Room For One More

Since I was exactly halfway through my journey, I decided to give someone else an opportunity. I went to my agent with a sheath of papers written by someone else, all wrapped up in brown scratch-proof paper.

"I think I've published enough for a while," I told him. "I want to give someone else a chance, so I'm offering you this manuscript."

He put down his cigar and said: "That's not a usual situation. We can't give it any special attention, except perhaps to not send it to the slush pile after the first paragraph."

"That's all I'm asking, really."

As he was reaching out to typically grab it, he asked: "So who's it by?"

"My cat wrote it."

"Your cat?"

"With her own two paws."

"Cats can't write."

"Mine can, and in fine English."

He was pulling it out of the paper. "This is a big thing, if true."

"Don't I know it."

"There's a huge under-serviced market, untapped."

"All for my cat."

He looked over the cover page and read it. "Hamlet / an original manuscript / by / Mittens." He opened to the first page, then looked at me. "It's Shakespeare's play, verbatim."

"Yeah, isn't it great?"

 

*

 

"From the deepest pit of Hell, I have returned."

"It's good for you to come home, Lana."

Lana continued: "The sights I saw down there."

"I've seen a few good illustrations, yes."

"Terrible tortures, and my God the screaming!"

"I have an LP of a re-creation."

"Being there is something else entirely."

Garth wondered if the café offered refills. He said: "So, what are your plans?"

She said: "I suppose I should see if anyone's interested in publishing an account of my experience."

"There's a market for that. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God still sells well."

She looked over at the counter. "Do you think this place gives free re-fills?"

"I was wondering the same thing myself just a moment ago. Do you think we should wave or something?"

Lana started waving, gently. "Ah!" she said, as a waitress approached. "Could we get some more coffee?"

The waitress had been working there a long time, ever since the two of them had started frequenting it. They didn't know her name, but they had a nickname for her.

Lana said: "Of course they give refills. I've had one or two."

Garth shrugged. "Seems we're never here long enough."

 

*

 

So, you're considering joining our group, of your own free will.

Actually, I was a little bit coerced into coming here.

Oh? How coerced?

Maybe about ... 33% coerced.

Which leaves 67% of your own free well. Good enough! Here's the three demands that need to be made to the oppressive organization. Read the first one. Do you agree with it?

[reads] I suppose so; mostly.

How much of you agrees with it? Give me a percentile.

I'd say I ... agree with it 2/3rds.

Good enough for me! Just so long as you're not some enemy troublemaker. Now, go on to the second demand.

[reads] I mostly agree with it; but I 33% disagree with it.

These numbers are normal, and to be expected. Now, the third needed demand. What say you to it?

[reads] Of my own free will I'd disagree to the tune of 1/3rd, yet agree to it 2/3rds.

Well there you see! You're a perfect candidate for membership in our group! Everything was of your own will every two out of three times!

But, 2/3rds to the 4th power equals....

Pick up a button on your way out, if you know what's good for you.

 

*

 

She consulted with all the doctors she knew, and all the doctors those doctors knew, and she even consulted some on-line doctors (who turned out to be too expensive for her). She wanted their expertise to speak to the problem she'd had her entire life. (Considering that I've already told you she'd consulted doctor after doctor after doctor, you won't be surprised when I tell you she never did get an answer, nor will it surprise you to know that she never ever did.) "Tell me," she asked them. "Where does my consciousness go when I'm not recognizing it?" All the doctors told her it was a very profound question. "I know where my blood goes as it courses through my body. What is this thing, this consciousness, that seems nowhere to be found yet everywhere at once?" Yes, they all said, it is a poser! But.... "I know it's going to deteriorate, yes, I know that. Where do the parts that I will lose go? Do I excrete them?" Oh, no, they all laughed, it can't be as simple as that. "I put a lot of effort into my thinking. Where does that effort go?" Then came a referral.

 

*

 

‑Jones!

‑Smith!

‑There's something very serious I have to talk to you about, something scientific.

‑Huzzah! For we are scientists!

‑Yes indeed are we scientists. It concerns how you have modified our patented and copyrighted and all-rights-reserved Unconscious Bias Test^®.

‑Yes, I have 'modded' it, I admit.

‑Have you added certain image-pairs to it?

‑(Do you see that bird? How do you feel about it?) Yes, ahem, I have added some image-pairs, as is my privilege as one of its designers.

‑We've received more than one complaint.

‑About what?

‑About the masculine-feminine polarity.

‑Ah, yes. That's my baby.

‑I've looked over the programming, and I have seen you have added, every ten polarities or so, pictures of cocks and cunts.

‑Scientific terms, please! You mean: penises and vulvas.

‑Fine, penises and vulvas. I've had complaints saying such images are inappropriate.

‑Why on earth why? Scientifically, is there not a stronger opposition than the gonadal opposition?

‑Some are saying it's too strong.

‑Do we not intend to filter out cultural biases that include but are not limited to sartorial signifiers?

‑What?

‑Clothes.

‑Yes, well....

‑¿Que es mas macho?

‑Take them all out.

‑My wife will be disappointed.

‑Why?

‑She is the artiste.

 

*

 

"So, this is the scenario. Let me know what you think of it. A family. A house. One day, word comes over the radio that the public health department has instructed everyone to drink soapy water, onnacounta a weird disease that can KILL anyone outright, and that soapy water is the only cure. So the whole family gets it into their routine, and they all think: This ain't so bad. Soapy water ain't gonna kill no-one, and it's better than being struck down in your shoes by some weird disease. Time goes by, then across the airwaves comes another bulletin: the disease has gotten worse! You gotta eat shit to live! So the family thinks, well, they weren't wrong the last time, we didn't die, they were right: so, sure! The family starts collecting their shit, and they eat it together, and no-one dies from the weird disease that can KILL anyone outright. So, see, all is well. They're alive! Couple months go by, new instructions over the ray-dee-oh: you gotta fool the disease by mixin' all your genes up, and you have to do that through incest! So they‑"

"Let me finish this for you. We're living The Aristocrats."

 

*

 

It's hard to say, terrible hard to say, what we all thought when those Martians arrived. We know what we did, though: we put out the welcome mats with HOME written on them, thistles and flowers and patterns all along their borders, we cooked up some hundreds of extra batches of toll house cookies for those fellows, and we turned on the porch lights in case their journeys ended in the wee hours. That's exactly what we did, and finally the Martians showed up. It's hard to say what we were thinking, but it's established fact that the Martians, incapable as they were of reading English, ate the mats we'd put out, voraciously if I may use such a word, and they downed those toll house cookies in a blink of a cat's eye, and then they pulled out our porch bulbs and by God they ate them too! We'd never seen the likes of such desire. Again: who knows what we were thinking? No-one's even come up with a theory for that, about why we had our mouths hanging open, salivating-like, seeing those strange beings satisfy themselves contentedly, without an extraneous care in the world, and being truly free.

 

*

 

The Old Dark House

 

What can one say about an old dark house?

It's two in the morning. Hear that noise? It's the naked branch of an oak tree, brushing against a shutter, clickety-clack, clickety-clack.

It's rather dark in here, isn't it? You can't see your hand in front of your face.

All the furniture is covered with white cloths, and the cloths themselves are covered with dust. Where could the dust have come from? No-one's been in here for years. The only solution is that it's dust from the cosmos, from burning meteors, from outer space. That's where it all had to have come from.

You would be adding to the dust, if only you were there, you cosmic dust-thing you.

The staircase's banister is made of the oak of a sister-tree of the tree of clickety-clack clickety-clack fame. That sister-tree's ghost is out there on the grounds, watching these sinister proceedings.

Like it or not, you're trapped here. You'll never be allowed to leave, and it will never get any brighter. There's no dawn coming, regardless of how much you rant and rave. This is now your room, your very own room, and you're here for all eternity.

 

*

 

Chapter One

 

I sat down with my boy to read him the story. It was almost time for bed, so the story had to begin. He was laying in bed, and I opened the thick book.

"Chapter One,"

I began, but before I could continue, the little guy interrupted me to say: "Now come on, Dad, not that again!"

I calmly replied: "Whatever is the matter? It's

Chapter One,

and so

Chapter One

it is."

"Can't we ever, even just once, get past

Chapter One?

Can't we go on to, like, chapter two?"

"Oh, my son," I said, in my most patronizing manner: "Don't you recall that there's never any point in getting past

Chapter One

since the second chapter is merely a repeat of

Chapter One

with some words in a different order?"

"Somehow," he began, in that devilishly immature way he had: "I don't believe you. I'd guess that chapter two isn't at all like

Chapter One.

Something else happens to the Prince, I'm sure of it."

"Oh, lad. It's all the same thing, don't you see? The dragon of

Chapter One

is the dragon of chapter two, and on and on."

"I don't believe you."

"Chapter One."

 

*

 

The Last Chapter

 

We had ascended, and righteously so. Over the long journey, all our sins and peccadilloes had been stripped away, and though we had lost many near and dear to us as a result, we had finally ascended.

"We've reached the last chapter," said my sole companion. "Finally, atop the mountain, where we can see everything in every direction, we now stand, completed."

I agreed with a quick nod. "There's nothing left but to say the two words necessary, whence the editors can take over to perhaps add an index or something likely inessential. Thus, let us look, and see it all."

We looked down the slope to see the earlier chapters littered along the long path. Some were tiny, and so long ago, we could hardly remember a single word of them. The closer bunch could be recalled with some ability, but not beyond simple phraseologies. We didn't speak of what we were seeing, but we were certain we were experiencing the same thing, being, as we were, on the same page.

He turned to me to say: "I suppose we'll simply dissolve now."

I nodded. "There's nothing more to be done."

"Nope. There's nothing."

 

*

 

THE END

 

"It was all a dream, so you can't blame me for it. I was an air traffic controller, and I was looking at the array of blips on a green screen. I was simply going about my business, which was ... being an air traffic controller. So, I notice that one of the green blips‑one of the airplanes‑is blinking. I radio somehow to the plane, and it turns out they're mis-identified. They're not x-x-x, but rather y-y-y. So, an adjustment gets made, either up in the air or down below, for the data, and the green blip suddenly stops flashing."

"Sounds complicated," said Charlie, who was a little less drunk than me.

The low rumble of the ceiling fans cut through the jukebox and its Patsy Cline record. It was afternoon, though you wouldn't know that if you were just sitting there with us, down in the cellar of that tavern. The cheap pilsner glasses were all over the table since there was no-one to take them away. Nobody wanted us to do anything, so we were left to sit and drink the afternoon away. I said: "I saved the day, averted a plane crash, I can tell you me."

 

*

 

The Unboxing

 

It came in the mail, in a cardboard box big enough to hold a stove. In the living-room, it awaited a sharp knife. The box was marked with many waybill papers: it had obviously travelled a great distance, around the world, once or twice. One slice here, another there, and a third there, and it got pulled open with the sides shoved down to stay. The whiteness of the Styrofoam was the next obstacle to face, but that all came out easily. Then it was a matter of getting the smaller box‑this one of wood‑out and onto the floor. It took some doing, but it got done. The wooden box had copper clasps all around three sides, and they all snapped open satisfyingly clicky-like. Something wrapped in thick plastic was revealed, merely a temporary barrier to prevent the steel orb from damage. How to open it? There had to be a way to open the orb. Then, after some fiddlement, it twisted apart for there was a screw assembly holding it together. Time for a break, then for the final moment. It had been a long time coming, but there it most definitely was, nestled inside: the subject.

 

*

 

Some time during the night I got to think about the old living room, upstairs at 274 Arden Drive. My father's chair had beside it a small table where he'd put his evening coffee, and there was also the Roger's box there, with its wire that ran over to the television set. There were fifteen push-buttons on it, I believe, plus a switch that would either select the first set of fifteen channels or the second set of fifteen channels. The whole thing was brown, but the buttons were tan.

Someone had to always sit in that chair to operate the television. I remember staying up late on Friday and Saturday nights, sound down low, watching channel 47 because late at night they'd play Italian movies and once in a while a naked woman would show up, which excited me terribly.

At some point I'd go down to the kitchen to put two hot dogs (two slices of cheese apiece) wrapping in paper towels into the microwave. Back upstairs I'd eat them without using a plate. This behaviour went on for years and years, in and out.

I think that was the wealthiest, healthiest, and happiest time of my life.

 

*

 

At Yonge and Dundas one afternoon, down in the subway station, I looked up at the two escalators. The one on my left had a curve to it, while the one on my right was straight, and long. I was about to go up the long straight one when I recalled that the other one led to a train that actually crossed over the train to whose platform the long straight one led, and since my destination was a beer store to the northeast, I should go to my left.

The train, as I had known ahead of time, ran something like a rollercoaster, passing over the other train. I could actually see the passengers on the other one, the one leading northwest, and I recognized some of its passengers from my earlier journeys.

I never did get to the beer store, though. The narrative ended before that could chance to happen. Nonetheless, I cannot solve this problem of memory: was I truly remembering the subway station, the trains, the passengers? or was I merely believing I remembered the subway station, the trains, and the passengers? This is the problem inherent in so-called 'recurring dreams': is recurrence instead mere invention?

 

*

 

Man of the Weather

 

On the block is a man who knows what the weather is going to be like on the following days, weeks, months, and years because he is the one who is making the weather what it is. No, really.

He tells the young women: "Don't go planning on snoozing mid-afternoon in the park! Because I'm going to see to it that it's raining!"

The young women would thank him for the warning, and go merrily on their way, now improved with wisdom.

On other occasions, he would tell his neighbour: "Next week's a good week for some gardening, because I've decided it'll be clear for five days, then it will rain for two."

"Why, thank you!" his neighbour said.

Then there was the time he ran around the streets, screaming, because he'd drunkenly decided a good tornado was destined to arrive, in three weeks' time. Everyone bought provisions and hunkered down, and the tornado passed without doing too much damage.

Of course, the man was a charlatan. He didn't influence the weather. No mortal can do that! Rather, he was on a first-name basis with the weather-gods, who told him everything beforehand. How we were fooled!

 

*

 

Harold smiled. He frowned a moment later, as he happened to look at the sky. Nobody knows if the frown or the look came first. That's something for better men than me to decide.

An uncountable number of birds all got off the trees they were on and took to the sky. They started swishing all over like they were part of a wave of a sheet in the wind, though there was no wind to speak of.

It was the month of May where Harold was, and where he saw those uncountable birds all fly. He was thinking about

"I don't have to read any more," said the editor. "It's incredibly beautiful."

The writer across the desk, one Hollis Brown by name, smiled and said: "I put my heart and soul into it."

"As indeed is obvious! It's all so sublime, and in solid prose! If there's one thing we're concerned with here at Knopf, it's solid prose." He picked up his telephone. "Dolores, send in that contract-writer we've always got hanging around in case a contract has to be written." He returned his attention to Brown. "I'm offering five million dollars."

Brown chewed. "Penguin offered me triple that."

 

*

 

To his assembled crew, Ahab said: "I know we've been travelling, and travelling, and the sun has gone up and down, up, down, again and again, and what have we always found as a respite to our travels? We've always found a tomorrow. That's what's been helping us all along, and therefore it is reasonable to say it will continue to help us, this endless procession of tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow; for there shall never come a day during which, after the sun sets, the sun rises, on another tomorrow, another day to pursue, and perhaps to be pursued. For the clock, men, is ticking endlessly and the sextant moment by moment returns a newer reading, with the veritable lines beneath our keel ever positioning themselves vis-à-vis to new co-ordinates, as tomorrow comes oft again without as much as a how-d'ye-do, with the only change being a matter of mere weather. I tell ye, if it happens not today, it will happen tomorrow, aye, the word is 'tomorrow,' for that's where we're pushing to be, mark ye my words."

Flask turned to Stubb to ask: "Am I the only one on this boat who thinks he's fucking batshit crazy?"

 

*

 

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz asked her publisher, there, in his of (sorry, I had to roll up my sleeves for this) there, on his office: "I want to be assured that what I have written is published accurately."

There, in Mexico City, the publisher said: "Everytging will be published as you want."

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz replied, abashedly: "It's not for me that I speak; I'm talking for the poor, the poor people, so whatever you can do to help them, through my writing, I think you should do."

The publisher, who owned the means of publication, said: "Your agent convinced me to publish gour book, and publish it I will. That's to say: once it's gone through our panels."

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz asked: "Panels?"

"To see if there's anything objectiknable in it, like you put nigger or something like that in it."

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz replied: "I don't know that word."

The editor replied: "The panels will probabky give you a pass, then. So, what's your follow-up?"

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz said: "To serve God."

The publisher said: "Maybe so you can do somethibg in romantic comedy?"

 

*

 

Christopher Columbus wouldn't let any of his frat-brothers alone. He only had one central idea, like some kind of a hedgehog, and he ran with it continually (though not continuously).

Mark first heard the idea at a drinking party. Christopher cornered the unfortunate to yell at him: "They're already here, you know."

Mark looked around the room. "You mean the girls?"

"No, the aliens. They're already among us."

"Are they?"

Yes, the are. They're everywhere, in other dimensions, and the communicate with us through nexuses in our souls."

"Oh, do they? I suppose you got some evidence for that."

"You bet. Where do you think the unexpected comes from? Where do you think dreams come from? You don't think they're just naturally-occurring phenomena, do you?"

"I haven't thought about it much, to be honest."

"Well, I suggest you start thinking about it, and thinking freely at that. They're here, and they know I know they're here."

Actually, that was the last conversation anyone had with Christopher. Next day, he was noticed to be missing, late in the afternoon. He'd vanished, and he never did come back. Mark was philosophical after a while. People vanish all the time without anyone's noticing.

 

*

 

It was time to leave that den of thieves, so I turned to exit the door to the street, but wouldn't you know it I got roughly jostled by who-knows-what and I dropped the bag of diamonds on the filthy floor. When I regained my senses, I scanned the floor as someone somewhere was distinctly chortling at me. I took a look at the guy with the blood on him, down under the piano, and he seemed likely, so I roughed him up a little, demanding the diamonds. He, in turn, scurried up on top of the bureau, out of reach, to me but not to the dogs, who jumped up barking, and forced him to come down. He didn't have the diamonds.

Someone tapped on my shoulder. I turned. It was an ostrich, who said: "You should pay more attention to things."

"What things?"

"Me, say. I took the diamonds. You didn't even know I was here, did you?"

"Well, no."

"That's why you should spend more time thinking instead of acting." It pulled the bag out from amongst its tailfeathers. "Pay attention more, and you'll save yourself a lot of effort."

I thanked it, and fled the den.

 

*

 

$500,000

 

Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago

He saw an animal that liked to growl
Big furry paws and he liked to howl
Great big furry back and furry hair
“Ah, think I’ll call it a bear”

Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago

He saw an animal up on a hill
Chewing up so much grass until she was filled
He saw milk comin’ out but he didn’t know how
“Ah, think I’ll call it a cow”

Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, long time ago

He saw an animal that liked to snort
Horns on his head and they weren’t too short
It looked like there wasn’t nothin’ that he couldn’t pull
“Ah, think I’ll call it a bull”

Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning, in the beginning
Man gave names to all the animals
In the beginning

 

*

 

Hey kids, you can write junk like this when you get to be old enough

 

[A large hardware store with plenty of aisles and departments. PAINT-SELLER 1 is at the mixing-machines but is otherwise idly whistling.

[In comes a monster of a decidedly pronounced grotesquery.]

PAINT-SELLER 1: Can I help you, sir?

MONSTER: I'm looking to buy three gallons of paint! For my living room!

PAINT-SELLER 1: Of course! What colour are you after?

MONSTER: This colour! [He opens a plastic Tupperware container to show PAINT-SELLER 1 the contents.]

PAINTSELLER 1: Oh my God! [He begins vomiting copiously.]

[PAINT-SELLER 2 enters, looking at PAINTSELLER 1 with alarm.]

PAINT-SELLER 2: What on earth is happening here?

MONSTER: He'll be fine! Fine! But, hey, I wonder, I'm looking for a pint of trim of a particular colour!

PAINT-SELLER 2: What colour?

MONSTER: This colour! [He opens a second Tupperware container to show PAINT-SELLER 2 the contents.]

PAINT-SELLER 2: Good God! [He begins involuntarily evacuating his bowels, and cannot stop.]

MONSTER: [putting down the containers] I'll leave these with you guys for now, so you can work on them when you have a chance. Meanwhile, how do I get to the wallpaper aisle?

 

*

 

Carnival of the Animals

 

They got into town at dawn, after sleeping on the train, and immediately lifted the big top, alongside of the rails on the bad side of town. The giraffes lifted the crossbeams and the monkeys secured them. A lot of work was involved, but they'd done it so many times in so many towns it was much like eating or breathing.

Word got around town there was a carnival going to happen, and the whole shindig was run by the animals themselves. What novelty! So it's no surprise every ticket got sold well in advance of the performance.

The musicians were cats and dogs. An overture started the proceedings, with bears acting the clown and with synchronized mice, some fifty of them, gyrating kaleidoscopically through a humorous routine. Then some highwire antics ensued, as performed by foxes and wolves.

Clap clap clap. Clap clap clap.

The ringmaster (an ocelot) hushed the crowd, then gestured to the sign reading FINALE. All the animals may-poled around a shrouded cage centre ring, and the music got loud and frightening. The shroud lifted while a sign reading NAKED! fell from high above.

And what do you think the spectators saw?

 

*

 

I forgot my own name when I saw you

I couldn't recall how to turn lead into gold when I saw you

I didn't know where land was when I saw you

I forgot how to get that old circle squared when I saw you

My mind left my body when I saw you

My plan to save the world went poof when I saw you there

I forgot my own address when I saw you

My tongue couldn't, it, spee-, I, glug-glug, when I saw you

I knew words to love songs until I saw you

There was nothing I couldn't do, nothing, until I saw you

 

Now I know my name truly, since I saw you

All my alchemy skills miraculously returned upon seeing you

The coast was clear having seen you

I was squaring circles like crazy, for there you were

I was centred, dime-store-psychology-like, you

The world was safe with you in sight, I knew just what to do

*** ***** ****** was my address, I knew seeing you

My perspectacular linguistic apparatus returned

Some million song lyrics were with me again, with you

I was the bravest, smartest, tallest, in the world, having seen you

 

*

 

At times, he would wonder what the real writers were writing. He couldn't understand entirely that certain people were actually paid actual money to write. He was outside of all that, whatever it was, and he knew that if that was the case, that it was nobody's fault but his.

That was always when his grammar broke down.

He'd be wondering: Where have I gone wrong? Maybe I'll not be ever a real writer. They've managed to pump it out, week after week and day after day, to actually do something. There's something to being a writer, like Jonathan Kay (to take a handy example), his editing and research and writing and frisbee golf and Lego and board games, that I have not had. It could have had something to do with work ethic. Don't I have that? I suppose I don't.

Continuing with the grammar break-down, he wondered: I'll stop waiting for a miracle. I should just stop it all. Stop this whatever-it-is. These real writers write twenty times what I have done and do; it's the mass of it that makes good.

But still I can't (he wondered) give it up. It's more like a parasite than anything.

 

*

 

Maybe this deserves a number that consequences what I've gone on all about already, but that happened some seven months ago, as recalled, so really I don't think I've mentioned what I realized when my grand-nephew (Hello, Jaxson!) was born in July or something that he would not have any kids a year younger than him to push around or bully. Linda challenged me on this prediction, and I had to say: "I know how thirty-year-old girls think." (Which is really the easiest thing to do!)

Certain articles later here-and-there made the point, though I brag-rights was the first hombre to see it. That no 20ish chick would become preggers without access to a paranoid-free hospital.

So, as I said to the former mayor of Beaverton, John Grant, who should be re-elected, my grand-nephew won't have any younger kids to abuse or bully.

Let's consider as this another number in my jeremiad of the accounting of the lock-down hysteria. The MSM won't talk about it. Almost no children will be born between now and, say, 2023, because in-heat girls (though it's a fact that human women are constantly in oestrus) will forgo becoming pregnant.

I told John Grant about it.

 

*

 

The serpent will consume itself by the tail, and from ashes we come and to ashes we go, and the ending of every tale mirrors its beginning, and what goes up must come down, and the dog returns to its vomit, and no matter how far you go you'll wind up right back where you started, and in the end you can tend to your garden, and we'll get back to the garden, and the sine waves go on and on with each part like all the rest and as it is in heaven so is it on earth, and Paul Hackett at dawn is in front of his office building over and over again, and in the celestial vortex all will one day come together again, and even if you travel in a straight line eventually you'll be back to where you started from, and the material world doesn't care a bit about form, and I've said it before and I'll say it again that what goes up must come down, and in a hospital I was born and in a hospital I will die, and uncannily Z precedes A, and there's all the time in the world, repetitively.