"Little Gun Goes Off" and other narratives

It was my turn to speak upon the mountain. I climbed the mountain for three days to reach the summit and the podium that was there. The clouds were below me. All around was stillness and cold. I spoke. "The essence of maturity is nothing less than" and at that point a great wind blew into my face and rammed the words backwards back down my throat, "than less nothing is maturity of essence the," one word at a time, and I could speak no more.

I came down off the mountain over the next three days and I went where I was supposed to go, to the Hut of the Elders. They were waiting for me there. The First Elder asked, "Did you speak your words?" I lied and said yes. The Second Elder asked, "Do you think your words were heard?" I lied and said yes. The Third Elder asked, "Did you receive the sign?" I lied and said yes. They all smiled at one another, nodding.

They took me out of the Hut of the Elders and introduced me to the men after I had bidden goodbye to the children.

No-one ever learned of my eternal shame.

 

---

 

Home & Kitchen > Furniture > Bedroom Furniture > Beds & Bedframes > Beds > Deathbeds

 

Charles started unwrapping the present. Ten minutes later, it was all unwrapped. It was a bed. "It's a bed," he said.

Mary entangled her fingers and pressed the resulting misshapen clumsy ball against her left cheek. "Read the label!"

Charles found the label and read it. "Sealy Deathbed. Black Ebony Finish. Single. Made in Hong Kong."

He said to Mary, "I didn't know there was such a thing as a deathbed."

"Of course there is. People die on them all the time."

"What I mean is, I didn't know you could purchase one. I thought deathbeds were ordinary beds upon which one is about to die."

Mary shrugged happily. "Apparently that's not the case anymore! They're now mass-manufacturing them so one can plan ahead."

Charles smiled. "Well, what will they think of next?"

"Now you don't have to worry about dying on some smelly cot God knows where. You never know. Maybe you'll need it as soon as tomorrow!"

A tear came to Charles' eye. "Sealy saw a gap in the market, and they filled it. Truly, it's the age of miracle and wonder."

 

---

 

"She was telling me about her father's death. She said, 'I figured it was the end when the thought went through my head that rather than lying on a ordinary bed he was actually lying on his deathbed. When that bed became a deathbed that's when it sunk in that this was the last chance to ask him about the present.

"'I said to him, "Father, I have to know something. About the gift I gave you five years ago, when I was seventeen."

"'He looked at me with a question.

"'I said, "I gave you a little metal box. Did you ever even open it?"

"'A look of recognition came into his eyes. "Oh yes, the box. I opened it. It was just a bundle of wires inside."

"'"It was more than that. It was a cure for what's killing you now. What happened to it?"

"'He sighed and tried to speak but no words came out. And that was the end of him. I never found out about the box.'

"I said, 'Wow. Did you ever find it?'

"'Never.'

"'That cure could have helped a lot of people.'

"'It could only cure him alone. Only him, only him.'"

 

---

 

Almost True

 

I moped on home after the class election. The dreary traffic lights held me up at Harmony and Adelaide. Why hadn't I crossed back at the crosswalk? It was because I didn't want to force any cars to stop for me and me alone.

My mother was at the door. "How did it go?"

"I lost."

"Oh dear. Well, better luck next time. How much did you lose by?"

"Thirty-two votes."

"That's rather a lot. How many are in the class?"

I swallowed hard then. "Thirty-two."

"You didn't get a single vote?"

"Not one. It was unanimous. For Shari Lesser."

"She must be very popular."

"That she is."

I put my filthy books down on the dining room table and sighed. "I was wiped out."

My mother then said, "Wait. What about your vote for yourself?"

"My what?"

"You voted too, right? You should've gotten one vote. You should demand a recount!"

This confused me. "You don't think I would vote for myself, do you?"

This happened forty years ago. Still, to this day, I can't understand how someone could vote for himself. It sounds like a really arrogant act, doesn't it? Hey, everybody, look. Look at me.

 

---

 

Two backpacking northern travellers named Pat and Mike ran into one another on the Polar Bear Express heading up to Moosonee. Since they were both planning a little day trip over to Moose Factory they teamed up and got on the boat together. Soon they were walking the main streets, swapping stories of their travels and seeing the sights.

Two dogs, a retriever and a collie, came running along and joined them in their journey.

Pat said, "Hey, doggies, come along."

About a quarter mile later a labrador fell in with them.

Mike said, "Hmm, another dog."

Ten minutes later a beagle and a second retriever joined their sightseeing pack. The dogs seemed happy, maybe because they had something to do. Pat patted them all and made hero sounds.

Mike said, "Lotta dogs. I wonder why they like us in particular."

"I have a thing with dogs. It's funny. I think it's because they think I'm a dog too."

Mike said, finally using a gag he'd thought up some years before, "Maybe it's really because you smell like garbage."

Pat stopped, the dogs stopped, and Mike stopped.

"Not funny," said Pat.

The dogs snarled, bared their teeth, and commenced salivating.

 

---

 

The New Tamburlaine: A Novel

Book Two

PART TWO

Chapter Two

2.

 

¿¡*+=:![{(THE ENDING)}]!:=+*!?

 

The female protagonist cried, "Someone save me! Come quick, and save me!"

The male protagonist shouted, "It's too late for that! No-one can save you now! We're way too close to an end for that!"

She leaned out the castle window or whatever. "Is this really how it's going to end?"

He knelt at her feet. "Don't you understand? I've loved you for so long! All this was ... for you!"

She smiled unexpectedly, and touched his cheek. She laughed lightly. "I didn't know I was in a romance."

"The stars of on high have said so."

"I've never heard the construction 'of on' before."

"Dammit, that's because you've never loved before! It's perfectly common, in Romance!"

She knelt. "Does this mean the end?"

A character from Book One PART TWO Chapter One rushed in, crying, "Does she think it means the end?"

A character from Book Two PART ONE Chapter Two rushed in, crying, "Does she think it means the end?"

And she our protagonist cried, "I will be married!"

So it ended.

So it ended.

So it ended.

So it ended.

So it ended.

 

---

 

Having noticed myself being in a kind of sentimental elation after providing to the writer Neil Gaiman the only known footage of his father, said footage having been forgotten by everyone in the world and misplaced uncatalogued, I made the quite causal connexion between the former and the latter, i.e. that a pleasurable feeling follows the commission of a good deed.

Thus this morning seated on the streetcar I noticed a pretty woman standing beside me and I looked up at her and said, "Excuse me. Would you like to sit down?"

"Why, thank you."

We fleetly exchanged places.

As I basked in the aura of my well-done deed, I glanced down repeatedly at the pretty woman only to witness in flickering stop-time the man who had been beside me and was now beside her looking directly into her eyes as he asked her where she was going, what was her name, where she'd grown up, her history of pets, her middle name, marital status, phone number, the colour of her underthings, her experience of nude beaches, and if she liked being on top.

Thus I experienced a second epiphany: one cannot be sentimentally elated while being really friggin' jealous.

 

---

 

Her right eye socket was a smooth concavity as if her embryonic RNA had somehow misplaced that page of the instruction manual. Jim could see fatty epidermal tissue in there, without a hint of muscle. She said, "It's not an easy job, this writing game. You have to able to observe carefully. Jim: where are we?"

Jim looked hard. "Top of a smooth grass-covered hill. Countryside, within earshot of a host of crickets."

The man with one arm said, "Is that the proper collective noun? Why 'host?'"

Jim answered, "I think I used it because we're their guests. Should I look up the collective noun for crickets?"

The woman said, "It might be more meaningful. You can check it later. But host, host is good."

Jim looked hard again. "A town with a chapel's over there," pointing.

"You can't point!" cried the one-armed man. "No-one can see you pointing!"

"Okay, like a, a medieval town of three hundred painted by Breugel."

"That's better."

"This is really not that easy, you know."

"We know it's not."

"But it has to be done."

Jim said, "Is this how you two got started?"

"Ah," said the woman. "We haven't started yet."

"Not yet."

 

---

 

From de Maupassant's Sketchbook

 

The humble parish church in which we were all sitting was built for Masses, but through the centuries had begun offering christenings, baptisms, weddings ... and funerals, which was the reason we were there that Tuesday.

Heads turned this way and that and quiet mutters passed the air, mingling with the minor chords provided by Sacristan Otto. The funeral had been scheduled for nine, and it seemed to be well past that--perhaps nine-and-a-half or so, and the hearse had not arrived; nor, for that matter, had Jacques' young widow Hermione.

Some snickering passed lightly as Hermione made her appearance, still sweating and smelling of a hayloft assignation, to take her seat in the front pew. She whispered to her pew-mate, "I simply had to stay for seconds."

We all turned at that point, for the casket was being carried down the aisle. We crossed ourselves, thinking about the brevity of life and the preciousness of time. A pallbearer apologized quietly about sheep on the road and the consequent delay.

Hermione's pew-mate leaned to her and whispered, "You got here in the nick of time."

She shrugged. "I knew Jacques wouldn't be on time anyway, so...."

 

---

 

"Where's June?"

I said, "She's out there somewhere in the dark. We had a fight."

"She's out there all alone?"

"She'll be back."

I walked back and forth on the porch feeling righteous and justified. Dawn and Jim continued their game, never once daring to look up at me. Lucky for them, that's all I can say.

I smoked a cigarette, drank a beer, and smoked a cigarette.

Dawn stood up and looked off the porch into the black. "Where did you leave her?"

I waved my arms around. "Oh, up near the road, that's where. Fine, she's sulking, it's a game, everything's a game to her."

She looked over at Jim. She said, "Let's go look."

I said, "You're gonna be giving her everything she wants. Leave her be."

Dawn went inside; the light of a flashlight broke through the window and onto a tree; she came back out. Jim got up and went with her.

I watched the flashlight's beam bouncing away for quite some time, then it disappeared behind some trees.

I got another beer and drank it.

I sat, still angry, dreaming up speeches.

I sat, waiting for them to come back; which they never did.

 

---

 

Little Gun Goes Off

 

Once upon a time there was a little gun named, simply, Little Gun. Now, Little Gun was a happy little gun who danced and played in the sunshine. He figured he could never do anything bad and that nothing bad could ever happen to him.

One day his parents sat him down for a talk.

Little Gun's father, Daddy Gun, told him, "We want to warn you about the world, son."

"Oh?" cried Little Gun.

Little Gun's mother, Mommy Gun, told him, "There are people in the world who want to lock you up."

"Oh!" cried Little Gun.

Daddy Gun said, "The people who want to lock you up are called liberals."

Little Gun asked, "If they're liberals, why are they against liberty?"

Mommy Gun said, "No-one quite knows. However, liberals have a magic potion called Nuance that makes contradictions disappear."

Little Gun said, "I think I understand. So I should be good?"

His parents said, "You should be good."

Little Gun was good for a time, but then one day he went crazy. Somehow he harmed a neighbour, and a teacher, and a policeman, and he got locked up.

And everyone lived happily ever after.

 

---

 

Circle Dance

 

So many parts to this thing I don't get,

There's courtship and kindling, mistake and regret,

There's walks on the beach and ice cream at dawn,

There's writing of sonnet and writing of song,

That I can't make it whole with the chunks that I'm missing

And how can I know when I've done enough kissing?

 

Don't try to get love before you get L,

Don't try it before you get O,

You got to get V before you can tell,

And e-special-e E 'fore you know.

 

But how can I know what the meaning I'm aiming for

Is really dependent on each little particle?

How can there be knowledge that each little act

Has to be in its place to suppose it as fact?

Without an awareness of which parts are necessary

How do I know the resultant's involuntary?

 

Don't try to get love before you get L,

Don't try it before you get O,

You got to get V before you can tell,

And e-special-e E 'fore you know.

 

The circle of meaning, don't try to outsmart,

It's called hermeneutics with no place to start,

With part 'fore the whole and the whole 'fore the part....

 

---

 

"Mother Whimple, Mother Whimple!"

"What is it, my child, whom I have known since birth?"

Laura puts her fingers together tightly. "I am expecting a child of my own!"

Mother Whimple thinks. "When were you impregnated?"

"The fifth of April!"

Mother Whimple closes the blinds and shuts out the light. She forces Laura into a conveniently-set chaise longue. Mother Whimple whispers, "Do you know what this will mean?"

 

THE CAPRICORN

Years later.... Lara is churning butter, five hundred pounds a sitting. She thinks back... back... back....

Mother Whimple: I can never bless your child.

Laura: Why ever not, old woman, whom I have known since I attained the age of reason?

Laura (in the 'present') calls for her son. She calls, "Wicked Child! Wicked Child!"

Wicked Child (wearing barnyard filth for clothing) creeps anxiously into the churnery. "Yes, mother?"

"You wicked child! You killed our neighbour's daughter!"

Wicked Child knots his fingers. "It's in my astrological nature to do so, mother. How can I be what I am not? For example, a Libra?"

Laura fists the sky. "Why? Why, oh God, a Capricorn?"

Wicked Child sucks his filthy thumb. "These forces I cannot control, Mother. What want you dead for dinner?"

 

---

 

PORNSTAR FUNNIES #3

 

FIRST PANEL

Charles and Nancy engaging in sexual intercourse, Nancy on top, her hair hanging down occluding her face.

Charles' speech-bubble: I wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted a ticker-tape parade.

Nancy: There's only so many positions for astronauts, you know; I guess you figured that out.

OUT-OF-PANEL VOICE: Lean back, pussy!

 

SECOND PANEL

Nancy is leaning back. Her eyes are closed.

Charles: I couldn't do math good enough. It was so long ago I forget the rest. How did I decide not to pursue it?

Nancy: You've made up a narrative to explain your existence. As pathetic as mine.

OUT-OF-PANEL VOICE: Dick, move your arm!

 

THIRD PANEL

Nancy's hair is hanging down again. Charles' arm has moved.

Charles: Do you ever get the feeling you're just a robot?

Nancy: I read a book once about robots. Apparently they can be made to think they're real, but they're not.

OUT-OF-PANEL VOICE: Pussy, lean back, let us see junk!

 

FOURTH PANEL

Nancy's leaning way back.

Charles: Life is so disappointing. Whatever happened to the child I once was?

Nancy: Sometimes I wonder if God takes pleasure seeing us suffer as we do.

OUT-OF-PANEL VOICE: Dick, on top!

 

---

 

My platform? You're asking me for my platform? I have but one plank in my platform, so it's more like a board, or one of those planks bad sailors are forced to walk off of. I'm not comparing myself to a sailor, understand. Sailoring is serious business. Besides, boats bore me stiff. The only thing worse than life is life on a boat. Pessimistic, but demonstrably true. Very dull. Maybe it's the flatness of everything around you. Though I suppose there'd be something sublime on, like, an ocean liner, out in the middle of the ocean with nothing but flat water in every direction. No. That's wrong. It'd be dull, dull, dull, and there'd be too much of a temptation to jump off. All it takes is an instant, or so they say.

So, my platform, such as I may call it, is simplicity itself. Vote for me, and I will pay no taxes. With the money I save, I can buy myself nice things, like a house or a car. If I'm not elected, I don't get any tax break. That's all there is to my election platform. I get to not pay taxes. I don't expect to win.

 

---

 

The principal said to Roy, "I'm sorry. We can't accept Nola or whatever-her-name-is to our High School."

Roy wiped his face all over and replied in that annoying way he has, "Whyever not?"

The High School administrator sighed and said, "It's her hair. We can't have another of her hair colour in here. We have too many already."

"But-but-but she's brilliant! Her father--me--look me up on LinkedIn! I have a thousand contacts! And Nola's mother, why, she's redesigned Nathan Phillips Square, and it might be built in 2020!"

The administrator said, "We have Nobel-prize-winning parents aplenty here. It's not a matter of accomplishments. It's simply that her hair shade colour is already over-represented, and we must try to most accurately (re)present the true community demographic."

Roy knew he was beat, having heard her vocalize a parenthesis. He crawled to his feet defeatedly and breathed, "I fully understand."

Then he got a magnificently Roy-like idea, saying, "What if I dyed her hair black?"

The administrator frowned thinkily before saying, "That would be hair cultural appropriation, wouldn't it?"

Roy sighed Yes, walked out, and rehearsed: "Nola. Darling! You're beautiful. That high school wasn't good enough for you. Let's try elsewhere."

 

---

 

Softball

 

-Hello, and welcome to another edition of softball, the program that's not afraid to ask easy questions of the headline-makers. Tonight on our program, we have with us Mr. Donald Trump. Welcome, Mr. Trump.

-Thank you, and thanks for having me on your program.

-Very good, very good. Is that a comfy enough chair?

-It's like sitting in my mama's lap.

-Excellent. And so: right to it! Mr. Trump. You have recently been making quite controversial statements. So I would like to ask you: Did you have a pet as a child?

-Yes, I had a dog named Ralph.

-Ralph, as in the sound of a bark?

-No, he was named after Ralph Cramden, from the television show "The Honeymooners."

-I see. Was he your own dog, or the family dog?

-Funny story there, funny story. I thought--I was told--that he was mine. As it turned out, he was actually my father's dog.

-And why was that?

-Well, I didn't understand it until later, a child cannot actually own a pet.

-Isn't that extraordinary.

-The extraordinary thing, understand, is that I didn't "get it" until I was nineteen.

-Sorry to interrupt. We'll be back after this commercial.

 

---

 

I remember, I remember brushing the dirt from my knees

As I walked away from the manger

There was a cloud looking like Italy

Up high in the sky and the day was getting warmer

And it didn't matter to the birds hiding noisily in the trees

And I asked myself

"Is that all there is to having sex with a goat?"

 

Is that all there is?

Is that all there is?

If that's all there is my friends

Then let's keep dancing

Let's break out the booze and have a ball

If that's all there is

 

Then there was the time I noticed something odd

About my father's eating habits

Perhaps he was autistic

He'd always pick the smallest egg in the carton first

And work up from there

I thought it was a stupid habit, and finally I asked,

"Is that all there is to poisoning your father?"

 

When I finally turned around, I thought I could smell

Flesh burning--but that must've been an illusion

Because I was seven miles away from ground zero

I saw a cloud looking like a cute mushroom

And I said to myself,

"Is that all there is to a nuclear explosion?"

 

---

 

I'm increasing the odds that some vestige of western civilization can survive in the face of kill-all-infidels Moslem imperialism; cf. A Canticle for Leibowitz. [link to Toscanini's Complete RCA Collection.]

 

Oh, the Eagles of Death Metal cover the old song by Duran Duran 'Save a Prayer.' Naturally they should be murdered.

 

It seems Facebook is on a blackout concerning the Islam slaughters in France.

 

When can I quit my job? A slaughter happens at a concert. Somewhere around a hundred kids get murdered by moslems. My TV broadcast--"The National"--cannot use the words Islam or Moslem. (I will verify they didn't.) They treat it like it's a natural disaster. Such a fucking joke.

 

Have you heard Moslems are killing Christians in France?

 

*

 

"River" is a tv show written by Philip Marlow.

 

Toscanini. His violence illuminates what Geoff Sinclair (french horn) said to me a decade ago. "You get a lot of musicians on a stage, they want to make a big noise."

 

I went into a shop today to buy seven items. Each item cost three dollars. The teenager at the cash register had to get out a calculator to do the math. The children are our future.

 

---

 

Missing Cat

 

Five-ten-fifteen

"Hey, I let the cat out at five and she's still not back yet"

Twenty twenty-five thirty

I figured that she'd come back on her own, sure, so I waited calmly

Thirty-five-forty-forty-five

I walked the alleys and streets, looking for signs of a car accident maybe

Fifty-fifty-five-sixty

Then I imagined her no longer in the house ever again, and it hurt

Sixty-five-seventy-seventy-five

At twelve hours gone, at five PM, I couldn't go outside I was afraid

Eighty-eighty-five-ninety

Mary came home, we searched, asked the corner store, hadn't thought of that before

Ninety-five-one-hundred-one-hundred-five

To bed sad, recalled dog-catchers in cartoons, thought maybe she'd been picked up by

One-hundred-ten-one-hundred-fifteen-one-hundred-twenty

Found her on the Animal Services website, in a photo, held in a shelter

One-hundred-twenty-five-one-hundred-thirty-one-hundred-thirty-five

Went to get her, I took her to the vet then, finally home again

One-hundred-forty-one-hundred-forty-five-one-hundred-fifty

Now she's either in shock or irreparably damaged from the high blood pressure event

One-hundred-fifty-five-one-hundred-sixty-one-hundred-sixty-five

Recriminations all just, like why didn't I search harder earlier instead of simply waiting

One-hundred-seventy-one-hundred-seventy-five-one-hundred-eighty

None of this had to have worked out, I might not have guessed "shelter"

One-hundred-eighty-five-one-hundred-ninety-one-hundred-ninety-five

Tomorrow's another day, I will go back to being myself won't I, selfish again

Two-hundred

 

---

 

There it all was. The meaning of everything, all accomplished by me and in the right place. A house in a good neighbourhood, and a wife, and three children. It had taken a decade to get, and I had it. There were no secrets to any of it.

So why did I start so, on A February night, when a loud whooshing roar of sound came from the basement? It could not have been anything, really. I knew the basement from one end to the other, and there was no possible way for anything to be making a loud whooshing roar down there. What was wrong with me? I had been victim of a hallucination. I chuckled and decided to go down to the basement, just for the fun and pleasure of it. I felt like stretching my legs.

I could have turned on the lights down there; I chose to use a small black flashlight instead. Understand that the house was quiet, with everyone (save me) asleep. "Hello, hallucination," I said as I descended, counting the thirteen steps down.

How had I misjudged? Another hallucination? I stepped down and down, my light ahead of me, down ... sixteen steps.

 

---

 

The flashlight illuminated the steps down which I was stepping down into the basement of the house which had once belonged to my parents and which then belonged to me, via inheritance. I'd known these steps since I had been a boy; they were more familiar to me than any steps I had ever known. It was Christmas Eve, and I had heard an unusual noise down there, a floor-rattling whoosh which I could not entirely attribute to the powerful eggnog I had consumed. My wife was sleeping or whatever, and the children likewise sleeping or whatever. I had chosen to not turn on the basement light for I had wanted to feel something of a tense scare on that hallowed Eve. The basement had been a frightening place one-upon-a-time, and I had wanted to recapture that childish terror, if only for some two minutes. Without really knowing I was doing so I counted the steps as I descended; I stepped off the bottom step--the thirteenth. Things did not look right. My slippered toes slid forward; I was still on a step. Had I miscounted? Where could an extra step have come from? And that's when I saw it.

 

---

 

I took the kid up onto the wall to show him. "Watch," I said. I spotting one of the off near a copse so I fired a shot in its direction. It looked towards us and started stumbling closer. When it was about twenty yards from the wall and starting to go in the wrong direction I aimed carefully and blew its head off. "That's the first step."

We went down to the gate. The gate-master opened it up and the kid and I hurried out and dragged the body into the compound. The gate-master quickly closed the gate. "Simple, no?" I said to the kid.

We dragged the corpse to the cook-hut where the water was already boiling. We stripped it naked and shoved it into the pot.

"There, see?" I told him. "In two hours there'll be meat for us all."

The kid said, "Don't you find eating zombies disgusting?"

I shrugged. "Protein's protein."

He grimaced. "Zombie stew."

"You put in veggies and it's just like squirrel."

"It ain't like what our people did."

There he was, going on about his Georgia pea-nuts again. "Different strokes for different folks. They'll figure it out afore long. Welcome to Alabam."

 

---

 

At the centre of the party was the man of the hour, the lecturer philosopher Swami Draupadu, formerly of Salt Lake City, Utah, currently of Mumbai, Dubai, and London. He was speaking to Mrs. Earnson of his dietary practice, and I overheard.

He was saying, "It is an illusion, all an illusion."

Mrs. Earnson: "Are you saying that the whole field of biology, nutrition most precisely, needs a revolutionary revision?"

"I am. All the nutrients one needs one may get from the fertile lifer-giving air. I myself eat nothing, and have eaten nothing for eleven years."

"Indeed! And you look none the worse for wear."

The Swami excused himself for some minutes during which we discussed his radical ideas. He came back and I distinctly smelled smoked salmon.

In the car home, I told my wife of this. She said, "Is not the smell of smoked salmon carried through air? The Swami had obviously drawn the nutrients associated with smoked salmon from the air and into himself, and you were smelling the detritus."

What a wise woman, my wife! Of course--it all made sense! I cannot understand why these ideas aren't mandated into the national curriculum. Isn't this 2015?

 

---

 

The End

 

Once it became apparent to the animals that life could not go on forever, Loss entered the world, rubbed its new chapped paws together, and said, "I know what you're all going through; really I do; really."

He'd known, he'd been introduced to, his great-grandmother, that much he knew; but on the day of her funeral he was forced into new little clothes, and he didn't know why.

Rachel was at the bottom of a dark pit so disorienting she couldn't focus on the pinprick of light so high above it might have been a lost hallucination.

It's said all the time, by everyone: "I can't believe it. Why, I just saw xxx last xxx; it's really hard to believe."

If the loss of each person is unique, can't we key people to prime numbers? What's the trillionth prime?

How many people did you see today for the very last time, those both familiar and unfamiliar?

Why do the dead say first off? Is it: "Where did everyone go?"

I used to know this neighbourhood but now it's so empty.

The dog that howled at Mac's grave.

"Don't you forget about me."

People vanish daily.

My loss.

Lost.

"The 'Man-Wolf'"

-I've read a whole lot of detective stories and novels, and I've seen a lot of television shows and movies about crime, and there's something I've noticed in about seventy percent of them; let's call it a trend, or maybe like an artistic way to distract readers.

I noticed I had been rolling the orange coffee cup she had given me between my hands for some time, and I stopped rolling it. The handle was pointing in her direction. I said, What've you noticed?

She smiled. She thought she saw I was suddenly paying some attention because she'd seen me stop my cup-rolling. Why was she talking about this? She said, continuing, You're not supposed to notice it, but if you read backwards--something it's wrong to do, I know--and watch the person who turns out to be the murderer, you notice that he--or she--doesn't even appear to be at all affected by the murder. They're always cool as cucumbers. They never slip up or act nervous. The author makes it that way because we're not supposed to think the murderer is the murderer; they're supposed to be the last person you'd think of. So they can't act like they did the murder. But really, how could someone be a murderer and manage to act like a completely normal person? If I was a murderer--which I'm not--I couldn't possibly be sitting here talk so normally to you. I'd be plagued with guilt. And I can tell you can't be the murderer, because you stopped rolling your cup. If you were the murderer you'd never do something so suspicious. You're guilty-seeming. So it's not you.

-Ah, I said, but what you're talking about is only in stories. In real life it's different, isn't it? Guilty people act guiltily in real life, and that's what you're using for your frame of comparison, right? If in real life guilty people didn't act guilty then you wouldn't have been able to see how in those detective stories there's all kinds of fakery, now could you?

She smiled again, sheepishly. I guess you're right, she said. She pointed out on her fingers: one, two: There's the real world, and there's the false world; and it's mostly the real world that's the decider for the false world: to make its falseness invisible; so that the false world looks real even though it isn't. That's what, verisimilitude? Yeah but on the other hand sometimes the false world affects the true world, don't you think? (She had entwined her fingers and put her elbows on her kitchen table and put her chin on top of her entwined fingers.) I've heard it said that Shakespeare's soliloquies actually created the concepts we use to describe the inner life. Like, our whole idea of coming-to-a-decision is straight from those plays. We wouldn't be able to decide stuff if it wasn't for Shakespeare. You ever hear that?

-No, never heard that one. I don't even know if I really get it, at least not today. Maybe some other time. So anyway, does the rent include utilities?

She looked around the kitchen, smiling with all her teeth out, before her eyes settled on the gas stove. Yes, she said. It has to be. There's really no way to split the costs, so I don't do that here. I just charge you the rent straight out and you can do what you want.... You're not planning any scientific experiments using electricity or natural gas, are you?

-I'm no scientist. I'm no experimenter. I have a computer and a stereo, that's about it. I like the gas, though. You can cook better with it.

-Yeah, it's good. Do you do a lot of cooking?

-Some--you know, I have to eat and all. I guess we'll somehow be sharing this kitchen?

She gestured to the shelves behind her and to the pots and pans and plates and cups and mugs there. You can use whatever you want. Just wash the stuff when you're done. Do you have any stuff of your own?

-I have some. Not much ... four plates. A big saucepan, a stew pot. Just a box of stuff. Old stuff mostly.

-Sounds good. So what brings you specifically here? Why did you pick my house?

Instead of saying Yours was the second one I circled and I never go with the first circle, I said The location is good, and the cost is okay.

I watched her. She had yellow hair. Did I like yellow hair? I couldn't bring to mind any yellow-haired people I'd known. I must have seen them before, even talked to them before, but I guessed I'd never really been close to one. She was waiting for me to say something. I said, Who moved out?

She rolled her eyes. She said, It was a girl named Henrietta. We didn't get along like I'd wanted to.

-Didn't do the dishes?

-Wasn't that. I just never warmed up to her. She was ... aloof. Don't think I'm Miss Congeniality or anything, but I think you have to make some kind of an effort to get along with other people. Maybe she drank too much leady water or something. I'm looking for someone who's a bit more normal than that. Do you think you're relatable enough for me?

I was tired and had a bit of a headache. Had I been gritting my teeth? I said, I think I get along with other people okay. I had a pretty normal family. That is to say, when I got to be of age I wanted to leave. Perfectly normal. Then about a month ago things went a bit haywire for me and I moved back into their den, and now I want to move out again. So I've got everything in boxes still. I'm ready to move again.

She nodded again. She said, I guess, if you want, do you want to see the rest of the house?

-Sure, okay.

As we both stood up I asked her, So when did your father buy this house?

-He didn't buy it actually. It was his grandfather's house. My grandfather built this house.

-No way!

-Yes, he built it all. It's changed a lot over the years, but really very slowly. I'll give you the whole tour. C'mon down here, into the basement. These stairs aren't the original stairs. My father put them in. Tore out the old ones. I was little then. I was afraid of the basement. I guess they should be replaced again someday. Do you know carpentry and stuff? You can see the basement's not as big as the upstairs. That's 'cause the kitchen was added later. I guess someday someone industrious--my son or someone, ha-ha--could dig out the space under the kitchen. I don't think that would be very hard to do, do you? There could be a whole other room there. Then the basement would be really big. A whole apartment for someone. It's just old junk down here, and the furnace. C'mere, check this out. Yeah: it's just a dirt floor back there. It seems that getting back there behind the furnace to put down cement turned out to be such a pain for dad that he decided to leave it for later, and that later never seemed to come. Just dirt. Who knows what's under there? Maybe some spinster great-aunt of mine, ha-ha. Sorry, I had a morbid mind. There's nothing wrong with me otherwise. I'm thirty, how old are you?

-I'm twenty-eight.

-Ah, younger than me. Interesting. Well, not that interesting, I mean everybody's got to have an age, don't they? And yours is twenty-eight, and mine is thirty. You could be, like, a brother of mine.

I said, Have you thought of putting a washroom down here? I think you could.

-That's interesting, I've never thought of that. The kitchen pipes are right overhead. A whole bathroom could be built if we dug that part out. Well, interesting. Okay. Here, c'mon. Up the stairs. Kitchen again of course.

I said, So this has been your house your whole life?

She said, Yeah. I've never lived anywhere else.

-That's pretty rare in this day and age. I've never met anyone like that.

-The last tenant said that too. Henrietta. Thing is, it's a pretty small house. No-one's ever wanted to buy it. It was hard when my father was in the hospital. I was his only ... offspring. I'd come home to a kind of a nothing from the hospital.... But I knew it would all be mine soon. He was terminal, you know? And I knew the costs of a house, and so I knew I had to get some roomie. I've had three already, you'll be my fourth.

We were in the kitchen again. She was pretty. I didn't know what kind of a job she had but I figured it wasn't terribly interesting. (If her job had been interesting she wouldn't have been spending so much time with me.) She said, Oh well, and filled the kettle with water and put the kettle on the burner and turned on the gas.

-I'm going to make tea.

-It's a nice table here. How many room are there?

Quickly: Three bedrooms. I use one for my study. So there's just one free.

-Your other roomies: were the men or women?

-Ah. If you move in, it'll be alternating: girl boy girl boy.

I wandered into the living room. There was a good supply of novels in there. Are these all your books?

-No, she called. I've got loads more upstairs. Is that what you meant or. As I said, a lot of crime novels.

-Who's your favourites in the crime novel stories?

-I'm rather British. I have to say it's Agatha Christie and the writers like her. Dorothy Sayers, Patricia Highsmith.

-Isn't she American?

-Yes, but she seems British to me, I don't know. What about you, what do you read?

-I don't read much.

-Oh.

-I only know about Patricia Highsmith because of that movie Matt Damon was in. I looked her up. Never read anything through.

-Oh. Okay.

-...Do you spend a lot of time in here?

-Not really, no.

-Would you like a television in here? I have a television. A little one.

-I suppose so. So all your stuff is at your parent's house?

-Well.... At their den, yes.

I heard her pouring water. She asked, What do you mean?

-My parents have a den, they don't have a house.

-What are they, bears?

-No, not bears. They're wolves.

It was time for me to go back into the kitchen. She was putting the kettle back on the stove. Ah. So your parents are wolves, are they?

I sat down and spoke very seriously. Yes, my parents are wolves. I myself am a kind of a wolf. My genes, so I've been told, are hybrids. I look like a person and everything else about me is person-like; I'm a freak.

-That's not possible.

-Yes it is. People have twenty-three sets of genes, and wolves have twenty-five. Most species, you know, are only a little different from other species. So it happens sometimes that there's flaws. You know, like human woman giving birth to other animals. You've heard of things like that, right?

-Well, yeah. Not recently though. Old medical myths and stuff. Fairy tales.

-So it happens on the other side too. And it happens more often than you think.

She wasn't believing me at all. So your parents, she said, When you come home--or to the den--, they aren't at all upset that their kid is a ... human?

-They're used to it. I'm still their kid. They know me. We can't have conversations, but still they're very loving. We're kith and we're kin.

-Okay, so. How'd you leave them?

-A group of boy scouts found me and took me in. That's why I'm so honest.

Here she raised an eyebrow really high. I waited a couple beats before saying, Okay, okay, I'm kidding you. All made up. My parents' den is in an ordinary house. I was just going on and on.

She laughed.

-I knew it. I knew it. Crazy story. Did you just make that up?

-Just out of nowhere.

-Pretty clever. But I have to say that if you were a wolf? a wolf-man? I wouldn't mind that much. I like interesting people. Maybe some day you'll find out surprising stuff about me.

-Oh yeah?

-Yeah. You know, right? I've lived in this house only. Isn't that a bit weird?

-Yes, it's a bit weird.

-So. There you go.

-I had you going for a bit. I've found that people naturally think anything is the truth, at least initially.

-I don't think that's true.

-Case in point. You must have taken what I said as a positive statement initially, before not believing it. You must have--in some way--believed my statement that people naturally think anything is the truth before you could think that it is not true that people naturally think anything is the truth.

-Maybe. But really that's just a kind of playing with words you're doing, isn't it?

-I think it means more than that. But anyway moving along you said you were going to show me the rest of the house.

She shook her head in a quick whiplash. Yes, let's go. What do you think of the living room?

-It's nice. Could be a cozy place.

-Let me show you upstairs, other than the room for let. Because you've seen that.

I followed her down the narrow hall and up the stairs. The banister was a nice dark oak, probably the original banister it was. The stairs themselves were carpeted in dark blue. She had a nice ass. At the top of the stairs she turned to see me looking at her face.

-The bathroom. The only bathroom, unfortunately.

I peeked in. A toilet, a sink, and a bathtub. A mirror over the sink, slightly open to reveal aspirin, a pink razor, and a spool of floss.

-It looks good enough, I said.

-Okay, and here's what I call my office. You can only have a quick peek!

I quickly peeked into her office. A desk and a computer, another shelf of books (cheap pocket sizes), and a wooden chair. On the wall hung a framed reproduction of Toulouse-Lautrec's poster for the Moulin Rouge Concert Bal. I had seen enough for I never expected to ever again step foot inside the room.

-There's my peek, I said.

-And down here is my bedroom. There's not much to it. Look.

She opened the door. A neatly-made bed (blue goose-embroidered covering), a shelf over it with mementoes and a trophy (for archery I later discovered), two framed posters of what appeared to be French outdoor café scenes, a roll-top desk (closed) with a dusty fake tiffany lamp on top, a small television set on a severe wooden chair. There was also a little cd miniplayer on a table alongside a pitiably small collection of disks. And I thought: all these things that will not be here in a relative blink of an eye, soon to be broken, dissolved, returned to the atoms and molecules from whence they came, are now cherished, taken for granted, or despised by the woman who, atoms and all, stood behind me, radiating avidly. She said, That's all there is to it. Nothing to hide here.

I said, I think it all looks quite fine. Are you expecting me to find hidden things?

-I don't think you could if you tried. Do you play loud music? Do you have over a lot of friends at one time?

-Not in any crazy way. No, I can't say you'll even notice me after a couple days.

She chuckled saying, I don't want you to be completely invisible. I like to be friends with the people who live with me. It works better that way.

-I can't see any of this being a problem.

-Would you like a drink? Beer or something?

-No, I don't drink.

-You don't drink?

-I never really got the feel for it. And I don't like the ... feeling of the stuff. Loss of control. I don't mind drunks though.

-Neither do I! But a little buzz I like.

-I'm not going to mind at all. Consider me a part of the family, girl. I'm not here to judge you. Have a good time with whatever. I won't object. I'm happy here; I'll be in a happy place.

She laughed out loud--she LOL'd--then, completely disarmed. She said, Okay, so, there, that's the whole place. I think: let's go down again.

Something was bothering her.

I followed her down the stairs. She was quiet going down. At the bottom of the stairs she turned to me and she looked at me and said, Did you leave the front door open?

I said, quite truthfully, I didn't touch the door.

She wrung her little hands. She said, Have you seen the cat? Troubadour?

-I haven't seen any cat. You have a cat here?

She went to the open front door and leaned out. Cool October. She said, She's not supposed to get out. Did you see her?

-I didn't see anything.

-Ah geez ah geez. Where is she? Troubadour, Troubadour! Come and help me.

I went up behind her. Your cat's got away?

-She's out.

She threw her hands up comically melodramatically. Can you go to the back door, see if she's there?

-Cats don't like me much.

I went back into the house looking for some kind of a back door, back into the kitchen, where there was in fact a door. Knowing it was all useless I opened it and leaned out and said, Troubadour.

She called out, Do you see her? to me.

-No.

-Go out in the yard, look around up in the tree and everything. I found her up in that tree once.

I went outside, crunching through the sad leaves. There was nothing in the tree, not even a leaf. The tree was decidedly empty. I don't like cats any more than they like me. Too stringy, I find. To keep up appearances I went to the end of the yard (which wasn't far) and then noticing a thin walkway proceeded down it to the front of the house. There was another door there, at the bottom of a trio of steps, undoubtedly to the basement. It was something to keep in mind. Then I was out at the street and looked up to where the homeowner was standing on the porch. She looked at me and I shrugged.

-Where to next? I asked.

She sighed.

-I guess I shouldn't be panicking so quickly. Maybe she'll find her way back soon enough.

-Cats are like that, or so I understand. They can smell their own houses. Like we can see colours they can't see, they can smell things we can't smell.

Had I given too much away there?

I continued, She'll be back, I'm sure of it. Let's go back inside.

I went up onto the porch and touched her lightly to make her go inside. She obeyed my touch and I followed her back into the kitchen. I went to close the door because I hadn't closed it when I'd gone out, saying, Troubadour, huh?

-Do you like the name?

-It's a good name. Maybe not for a relative, but.

She laughed a little. She was lightening up. I figured the cat would come back after I left so everything was in order and I had to leave as soon as possible because she had to get her cat back.

She said, So I dunno. What do you think?

-About living here?

-Yeah. What do you think?

-I could live here. It's convenient for me. What do you think?

She shrugged a little.

-I don't see why not. Beginning of November?

-That's next week.

-Yeah.

-I'm pretty much ready to go any time. So, sure.

-Okay. Can I get first and last?

-That's the usual thing, sure. I can being some checks by tomorrow.

-Okay, great! In the afternoon?

-I'll be by in the afternoon.

Soon after that I left.

Down at the street I looked back at the house. Memorizing it. Seeing the number of it and memorizing it. What's a bit of rent compared to the value of a roll-top desk? Those books would fetch some cash too.

I can easily get all my stuff into that car near the den. Maybe get rid of the car after. Abandon it somewhere.

Imagine it, a basement with a dirt floor. So convenient! Everyone needs a place to bury bones and bits that can't be digested.

There's a cat there. I wonder if that's Troubadour. I wonder if she'll go back to the house. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't; even if they do, they never return for long. They hate me, that's all there is to it. In any case, I don't hate cats. As pets they could be fine. Do I want pets?

Here kitty kitty. Here kitty kitty.