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,

Thousand: Seven Hundred Ninety-Five

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 dog. The dog died. Although the death of the dog had been predicted for several weeks, had, indeed, been placed on the calendar a few days prior and notification had been sent out, and the dog had only really been alive because machines plugged into the wall were doing the job the dog’s internal organs, including its brain, had given up on, it was an occasion accompanied

Thousand: Seven Hundred Ninety-Four

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

Thousand: Seven Hundred Ninety-Three

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?

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

Thousand: Seven Hundred Ninety-One

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

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

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty-Nine

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,

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty-Eight

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

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty-Seven

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

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty-Six

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

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty-Five

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

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty-Four

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

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty-Three

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.

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty-Two

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.

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty-One

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.

Thousand: Seven Hundred Eighty

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

Thousand: Seven Hundred Seventy-Nine

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

Thousand: Seven Hundred Seventy-Eight

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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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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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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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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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

Thousand: Seven Hundred Seventy-Three

and you see them coming from a long way off. You can prepare. You can get things ready that need getting ready. Like a quip, a sarcastic aside, a gun cleaned and loaded. They come at a familiar rate. It’s predictable. You can tell yourself this and think of the days going by and not shocking you. How many surprises are there in life? You sense a pattern, you go with it. If there’s a path, you follow it, figuring whoever made that path had a reason to. After you’ve been slogging through the high grass and bog for two

Thousand: Seven Hundred Seventy-Two

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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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

Thousand: Seven Hundred Seventy

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, warmer than you’d want. 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.

Thousand: Seven Hundred Sixty-Nine

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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

Thousand: Seven Hundred Fifty-Nine

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 Fifty-Eight

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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 white foam. Then daisies bowing gently as a piano tinkles in the background.

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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 flowery embankment. Not a miracle! Well, who knows from miracles? You pick up the remote from a cushion

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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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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 initiatives 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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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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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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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 gravitation pull. In all but two of the alternate universes in which the rocket does not escape the Earth’s gravitation 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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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 gravitation pull the wormhole proved elusive and the patient Prince, smiling into the

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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