wrong." The leprechaun pauses. The dog remains attentive. A breeze stirs the dust and a white plastic cup rolls in a circle near one of the portico's arches. "When I say it is going to be a terrible storm. When I say that and I am right. That is bad. I do not like being right. If I say it is fine today, fine and beautiful. What then?" The leprechaun laughs. "That is the trick! I never say that! Have I ever said something good is going to happen? That we will be happy and dancing? What do you think,

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Lady Dog? Should I say tomorrow will be a fine day, full of delights?" The leprechaun hits himself again. When the leprechaun continues to hit himself in the head, the dog growls. The leprechaun laughs, but not the sort of laughter anyone joins. "What is the number? What is the number, Lady Dog? Shall you guess? The last count of the leprechauns!" He sniffs, sneezes, then grabs his ankles, buries his nose between his thighs, and rolls heavily down the portico like a medicine ball. The dog gets up, but turns in the other direction, walking back toward the meeting

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hall, her claws clicking on the paving stones. The hall is empty but for Jack, who, as always, is dressed for somewhere people notice your clothes only when you're not wearing something that costs too much. The dog sits in the aisle next to him and he reaches into a pocket and pulls out a sealed dog treat which he opens and she ignores, even after he drops it between her feet. She looks at him instead and, as usual, he smiles. "I was there," he says. "I was there, and it looked about the same, frankly. If things are

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getting worse, they're not getting worse faster than usual. Which is to say," Jack pours himself a cup of wine then replaces the stone jug on the floor, "I'm taking some time to relax." He sips at the dark and acrid wine. Up in the shadowed corners of the hall there are fissures that will never open wide enough to allow passage even of spirits. But there is one that will. More than one, perhaps. But one, at least. The wine is cold and stays cold on his tongue and moves slowly through his mouth. When he swallows, the wine

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seeks its own level. Jack flips open a notebook he's pulled out of the inner pocket of his jacket. He slides the slim black pen from the elastic gripping it and jots a few notes. No, that's too much concentration on each movement of the pen. He's drawing? If so, the line refuses to resolve into a figure. Bored doodling? A code, runes, glyphs meant to capture meaning like spider webs? That could be it, a script seeking meaning rather than the more usual method of cutting meaning to fit the words you have at hand, as though nothing you

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had to say couldn't easily be said with words people have long used for other business. And yet, aren't there many languages, mutually unintelligible, and many scripts, as like to scribbles as to sentences to those not initiated into their mysteries? Have something entirely new to say? No. You really don't. Jack looks over the work he's teased out of the hidden depths of the page. It was there all the time, clearly, and what was necessary was the hypnotic attraction of the pen's undulations, the pen's not quite soundless invitation to arise. The shape describes the passage of a

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body, like a footprint, like the trail a worm leaves in mud. Most such traces wash away quickly, aren't even seen, let alone read. But some movements, some dances, have consciousness, and you can contemplate what they leave. The world is written all over. Jack snaps the notebook shut and slips it back into the pocket. He drains the cup into his mouth and gazes up indifferently at the shoddy tapestries. They are supposed to look woven. That they don't, that they look like poorly printed imitation weaving, is what makes them so disappointing. You don't have to have the

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hundreds of skilled craftspeople and the million dollar budget to make something that looks good. First off, you don't pretend what you've got is something it's not. You don't hold up tinsel and say, "Be dazzled by this precious metal!" You hold up tinsel and say, "Ooh! Don't you love the way the light tangles in it, like it's a cripple dancing, dancing so good you're envious of his withered leg, you want to laugh at him, then have him fuck you until you're afraid you've lost your marbles, didn't you hear that delicious clinking as they pattered loose across

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the brain pan? The music of the spheres." So what if it doesn't last? What does? Jack knows something about those cheap tapestries, you can tell. The knights, ardently beaming through lifted visor at the blonde ladies wearing conical beribboned hats and shaking handkerchiefs in dainty fingers; the unicorn in a paddock placidly chewing; Jonah popping out of (or into) a bearded whale; Jesus slapping around moneylenders; a pug- faced lion cuddling up with a droopy- eyed lamb. Colors clashing and bleeding. Unmended tears. But when Jack gets up and steps up to trace the lamb's muzzle, his fingers sliding just under

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a murky round-pupiled eye, he's not examining the animal so much as touching secret points. Now the nose of each knight. Jack taps the bridge then presses gently just beneath an eye. He steps back and looks over the whole cloth, rubs his chin. There's something more, something more. He gets out that notebook again, licks a finger, and quickly pages through, one glyph in particular seems key. He walks deliberately along, looking high, looking low. He shrugs and runs a finger down a post of the unicorn paddock. He puts the notebook away. A draft stirs a corner of

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the room. Has something moved? Jack jumps down from the platform over which the tapestry hangs. The draft comes again and a definite ripple passes up the wall. The tapestry hangs perfectly still. The draft is becoming a breeze and the wall, all of stone, shakes and waves roll through it, one after another. Jack closes his eyes, feeling the cool air cross his face. Does he feel a ripple pass through his body as well? Maybe. The dog eyes this new development with skepticism. She growls. If this keeps up the wall is going to pull free of the

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glue and staples that hold it to earth. And it does keep up. It keeps right on up, the ripples getting bigger and closer together, the whole wall simultaneously ashudder. Quiet, though. When the ripples reach ceiling and adjoining walls they disturb nothing, might as well be an optical illusion for all the change they effect. Jack sits down again, pours himself another cup of wine. With a grunt, the Ugly Dog of Heaven gets to her feet and toddles back up the aisle and out the door. Jack retrieves the treat from the floor and pops it in his

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mouth. He sucks on it, its sweet, salty umami bringing an ache to his salivary glands. He hums, the waves along the wall settle into a steady rhythm. The dog leaves the room, continuing down the portico. After the main building the covered route passes soft lawns over which cool mists wander or press themselves. Two more smaller buildings adjoin the portico. In the first a small dragon, only slightly larger than the dog herself (and easily able to curl up on the back seat of a station wagon), croakily reads the weather report, "Rain in fits and starts followed

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by shudders and shakes, eventually clearing enough to illuminate the puddles with sunset pinks," and the traffic report, "There are vehicles on the road, you know, in sizes small and large, the slower not being the larger in every case." Big cushy black headphones cover its pointy ears and it speaks into a fluffy green microphone. The dog pauses to watch through the heavy glass of the studio, and the dragon gives a broad wink. The door of the second building pops open as the dog approaches and a young man pokes his head out. "Psst," he says, nodding the

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dog closer. Then, to make sure there's no misunderstanding, he crooks a finger and makes that little beckoning tug with it. The dog stops several feet away and wags her tail slowly and warily. The young man looks up the path, looks behind himself into the dim room, the door ajar, looks down the path to where the cover of the portico roof ends and the path goes on into the dark woods. He nods as though this all confirms a theory. He makes a move toward the dog. "We can do it, you and me, U.D. of H. Uh-huh.

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We can take this thing apart. We can reassemble it in a big kind of shape thing, all new, all different, but essentially workable, only better. You have the connections. I have the vision. You do have the connections, don't you? You know everybody. Everybody tells you their sob story. That's so Ugly Dog, the world is sad, you know, who else will listen to you, who else will understand you but somebody with mutant wings on her back? I've done it. We've all done it. Confided in you. Laid our hearts bare. Shed a few tears. It's natural. Now

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we just have to take it to the next level." The young man takes off his English cap and scratches his blond ruff. "But how to do it. You know, I have the utmost confidence in you. And in the crew. We just have to have a plan. Since the Elf tried to ransom the future for the past, and before that tried to steal all the tea in China, and before that tried to alter our very idea of what music is with that xylophone from the left bank of Lethe, and before that cut open the artery that

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feeds ichor into City of the Industrial Divine (the fumes from the ichor had him stoned for weeks but I don't think a drop was spilled), and before that. Before that." "The moon unit," says the Ugly Dog of Heaven helpfully. She is sitting in her posture of attention, which, once somebody starts talking, she really can't avoid assuming. "Wasn't there something between the City of the Industrial Divine thing and the moon unit?" Out the door of the first small building a long horny head pokes. "Davey! Five minutes!" The young man shakes his head. "Time, time," he mutters.

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"Sometimes you just want to yank it up by the roots! Where was I? The Elf? He cuold be useful. In a hazardous sort of accidentally beneficial way. You've been let in on it, haven't you? The big secret. Oh. But you never repeat a confidence. Forgot about that part. Hm. Yeah. There must be a workaround. After the child molester tells the priest about plans to volunteer at girl washing camp the priest reports it to his superiors in order to head off a crime and priest wakes up in a parish in the Soviet Union. Coalition of Willing

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States? Isn't that what it's called now? In this case you'd be the priest and I'd be the child mo, I mean, I'd be the superior. Uh. After the pyromaniac tells his psychiatrist that he's hankering to see the manes of the merry-go-round horses red with flame, the psychiatrist places an anonymous call to the halfway house where the pyromaniac sleeps every night since he was released from prison and. In this case you'd be the merry-go-round horse and I save you by strapping the pyro to his bed. And you thank me by spilling all about. About. You know.

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About the merry-go-round ponies. And the carneys. And the magical way the ostriches and tigers and horses and zebras all come to life after the carnival closes and go cavorting about the place browsing on kettle corn and peanuts and shreds of cotton candy that the nightly winds spin along the midway. Or whatever the equivalent would be in political intrigue, the halls of power, the conferences of the deities of drink and bad behavior. Then. Then we'd catch 'em!" "Hsst! Davey! One friggin' minute, you pauper!" Davey rolls his eyes. "Like dead air ever killed anybody. I'm coming, I'm

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on my way, I'm there! I'll pop him in the snoot, that'll show 'im who's the popper and who's the popped. We will continue this another time, Ms Heaven." Davey hops over the dog's curl of tail on the mist-dampened stone and scoots through the studio's open door. After a moment the dragon waddles out. "I need something poisonous." It walks up to the Ugly Dog and rubs its long head against her shoulder. "I don't suppose you know where a body could get an infusion? Or an explosion?" The dog raises one eyebrow and casts a sidelong look the

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dragon's way. The dragon coughs and a puff of ash whirls out of both nostrils. "Oh dear. Dear, dear," says the dragon, scratching behind a green ear with a black claw. "Frankly, I think the traffic, the weather, the stock market, the vegetables, and the mood on Mount Olympus have been sounding same-y lately. I think they could do with a little shaking up. A little rumba romba timba tumba. Did you like the way I rhymed 'flooding disaster' with 'market forecaster'?" "I wasn't listening." "No?" The dragon's wheezy chuckle precedes another series of shallow coughs and their attendant ashy

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punctuation. "Welpy welpy wah. I need something dangerous. Something efficacious. Something ferocious and atrocious." "Expialidocious?" "We are of like minds, Ugly. We are of like minds. Except that, koff koff, I, excuse me, harrup, hurrup, heeeeerrrrrrruuuuukkkkk. Sorry." With a shake of its large head the dragon waddles down to the end of the path and out into the mist. Two enormous wings spring from its back where seemingly there had been none, and the dragon leaps into the air, a friendly good-bye lash of its tail the last part of it to be caught by the dim portico lamps. The

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ON-AIR light blinks to life, flickers, then applies itself to a steady amber gleam. "Hey, folks! We've got a great show for you tonight." Davey squeezes the rubber bulb on the end of a horn which goes Ugga-ugh! "If you think mine is the voice of an angel, that I am speaking to you from Heaven above as the end of the world gathers you in, well, yes, I'm not. But there's something heavenly about me. Some aspect of the divine I've never been able entirely to deny. Though I've tried! God knows, I've tried. Why, just the other day

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at the Jesus Seminar, the old man himself was telling us there was one way and one way only to shake the darkness with light. I don't know about that but I do know a way and if it's the only way then we're in my comfort zone. You take one cloud, all dark and heady, and you take another cloud, similarly full of oats, and you clap 'em together!" Davey presses a button and a sudden bang of thunder fills the room. As it fades Davey continues, "Welcome once again to the Hour of Thunder. With me, Davey. Davey

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Davey Davey. DAAAAAVEEEE THUN DURR, king of the wild BLUN DEEEER!!! You know what else old Jeez said at the Sem? He said all you need to bring somebody back to life is the right touch. I suspect he was being metaphorical. You know, the dispirited, the lifeless, those succumbing to despair, bringing life back to 'em isn't bringing life to a corpse. Or creating life ex nile crocodile like an alligator bag waking up and snapping at your manicured fingers as you dip in for the calfskin credit card keeper. It's bringing life back to itself, it's lost the

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way, and the right touch with the good finger points the way back to what life ought to know from the get-go. But, c'mon, how can you forget to live? The heart remembers its business, doesn't it? Squeezing all that blood, sucking it in, squeezing it out. The lungs don't need a manual to learn the air game. So what's this about losing the will to live? It's complicated? The more complicated you are the more you got going that's going to go wrong. Sounds simple enough. We also learned how to water wine. Then step all over it.

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You've never seen a footprint like a footprint on water. It sticks to you, kind of, follows your foot up with a tiny mirror foot, like a leprechaun kicking you off his ceiling. It's weird. Nobody died or maybe he would have proved the whole back to life thing not a metaphor. I don't know. He really had the place fired up. There were people speaking without tongues and people tickling their gums and people tweaking. I wondered who forgot to spike my punch. I almost asked one of the girls rushing back and forth with trays, but then I

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thought it might be in the canapés, so I had a few of those. I had to wash them down with some of that watered wine, which, it turned out, was watered with something unwine-like all right, something unwine-like and fiery and clear, like vodka or maybe Everclear. I had a few more canapés, which were dry and tacky and cheap. Or so I thought of the first few. After the beverage chased those down I understood why the punch bowl was still deep enough to float a curly-locked moppet and why emptied Jesus brand water bottles

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crunkled underfoot and that the canapés tasted oh so delish. The room spun like a dancing girl and Jesus was still up there rallying the troops, urging every one of us to forge ahead on the roadless travel, to seize the day in our octopus gloves, to sally forth, to act, to believe, and so on. I forget what all. By this time my will to live seemed split in two, one half shimmying out in front of me, beckoning with jungle red nails, the other drawing me back with a slender arm around my waist. Perhaps one represented the

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temptations of the devil, and the other was the understudy for the above-the-marquee star off twinkling at tea instead of the Sunday matinee. I'm afraid I laughed at her. My will to live was miffed at being laughed at and shook her finger at me, the red of her nail painting arcs in the passage from being jaded and full of ennui to being dismissive and healthfully cynical. I dropped the half-empty bottle of Jesus Water and raised my hands up to heaven, which was glinting with the facets of acoustic popcorn. 'Oh Lord, deliver me some black coffee, plus

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generally approve of making mistakes, even fiascos, grand spanking embarrassments, I am ready now to realize the error of my making my way here and would like a taxi please.' I thought I might invoke an even higher power but, enough mistakes having already been made, I decided the better part of valor was pushing out through the writhing throng and heading home. Perhaps I was just about at the door, it seemed I had made progress toward egress, I had no intention of closing the gap between myself and the stage, when a strong hand gripped my shoulder and

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spun me round. I was face to face with the seminar leader himself, Mr J, Son of a Gun, Watermeddler, and Life Stirrer, his beard with not a flicker of gray and bushy, his mane calculatedly wild (smelled of balsam), the deep dark brown of his eyes like the hearts of two ancient trees felled by lightning. 'Thunder!' he exclaimed with that hearty hale fellow well met bonhomie I've always liked in confidence men and ladies of the night. It's even better when it's not genuine, you know? 'Jeez!' I exclaimed in return and we gave each other a big

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hug. It was very cozy. 'So, what chu bin up to since that thing?' and he gave me a big wink. 'That thing with lightning?' 'No complaints!' I said. 'Great to see you here,' he said, then gave me another big wink. 'Just don't drink the water!' We got a good laugh out of that." A tinkling Hawaiian guitar begins to fill in the sudden silence. "So, listeners, what have you been up to since that thing? You know. Since that thing that hasn't let you go." As Davey is reading off the usual contact info, a button begins to

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flash, then another. Davey presses the first. "Hello, caller." "Hey, Davey. Love your show! I've been a listener for 32 years now, haven't missed a night. But I want to take issue with something. Last week you said a newspaper was a rent attitude flight risk with attendant renovation perspectives aligned then misaligned with a neutral mental partnership covered in taller whisks. An angry valence makes murky the subtle button, right?" "I'm sorry, caller, I didn't catch your name." "Oh! Sorry, sorry. This is the first time I've called and I was so ready with my question, that I forgot

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my manners. I am so so sorry. My God am I sorry. Mea culpa, man! Mea fucking culpa!" "Hey, hey. Chill. Mellow out. Cool down." Davey flips open a Rolodex and gives it a spin. "The name is merely a convenience. You are to me but a voice without even a hair or eye color. So let's back up the bus and pretend like I was waiting at the stop for somebody to descend the narrow bus steps and I didn't know who that was and suddenly burst forth a fresh face that told me it had known me longer

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than I've had my own number." As Davey speaks, the Rolodex spins and spins, its cards whitely blurring. With a tap of the finger it comes to a sudden stop and one card faces out. "Damn! Buses and shit. I'm uh I'm. I'm amazed, Davey, you hit it so soundly. You know how to get right to the center of the middle where things are true! That's exactly why I've been such a big fan. And, you know, why I've hesitated to call before. Why it's my first time and all. Confidence. You know what I mean? I just. I

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couldn't see myself standing up to you, I mean, not standing up in a bad way, challenging you. I mean. I wanted you to like me. And I thought, what if I say something stupid and shit. What if I have no idea what I'm saying, you know, and I say something totally insane, something batshit crazy, I'll look like a loon before my Hero!" Davey considers the advice the Rolodex has offered. "The name," he prompts. "Herodotus! There! Are you happy! Herodotus. Fuck." The voice is interrupted by sobs. "Give my regards to Antietam," Davey says softly, then cuts

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to a tinkling piano that meanders up and down the scales and in and out the gills and touches here and there the fins of some old standard you can't quite place but which is familiar as the insouciant compound eye of a blue- tailed fly. At the Battle of Agincourt, a poet once noted, a fly explored the protruding tongue of a young soldier. "Spring came to an earth soaked in blood," Davey says, "and poppies threw open their skirts and bees poked their little noses into the blue fur suddenly exposed." He taps the next light on the board,

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"Yes, caller, you're on the air. Could we get your name and where you're calling from?" "DAVEY THUNDER!! YAY! Gosh. I can't believe I got on." Out of the corner of his eye Davey detects a new shadow. He glances up. A spider, hairy and brown and the size of a dinner plate, fills a corner of the room next to the ceiling. "I can't believe it. Really. I've been dreaming of this moment. Dreaming!" "Dreaming is free," Davey says absently. "Yeah! So my name is Rotunda. Rotunda Brunnhilda, that's my full name." "Sounds full," says Davey. "Ha ha. Yeah.

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Everybody says that. Or. No, I don't think I've heard that before. What makes you say that?" "Oh," says Davey. "You've got your first name and you've got your last name. With those you have the major slots filled." "Oh, I have a middle name, too. It's Widget. Rotunda Widget Brunnhilda. RWB. That's what I put on my monogrammed towels. And I live in Spring Spring, which is just like Sing Sing except that they have nothing in common. The weather's similar, I think. I read that somewhere. Anyway, I'm calling tonight because I heard you talking about Jesus. I

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met Jesus. And. He isn't like that at all." "Oh?" "No! I went to heaven. I took this package tour. With my church group. It was all-inclusive; that means one price includes not just bed but all your meals and a few special extras, like a massage and halo-buffing. Everybody has a halo. Not just saints. Some people call them 'auras.' Same thing. It's like this glowing around your head. If your halo is spotty it means you need work. Sometimes you need to work on your karma or you have to confess your sins and get absolution or whatever.

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One of the ladies from my group, who got her halo buffed? She said it made her feel light-headed. Ha ha! I thought that was so funny! I sat in on one of the slide show lectures where they showed all the hell stuff. God! That was awful! But later we actually got to meet Jesus! He was very nice. Soft-spoken. When he took your hand he'd look you right in the eye and you'd sort of melt. Completely! When I die I totally want Jesus on my side." "Any suggestion of when you might meet that fate?" The caller

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laughs again. "I know! I know, huh? Anyway, so you made out like Jesus was some big, I don't know, huckster?" "Motivational speaker." "Oh. Oh, yeah. I see that. But isn't he still in heaven? I mean, when he comes to earth, that's when it all changes, right? Heaven is a great place, by the way. A great, great place. OK. I guess that's it. Thanks so much for taking my call!" Davey cues up some harp music and, while it tinkles away in the background, muses, "I wonder what pictures they showed her of hell? The mineral springs? The

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tract houses? The projection TVs? Ah, hell. I had a friend who went to hell. He took a tour, too. A tour led by a dog. A very fine dog, he said. He gave me the dog's business card. I have it in a file here somewhere. Files. There's so much to TARANTULA! Sorry. Uh. There's a story I've been wanting to share with you. Last week I conducted an interview with a musical artist you may have heard of. Merle Obregard. The original gunslinger banjolele player." Quickly Davey queues up the recording. "In his most famous song Obregard claimed

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he shot a man just to watch him apply himself to a new course of action in the face of a changed environment," a patient and tender voice begins. Davey turns the sound down in the booth. He looks up at the spider. Did it move or was he imagining that? "Where did you come from? Yo! Spider! Yes, you. I saw that pedipalp twitch! You can hear me. Are you an ambassador from another dimension? If so, you're not my first. I have a universal communicator in the drawer of the desk. You're not dangerous, are you? Because I

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have a projectile weapon of tremendous efficacy here in my left boot." Davey gestures significantly at his tattered tennis shoe. "You wouldn't be an enchanted, um, princess or anything? I've never met one of those. Not so far as I know, anyway. I could very well have. Met one, you know. Present company not excepted." The giant spider seems not to be reacting to these overtures. Davey taps his knee with a finger. "You look familiar," he lies. "I have the feeling we've met before." This is not true either. "You weren't at the Carnival of Arthropods, were you?" Davey

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eyes the elbow turn you have to take to exit the broadcast booth. You have to pass right under the spider. Which may have been there when he rushed to the mic and he didn't notice. "You one of Dragon's guests? He just forgot to tell me? C'mon, give me a sign. I know. If you understand me, tap a foreleg. Just one. It doesn't have to be any big move. Yeah, I'd rather it not be a big move. Just tap. One. Ah. Tap. Ah. Well. Yes. That is a start. Not a coincidence, was it? How about I

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pose you some yes or no questions. Tap once for yes, tap twice for no. Is that acceptable?" Davey leans forward, the rusty coils of the old office chair squeaking faintly. The spider does not tap. "Is that not acceptable?" The spider remains unmoving. The spider's stillness, however, is relative. Dust goes on swirling in air not yet settled after the opening and closing of the door. Moisture curls from Davey's breath and pores and from the breathing pores in the spider's underside. Electrons zip through the pathways set up for them. And the whole business is packed with the

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momentum of a mass spinning along the curve that keeps it steady before a continuous spherical explosion. Should that mass suddenly stop, every body would find out quickly how every moment of every day while crouched in a corner by the ceiling or tapping the arm of the green office chair that seems so dependably on a carpet in a room near the end of a covered walkway off the eaves of which minute globes disconnect and splash onto shadowed pebbles next to a rosebush, every body at rest would learn that immobility was hiding the damnedest velocity. On the

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other hand, so what? If you spend your entire life on an airplane, which, as far as everyone else is concerned, is clearly in motion, a plane that never comes down, a plane refueled on the wing, it doesn't much matter that, should the plane be stopped abruptly, you will continue in motion and be killed as your body bashes against the no- longer-in-motion plane interior, if in fact the plane never meets any such sudden stop. I mean, it might be a scary fate to contemplate, but if the plane has been reliably in the air, not once threatening to

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slow down, let alone give up the flying business, and this has been the case for all of, what, eight billion years?, worrying about what would happen if the plane crashed or stopped, wouldn't that be crazy? What makes you so special that something that's been going on exactly the same for eight fucking billion years is going to change on your watch? So how much should we be worrying about the earth stopping and everything on it being thrown out into the deadly vacuum of space? Davey has picked up another call. "In two days the earth is going

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to stop spinning. Recently deciphered Ancient Mayan, Egyptian and Celtic Runes all agree. Not to mention the deus ex machina operated by the spider deities. They're actually the ones who provided the key to the codes. It was a scientist who established communication with the spider deities. His name is Dr Arthur Pod. Weird, huh? Spiders are arthropods; this guy's name is Arthur Pod!" "Spiders?" "Yeah. Spiders! Who knew the spiders would help us at the end of the world!" Glancing up at the giant spider in the studio, Davey gives his Rolodex a new spin. The caller is going

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on about the track record of prophecies handed down by the old gods, how the Hittites knew about track shoes (and that track shoes would ultimately be found to be bad for your feet, particularly the really well padded and expensive ones made in sweat shops by the slight and malnourished), the Goths knew about heavy metal music (and that only long hairs would like it), the Caribs predicted MRSA, SARS, and mercury thermometers (although, the caller admitted, the Caribs seemed to think we would have moon colonies by now, go figure!), and, apropos of nothing, she had a premonition

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about, but before she reveals her own silly premonitions, pshaw!, who could credit the premonitions of a mere girl, even if she does have an advanced degree in wiccanology, a precognitive grandmother (she knew, to the minute!, when President Everheard would resign, and, yes, she assures Davey, everybody knows he hasn't been elected yet, that's the point), and a father who was a witch doctor in communities in Africa, the Arctic, the Antarctic (he had hot blood), and the Peruvian Amazon, the caller has one little question, just one, teensy and tiny and unimportant as it may be, so easily

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dispensed with, really. Once started the Rolodex spins until someone taps it, then it reveals whatever you need to know. Sometimes it says, Outlook Not So Good. Sometimes it gives you a phone number. Davey's been letting it spin while the woman talks. Why stop it? If the world is going to stop soon, what kind of advice can it give? Davey yawns. I still think the world needs a hand, he says to himself. He holds a finger over the shiny spot on the black Rolodex cover where he typically taps. Eensy weensy spider. Teensy tiny. "I don't know

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how to ask you this," the caller is saying. I should hang up on people more often, Davey thinks. "But, well, okay, I'll just come right out and say it. Do you have plans for after?" "After?" "Well, the world's going to stop, right?, and there'll be a mess and everything, but, the thing is, with the spiders and all, it's not like we have to worry too much, there's no sense passing up opportunities, I mean," the caller's voice drops to a whisper, "are you single?" Davey's eyes wander up to the spider corner, and he notes with a

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fatalistic blink that the spider is no longer in it. "That is a simple question," Davey agrees complacently. "I wonder how long it will take me to find an answer." He lowers his fingertip to the Rolodex. And the Rolodex comes to a stop. Ask Again Tomorrow, it says. Ask Again Tomorrow. Davey nods, as though this were the sagest response one could expect before all the gods and the councils of wise men, the klatches of grandmothers and interlinked supercomputers. Davey touches the controls and a tune he's cued up starts with a cymbal crash, three loud beats, and

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a wail, "AAAAAAAAAAASK ME, ask me, ask me! Ask me, ask me, ask me Be CAWZ if it's not today today today then it's NEH Vurrrrr. Oh, it's Never. Oh, it's Never. If it's not today then, what can I say, what can anybody say, what is there to say any other day. So ask me!" Buttercup turns down the radio again. Eula looks over at her from the sink where she's been washing and rewashing the same cut glass tumbler. It had pulpy orange juice in it and the stuck-on bits require repeated application of the brush. "Why do

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you always turn it down when a song comes on that I like?" Buttercup dips a brush into a ceramic cup. Impregnated with water, the brush touches the surface of the yellow pigment, then, full of yellow, goes to the pebbled skin of the heavy paper. Buttercup considers the effect, cleans the brush with a couple sharp swishes in the cup. "That doesn't look like a banana," offers Eula. "It looks like the skidmark I saw on your panties." Buttercup chooses a brown and hops the brush across the yellow, letting it touch down gently, each spot spreading with darkness

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in the middle. After washing the brush Buttercup switches to orange. Emily rinses the glass and holds it up to the light from the window. Just to make sure she runs her hand around inside, feeling for any fleck of stuck-on pulp that escaped her ministrations. Is that something? It might be. She holds the glass to the light again and peers into it. Shiny. Emily shrugs, dips the glass into the suds one last time, runs the scrub brush around inside, humming along with the radio, then splashes off the soap under the tap. She upends the glass in

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the dish drainer and starts in on the silverware soaking at the bottom of the dishpan. She likes to do the spoons first because she likes to see herself contained in them upside down. That's not the reason. She does look each over carefully to be sure she hasn't missed a spot, but she doesn't pay attention to the image reflected in the bowl. Washing's by feel, mostly. Why spoons first? Fingers seek curves. If you're going to have your hands plunged in hot water that goes cool after awhile, and the cooler the dingier, you find your comforts somewhere

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in the swirl. Emily feels carefully around the invisible objects, making sure she gets every last spoon. But, of course, almost through the forks, which are easier than spoons, as you just have to squeeze them through the sponge, no need to drive around an inner bowl, what should Emily come upon but another spoon. It's like it popped in from another dimension. She lifts it out of the water and frowns at it. It looks familiar, doesn't it? There are two distinct flatware patterns, Mother does not like mismatches, and this is clearly one of the square-ended kind, the

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ridge down the middle that smoothes out closer to the bowl, tines, or blade, rather than the pattern with the cluster of tiny flowers at the tip. She strokes the inner bowl. She feels something. A roughness? No. A slickness? More like that. Only. She can't. What. "Eulah," she says and turns to face her sister. "Does this spoon look familiar to you?" "Buttercup," says the other girl, "and it looks like a spoon." "Buttercup. Wasn't it Butternut? You said it was Butternut. I remember because you said you wanted to name yourself after a fruit, and I said a

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butternut squash that's not a fruit. And you said you wanted to name yourself after a fruit in honor of that barnstormer lady The Tomato which isn't a fruit either. And you said it was a fruit because it grew out of a flower and that's why you call something a fruit cuz fruits grow out of flowers, not vegetables, which if I ever said it to anybody they'd think I was crazy because everybody knows a a whatever a pepper or whatever a zucchini that's not a fruit. Why don't you call yourself Gourd, that's as much a fruit

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as any old squash!" Buttercup is dipping up just a drop of red on the end of the brush, which is already saturated with yellow. Her tongue starting to push out at the corner of her lips, Buttercup swishes the brush across the paper in a quick circle. Emily considers the spoon again. She looks into it. There is something in the bowl, all right. A face. Looking at her. And. It's not upside down. The face. And it's not her face. "Girls!" calls Mother down the hall, she's taking off her heels. "Your friend, Bernie, is outside." "We're washing

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dishes!" "You are washing dishes," says Buttercup. "You're going to dry." "No, I'm not. I'm going to finish my painting." "Yes, you are. When I do the washing, you do the drying. That's the way it works. Besides, you can finish your painting, then dry the dishes. They're in the drainer." Mother is standing in the doorway. "Should I tell Bernie you're not available?" "No, tell him I'm painting. And when I'm done we'll go down to the creek." "That sounds like a good message, Eula. Probably best for him to hear it right from your lips." "I'm almost done!"

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"So did she believe you about the angels?" Bernie asks, dropping a slimy rock just as he sees the coil of black centipede unwinding from the underside. Ploop! it says in collaboration with the swimming hole. "What angels," says Buttercup. "You didn't tell her." "No." A soft breeze is wandering back and forth through the weeping of the willow, bumping up against this string of tears, feeling with an evaluative thumb and forefinger this other. "What about the," Bernie starts. "We haven't been sharing lately," Buttercup says. "I guess we're just not going to be as close as we used

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to be. We used to do everything together." "You are twins." "You think we're twins?" "You're not?" A paper cup goes by, already partly filled with water. In the cup a lotus blossom soaks. Neither of the children notices. They move on from mysteries to certainties and from those to impossibilities. The conversation touches a tear and prickles with anger, then settles into a tired complacency and silence. "If an angel were to eat you," one of them says, "would it hurt?" Bernie repeats this question to the cowboy, who smiles and nips Bernie's chin. He nibbles along the stubble

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to the ear, bites the lobe ("OW!"), snuffles in the outer ear ("eek."), then nuzzles brusquely Bernie's neck, rasping away with his own new beard. He murmurs something. Bernie asks him to repeat it what did you say does that hurt the cowboy says how about this do you feel the feathers of my wings beating you air wind fire as I come in to land your skin I burn like this and this little tongue flickering over your nipple does it cool you. Bernie wonders if his ears are on this planet. Did they get rerouted to another plane,

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where there really are fucking angels and they're all moving about the cabin, groping each other under the wings, songs as firm on entry as tell you you've got no choice really but to open for their verses, and every rhyme sliding in where there's a pause, an opportunity to anticipate the one to come, the one that will summon the next, the throb of the engines in every celestial rib bending protectively over the sleep of the just, that blind and stirring sublime monster, threatening always to wake, how cute, look at the flutter of a feather, an eyelash,

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a dust mote trapped in a moonbeam, drifting deeper into the light. What time is it, anyway? Sweaty, one leg wrapped in the sheet wrapped around the nearer calf of the cowboy who murmurs again but this time in some dream, Bernie looks down that naked back, the furrow down the middle he imagines coasting down. He reaches toward it, palm up, two fingers paralleling like skis, and down we go, he says, almost aloud, the two fingers tipping to the left, then curving to the right, what a do run run. Must have slept some, Bernie thinks. He wakes

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to find the cowboy gone. Bernie's always been a light sleeper. How did the cowboy untangle himself from the bed? I guess them cowboys is good with knots, Bernie thinks, with admiring disappointment. He drags himself out of bed and yanks a rumpled tshirt from the floor. He remembers the bathroom enough to be cautious. Day's still bright and the room, though shadowy, doesn't seem to offer hiding spots for a giant spider. Or a cowboy on the john, for that matter. If any towels were used they aren't lying around. Bernie sighs and washes quickly at the sink with

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a blue washrag. Having wrung it, Bernie is draping the rag over the side of the sink to dry and looks idly at the label awkwardly sewn on. On one side of it there's a drawing of a goat head, its tongue hanging out of the side of the mouth; on the other, under "Care Instructions" there's one word: DON'T. "Huh," says Bernie, laying the cloth back down. "I wonder what sort of market there is for those." He decides not to bother shaving and towels off. Fresh folded towels. Soft and absorbent. He climbs into his clothes. Can he

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can he can he. He's forgotten what it was he was thinking. "Can I go home now?" he mutters, though that wasn't it. It was something else. He wets his hands and runs them through his hair, cocks his head to check out the improvement. Standing over the bed, he shakes out the wadded blankets and sheets. Then he sits down. He presses a hand where the body of the cowboy lay. He even closes his eyes and touches his nose to the sheet, breathes slowly and deeply. He wasn't expecting much, really. But the scent of the cowboy lingers,

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and as he breathes Bernie feels. Feels. A new heart. He sits up. Presses a hand against his chest. "What," he says. "I don't even know him. Do I? I don't. I wonder what time it is." Bernie adjusts the pillows, strokes them, smoothing away their wrinkles. Then he gets up and goes to the door and puts his hand on the knob and turns the knob and the knob turns and the knob turns and the knob turns. Bernie pulls. He takes his hand off the knob and licks his lips. "Fuck," he says, the door not having moved.

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Imagining he is imagining things, Bernie tries again. He turns the knob both ways, of course, just as he did a moment previous. He turns it one way then the other way twice around then back, as though he were turning a dial of a combination lock. No luck. He leans his weight back, pulling, pulling. He pushes. He kicks the door, which hurts his foot. He can scream! He certainly feels like doing that. He can curl up and sob, yes, sob!; he can throw himself back on the bed where he was happy, where he was happy, dammit!

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Happy? Bernie looks over at the drapes lit by the sunshine. When he goes over to the drawstring and pulls it and the drapes sweep open, Bernie is disappointed but not surprised to see the wall is glowing. There is no window behind the drapes. Who would put a light in a wall? Bernie runs his hand over the glow. Warm. A little too warm to comfortably lean against, but it doesn't seem like it would burn. OK. Bernie moves about the room, tapping the walls, sniffing the corners, moving the furniture, shifting his weight across the carpet for creaks

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and depressions. He walks up one wall, creeps across the ceiling feeling his way with his fingertips, pausing now and again to press his ear against it and listen intently, then down the other wall he hops, his feet together. He rides a unicycle down the hall and a tricycle back. Under the bed he counts the screws holding the frame together. He uses the sonar gun in the desk drawer to image the man in the mirror. He swims the tub for three miles until so far out of sight of the shower curtain that it looks like a

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pelagic viper rounded with a kin oriented rental partnership, tufted but without gills and burning with the eros inherent in the titular nemesis, noggins dulled by rounding, frog attack parapets stuffed to the pillow menace with a fragile gravity helmed by a sentinel thickness crossed over by many tenuous symptoms of the more macular and the lesser kudu, hikes evicted tarragon on the merchant circuit wilting max satellite tump evangelist caldera avert works. A nebulous mixtape. Frangipani semaphore. Nickers emulating the mild form of the risky picket, yellow in the dandelion leaving's bungled cup. Hyssop. Upstairs nail. Wild tipple badgering

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white uniform tusk battle tip. A harrowing new adventure, maybe. Or the brash friendship of a set of tumble bunnies. Wild tincture looks curtain spent funk animal hikes, went earthward in a file perpendicular. Look, you who are listening. Abide awhile. There is no tongue in the groove. A mild venture capitulates. Catapults? Wait. Here is some patients, wear it in the patent accident. Cats. There were cats well. An octopus calendar manacle. You are watching television at eight o'clock. The remote remove of a renegade remora, marveling at the mine. Mine mine. All of it. Mine collide. A touch

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of tenure, a touch of misapplication. I have your hand. Would you prefer it back or sides? How many thistlemongers have run you over, their prickles rustling in a handtruck? Samuel, there is a shoe we need you to obey. Your future, wrapped in bubbles, has, at least temporarily, been returned to the original package. There is, truly, nothing new to say, only words to reencounter. They will be strung on a vibrating cord in the hallway to the left, painted in steel bowls in the gallery to the right. The girl wearing the uniform comes down the long present

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to the small waiting room where the lights are on and no one is home. No could ever be at home here, still and white like this, every surface without depth. Or so the leprechaun says. The one who is peering down from atop a cabinet. It looks like a spider to the naked figure standing in the room. But this brings no terror with it, this observation, that there is a spider, there might be a spider, a very large spider, black and hairy, crouched on the cabinet. On a piece of tape on the cabinet door the letters

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AGRO lean slightly forward. What matters is how many times you've repeated it. The repetition emphasizes the importance. If you've said it ten times, if you've said it four hundred, what matters is the space before the grave filling with the same grievances you learned to pipe up about when you were eight or, at most, eighteen. "I wish people would write so you could understand them," the figure intones, head shaking and shaking. "It doesn't make sense that anybody would write something that you can't understand. What is writing for, it not communication? AGRO. AGRO. I bet the person

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who wrote that just wanted to make people mad. We try to understand and when we fail, we know in our hearts that we were set up to fail, so we get angry. Deservedly so. And we are forced to retaliate. How dare they conspire to attack us! It is terrible, terrible!" This is all said with little emotional affect. Even the last words seem shouted without passion. The girl pulls open the door and steps into the white room. She steps around the naked figure and kneels on the floor before a white box. From the pocket of her

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jacket she takes a small gold box. She pops the lid on the box and dips a finger in. An ant climbs onto her finger and walks rapidly around it. The girl puts her finger into the keyhole of the white box. When she removes the finger the ant has stayed behind. "I don't know why people don't talk to you. You're standing there and somebody comes by and doesn't say anything to you. It's like you weren't even there. That's rude. I hate rude people. I won't talk to them. They can just go to hell, that's what I

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think. They can just go to hell." The girl pushes herself up, slaps imaginary dust from her pantyhose, and straightens her cap. She's not wearing a cap. It's something else. The complainer goes on about being ignored. "What are you? Are you invisible? You're standing right there! And they call the next number. You have the number. The girl behind the counter presses a button and skips right over your number. You have it in your hand. But the fat man with the purple shoes, she turns right to him and he starts going into this long story about how

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he this and how he that and you just have this one little thing to do, this one little thing that doesn't require a long boring irrelevant story. There are other people behind the counter and they're chatting and laughing and nobody's looking at you and you think, what do I have to do? What do I have to do?" The girl is wearing tan slacks, no cap, a button-up shirt. Yes, it's clear now. There are no bats or purses. White room like a doctor's exam room. A table covered with white paper, a white stool with wheels, a

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couple white cabinets. Everything white. Including the figure in each room's center. White like a worn out hospital sheet, maybe, not white like a white person. Not person-like, the girl tends to think, if she hasn't managed to ignore it completely, letting each voice play like a slight variant of the same bad radio program, advertisements for the Way of Anxiety. "You scream at them. You have to. They do it to get a rise out of you. It entertains them. Your abasement, your distress. But what can you do? You scream. You know they want that, that's how they

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think. They can just go on to hell." The girl pushes herself up, slaps imaginary dust from the knees of her slacks and centers their carefully ironed creases. With measured steps she passes again around the complaining creature, closing the door as she leaves the room. In the next room there is another white box beside another naked figure. The girl settles down beside the box, removes again from her pocket the gold box and inserts an ant into the keyhole of this white box. "Do you think it will work? What is it? It's dangerous, isn't it? You could

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hurt somebody, you know. You really have to know what you're doing. People get injured, and they don't have anyone to take care of them. You don't know!" The girl gets up, brushes more dust or the idea of dust from her pants, and leaves the room. In the next room, there is another white box, another naked figure, another pause to kneel and extract an ant. "I'm tired. I'm so tired. I wish death would take me so I didn't have to be tired anymore." In the fourth room the set up is the same, the plaintive, irritating monologue

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running only on somewhat different themes. "None of it's fair. It's all fixed. They know who's going to win every time. It's all just a big joke." The girl delivers the ant into the keyhole of the white box on the floor. As she rises, a movement catches her eye. No, not the ceaselessly complaining figure so like all the others. A shadow in the corner. She reaches inside her jacket and finds a penlight. The tiny bright spot probes the upper rim of the cabinet above the sink. Nothing, nothing, nothing. There! The girl rises on tiptoe. A black

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hair? She trains the tiny circle of light from the penlight directly on the wavering black line. "If there were really any chance, you know, I'd be okay with not winning, you know. If people who really deserved it won sometimes. That would be something, at least. Then you could be happy for them." The girl hooks the leg of a wheeled stool and slides it alongside. Without taking her eyes from the strand, the girl climbs onto the padded seat and slowly, watching her balance, stands, reaches her left hand out for the black hair which is wobbling in

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the air moved by her movement, and. And just then the door to the hall opens, and an old woman steps into the room. She is wearing the same gray, militaristic uniform as the girl. Her hair white and styled into curls the consistency of meringue, a hint of blush on her chalky cheeks, a faint, unnatural red on her lips as though youth were still tittering behind a curtain in the high school principal's waiting room, which is down the hall from wherever she has ended up, the woman steps around the room's possibly permanent occupant ("But everybody knows

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that's not the way it is. Losers never win. You're born that way. A loser.") and curtsies before the white box. One speckled fist raps twice on the lid. The box pops open. The girl is watching from the stool. She captured the hair. It wasn't long but was wiry, like a whisker. She slipped it into an envelope she drew from an inner pocket. The droning loser may or may not be watching the opening of the box, is turned that way, head alternately sagging forward or to one side. The old woman reaches into the box but whatever

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she brings out she keeps closed in her fist, and the girl standing on the stool doesn't know what it is. The woman strides from the room, without having looked at the girl. Nor has she closed the box. The girl climbs down from the stool, steps around the inhabitant (the girl always avoids touching the dweller of each room, as she was trained), and sidles up to the box. She peers into it and sees. Nothing. Not an empty box, but a white blank, shadowless, without depth or contour, as though the box were filled with fog. Not the

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swirly sort of Hollywood fog that boils and rolls out tendrils and creeps around your feet, but the other fog, the kind you don't see up close, that you see only when you look into the distance and there's no distance to see, everything more than a gentle stone's throw away hiding or removed. The girl pulls something else out of her jacket. A little glossary. She looks up the word "fog." "Avoid entering," the book says. Under "box" she finds, "A container for things you don't want to see." Under "room" the book says, "The space without which there

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would be none." The girl harrumphs. She looks around the room. "You," she says to the naked creature. "I can't even tell if you're a man or a woman. I was told not to try. Are you even human?" The naked one stares, but at what? "You can never win! You can never win! Nothing you do ever makes any difference! It's the same fucking thing all over again. Over and over and over again. Always the one getting stepped on. Always the one who has to lie down in the street while the people who matter use you as

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a cobblestone. Not even a rung on a ladder, that would be out of the dirt!" "If you're so good at it, what're you doing standing there! You should lie down so I can step on you. Why do you stand there in the way?" The naked creature blinks, its eyes roving the room, from corner to corner. At last the vacant gaze settles at the girl's feet. Do those eyes spark with resistance? Is there anger, motivating anger in them? The girl steps forward. "Get. Out. Of. My. Way." The creature opens its mouth and a drop of drool

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slides out of the left corner, dragging a long clear thread. The drop dangles, sways. "That's disgusting," the girl says. "I'm tired of having to step around you people. You things. From now on I'm going to push you out of my way. Starting with you." The girl slips the glossary back into her jacket and moves toward this nemesis. She hesitates, not sure where she should make contact. It's a head taller, but so skinny, unstable-looking. She avoids looking at the silvery hiding thatch of pubic hair, the sagging, papery skin, the drawn cheeks, the few stiff hairs on

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the chin. "Hah!" the girl shouts, grabbing the creature's upper arm and shoving it sharply against the ribcage. It's like shoving a tree. The limb bends, but the trunk? Steady steady. "Hah!" the girl shouts again, lowering her shoulders and thrusting forward. Sweating, red-faced, she falls back. Has it even shifted its weight? She glares desperately up at the face. Does it even notice her? A hand shoots out and snares the lapel of the girl's jacket. She gasps. The creature moans. "You can only go down so fucking far, bitch! I'm down as low as it goes." The mouth twitches

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at the corners and the girl wonders if the creature is starting to smile, trying out a grin, a wicked. "Who are you?" the girl asks, fear in her voice, which she hears, and corrects as best she can. "Do you have a name?" "A name!" the creature cries out. "A name! The little keykeeper wants a name! Does the little girl have a name herself? Does she have a name she will share? We will be buddies, won't we? This little girl, this Susan, this Fatima, this Imelda, and I. We will be confidants, we will share our troubles,

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we will look forward to getting together over coffee and donuts, we will begin to think we cannot live without each other because it is a lonely, frightful world and when you find a true friend you wonder how you made it all the days the days the days of struggling against phonies." The girl unclenches her jaw, unbunches her fist. "My name is." Is she really going to say it? "My name is Lou." It's disconcerting watching the creature's face. Even when it responds directly to something the girl says, she can't tell by looking. It's like the nerves

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have been cut and there's no communication between mind and face. The only indication that something has changed is the lack of change. The grip on the girl's jacket has pulled her to her toes. The grip does not loosen. She tries to lower her heels but the arm holding her up remains rigidly at that height. The mouth is open, if a bit less. No more drool has slopped out. "My name is Lou," the girl says, softly this time but firmly, recognizing that this statement has found a place inside the troubled creature, has surprised it, perhaps, and

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its usual routines have been interrupted. It doesn't have an automatic next thing to do or say. The girl unfastens the buttons of her jacket and slides out of it, leaving the jacket hanging from the creature's hand. She retrieves a few things from the pockets, the gold box with the ants inside, a placatory erector, her notes from the last meeting, coins, and the map. "I'll leave you the glossary," she says. "You might learn something." She sidles around the unstirring figure and pushes open the door. In the hall she remembers the hair she recovered from the top

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of the cabinet. She put it an envelope. The girl draws out the contents of her pants pockets and checks them over. Her blouse, buttoned up to her throat, has no pockets, but she pats herself to make sure no envelope slipped in during the struggle. Not that it was a struggle. A brief capture, followed by an escape. The envelope must still be in the jacket. She glances at the door. Going back in is not something she wants to do. Maybe she can go back later. The room's occupant probably will forget all about her. If she goes

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on with her rounds, if she pretends nothing's happened. What has happened? She's lost her jacket. Anything else? The keykeeper overseer came into a room and removed an object from a white box, a box, the girl only a minute prior, had prepped with an ant. The girl has never seen that before. She's never had a look into one of those boxes, either. Seems there's nothing to see, yeah? It's a mite chilly without the jacket. The girl goes on to the next room. When she opens the door the naked figure looks so much like the one she

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left holding her jacket that she wants to rush up and snatch it back. But this one's arms are slack at its sides. The girl even glances at the floor to see if the jacket is lying there, dropped when the figure lost interest. But, of course, nothing but the reflection of flourescent light glares back at her from the tiles. The girl steps around to the white box, fishing out her gold box as she kneels. The lid is up. Inside, as in the last room, the box seems filled with nothing. The overseer must have opened it. Is

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that what she usually does? "When the student is ripe the teacher will pluck her!" The girl jumps, then shakes her head. The figure in each room doesn't talk all the time, but they drone on when they do talk and the girl rarely pays them much attention. She looks up at this one. Its suddenly speaking was a surprise is all. "The teacher will bite her, bite deep into her rosy skin, exposing her flesh. Bite deep, exposing her core, the very heart of her, where her future lies, and he will drop words in, words she will live

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by." The girl gets up off the floor, slaps dust off her knees, though there isn't any, and straightens the creases of her pants. "She will do this, what he has told her to do. It doesn't matter what she thinks. Her thoughts are his thoughts. She sometimes forgets and does something else and goes to him and tells him what she has done, as she does every day, even though he knows everything, even though he sees all, she tells him everything she has done that day, she is to keep track for her own practice, so he can

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correct her, so he can see the error in her ways and mend them." "I thought you said he sees all," the girl says on the way out the door. She doesn't care if the creature tries to argue with her. But she's not going to try pushing it over. One attempt at that is plenty. The occupant of the next room is mumbling and only when the girl passes by its elbow does she catch a few words. "Clean start over every little bit helps." The white box on the floor is open and fog-filled. She doesn't get down

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on her knees for further examination. She goes on to the next room. Where things are the same, though the monologue is louder, and the words slurred. The girl is hurrying now, pushing open the door to each room just long enough to glance into the corner and see the white box's lid is up. When the girl realizes she is becoming frantic, terrified at seeing that unvarying sight that up to today she has never seen, she stops herself at a door. She breathes deeply, trying to force away the panic. "That's better," she says, lying hopefully. Before looking

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into the room she takes another breath and lets it out. Remember to breathe. If your heart races you can only do so much to calm it. But if you concentrate on the breath, you can gain some control. The hall is quiet. She can't hear the bountiful soliloquies of any of the occupants of the rooms. She can't see the overseer. But then, the hallway curves gradually to the left and whatever is four doors ahead is out of sight. It's enough of a curve, the girl thinks for the first time, that it ought to come back around

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in a circle, meet itself. Considering how little different each room is, how similar the complaints of the residents, will she even recognize it if her visits begin to repeat? She entered from a door on the right. Right. There isn't one visible just ahead, but for every ten doors on the left, one will appear on the right. Maybe it's time for her to go back to the dormitory. She will get in trouble for losing her jacket, of course. The hair. That would show the overseer she. The hair that's in the envelope. In the jacket. The girl

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bites her lip. Right. The hair that's in the jacket. That single suspicious black hair stiff as a bristle that the girl retrieved from the top of the cabinet in a pristine white room. She was trained to watch for stuff like that. Something that's not supposed to be there. She is to bring it to the attention of the overseer. Didn't the overseer see her when she came into the room? The girl was standing on a stool, not the sort of thing you'll see in one of these rooms, a girl in a keykeeper uniform standing on a

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stool. The girl expected the overseer to address her, of course, to nod at her, to scowl at her. Why did the overseer ignore her? It couldn't be she wasn't seen. That's crazy. Maybe the overseer didn't say anything because. The girl tries to think of a reason. Unable to dredge one up that doesn't seem about as mysterious as no explanation at all, the girl glances once more up and down the hall, then pushes the door. The room is empty. Or something. Or nothing. She jumps back, gasping. The room is as empty, as fogged-in, as any of

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the white boxes. The door whuffs shut. Right. What to do now. Go back in. Forget it. Go back to the dorm. She gingerly pushes the door again, not noticing she's holding her breath. The rooms are always painted white, white linoleum, white plastic trash can liners, white upholstered stools. It might just be nerves. Right. Seeing things. Seeing nothing. She continues very slowly to push the door into the room. The white box lets it out. That's what happens after awhile. You leave the white box open and the fog comes out, fills up the room. If you leave

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this door open, what will happen. The fog will roll out into the hall. You won't be able to see where you are. Where will it stop. Will it swallow the world. The girl leans her head against the door. Can't hear anything in there. No draft coming out. Try again. Go find the overseer. The overseer will know what to do. She's the one opening the boxes, letting the fog out. Maybe she's lost in the fog herself. Maybe maybe maybe. Who knows what's going on. Right. Not me, the girl thinks, even managing a chuckle at the thought.

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The hall the girl moves through on her duties has always been dim, and stepping into one of the white rooms a blast of brilliance, however monotonous or irritating that which the light embraces. The fogged-out room retains this brilliance, if it has lost all detail. When she pushes the door a little, teases the fog or herself with a sliver of egress, the gap is also a line of light. The hall is quiet. Standing directly under one of the fluorescent tubes in a ceiling fixture the silence is bothered by a faint buzz. Opening one of the rooms,

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cranks up the noise. "I am so miserable. I am always so miserable. I have been condemned to be miserable for all eternity." All fucking eternity. The girl sighs. Maybe that's the job description, that's the help wanted ad they answer. Seeking Persons All Varieties of Unhappy to Stand in White Rooms and Complain. Is the pay good? Aren't they animatronics or something? They don't really seem human. But what they say, yeah, that's familiar. Your mother, that boyfriend who turned out to be as fun as quicksand, those days you couldn't get out of bed. You've heard those words.

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"I will never get anywhere in life. People hate me. I hate people. Everything is wrong. Wrong wrong wrong." The girl looks over her shoulder. A black thing is sharing the hall with her. It's about the size of a foot stool. And it's looking at her. "Wrong girl. Wrong day. Wrong way out." "It was you who spoke," the girl says to the thing, which moves a little closer on legs long and knobby that immediately disappear under it when it stops moving. "You're wrong," agrees the mouth, which looks like it's been dug out of a mouldy tree

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stump with a spatula. The head might have been a tree stump charred in a wildfire which someone fancied looked like a head and said, "Hey, let's put it on top of this roadkill skunk and call it Pinocchio." "You're wrong about everything," the odd thing says. The girl sneers, "Yeah? What are you, just another complainer? There's this room here, seems to be empty, could use a complainer, it's a complainer apartment, give you a good deal on it." The odd thing laughs, not quite a merry laugh, but not entirely calculated. The girl laughs, too, maybe out of

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nervousness, maybe because. No, it couldn't be because anybody said anything funny. "Go ahead," the thing says after a silence. "Go on in." "I thought you wanted to go in." The thing laughs again, longer this time, and the girl doesn't. "Are you afraid?" the thing asks. "Of you?" "Of anything?" "I guess I'm afraid of tigers," the girl says. The thing stands up on those weird gangly legs and walks past her, the girl turning so it doesn't get behind her. It settles down. "There's no one left at the dormitory, you know," it says. "What makes you think

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I would believe a thing you say? What are you, anyway?" "I am the Leper Messiah. I am the King. I am the Only One Left Alive." "The only what left alive? The only leper?" "The only leprechaun," says the thing, making a soft moan of it. "I am the only one left. All the others are extinct. They have killed themselves with bad habits. They led themselves down ill paths, sinful roads paved with good expense accounts. They indulged in self-abuse and refused to see the light, even when it was winking in their faces. Their eyes were fixed

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and dilated and the final darkness crept into that hole." "You're a leprechaun? Aren't leprechauns green or something?" "I am what I am." "Yeah. Look. I don't mean to be a pest, but, uh, I think you're the people the overseer warned me about." "And where is she now, this overseer? What four leaf clover is she overlooking?" The girl remembers she's cold, she even shivers. "It's been great chatting and all." She tries to remember how far away a door out of this place will be. "But. I don't know." The leprechaun isn't looking at her, she thinks. Is

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it listening for something? Seems to have its head cocked. "Um." The girl actually considers diving into the fog room. Instead, she spins on her heel and begins a brisk walk the way she came. One, two, and here comes three. The doors pass on her right. Such relief when she hears a muttering from behind one of them. Things haven't changed in that room. Not yet. Somebody's going on and on about how horrible everything is. And they're not wrong, either, the girl reminds herself. Not completely. It's that they've lost all perspective. Five, here comes six. I'm not

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going to have to count all the way to ten, am I? After door number six a shadow looms. The light's gone out? The girl slows, impatient but cautious. She drifts over to the left, craning her neck to see into the gloom. Hugging the left wall should give the best view around the curve. The door she wants is here on the left, too. Or will be. Soon. There, in the deepening darkness, stands door number seven. If a light were on within wouldn't the door crack be a gleaming outline? And why is it she's not seeing light

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farther down the hall? All right. Fine. What can happen? I get eaten by a leprechaun? One of those complaining zombies grabs me and drags me past my boredom threshold? Putting her hands against the wall the girl shuffles forward into the darkness. She begins to hum to herself. Then to sing. "Every time I see you falling, out of the sky, I get down on my knees and pray, I close my eyes, let the choir sing, sing the words that I can't say, I feel fine and I feel good, it's like a dream, no end and no

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returning. I feel like I never should. I close my eyes." Not that closing the eyes would make much difference in things as they are. In the dorm she was allowed a radio, but it had to be played softly. If you wore a headset you could only close off one ear. No talk shows, no news, music, that was it. She didn't see her roommates much. Duty schedules were staggered. Maybe she really did have the room to herself. Beds were always made, clothes neatly folded or hung up. The girl murmurs, "World turns round again, back to the

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beginning." She gropes on. Any moment she will feel the door frame, she will bruise her hip on the doorknob. "Every time, every time, every time," she sings, forgetting the words. This goes on a long time. The girl thinks about turning around and going back but more as a story to tell herself, like the shipwrecked sailor clinging to the spar, kicking toward the island last seen from the burning deck but which might even now be falling away to the south and the swimmer's tired legs pushing toward open sea. Suppose I could turn back, suppose I imagined

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the ship sank when really it wasn't so bad, or there were lifeboats and emergency rations and flare guns and a radio somebody is calling for rescue on right now. Maybe the helicopters that swoop in, light up the howls of delight in the bobbing boats, maybe they'll move on from those lucky duckies and sweep vigilant eyes across the jetsam and pick out my sad little brave little determined flail toward saving myself and down will drop a float ring right in my way, a twirling yellow rope tying it to the life above. Gratefully, almost indolently, I slide

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into the ring. I slide one arm in, I slide the other arm in. Like I'm putting on an evening gown. And then, slowly, slowly, the water falling away from my body in a rush, in streamers, in drips drips, I am reeled in. The girl does not need to close her eyes for this picture, the black sea heaving as lances of light cut across it, for everything is black and heaves. Only the light she sees must be imaginary for it illuminates nothing. It is only itself, harsh, commanding, striking out from a din of. Of. A din

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of silence. The girl stops. It's true, isn't it. Every sound comes directly from her. Her breathing. The creaking of her shoes. The scratching along the wall of the meeting notes; she'd fished them from her pocket to save wear on her fingers. Now. Standing, waiting. She's not seeing lights. She's not hearing the hiss of spume being blown from the billows. It's just a dark hall in an office building. Not even dank like a dungeon. Stuffy, maybe. Is it getting warmer? Usually the girl has a pretty good sense of time. She tries to guess how long she's

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been walking in the dark. Not yet an hour. More than fifteen minutes, easily. Long past time she should have come upon a door. Something clearly is different. She held her breath while listening but lets the air out now. She will breathe more evenly, more quietly. Who knows what she missed while huffing along. Certainly she's been walking deliberately, placing each foot before adding the body's weight. A stair step, a hole, could manifest at any moment. She's been keeping her hands in front of her, the right held out and cupped slightly, the left sliding along the wall

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judging the vibrations of the folded paper. If a wall popped up directly before her, her nose would not be the first to know. She only now wonders if the ceiling is coming down. If it does, she'll just have to bonk her head on it. And if it is a ceiling bristling with spikes like some medieval torture chamber, well, what can you do? The girl is getting hungry. Thirsty, too. She reaches into a pocket and pulls out the gold box. Is it glowing? Yes, she can make out its shape. She brushes her hand over the lid

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and sees her fingers silhouetted. Not imagining that, the girl says to herself. If only the darn thing were emitting enough light to be useful. She rubs the surface as though to encourage it and to her pleased surprise the box responds, its gold glow advancing to a glimmer. She rubs it some more. A gleam. A glisten. The rubbing has wakened the box somehow. It vibrates gently as the light increases. The girl raises the box above her head, where it won't dazzle her dark-adapted eye. She blinks impatiently. Her left hand resolves first, clutching the creased and tattered

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meeting notes. Maybe there was something at the meeting about an impending change in the nature of reality? Might all the answers be in her cramped shorthand? It wouldn't be the first time she wrote down what the teacher, the boss, or her mother said, without having really listened. The light continues to grow, and the girl can see the near wall curving gradually away before her and behind. Where she expects to see the far wall to appear, two or three arm's lengths away, however, there is no wall, only more linoleum. She goes up on tiptoe. A few

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more squares of the institutional umber wink up from the dark. Wandering out there wouldn't be much different from plunging into a fogged- in room, especially if the unexpected ally of a glowing keybox decides it's done. The girl sighs. More tired than she knows what to do with, she leans against the wall. She can see it, she can feel it, and if it's about to hurry off on some errand, it hasn't yet. Her legs wobble. So she slides down the wall until she's sitting. Don't big rooms feel like big rooms? Just before she discovered the keybox light

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the atmosphere felt closer, warmer. A big hall doesn't feel like that. At the very least sound carries farther so doesn't seem all pressed together. The girl puts the keybox under her legs, her arm tired. If she looks at it, she can't see anything else. She just sits there for a little, head sagging. Empty inside, not trying to crowd the emptiness with hopes, not picturing sanctuary around the corner, a smile from a janitor, a clean glass of water. A glass of water would be nice. She licks her lips with a gummy tongue. Idly, she rubs the

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keybox against the floor, sliding it back and forth between her hands. At first it's just something to do, something to do unmindfully, the girl's weariness having overtaken any thought of pushing things a little farther. If the box brightens when rubbed some, will it get really bright if you rub it a lot? It is actually some minutes before the girl recognizes she is conducting this experiment and that it is paying off. When it gets through at last that the box is giving off more light and more light, the girl grits her teeth and squeezes her eyes

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and bears down on it, really driving it back and forth and forth and back and back and forth and forth, really going at it, her arms burning, her shoulders aching, the keybox shining, blazing, vibrating. She cannot look at it at all now. It's warm, not hot like you'd expect of something so bursting with light, warm. And the vibrating, the hum makes her palm itch. As she rises, her knees pop. She holds the box up again, as high as she can with arms worn down by all that. And the light flows into a circular room. The

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room is smaller than she expected. Still big. But more like a barn than a cathedral. "I wouldn't have minded stained glass," she says, stepping around a folded chair that has tumbled off a stack of folding chairs. In the middle of the room three tables have been set up. Two are covered with paper table cloths. Dusty bottles of soft drinks and punch crowd the edge of one of the tables. The girl snatches a plastic cup from a tower of cups and slams it down next to a bottle of seltzer. The twist-off cap balks at her tired

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fingers. "Great," she says pleasantly, pretending not to be about to fling the bottle across the room. The light from the keybox suffuses the water, and the girl feels like she's trying to open a light bulb. She lays the keybox on the table. "There," she says. "It will be so much easier to open this bottle when I am not holding another object." This time, indeed, the cap crackles away from the security seal, and she is able to lay it aside and pour until the fizzing water splashes over the plastic cup's brim. "How nice. It looks like

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just the sort of thing that could save a girl from dying of fucking dehydration." With the light pouring into it, the hundreds of bubbles sparkle like jewels, and the fizz swarming the surface incandesces with the cool divinty of an angel's halo. The girl is not so transfixed that she doesn't tip the whole glorious business into her mouth, gulping, though it burns her throat. Burns in a nice way. Scrubbing bubbles. And when the cup is empty she puts it back on the table and, before pouring again, the girl releases an immensely satisfying and noisy belch. She

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opens a bottle of generic cola. "Now is the time for all good women to let caffeine and high fructose corn syrup come to their aid." This cupful also is quickly dispatched, the burp afterward a little more ladylike. She sneezes. "Ah. Thank you for answering my prayers, abandoned meeting room." Feeling a new optimism the girl catches the vibrating keybox as it drops over the table's edge, the box's internal vibrations having driven it in slow meanders to a fall. She takes the light with her to the room's curving wall. No hinges or handles so far she can

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tell, but she tests every hint of bump or suggestion of depression. A sliding door, a door that swivels on an axis, a door that rises. A door that requires an incantation? She blinks, catches herself nodding. She glances back over at the tables. If the one with the drinks is pointing to twelve o'clock, she's checked through to four? Almost back to where she entered the room. Well, now that light is handy she can run back the way she came, if it comes to that. Carrying a bottle of soda, even. She will easily spot that exit she

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blundered past in the dark. Then back to the dorms. Then shed this uniform and get the civvies out of the box. Then call a cab. And shake the dust of this place off my sandals. Nudge, tug, lean against, tap. The wall is made of panels, any one of which could be a door, and she continues to test each, even as she becomes more certain the way out is the way she came. She feels much more confident with light in her hands. So she's concentrating less on the door search, her testing cursory. She glances back at

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at the table to check her progress. She's already past it? Didn't she? Wasn't there? She marches over, grabs a chair, takes it back to where she left off, then takes a good look around. The passage closed. Silently, of course. Leaving no evidence it ever existed. So now she's trapped in this big dusty meeting room. Somebody was going to have a party here. There are paper bags under one of the other tables. Maybe full of packages of chips, moldy dip, salsa past its freshness date? The party hosts dropped everything off then got lost in cheap hell

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conference center. "What life needs is better narration." She sighs and rubs her forehead. "And a toilet." She raps one of the tables with a fist. "A pillow would be good. A mattress. Yeah. Long as we're wishing. A way the fuck out of here." Yes, there is an economy bag of tortilla chips, first thing she sees in the first bag she looks into. It's the thin kind where half's crumbs at the bottom and the whole ones break in the guacamole. The girl tears open the bag, spilling several chips on the floor. She sits on the edge

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of the table and eats tortilla chips. They are a little stale. Two more of the same brand in the grocery bags. Then we have packages of napkins, another disposable table cloth still in plastic. Ah, a big jar of salsa. Mild, red, chunky. The girl pops the lid and shovels a dollop into her mouth with a tortilla chip. "Yuck," she says. "There's skipping lunch and there's starvation. Station two not here, yet." She screws the lid back on, who knows when it'll be necessary. If only to brain somebody. She looks up at the ceiling. It's flat and

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low. This does seem peculiar. A large room with a low ceiling? Was this not something she noticed before? The girl has the distinct feeling that even things she was quite clear on will alter themselves at their own convenience, thus what steps she takes cannot be based on advanced planning but must follow from what most lately seems a possibility. She goes up on tiptoe, stretching her extended fingers. No, the ceiling's not that low, but, who knows, might be at any moment. She's got a hunch and decides not to wonder from where such a hunch might come.

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She pushes one of the tables to the center of the room and climbs atop it. A stretched arm still doesn't quite reach. So she unfolds one of the chairs and puts it on the table. Climbing onto the chair is a little precarious at this point, but no worse than standing on a wheeled stool, right? "And what did that get me? A leprechaun hair?" There it is. Why she thought it would be, she couldn't say. A hole. Looks like the keyhole in the white box in each of those white rooms. The girl opens the glowing box

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and dips a finger in, holding it there until she feels the tickle of an ant climbing aboard. "I did wonder if you guys survived all that friction," the girl says, watching the ant explore the edge of her nail. This time the ceiling is just within range. Her finger extends into the hole and she waits a moment before withdrawing it. "Nice to see the whole thing," she says aloud, looking the finger over. Somebody might be listening; the place does seem to be paying attention to her presence. But if hers are the only ears picking up her

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version of events, whatever, that's fine. A person can talk to herself. Sometimes the only person worth talking to, you know? She dips her finger into the satiny interior of the box again, waits for the tickle, then pokes her finger into the ceiling. She does this a few more times, and starts to think about other things. She burps and tastes tortilla chips and wishes she'd drunk more cola. Or not. She's never been in a tornado. There was that time the bus smacked into a VW. If dogs had wings you'd have them following at your ears instead

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of your heels. The girl pokes her finger into the box and waits for a tickle that does not come. It is only the outside of the box that glows, the lid more than the main portion, so she takes the lid off and turns the light to the interior. The white satin glistens back. With two fingers she widens the slit in the satin and tries to look inside. Nothing tiny and black scurrying about. Not that she can see. She holds the lid up, tipping it this way and that to see into the keyhole over her head.

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No luck. Mostly, she gets blinded. So she tries pushing. When the chair shifts under her, the girl stops. What did the overseer do? She knocked on the white box and it opened. The girl lifts a fist to the ceiling and knocks. Rap rap rap. Will anything come to anything? She lifts her fist to knock again and, just before her knuckles touch, a rap rap rap comes from above. That might not even be good, but before she can doubt the choice the girl answers a rap rap rap of her own. Then the keybox light goes out

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completely. And, with an abruptness that makes her fear for her balance, the heavy closeness that has made the air a chore, that has her sweating and tired, swirls away with the light. Fumblingly (she has to try three times before it fits) the girl refastens the lid to the keybox and slides the box into her pants pocket. She wants her hands free. What is happening could require them. She doesn't know what is happening. Somebody turned on the air conditioning? The. Or. Her eyes readjust to darkness. The darkness is paler than it was. Especially directly overhead where

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a tenuous fog gathers. Great. I'm going to get swallowed up by that fog after all, the girl thinks. She's chilly again and wishing for the jacket she left in the hands of the paranoid zombie. She rubs her shirtsleeves with her hands, then reaches up, stretches toward the. It's a night sky, she realizes, lowering her arms. Stars in a night sky. The fog the milky way. She climbs down from the chair and finds herself standing on the hard packed clay of a desert highway. "Knock knock," she says. The tables are gone, the chairs are gone, the

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walls are gone. The stars are so bright she can see by them. More or less. She scuffs her shoe against the road and raises a puff of dust. The arm that rounds her shoulder and the kiss that touches her cheek should surprise her, she will think later, trying to remember everything. Wouldn't that be one reason it makes sense to regard this all a dream? One of many reasons, that is. "Welcome to the place between places," the voice says, a voice sleepy as a kiss. "I am an angel." "I suppose," the girl says. She looks sideways

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at this new figure. He (or she?) gleams moon-bright, but, even in this dark night, she doesn't squint against his light. The light soothes. The light enters her heart and warms it. She takes a deep breath of the chill desert air and feels warm. Ah, I see, she thinks, amused, I am dying of hypothermia. I read that when you stop shivering you feel at peace with the world. I must have skipped totally over the shivering. Or maybe the going to bed. The angel takes her hand and draws her along the road. He must be humming, the

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girl thinks to herself, as an ethereal vibration passes through her. And so they walk. At first the angel pulls her along and from this vantage she ought to be able to get a good look at him. If she does, she retains little. He must be just a bit taller than she, for she doesn't have to look up at him. Much. His arms are long and slender, legs, too, and body? If everything's so long he would be a tower. Might he have wings, neatly folded across his back? Partly folded, perhaps, they rustle and rearrange themselves. It

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is a nice night, isn't it? You can hear the soft silence of everything, sleeping. Unlike those other sorts of nights where you can hear the hard silence of everything, tensely waiting. There aren't any words to this song. Nobody needs words anymore. Glow. The girl and the angel are walking side by side now. In fact, the angel seems to be lagging a bit. Not that he's slowing her down. She's feeling good, knows where each foot needs to go. The moon peeks up at the horizon, rises a ways, not far enough to do more than push a

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few shadows out of the spiny shrubs and cacti, then tucks itself back under. But the stars are beginning to fade anyway. In the distance what the girl assumed were mountains resolve into something else. A city? Much closer than mountains. Are the people who live there friendly? It wasn't lit up at night. Has it been abandoned? She rubs her hands together, tongue's dry. The complaints of camels, the shouts of camel drivers, the jingling of chains. Below the city walls to the left of the road sand-colored tents hang from taut lines, upright poles. The sky whitens. All

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I want for Christmas, the girl thinks, is a dollar bill. When she is spotted by the locals and quickly taken to one of the tents, she doesn't understand the language but the sun-darkened faces are smiling. If they are puzzled or confused by her presence, by her not- so-crisp white shirt and pleated trousers, or by the words she speaks, they don't seem bothered. Sipping at a skin bottle of tepid, slightly sour water, resting against a pile of rugs, the girl finally notices that her angel is missing. "Figures," she says. "I bet he knew the lingo." A woman

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wearing layers of diaphanous blue sweeps in, a basket half as large as herself balanced on the crown of her head. She kneels and, as she is lifting the basket off, her arms tremble. The girl jumps up to help and is amazed to see the basket, lined with some kind of cured animal skin, ripples with clear water. The woman unwinds from the top of her head the two towels on which the basket rested. Then she loosens a sash, which turns out to be another towel and, twisted inside that, a globe of soap. The woman bends to

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unlace the girl's shoes. "Uh. Wait. This is a bath? I can. I can do it myself. It's okay. I can untie my shoes and stuff." The girl backs away from the woman's quick fingers and finds herself stepping out of her shoes. She grabs her pants as they slip off her hips. When did her belt disappear? There it is atop the rug pile and neatly rolled. Arms encircle her, which briefly reminds her of the angel's embrace. She is naked before she can do more than mumble protests. A holey sponge slides its cool water over her collarbones.

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She shivers, then laughs. When she tries to reach for the sponge, the woman smoothly avoids the grasp and firmly, gently lowers the girl's arms. The sponge, soaking wet, rounds the girl's forehead, forcing her to shut her eyes. So she gives herself up this stranger's expert ministrations. Rinsed, soaped, rinsed again. Never inundated, hardly even dripping. Patted dry, she steps off the towel on which she'd been stood and, looking at the rug as the towel is removed, the girl doesn't even see a wet spot. The woman slips a currant jelly into the girl's mouth and spreads onto

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her body a perfumed oil, rubbing briskly at dry spots. Then lightweight robes are lifted up the length of her arms and settled on her shoulders. While she is standing there, swaying, a little dazed, the angel walks in, touches her chin with two fingers. "What happened after that?" one of the women at breakfast asks her. The girl picks up a date, considers it as though it were naked, just washed, about to be dressed; she slides it between her lips and bites the sticky flesh from the oblong pit. After dropping the pit on a brass plate the

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girl looks over at the city wall. A line is forming before a gate. The line doesn't seem to be moving. "I stopped thinking of the angel as a man." Two of the women chuckle. "I've never met an angel," says a third. "What's it like, meeting an angel?" "Reassuring. I don't know if you can generalize from my experience. I've met one angel. I only know it was an angel because that was what I was told. 'Hello, I'm an angel.' 'Pleased to meet you. I'm lost.' 'And now you're found! You see?' So, you know, angel this, angel

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that, who knows, really? Except. You kind of expect an angel to be kind of uh scary." "Sublime?" offers an older woman. "That means scary and beautiful?" "Filling one with awe. Dread, in the sense of feeling your smallness before the immensity and indifference of the mountain. It is supposed to be inspiring, I believe. Viewing the sublime. And intimidating." "Right. You've got where I'm coming from. I mean, I'm not saying this angel was a cuddly stuffed bunny with glitter in its fur. But he uh she whatever sorry this angel was comforting. Like, I just felt all right.

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You know, right all through. Like I'd been incomplete and was now complete. Content. Not missing anything. Not waiting for something that never really got here." Some of the women are nodding along. But one of the youngest wears a skeptical look. "Sounds like you needed a man," she says. Tuts and giggles around the table. The two girls look each other over. "I needed an angel with a cunt," says the girl. The challenger flushes while the other women laugh. "So you're saying a man-angel would have been awesome?" "Huh." The girl pops another date in her mouth. She

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glances into the canopy the wind keeps tugging at. The sun is so bright it pokes through the material as thousands of tiny stars. An odd-shaped shadow seems to reform itself along a seam and she is not sure she saw anything at all. Nope. Nothing to see there. "If there are man-angels, yes, they must be totally awesome. But maybe they're man-angels one day and the next something cozier, warmer. Deeper." "Did the angel? Did the angel take you? Like a man?" The circle is quiet. The girl shakes her head and picks up the cute little cup muddied

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with the chewiest, sweetest, bitterest coffee that has ever made her feel six feet eleven and three-quarters inches tall. "Let's just say this one more thing before I refer further angel-related questions to any angels as may appear. There is no man in the world that could take you like an angel." The old woman pats the girl on the arm. "If the angel led you here and spent the night with you, then this must be the place." She nods at the other women. "This must be the place, yes?" Just then they all turn their heads at a

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thunderous rattle. The eldest woman says, "The gate is open." Three of the others leap up and begin gathering the emptied plates and soiled napkins. The spread is quickly whisked away, the cloth on which it was laid out also rolled up and carried off. "The gate to the city," the girl says, looking again at the line of people winding down from the city wall. "Why isn't the line moving if the gate is open?" "Only a few are allowed to enter," the old woman replies. "Do you have to have an appointment?" "Yes," the woman returns. "It is not

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easy. You have to pass an interview. They ask you questions. The guards at the gate. They ask you all sorts of things. Where you were born. How many stars are in the night sky." "How many angels can dance on the head of thumbnail?" the girl interjects. "Only men at this gate," the woman says. "There is another gate where they allow women. Where they ask questions." She shrugs. "They ask questions and you give whatever answer you have to give. If what you say is what they want to hear." "What's in the city, then?" "It is where

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people have come for time out of mind to learn." "It's like a college?" When the old woman doesn't answer the girl sips again from her cup. If she's ever to get to the bottom it probably won't be today. She tries again, "It's a school? They ask you what you want to learn and stuff?" A smile flickers across the woman's face, as though a pleasant memory disturbed her surface. "It is no college. Not in the sense of teachers and scholars." With a mild groan the woman pushes herself from the cushion and rises. Rubbing her knees, she

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looks about on the ground. The girl holds up a cane, and the woman takes it, nods. She begins to walk away. The girl assails the cup in what she sees as a last attempt to conclude its emptiness. The coffee in her mouth seems ever more formidable, swallowing it requiring a jaw that detaches at the hinge, that is if this ancient liquid would give itself to the body like a dead god still lighting cups. It's not that it's large but that it's feisty. Ferocious. And when it allows a bit of its power to wander into her,

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accidentally, perhaps, like a lioness licking one cub while the other bumbles off, she tastes claws down in her tummy and feels the tickles of a mane against the slick granite of noon. The girl closes one eye, then closes the other, and under a blue and yellow sun sees a dancer shift from a fifth foot to a sixth out in the sandy rubble. The hands of the dancer flutter like doves, six on a side. "Have you hurt me?" she sings, the words in a language the girl has never before seen, the meaning an intricate imbrication on

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the lips, a filigree on the wind, a scrimshaw on the ear. How many faces do you walk upon, the moaning in the dust of lives flayed from bodies, drifting like cobwebs? The girl opens her eyes. The city walls are still there, the line which may or may not have moved. The old woman has moved away a bit and is looking back at her. "Let me not complain," the girl says, as she gets up, her legs more sore and stiff than she expected. She ties on the sandals they've given her; she's not sure where her shoes

Thousand: Seven Hundred

have gone. Or her other clothes, for that matter. As she fiddles with the desert robes, trying to make sure they don't flop open or fall off entirely, the girl wonders. Of course, if you're going to go wondering about things, starting with where your clothes have been tucked away would be considerably less ambitious than wondering where the fuck you are, how you got here, and whether contemplating your next step would be more productive than investigating your last. So far just going with it hasn't resulted in bodily injury, even considering the likely ingestion of hallucinogenic coffee and

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who knows what you harbor from a fling with a celestial body. "Name, please." "I don't know if I even want to enter your stupid city." The guardian of the gate, a fat woman in sand-colored robes, a single peacock feather bobbing from her headdress, raises her eyes and lowers her quill. Her eyes narrow as she looks the girl over. "First an angel led me to the camp below the city wall. Then this woman," the girl jerks her head more rudely than she intends at the old woman who fixed her robes then took her hand and led

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her across the rubble to the women's gate, "she thinks, considering how I got here and all, that the right thing for me to do is check and see if I'm on the list. So, is there a disco back there?" The fat guardian nods. "Your guide was right to bring you to the head of the line. Come with me." The guardian leans forward and, with a grunt, pushes herself to standing. Now I'm supposed to traipse on in? the girl asks herself. As the guardian, rocking side to side with small forward steps, leads the way down the

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shadowed hall, the girl gives the rest of the line a half-smile and a shrug, then follows. "Dum de dum, dum de dum, dummity dummity, dummity dummity, dum de dum, dum de dum," the girl chants. She hangs back to let the guardian lead, tempted though she is to sweep right on past and see for herself what the big deal is. At the end of the hall a blue-tiled fountain drops water from a bowl mounted on the wall into a larger bowl below. The pittering, plunking, plashing begins to sound like voices, the closer they get to it.

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The closer they get to it, the more the voices make sense, even though they say things like, "The mail burns the French horn with a haberdashery persistence," and "Flunking the parliamentary math capitulates among escalation routines the retrograde marigold paddle." Yes, the girl thinks, scratching an ear. Of course, it would. When she feels the mist from the fountain on her cheek the hall comes to a T with another. Daylight pours through broad, unglassed openings in the wall. "Here, Eula," says a voice. It sounds familiar. "Ever been up a tree?" A smiling man in desert robes winks

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at her from the passage to the right. His beard is white but his moustache is still black and it extends as two black stripes down a beard that touches his chest. The man's hair is dark, mostly, and clips hold it back from his face. The girl approaches him, though the guardian has turned down the lefthand passage. "A tree?" she says, the voices in the fountain continuing to babble as lucidly as before. "The welt of a new ventricle aligning, tusk-like, to the epicanthic fold," the fountain says, "while Venus' children feverishly pick secrets from the strings of

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dull lutes and sigh." She looks him over. The creases in his brow look more good-humored than fierce. "Is there a tree around here to be up?" she asks. The fountain says, "If you must listen to the whisperings of the well of loneliness, bring along bongos." The man says, "There are trees and there are trees. Some trees are bigger than others. Some trees' seeds are bigger than other trees' seeds." "What about mustard seeds?" the girl says, and, "Should I have brought bongos?" "If you've been carrying a beat," the man says, and the fountain finishes, "you can

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lay it down now." "If you've been carrying a tune," the man says, and the fountain finishes, "give it its feet. Let it run, let it roam, let it go. Let it go, man! Let it go." The man and girl find themselves listening to the fountain as it improvises. "Bippity boppity. Boop a boop. A boop boop. Yeah!" Finally the girl asks, "You called me something, didn't you? A name? You think you know me?" "Eula!" says the man, triumphantly. The girl shakes her head. He frowns. "Not Eula?" "Not Eula," she replies. "But there's something about you that's

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familiar," they both say, then laugh at this meeting of the minds. Still laughing, the man pats his chest. "Jesus," he says. "You know ol' Jesus." He reaches out and taps the girl above her heart. "Because you've let ol' Jesus into your heart." She looks up into his sparkling eyes. "What?" she says. "In your heart," he explains. "You've opened your heart to the man who died for you, who loves you, who always wants what's best for you. Love! You've filled your heart with it." The girl's smile fades. She can't believe she got magically transported to some

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city out of the Arabian Nights only be hit on by a Jesus freak. "Uh," she says, "my guide's gotten ahead of me, I think. Uh. Better catch up with her. Nice uh nice meeting you, I guess." The girl is backing up while she says this, the fountain backing her up, "Unburdened by the life quotient, a new respectful entity of distrust randomly pursues the sinking passenger." In other words, "Get this guy in your review mirror!" As she spins on her heel and makes off after the fat guardian, she flashes on the leprechaun and how she hurried

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to get away from it. "I wonder if it wanted into my heart, too," she mutters, and the fountain says, "The leprechaun is here, don't you know, don't you know, kill the buddha on the road and steal the nails from the crucified god." The girl isn't sure she wants to catch up to the guardian but it's somewhere to hurry to and the girl has the feeling she is better off hurrying. Her slippers make a brisk and steady whisper on the paving stones. "Just don't start trying to tell me shit," the girl says, and, coming to a

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sharp bend in the corridor finds the fat guardian waiting for her before another gate. The guardian fans herself with a collapsible fan painted with a scene from the line at a supermarket check-out stand. She arches her back slightly, grimacing, rubbing her back with the other hand, and seems to awaken only vaguely when the girl presents herself, apologizing for getting distracted along the way. This new gate bars the way to a sunny garden, glimpses of which giant ferns crowded around the gate allow when a grudging breeze stirs their fronds. When a silence threatens to extend into

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a nap, the girl clears her throat. When the throat clearing turns into a dry cough. the girl notes an itch in her throat. Can't scratch it with silence. So the girl says, "Are we supposed to go through this gate?" The woman yawns and shrugs. Yawns and shrugs? The girl did not come all this way for yawns and shrugs. What she did come all this way for is still a mystery, of course. She could go back out to the tent and get her clothes. Not that they are her clothes. The keykeeper uniform. If she could get

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back to the Official Rotunda of the Others, she would need a uniform to turn in. ORO. ORO was stitched in gold on all the labels. She'd never really thought about what the name meant. The guardian is pointing at something behind the girl. The girl turns to look. A thick gold rope hangs down along the wall beside the gate. The girl glances back at the guardian who nods firmly. "OK," the girl says and grasps the rope with both hands and pulls. The gate rises up smoothly. The walls also slip upwards. Whether the guardian rises just as

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briskly, the girl doesn't catch. For when everything has been yanked away but her robes, she is standing in an institutional hallway lit by flickering fluorescents, scuffs worn into the brown squares of the linoleum by countless shambling inmates, one nearby door standing open letting a pure white light pour forth. "Not to mention the leprechaun," the girl says aloud. It stands in the pose she last saw, one claw-like hand raised, an expression on its twisted face that could be rage or could be indifference. Hell, it could be joy. She's tempted to go over and give it a

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good kick. She considers the gut, the knee, lets herself picture her foot slamming under the chin, the flips the little creature would make. She's not going to do that. That would be mean. Besides, who knows what a leprechaun is capable of. It hasn't moved. Frozen? Did time stop here? Can that even happen? Who knows what can happen. Is it dead? Kicking the leprechaun would require going up to it. Even in the act of knocking it away you'd have to touch it. She has avoided looking toward the open door. Her eyes need to adjust. If she

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looks into the light, she will be blinded. What has the leprechaun done to her? Did it hurt her? It hurt her feelings. A little. Sort of. It was weird and ugly. Which is still true. Maybe it was responsible for this whole thing. The disappearance of the overseer. The blank room. The doors that weren't there. The angel. Probably not the angel. That was different. That was nice. And the coffee. The coffee was good. The girl looks into the light. And there's the angel, holding a cup of coffee. Wow! No, it's a chalice. Wine would be okay.

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I could drink wine, the girl thinks. But as she gazes into the light, not blinded at all, the angel smiles and raises the chalice as though in a toast. And fades away. To be replaced by the officious visage of the keykeeper overseer who the girl last saw peeking into an empty box. Or a box full of fog. The overseer opens her mouth and it is blank. No teeth, no tongue, no shadow even. Then she is blanked out and the door might as well be open on a white- washed wall. With an effort the girl glances over

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at the leprechaun and she wonders if it's smiling. She narrows her eyes. The hand is still stuck up in the air. She looks back at the rectangle of white. An angel again. But is it her angel? The angel picks at the air with long fingernails, seems to grasp something the girl can't see, pulls at it, a look of concentration on its luminous face. Gradually, the angel peels away a membrane. Large pieces strip away, and the angel rolls them into balls with those long hands and drops the balls, which the girl doesn't think she can see,

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though she follows their passage as the angel drops them, follows them to the floor where she thinks she maybe sees them. Surely the balls are piling up by the angel's feet. Should she help? As the angel removes this barrier the air in the hall begins to change, becoming cooler. Or is it warmer? The girl tightens the sash on her robe and shivers, sweat beading on her forehead, drops falling from her armpits. Now what? She looks up at the ceiling. A ripple passes along it. The ripple doesn't seem to disturb the lights or ceiling tiles. It

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makes no sound. Hm, thinks the girl, a little disappointed that looking up at the ceiling reveals no gold rope, no keyhole. She raises one hand and snaps her fingers twice. "Calling something?" says a nasal voice. At her feet, sitting like an attentive dog, its scaly tail stretched out behind it, a dragon yawns. The girl stares into its maw of sharp teeth. Finishing the yawn, the dragon says, somewhat inarticulately, "Came with the angel," and shrugs in the direction of the door where the angel is rolling the last of the invisible membrane in its hands as it

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steps into the hall. "A two-for-one deal?" "I suppose," the dragon says, "in that what you get for nothing is one for all, if by one we mean none at all." "Is that what we mean?" The angel is hovering over the inanimate leprechaun, touching it very precisely at points either therapeutic or diagnostic. "Is it dead?" asks the girl. "It might be," the dragon replies, both of them watching the angel's investigations, neither wishing to offer to help. "It's hard to tell with leprechauns. In some places they get to be a regular infestation. In other places they're practically

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extinct. Here, for instance. He's the last one." The angel is now sitting on its feet, head bowed over clasped hands, eyes closed. "Is he praying it back to life?" the girl whispers. Making no concession to the apparent solemnity of the occasion the dragon scratches at its chest, finds a tick, and yanks it out. "When did you," the dragon says, then guesses, "Ah! I bet I picked you up between. I've heard of the ticks between times. Thought they'd be larger. No, thinking of the hydras, aren't I." The dragon glances at the girl, holding up the tick,

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its legs wiggling, its mouthparts reaching. The girl rolls her eyes. "Been in any bushes lately?" The dragon frowns and drops the tick on its silver tongue. "I take it you're the practical sort. Not one to jump to the extradimensional for an explanation when the mundanely mentional will do. If one must choose between only two stances when facing reality I would agree that yours works best most of the time. But I like to see things from a vantage that takes in two or three more stances. Especially when I'm on ticks. Would you like one?" "Do we

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have to have the tick talk?" "No, really. I keep them in my ears. Dried ones." The dragon digs a curving claw into a fold in its green ear. Flakes trickle out on its palm. The girl squints at the wrinkled little black dots when the dragon holds the palm out. "I could be wrong. I've been wrong before in my life. But I think I'm not going to be eating a tick. Somehow, if perhaps just this once, I will succeed in resisting the peer pressure." The dragon closes its eyes and considers the girl's response. It could be

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sarcasm. That would be unfortunate. Sarcasm has always given the dragon hives. "Hm. Steady, firm pressure stops the bleeding. Steady, firm pressure moves the teeth, or so the orthodonist says. How much steady, firm pressure must a peer pursue?" The dragon reflects. "The premise is, we're peers? Equals? Possible. In ticks, no. In talks? That I doubt, too. I've been gabbing ages longer than you've been alive." "And that's just one conversation," the girl interjects. "Yes," the dragon allows, nodding toward the kneeling angel, "we've ages yet. Mind if I steal a date? You've a few wrapped in wax paper

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tucked in a fold of your robe." The girl searches her person and finds the dates. She tears the paper and pops one of the dates into her mouth. She takes another and drops it into the dragon's mouth, which, helpfully, is wide open. "Smell them?" the girl says. "You didn't even know you had them." "There's a lot I don't even know, I figure." "And that, my friend, would be why we aren't peers. Not quite yet. You're a pretty good amateur. Or you're lucky. Although, without luck, you don't get far in this game. Most of it is

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luck. Probabilities. Even if you have a ninety percent chance of success, when you jump the canyon, one time in ten you fall in. That makes subsequent jumps problematic." "Are you offering to be my teacher?" "When the pupil is ready, the teacher will come," the dragon says, holding up a claw. Impaled on the claw, the girl sees, is one of the dried ticks. "No," she says. "Then never mind," the dragon says, tucking the tick back into the fold of its ear. The dragon lays its head on the floor, tucks forefeet under chin, and closes its eyes.

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It's going to be a long journey. The comet's curve toward the sun is wide and slow. I like slow. You? Every day things are getting slower. The slower things go the slower time goes. It's not like you can live at your regular speed while all around you everything slows. You gotta slow, too. In a sense, if you slow at the same rate time slows, it's as though nothing's changed. Time keeps at its familiar clip. As far as you can tell. Maybe you'll live ten thousand years, rather than sixty. Sixty-five? The comet is chock full of

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life like that. Takes a million years to come up with one idea. One! I mean, I'm not kidding here. A million for one. And we're not even talking a good idea. The years go by and you think you're thinking along pretty good when, bam!, the sun goes red giant on you, your thinking speeds up to one idea for every 153,512 years, lickety-split, then the sun collapses to white dwarf, and, man, it's all over. In deep space there is no time. It's cold. So cold that no thought would come within a million miles borne on a

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beam of light rushing at maximum speed (nothing in the universe faster!) to somewhere else entirely. You feel shunned, scorned, rejected. Once you have an idea it's happening. That would be your million year idea. Except how would you ever develop the social consciousness to feel shut out by the indifference of star after star, star upon star, ever more distant, ever more far, as they train their lights on those who matter more than thee? God said, I am lonely. I am going to make me a world. How did he come to know he was alone, let alone

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lonesome? How do you know you have a self unless you have the contrast of other selves? If it's only you, if all is I, this ice, this stone, this void, how do you know what to do with it? Loneliness. The first emotion? No. I bet it was hunger. Hunger is a great motivator. It takes energy to do something. Long before thinking came along there was hunger because a little bit of energy got used to do the first whatever. The first twitch. The first reach. The first reaction. A little bit of energy that wasn't available then

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did not make it impossible to do the second thing, perhaps. The second twitch. The second reach. The action. The first action came after the reaction. In order to go on, however, greater energy was needed. In order to use that energy it had to be acquired. In order to acquire it, one has to seek it. Hunger is the motivation. Let us do something, the first doer said to itself. And that something it wanted to do? Eat. Eat! Of course. I am lonely. I am going to eat. When the traveler stopped off with the transdimensional shift and

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left it with me, what could I do? Nothing. Up to that point there was nothing I could do. I was adrift, without volition, without motivation, without a way to change my fate or a consciousness of it. I was no I. There was nothing there. Whether a star thinks about what she's about, I couldn't say, but whether she does or not, she certainly goes about it with great vigor. Many a planet is in a state of activity, crust breaking and shifting, atmosphere roiling. I did have frost and, in those brief visits to the sun, I let

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it fly, a fine cold mist of it blowing from my face, skin wakened by the sun's heat and light, sloughing away. Considering how the plume of it shows up in your night sky you'd think I'd be blown down to a nugget in a minute, like a dandelion flower gone to seed, a breeze or a breath knocking all the dandelion's hopes off its head (off its sex?) to a new settlement in an uninterrupted lawn. But it's not quite like that. My dust shines. That's all. I've got visits and visits in me yet. But the track out

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is longer. Track to trackless wastes, path through a void unmapped. It's a long cold way to go. Once you get past a certain point, the cold doesn't deepen. Time, in my formulation, gives up and goes to sleep. Maybe to sleep is where you fall, too, all alteration unfound, the curvature of space providing the long slide you follow. Space counts only when a return seems inevitable, the sun again more than a fleck, its warmth at last shaking the dust off the face. Not that the face is anything but dust. One is dust. Dust thou art. When

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time stirs and begins to tick, change once more is possible. That might be destruction. That might be creation. And if both happen simultaneously that's just about normal. It's time! Anyway, the traveler came in transdimensional shift, carved out a nook in my belly, took a nap, yawned and stretched, relieved the needs of her body in tidy and considerate ways, then drew from her transdimensional satchel a paperback about a medieval nun who solves murder mysteries, and picked absently at her eyebrows as she read. It was then I had my first intimation that I existed. The transdimensional shift

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connected me across several billion alternative universes, dimensions, planes, and imaginary contrivances, instantaneously stitching together a complete consciousness out of comets. Pretty sharp, eh? I am an alien intelligence. And yet. I feel right at home in your solar system. It's mine, too! So don't go thinking I don't belong because I do. I belong here. I belong here and across the multiverse. Mine is a mind that penetrates a million levels of being. And yet. I am. I am. Shouldn't I be hungry? I mean, according to my own theory and all. Oddly, however, I feel rather complete. Content.

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I must be enlightened. When you have access to every alternate universe in which the laws of physics are roughly similar (and there are so many, you just don't want to know), you can get to feeling smug about it. Like you know all there is to know. Then you get bored. Isn't there something else to know? Then you realize you're bored because you can't tell one universe from another. It takes a billion working together to have simple thoughts. And a billion on billion to get bored. Concentrate on one universe, or a handful, maybe. Try to get

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to know it in depth. It is true that the more you look the more you find. The way to get bored is to keep returning to the same places, expecting them to excite you as they used to. There's so much information. I can see all, hear all, or so I get to thinking. When everything comes easy, when all one must do is open an eye, and a trillion worlds whirl by, it's hard to care. How did it come to this? You are sitting on a couch, slumped rather, head throbbing, someone at the door, they keep

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yelling your name or something that, in your distorted sensory state, sounds enough like your name to make your heart quicken, to make you cringe. Who is it? The voice sounds familiar. But so many voices sound alike. How many times have you looked up in the line at the grocery store, expecting to see Isabelle or Martin or Wayne or Sing or. The boy bagging your groceries is waiting for something. A tip? "Would you like help out to your car?" he says. "No," you say. "I'm fine. Thanks." You don't say, "You're cute. Are you single? What's your

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number? Can I call you? Are you hungry?" Don't ever shop when you're hungry. You will buy more than you can afford. "That one. The desperation. You can smell it." "Are you free? What am I saying? Of course you're free! When does anybody ever ask you anywhere?" "Stop sniveling. Stop whining. Stop your sobbing." Once upon a time, you say to yourself, looking out at the field, at the butterfly tumbling in the spring sunshine just above the wet nose of the dog leaping, leaping to catch it. Once upon a time there was a dog named Prince. The

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dog was really royalty and would one day wear the crown. The crown of the dog kingdom. In Heaven. Which means he would be dead first. Having been shot into outer space, his final destination Canis, the Earth-like planet that orbits Sirius, the dog star. That's a long way away. The spacecraft was headed for a wormhole which would get it to Canis before the oxygen and doggy treats ran out, but in 933 billion out of 933.6 billion alternate universes in which the rocket escaped Earth's gravitational pull the wormhole proved elusive and the patient Prince, smiling into the

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camera that transmitted his fine physiognomy back to the captivated television-watching populace of his native world, thought along these lines: "Fuck." Just then the extra-terrestrial frogs materialize in the space capsule and whisk Prince off to another dimension. This only happens in three of the 933.6 billion alternate universes in which the rocket escapes Earth's gravitational pull. In all but two of the alternate universes in which the rocket does not escape the Earth's gravitational pull, the rocket explodes upon reentry, killing Prince in a sizzling flash of atmospheric friction. In one alternate universe the rocket comes apart just after

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lift-off, launching the dog on a downward trajectory through the clouds. When the body is found on the sand under palm fronds, several bones broken but still breathing, the tail wags weakly. It is conjectured that the palm trees caught the plummeting astro-not and their flexible trunks absorbed the shock of the collision. Either that or the dog had its own angel. Which, I might note, while likely, is not something that more than marginally improves one's chances of getting safely through dangerous occasions. Remember the miracle baby pulled from the wreckage of the airliner, the only survivor? An angel

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was on watch, and that baby was not alone in having an angel. Well- regarded angels were dedicated to each of four other passengers: a jazz musician, a five-year-old girl with curly red hair, a candidate for middle management, and a former shoeshine boy. The angel who was assigned the miracle baby divided its time between said miracle, a village in the West Indies, two endangered species (their limited numbers making the task simple, especially for an angel), and a relic. A tiny thread soaked with the blood of the savior himself reposes on a sterilized cotton boll in a glass

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vial that has been melted shut at both ends then strapped to a velvet cushion in a glass-faced box with carrying handles. This box remains packed in an iron casket bound with chains until its once-a-year removal for the faithful who have purchased the highly-sought- after (and inevitably expensive) tickets to the exclusive viewing in a nearby colonial manor's antebellum ballroom. The storage facility is known to a bare handful of initiates and is protected from tornadoes by the daily prayers of a local congregation secretly devoted to this single operation and an infrequent but much ballyhooed chili cook-off. One year

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the angel checked in just when a tornado was bearing down on the U- Storr-It garage where the relic from Christ's sacrifice was guarded with prayer and a Yale lock. The angel diverted the tornado to the nearby church where the congregation was howling up to heaven its determination to protect an old thread of cotton. Everyone in the church was killed. Except for the baby recovered from the rubble, crying out of hunger. This baby was the charge of no particular angel. Yet there it was. The other miracle baby, the one pulled from the flaming wreckage on Runway 5B

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at the Dallas International Airport, third degree burns over ninety percent of its body, likely would have been less of a miracle if the angel entrusted with its life hadn't been chasing migrating geese into the jet engines. Nobody calls the average daily workings of the world a miracle. You eat your sandwich and somehow incorporate its nutrients. No miracle. You walk down the street, and a cement truck does not careen suddenly onto the sidewalk, crushing your soft body against the flowering embankment. Not a miracle! Well, who knows from miracles? You pick up the remote from a cushion

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dented by years of cat and point it at the screen that's either no bigger than a postcard or fills the wall. The screen comes to life with two women arguing over a suitcase. One, screaming, seizes the other's long auburn hair. With the press of a button you switch over to a long flat road across ice, a gigantic truck bearing down on you, a cloud of snow and dirt whirling up behind. Then a sporting event. Then a close-up of a whisk lifting peaks from fresh meringue. Then daisies bowing gently as a piano tinkles in the background.

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A man in a white coat looking serious, holding a pointer up to a diagram of a stomach. Well, who knows from miracles? You close your eyes and the world turns round again. It's time. This is what it's like. Things happen, then other things happen, then the same thing happens again. Time's cycle. Time's arrow. You get cold. You get warm. You are getting colder. Colder. Coldest. You're really cold now. If you don't turn back. Ah. You are getting warmer. Warmer. Your hand on the doorknob. Are you surprised to find it is warm? Maybe the sun's been heating up the

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knob on the outside. Must be warm on the porch. Whoever's been calling you, at least they've been warm. Do you turn the knob and pull the door open? Why not? Why have you hesitated? Could it be dangerous? Is this the kind of neighborhood where you can't open the door without thinking about it? Maybe anybody who would know your name is nobody you want to see. Let's say you open the door. Let's say the person is someone you know. Mom? Father-in-law? Second grade teacher? Minister at the church you stopped going to because of the bad thing

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that happened? It was something he did, something you blamed God for. Frankly, I don't understand how God avoids the blame for anything. You step softly out onto the porch. The person with your name on her lips, grown tired, is sitting on the front steps, leaned forward, her arms folded, her shoulders shaking. Might she be sobbing? You are afraid. What terrible news does she bring? Or you are angry and itch to give her a shove. Or, suddenly, a great joy fills you and you reach out to her, grateful you overcame the demon that held you to

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to that couch, kept you groggy and TV- addicted. What was she showing you, a baby alligator? a satchel in which she kept universes? Where did she go? She went to feed the cat, or the dog, the parakeet, the goldfish, the snow leopard, the rightful heir to the throne who has been chained in the basement wearing an iron mask, the fire, the long, slow fire, the fire that never goes out. The figure on the steps rises and walks down the path. The gate stands open. You follow her to the gate, saying nothing, walking softly. The hair cut

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in a bob, the blonde hiding the gray. Those crepe-soled shoes. Or are they pumps? Did you ever see her wearing pumps? What's the highest heel you ever saw her wear? Standing on the edge of a cliff, her toes wiggling over the precipice, the whole mountain lifting her heel. Then a tiny white streak through the many-colored stars that made you gasp, and she laughed, making you self-conscious. You touch the gate post, a little dizzy. The thorns of the roses look threatening, like claws that want to catch you, that want to dig into your clothes, into your

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skin. You take a breath. It's time to do that. Did you notice you weren't breathing? You're not a zombie, kid, you gotta partake of the air. It's okay. There, there. The roses bear you no ill will. It's only the wind. Only the wind shaking the bushes, rocking the trees. You look down the lane. She's turning into that alley between sagging tenements. He's flagged down the bus on the rural route. A giant bends down and scoops her from the path. No. There aren't any giants anymore. You rub a hand across your brow. Your name again. From

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someone far it comes. You look into the sky and see contemptuous angels sneering at you. You look at the earth and see centipedes wearing round booties marching back and forth across the sidewalk crack, chanting, praying. Maybe you should close your eyes. You're not seeing right. You have wasted your sight, and now what do you have? Only everything. Only every thing in the world remaining. It's the sort of thing that makes one sad. Violins are playing in an Italian café, the players walking around the circular tables, deftly avoiding running into each other. There's that name again.

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It could be your name. Maybe not. Could be a name something like yours. Anne for Dan, say. Or Bruce for Ruth. Could be there's someone around here with your name. Could be there's more than one of you. While you're standing at the gate, hanging onto a post as though the wind were going to blow you away. It's stopped now, true, but could come back at any moment, could redouble its fury. While you're looking up at the stars, which you can't see because the light of the closest brushes away the light of all the rest like

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a greased hippo on ice cubes. A dog with epaulets? A special dispensation of grapes? You're looking at the stars from a speck of material gathered together from cosmic dust and dreams, crystals and the jitters, despair, nitrogen, and used ironing boards, and your mind swirls, blue sludge spiraling through a hot yellow syrup, the roses nodding nearby with wise genitals, the cat slinking through the unmown grass touched by the passion, and all the birdsong knitted into the hour a skein of relief from pain. And there, again, as though a motif in the wallpaper of the playroom, your

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name, skinny as a walrus, shy as an avalanche, melodic as a cable snapping, repeating, repeating, repeating. A sound that makes a wall. Will it shut you in? Or hold you out? Is there a gate in it? If there is, how long is the line to get through? If the only egress is a pinhole, perhaps the visitor will be a golden thread. Sh. Listen. Don't breathe loud. Keep your thoughts quiet. Don't let your heart howl or your knuckles crack like rifle shots. There is indeed a name. A final, firm, holy name. A complete name. The name

Thousand: Seven Hundred Sixty

that began the world. Your world, if not The World. Maybe that world, your world, is the world that's true, waiting at the name. Up to now you've been working your way toward a world of your own, the one that was set aside for you. All you need to do is accept the name and you will transfer to the place that fits you, stepping out of this odd, nonconforming, unfinished situation and into the one that works, that responds, that has nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong. All right. Just right. With all your thoughts and needs what

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the world was made around. The title of the piece is a number. Each day latches onto another and is carried away by the momentum of them all. Light walks down a deserted beach, touching the wood along the tide line. Every grain of sand has a promise attached. The raindrops bear the signatures of the artists who craft them. A spark slaved away a thousand years to be borne on an updraft where the hunter in the woods, slapping his cold hands before the fire, sees it whirl with its brethren into the air. Which worm wasn't woven by

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a knitter who knows her way around life on the low? Tiptoe, bounce, beam. Another neutrino slips through an eyeball and goes on through the earth. It will get where it's going, I assure you. There is no obstacle to its progress. I don't know what its needs are. The guide on duty at the end of the world is taking a cigarette break, letting the magpie yank the little flags from the cupcakes and the old man shaking the ice in his plastic cup hiccup without a slap on the back which the guide, when she's sick of the

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noise or maybe when she is moved to pity, is inclined to mete out with a wet bar rag. She's not usually the only guide but tips lately have been lousy and that's where the money is. The tips aren't money themselves. It's just that those who make it to the end of the world have something to impart. This can be monetized. Sometimes it's as simple as where in the garden the coffee can with the family diamonds has been buried. Sometimes it's the best way to jack into the hotline between heaven and hell. There are people who

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know how to move info of all types, even what at first seems hackneyed or obvious. You'd be surprised what tired old homilies will fetch in some circles. Or testimony about childhood trauma. Or silly stories about servants, farm workers, and French ambassadors. Still, it does require a certain savvy to know how to collect and find buyers for such tips, anecdotes, involuntary narratives, and poetics. Guiding new arrivals through to the end of the world and what is endemic to its frontier can be a tricky business, and making a living from it even harder. More times than she

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cares to remember the guide has been forced to remember what has been forgotten. It takes skill. Nobody really trains you for the job. Sure, you get a manual, and some people are able to teach themselves all sorts of difficult tasks from manuals. When she first got the job and the magpie knocked from its high shelf the employee training manual and facts about the end of the world, the guide found nothing in it comprehensible. She even tried reading from back to front as the manual was in a language that faced backwards. The magpie, irritatingly, can quote

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extensive passages in a liltingly sarcastic twitter. How much of what the bird declaims actually is in the manual can be proven only by recourse to the manual, and good luck with that. Trust the magpie. Yes, go ahead and trust the magpie. That's really what everybody should do. The magpie prides itself on precision. And as long as we're talking about the magpie you may as well know it prefers to be called the General. General Sir. "Yes. Sir! That's what you should call me. Sir! Call me Sir and you will get my attention. General Sir. Call me

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by my name and it'll turn my head, yes, sure. I'm not shy to say so. Call me if you will. Call at twelve o'clock with the sun high, call at twelve with the moon, and, ah, what a fine warble my telephone is trained to, voice like an angel, or me, when I'm feeling musical, which isn't often, except many times a day when it's a day like that. I will close my eyes and listen because it is so beautiful, the song you bring into my life by calling me." The tour guide taps the ash off the

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end of her cigarette. There are a few shreds of tobacco in the cigarette. But mostly it's other stuff that improve one on another or join together in ways that make life at the end of the world an unending riot of simple pleasures and relatively painless small stresses. She's been getting the cigarettes from a friend who knows a friend who makes regular visits to an old crone in the woods. The woman scours the woods, the friend says, knows all sorts of lichens and fungi and flowers and knows them like nobody except her teachers who are all

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with the ancestors now. When the friend lowers her voice and adds, "That means they're all dead. That's the way she talks," the tour guide rolls her eyes but takes the cigarettes because they work and if she has to listen to the mumbo-jumbo in order to get the goods, well, whatever. She's heard worse nonsense. She closes her eyes and lets slowly out through her nose the smoke that lingered in her lungs. The smell reminds her of a bog. Considering that it's smoke isn't it a little weird there's such a thick feel of damp to it? She's

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ready for a nap, frankly. Ready for the world to get done ending, quit with all the starting up again. Every fucking day with the starting up again. There's an end to things. There's somebody to start it. Not you. She looks at the burning tip of the cigarette, the cherry, her schoolmates called it. Isn't that light supposed to travel into her and perform its magic? A red light, hotter than any kiss. The light goes out if she doesn't bring to it a new flame. The herbs, or whatever are in this, don't burn unless they have to.

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So, because it seems to her she needs them to, she burns those herbs again, pulls their damp smoke into her lungs, and waits for something to happen. Eventually she remembers to breathe out. It took an effort there to remember. So. That's something, isn't it? Something happening? You know, how time draws out and you feel like whole lives have been lived out between breaths? You know, somebody could have been born, gone to elementary school at least through the sixth grade, dropped out to go to work in a factory because the family has hit hard times and

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the additional paycheck will make sure there's food on the table for the little ones, besides there's a comet flaring in the night sky which must be an omen that your education really will have no meaning in the end so you might as well live for today and so forth. From this or another reverie the tour guide raises her eyes to see a somewhat disheveled man in a dashiki, linen trousers, and sandals carved from old tires. Typically it's from a long way off you see those bound for the end of the world. You see them coming,

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and you watch them come until they arrive. You have time to prepare. You can put more napkins in the dispenser, for instance. You can ready a sarcastic aside, clean a gun, load it. You get used to this. It's predictable. The days go by, the days go by, and nothing's shocking in their regularity. How many surprises are there in life? If there's a pattern, you go with it. If there's a path, you follow it. I mean, whoever whoever made that path had a reason to. After you've been slogging through the high grass and bog for two

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hours, you come upon a path. Suddenly the going is easier, and you think, Of course! Whoever made this path knew the best way through. And maybe you get suspicious when to one of the path's many mires you lose a shoe. But does this misfortune shake the idea that the path was planned? Perhaps you were set up. First shoe, then soul, and down to your doom you go. It's no longer the shoe that fits, but its loss. What could surprise you? An iced beverage? A gleaming tree? The tour guide eyes the surprise. He didn't come to

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the end. He didn't work his way here across the moor or the prairie or the desert. She would have seen him. From its perch on the back of a chair the magpie also is checking out the new arrival, turning its head one way and the other. "May I help you?" asks the guide, standing back up on the boardwalk, brushing the wrinkles from her skirt. The man scratches his chin, which has enough beard on it to be a start. He squints. "Have you misplaced your glasses?" For the first time the man orients on the speaker. "Ah,"

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he says. "I. Yes. I think. No. I don't wear. I don't." He rubs his eyes with the backs of his hands. "I have to sit down." He goes to one of the chairs by the snack bar. The old man hiccups. He smiles at this man in the colorful blouse. The man in the colorful blouse doesn't notice. The magpie jumps down to the table and waddles over. "You come from the other way?" the magpie says, not really asking. "Want a chewy bar? Lemonade? Lemon tizzy? Lemonade verity? Lemon in the hole? Bar of chocolate and peanut butter?

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We have carob. We have almonds. We have dried cranberries and burnt shotgun shells. We have pizza and pizzetta and peppers. We have dog shit and glue and barbecue-flavored pickles in shoes." The man flinches at the last word. The magpie continues, "We have shoes in the shape of Manchuria and shoes of glass and wire. We have shoes fit for a king's heel and comforting to a pauper's corns. We have shoes of brown and shoes of white and shoes of." "Brown and white?" the man says. He pats the dashiki, feels for pockets that aren't there. He fumbles

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in the pockets of his trousers. There's a card in one of them. He pulls it out and reads it. THANK YOU FOR VISITING. PLEASE COME AGAIN. The man in the dashiki tosses the card onto the table and the magpie hops back, regards the card with a twist of its head. "Did you have a good time?" the tour guide asks, at the man's elbow. "Would it be worth your while to return?" "That depends," the man says. "I went on business." "And it wasn't a pleasure?" "It was many things." "Would you like a soda? A water?" "The

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bird was trying to sell me on lemonade." "A lemonade then." "A lemonade sounds worth trying. Maybe not a tizzy." The tour guide pats the man on the shoulder. "I'll rustle that up for you. Just relax." He watches the guide duck through the low side entrance to the snack bar, listens as she rustles about getting together the ingredients. She stands up with two lemons in hand, slices them in half, presses each over a citrus juicer, the yellow lemon water sliding down the grooves, the seeds stopping at the grate. She puts the juicer aside and pours water

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from a pitcher that's been cooling in the fridge, then into the nearly filled glass she adds two ice cubes. She drops in a fluorescent green swizzle stick and looks up. The tour guide smiles. The man smiles tentatively. "Will you go again?" asks the magpie. The man in the dashiki shrugs, and the old man at the next table hiccups audibly. After a moment in which the lemonade does not approach the table, the magpie cocks its head and says, "You should go back now. Would you like some shoes to take with you?" The man takes a deep

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breath. Breath is the line of power that leads to your core. It is the messenger, telling the world what is within, receiving what is without. It is the power, the awareness, the first control. Who controls the breath controls the self. The self is the universe in miniature, contained, containing, infinitesimal, a sliver so minute it contains worlds. The worlds move in interlocking patterns, in independent patterns. On each world there are contending societies, harmonious communities, lost souls. Here, a dinghy under sail bounces over wind-beaten white caps. There, a river drains into sand, continuing in mazy motion underneath.

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And on another world entirely three angels sit down to a game. One angel picks up a pewter figure of a cowboy and moves it three spaces. Setting the figurine down, the angel keeps one finger on it while reviewing the things that might result. When the angel at last is satisfied, the next angel picks up a carved figure of a dog with wings, idly rubbing its muzzle, then places it on a square marked LOSE TURN. The third angel rises and ejects from its cold mouth a comet, all dust and snow. The comet hovers over the board.

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A butterfly wobbles in, all colors spilled and splashed and folded. The butterfly transits the world, almost landing on the horn of the first angel, almost touching down on the big red comb of angel number two, dancing seductively around the pewter cowboy like a veil just starting to slip from a nipple. Finally, deliberately, the butterfly alights, hooking its slender feet onto the terrain of the comet hovering above the game. I don't know if the butterfly is really an angel. I doubt it. Angels aren't as nice as butterflies, and butterflies aren't really nice, except to look at.

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Butterflies are the reproductive stage of caterpillars. Butterflies are like the flowers of caterpillars. You know how some plants flower, go to seed, and drop dead? Butterflies are like that, or rather, caterpillars are like that, looking all vigorous and perpetual, but then, just at its peak, a caterpillar hardens into what is surely nothing other than a bud, which is confirmed by the subsequent blossoming into a lovely object everybody admires, including other butterflies. Butterflies fucking are like flowers fucking. Which, what am I talking about, is what flowers are all about anyway, right? Lotsa flowers gotta use bugs

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to get all the way, to get it done. Flowers need butterflies as sexual partners. The butterfly sticks her tongue way down into the flower and sucks up the sugar water the flower has stored especially to tempt butterflies to land on and walk all over their sexual parts thus picking up and dropping off the powdery sperm-equivalent of the botanical world. And we love to watch. I mean, people do. Don't they? Take big colorful photos and print them out poster-sized and tack them up on the wall and ooh and ah over the great flagrant colors of flowers

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and the gaudy fans of butterfly wings as they get all orgy and interspecies. Now, I suppose if people really had generalizable principles instead of situational ethics some few of you might gasp and swear never again to expose your children to such pornography. Or something. I don't know. Am I supposed to understand? Have you ever seen angels fucking? It's not how they reproduce. But you can never put anything past an angel. I don't know if there are more angels than there ever were. I think they just split into ever thinner and more attenuated versions of what

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never mattered in the first place. Still, I've heard the tiniest effects add up over the great expanses of time involved in universes. I'm the proof, I suppose, although in my case, it takes several trillion alternate universes with convenient connections via a strategically discarded transdimensional shift. That plus God. You really can't do anything without God. Ask Jesus. Here. Let's listen in a moment. Jesus is talking to the woman who reviews the applications at the women's gate of that mysterious city (castle?) in the desert accessible only by camel caravan or angelic transport. "Let her in," Jesus is

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saying, gesturing at a young woman who, though veiled from head to toe, is clearly voluptuous and fine of face (or, at least, of eyes, with a demure nose that holds the lightweight veil from falling against her lips). The guardian of the gate is tired of hearing it. "God favors her, can't you see?" Jesus says. "God wants you to let her through. And without God, without doing what God tells us, where would we be?" The guardian smiles a cold indifferent smile and with a sigh pushes herself from her chair. Lurching on her cane, the woman begins

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to walk down the hall, the fountain burbling away down at the end, Jesus at her side going on about how God wants this and God needs that. The women in line sigh also, a mixture of anger and resignation, of course, and the bravest or weariest grumble more loudly than they really should. One of the older of the younger girls sneaks a peek at a battery-operated digital watch the shape of an orange cartoon cat, pushing a black button to check not only the time but the time before time and the time before the time before time,

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the button she's pushing the cat's nose, numbers appearing as pupils in the googly white eyes. She's turned the sound off, otherwise she would be listening to its jaunty chimes and encouraging ejaculations like, "You're the cat's meow!" and "Polly want a cracker, just kidding, I mean, catting!" The girl feels like she's on a movie set. If she kicked real hard her foot would go right through these stone walls, their age painted on sculpted foam over plywood. She glances up to the shadows just inside the entrance where the line terminates. The glint of a camera lens? Where's

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the director? Or the key grip? A best boy would come in handy right about now. I suppose I should tell you the girl does see movement in those shadows. I suppose I should tell you that movement is the twitching of a giant spider's leg or a leprechaun scratching a crusty chin. But it doesn't matter. If it were an angel taking off its fingers, dusting them, then clicking them back into their sockets, it would be the same thing. You'll have to forgive me. Sometimes I can't take the responsibility of telling myself all the things I'm making up

Thousand: Seven Hundred Ninety-Two

out of the alternatives, grabbing one history from this dimension and grafting it to another in the dimension just behind or above or the one that leaks in sometimes and looks like it's going to take over and does or doesn't, depending on local circumstance. I don't know if I am creating or collaging. Is a chimera, with a head sneaked from a lion's corpse sewn to the goat body trucked from the abattoir, a snake stapled to the ass to make a lashing tail, is this creature a creation or theft? Is its maker witty, alluding to the various

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myths and legends around goats, lions, and snakes, and in a way that is, perhaps, both hilarious and terrifying, tying them all together? Or is its maker merely lazy, mixing together things at hand both obvious and easy? Tyrannosaurus Rex didn't know the feathers that made her pretty would one day help a bird fly. I don't know if my babbling will one day feed intestinal flora, saving the lives of millions of chordates. If you babble under water do you bubble? And when each word breaks the surface does its meaning dance away over the swamp like a will-o'-the-wisp?

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Maybe somebody will see the words, tracing on the air. Perhaps if it's cold enough thoughts will burl up into clouds and if it gets a little colder they'll precipitate out as rain or a little colder yet and they'll sift softly down as snow. Each crystal unique. There's my originality. Variations on a theme. We dissolve into the systems of the world, the stars, the universes without number, and the next thing is made from the last. We are all constructed of used parts. If we look totally new, as nothing yet seen on earth or in heaven, it's

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a provincial eye that sees us so. What is the difference between a gnome in a gazebo and a leprechaun in a gazebo? The gnome brings tea. Once upon a time there was a dog. The dog died. Although the death of the dog had been predicted for several weeks, had, indeed, been placed on the calendar days prior and notification sent out, and the dog had only really been alive because machines plugged into the wall were doing the job all the dog's internal organs, including its wet brain, had ceased putting effort into, it was an occasion accompanied

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by tears. I don't understand death. Life seems to use death in all sorts of ways. To feed itself. To change itself. To save versions of itself. So life uses death as a tool, but death seems a dangerous tool. Perhaps once life existed it bumped up against forces hostile to its continued existence and some life forms lost the ability to continue to thrive. Was there any place at which life ceased to exist entirely? And then was created wholly new? Let me riffle through some alternate universes. Yup. There is one. And if I find one like that,

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come upon it so quick, there are more. No way you turn up exactly what you're looking for and it's the only instance in all the billions of alternate universes. Who knows how many times it happens in any one, in this one? The universe with the planet where a dog is scheduled to stop breathing, its meat go cold, and people who loved it, paying amazing amounts of money to hook it up to the latest medical technology, break into tears. This is not one of the occasions where life ceases entirely then starts up again, a different creation.

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This is one of the occasions life goes about its business. Although the unified entity called "dog" or, in the case of this dog, King, stops living, dies, what proceeds to destroy it is not death but life, and not just foreign invaders but the very microorganisms that lived along with the dog, that, in some ways, made life possible for a King. If I were to delight the single- celled critters that teem in the bowel, a King would be happier, would live longer, would prosper and be able then to trot about his domain, pissing on it in that

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dignified and contemplative manner for which the dog is known. And how useful then I should be! Such, alas, is not the case! Unless in some alternate universe I have yet to encounter. There always will be one I'll never see. Or rather, infinity. Still, there are limits to the unlimited. Just anything can't happen. Certain forces must be in order for things to come together. Gravity, the strong and weak nuclear forces, what have you. If not, pfft. Might as well not bother with those universes. If, on the other hand, you find yourself able to, which might not

Thousand: Eight Hundred

be possible, really, don't get your hopes up, but you never know, might as well try, if you have the time on your hands, and you feel, you know, what the heck, why not, let's do it, and you go ahead and check out realms where our physical laws do not apply. Don't blame me if there are bad consequences. Like ceasing to exist or whatever. I do have one piece of advice that I would like you to take to heart: Appreciate your dog. Or octopus? Appreciate your octopus. Deprecateth not thy magpie. Find in the dragon those qualities

Thousand: Eight Hundred One

that deserve praise. Note the beauty of the dragonfly and its service in keeping a check on the mosquito. Observe the convenience of gravity. Extol the efficiencies of the central nervous system. Count your blessings, is that what I'm saying? Sure. Tote 'em right up. Do a cost-benefit analysis. Smile more often. Do that thing you do. Dance around. Buy flowers. Drop exquisite dumps in finely crafted commodes. Refrain from poking out your eyes with burning sticks and ask others not to do so who are considering it. Never give good advice; stick to bad bad advice. Laugh at sad

Thousand: Eight Hundred Two

and awful things, but people especially, pointing at their tears. Leap from high places into soft objects. Cut pieces from your body, freeze-dry them, and distribute them in small glass boxes at art events. Return to nature by ingesting large quantities of ground up stone. Before swallowing wallow the grit and sand around in your mouth in order to mix it thoroughly with saliva. Write in a language you have never been exposed to and make sure you write several pages at a sitting in order to have material to declaim on a sailboat out on the lake with the

Thousand: Eight Hundred Three

loons calling in response. The long- necked grebes like a good rubdown. Citadels of salt sparkle with the essence of envy and empathy. When you finish your cream, recycle your cup. Remember to lick your chops. Wear endless sheets of rain. Explore the renovated nuclear engine with a toothpick and wire cutters until the scene responds to the metallic ding of the retrograde hypnosphere. End nocturnal sinecure with the wild pith helmet of the mangled Watusi brothers' costume budget. I'm going to express as best I can the importance of working through your issues and then I'll let it go. I

Thousand: Eight Hundred Four

have never been able to get anything done unless I first got something else done that I'd been putting off. Make of that what you will. The Tomato was the world's greatest female stunt flier of the barnstormer era. Secretly she also was one of the greatest fighter pilots during the Great War. It's such a secret nobody can confirm which side she fought for. Maybe she just took down anything in the air. There are people like that. It's a pride thing? Actually, that does sound sort of familiar. Wasn't there a widely-circulated pamphlet that declared the air neutral

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territory? "The breeze of freedom unfurls every flag. It shall not lift the wings of those who strive to steal it for tyrants." Or: "Let no nation try to take the air for its own. The air belongs to every man, to every infant crying out in her crib! The air will be clear from sea level to the stratosphere; the clouds of war driving their shadows across the face of the sun shall not justify the smoke of gunpowder and the sputtering exhaust of brightly painted little fighting planes." Sorties from all the warring parties seemed to go down

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more frequently than an accounting of bullets from both sides would indicate. Might there have been a third force, one that struck without regard to flag or color? A force that sought to rid the skies entirely of violence? Using violence to eradicate violence? It would hardly be the first time that was tried. Wasn't it the War to End All Wars anyway? Still, picture a god who came down from the stars, hand on hip, stern as a mother. "I don't care who started it. Neither of you get to hit the other. Not even one more time. I

Thousand: Eight Hundred Seven

don't care who hit who first. Yes, I don't care if he raped and killed your daughter. You don't get to bomb the fuck out of his village. And I don't care if that one pissed on your flag. I don't care if your feelings were hurt or your face wasn't saved or your beach was stormed or your water ran with blood or they made a joke of your national honor or if suddenly you got really really angry and had to do something about all the bad things the other one's been up to all this time, all

Thousand: Eight Hundred Eight

the bad things those scheming wretches have been getting away with, the injustices, the indignities, the atrocities. I don't fucking care about it. When I'm done I'll give you a fiver and you can hire a historian. Get a microphone and put it all on tape. Don't worry I'll make the rest of this short. I hear another bomb blast, I see another body in the street, I hear the crackle of one more broadcast about how great thou art and what evil them be, I will take your rain. I will put it in a box. Then I will

Thousand: Eight Hundred Nine

ride my beautiful burning sun over your rivers and reservoirs until they fade to trickle and muck and the fruits of your field droop and rot. One day a shy little bolt of lightning from a modest thunderhead will spark a wildfire and that fire will rampage through your villages and light up like Roman candles the proud glass pillars of your cities. I won't spare the innocent. I won't set aside a place of sanctuary for the just. Some will survive. Probably not you. Or you. Or you over there. Probably you will die suffering. But I won't lay

Thousand: Eight Hundred Ten

any odds on that. Could be you emerge from your bunker smiling and hoisting a bottle of chill champagne, its mouth bursting with foam. I'm telling you what I'm going to do, you see? What you do? How it all turns out in your personal experience? That's for you to find out. Is it all mapped out ahead of time? Is your fate decided?" The motherly god shrugs. "I'm just giving you information." She scratches a bare arm then looks over at a young soldier standing at attention. "Come here, honey," she says. His eyes widen, he looks around at

Thousand: Eight Hundred Eleven

the other soldiers, at his commander, at the life flashing before his eyes. "Come here. I'm not going to hurt you. It's OK." So he walks forward. What else can he do? And everyone else feels relieved, you know, it's not them. And the young soldier steps into the god's open palm. She lifts him to her shoulder and whispers, "Sit. Hold onto a lock of my hair." While he's doing that, sitting on her shoulder holding onto a lock of golden hair, the god sets fire to the other soldiers and to all the other witnesses, including the reporters.

Thousand: Eight Hundred Twelve

Clutching the lock of hair in his hands, the grip getting slippier as his hands sweat, the soldier watches his mates standing at attention engulfed in flames. All that done, the god sets up her little messenger in a peacock chair woven from sheaves of wheat. She lays gently on his head a garland of thistle flowers and blackberries, the berries so ripe their purple-red juices leak onto the soldier's pale forehead. The poor guy remembers nothing when he is discovered in the stinking, still smoking field. So it is with gods, never happy with an unambiguous message. Was the

Thousand: Eight Hundred Thirteen

clay tablet too retro? The teletype too modern? What were the presidents, kaisers, kings, and prime ministers supposed to make of a peacock chair? And a shell-shocked private, flies swarming the blackberry juice on his head? Perhaps the message The Tomato was sending was more easily read. Did she shorten the war? I doubt it. After the armistice an American industrialist fell in love with her and dipped into his wealth to build her a mansion and out on the great plains a beautiful aerodrome. The aerodrome he constructed in the form of a tomato. Most people see an apple.

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"It is a tomato," he says, if asked directly. "It is a tomato in honor of The Tomato, the Greatest Pilot in the World!" He erected a tower to raise this tomato high into the clouds. The tower was painted to blend in with the gray prairie that stretches away on all sides. If you happen to be standing under a tree, perhaps on one of those elm-lined avenues of old houses, and you look up through branches stripped naked by autumn, you may mistake the aerodrome for an apple, the sweetest apple, that one not even the deftest apple

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picker could snatch from its intrepid twig. Suppose you saw an insect buzz away from the apple, a tiny black spot against the burling whites and grays, the watery blue. Suppose you lifted binoculars, the ones you'd just picked up from the table on the porch, a little girl running away from you down the block, passing as she does a boy molded of birdseed, and with those binoculars you looked at the defiant apple. Would you decide, after all, it was a tomato? Would you note details of the fly, the landing wheels permanently extended, the tiny head cowled

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that pokes up from the cockpit behind the fixed wings and the blur of propeller at the fly's nose? Green hairs lift from the birdseed boy's head and from his arms and from his back and feet. The girl running down the street will get to the church and run up its steps and slam shut the double doors. The earth will rumble and the church blast into orbit atop the missile whose silo God kept hidden under the pews, under the hosannas and psalms, under the choir singing on Sundays and the little children and the aunts and uncles

Thousand: Eight Hundred Seventeen

and cousins and confirmed bachelors and unconfirmed idiots, love, fear, and faith. If you change your mind, I'm easy to find, cuz I'm doing time, baby! I was in jail just before we met, now I've agreed to plea to pay the debt. We interrupt the pop for the following news bulletin. Something has happened. A thing of much interest to many people. Stay tuned for details. Do I love you? I do! I do, I do, I do, I do. I look across the years and see the bowls full of tears that I cried for you. They glisten

Thousand: Eight Hundred Eighteen

while I listen to sleigh bells in the snow. We interrupt the pop for an update. The news we interrupted for a moment ago is of less interest to many people than we had hoped, thus we apologize for messing with your music. Stay tuned for more shenanigans. Ding! Ding! Dong! I rather liked that song. We know. You've played it every day for weeks. Not every day. You might have missed a day, but I don't think so. It's catchy, isn't it? Can't stop humming it myself. You know how, when people vote for their favorite songs and their

Thousand: Eight Hundred Nineteen

least favorite, you know, their the ones they hate, you know, really hate, love some of them, really love, and hate some of them. Really hate. You know where I'm going with this? Don't let me stop you. Really hate, right. Like I was going to say. Well, it's the same song. Yup. The same song. Because, you know, people want to hear the songs they love, they want to hear them over and over, right? But some people, hearing the same song over and over, if maybe they didn't care one way or the other about it at first,

Thousand: Eight Hundred Twenty

after awhile, after awhile, you know, it starts to get on their nerves, then worse, until they think it's lousy and they wish they'd never heard it. It's like that. It's like that with this song, you're saying? You hate it. You wish you'd never heard it. Are you emotions getting violent? Yes, Fool. I wish now to destroy the world. Destroy it utterly! Elf! Elf! Hang on. Hey, I've got these smelling salts in the drawer. Hang on. It'll just take me a second. Destroy! Destroy! Des-whuh? Where did you get that shit? Um. Mail order, I think. Yeah.

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It's, um, here on the bottle, it says, For Mild Megalomania. Break stick under nose. If symptoms persist and so on. Let me see that. Hmf. How much they rip you off for this junk? Would you like to read a public service announcement? Does it involve the selling of dwarves? Let me see, um, no, no in fact, it doesn't. Does it involve the flaying of owls? Owls? Does it involve the eruption of pus? I take it, you'd rather not. I'd rather be hung by a liquorice rope over a boiling vat of strawberry syrup. With whipped cream

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between your butt cheeks? I don't need to be no more candy assed. But serve me right. Serve me up right. Chocolate dripping from my nipples like mama milk. Milk of chocolate magma. Didn't you like old mama's milk chocolate? She made a hot cha cha chocolate milk after we got her that frother that buzzed in the hand. Chocolate tastes so much better stuffed with air. Gimme that stick; I munna have another snort. Whuh!-aaahhhh. Here, you can you can you candy apple happy tapped bottle with dripping head. You can't answer no faster than a thunder clap. The

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light tingles in a new brewski, if you catch my draft. The draftsman's cadillac costs a penny but the craftsman's dacillad. Thanks, folks, for tuning in to Radio TLC, Thunder, Lightning, and Change. Jack Lightning will be back tomorrow. He's been on a sound collecting expedition to inaccessible populations of songbirds, singing natives, ancient tuned caverns, and other indescribable noise. I'm sure he'll be sharing. Why leave us if you're not going to bring back treats? After the news at the top of the hour, we'll have a visit with True Kangaroo, who've been writing songs for a new album.

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I understand they are exploring a new fusion they call Tight Ambient Asian Metal, and they'll be treating us to a live in-studio performance of their "Electric Lover" and "Go Go Godzilla" mashup. "Electric Lover," there's a song I haven't heard this decade. To finish off the hour, and give me a chance to clean up the Elf who seems to have turned into a puddle on the floor. What's 'at? You want to percolate an engine cap? Hold that thought. Let's hear once more the lovely jazzbot stylings of Treacle and the Cellophanes. Dot dot. Dot dot. D'd'd'd'd'd'd'd'd'd'd'd'd'DOT! Dot.

Thousand: Eight Hundred Twenty-Five

Budoom budoom budoom. Puddy duddy dut. Dot. Tuh dut-dut dot. D'dot dot. D'dot dot. D'dot d'dot d'dot en dot en dot en puddud dot. Puddud duddot. Pud dut. D'dot. D'dot dot. En dotten dotten En dotten. Don't you love me! Don't you love me! Babeeeee! Ah ah ah. Don't want your lovin'. Don't want your lovin'. Don't want you lovin' meeeeee. B'dot b'dot. En dotten dotten. En dotten. Dot dot. Duh-duh duh-duh d'dot. D'dot. D'dot. D'dot. Budooooooom! Eula turns off the radio again. Who keeps turning it on? You'd think somebody was listening to it, but whenever she finds the

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radio on, no one's around. She blames her sister. Why not? Emily can't be trusted to turn off the tap when she leaves the sink, why wouldn't she tune the radio to its most annoying station and go off to the park, tugging their sad old giant of a dog, all folds and slobber and matted white hair. Eula pours herself a glass of lemonade. It is, of course, just lemon and water, as Mother likes it. Eula does not like it. So why is she drinking it? Eula opens her diary and reads a few days of weather reports,

Thousand: Eight Hundred Twenty-Seven

grades on tests, snits with supposed friends, crushes (mostly faked), complaints about her sister and mother, and other stuff she can't believe she thought could ever be interesting to anybody, even her ancient self pining for those glory days of yore. Eula bites the pen which, truthfully, exhibits evidence of having so been used before. This time it's just a holding action, as though the pen would mosey on in no particular direction if not gently but firmly restrained. She puts down the pen and sips the lemonade, makes a face, picks up the pen and. And. She writes. The

Thousand: Eight Hundred Twenty-Eight

first thing she writes is the date. She looks up at the calendar hanging by the refrigerator, squints. "I guess that's right," she says. "Not that it matters." She writes alongside the date the word sigh and by that a circle, filling the circle in with the most basic face, two dots for eyes, a straight line for an indifferent mouth. "I am drinking the most terrible lemonade," Eula writes and fills in the O of lemonade with two dots and a squiggly line, the mouth clearly expressing (at best) mixed emotions. "Mother says there's the sugar jar if you

Thousand: Eight Hundred Twenty-Nine

want it sweet and Emily always puts in five heaping teaspoons. Yuck!" Eula takes another sip, puckers up, puts the glass down and glares at it. "Mother says if I want flying lessons I will have to get a job and pay for them myself. See if I let her in my F-16! She can come to the air show, though. I'll waggle my wings overhead and she'll say, There's my girl! and she will nudge the lady next to her and say, That's my Eula! and the lady will say, Oh you must be so proud! and Mother will

Thousand: Eight Hundred Thirty

say Yes Yes, I am so proud of her, she paid for every flying lesson all by herself, I didn't contribute a cent because I am very poor. And the lady will pat Mother on the arm and say, Oh you poor dear, but what an amazing daughter you have! She is a real credit to you." "Writing in your diary again?" Emily asks, coming into the kitchen and going right for the sugar bowl. Eula puts her hand over the page. "What do you care?" "I didn't say I cared," Emily returns. "I was just making conversation. You know,

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like nice people do, even if they don't care because if you don't it's like you're just mean." Emily dips a spoon into the sugar and one, two, three, four, five heaping measures drop into the bottom of a tall glass. She pours the lemonade to the rim and stirs, the silver spoon clinking against the sides, the lemonade slopping a little over the top. Eula hisses and pulls her journal away. "Who says you're not mean." Emily keeps stirring and the lemonade drips down the side of the glass. "One day I'll save you from drowning or something," Emily

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goes on, "and then you'll say, That's Emily, the greatest sister ever, did you hear how she saved me from drowning? She jumped in the water, ice cold water, it was just beside the glacier, you know how they drop big chunks in the sea, and I was so stupid like usual, leaning over the railing of the sightseeing boat, leaning way out, going Wow! and Emily, everything's so big and white! And tall! And cold! when a big chunk breaks off the glacier and POW! the big wave from when the ice hits the water goes spwoosh! all over

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the boat and knocks me out of the boat. And what did my dearest beloved sister do? Let me drown? Hahaha ho ho! Not this fine specimen of amazing wonderfulness. Without a thought for herself Emily the Great the Amazing flung her body into the icy water and dragged me kicking and spluttering, blue and shivering from that cold cold water which would have been my grave." Emily takes a long drink from her glass, puts it down and flashes her sister a gummy grin. Eula reaches for her own glass, fills her mouth, and displays her involuntary but wholly

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sincere reaction. There's a knock at the door. This knock could be the one that changes everything. Knock knock. Who's there? Knock knock. Who's there? Knock knock. Who the fuck is there already! Knocks? Us! Help me, help me, help me, he said, knocking at my door. A representative from the School, the School of Hard Knocks, of course. Knock softly and carry the big knockers. He who knocks worst knocks weinerest! We who are about to knock, salute you! Knocked up, knocked down, knocked around town, and for what? All for love. All for ever-luvin' LOVE! Knock knock. How

Thousand: Eight Hundred Thirty-Five

deep is your knock? Fox knocks the box of clocks off its blocks. He took a knock, he took another knock, the knocks kept coming, and he kept putting them away. What are you going to do? Knock all night? Knock out the knight? Sleep under a rain of blows? Knock off early, all the while humming blues riffs, the fog gathering under street lamps like homeless auras? Nobody knows, nobody knows the trouble I've knocked over and left stunned in the street. Then there are the bodies volunteering as detritus, tangled and tumbled on the walk, some mumbling, some

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groaning, their mouths working, their arms trembling. You try to get your pushcart through, have to bump over some limbs. "Watch the head!" somebody cries and, grimly, you lower your head and put your weight into the bar. "Whoops!" "Ow!" Then the scream and more screams. You get through that patch and sit down to fan yourself. Should you check the tires for bone fragments? Teeth? Such a thought! You check the tires. No bone fragments, no teeth. No blood. You've gotten through this before. It's all a game, then, isn't it? You check your cargo of flowers. The blossoms

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are all standing up, belting out show tunes, every one in fine voice. They're not all singing the same song but what they do goes together well enough. Like the dawn chorus in a rain forest. It's loud but everybody's singing tones you can hear if you listen, not one completely erasing another, even the smallest of the pipes needling through, drawing its own color along, discrete stitches in a dizzyingly wrought tapestry. There, if you let yourself really look. Let the ear open, let what falls in be combed and cared for and set free, so what comes next

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can be combed and cared for and set free in its turn. You light a cigarette. There might be some tobacco in it; if so, it's low in the mix. What else could there be? The expert crafter of aromatic reality-warping herbs lives just down the less used fork in the road to the sacred mountain. She wanders the woods each morning, the sun's rays just beginning to tickle the mists, and plucks new buds from the dew- drenched bush, seed pods from a scrawny shrub, fleshy fruiting bodies from the black leaf litter and from the strangling vines the tiniest

Thousand: Eight Hundred Thirty-Nine

of silver berries. In her dim house she chops and strips, presses and knots, mashes and folds her gatherings, hanging some out to dry from the rafters of the porch, bundling some to mold in ceramic pots in the cellar, laying some on racks to smoke at the hearth, boiling some in a black kettle hung by a hook over the coals, wearing some for several days under her clothes, masticating a few and spitting those into brass bowls for weeks of fermentation. Stuff like that. It's all very involved. You don't know what you're smoking. Anyway, the friend who

Thousand: Eight Hundred Forty

got you the combustibles swore by their action, said they made him horny, warped his reality, tripped him up and left him for the godhead, entered by his doors of perception and blew out the windows of his soul, and now, two tokes in, you're still sure he was basically full of shit. But whatever. Nice buzz, you know. It softens the screaming of the bodies strewn all about the streets, makes their nerve- wracking howls less nervy and more wacky. I mean, who knew you were going to go to work today and no sooner would you get behind the

Thousand: Eight Hundred Forty-One

bar of your pushcart than your flowers would lose their rhythm and require a good rap from a baton, a stern shake of the head, a demonstrative clapping of hands to get them back in sync, to get their leaves clapping like hands only really quiet; then you had to make a snacks and juice run. Things could have gotten off to a better start. And now? Alarms are going off all over the city, pigeons are dropping like bombs, butterflies are shooting through the air like shrapnel, popcorn is falling into the mouths of zombies, and. You pop open

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a soda named after a common fruit but which is spelled out on the can in letters from another planet. Gawd! Zombies! As if! Next I'll be attacked by vampires, you say to yourself. Or aliens. Aren't we done with all that shit? You tap ash off the end of your amazing extra-sensory cigarette and put it once more to your mouth. Through the cigarette your breath seeks you out. It carries several dimensions wound like strings around trembling, searching fingers. These dimensions indicate things that are so important your breath hopes to forestall their disappearance into the memory hole.

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Into the body it comes, wiggling breathy fingers, hand under hand down the tree of your lungs, perching on a thousand tiny twigs at once, shivering to the rhythm of the waters, shaking, shaking from its fists the particulates it bore in from that cigarette, from that torch. Are you feeling lightened? Enlightened? Raised like a leaf before the sun? Feeling the bird in your cage, singing all the loneliness of the world away? Feeling bikini'd love's come kicking into the dark shallows of some old despond? Like there are worlds enough and time enough and shoes enough and bees

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enough and everything enough is also sufficient and complete. Not a bad feeling. You wonder if it might present an obstacle to pushing daisies, roses, phlox, and poppies. They are singing quite nicely now. The people flopped about on the streets are groaning, mumbling, and making a nuisance of themselves about the way they were when you found them more irritating. Sure you've achieved a fine equanimity but there's still the grunt work of shoving the cart over the bodies, and that's going to have your muscles sore before you're half down the block. Then you have a crazy thought.

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You could. You could maybe. You could maybe talk to them, these idiots sprawled every which way. You could maybe talk them into getting out of the path. You feel all giddy at this sociable, reasonable thought. After you deal with the bodies, you'll have to put in a call to the civil defense obsessives who are cranking those air raid sirens. C'mon now, you imagine yourself saying. Everybody knows you're excited. Everybody knows what you're excited about. The noise is just a piling on. Could you cool it? In your imagination the lady who answers the phone says, You

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really know what you're talking about! I will see to it right away. You know, now that you lay out the argument against them, it seems to me those awful sirens have never been much use. It's like those car alarms that go off whenever there's a change in humidity. You get so you hope someone really is stealing that darn thing, you're so sick of the noise. At least then it would stop. Right? Yeah, yeah, you say, happy to be agreeing. You and the lady share a good laugh. Why, I bet there are arguments that could be

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laid out in lovely geometric patterns that, at the interstices, would provide the solutions to all the world's simplest problems, the world's simplest problems being, of course, the world's most difficult and intractable problems as, when two simple problems cross paths, they knot, and, though each was individually ever so simple to fix, that knot is an unapproachable tangle that captures and magnifies fear and despair. Best not to look at it. However, come the simple equations that, when solved so that the solution of one releases the tension of the next, the snarl relaxes, thread releases thread and knots

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give way to what's really best. Et voila! You've talked it out. Relief! Can't you feel it? The world is grateful already. Yet you've not even gone to the phone. That time will come. That time will come and then. Then! You fire up your butane lighter and apply the well-shaped flame to the far end of the cigarette, and the grace of breath once again comes through for you, a long path it's taken and in all sorts of uncertain atmospheres, the winds and the whirlwinds, chinook and santa ana, Caesar's last words and Mary's first, filler of sail,

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ruffler of breast feathers, in dust dancing, over pond skimming, through keyhole whistling, and lazily among sweating grapes lolling and heavy. Ah, air redolent of history, despite battles and burning houses, how persistent is the innocence of lilacs, of the infant's downy nape, how honest the stink of grease under your lover's nails after the motorcycle broke down on a back road between Barstow and Ensenada and she took it apart and put it back together and when it started up it purred. You hold onto this breath, hold it as deep inside your body as it has allowed itself

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to hole up, seeking to know how deep you go, and finding there the metaphorical apple on its ultimate branch, the apple no one got to, the apple no one could get to, despite wanting to reach it, despite reaching for it, wanting to smell, wanting to hold it to the mouth, wanting to bite and eat. You open your mouth and your body lets out this ghost, so familiar and new, this fellow traveler, best friend. First friend waiting for you in the world you were squeezed out to. If the room was burning with lamps, if the room

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lay deep in darkness, your new friend found you anyway. Remember to breathe. You open your eyes, having not noticed they were closed, for all the time your eyes were closed you saw, you saw so much. I see, you say, amused at recognizing this amazing power. The world is empty, is silent, the city having crept away while your eyes looked elsewhere, the bodies having raised themselves and returned to the proper business of bodies, walking up and down and going in and out. Your flower cart, too, has sung itself to another place. You are standing in a

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park under a medlar tree. You are standing in a field of corn. You are standing on a road of cracked clay beside a saguaro. You are standing in a dim hall, an open door pouring light onto the worn linoleum by your feet. You are standing before a pyramid. You are standing deep in a crater. You are standing on the grass of a center divider, cars whooshing by in two directions. You are standing on the skull of an elephant. You are standing on the polished marble of a monument. You are standing under a swarm of bees,

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feeling the drone deep in your head. There are many of you. There is but one. There are people packing a house, waiting to surprise you. There is a surveyed plot and eternal care reserved for it. There is an empty city, its people having fled from you. The ground is coming up to meet you. The winds tip the mast and you hurry to swing the ship around. Night has filled your cup and you will drink it to the dregs. A woman takes your hand and leads you under a light red as the apple A is for,

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and the cars, giant monsters, rumble and growl, their two great eyes white and violent, one continuous plume pouring white out of each ass, watching you pass before them, pass crying, pass living, pass and leave them without looking back. A hand. A broken record. Three sheaves. A leaf of the long pattern. Two friends. A mild winter again recorded and dissected in two oblations, the fine motor skills of the vengeance preparation. A news. Compacted entrance. Two thieves, a fine weather captured and carried over. Thunks I would I'd had a had hide a bat a bat a badger

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ax end tax one fun unmatched by the brash text, a pass protected. A new next done west full to ticks patched unpatterned. Your solid winter rented but recanted, a new uncentering of the bruised beast. Whence. The new dance sentenced to the last. I take I take I tenderize mine. I thou he a wheedled fever compare to seed. Suck. Nervous works. A side while minor sneaks up barter forth gingerly wits compere luts whulk num estung shen dinster puc. Tiss. Hold my hand. A body lies over the ocean. What head rolls alone over the tundra, looking for

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a body to eat? Give me hand after hand under several skies above. Body doubles. Oh body, triple! The bachelor's kneepad, the spinster's nosegay, the beggar's pieces lined up along an ox path. Brilliant anniversary fireworks in a night full of ear hairs and unbroken strands of mucus. Walking on fingertips over embers, indulging the nostalgia of the flaccid buttocks, the roving eye in the bow of the whaler, another factory of testicles, the blue vein bending prettily toward justice, a light uterus among grave candles. The fanbase of the elbow roominghouse. Fat bodies, yellow and glistening, their farewell tour

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under the kleig lights, below the box seats. The flies don't buzz. The butterflies don't flutter. The snakes don't slither. The bodies don't lie. If I had a hammer for all the blows. If I had a bell for all the rings. If I had a song to pull out of the throat and spread across an absorbent cloth. Let us go there together, angels. Let us get together our things, pack them into the hollows in our dreams, and carry them on our upright skulls to the land beyond beyond, the world past hope and change. Oh angels, aren't

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you ready? Come along with your fiery swords and the golden plates on which you rest your waking heads. We will go across universes together, touching everything as we pass, inch by inch and god by god. We will trace a probe across the nerves of every twitching thing between times, stroke the cheek of every face that basks in the shadows cast by realities unobstructed, wind into the knothole of every board in every fence that keeps the dimensions in their tidy camps. Bless me with your insouciance! Won't you take my hand while I grasp your chin, and

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hand to hand to mouth to mouth we will hurry through? Oh angels, won't you sleep in my terrible hat, curl in the pocket with the hole, dance on the head of my pimple, perch on my first gray hair? I have always wanted for angels. I call you and you do not come. Yes, that made me bitter. That made me spiteful. I called you out. I sang your names, your many beautiful and ugly names, the names shorter than a syllable, the names that wrapped around the block. I put out honeydew and ichor pudding, manna and ambrosia in

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blue dishes, crystals of methamphetamine in three primary colors and the glistering white of cocaine. I waved smudges of sage and rugs scented with frankincense and my ass. I built altars of stone and altered my tone, beseeching and screeching, ululating over the metate, and raising my hands to the heavens so the wine would run down my fingers to my armpits. I masturbated to the four directions. I folded my sad body like a square of paper and offered up a thousand nodding cranes in a string under Christmas lights. I fasted and procrastinated, restricted my intake to grapefruit,

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starfish, and holy water, gave up the ghost to soulful lenders, imbibed the spirit of unctuousness with a plate of righteousness in an ancient amber glaze, lightly seared on one side. I howled when the moon was full and when the moon was new yodeled in my beer. I genuflected to the dawn and curtsied to the pink petticoats of the setting sun. I cut off my ear and put it in a glass casket with the tip of a finger and a vial of the blood of someone dear to me which I sneaked, drop by clandestine drop, from

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the richness of his skin with the help of trained mosquitoes. I led drumming circles, square-dancing hootenannies (with the red handkerchiefs angels are partial to wagging like sheep tails out the back pockets of the boys), and love triangles that linked into daisy chains. I listened to preachers, to tapes of preachers, studied videos of preachers with the sound off the better to isolate their body language, and with the help of experts in direct mail marketing reached out to preachers with appeals calculated to get them to cry out Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hal Leh Loo! I sat for a long

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time in one place, just sitting, doing nothing, thinking nothing more than I ever think, which is never very much or for very long. I lamented when I got frustrated and felt ignored. I played solitaire with a tattered pack of cards; there were so many creases and stains on them I knew the King of Hearts by the wearing away of one of his hearts, the deuce of clubs by the precise symmetry of its top to bottom creases. I got addicted to the internet; I got addicted to chess by mail; I got addicted to the smell of

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success; I got addicted to support groups; I got addicted to Jesus who has never ceased hitting bottom and climbing back out of the hole; I got addicted to fear and charity; I got addicted to confession, soul-searching, and therapy. I took medication. I lay down and stared up at the stars. There are a lot of stars. Even realizing you are moving about among them doesn't bring them closer. Oh angels, come close and let me whisper in your ears. Kiss me on the noggin. Take my hand and lead me among kine. When the frogs sing, let us

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sing counterpoint. When the birds sing, let us toot the panpipes to keep their spirits high. When the whales sing, let us dip our heads in the drink and warble many a bubble of harmony. When the winds whistle their mournful bonhomie with the chill brick walls of the mental hospital, let's get out top hats and spats and long-tailed coats and shuffle step shuffle step stomp to meet the mood of that air. I can't do it without you, angels. I can't. No. Not me. It's a weakness, my inability to get along without angels. Even though, you know,

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angels are worthless, useless, and don't exist. Yes, I said it. Worthless! Useless! Don't exist! True in most universes, I should say. There are exceptions? We are all exceptions. Angels more than most. The few universes that harbor angels have room for all we need. Infinitudes, you know. As a consciousness completely dependent on commerce between universes, whose body exists primarily in my mind (but also the occasional borrowing from others both obliging and unknowing, about which much may later be said, let me know if you're interested), and as one naturally inclined to a fixation on that which cannot

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be done, that which cannot be known, those who cannot be deflowered, little sour berries, and painkillers, I have to say, angels, I deserve cake. Yes, I suppose cake is no more likely to bring you than olallieberry pie. But it's baked. Have a piece. I'd eat it all up myself, had I a mouth. I would smack my lips and wiggle my tongue had I a tongue, had I lips. A foot? I'd lick the frosting off the middle toe. Marry me, angels, and let us eat cake. Hang out around my pool hall and let us eat cake.

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Out on the trail, the smoke from the campfire spiraling toward the stars, I will pop open the Tupperware and we can eat cake. In the bathysphere, sinking gradually down, the walls of the Marianas Trench rising above us, unwrap that tinfoil I handed you for safekeeping and, yes, it will be cake. Cake! Wonderful cake. Heavenly cake. What could be better than angels and cake! Why, cake all by itself! So come along if you may, my dear angels, regardless, there will be cake. Once upon a time there was a dog. This dog existed on two planes. On

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one plane he was called Sir and he led tours to hell. On the other plane he was called, I mean, she was called Lady and she led tours to heaven. In both planes the dog looked pretty much the same, a medium-sized short hair with a curly tail. In one plane Sir took a man named Bernard Severide to hell. In the other plane Lady took a man named Bernard Severide to heaven. On both planes, in other words, things were pretty much identical, from teacups to the common names of mushrooms in Russian forests to the relatively low

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density of ice compared to water. On both planes the dog had a booking agent named Yvonne, or, as she prefers it, Dr Yvonne, when, that is, she allows herself to be identified. Running a business that involves sending tourists to hell (or to heaven, for that matter) is the sort of activity that might produce obstacles in other endeavors should it become common knowledge. Those who take seriously the Guide Dog to Hell sign already expect discretion. "Well, if it isn't Doc Tor Yvonne," the green grocer says when the bell over the entrance jangles. "How is the Lady

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Gabriel?" "Lady is the name of the dog," Dr Yvonne says, and smiles what might even be a genuine smile. "What's fresh?" She lets the grocer pick out a few things and, while she waits, flips through one of those free weekly advertisers that sit in stacks by the door. "Missed connection: You spilled your hot coffee on my wrist and apologized so profusely I started to feel like I was the one who'd done something wrong and I had to bat away your clumsy attempts to clean it up. Then I looked into your eyes, they were like crystal,

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and I heard chimes as though a soft wind was moving through glass flowers." "For sale: Couch, rarely slept on, orange, tall." "Help wanted: Bakers with experience in doughs." The grocer is ringing up the bagged vegetables and fruit, so she refolds the paper, leaving it as tidy as she found it. She digs in her black purse for her pocketbook. Pressing the bills into the grocer's hand, she looks at the maps of creases on each, the white ones on the bills, the black ones in the hand. "Thank you, Bill," she says, gathering everything up. "That dog around?"

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he asks. "Lady is helping someone. She be back shortly. This morning, I'm thinking. But we'll see. These things take time, time that we can't count up the same way as other things, like sitting in class, you know. Or waiting for the bus." The grocer chuckles. "Yes, ma'am. There's many class I remember taking time out of my life in ways I could never make add up. But I catch your meaning. Yes, ma'am, I catch it and put it next to my heart." The grocer pats his chest. Dr Yvonne smiles again and touches the grocer's arm. "You

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don't need to worry, dear. You come round if you want. Any time. You come round any time and Lady, she'll be there for you." Bernard Severide did make it to hell. He made it to heaven, too. Lady knew what she was doing. Sir, too. Bernie is sitting at a picnic table in heaven, at a picnic table in hell. He's sitting at the corner where the table leg is a quarter inch shorter than the others. When he sat down a paper cup at the far end of the table rocked and lost a few drops over the

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rim. "Sorry," he'd said and the woman whose cup it was gave him a sidelong look. In heaven she gave him a half smile. In hell she curled a lip. Bernie stirs his coffee with a wooden stir stick. In heaven the stick was harvested from farmed timber. In hell the stick was shaved from a tree taken in a clear cut of old growth forest. He takes it out and lays it on his napkin (in heaven made from recycled non-bleached, post-consumer paper; in hell made from the hides of puppies), and takes a sip. In hell it's too

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cold, and it's bitter, burnt-tasting. In heaven it's just this side of burning the lip, and it's smooth, not needing sugar to fake its way to palatability. "Is this seat taken?" Bernie looks up and smiles at a fat older man, gestures his welcome to the spot on the bench. In hell the man says, "Fuck you," and stalks off. In heaven the man says, "Hey, buddy. Thanks a lot. Oh, 'scuze me, you being generous and all but I just spotted my wife," he gives Bernie a wink, "so you'll have to forgive me for making the acquaintance brief.

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Hope we meet again." Bernie in hell, feeling bad about being cursed at, wonders if a longer, more polite refusal would not have left him feeling this way, while Bernie in heaven, having endured a long, polite refusal that seems to have incurred a surprising amount of social obligation considering Bernie's never seen this guy before, glances over at the man clambering awkwardly onto another picnic bench, the burly arm sliding around the shoulders of the large blonde already sitting there. The man whispers into the woman's ear and both burst out laughing. In hell Bernie thinks they are laughing

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at him. In heaven, he chuckles a little himself, they seem so merry, then he tears a piece off a croissant and pops a green grape into his mouth. In hell he dunks a biscuit in his cold bitter coffee, a biscuit so dry that when he tried to bite it it hurt his teeth. Dipping the biscuit in the coffee improves neither, the biscuit going soggy on the outside, remaining stony inside, while the added scum of melted biscuit on the black skin of the coffee repulses the palate. It's hell. What can you expect? He's not hungry anyway.

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Bernie puts the cup down, and it wobbles as the woman on the far end of the picnic table stands up. The cup will tip, so he reaches out reflexively, thinking there's no way he can catch it. If the coffee'd been scalding so undrinkable rather than room temp so undrinkable, he would be about to get burned reaching out to catch it. Or lunging to spill it more. Maybe. But maybe deflecting some of what was going to tumble. Into his lap. Maybe saving himself some of that indignity. Not that he was weighing all the possible versions of

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the spill. He just reacted. In heaven when the woman rose from the table she bumped it and Bernie's coffee cup rocked like a cradle, the coffee's surface wrinkling like a baby's face in a grin. Bernie reaches for it quickly in heaven, too. It's reflex. He's used to things spilling when they rock like that, spilling and making a mess and nobody'd want a mess here, where everything is so nice. Both cups spill. Or perhaps it is only one cup that spills. Perhaps it is only one coffee. Just as when one subatomic particle turns right, its match

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in another universe will also turn right. Why? Because they are connected. Not by some means of concourse between universes, but because they are one. There is but one particle. Multiple universes, one particle. Why, that doesn't make any sense! I hear you saying. Do I mean there's not a subatomic particle's worth of difference between universes? That's it. Although, to clarify, just because Particle A turns right in Universe A and Particle A turns right in Universe B does not mean, necessarily, that every particle will appear to take the exact same path in every universe. Some particles will

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appear to move differently in different universes, turning left when right was the expectation, say. Is this proof they are not connected, that they are not one particle? No, rather it demonstrates a difference in the shape of space in that universe. What makes one universe different from another is not its contents but its shape. In a wave the matter is not altered. It just appears to be altered. The wave is one of the structures of space. When the coffee is hot in one universe and cold in another, the same coffee, every particle of which it is

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constructed being the very same particle as in every other universe, only presents differently because the shape of the universe forces the senses to perceive it differently. Convincing illusion, eh? The densest lead soldier lovingly painted and posed under glass is empty, mostly. We are fooled into thinking a thing is a thing when nothing is its dominant aspect. On the other hand, the idea that space can ever be empty is a fool idea. Some fools have the best connections. That's the difference between us. We're all connected. Even disconnections are connections. The coffee spills. Are we clear on

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that? The spill reveals a discontinuity in the fabric of space-time. When the cold coffee of hell splashes over Bernie's hand and the hot-but-not- painfully-hot coffee of heaven splashes over Bernie's hand, the two universes change hands. Sir, who has been scratching his head with a back foot, jumps up when the coffee spills, putting his forepaws on the table. Lady, who has also been scratching her head, jumps up in heaven, putting her paws on the table. The dog in both instances betrays a peculiar fascination with the coffee-drenched hand. "You want some coffee?" Bernie asks. "If you'd like a

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coffee of your own, I'd be happy to fetch it. What? Hand coffee better? Well, okay then, okay, go ahead, have at it, who am I to say no." The dog works the hand over, sniffing between each finger, laving the hairs with a long soft tongue. When Bernie moves to get up, the dog emits a low growl and grips a finger between firm jaws. "Hey," Bernie says, but stops pulling away. He tries stroking the dog with his other hand, but Sir/Lady doesn't let this distract from what is evidently most important, getting the news from what is

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found on the hand. It feels a little weird, but not bad, really. Kind of nice, as the tongue is warm and soft and patient, making sure not to miss a millimeter. Bernie surrenders to the dog's diligence, even turning his hand in order to give better access. He closes his eyes and falls into a reverie. A handsome cowboy is walking across a scrub desert, the wind whirling away the dust raised by his boots. The cowboy comes upon a horse already saddled. "Who are you with?" the cowboy asks, stroking the horse's nose, feeding it a sugar cube.

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"Who are you with?" the tourguide asks, touching Bernie on the shoulder. He starts. "Oh, uh, I'm uh with with," and he nods at the dog, forgetting how to say the dog's name, forgetting the word "dog." "You're with?" the woman says. When Bernie nods his head toward the dog, who ignores everything but the hand, the tourguide shrugs. "You'll have to catch up with your group," she says. "Wherever it is. You're not on my manifest." Bernie smiles, embarrassed, and pulls his hand away from the mouth that, this time, lets it go. Sir shakes and yawns, stretches, Bernie

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standing nervously by, the tourguide looking back at him as she rounds up the remainder of her group. "So, um, Sir, um, where to now?" Sir glances up at him, whuffs, then turns, heading back up the path they followed to get to the picnic grounds. Bernie's tummy feels sour. He sniffs his fingers, which still smell like coffee, only, oddly, a far superior coffee to the one he spilled. He holds his fingertips under his nostrils as he walks. So transported is he by the hints of chocolate, the translations of lavender, the quickening of quinine, the tickle of

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turmeric, the echo of ketamine, the intransigence of testosterone, the permanence of permanganate, the drizzle of dissent, the warning of vellum, the vibrations of wasabi, and the petulance of saltpeter, so dizzied is he by the promise and the glory, the suggestion and the vehemence, the joy and jangle, the hope and the fecundity, the single and the twin, so illuminated is he by the flicker, flame, freshness, and ferocity that Bernie ceases to worry. Sir knows what he's doing. He's gotten Bernie this far, wherever that is. I pre-paid everything, Bernie reminds himself. Then he remembers that he was

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in an apartment drinking crappy lemonade, sitting on a slumpy couch between two dogs, when he began to feel sluggish and the world stretched out a gravelly hand to caress his cheek. When he sat up on the side of a road and pawed in his pocket for his wallet, what did he find? The wallet was there? Was anything in it? Bernie struggles to remember. A scorpion? A credit card? Bernie slaps at his jacket pocket, checking for the wallet. He doesn't quite feel it, but the slope the curly yellow tail is leading him up is steep and slippery with loose soil. Bernie's almost doubled over trying to

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keep upright, his feet sliding every few steps. Not a lot but enough to make him anxious. The wallet, the wallet. Never mind. He'll check again when they get to a level place. Not that he's wearing the same thing he started out in. He's got on that suede jacket with the fringes. The kind of fringes he used to think looked silly. The cowboy made him stand naked in the motel room and, standing in front of him so close their breath tangled like ropes, the cowboy drew the jacket up Bernie's arms, settled it on his shoulders. He

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adjusted it so it hanged evenly. Hanged? So it hung evenly. So it was well hung. He stood there. Sweaty and smelling of sweat not his own. Bernie pauses to catch his breath. When Sir notices his charge has stopped, the dog turns and barks. Barks and barks. "OK, OK," Bernie says. The air is beginning to weigh on him. It's not making this easy. He drags the jacket off, and the white shirt with the pearl buttons is plastered to his body. "I'm dripping." Sir's barking grows more insistent, so, pressing a red handkerchief to his wet brow, the

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jacket under an arm, Bernie struggles on. "I'm going to do this, or I'm not going to do this. I'm going to do this, or I'm not going to do this." The sweat stinging his eyes, the air thick in his mouth, pulse shaking his head like an elephant a pear tree, blisters on his heels burning as he leans forward and raises a boot, Bernie says to himself, "I'm going to do this, or I'm not going to do this." For reasons he's never been able to figure out, the second part of that sentence is a greater motivator

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for him than the first. Is it the idea that he has the option, that he could stop at any time if he really needed to, if he couldn't stand it he could just not stand it anymore, give up, sit down, cry? So long as doing seems possible, in this case one foot going higher than the last and thus getting up the slope, obeying the dog who is terribly insistent so must have reason but is awfully annoying, he's getting his way, isn't he, couldn't he shut up? So long as Bernie decides he is not not going

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to do this, then, well, he's doing it, isn't he? It feels rather like a dream, though. Every movement labored and. Slow. With ravenous wolves on his trail. Are any ravenous wolves on his trail? He breathes in, he breathes out. He goes on. On he goes. That's what he's doing. Right now. Going on. And. And again. Dark dots speckle the suede; one appears as he looks at the others. Then another. Tap. "I'm dripping," Bernie says. He raises his head. He turns to look back. From the lowering clouds a dark object is being lowered on a great

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rope of light. Bernie flinches, the light is so bright, and he raises the jacket to cover his eyes. Woof, says Sir softly. Holding the jacket out to shield his gaze, Bernie looks up to see the dog standing on a platform a short scramble away. When Bernie heaves himself up beside his guide, Sir surprises him with a lick across the side of his face. "Oh yeah, thanks," Bernie says, settling his sore butt on dusty boards. Three walls rise to a flat ceiling. More fence than wall, Bernie thinks, as there are gaps of almost an inch between

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each board. Sir steps across his lap and paws at the wall closest to the mountain. "Whatcha got?" says Bernie, but, with his eyes beginning to adjust to the new slash of light, he looks around Sir's tail to see what it is. Sir swivels about and snaps at him, the jaws and bright teeth clacking together an inch from Bernie's nose. "Shit!" Bernie scoots back and looks to where Sir was pawing. Jutting out from the wall, there's a lever too high for Sir to reach, so Bernie scrambles to it. "Yes?" he says, grabbing the red rubber handle.

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Sirs backs up as Bernie pulls the lever down. A mesh screen shoots out from the wall, then a second heavy metal grid. Bernie stretches both across the opening, securing the outer grid first, then the thinner mesh. As he locks them into place the mesh allows him a clear look at what otherwise was blinding. Lightning. One, two twisting, jerking bolts, and now two more yank themselves out of the black clouds. Each bolt is haired with tiny sizzling extensions. All four come together in a. Bernie tips his head. It's a torso. Like one of those armless things

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the ancient dumps have granted museums. Only big as a train car. Slashing out from the hips the first two lightning bolts stab down into massive hobnailed boots. The lightning bolts that writhe out from the torso's shoulders end in gigantic gloves. And, as the torso descends, three narrow funnel clouds follow, seemingly drilling into the torso's stump of a neck. The first head to appear at the top of one of these serpent-like whirlwinds is the sort of thing Bernie's seen in pictures from Mexico, under a skullcap a face square and black with thick lips and broad nose,

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an expression stern as a turnip. The second head wears the flaring cobra-hood headdress and jutting ceremonial beard of the pharaohs, though its brow is sleeker, jawline less prominent. There were women pharaohs, the beard having been an emblem of state rather than gender. Her expression is milder than the first head, or perhaps its mien is of serene self-confidence. The final stone aloft on a tight whirl of wind glares out of wide eyes, its sneering lips surrounded by a chaotic swirl of beard. A lightning leg raises a hobnailed boot and drops it. It's as though a mechanical

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crane raised it, then just let it go. With a thunderous thud it hits the earth. The other boot goes up, swings forward, falls. Bernie feels the vibrations through the mountain. The gigantic gloves swing around, opening, closing, opening, closing. The heads swivel, each enveloped in a seething greenish glow as though it were being swarmed by fireflies, the color adding subtle mood changes to the visages. "What is it?" Bernie breathes. The dog yawns, nervous rather than bored. The left hand glove shoots down and closes on something at the ground. Distantly, Bernie hears screams. The monster is stomping

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toward the visitors' center. And now, rising in that left glove, an upside down Honda Civic sways. The passenger door swings open. Just when it looks like it will slam shut somebody inside kicks it open again. The other glove reaches down and grabs a motorcycle. With a casual underhand the glove hurls the motorcycle in a long arc. It smashes down on a touring bus in the parking lot. The gloves give attention to the Honda, ripping away the hood, popping off wheels. Bernie sees a figure hanging out the passenger side, clinging to the safety belt, legs kicking.

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A boot rises and drops to the earth, the vibrations knocking leaves from the trees. The glove shakes the car like a maraca, then tosses it away. The other glove, cupped, weighs something, bounces it a little. When it goes still Bernie sees the passenger from the car jump to her feet. She's not screaming, she's shouting. If it's really her I'm hearing, Bernie thinks. The glove that threw aside the car balls into a fist. "No!" Bernie whispers. Then its forefinger extends, makes little circles over the woman's head. The pharaoh head borne on its whirlwind comes down to

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get a closer look. The woman in the palm of the glove wags her finger in the pharaoh's face. She seems to be lecturing the pharaoh. The Mexican head descends to see what the delay is about. The woman ignores it, concentrating on whatever it is she's telling the pharaoh. Bernie presses his hand to his mouth, fascinated. He giggles. "This is great," he says. Sir looks quizzically up at him. "Check 'em out," Bernie continues. "Now the last head comes to join the party. Boy, he don't look happy." Bernie takes a deep contented breath, inhaling the lingering fragrance

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from his fingers of that heavenly coffee. He strips off his wet shirt. The last of the heads of the giant lightning monster has come down to examine the frail human protester in its power. Bernie nods when the woman turns her attention to this scowling face. She's waving both arms now and the three heads hover, the green glow fizzing about as though trying to highlight some sympathy in their motionless features. The other glove comes back as a fist and holds itself above the woman. As it flexes, dirt and pebbles rain down on her. She ducks and,

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trying to get out of the way, slips between the fingers of the glove. She's hanging on by the glove's middle finger. The pharaoh head is the first to lose interest, rising on the whirlwind for the longer view. The Mexican head and the bearded (Greek? Assyrian?) head pause while the woman pendulums from a finger, then they, too, turn their attention elsewhere. The glove, casually, as though throwing off a fly, flicks the finger. The woman disappears. In the twilight under the storm clouds Bernie's lost track of her. Not that anybody could have survived such a hurling, right?

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A hobnailed boot goes up and crashes down. The other one does the same. The great gloves swing back and forth on the ends of their crackling ropes of electric light. The stone heads rise toward the clouds, sometimes vanishing briefly into them, then dip or hover, the whirlwinds more or less visible depending on whether they have snatched bits of cloud or dust or smoke into their vortices. The giant picks up the bus, plucks the motorcycle out of the roof and throws it aside, bangs the bus nose first against the blacktop, pops the unbroken windows one by

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one with its thumbs, tosses the bus lightly, catches it, tosses it, catches, tosses, catches. Finally, bored, the giant throws the bus over a shoulder and stomps up to the visitors center. One giant glove begins to tug at a corner of the roof while the other strokes the curved ceramic tiles. Each of the heads seems to be doing its own thing, and Bernie wonders that they don't go off on their own, finished with the fiction of being attached to this body. The Mexican head is turned in his direction, Bernie realizes with some discomfort. Is it really

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thinking about him? Bernie glances down at Sir. Sir is concentrating on something in the distance. "What do you see, boy? I mean, Sir?" Bernie tries to scan beyond the giant. But he. That head. The Mexican head. It. It really is looking this way, isn't it? "Do you think it will come here?" Bernie asks. "I mean, what do we do if it does? Are we safe?" Sir begins to whuff softly, as though whatever he sees excites him. He lifts his butt from the floor, tail wagging steadily. The Mexican head bobs but its attention does not waver.

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Sir turns abruptly and goes to the wall beside the lever. He goes up on his hind legs, uses a forepaw to knock open a small metal door which reveals a red button. He jumps up and bumps it with his nose. A motor whirs. The room lurches and begins to rise. "Wow. This is an elevator," Bernie says, the slope they climbed falling away below. Broken tiles heap about the visitors center, the giant groping inside with one of those floppy work gloves. Sir whuffs again, and Bernie at last sees the dark birds. They swirl of a sudden

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around the torso. If that torso's big as a bus then those birds must be big as men. Not birds. Bats! And they're dive- bombing now, letting go something they've tucked in their back legs, which, when it strikes the stone skin of the giant, begins smoking. Again and again the chemical bombs strike and throw up smoke. One of the gloves rushes to wipe away the stuff and itself starts to smoke. The other glove, balled into a fist, jabs at the bats, then hurls something at them. "Did it just throw a person?" Bernie backs up until he's pressed

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against the rear wall of the elevator. Can't this thing go faster? But if it's rushing them to safety this is a weird way of doing it, for the scene below has only gotten closer and at a height, Bernie realizes, within easy reach of those flailing gloves. The elevator, or whatever it is, tips neatly forward, giving its passengers a clear view of the battle. Bernie braces against the wall, clutching at its smooth surface with desperate fingers. The giant grabs one of the bats by a wing and uses it as a club against the others. One of

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the whirlwinds breaks free of the torso and vacuums up several bats, which rotate in a black scramble. The bombing goes on. Sucking up the yellowish fumes, the whirlwinds take on an oddly solid look. He's not falling, Bernie realizes, despite the cant of the elevator. The elevator has its own gravity, maybe? Could it, maybe, have a force field, too? He unclenches a little. How many bats are there? Tens, probably. Hundreds? Not that many? Some of those that have dumped their cargo make wider circles, and Bernie sees more clearly what he thought were deformities or humps on

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the backs of the bats are passengers. A small, black creature clings to the bat's shoulders, bird-like head swiveling in sharp jerks, a spindly arm sometimes extending to point or to gesture like a symphony conductor. The giant scoops soil and broken tile and slaps it against its torso. Pieces fall away. Bernie can't tell whether the body itself is crumbling or if that's just the rubble. Another whirlwind loosens itself, the bearded head wobbling. As a bat passes close by the elevator its passenger leaps, grabbing hold of the bars of the outer door. A face mostly black, as

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though charred, presses against the bars; a nose as thrusting as a beak bends the mesh inside. A sliver of white around the midnight irises flashes as the face grimaces and laughs. A pointed tongue flickers. Hands as curled as crow feet grip the bars and dance along them, clicking out a pitter- patter tune. "What's your number, baby? A nice boy like you in a city on fire? How'd that happen? What's say you and I take advantage of the room for some ka-boom? Raise the mushroom, baby; my mind is clouded. The war'll be wanting the big weapon to

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come, a kingdom kind of come, the kind of come a body's open to, ready to fill up with, fill to buh buh buh, to buh buh buh, to buh. Buh. BURSTING!" The creature's head bobs side to side, while Sir maintains a cautious friendly stance, back flat, tail wagging slowly, barking. Down below the giant stumbles and looks about to topple. The Mexican head, the last of the giant's heads, yanks its whirlwind loose and bounces upward. It hurtles toward them. Bernie's sure they're splinters. Instead of smashing into them, though, the head pauses to glare, the bat's passenger

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like a mole on its cheek. Silently they regard each other, giant stone head, odd black dwarf, yellow dog, and man. The sound of a great crash below is followed by a loud sizzling and crackling, the much softer sounds of bat wings continue their beating, and almost beyond hearing sonar squeaks chitter more rapidly. The stone face twitches suddenly, the upper lip rises, the nostrils flare even wider, the blank eyes bulge. The elevator's metal screens flex, Sir expands and contracts, and when the ripple reaches Bernie he feels it in his gut. "Oh," he wheezes. Another ripple runs

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through them. Is that nausea? dizziness? or is it the world? Again a ripple rolls through, and, as the metal deforms, the little black creature slips into the elevator and crouches panting beside the dog. Is that a crack in the stone head's brow, just under the helmet? Was it always there? Bernie holds his hand out and a new ripple bends his fingers, bends his wrist, bends his forearm. He takes a breath as it hits his face. What does it feel like? He closes his eyes. Maybe if he's not watching, it won't actually feel like anything. Bernie

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feels his mind expand. Yes, all sorts of things fit in it all of a sudden, all sorts of things that could never have gotten in up to now have room to roam. That giant head, for instance. It's an Olmec head. The Olmec, like the Greeks in Europe, were a foundational civilization. A thousand years after their empire was consumed by the swamps of Veracruz aspects of Olmec culture persisted in Mesoamerica among the Aztecs, among the Maya. And now, up to its lower lip in a quicksilver puddle, the Olmec head glares in consternation at the pretty paintings

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of big-eyed kittens hung on a wall papered with blue and white stripes. A hundred crepe paper spiders skitter over webs of dental floss in a closet built solely to provide spiders corners. A monolith of blue velvet sinks into a mound of freeze-dried tears. A matching monolith knotted into itchy red macramé looms over a base of crystalline fear. Jack Lightning waves from the end of a hall of dusty mirrors. He's holding a tourguide's flag, which, it might be noted, matches the flag that snaps in the breeze over the boardwalk at the end of the world. Bernie

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wishes his mind was less open to kitsch. He opens his eyes. The elevator hasn't disappeared. Nor has Sir. Nor has the bent little creature who is looking up with a hungry lear. Nor has the Olmec head, although its expression does seem to be making room for a less imperious certainty over the world's turns. When another ripple hurries toward them, this one larger than any other, Bernie feels this dimension stretching out toward it, thinning, thinning and becoming permeable, as though any move any one of them made would snap them through to elsewhere. Or maybe that they

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already were. Passing through. Maybe that's all it takes, one wave will rise and carry you over. Maybe you make the crossing to escape the wave because, really, being run over by a wave could have consequences. Better to make the jump first, make the decision yourself, not kowtow to the force of no-mind, refusing to allow the way of the world be your way, your true and only way, stepping of your own volition to the other path, the one the forced marches beat into the earth, the one the gnomes paved by the patter of leathery feet,

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the one that wanders nervously through the Valley of Death, the one fourth from the left that passes under the derelict railway bridge. Bernie, where are you? I am switching channels. I don't see him in the early solar system. Back then there were many small worlds of ice and iron. I feel at home. But I search on. At the end of the world snack bar two young women nurse watery yellow glasses of lemonade. But I don't see Bernie. In the meeting room with the dusty tables and unopened tortilla chip bags which have exceeded their expiration dates

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by a few months and the tired attendant sodas and the stacks of plastic cups upside down? Not even a leprechaun. You'd think there'd be a leprechaun somewhere. Tossed up among the tide wrack. Not that I've looked everywhere. But how could you? You look in a few familiar places because they've been productive, they've rewarded your attention. You know the land. But whatever. Find them or not, what's it matter? Is what happens next vital information? What will be will be, regardless of what I think about it. Suppose they were obliterated? Dropped into an antithetical universe, the quarks

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of their atoms yanked apart and scattered? Suppose they slipped into a dreamscape. How accessible those are varies tremendously. Most earth-based originals are confined to a narrow range, but it's not like I know precisely how many range further afield or how far that is or in what field. My own range is limited by something, I know. By what? That, I don't know. Must the realms into which I peer all be friendly to my kind? I thought so at first. But then I started to wonder. What is my kind? Icy chunks of rock drifting through the

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heliosphere? Voyeurs? Narrators? Transdimensional omniminds? I realized, the only limitation to my information gathering activities was my lack of awareness of the places I haven't been looking. So I've been looking for solutions, and, you know, I think I've found them. As one who's been spying on billions of dimensions, I can see what works and what doesn't. Every alternative is not as good as the best choice. With wisdom gained from reading the texts of everywhere and the calendars of everywhen, the faults in everything and the flaws in everybody, and the other stuff that's relevant next to the

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large swaths of all that will ever remain irrelevant, I can bring my findings to reality and by presenting end them. End the mistakes, that is. It's only logical. It's not like anyone willfully chooses to do wrong. Who does not go forth intending to do right by the universe? If you just lay out the facts, show those who are performing suboptimally the simple behaviors that, once made part of daily routine, will improve conditions for all, they will. They really will. Change their ways? I am placing a call to my angel. I have an angel. He owes

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me one, he says. "There are things you would like to discuss." "Hello, angel. I need to intervene in history in order to improve life for all sentient beings." "I see. Please continue." "I need a body. With this body I could travel around teaching best practices. Everybody has something to learn. And I, for whom world after world and time after time has been a fountain of info and in whom knowledge has pooled, would make this great stuff available to all." "Your plan has potential." The angel raises one of its seventeen arms. In the palm of the

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the hand a small fire flickers. Dipping a finger from the fourth right hand into the flame the angel ignites it, then presses it between the eyebrows. The eyebrows catch flame, and the fingerprint glows like molten glass. Two other hands continue to knit at a purple scarf. Another flips a coin, catches it, flips it again. "What you propose, it has never been done before?" I ought to know the answer. "There have always been teachers," I equivocate, "some surprisingly wise, considering their limited perspective." "Limited," says the angel, tasting the word. "You see all, you know all, you

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are ready to tell all. To whom?" "To everybody," I say, hearing how impossible that is. "Maybe," I try again, "maybe just to the right person. Or people." "The right person or the right people," the angel echoes and I hear how ridiculous that sounds, too. Everybody has something to learn. "I still think it's a good idea. If I try. If I had a body, one that could talk. One that." I don't know. "One that could show. One that could." I don't know what to say next. The angel is juggling its heads, passing them from hand to

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hand. One bald head, crown down, spins on a middle finger. Another rolls chin over peak up an arm to the shoulder. When it rolls back down, the hand cradles it. Another hand swings in and unfastens the face from the head, presses it to the wall like a suction cup. "Open these eyes," the angel says. So I blink them. The angel looks like a lump of coal. I blink again. The angel looks like a diamond screaming. I blink again. The head on top of the angel's single neck turns like a carousel. The face passing now is

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all scowl. On the face the angel pressed to the wall I create a scowl. The angel's head turns and the next face looks sullen. With this new face I go sullen. The angel presents a soft smile. I feel it, a soft smile. It feels like my smile. It's nice. I like it. The angel laughs. I laugh. Hilarious! The angel put up a face on my wall, in the chamber carved within the body of this comet I ride, I am. The angel put up a face. Is it mine? The angel gave me a face. I've never

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had a face before. Of all the parts that make me up, across billions of alternate planes, has there never been a face? Two eyes, a nose, a mouth? Does it matter? Let me enjoy this one. I like to smile. I like to scowl. I blow out the lips, I suck them in. I like rolling these eyes, flaring these nostrils, raising these eyebrows. The angel tickles my nose with a pink feather and I sneeze. The angel scratches my chin and I purr. The angel pinches my cheek. Ow! The pinch tightens. My brow draws in, my teeth

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clench, I begin to moan. The pinch tightens again. Ah, pain. Yes. This is what pain is like. It's a valid lesson. If I am to incarnate I need to preview pain as well as pleasure, distress as much as delight. But, you know, angel, you know, uh. Ow. You can stop now. I've got the idea. This hurts. You know this hurts, don't you? Surely if you keep this up, you will do some damage. Ow! Stop it. Stop! You can stop now. Please. Please stop now. Please stop. Oh please. Please stop. Ow. Oh God oh. Stop! Stop!

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Fuck. Why won't you listen to me? Why won't you stop! I know pain is bad. I've seen it. I've seen it being suffered. Stop! Oh oh ooh. A pinch is just a pinch. It's just a bit of skin. Maybe some muscle's caught. You can live without a cheek. It's not even my face then is it it's just a face a mask nothing behind it the wall that's all that's behind it the wall my body but so little of my body spread through ow spread ow through time time I have all time you can't hurt me

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not if I have all time to hide in. You can't hurt me. That's not me. That is your own face, angel. Play with it as you wish. The angel yanks the face from the wall by the bit of skin caught in the pinch, gives the face two brisk shakes, then reaffixes it to the blank head on the floor. The eyes blink. The angel picks up the head and raises it to the lips of its other heads, its other faces, each sharing a kiss with the head and its freshly recovered lips. "Was that a test?" I

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ask the angel. "I didn't pass it, did I?" The last kiss proves to be not just open-mouthed but consuming. The angel swallows the head right up. Then he pops head after head into the open mouth. "I need to tolerate pain. That wasn't even big pain. Not like getting a leg sawed off or having nails pounded into your hands. If I'm going to be wandering around telling truths I have to be ready to. I have to be. I." Was I really thinking my teachings would be so easily accepted? I just need to reach the right people.

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The angel's hands spread fans, blossom full of colors, squeeze down into green stones. A left courts a right with dainty flutters. The right, bashful, dips and hides. Another left pursues a right with hungry fury, catching and gnawing on the frightened wrist. Three rights layer one upon the next, the bottom's slightest twitch telegraphing up the stack. The head that has swallowed all the other heads now opens to receive an eight-toed food, leg follows up to the knee where the jaws clack shut. The head resumes its slow revolution, the eating face giving way to one dropping tears.

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Tears give way to a ferocious grin. Grin gives way to puzzlement. The hands all leave off their distractions and leap to the head, stopping it on a face of inner contemplation and peace. Eyes half- lidded, mild smile, unlined brow, round cheeks. The lips part and in a humble tone the angel says, "Might you allow me to borrow the transdimensional shift?" Oh. "That's a big favor to ask," I say. "You know what it means to me?" "I will owe you," the angel says. "But what do you need it for? There are places barred to you?" "If you

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were to take a body, where would you go?" "I don't know," I say. There are so many places. Places where nobody will pinch your cheek. Places where everybody's nice. But would any of those places need what I have to teach? What do I have to teach? Give the angel the shift. If you cease to exist, so what? Ceasing to exist is a standard product of existence. Being conscious of existing is what? Unusual? Perhaps I should throw myself into the dream. In the dream bodies are always available, no special arrangements necessary, no permissions. "Take the shift,"

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I tell the angel. "Take it in good health. Go far with it. Do with it exactly what needs doing." I continue pronouncing these vacuous fragments of advice for several thousand years or whatever, all alone. It's hard to be alone, even if you contain multitudes. It's hard to know everything, even if everything was built into you by creation, which took place at the same time. Nothing's easy. Not even being easy is easy. You have to make it look easy, but that can be tricky, because people can be suspicious, although, for those who haven't done what you've

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done, who haven't walked a mile in your moccasins, who haven't drunk the milk of your tits, who haven't swooned appropriately in long dry meetings, well, for them empathy can be a challenge. They just don't understand. You think you've signed the right contracts, kicked back cash money to the right bureaucrat, danced and danced and danced and danced and danced until the convulsions of transcendental exhaustion have you turning jaguar, but it's a bust. That's how everything has been constructed. Shoddy solder, weak glue, frayed cord. Your dreams will fall apart on you. If God gives you purple daisies,

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set them on fire. If you don't, he'll think you don't like him. Jesus is sitting by a campfire, recovering from his latest resurrection. He's been burnt to death several times. The first time he returned to life he would cringe whenever he approached a fire, but then he drowned. After that fire wasn't a bother. He fingers his neck, which was broken by one of the guards of the ancient city. It's okay now, he supposes, and turns his head carefully from side to side to make sure. Smooth, not even a crackle. Sometimes he wonders what it's all

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about. But, you know, who doesn't? He stirs the coals with a stick, and a swirl of golden sparks dances up from the circle of stones. Oh, how the mighty have fallen, he thinks irrelevantly. I've been a king more than once. I've been a mendicant, a pauper, a doctor, a thief, a blacksmith, and a farmer. A slave. More than once. He covers a yawn, then rubs his face. Lots more than once. Some lives I even remember the other lives. That's nice, he thinks. But there's something to be said for forgetting. Nearby a camel snorts. An angel

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steps out of the fire, stands over the man sitting cross-legged in the dust. "What do you want?" Jesus says, not looking up. The angel lowers a bundle to the ground and unfolds the cloth. Inside the bundle lies a spider the size of a cooking pot, dead on its back, legs bent in like burnt sticks. "The last leprechaun," the angel intones, waving a hand over the corpse. "That's not a leprechaun." "That's what a leprechaun looks like when it has starved to death." "Bullshit." "I have brought the last leprechaun to you, my lord. You have the power."

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Jesus scoots over a little so the bundle is no longer between him and the fire. The angel folds his arms across his golden chest; his great white wings spread and rustle. Leaning forward, Jesus snatches up a burning brand and applies the flame to the lower feathers. The angel scowls. "Don't do that." "What's the difference? Looks like you're good and fire proof." "The leprechaun," says the angel. "The leper pawn," sasses the one newly returned to life. When the angel continues to stand where he's planted, Jesus shrugs. "What've you got for me?" "Your duty." "My? Uh. Yeah.

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Wait." Jesus bites his lip. "Explain for me, could you, explain for me my duties in this. Matter. And. No, hang on, before you get started, be sure to include what's in it for me." The angel's scowl darkens. "You're telling me, even though you are God himself, you haven't the power to save this creature! You haven't the grace, the mercy to bring back from the brink of extinction the leprechaun race?" Jesus scratches his bearded cheek. "You're finished? That's it? I missed the part where you offer cupcakes?" "You'd do it for cupcakes!" "Cupcakes," says Jesus, nodding. "I

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heard mention of cupcakes. Cream cheese frosting? Devil's food?" The angel grinds his crystalline molars. "I," says the angel, "I could. Get you. Cup. Get you cup." "That sounds nice." The angel steps backward into the campfire and is gone. Jesus looks again at the dead spider. With the now merely glowing stick Jesus pokes the spider's side. It rocks stiffly, the legs frozen in curl. Jesus grunts dismissively and returns the stick to the flame. Bearing a plastic-wrapped cardboard tray the angel reappears. "Your cupcakes, lord," he says, dropping them on the ground. "Those are muffins," Jesus says. "But

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I asked for cupcakes," the angel says, wiping a tear. "I did ask for cupcakes." Quickly he rewraps the leprechaun, tying the bundle around his neck. Then he spins on Jesus. "Thank you," he says. "Thank you for making me do this." And the angel kisses the Son of God on the head, lipping two hairs in the gesture. The wings swing open and in two beats they are in the air, headed straight up. When you know the way it doesn't take but a moment to get to heaven. The theatrics of a take-off aren't necessary. God is dead.

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Don't let that worry you. God wouldn't be in heaven otherwise. You ever heard of anybody living allowed into heaven? Deposited on the spongy floor of the divine destination Jesus yanks his hair out of the angel's mouth. "God will bring the leprechaun back," the angel hisses, sure Jesus would feel ashamed before his Father. The winding sheet Jesus wore in the desert now shimmers like heavenly robes and a shining path glistens before his naked feet. The angel steps back, alarmed. Jesus shakes his head. "You know heaven so well, lead the way to God." He glances at the

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path snaking among hills, then back at the angel. "That leprechaun's only getting deader." "No! Please!" cries the angel, falling to his knees. "You lead the way! You are the one! You are the one I must follow." Jesus crosses his arms over his chest. "You dragged me up to heaven." Jesus nods at the path. Trembling, the angel gets off his knees, bows humbly to the son, and, constantly looking over his shoulder, begins to walk ahead. Gradually the hills rise up around them until they are so hemmed in, it seems they will soon be underground. "I could

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fly," the angel suggests. "If I fly around and reconnoiter we can see where we're going." "You don't know where we're going?" "I don't know where we're going?" the angel stammers, squeezing one hand in the other. "What do you mean?" As they press on, the rock on either side of the path continues to rise and lean inward, closing out light from above. If the path itself were not aglow they would be stepping in darkness. "You don't know where we're going?" Jesus repeats. "I know where we're going," the angel says mechanically. One hand presses the bundle around

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his neck. Did it twitch? Did it squirm? The angel's golden heart beats golder. The corners of his mouth twitch, squirm as though uncertain what to do with a smile. Jesus, meanwhile, rubs his belly which has not yet been filled this lifetime. Is the path getting dimmer? By now, even if stone hasn't met stone above, they are walking as in a cave, looking up frequently to gauge the height of the ceiling, letting a look linger in shadows where passages or treasures might hide. Jesus likes it when he knows what's going to happen next. Having lived so

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many lives, he has a pretty good sense of what's going to happen next. He can get blasé about it, thinking he's seen it all, nothing can surprise because when was he last surprised? He's seen people behaving badly and heroically, lovingly and cruelly. He's learned the ways of most every culture, in a few lives while the other sex. Learning to be a woman was tricky, and the process taught him empathy all over again. That was then. You've tried human every which human way. What's next? Another kind of animal? When Jesus opens resurrected eyes, he's gotta start

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from scratch. There were times he bluffed his way back into an old life, once as a long lost son come to claim his rightful inheritance; once as himself having learned the secret of eternal youth; once as himself having been lynched, now stalking his killers as vengeful ghost (he smiles at the memory). It is damned dim in here. When Jesus looks at his feet they are merely black blobs against the path's fading glow. The angel is panting. "Is this it? Are we here?" Just ahead Jesus detects a faint line of light. A line? He walks softly

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toward it. A line perpendicular to the ceiling, a line parallel to the first, two more horizontal, one of those above, one low to the floor. As it looks like the outline of a door, Jesus feels for a handle. He finds none. He tries pushing. At first push, nothing moves, but tried at the other side, there's some give. He pushes until it resists then withdraws his hand. The door swings open, a swath of light falling into the dark cave. Dazzled, Jesus steps back, covering his eyes with his sleeve. "Oh! Oh!" cries the angel. Squinting and blinking

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Jesus tries to see what he's uncovered. Light. That seems to be it. White light fills the doorway. The angel crawls forward on his knees, bowing his head, holding the bundle out as though it were an offering. When he gets to the edge, where the gravel of the path gives way to nothing but light, he leans as far forward as he can and the bundle of dead leprechaun seems almost to disappear into the light, seems almost to bleed away in thin hair-like streams into the light. The angel is sobbing, his gold skin reflecting so much of

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the light that it seems to be deconstructing him, too, the light peeling away in a shell that splits and and shivers and sunders. Jesus takes another step back, turns his face away, his eyes so overwhelmed they see nothing now but a green panel. Wherever he turns the green panel floats before him. No, he's not blinded, for a little further down the path Jesus sees another door. Green, of course. Like the first this door has no handle. With a firm push, the door's latch disengages and the door swings open. Within he sees a wine-red leather- upholstered easy

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chair beside a round endtable holding a brass lamp with a yellow shade. The lamp stands on a lace doily and casts a warm glow. A merry fire dances in a brick fireplace. On the chair's seat cushion a blue bound volume has been laid open face down. As Jesus watches, a man in a cardigan sweater hobbles across the room and leans with one hand on an arm of the chair. The other picks up the book which he presses against his chest. Slowly he spins around, and with evident caution lowers himself into the chair. The man smacks

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his lips and peers at the page, bringing it closer and closer until it bumps his nose. His mouth begins to form the shapes of words, though silently. Jesus closes the door. The light pouring into the cave is still so bright Jesus can't really make out the angel's body, though he can hear sobbing. He turns away. Holding one hand out to the side, his fingers in contact with the wall, Jesus ventures on into the dark. Heaven. It could be worse. Jesus hums to himself as he walks. Wherever the path takes you, that is where you go.

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After the passage has curved away from the light on the angel and the shadows deepen until the only illumination is the faint glow from the path, a glow so insignificant it sometimes seems imaginary, the stone wall the left hand touches, touches lightly here and there, has it softened? It's not just a change in the hardness, a greater smoothness, but there's a warmth, a friendly warmth, a cozy, welcoming warmth. The wall's texture has become silky. Could this be fur? The hand is finding much pleasure sliding along, feeling its way. A humming greater than his own tickles

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Jesus' insides. It's a familiar tune. Are there words? What are words for? No one listens anymore. A tiled tightrope wearing fresh across the nucleus draws sighs from the forest soak. Jesus parts his lips. O yea, lions of laughter and salience, come forth, the north-facing slant of the yardarm conspiring in williwaw, a yellow mirror down in arches, the flail of the old grim parent cupped in tutoring, walnuts. The rampant fast well in hand, the purple sang in all wheedle. Rolling over battered red youth, the white weeds bungle the make. Box after box, mild after smiled, mending

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the twist confront amended then, in a bright mews, fendering the small snicker with two loops and a squint. Say you love and with your love conspire. Say you love and dislodge the mud, the reckoning with wit of a piece with a never sampled burden, a light stirring of frank assessment in the wee hours, what a pile of murder weapons in an evidence locker contributes to the human swindle, where the bridge stretches, naked cables and burnished rivets, purchase on a foundation of despair the happy fall. We will not abide, the wharf rat whispered, such signs, such

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impotence, grace exhaling across whales. Sometimes you are able to touch, to reach out and touch. A shadow draws a line down your face. In a formal kilt, a boutonniere of orchid gratitude. Snowflakes catch in the lashes. An otter's head rises from the green river, a cascade of silver. Between trucks the flight of the fish. Boy and girl at the end of the dock wait for the fact of the eye, a biographical extension into the lie of the moon. Families are fine for afternoons. Where evening was set aside, light accidentally framed a black ear, a braid.

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The tingling of an art, tuned to a C or to a bow through which water falls, cutting colors from white, villagers standing nearby, one odd one dancing. The four who got cut and felt. Orange houses, the white out, again only in overcoats, dilaudid computed for a full skull. The boy this time in the bath with lace, bubbles confusing black hair. Littler, ever littler and harder to locate. Weather vainly riparian, the shot out of the gun, it was fennel and rocket. If I had to live I would live with candy. A better day scene, chatting about

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the whither, the yawn, the long con, the soft porn, the strong heart and the broken. Where will the bean stalk pierce the clouds and which palace will the ant find pregnable? What will you tell your friends about this? Is there a vote for character in that calabash? I remember you, the wind says, touching each leaf. I remember you, says the last leaf yanked from the branch, but the memory slips under the surface of the stream which is already icing over. Is it far? No. No, it isn't far. You've gone much greater distances. You will get

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to the rim of the crater, you will get to the foot of the stairs. But will you get all the way? The ball keeps losing air. Smoke tumbles from the bowl. The blue ribbon needs dusting. The dried flowers survived the house fire and now stink of soot and ash. The lake on the other side of the road only ever existed on the map, drawn there for copyright reasons. Auguries and bobcats. A wedding of vomit and paradise. When you are alone, wearing your glittering mask, and a flash for a moment hides the moon, you have to

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put up your umbrella against meteors, and retrieve the book of instructions. Put the book on the table on its spine. It should fall open to the page you need. What does it say? Go ahead and read the instructions aloud. Many friends and relations are waiting to hear. Don't be embarrassed. The instructions may not be immediately easy to understand. You may have to think on it. When others tell you what you should do, listen respectfully. Nod. Thank them for their wisdom. But do not do anything they tell you. This itself may be difficult advice to follow.

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Suffering is part of the process. When you are done you will feel tremendous relief. Death is your friend. Dried seeds. A rope bridge over the gorge. Green meat. The beautiful crystal, the strange beast, the chaise longue, a pyramid of butter. When you awaken, you will be traveling. Rocks and grubs and trees. It was a fanciful glass object. It was a veritable feast of grandeur. It was a pill of salt. Read again the last bit, the part that concerns you more than any other. Don't be sad. Choose to be hearty. Let the bricks fall in June.

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A new perseverance will climb onto the bus, work its way to the back, brushing knees and packages and chickens. There won't be a seat at the table, for every seat will be piled with papers and the numbers track the decline of moralists. Put yourself in place, the long place empty of cats and beer cans. The pigeon understands art. Moths drink the tears of orphan elephants. It is harder being blind, the lame girl says, touching the corn, the corn's damp beard. The rain lays into the grain, the weight of it pressing toward the common earth. Shh.

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If you listen closely, you can hear gurgles in the earth, rumbles, the scream of things changing shape, the bark and grunt of one kind becoming another, silence that passeth understanding. If you listen closely, you will hear the turning. I don't want to hear it. There are too many noises, there are voices. Where are you now? Standing in the need of air? Standing in a shaft of light? Standing in the way of control? Pissing, drinking, running, lying? Tell me. Tell me and I promise. I promise. I swear. Cross my heart. It would be nice to hope.

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It would be perfect. It would be the last thing, the latest thing, the very thing. It would be a crime. It would be just fine. I don't know what to say. What is going to happen next is bad. The destruction of all pleasantness. Poof! That's how it will go. Quick like that. Or maybe slow, drawn out over eons. The mayor's appointment secretary flicks the corner of the transcendental butler's business card with a hard red fingernail. Death has provided a career opportunity. Once I had an education. It held me in good stead. Then I had connections.

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I called in favors. Where it ended it had to begin. A new religion was crafted out of old mysteries. I don't think there's anything in that bag of tricks for me. In the empty head a candle is being situated. The flicker illumines the cavern but only a piece of it, a corner. Your mind fills in the body. The trail is cold because the snow covers it with a white blanket. Muddy pawprints decorate the comforter. We will be nice to each other. We will be kind. I can name that song if only the chorus will sing.

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O heavenly chorus. O hellish choir. What is there for us? To what may we aspire? I want to be a real boy! I want to be destroyed. I want to be adored. I want nor less nor more. Have you put on the octopus gloves? How many lovers can you count as loves? Is this a trick question? Is this a lesson? A lesion? Confusions and contusions, we look after them. Let us go now, you and I, like a patient just a bit too etherized upon the table. The angels will clasp our hands and lead us down

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the paths of riotous footballers, angry drunks, civic protest, and screaming children, and among these shall we offer the calming influence of eternally restful words of advice, and we will pass out beads given us by the angels, rare and precious beads of common make. We will kiss cheeks, smooth and rouged, sweaty and bristly. We will pat backs and slap hands. Then, our duties done, we will step onto the down escalator to the dockyards on the river Lethe where we will lounge on benches, waiting for the cruise ship that will take us upriver. I understand there's great

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food on cruise ships. Big name entertainment. Gambling. Beautiful island beaches to visit or historic churches full of unique local touches, stained glass featuring native motifs, for instance, hand carved friezes displaying local gods reimagined as the conqueror's gods. I look forward to the fresh unnamed fruit, the spices referred to solely in metaphor, the good news on tongues that are warm and tender and different and homely. Smiles. Slowly getting to know another way of life. No tears. No lost reservations. No seasickness or diarrhea. No strangers. Thanks for getting us coffee while I dreamed. We're here. If not

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there yet, at least we're here. Wherever we are is here. There's no getting away from that. You made the coffee just the way I like it. Out of leprechauns. Sweetened with the milk of angels. I'll be up all night. But in a good way. It will give me time to think. The world will be quiet, all distractions hidden away. The ship is late. Perhaps it is adrift. Can we get the news? Turn up the radio. All I hear is crackle, the crackle of the fire. It's a very old fire. It will burn until it runs

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out of fuel. Which of us will be the last one burning? The last to burn out? Cinderella, Cinderella, hurry on home. The coachmen are about to turn back into rats, the horses into toads. What is that I smell? Someone left the home fires burning. We can swim for it. Look there, on the jostling surface, I see a footprint. And another. Glistening like oil, calming what the oars and keels stirred up. Nice long toes on that foot, broad heel, purposeful stride. If you can walk on water, where can't you get to. I like to walk, too.

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I would walk all the way around the sun if I could. I would walk deep into the speckled darkness between stars. I would step transdimensionally, one foot alternating with the other until I crossed time in every direction and set foot in every dimension. So let's see if water will hold us. I like the way, as we look down, we see ourselves looking up. Wave at them! They are so cute! Let us kiss our reflections, you know you want to. I will kiss your reflection, you kiss mine. Your reflection is a good kisser! I could do

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that again. You should kiss yours, so you know what I'm talking about. I like the way the tiny silver and black fish turns behind your brow, like it's a thought, one you've been mulling for some time. It doesn't look like a dreadful thought, that's good. But it doesn't look like it's going anywhere. It looks like it's going in circles, frankly. I am going to write on water. It's a secret message. But since I'm going to write it on your forehead, the reflection of your forehead, I'm sure it will sink right in. Maybe your little fish

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will gobble it up. My penmanship isn't very good, but what secret is legible? There. Now take my hand. Step slowly, for your opposite below will be placing a foot just so and you must meet it. Just as the foot below will hold you up, your foot holds the other down. The water people would drown in air, as you would drown in water. And we don't want any drowning. Not in the land of the dead. That would be too ironic! Have you got the rhythm? It's easy once you've got the rhythm. We have an appointment to

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keep. Watch out for ferries! Oh the days go by like horses, the days go by like shoes, the meals are all in courses, and which toes that I don't use I'll have to put in purses to make sure that they won't bruise. It's a lovely day, isn't it? Lowering clouds, lightning, hail, and shear. Why, if there were any more sunshine we'd have to pour it in trays and freeze it for later. Ah, we've reached the Isle of Crocodiles. This is Velma, our guide. She is a caiman of exceptional grace and gloss who did time as

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a dragonfly in a pond near a monk's house, as a fairy tale princess, and as, um, was it a dog? A wolf! Of course. Anyway, being as Velma is crocodilian herself she will know best how to navigate this island consisting entirely of crocodiles. She suggests we step primarily upon a crocodile's shoulders, hips secondarily, and move on as quickly as we are able. As they all are large, being trod upon will rile them less than were they of an average size. On the far side we will meet up with dolphins. Or mermaids, although I rather suspect

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we are too late for mermaids. You're always too early or too late for something. What you have to figure out sometimes is what you're right on time for. Ready? Lead on, Velma! Go! Yes oh close one yip ha missed me oof wet off! ugh! yeep! thanks watch out for no for that yes and that over oops yup whew yipe don't slip faster good feint watch this! like that? almost there one two another whoops gotta go left no right no left no eek ah dolphins! Boy, are we glad to see you kids! Let's get out of

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here. I've always loved dolphins. I had a friend once who was an angel or something and he brought me out to the sea he was actually my mother's friend or he was the son of my mother's friend and we went out to the sea it was all of us my mother my mother's friend and my mother's friend's son and he showed us you could see the dolphins going by. He pointed out to sea and at first I couldn't see anything but when my eyes adjusted I saw a fin rise out of the water and then

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slip back under. Just as it disappeared, a second fin, slightly farther away, rose, the tip sparkling where the sun caught in the water on the skin. "I see them," I remember saying and turned to my mother. She didn't see them. It made me think, if she's staring right at them and she doesn't see them, what else doesn't she see that's right in front of her face? Only later did I think to wonder that about myself. Now I figure it happens all the time. The dolphins will take us to the place we're supposed to end up.

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No doubt we'll recognize it, having never been there before. I hope there's a mattress. I don't know about you but I'm ready for a good lie down. The crocodiles were just the icing on the cake with the cake being death. It isn't easy to eat. You want to have your cake and eat it, too. You know that saying, right? I've never understood it. What's the point of cake if not eating it? Somebody explained it to me once and I kinda got it. But I forgot. I'm so over cake. If I have to die never understanding,

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fine. Understanding is overrated. Have you ever watched a foreign film without subtitles? Or read a modern poem? If it really doesn't matter whether you understand you can appreciate other things. The music in language, say. Birds sing in the trees and we're told they do it to attract a mate. Is that everything? It's a lot, sure; everybody knows that who doesn't have a date for Saturday night. But singing's probably a pleasure for the singer, too. Maybe birds are sending sophisticated messages, messages we have yet to decode. I'm not saying we shouldn't bother seeking meaning. Except sometimes.

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Indeed, sometimes you need to let go the frenzied grasping after meaning. Take pleasure in mystery. Live in it undispelled. Ignorance as sensuous experience. Your mind may thwart your intentions and present a meaning on a platter. That is its nightly habit. Every dream threads random objects into a vital narrative: your mother's conniving smile, a rusty muffler, the aftertaste of carpet slippers. The mind tells you you took your mother to dinner and proudly asked for two orders of carpet slippers, the house specialty, but all during the meal she whispered to the rusty muffler from your dad's first

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car, whispered conspiratorially, you're convinced, hatching a plan to boost your Cadillac. This is the sort of entrée your mind serves up when your eyes are shut and your breathing steady and it's dark and it's only you in there, only you and your meaning-making mind which is ever working, ever fiddling. Maybe you just want to rest. But that's not the way it works. You're a meaning-making animal. Letting that go, taking your hand off the wheel of the relentless inner drive and shedding the fear that meaninglessness will hurt you, living instead in meaninglessness's inscrutable purposes and fine

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with that, that's unnatural. Surely an abomination. Like shellfish, like little piggies. Like aeroplanes and choo-choo trains and mechanical lambs eating plastic ivy. God isn't dead. God was never alive so death had no opportunity to be involved. God is one of the many manifestations of non-life. Like a star, like a cold little comet whose gravity is just enough to keep its icy heart from breaking up. If I have a meaning I'm ignorant of it. I suppose I could be like a dream where the dream isn't the answer but provides the opportunity to retell a tale of

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which the received version is surely garbled. You look it over. You think to yourself, I can fix it. The muffler, for example, it means that I was always a quiet baby. My mother's smile symbolizes creative potential and it takes two to create. Stuff like that, you know. A dream doesn't mean what it presents as, nonsense. It really means really profound shit. There's a good reason you dreamed that. Right? Well, that's your mind. Working away. Coming up with gods and symbols and finding faces in burnt tortillas. That's your mind. It can be good. But it's time

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to let that good go. It's built into you. It's not like ungrasping something. More like taking your bones out and laying them on the table then loving the wondrous sensation of being boneless. You never knew you could relax so much. It's not easy, that's what I'm saying. To stop meaning. How can I express it in words? Words are meaning objects. They aren't anything but meaning. Except noise. Some music maybe. The bodies making them. Squiggles on the page. So go with noise, bodies, traces left on surfaces. But can't those be read, too? you protest. To which

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I can only reply: You have beautiful lips. I love to see them move. They open, they close, they purse, they spread. You make fine noises. Such a variety of noises! I can feel their atmosphere, the conforming of air to your purpose. It's a local, ephemeral sculpture. Paint it. Make a mold. Let it go. Once upon a time there was a dog. The dog had no name. None had been given to her. Other dogs recognized her by her smell, by the way she moved, the sounds she made, her shape and attitude. She slept in the street.

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When a car or a donkey cart needed by, the dog would get to her feet, yawn, and move aside, doing this favor purely, you could tell, out of the goodness of her heart. With the traveler past she would return to the otherwise restful spot as it made sense to. She kept up daily rounds, reviewing the usual dumping places, keeping tabs on the comings and goings of other dogs and engaging in the occasional exchange over hierarchy, enjoying the infrequent scratch behind the ear by a friendly hand or dodging the less pleasant boot. She didn't bark much.

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If the dog knew she was really a princess, having been enchanted into this form by a vindictive fairy, she betrayed no hint of it. Her second litter was weaned by this time, though the most teat-addled of her sons still had to be bitten once or twice a day. He didn't hold it against her and would curl up at her feet while she slept. This sunny but chilly afternoon the dog trots around to the back of the guesthouse, and finds the proprietress, serving spoon in one hand, pot to be scraped out in the other. Smells like

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goat stew. The woman smiles at the dignified swing of the dog's approving tail. The scrapings drop out of the pot into a washtub that long ago split down one side, some of the stew in burnt chunks and two bones thick as a fist. The pup ducks under his mother's chin to snatch one and lope off for a lone and satisfying gnaw. The dog pretends she didn't notice. The woman laughs. It's her first laugh of the day. Earlier she was listening to her husband breathe. Breath didn't seem at home in him anymore. Or he'd lost the

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knack. You know how you can be so good at something it doesn't take any thought? Typing, playing the piano, executing somersaults. When you started working on the task it was difficult, maybe seemed impossible, but you kept at it. At some point it became effortless. Your body no longer needed you to think out each step in the process. Perhaps her husband got lost. Finding a good night's sleep had been impossible. He took a wrong turn. His breath returns to his body having not found him in the dust and ash, having searched the sands without luck. The

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body is waiting, no one in it. Will it let the breath in? The body's not sure. Sometimes you have to say no. The breath could go back to searching. It's always been a seeker, anyway. There are grains of sand to check under again. The telephone rings in the house. The only guest picks it up. "No," he says. "I don't know. I'm sorry." When he hangs up the phone he feels bad. He goes back to his room. "You and me," thinks the woman standing over the dog. She's not intending to take the dog in. I and

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thou. Sand castle, sandpaper. Let me find you, says the wind. The dog lifts her head, ears pricked, nostrils twitching. What did she hear? Something transdimensional? A worm turning? At one end of the world a bell rings; at the other someone waits, listening for an answer. We made it to the top of the mountain. To get any higher, hail an angel. Or a cyclone. Thank you, days, months, years, for counting. There's not a minute to lose, yet here they are, all over the ground. How many have you squirreled away? Three two-minute segments, one five-minute, one one.
