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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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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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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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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, dragging a red handkerchief across his wet brow, the

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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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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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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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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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“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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Bernie puts the cup down, and it wobbles as the woman on the far end of the picnic table stands up. It’s going to 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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 provide 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 bell hanging over the entrance jangles. “How is the Lady

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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 duece 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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 parts 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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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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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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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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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 of the hall. 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 both 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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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, going up and down and moving in and out. Your flower cart, too, has sung itself to another place. You are standing in a

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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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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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gives 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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 their 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 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 Thirty-Eight

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-Seven

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

Thousand: Eight Hundred Thirty-Six

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

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

Thousand: Eight Hundred Thirty-Four

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-Three

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

Thousand: Eight Hundred Thirty-Two

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

Thousand: Eight Hundred Thirty-One

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

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,

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 over head and she’ll say, There’s my girl! and she’ll 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 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-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-Six

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-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

Thousand: Eight Hundred Twenty-Four

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-Three

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.

Thousand: Eight Hundred Twenty-Two

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

Thousand: Eight Hundred Twenty-One

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 rope liquorice over a boiling vat of strawberry syrup. With whipped cream

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.

Thousand: Eight Hunded 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 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 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 Sixteen

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 Fifteen

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

Thousand: Eight Hundred Fourteen

“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

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.

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 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 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 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 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 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 Six

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 Five

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

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

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 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 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

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: Seven Hundred Ninety-Nine

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: Seven Hundred Ninety-Eight

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

Thousand: Seven Hundred Ninety-Seven

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.

Thousand: Seven Hundred Ninety-Six

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 point 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,