The Love of Nature: A Brief Romance

As Frank awoke on that sunny July day he fuzzily remembered the night before, if it was indeed the night before and not rather a place out of time, on the cabin porch with Maude and Pete and Jeanne, listening to the life of the lake and the earth and the sky. Frank then realized this was a highly unreliable memory considering the four of them had actually spent the evening indoors playing poker and drinking beer. And Maude and Pete and Jeanne weren't in the memory after all; some other figures were: cloudy inchoate figures who never spoke.

The cabin was silent. Frank climbed out of bed and padded into the main space. No signs of life. He went out onto the porch and saw only his own shoes. He looked out the screen door and saw the car, so they couldn't have gone far, probably. Also the towels were still on the line‑barely‑so they hadn't gone swimming. They'd be back soon.

He went down to the lake to sit on Big Rock to wait and think about that dream or whatever it had been. "We're talking to you." He could hear a voice clearly saying that. Who had said it? One of the cloudy inchoate figures, maybe both, maybe something else somewhere? There's not much sense in parsing dreams. Freud figured you always find the significance elsewhere, in the dream-work or in the ... day's residues.

"Hey!" called Maude from behind and Frank turned to look. She was wearing a short taupe skirt and a white t-shirt and her glasses. Pete and Jeanne were in matching duds, namely cut-off jeans and blue shirts possibly not intentionally.

Frank said, "I was starting to wonder."

Maude jumped and kissed him. "Mwah!"

"Are you hungry? I'm hungry."

Pete said, "I think we're all hungry, and I think it's my turn." He went back up to the cabin and inside.

"Where have you been?"

Jeanne sat down on the other side of Big Rock, too close. She said, "Do you know they have, like, a mansion for rent on this property?"

Frank looked to his right, up the hill past the cabin. "The one back there?"

"Yeah, it's back that-away."

"Didn't know it was rentable."

"Well. It's rentable, and it's rentable tonight."

Frank stood up and casually wiped rock-dirt off his butt. They were old friends. He walked up the path to the cabin, saying, "Interesting that it's rentable." The morning rippling seemed like the only sound in the world. The dirt under his feet was warmed with the sun. He stopped. "I love this cabin."

Maude said, "It's nice. Small."

He looked at the shape of its roof, and at the blue sky over it. "It was really nice waking up here. I felt so warm." After a moment he added, "I was fine you all weren't around." He went into the cabin.

Maude looked at Jeanne and said, "If only it weren't so boring," and laughed.

"Not true, not true. It's a change. It's quiet. Back home we don't see many trees or ... lakes."

"Okay, okay. It's nice. Do you think we can pull this off?"

"I don't see why not."

In the cabin, Peter was hustling and rustling. A mess of toast was in the enamelled oven alongside a half-pound of bacon; the coffee was ready, with chipped cups ready too, and the eight eggs fought for supremacy of a shouting contest in the frying pan. He said to Frank, "It's got a huge fireplace and a huge kitchen."

"Oh does it." He pushed himself into one of the benches that made up the booth-like eating alcove. The table was made of rough boards varnished to a stickiness that would not be a delight to the palate and the benches were like White Star Line steamer trunks shoved against a berth wall. "It's much further from the water though isn't it?"

"I suppose there's a trade-off. You can see the water from the living room. Big floor to ceiling windows. So long as you're standing."

"That does not sound nice."

"It's a trade-off."

"Did you bring back a newspaper from your journeys?"

"Box was empty."

The screen door creaked as Maude and Jeanne came in to sit themselves down at the table. Maude grabbed Frank's arm and squealed, "You have to see it! It's available tonight! One night only!"

Frank nodded to indicate he understood the cottage was available for one night only. "We've already got a place; here; for another five nights."

She pouted. "It's so nice. Will it kill you to just take a look at it?"

"I saw it from the outside. You can see it from behind here," as he pointed with his thumb backwards. Does anyone remember anyone saying, 'We're talking to you,' last night?"

No-one said anything, indicating succinctly that no-one could aver to having heard those words, in that order, the previous night.

Frank continued, "Strange. I can hear it in my head but I can't figure out anything about who said it."

"Maybe you dreamed it," said Jeanne.

"Maybe I did, maybe."

They ate while wind rustled the birch and maple leaves, while spiders crawled thick on the igneous rock through spruce needles, and while at the water's edge insects devoured other insects and were in turn devoured by the surface fish. There was conversation to which Frank listened but little: mostly about the nostalgic past, about years ago when Frank had moved in hopelessly with Peter and Jeanne into their house in which three other people were already living, in a kind of a hippy-dippy shared home, and about the people who had passed through the house, young people in their Toronto twenties, (and about Frank meeting Maude in a Laundromat and so on and so forth), and about those wild years with their ambulances and their police (but not about how they'd managed to get their stuff together such that they could afford, through the nature of development and economy, to go up to a cabin some fifteen years later) and the excitement of all that once was, fifteen years ago, and would be no more; as they talked, the fish out on the lake consumed all of Frank's attention, and that which was behind the fish consumed all of his attention too.

He said, "What?"

Maude said, "We've got a plan. It's an extra cost, but it would be so worth it."

"Is this about next year, maybe getting that cottage next year?" saying it like he'd just then teleported into another television channel.

"We're talking about tonight. Going there tonight. For fun! To see what it's like."

"You looked inside, didn't you?"

"Mr. Pardge let us take a look."

"So you know what it's like. What else is there to know?"

Maude cried, "C'mon, Frank! Let's rent the place for tonight, to have a little variety!"

Frank shook his head saying, "But we already have this place, and our places in Toronto, so if we get another place we're paying rent on three places." (He had apparently been cognizant of the drift of the argument.) "That's crazy. This cabin here is so wonderful."

Jeanne started quietly clearing the plates off the table.

Maude said, "I know it's an extravagance. But why not? I don't want to wait a year, oh honey, come on, it'll be nice. A big fireplace."

Something in Frank came up with something of a solution. He said, "I can't be a part of it. It makes no sense to me. We've got a place, here, and so why?"

Peter very seriously said, "The beds are better."

"I don't want a better bed. I want the one I've been in. It's worked out. Why don't you guys go stay there without me?"

Maude said, "That's crazy."

"It's a good solution. I won't be complaining and I won't say I've been left out, I promise."

Everyone thought the solution over to an extent. Maybe it was a solution. If Frank didn't want to go, why should the other three be held hostage? They'd after all be one a half-mile away. Maybe next year they could get the place for a week. Wouldn't it make sense to see what it's like? It was only for one night. What if the place was lousy with louses? It would be nest to know now instead of later. They were all thinking the same thing precisely.

Peter and Jeanne went off to find Mr. Pardge to make the arrangements. While they were gone, Frank and Maude spent some near-quality time together; Frank mind was elsewhere; he was thinking about the voice he'd heard in his dream.

 

During the afternoon they drank and they swam and in pairs went out in a canoe, then they had a steak dinner with potatoes and broccoli and salad. Suffice it to say that most of the time they were talking, talking, talking, but mostly not saying much.

On top of the nearby boathouse, all drinking, Peter said, "You know, one of us is going to die first."

In the canoe, Maude said, "This is a cigar-shaped lake."

Out swimming, Peter said, "Water makes me afraid when I can't touch anything under me."

During the meal on the picnic table Jeanne said, "Good thing we got the extra bottle."

Finally the long day had passed and it was getting dark. Jeanne seemed anxious to get a move on, so while Peter was taking in plates and cutlery Maude said to Frank, "You know, you could change your mind and come with us."

"No, no, no," he said in a reasonable tone. "We'd have to worry about all the stuff here, we didn't plan for that, besides, I really want to be here all by myself. I want the complete solitude of it, and the silence. You go up there, have a good time, come back in the morning. My psychic powers tell me I'll have coffee all ready for you."

Maude shrugged with a smile. That said it all.

The dishes got done and then it was much darker. Flashlights in hand, Maude, Jeanne and Peter bid adieu to Frank who watched their beams of light dance through into the night's trees.

The sun had gone down, and the moon was going down too.

In just a couple hours it was going to be very dark there.

Frank opened two cans of beer and went down to the Big Rock.

 

In the distance, below the smear of dark spiky trees, serpents undulated silently, seemingly the result of sunlight reflecting off the surface of the moon down onto the lazily respiring waters of the lake. Hullabaloo, hullabaloo, called a lone loon some waterways away: from Bear Lake, Moon River, or Leech Lake probably. Wet was all, or damp at least. Frank rotated his left foot and felt it satisfyingly crack. He drank from a can of beer and sighed. He wanted it to come and tell him whatever it was it said it wanted to tell him.

He twisted around and looked up the slope. Now with night so deep he could clearly see the lights of the cottage through the trees. The lights were moving. Then suddenly the image on his retinas dimmed and extinguished as first one then a second and third incandescent bulb got switched off and the cottage was no more. They hadn't wasted any time hitting the hay, thought Frank; then he noticed the moon was nearly down, indicating therefore that something close to two hours had passed since he had first seated himself upon Big Rock.

Darkness spread across the land. A rip across the distant vista showed only where the land (black) was not the sky (deep grey, lightly freckled with faraway suns).

Hwish, hwish, started (or continued) the little ripples on the little stones. The loon was long gone. Frank could figuratively not see his hand in front of his face, or so it seemed. He could not have told you where he ended and where Big Rock began. His ears were gone, replaced by unmediated sound. He had no more illusions to entertain. There was but one spot‑his soul‑at the centre of things, and also another spot‑nature‑at the other centre of things.

(Or was there something else going on?

(This is [roughly] the symbol for infinity.

∞

(Frank felt himself to be at the centre of the left side of the symbol, with nature at the centre of the right side of the symbol.

(Or was there something else going on?

(This is [roughly] the symbol for negated infinity.

⧞

(Frank felt, or knew, that this was a more correct representation, with his soul at the centre of the left side of the symbol and nature as the bar between the two halves. At the centre of the right side was some thing that balanced his soul.)

The darkness deepened still as Frank sat on Big Rock. He couldn't focus on the difference between land and sky anymore. The stars above were reflected neatly into the waters below. A voice was about to speak. What could it possibly say? He hadn't dissolved into nothingness, that he knew. He knew because the voice was going to say something to him and (who knows?) him alone.

Still with the stars above and below, he imagined himself saying, as clear as could be, "Hello?"

And it rushed in upon him like a great wave in a typhoon but not like that for the wave was benevolent, and full of light, and sound, and it smelled like violets and lavender.

And the voice said, We are with you and we love you.

And Frank asked, Where are you?

And the voice said, We are above you and below you; we are in front, in back, to the sides; in every direction we are, and to every depth we are. We populate your past, and we will be with you in the future. You can hear us now, and you can hear us say that we love you and always have and always will.

And Frank asked, Why do you love me?

And the voice said, Because you are aware of us. You are making us aware of us. You are making us speak. Oh we love you so much!

And Frank asked, (was it aloud?), Why are you telling me this now? Why haven't I known this all along?

And the voice said, We love you, we love you, we love you. You couldn't hear us for all the noise of your self. It's as simple as that. You can hear us now.

And Frank said, Are we alone? Is there nothing else?

And the voice asked, Everything here is here. Nothing is missing here. This is complete here. Everything here is here?

And Frank asked, You keep saying here. Is there a there somewhere?

And the voice said, Oh yes, there's a there. And there loves here; there loves you, and there loves us. The other end of the gyre, there's more; this end of the gyre, there's us. You, here, have caused us to speak, at this end of that which is representational. You are something special.

And Frank asked, Why me? Why am I so special?

And the voice said, You are louder than we are; that is the difference we have. Your sleeping friends are also a part of us, a moiety of them is us. And a moiety is special. You are mostly like us.

And Frank asked, So what are you? What are you exactly?

And the voice said, We are nature; nothing more and nothing less than nature.

The darkness and light love you.

The sky above and earth below love you.

The animals and all the plants love you.

Your brothers and your sisters love you.

The waters and what's beyond love you.

The vapours and what's beyond love you.

The rocks and stones love you too.

All creation loves you, Frank, you know.

You give us ourselves, you must see that.

 

As promised, the coffee was ready when Maude, Peter, and Jeanne came back. Frank said, "This is my thing. Bacon, eggs, toast, coffee. That's all we need. So how's the cottage?"

Jeanne said, "It's nice. Good beds! Maybe next year we can get it for a whole week."

Frank said, "That sounds pretty good. We can see what we can do. Toast, here comes toast."

They all arranged themselves in the alcove. Frank slid the eggs onto plates and with the bacon on a plate between them everything was great.

Maude as she slid an egg onto her plate asked, "So how was it, here alone without us?"

AND Frank said, "It was ... All I have to say is that I love you all; you, my love, and you, Peter, and you Jeanne; I love you all. I am a part of nature, and nature loves you all."

Another Duppository

A Day in the Country

 

Jane picked a flower, an unnoticed bud opened, and something bit her so hard she cried but stopped crying when her hand turned slightly green.

We crossed the bridge over the rapids but the ropes broke and Pete and Wendy went into the water and were swept away. We hope they're alright.

Jane said she felt sick so she lay down under a tree. Nigel was tending to her when a great bird swooped down, laid claws on him, and carried him out of sight. Come back, Nigel!

We figured we had to push on. "We'll bring back help," Eliza said to Jane but Jane didn't respond. Bitter about missing out on all the fun I guess.

No-one saw the hole until Art fell into it. He wouldn't tell us if he was alright or not. We wrote a colourful note and left it there pierced on a branch.

When we hit the roadside a van stopped and the man inside said, "C'mon, kiddies, lemme give you a lift!" Andrea, Vic, Jennifer, and Louis took him up on his offer.

Now we're at the station, Lina and me. Ah, here comes the train. Finally.

What?

 

*

 

What caused This? out of the near-infinite reaches of space with all its atoms, miniscules, quarks, and blazons, all hither and yon, with so little sense.

What's causing This? with causes being so plentiful it takes a dim will to argue which cause is dominant, which cause submissive, which co-determined.

What causes This? what, what anywhere; Mondrian was asked how long it had taken him to paint some painting and he replied, "All my life."

What will cause This? from the centres of consciousness ascending the heights of heaven (or feeling so) to the sight and the sense of so becoming.

What caused This? but the protean sea-like wash of confluence that senselessly and ceaselessly tosses the pearl-rich oysters through the muck of original matter.

What's causing This? is that despite all the material noise (or meaning) that has been thrown off like gossamer in meaningful flight, This still is.

What causes This? with its pinpoint of Being taking up from the muck something of interest is beyond the scope of the present existential argument.

What will cause This? but the comprehension and apprehension of induction and deduction brought forth to face these letterforms in fonts unimagined yet present pregnantly.

 

*

 

It started off like a normal dream. The abnormal parts are in capital letters.

He dreamed about Rebecca, in a room in a cabin somewhere. She criticized him for stealing a joke. She asked him to go pick up some things from the store. She wanted bread, milk, and honey. He put on his shoes and went outside, where he met Rob and ANOTHER PERSON.

Away they went, only to get stopped at the next property by a SECOND PERSON who took them down to where a THIRD PERSON was digging out the foundation of a house. The foundation was filled with broken branches and leaves. The third person remotely operated a small bulldozer to push all the stuff out. Once it was all out, the dreamer stood in the foundation with the third person. The dreamer dropped a coin in the mud. The third person sneered. The dreamer picked up the coin and wiped it off.

The dreamer awoke in some mystification, because: Who were those three persons? He'd never seen them before. They were complete strangers. How can one dream of complete strangers? Where had these aliens come from? He had no-one to ask from whence they'd come.

 

*

 

Spot the difference. There are a number of differences between these two works

 

When it all began, the movie that's to say, the one called "The End of the Affair," we were all nervous. Thankfully‑we were all fretting about it‑the makers didn't ruin the beginning.

As it ends, the man and the woman, having recalled, to all extents and purposes, how it all began (in an extended flashback), part ways, perhaps, and they say, to "meet again." And that's when the big super comes up, reading, "THE BEGINNING?!?!?!?!?"

‑Filmmaker took some liberties there, said my friend Jane Startler to me.

The film, in case you know absolutely nothing about it, don't know where to start really, it's about Cole Porter's South Pacific cruise during which he slept with a porter and wrote Begin the Beguine. (The trip ended at Fiji.)

I told him that the filmmakers had to. I said, It's all related to the song. What happens at the end? The beguine is still on its way to beginning. It never begins, does it?

We went off for coffee then, which was a fine way to end the evening, perhaps.... It looked like the start of a beautiful friendship.

 

*

 

of art. First person to spot all of them wins a fictional prize!

 

When it all ended, the movie that's to say, the one called "The Beginning of the Affair," we were all nervous. Thankfully‑we were all fretting about it‑the makers didn't ruin the ending.

As it begins, the man and the woman, having recalled, to all extents and purposes, how it all ended (in an extended flash-forward), part ways, perhaps, and they say, to "meet again." And that's when the big super comes up, reading, "THE END?!?!?!?!?"

‑Filmmaker took some liberties there, said my friend Jane Endler to me.

The film, in case you know absolutely nothing about it, don't know where to finish really, it's about Cole Porter's South Pacific cruise during which he slept with a porter and wrote End the Beguine. (The trip begins at Fiji.)

I told him that the filmmakers had to. I said, It's all related to the song. What happens at the start? The beguine is still on its way to finishing. It never ends, does it?

We went off for coffee then, which was a fine way to start the evening, perhaps.... It looked like the end of a beautiful friendship.

 

*

 

Thoughts on Reading Through Quixote a Fourth Time, with oblique reference to Eric Hoffer

Through all the travels of our crazy Lord,
'Cross mountains, plains, and bowers Catalan,
With broken bones and face by felines scored,
This lonely man chose not to see things straight;
With death approaching, saying "It's too late,"
Responded thus: "I'll do whate'er I can."

And weeping on a streetcar I, as squire
Doth beg his master not to die, with vow
To follow shepherdesses through what briar,
Do realize a fact that may bring fear:
That Don Quixote's not yet fifty year:
And so he's younger than I am here now.

Cervantes died four hundred years ago,
Enfaméd Europe-wide in many tongues;
And I may die in seven years or so,
With not a dot to show that I once was,
(The soul in doing is whate'er it does),
With meaning words yet caught within my lungs.

Deluded, self-deluded, like the Don,
I make my things as if they mattered still,
For quite few care I bother to go on,
And yet there's feathered hope, and yet, yet look:
I speak unnamably like Beckett's book:
I can't go on, I can't go on, I will.

 

*

 

Early Ellen rose. Trembling coldly ascended Rose from below kitchen level. Few words spoke, coffee brewed up as chairs held them in zed postures. Door knock lightly, door knock light, seven by the clock. The milk man held two bottles almost mammalian. Ellen paid cash, one week advance, tip in the zone of ten percent. Time of morning coffee with milk ready arrived. Neighbour's kid's girlfriend's motorcycle started loud and awakened Ellen fingered her locks. Rose yawned wide. Caffeination complete Rose rose to occasion occasion being 7:30. Down below kitchen level went Rose where clothes awaited laid out neat. Shower soap shampoo in order to. Dressed and up stairs again, quick exchange concerning 5:00. What will the day be like, yesterday? Walking alone Rose along the road's side walk birds squirrels spiders above and below noisy for those who listened. Meanwhile Ellen booked herself with a blackboard space-time formula set like Leonardo's easel in the living room. Division by Λ yeld simplification of Ω/θ to θ, tho costing elaboration below the Σ. Have to look it up, key to all mythologies. Moon rose that moment in the east that morning, and Rose and Ellen together independent started to fluid uterally.

 

*

 

Eight old dogs got together for a poker game recently. They had been floating the game for well over twenty-eight dogyears, from doghouse to doghouse, from dogmonth to dogmonth. During a hand of Follow the Queen, Rex laughed and said, "Remember we used to call this game Follow the Bitch?"

Sparky said, "That was back when we really did follow the bitches."

They all laughed except for Spot, who waited for a lull to say, "I'm thinking about one bitch in particular."

Mookie said, "Oh, her."

Spot sighed. "Even after so many dogyears, I can still smell her ass. Wow!"

Jonesie said, "We all got one. 'The Bitch That Got Away.' Mine was named Princess."

Rex said, "Moxie."

Art said, "Duster."

Spot sighed. "My life could have been so different. Not that we could have raised a family‑I don't have the balls for that‑but we could have chased stuff together."

They were silent for a moment, melancholic all for puppy loves and scents of long ago.

Spot said, "The poodles don't call toilet water 'eau de toilette' for nothing, you know."

They all laughed, and Fritz took that opportunity to soberly interject, "Okay, where's the game? Who's in, who's out?"

 

*

 

"Michael, come here, look at this."

I went over to the window where Thomas stood. The city grounds were spread out below us that clear day. People were all over the boardwalk and the beach and in the cafes. We could see somewhere on the order of two hundred people. "What is it?" I asked.

"Look at that man near the juice bar."

I spotted him; he was as if stuck in a projection. His position would change without occupying any positions in between, often moving forwards but sometimes moving backwards. "I know him," I said. "It's Danny, isn't it?"

Thomas nodded. "Or at least it was Danny."

"It's uncanny," I said, "like something out of The Ring or Pulse."

"Or out of any other number of Asian docudramas. I guess he's been taken by something."

I nodded. "Weird times. Think we should call the cops?"

"Let's see what happens first."

So we stood there watching as our old friend, now under the control of some ancient and evil spirit, popped in and out of some other dimensions and ours. We could almost feel the electricity he was generating. Just goes to show how much there's to learn from docudramas.

 

*

 

Come in, come in, and talk to my stuff. You can see how it's doing.

Ask the staircase how it is. The staircase says, I let people lead fuller, more three-dimensional lives.

Feel free to inquire after the Tupperware. I will keep things from going rotten, and I clean up in a jiffy.

There's the couch. How's it going, couch? I love having weight upon me, especially a lying-down kind of weight with everything in proportion.

And the walls: you simply must talk to the walls! We see everything from our lenses which are flat.

There's a table: say: Hello, table. Hello yourself. I am in a bad mood.

It's best you don't talk to the books. They'll all start chattering at once. A cacophony really. Be quiet, books. Ignore our presence.

Ah, what things this bed could tell you! Give it a shot. The bed says, I tell no secrets and I tell no lies. Tricked you!

The bathtub is calling. I like being cleaned of soap scum. I have soap scum on me now. Clean me, clean me.

And here's the door, letting you free. The door says, Thanks for visiting. I hope you come again. I do.

 

*

 

"My esteemed teacher, my esteemed fellow acolytes: I apologize for my appearance. I must also apologize for the condition of my report which could be generously called incomplete. The fault is mine, and mine alone.

"Two days ago, I received an invitation to the countryside. It is not often I am invited to the countryside, so I naturally took up the invitation, believing I could easily complete my parody of a general interest newspaper in the evenings, for my assignment today. As you can see, I only completed the first rectos and versos of a broadsheet, with pages numbered 1-4 and 9-12.

"I found myself swimming in a pond this morning, wearing my blue Speedo; when I emerged, I found my clothes had been stolen. I was forced to walk back to the cabin, where lo! I found the rest of my clothes had been stolen. In my blue Speedo I took a cab back to our city here‑‑and all my clothes here had been stolen too! Quite a coincidence, is it not?

"So here I am, in my blue Speedo, before you, presenting my parody newspaper. Please judge me gently."

The teacher said, "Your excuse gets an A."

 

*

 

Though I didn't know the words to use, I have known the colours of my eyes since the day I was born.

They're slightly different. Both my eyes is blue-green, with blue on the outside and green on the inside, but the left one has three specks of grey between the blue and the green, while the right eye doesn't have the specks.

These were the colours I wanted to know on the day I learned about colours. I matched them up with what I was taught, and since that day blue, green, and grey have been my favourite colours.

A little later I found out my asking my mommy what colour her eyes were. She said, "I don't know. You tell me."

I said, "They're mostly blue, with just a little green around the blue. How come you don't know?"

"How should I without a mirror?"

"You can't see your own eyes?"

"Of course not!"

This surprised me. I asked around. It seemed that no-one but me could see his own eyes. This didn't make sense to me. "You see through them, but you can't see them?"

I've got this gift, you see. It's carried me a long way.

 

*

 

I am going to be melancholy for a while here....

When I had fifty lps I used my typerwriter to type out every song on every record in an alphabetical list.

The list was gorgeous. It was seven pages long, typed through, Remington, all the Pink Floyd and Elvis Costello records.

I thought it was normal to make long lists. How could anyone live without making long lists? How could anyone (meaning everyone) manage to live as I lived with so-and-so father without making the long lists I continue to make?

There's a photograph I have, a class photograph, me and the rest of the slobs, and I'm shirking like I'm afraid of the camera. Really!

This I remember well.

In Toronto I went over to Cheryl's house one day. I immediately turned down the radio or record or whatever. She said, "You always do that. You come in here and you turn down the music."

I wasn't aware of this behaviour. Every time, apparently, I turned down the music.

She was hung over and she sloppily filled her Zippo. She sparked it, and her thumb was on fire.

These little things: who can count them? Does heaven even care?

 

*

 

The Names: A True Story from the Warring States Period

 

The entire region was starving. An alderman pulled out an old book of tales, thumped it with his hand, and cried, "We must eat our children! We have no choice! The second-born child of every family! It is written!"

He read us the line, "When starvation became too great, families exchanged their second-eldest children to consume them, remaining pure their xi."

The village decided upon a lottery. The names of fifty-eight children‑mine included‑were put into a cauldron and one-by-one mothers picked a single slip from the cauldron. The mothers did not read the slips: that had to wait, in order to ensure civil accord.

Finally, there we stood: my mother with her slip of paper, all the other mothers, too, with their slips of paper.

The alderman called out, "Read your slips! Take the names!"

The slips were opened, and religiously the mothers moved about to take the child named thereupon. However, my mother, having read her slip, stood still.

The children had all been exchanged, yet I was still with my mother; for her slip, incredibly, had my name on it.

This was the defining event of my life.

 

*

 

Happy March to the Scaffold

 

The magistrates were marching me to the scaffold.

"What are you smiling about?" asked one.

I said, "I'm simply ... happy. Wait'll you hear what I have to say as my last words."

"Huh."

"I've got a whole speech memorized."

March, march, march.

I continued, "I got a whole lot of scores to settle today. All the crimes I've seen."

"Yours included?"

"That's settled, so there's no reason to talk about it. I'm going to lay into pretty much everyone in this whole town."

"Really? And what is my crime?"

"You take bribes. You took mine so I could get extra bread."

"Everyone takes bribes."

"And therefore all are guilty. I'll go on at the right time."

The magistrates led me up onto the scaffold. The noose was ready.

The judge said, "Do you have any last words before you meet your maker?"

"Oh boy do I ever!"

I looked out at the townspeople gathered around to watch a criminal getting killed.

"Citizens of this corrupt land," I began. "I cannot see an innocent person present. Now, the judge‑"

Just then the bells pealed all over town. The French had arrived. Genoa was saved!

Rats!

 

*

 

Jasmine

 

The hypothesis arrived in Savannah, Georgia three years ago while N. was in the Georgia State Railroad Museum, near a caboose. A male voice said, "Savannah," not like it was a neutral place-name but rather in a personifyingly intimate way. The voice continued, "Come look at this."

N. turned to observe a girl walking up to a man. It occurred to him then: Savannah was named after Savannah‑or was there some time-travel involved? Was the city of Savannah named after a spiritual ancestor of this Savannah? What was Savannah-like about her? N. looked again and he concurred, yes, she, Savannah, possessed the personality of Savannah.

Two years later N. was in a market looking at Chinese soap. He lifted a bar of jasmine and held it to his nose. The cashier said, "Jasmine." N. turned like before: the cashier was greeting a young woman who had entered. So what was jasminey about Jasmine?

N. followed her out of the shop, and picked her up.

Afterwards, N.'s wife started sniffing around N. "I smell Jasmine," she said.

"That you do," he replied.

If anyone out there knows a woman named Ruby, or a woman named Sapphire, please let me know.

 

*

 

"As I was walking home from work one evening not too long ago along my ordinary route I fell into a rumination, concerning what I do not remember, from which I awoke after a moment to look up at the sidewalk, the road, the houses, and the trees on either side of the sidewalk. The houses were most interesting to look at, as if I'd never seen them before. I believe I was looking for a house I recognized, but I recognized none. I arrived at an intersection unexpectedly and glanced up to read the street's name on a post only to discover the name was written in a triangular foreign language, somewhat Cree-ish. I wondered how I had arrived there but I did not panic in any way. I continued walking, expecting to return to the familiar. That did not happen. The houses developed pointy architecture at great heights, six stories up in some cases. I walked and walked. The streets were all deserted no matter which corner I turned, and I could hear no traffic. My feet were the only noise apparent. I can now see a body of water in front of me, with a sandy shore

 

*

 

H. looked out the window and said, "Uh-oh."

We were in his fourth floor walk-up in the garment district, arguing about what kinds of drugs we wanted for the weekend blitz.

I got to my feet and went over to him. "What's up?"

He pointed to the street below. "The racks with all the clothes have been pulled off the streets and all the double-doors are closed. This trouble has been brewing for some time."

"Who are they?"

"It's the Diorians and the Chanelites. They're across the street from one another. Look, second floor window: seamstresses with bottles, probably filled with bleach and peroxide."

Then one of the double-doors opened and slowly out came four Diorians (I simply guessed) with shears hanging loose at their belts. One wolf-whistled shrilly then all four crossed the street to slice up some racked dresses while women above lobbed down bottles, one of which smashed against one man's head. Then out rushed the Chanelites and we witnessed a great bloody brawl.

I asked H., "Does this happen often?"

"Every year, two weeks before runway season."

"High fashion's got a lot of blood on its hands then."

"Why do you think I only buy ready-made?"

 

*

 

Finally after standing in the sun for ten minutes the tram showed up. I thought it was the right one because it had the right number on it‑204‑so I got on. The thing was like a sauna, with the metal seats being the hottest rocks.

I noticed we weren't going anywhere. Ah, up ahead some men were fixing the tram's power lines. Minutes passed. I couldn't read my journal I was so hot and annoyed. Finally we got moving, slowly, because of all the back-up.

THEN a couple blocks later ANOTHER truck was fixing wires! So wait, wait, wait, again.

THEN at Digg St it turned out the tram was going in the other direction‑I'd gotten on the wrong tram, my mistake this was‑so I had to get off and wait for the right one. Still hot as hell, but I was finally going in the right direction.

AND THEN I got off the tram and tried walking down the street but there were a bunch of men tearing up the sidewalk and I had to go around it all!

Then I got to my building, and as it turned out some Moslems had blown it up! What a day!

 

*

 

G. opened his eyes out of sleep.

The tips of the fingers upon his right hand were glowing.

This has never happened before, thought he.

Red‑purple‑vermillion‑lights upon the tips of the fingers were dancing like ice-skaters' frosty icy throw.

Now how can this be happening? thought he. Had he splashed chemicals, dream chemicals, upon his fingers? Had he been mixing potions in the underworld?

He had no idea.

(This is all taking place at night, remember, in darkness. Imagine it. Your fingers‑some of your fingers‑glowing in the night. What would you think?)

G. got out of bed and approached the light switch but before he switched on the light he looked again. Flecks of light were still dancing somewhat on the fingertips of his right hand, like the lightning storms inside a Van De Graaff generator.

He switched on the light.

G. went into the bathroom and peed, wondering what had come over him. He wasn't hallucinating. He was awake. Why were there lights on the tips of the fingers of his right hand?

He went back to bed in darkness. He checked out his fingers again. The vermillion light was still there, but only barely.

He fell asleep again.

 

*

 

With cheap candles votive, $3.99/doz. from The Almighty Dollar, we cheaply sang old Beatles songs and wailed and howled because we knew it's the way to stop mass murders from happening.

Quick as bunnies we had to rush to the dollar store again and again, feeling that if only we got the right candles everything would be all right, proving thus that, yes, all you need is love.

The price-point of the candles changed for the convenience of everyone involved; instead of $3.99/doz. it became $13.50/twoscore; we saved a lot of gasoline from then on and thereby made a difference.

Candles and more candles and even more candles and we couldn't even with them all until we heard a rumour that the whole world was secretly run by a cabal of candlemakers intent on increasing their sales.

Finally we had a cogent and responsible explanation for that which was going wrong with the world: a secret society of candlemakers probably still incensed by what Frédéric Bastiat revealed about them in 1845.

That is they tried to block out the sun because it was unfair competition. This is all fact. Revealed by Bastiat. So it was all the fault of CATHOLICS....

 

*

 

Notes on 'Bron/Broen'

 

In Sweden, children under the age of ten do not appear because they distract from reality.

In Denmark, people barely comment when one of their co-workers is a real robotic nutcase.

In Sweden, the rainbow runs from dirty black to dirty brown to dirty ochre to dirty eggshell.

In Denmark, monomaniacs have to have elaborate Rube Goldberg plots to get some simple revenge.

In Sweden, people have affairs because as everyone knows no-one ever got pregnant in an affair.

In Denmark, no-one looks at paintings and no-one reads books and no-one sees movies.

In Sweden, people sometimes talk Danish but except for introductions they're never misunderstood.

In Denmark, people sometimes talk in Swedish but they're never misunderstood.

In Sweden, monomaniacs weave social commentary into their aforementioned Rube Goldberg plots.

In Denmark, you can get European Union funding for co-productions involving Sweden.

In Sweden, you can steal the heart out of a living human being without bothering about property rights.

In Denmark, you can start a season with a plot stolen from The Abominable Dr. Phibes and end with a plot stolen from Se7en.

In Sweden, no-one had anything outside their jobs.

In Denmark, animals do not exist.

 

*

 

The Nissan dealer saw him chin-in-hand walking around one of the Leaf models. As he was always one to be helpful, the Nissan dealer approached.

"Checking out the ol' Leaf, eh?" he said to the pallid bespectacled pocket-protector, who replied, "Uh-huh. So, I can plug this thing into an ordinary outlet, right?"

"You bet! Recharges in eight hours‑overnight, really‑and goes 250 miles in any direction."

The customer nodded. "The plug. There has to be a cord, right? Like an extension cord?"

The dealer said, "As it is, the cord is twenty feet long. It retracts neatly into its own port receptacle. Or port-port, as we wits call it."

"The cord. I want to know about the cord. Is it thick?"

"Not very."

"How thick?"

"I could check."

"Can it be made fifteen inches around? Can it be long and thick?"

The dealer puzzled. "I think that couldn't fit into the port-port."

The customer sighed. "I'm not interested unless the cord is long and thick. Can it be designed so that the cord is long and thick? I want a cord that's long and thick."

"Look, why don't we go for a test-drive?"

"Oh, I can't drive. I'm just ... dreaming...."

 

*

 

First came the letter in the mail telling me to contact so-and-so because I'd won something. Naturally I tossed it.

A couple weeks later, I got the phone call. Had I received the notice? I said yes. Did I understand what it meant? I said no not at all.

The voice said, "It was a world-wide contest, and you came in seventeenth. Top twenty are getting all-expenses-paid trips to a convention and ceremony on Oahu."

"I don't recall entering any contest. When did I do that?"

"You didn't. You didn't have to. Everyone in the world was entered into the contest, and you came in seventeenth."

"This is ridiculous."

I hung up.

He called back.

"This is a legitimate contest. Registration number is 873-584-594-2640-1904. Check it out if you want."

"But what was the contest about?"

"Huh?"

"A contest of what?"

"I don't have that information. I'm just an administrator."

"So I'm seventeenth at something. In the whole world?"

"In the whole world."

"Do the other nineteen know what the contest is about?"

"I'm just an administrator."

After some more hemming and hawing, I said I'd go, if only to find out what the contest meant. Longer version to follow.

 

*

 

MICROBE: I had a dream last night.

VIRUS: Oh yeah? What about?

MICROBE: I dreamed about giants. Giants so big we can barely perceive them. Almost on another plane of existence.

NEUTRINO: My God, I had the same dream! Did you dream we were passing through them all the time without even knowing it?

MICROBE: Not exactly, but close enough.

NEUTRINO: Well, I'll be darned. Have we all had the same dream?

VIRUS: Something like it. I think it's a way we deal with the indifference of the universe.

MICROBE: Sure, so vast, so ever-reaching.

MICROWAVE: Really makes you think.

VIRUS: See, there's no intrinsic scale to it all. What's big, and what's small?

MICROBE: Apparently it's been proven we're all made up of smaller things. And those smaller things are made of smaller things.

MICROWAVE: I think we're getting off topic here. Could these big things be gods?

VIRUS: Indifferent gods. Yes.

NEUTRINO: They don't care at all about us.

MICROBE: Perhaps they created us and now they've simply forgot about us.

MICROWAVE: We know they're there, intuitively, but that means nothing ethically to us.

VIRUS: Can't please them, can't displease them.

NEUTRINO: Indifferent gods.

MICROBE: Okay, whose deal?

 

*

 

Elihu shook his head sadly, sighed, and went to his friend Job who was looking not at all at his best, what with his deep sighs and pencil-breakings. Seeing Elihu approach, Job said, "Lost it all, didn't I? Children, livestock, crops: now I got nothing. Even the wife's on my back."

Elihu told him, "I got it figured out, Job. It's not at all your fault."

Job asked, "What do you mean? Of course it's my fault."

"No, that's not true. You're the victim of a conspiracy."

Job laughed. "Right. Like fake-moon-landing conspiracy, or FBI-killed-Kennedy conspiracy, or chemtrails or Illuminati or they-saved-Hitler's-brain conspiracy? Hah!"

"Bigger than that, Job. It was God who did this to you."

"Does God hate me? Not that I'd blame him for hating me or anything."

"It was a kind of a bet. But that's not the issue, the issue is that all your misfortunes were a kind of sabotage."

"Really? So it was all a set-up."

"Yup."

"It didn't have much to do with me as a person at all."

"Nope."

Job thought about this for some time; then concluded, "For some reason, sabotage or not, doesn't change a thing about the way I feel."

 

*

 

"I understand completely and unconditionally, Mac, with what you're saying about how your life has gone what with being in your fifties and having worked and worked for over thirty years now day in and day out and discovering you're clearly no better off than when you began and that yes it's all downhill from here, all wisdom, all evidence, points to that, yes, it's inevitable that it's all downhill from here, and that that's why you're calling here, yes, the statistics I hear you, men your age are over-represented in suicides and I know you know why this is because you're going through it, now, that you never got what you really wanted and there's zero chance you'll get it in the future and all you get is crap from everyone, no respect as the saying goes; all the psychotherapists in the world aren't going to put you back together again and you have no hope especially the kind psychotherapists give because the cure's worse than the poison and yes people are getting stupider and no wonder you're upset about how everything is getting worse I know because this is how the universe works.

"Sorry, I have another call."

 

*

 

Z. came home exhausted. P. was making cookies. Z. threw his helmet onto a chair and said, "I can't do this role anymore."

P. continued making with the spatula. She'd heard it all before. "Oh? This comes as a surprise."

Z. shoved his face in his hands. "There's so many lines! Even the ad-libs have to be in science-speak!"

"You're certainly well-remunerated."

"Sure, two hundred grand a year all for playing an astronaut's all well and good, but think of it: in two months there's a road tour planned, out into outer space, to the I.S.S., and I'm expected to be there! I'll miss you so!"

"But Z., you knew what to expect back there in acting school, all about the hard times and the loneliness."

Z. rapped his knuckles on his cranium. "What was I thinking when I went to that audition? I faked gusto, I faked starry-eyedness, I faked to-boldly-go. And for what? Urine tests, nausea tests, 1000mph tests. I have to quit this show!"

"Fine, fine. So tell me, what would you like to play next?"

"I want to see what it's like to play a waiter."

P. said, "Good idea!" as she picked up the telephone.

 

*

 

One set never enumerated properly's

The set of children's toys never given,

For whatever reason, whether it's because

The toy was faulty, lead-covered, radioactive,

Bought drunkenly, left behind on the stoop

(Perhaps also drunkenly), age-inappropriate,

Already given by someone else, mis-mailed

And in Dead Letters;

In Someplace there has to be the list

Of the children who didn't get whatever

Was never given cross-tabbed to the gifts

Never received, in a negative Someplace

Where everyone stores up unhappened events

An order of magnitude greater than the events

That actually turned out to be what we call

The world as given.

And then, cross-tabbed, we find the kids

Themselves, not gifted without even knowing

They're not gifted, starting their little lives

With an unexplained disappointment

(That'll cling like karma for eternity

(Thus making them part of the human family

(Where no-one's satisfied, really, what with

(All those not-taken roads).

And I'm taking this personally because, well,

Why not take it personally? What letters

Did I never receive? What have I misread

Forever? There's a sky full of stars

At the other pole, some 'Southern Cross'

I've been told, not for my eyes:

Poor Homer! He never did see

A Shakespeare play.

 

*

 

The most pleasant benefit of getting senile is that you're constantly being surprised by your very own past.

"Hey look, self. I have a copy of Crystal Rainbow Pyramid Under The Stars by Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O.! When did I buy this? Who Knows? I'll put it on, and listen!"

And it turned out to be a delightful record though it's nothing I could play for anyone but me. "Room-clearing music," as that squat guy who played the jester in Once Upon a Mattress in high school described Sister Ray, and I will never again remember his name.

Of course drinking like there's no tomorrow and consequently ordering stuff from Amazon at 2am on whim might have something to do with my self-mystified state. How can I be expected to keep track, what with 3/4 of a million dollars in recordings surrounding me, and a bellyfull of beer?

(I've read it argued that geniuses are prone to drunkenness because they are smart enough to know how to get alcohol easily.)

We seniles; and yet, I can't see it affecting my work. I am certainly losing my mind, but I can still type: my gift, to us.

 

*

 

The year: 1491. The place: Lisbon.

"We're almost ready for the test. I'm pretty excited. Are you excited?"

"Sure thing, Chris. We send 'em out, wait a bit, then when they come back we see if they've learned anything."

"If they behave differently."

"Of course. Those mighty words of wisdom: Monkey see, monkey do."

"So are they all on board?"

"I think so. Seventeen moor macaques, ten rhesus, eight guinea baboons, seven langurs, a proboscis monkey, and nine mandrills."

"Perfect! One of them has got to learn something about the route to China. Think of it! In years to come, monkeys will be used in all kinds of tests. Maybe one day some of them will land on the moon to see who's up there."

"At lot rides on this test sail."

"I'll say! Our funding will dry right up if this doesn't work out."

"Care to address the crew?"

"Monkeys! Listen! Monkeys! Be brave! Be true and be steadfast! Bring back whatever habits you can pick up! By this time next year! Hurrah for the monkeys! Hip hip hooray!"

"Okay, time to cast anchor."

"There! Sail away, my monkeys!"

"Let's see what happens next."

"Sail away, my brave monkeys!"

 

*

 

He stands on the bridge's parapet, hesitant about jumping into the river. He laughs, sees his dog Pluto watching him, and pulls off his shirt. He leans back a little to drop the shirt onto the overpass, and he drops it, but the wind picks it up and blows it into the river. He needs that shirt. He jumps into the river and swims, trying to catch up with the shirt. His dog jumps down into the brush to follow as he swims downriver.

The dog's barking as the shirt is pursued to a small bay created by a dam where a boy is fishing cheaply with a 1960s rod. The dog's no longer barking.

"Hey, you didn't happen to see a ... shirt float by?"

The boy shakes his head and points. "Odds are it's in the sluice over there."

He goes to the sluice and there's his shirt pressing against the grill. He leans down carefully and pulls it out.

On the riverbank he calls, "Pluto! Pluto!" but nothing happens.

He walks back toward the bridge, whistling and calling.

He walks around for the rest of his life, whistling, calling.

This is the oldest story in the world.

 

*

 

You can't take that big piece of luggage, you can't take your disco roller skates, you can't take your wind-up doll, you can't take your new bicycle, you can't take your framed diploma, you can't take your electric toothbrush, you can't take your breakfast bars, you can't take all those socks of yours, you can't take your Annotated Alice, you can't take your microwave oven, you can't take your best sleeping bag, you can't take water, you can't take your diary, you can't take your new car, you can't take the short story you're working on or thinking about, you can't take your desk and chair, you can't take any electronics at all, you can't take the rest of that cup of coffee, you can't take your refrigerator, you can't take your mother's jewelry, you can't take that painting that might be worth something, you can't take any coins or any banknotes, you can't take the roof over your head, you can't take the street out front, you can't take the moon or the sun or the stars, and you can't take the past or the present or the future, but you can take my love, and all my heart.