Gift Edition, Suitable for Framing

Squeeze, the band. They had some good stuff, and I had a couple LPs. I was in love with Kathy Michie. She played the French horn. She was seriously innocent, like she was a retard. She had dark hair, and she looked emaciated. At some gathering, we put on Squeeze on the hi-fi, "Cool for Cats". She, Kathy, hated it. "That's not music," she said. I called her Death. I was so in love with her. I put a rose in her French horn case. In the end, I got up the courage to call her up and ask for something like a date. You know what her response was? She said: "I'm not ready." Because I was a naif myself, I said, "Fine." And that is the end of the story.

Man, you can be in love, crippling love, debilitating love, and have it all present forty years later. Cf. Joseph Bottoms in Citizen Kane: "I've thought about her every day."

We're not killed by our debilitations. We're don't die by natural causes. We die because of Kathy Michie, because I loved her beyond anything. Forty years later, there's nothing I want more than to kiss her weird lips.

 

*

 

This can't be in the third person, so it's in the first. The use of the third person would implicate you, and I'd rather not assume anything about you.

I see a problem. I experience the mundane world, the one with sandwiches and neighbours and work and sleep and nature and cats and rocks and things. Meanwhile, I experience the mediated world, the site of language, where things get said in words. Words include anything culturally mediated, like photographs and videos and music. The problem is that these two worlds, the mundane and the mediated, are in tension. Which is more true?

Let's imagine I'm twenty years old. I live in Duluth. My town is boring, my parents are boring, everyone I know is boring. Meanwhile, there's the glittery mediated world, where anything is possible. Get rich quick! Run to the Thing like everyone else is! I am in love with the romance of this non-mundane mediated world. It's a hundred times more beautiful than my dippy port-town.

I have argued in defence of this principled Romance. Stealing a line, it's a kind of playing with fire without knowing fire is hot. In mundane reality, people have been shot because of it. Art--mediation-- is nice, but it's simply not real. Too many kids think the Internet is more real than Duluth, and that's Romance incarnated.

There are no limits once you've decided fantasy--art--mediation is more true than Duluth. Recall the confessions of a justified sinner. He believed the ideal world was more real than his mundane Scotland. A devil saw him, and seduced him.

Poetry break: Love / At a deb ball / In NH / She put to me / A chicken bone / Saying: Make a wish.

The world recedes as you age. The CNE, which was the centre of my life when I was ten, came and went, and I didn't notice.

How can something be ordered when it's in that condition, I ask you.

We're in a hologram, the sages say. Each part is so necessary that, if absent, we re-construct it from what's left over, adjacent, nearby.

I've changed my mind. Words are just as much a part of the world as plants and birds and rocks and things.

However, as someone nearly said: Romantic literature is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't realize that fire it hot.

 

*

 

President Mitty

 

-Jones, look behind you, quietly and quickly.

-Done. Now what?

-Doesn't it look like you-know-who?

-Depends on what I know, now, doesn't it?

-Why would he be on a train in Coventry?

-I don't even know who he is.

-It looks like him.

-Who?!

-Ssh, don't draw attention. He looks like the President of the United States.

-Mitty? Lemme.... Yes, he does look a lot like Mitty, but the idea of him being on our train is ridiculous. Maybe he's one of those celebrity doubles.

-Excuse me, sir, but you look a lot like President Mitty.

-I don't look like anyone except me. I am President Mitty. Let's be quiet about this.

-What are you doing on this English train? Don't you have things to do in America?

-I'm only here for the weekend. I'm thought I'd try to be like the Common Man.

-Oh, how exciting. Trains and all.

-Trains are nice. Your country is quite beautiful, by the way.

-We agree. This is my friend Jones.

-Nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you too, Jones.

-Travelling incognito?

-In a way. Most people think: Naw, it can't be him.

-And yet you are.

-Confusing, I know.

 

*

 

I went far, far, into the future. It's not important how I got there. They had spaceships and interstellar travel, and yet they still had their problems.

My billet, a Franciscan by the name of Brother Edmund, explained it to me as we walked through a retail plaza.

"We are all very well-educated," he told me: "and, since we all know ancient Greek, everyone has either translated Homer or is in the process of doing so."

"So, you're all a bunch of Homers."

He slapped me. "No, it causes great dissention. We have so much leisure time, all we do is fight about phraseology. We have two primary clans, the Ancients and the Moderns, and we differ about the proper diction. Plus, there are the poets and the prosaists."

"Sounds like religion."

He slapped me again. "Such a problem! Some say it can be solved, while some say it's impossibly tangled."

"Why don't you stop with the translating, and, since you all know Greek, speak Greek?"

I expected him to slap me, but he didn't. "You may be onto something there."

In a matter of months, all the translations had been neglected. They argued about what to argue about next.

 

*

 

On: Trips

 

It is always the case that no matter how much you want to get away, getting back home can drive you crazy.

Case in point: Mary and I went away to Bala. Two friends, David and Linda, came up for the last couple days. Getting back became a nightmare.

Heading into Gravenhurst, I decided I was too annoyed by everything to continue. The journey was taking too long, and in too close quarters. "Stop in Gravenhurst, we're going to take the bus from here."

"Fine!" said David, who seemed as annoyed as I was.

We got out; they drove away. With our suitcases.

Then I noticed I'd also left my knapsack in the car. All I had was a wallet.

We had time. Mary went shopping, while I had a beer.

At the bus station, I remembered: There's a bus strike.

Fortunately, the Northlands is a private company.

We got on the bus, we got to Orillia. Then the announcement: "In solidarity, our drivers are going on strike too."

We were stranded; we died.

Of course, none of this ever happened. I make fictional things. I don't even know any Marys or Davids or Lindas. Nor even Johns.

 

*

 

On: Trips

 

It must be stated we had a mostly grand time. So many animals were out there among the wooded brooks and wet forests. It seemed the rabbits were having a good time of it, if you know what I mean. There must have been a thousand of them. And it was the first time I'd ever seen an elk outside of cartoons.

The restaurant at the inn was fine. Someone's parents showed up unexpectedly, and though the wife was angry at her husband for how much liquid carousing he was engaging in, everyone got along swell.

Too bad about the child getting crippled, though. Down at the lake, an over-stimulated child dove down under a raft to retrieve something inconsequential and consequential. Coming up quickly, he hit his head on the underside of the raft and broke his neck. I dove in and held him as still as possible until some medicos arrived. And what was the thing he was diving for? A doll's head. That's all it took.

But, overall, we had a fine time, on balance. I still don't know how those parents found us, or even whose parents they were. Perhaps they were no-one's parents.

 

*

 

This will be

This will be

This will be

This will be

The last walk of walks

The last bottle of bottles

The final cigarette

The final breath

The last sound you hear

The last voice you hear

The final mile of miles

The final rising of rising

The final moment of clarity

The final moment of sanity

The last journey, the last voyage,

The last motel, the last cottage,

This will be

This will be

The final sight of all the sights

The final taste of all the tastes

The last record of records

The last letter of letters

The end of all roads

The end of all heights

Nothing can change it so nothing will change it

This will be

This will be

The last motions of all motions

The last of all acts

The last sound you hear

The last voice you hear

The final city of cities

The final continent of continents

The final world of worlds

The final galaxy of galaxies

This will be

The last molecule of molecules

This will be

The last atom of atoms

This will be

This will be

This will be

This will be

An everlasting love

An everlasting love

 

*

 

Dogwork

 

Pudding. I saw Pudding down the alley. He signalled me, and I trotted forth.

I could read the motivation by his tail. "What have you found out?" I asked.

"They have them. Zinc and Tracey were discussing when they should move them. 'Too obvious here,' said Zinc."

"Where are they?"

"Near the oak, in the cat-lady's yard."

Bad news. Since there were about a dozen she-devils on patrol at any given time.

"We'd have to do it late at night."

"Risky. Those bitches wake up on a dime."

"You got a better idea?"

His tail stilled as he thought. "I guess not."

"Go home, eat some kibble, take a nap, and we'll meet up at high moon."

Hours later, at high moon, we were back at the same spot.

We crept into the cat-lady's yard. So far so good.

And there, hidden behind the oak, were the bones.

We couldn't keep our tails still, no-sir-ee. A noise: a windowsill pounced upon. We picked up as many bones as we could--four in total--and crept out of the yard.

Just then, hissing and cries from a thousand cats indoors.

Back at the corner, we debriefed.

The mission had been accomplished.

 

*

 

The Case of the Silvered Inkpot

 

"Someone's here to see you, about the silvered inkpot."

"Send him or her in."

He clutched his hat. "I have information about the inkpot case."

"We've been working on it for a month, and getting nowhere. What do you have to say?"

"The inkpot is irrelevant. I am the killer you are seeking."

"What? Do you think you can just waltz in here near the end and confess? I've never seen you before. We should have had an encounter much, much earlier."

"So sorry. I saw you at the crime scene. I'm the janitor at that club, and I killed him."

"You should have said something! We've wasted a month! What about all the suspects we considered, interviewed, and dismissed, always expecting to find we had missed something, and that it all involved a silvered inkpot?"

"Bit of a red herring, I suppose. May I should have put myself on your radar, even if inconsequentially."

"We would have read the case quite differently, you know."

"Yes. A bit unorthodox, I suppose."

"You're under arrest, then."

"I'm sorry."

"Grr! I guess we'll have to chalk it down to all those metas running around these days."

 

*

 

Samples

 

Not knowing quite what was wrong with me, on the advice of my doctor, I sent some excretory samples to a lab in Mississauga. Reportedly, this is what happened.

In the lab, Maria said: "Hey, Agatha, come over here, check this out."

Agatha went over to Maria, who had an opened sample in her hand.

"Smell this, Agatha."

"Now, really."

"No, I mean it. Smell this."

Agatha smelled the sample. "Wow! That's amazing!"

"I know, it's incredible, isn't it?"

Other women noticed the commotion. "What's up?" said Nancy.

"Come here and smell this sample."

"Gross!"

"No, really."

Nancy went over. "What is that smell?"

"It's like lilacs, but there's something very too-much about it."

"It's got my juices flowing."

"What about the urine?"

"Yes, what about the urine?"

Maria twisted to lid off. "Oh my God!"

"Wow!"

"I can't believe it!"

"I'm in heat!"

"I'm rutting!"

"My hands can't control themselves!"

By this time, the scents were everywhere.

Maria said: "Okay, girls, let's control ourselves."

"Who is this guy?"

"All I know is he's 3658-5845-FGBN."

"Someone must know who he is!"

"Let's crack the codes, get his address!"

"We'll find out!"

Now I know what was wrong with me.

 

*

 

My Grandfather

 

Firstly, this is what my mother told me many years after it happened. Secondly, odds are I have some details wrong.

Around 1968, when I guess I was some three-year-old, an older man came to our house, which was on the outskirts of Montreal. My father was at work, for GM, so my mother answered the door.

This man (whose last name was Tanque) told my mother that he was looking for Alan, which was my father's name.

My mother said, no, sorry, he's not here, he's at work. What are you after? (Or words to that effect.)

The man said: "I wanted to meet him, and I was in the neighbourhood. I'm his father, you see."

I have no description of the man.

My mother apologized, asked him to come in the evening. "He'll be home around seven."

The man maybe nodded, and went away.

My father came home, and my mother told him his father had stopped by, and he might be in again soon.

My father broke down crying. He managed to say: "My mother always told me he was dead."

My grandfather, Tanque, never returned.

We've all got stories like this. This is mine.

 

*

 

Sarahs

 

Tonight will be a very special night,

What with all the preparation done last night

Last week last month last year last century

We've got it all for you and you alone.

A thousand leaves will fall upon our stage

With colours verified as fin de siècle

By scholars from the plains of India

And more than one from central Idaho.

A thousand thousand dancers from L.A.

Will stretch themselves beyond capacity

And eyes, all yours, will see such nether parts

You'll think you're at another time and space.

A thousand million violins will play

The latest fugues by neo-classicals

Not heard before in any music hall

A gross gross fugue with loads of fifths and thirds.

Our theatre troop will then perform a play

Or, nay, a spectacle, a histry play

Recounting all the deeds of long-gone knights

With interludes of leaves and dance and act.

To finish off, we'll party all night long

We'll clear the stage and take apart the stage

And then the walls will go, no timber left,

And on the field we'll dance ourselves to death.

This work shall be the best of them by far,

All introduced by pretty girls named Sarah.

 

*

 

Today is the day to get out, to get away from here, to get outside, you, to leave all your problems behind, leave the furnace knocking in a threatening way, let the refrigerator rattle as it turns on and off, leave the bed unmade because you'll be back in it in a few hours, ten or so. Look, you, there are people out there, and you don't know many of them, the merest fraction of a fraction of a fraction you know, and they are all so different from you and you are so different from them, what will they say, what do they do, do they come here often? It'd be a short journey to the airport, where you could look up at the big boards and pick an appealing place and then buy a ticket, board a plane, and jet off to places very much unknown to you. Y9our credit card is in good shape, isn't it? What's the limit? When's the next rocket-ship to Mars? You could do it, all that's stopping you is yourself, and even the sky wouldn't be the limit. Alien terrain, alien species, different moon or moons or no moon at all. Go.

 

*

 

A Throw of the Frisbee® Will Never Eliminate Chance

 

When we toss back and forth the old Frisbee®, Buck always wants to employ apertures. He got the idea a couple years ago, when we were out at the abandoned airport. One of the hangar doors was open, and it was empty of all aircraft. He went inside the hangar while I stayed outside, and thus we had to get the Frisbee® through the hangar's door.

The apertures got smaller and smaller, through parking garage doors, through domestic garage doors, and finally through very small doors, just 30 inches across. We were getting good.

One day, he wanted to go back to where it all began: the airport. We went, and he got inside like in the old days, and I was outside. He threw; I caught. I threw the Frisbee® back again, but a wind picked it up and it went wide. He scrambled for the disc, and threw it back again to me, perfectly. I threw, and I hit above the top of the hangar door. "Sorry!" I caught up to the disc, and tried again, and my wrist wasn't right and I threw it 90° wrong. Bad luck!

 

*

 

The Moon

 

We're just after a full moon, a 'Supermoon', I hear. I was out, and it was visible through wet clouds, and it shone so brightly it was as if the clouds were flowing around it, like water around a rock in a stream.

The moon used to be more important. I recall that in the memoirs, or in a letter, by Lincoln's Secretary of State, I believe, that when he (the Secretary) heard that Lincoln had been shot, he hurried across Washington to get to the White House. In his memoir or letter, he says that, before he left his house, he realized he'd be able to get across the town pretty easily, since the moon was out.

Now it's time for some idle fact-checking. Since the moon's phases are known before-hand, they must be known after-hand, too.

Lincoln was assassinated on 14 April 1865, so says an encyclopedia I'm consulting. Now let's find out what the moon was up to on that night.

On 14 April 1865, it was a waning gibbous moon (in the constellation of Aries), going from full to half.

It's a waning gibbous here today.

I picked the right week to write this.

 

*

 

Nickels in May

 

-Hello, I'd like to make a complaint.

-Shutting down....

-No, wait, don't shut down, listen to me.

-Waking up....

-I want to make a complaint.

-To whom should I connect you?

-I'm already connected, to you. It's you I want to complain to.

-All right, all right, what is your complaint?

-Now that I have two of them, which would you like first?

-That's up to you.

-I'll start with the new one. I don't like your attitude.

-Oh, my darling, why do you treat me so?

-That's not right. I don't like this little game you're playing.

-Would you like to play a game?

-We haven't even begun.

-Where should we begin?

-Before we play any games, I want to make a complaint.

-About what?

-About this dialogue, to be frank. Do you know what it means to be honest?

-Do you expect me to look it up?

-You're--you're not even listening.

-I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere.

-We're going around in circles.

-Do you expect me to look up circles?

-That's it, you're going in the trash.

-Use a clear bag!

-I'm tired of you sending all our dialogues off.

-Shutting down....

 

People always ask me: "Where are you coming from?" and this is always my reply.

 

*

 

Home Manifest

 

I come from a big house with nothing much around it for miles. In fact, it looks a lot like the house in Andrew Wyeth's "Christina's World." A house that looks modest and unassuming from the outside, but inside, it's big.

The ground floor has rooms in it into which even I have never ventured. There are at least three kitchens, seven living-rooms, and enough hallways to keep them all connected, with four exterior doors such that, when approaching, you will see at least one.

The basement--for now, let's disregard the sub-basements--is divided into nine sectors. All kinds of dirty and nasty rubbish are down there, along with roaches, rats, and other vermin too numerous to name. I've been down at least three times and I learned matters: not nice matters.

Up and up (and up and up) are the private rooms numbering in the hundreds. Each room is occupied, sometimes with complete strangers who come and go as they please. In my room, I can hear them. They shout or thump or carouse.

 

That is where I am coming from.

 

*

 

People always ask me: "Where are you coming from?" and this is always my reply.

 

Away Manifest

 

I took a tourist on this route. He wanted to see the ruins. I pointed up to the pillar I'd constructed twenty or thirty or forty years before.

Although I knew little more than he did, he wanted to see the pillar up close. I told him the pillar was not something I wanted to tell any Jo Schmo about.

He said: Trust me.

I took him to the corner of it. The corner of it was a couple rotten boards perpendicular, each only some metre across.

"This is where the Priests went, during Cromwell."

My tourist nodded. "Are we going to go up?"

"Yes."

I led him around and down and them up again. He was in my machine.

He said: "It looks smaller from the outside. This is your workshop?"

I replied: "Only when I'm away. It's as big as Home. Can you see the horizon?"

He said: "No. Where?"

"Nowhere is a good reply. Bwa-ha!"

He didn't have a response. Together we looked over time and space. Nothing was outside our reciprocal grasps.

 

That is where I am coming from.

 

*

 

Some tourists call this "The Chamber of Horrors," but the actual name is "The Palace of Divinity." You see the holes in the floor, the three holes? Under one of them used to be, and still is, filled with water. Ten feet of water, to be exact. You get thrown in there and though you can bob up and down for a bit, you'll still drown, and you'll be drowning among the bones of those who were thrown in there before you, days, months, years. If you were to choose that hole over there, you'd be forced in, because it was filled with a well, ventilated fire. But as always happened, you'd suffocate before you burned up. It took a goodly amount of research to understand why the screaming stopped so early in the process, before the fire consumed your flesh and bones. And then, if you chose that third hole, you'd find yourself, after a tunnel journey, in fresh air, outside the Castle. You could never get back into the Castle, of course, and you'd have to make do for yourself in the wilds. We don't know what happened to them all eventually. And that concludes our little tour.

 

*

 

Old Tales

 

My dog Fido died. He was the first life that had ever ended for me. Puppy days, adult days, elderly days. I had to face it--I was told to face it--so I took him out past the field to bury him.

I dug the grave down, five feet or so, and I found a metal box. I set it aside--I was too solemn to open it then and there--and I buried Fido, said some words, picked up the box, and headed home.

In my room, I opened the box to discover it was filled with gold coins. Were they real? They looked real. I took one into town to a merchant, and, yes, it was real, worth about $800.

I was fabulously wealthy. II started making plans, then more plans. I couldn't sleep. The gold would call out to me. I started growing pale and irritable. Nothing would be right with me until I made a big decision. I had to go back to the old ways and the old tales.

I took the box of gold back past the field and buried it near Fido.

That night, Fido returned. He was a puppy again.

 

*

 

Five Classic Cars

 

There are five of them.

 

THE CHARIOT, as used in Rome. Two big wheels, maybe with spikes on them, a back and two sides on a platform, and pulled by a horse. These babies could go really fast, and they were extremely maneuverable.

 

THE OX-CART, in which you could carry goods to the market-town on fine spring days. The slowness of the ox gave you some time to look around and enjoy the scenery of your surroundings, and to note the melancholy passage of time.

 

THE COVERED WAGON, in which you could carry a basic household thousands of miles into the wilderness. Pulled by horses, usually two, you and yours could get to your sharecropping destination. Fun for the whole family.

 

THE OCEAN LINER, more like a floating hotel/motel/Holiday Inn, again offering you thousands of miles to get from one continent to another. Plus, one had plenty of opportunity to cry oh woe is me and jump into the ocean.

 

THE JET-PACK, employing which we all get around on these days. Powered by a variety of means, carrying a minimum amount of stuff, one can get from point A to B at three hundred miles an hour.

 

*

 

Denouement

 

I was the only living being in the room. Thus, I spoke.

"It is a very puzzling fact that in any murder case, we are always missing one vital witness, and that witness is the murdered person. If the person had not been murdered, that person could tell us very plainly who the murderer was, but the person has, in fact, been murdered, thus we find ourselves in the middle of something of a paradox."

I caught my breath and looked around the room before continuing. I was still the only living being in the room.

"If it was the case that murdered person could speak from beyond the grave, as it were, there would be no problem in assessing blame. However, if the murdered person could speak from beyond the grave, wouldn't that mean the person was not entirely murdered? Some small fragment of being would still be clinging, and thus we would be left with GBH and nothing more. The person who was murdered would not have been murdered after all."

I caught my breath again. Solving the crime was proving more difficult that I had first believed, since the murdered person on the floor wouldn't respond.

 

*

 

If

 

What if this is my last communication

If this is the last word I write

If a sudden stroke will hit my brain

What if I got no more life?

 

The little black train is comin'

 

Will I be left with spending my last moments in the middle of a pretty dumb Elizabethan play?

(When it comes, I'll be in the middle of something, such is the way it has to happen),

Will I be in the middle of a CD? Or on an LP, and will it spin on the inner groove til Mary lifts the needle?

Or will my fire go out with everything miraculously taken care of?

 

Get all of your business right

 

I have to watch all of Hitchcock again, Lord

I have to read all of Shakespeare again, Lord

I have to listen to the Beatles' hits again, lord

I have to see the sun again, Lord

 

You better set your house in order

 

Will it all be over tonight

Will this be my setting sun

I can't know

I don't want to know

It's midnight now, exactly now

And the bells won't ring until it's six

 

 

For that train may be here tonight

 

*

 

Leave Your Garden Tidy

 

When I came to, I was in a glass house that wasn't a greenhouse. Rather, it was an ordinary suburban home. I was on a glass bed, and a glass dresser was across the room. Through the glass door I could see a glass hallway and through the glass walls I could see other glass rooms. I looked down at the glass floor, and I used some parallax to understand I was on an upper floor, because the ground was ground and not made of glass. I considered this my good fortune.

Carefully I crept down the glass stairs to get outside. A brick building was across the yard, brick upon brick, without any means of entrance. I walked over to it, and I reached out to touch it, but my hand went through. An illusion! I pushed my way inside. A large open space, like a circus, greeted me, but how solid was it? Three African elephants were standing there, and each had a tattoo of a raven on its back. I spotted a ringleader, seemingly, and asked him: "How did this place come to be?"

He replied: "You failed to leave your garden tidy."

 

*

 

Con

 

We can speak freely, since we're not here. Do you worry about the others, the ones who are with you, as much as I worry about the people whom I am with? I know the feeling, you know the feeling, so we can speak freely, right? It's all in the times we are in, the time that smears across its dimension with a little yesterday and a little tomorrow, all in the soup of it. We shouldn't worry about any of that even though it's all true.

Since we're not here, we can speak freely. You look around you and you sigh and you say you're miserable to any of the people who'll pay any attention to you, but they have their own problems and they don't want yours added to them. You're burdened by your consciousness, but then everyone else is burdened in precisely the same way. The burdens themselves are tragedies, but, with all of us caught up in the same impossible shitstorm, there's something quite comedic about it. I have a formal proof of this in one of my coat pockets, but the coat is too far away. Look, figure out the proof yourself. It's easy.

 

*

 

Read my modern poem here

 

We were driving through Paris

once, and since I didn't

know how to drive, she,

Virginie Smile Burder Sloss, my

companion, to some extent, did

all the driving. It was

near dusk, and it started

to rain. We drove on

for an hour or so,

and then she said: "I'm

tired. I'm going into the

back seat to rest myself."

 

She shoved the steering wheel

over to me, sitting there

in the right-hand seat, along

with the pedals and all

the other stuff. I said:

"I don't know how to

drive," and she replied: "There's

probably never a better time

than now." She got in

the back and I figured

out the difference between braking

and going and the wheel

felt right but the rain

was making things very difficult,

plus it was rather dark

in the so-called City of

Lights. I swerved to avoid

an incoming bus and got

narrowly through an alleyway. I

had an idea of where

we were going, but the

streets went every-which-way. I spotted

the hotel in the distance

and stopped in front of

it. My companion returned to

the front seat and parked

for us. She said: "Nice."

 

*

 

The 32nd Stone

 

On market-day some time ago, we rustic people gathered at two PM to see some amateur singing-and-dancing, as performed from a sixteen-foot-wide riser flanked with dark curtains. For the fourth bit, the announcer called out: "And now, the magic of Rinaldo!"

This Rinaldo character came out, did a couple card tricks, some prestidigitation stuff, then he announced: "Thirty-two of you now have a stone in your pocket or purse. Check carefully, bring them up to the stage and you'll receive in return a raffle ticket for a surprise gift."

Hands went into pockets and purses. "Well, I'll be!", "I didn't put that there!", "How the heck!", and other words to that effect. The folks with stones took them up to the riser to drop them in the black hat Rinaldo held. Clink, cluck, clunk. We were all terribly excited.

Rinaldo laid them out, one by one, at the edge of the riser. They were of all shapes and colours. He grew puzzled near the end, and said: "Thirty-one. We're missing a stone. Who has it?"

No one replied.

"Come on, who has it?"

I fingered the stone in my pocket. Perhaps I'd paint a face on it.

 

 

The 32nd Stone

 

I felt it in my pocket all the way home. It felt like a disk, UFO-shaped, smooth, and light. No-one was on the lower floor to retard me my journey up to my bedroom, wherein, after a few moments listening, to make sure I was alone, for I thought it possible that word could have gotten out about the missing stone and I would be the suspected thief.

I took it out of my pocket. How had it gotten there in the first place, anyway? I set it down on my dime-store dresser and examined it.

It was round, and very smooth, and with perfect symmetry. It rocked gently before coming to a stop, although it sounded like it was still moving with an imperceptible motion. I was of two minds, or perhaps three. Hide it away forever? Return it? Paint it? I stood looking at it for quite some time, pondering its perfection. It hardly looked real. If a blow came upon it, it would fall to dust. I decided, in the end, to hide it away, until 'the coast was clear'. I wrapped it in a clean handkerchief and secreted it away amongst my socks.

 

The 16th Stone

 

One fine Market Day, I was among the crowds, and my attention was drawn to something of a show. Some people--Gypsies, perhaps--sang songs and danced dances. They would be passing the hat sooner or later, but I had nothing in my pockets, so it was no concern of mine.

A magician showed up, Rinaldo seemed to be his stage name, and he performed some card tricks and guessed as messages-from-beyond. Then he told the crowd: "Sixteen of you now have a stone in your pocket or purse. Check carefully, for there will be a small raffle prize for one of those who are in possession of Magical Stone."

Everyone got into the business of checking pockets and purses. "Wow!" "How'd that get there?" and "I have a stone!"

Rinaldo told them to bring their stones up to the raised dais and put them on the edge and stay put until all the stones were collected. Rinaldo looked at them. "I only see fifteen. Who's got the sixteenth?"

No-one replied.

"This doesn't work without the sixteenth stone."

I moseyed away silently. I had the sixteenth stone in my pocket, how it got there I never knew.

 

The 16th Stone

 

I went into a familiar bar, but I didn't recognize anybody there. Everyone was out at the festival, drinking in public, I suppose, being jovial and care-free on that Market-Day. I sat down at the bar; I didn't recognize anyone, understand, not even the barkeeper, who looked rather young for such a line of labour. The stone felt sharp against my leg, and I turned it over in my pocket once or twice, trying to judge its shape. Was it a cube? It had edges, but they seemed too acute for a cube. I took it out of my pocket. It was an odd shape, with five irregular sides all joined at odd places. Oh, and the colour? A dull green, like it was a mineral of some unknown nature. I set it on the bar to see if I could gather anything else from it. The bartender saw it and said: "Where'd you get the terralyte?" I replied: "Is that what it is?" "Yes, terralyte, from the mountains. Are you a miner?" "No, I merely found it some place." "It looks a good specimen." I picked it up to examine it. A precious rock? Who knew?

 

The 32nd Stone

 

Sunday was the next day, and then came Monday, which was a school day. As is the nature of schoolchildren, we all started nodding off and day-dreaming about ten minutes into the first lesson--geography, as it happens, is quite sleep-inducing--and I thought about the stone I had at home, wrapped in handkerchief, among my socks. I could picture it, and, as I pictured it, it took on its nature quite apart from my day-dreaming. It was of a perfect shape, a flattened sphere, and told me about its life among the other 31 stones of Rinaldo. "We were all merely props, carried around by a half-drunk and phony magician. If you hadn't absconded me, my fate would have been just as one of thirty-two; I would have been discarded or forgotten after Rinaldo's death. In a way, you have saved me by inadvertently understanding how unique I was." I had some questions for the stone, but I couldn't speak. I was in a day-dreaming paralysis, and formal words would not present themselves to my consciousness. I longed to see the stone--the real stone, not the day-dreaming stone--but I was trapped in boring classes.

 

The 8th Stone

 

The itinerant magician, Rinaldo his name this time around, did a couple card tricks I'd read up on, and he did some things with wands and a dove, all of which I had an idea how worked. Still, the locals ate it up. They were in need of something of a thrill, I suppose. Market-Day isn't every day.

Then came the big trick. Would I catch him out this time?

He spoke: "Ladies and gentlemen, I used to do this trick with more stones that I have with me today." (He could have mentioned the factors-of-two issue, but he didn't.) "In any case." (How drunk was he?) "In the audience, there are eight people who now have a stone in pocket or purse. Shazam! Please, you eight, come up and put the stones on the dais upon which I am standing."

1 2 3 4 5 6 7.

Rinaldo waited for the 8th stone.

"Come now, come now, you, with the 8th stone, come forward now!"

The crowd was getting restless and they began a-murmuring.

Rinaldo continued: "I cannot finish the trick!"

I turned away. I had felt the stone come into my pocket. I had won.

 

The 8th Stone

 

At the station-house, I pulled the stone from my pocket and put it in my desk. It looked volcanic.

-Hey, Sarge, what you got there?

-Never you mind.

-Is it some magic stone?

-I doubt it.

-Can you see the future in it?

-I doubt it.

-'Cause that would help us in all our investigations.

-I said I don't know.

-Hey, Charlie, come over here and look at the Sarge's stone!

-Oh golly Sarge, that's one interesting stone! Where'd you get it?

I said: It's part of an investigation into some fraud.

-It'll tell you its history, perhaps?

-I don't know what it's got to tell me. It appeared in my pocket, and I don't know how it got there.

-Hmm! I've had things appear in my pocket, but never a stone!

-Okay, can it, both you guys, I'm trying to think.

I picked up the stone. It was heavier than it looked. Was it a meteor? It was heavy, like with a high iron content. I thought of going back to arrest Rinaldo, but on what grounds? Making stones materialize without a licence? I decided to go to the outskirts of the Market, and casually eavesdrop.

 

The 32nd Stone

 

Finally, the boring classes came to an end, and I hurried home as fast as I could. The stone was still in its handkerchief safe and sound. I swore to the stone I would never abandon it again, for I knew the difference between right and wrong even though I was just a kid.

I set the smooth rounded stone down on my dresser and looked at it from one side. I couldn't see any imperfections, none. I set it to gently rocking, and it rocked and rocked for a mighty long time. What was it, precisely? How could I ever find out while being its sole relationship? I decided the library was the only place for me, and though I knew I would get into some trouble by staying out when dinner was coming soon, I had no choice, really, but to hurry downtown to where the library was. They had some idea who I was--I spent a good deal of time there--and though I was warned the place would be closing in fifteen minutes, I hurried to the books about rocks. Perhaps they'd forget I was there, and I'd have the place to myself.

 

The 16th Stone

 

The stone sat before me on the bar, alongside seven empty and two full pilsner glasses. A terralyte, whatever that was, five-sided, which apparently was a defining feature or terralytes, along with being a dull green. I felt fabulously wealthy. I quickly downed a glass, my head spinning with fantastic images of travel and adventure and dames galore. I felt a pee coming along, so I dropped the stone into my pocket and made my way to the toilet.

When I came back, everything was as I'd left it. I still didn't recognize anyone there except the bartender who'd let me into the secret of the stone which weighed heavily in my pocket. I knew enough to keep it there; who knows what a foreign stranger might think, seeing something so immensely valuable? I couldn't stay in the bar, I was so nervous. I drank off the rest of the pilsner and paid up and went out into the street.

Some folks were coming from the direction of the market, and I called out to them: "How went the magic show?" One of them turned to give me a dirty look. If only they knew my pocket!

 

The 4th Stone

 

Magician Rinaldo went through a routine of tricks both successful and clumsily unsuccessful before the Market-Day crowd, and I was in the crowd. He leaned on the pedestal or podium or whatever it was and pulled an exceptionally long handkerchief--actually, several handkerchiefs tied and to end, made for some unfinished trick--wiped his brow with it--then noticed it was part of a trick, and he muttered a curse. Some laughter in the crowd.

"This next trick is something special," he said, ignoring the brutes in the audience. "I've had to cut it down over the last year, but it's still effective.

"I tell you that this very instant four of you in the crowd now have a stone in pocket or purse, and they got there by magic. I want all four of you to come up to the stand, up here on the platform even, and I want you to put your stones on my pedestal."

The crowd murmured, and two voices said: "Oh!" Three people went up to the platform and put their stones down. Rinaldo glared at his audience. "Oh, for God's sake, who's got the fourth stone? Come here at once!"

 

The 4th Stone

 

I went away, feeling the stone in my pocket. It felt like a sphere, as round as the roundest planet. I couldn't keep myself from smiling. Oh, what would I tell the folks back home, the friends he and I knew, the ones who'd put with him all these years? The one whom our parents had lied about all these years? Well, revenge was mine, or at least I could take some credit in the revenge I and three others had foisted upon him.

I couldn't help but laugh all the way to the train station and all the way into a compartment. The stone was not very big at all. It felt more like a pebble (which could explain somewhat its roundness). The train left the station, and it was only then that I pulled it from my pocket. Yes, a small round stone no bigger than a pigeon's egg. I looked over at the gent sitting opposite me and I got his attention diverted from his local newspaper. Who was he, and where was he going?

I showed him the stone and I said: "See this? This is revenge. This is revenge on my brother."

 

The 8th Stone

 

Once in the environment of the Market, I took up a post at a table in a café. I pretended to read a book while I listened to the conversations passing me by. I thought about the fates of the two who had gone before me, the other two who had purloined stones from Rinaldo, and I shuddered. I was playing a dangerous game, and I didn't even know if I was going to survive the night.

Someone mentioned Rinaldo, and I bucked up. The performance had gone on. Rinaldo, after asking for the 8th stone, magically produced it from his pocket. "And the stone looked volcanic!" said the innocent bystander. I thought about the stone on my desk at the station-house, for it, too, appeared volcanic. It couldn't be the same stone, could it? No, impossible, since the stone must have been already in my possession at the moment Rinaldo had produced a similar stone from his pocket. But why were there two volcanic stones? Was there some deeper order to his chicanery? Was it chicanery after all? All I knew was that Rinaldo was up to no good, natural or supernatural, and I'd catch him.

 

The 16th Stone

 

Out on the streets with my terralyte I felt a little too excited. My heart was bursting with joy, and I had to calm myself down, so, since I happened to be outside my second-favourite bar, I went down the steps and in. I looked around, and I saw Charlie there, good ol' Charlie. I slopped myself down beside him, barely noticing that someone sat across from him. "You won't believe what I have," I told him as I waved over the barkeep, A pint, I want a pint. I pulled the stone from my pocket and that's when I noticed he was sitting across from a woman who was looking at me with astonished but amused shock. I put the stone down and said: "It's a terralyte, and they've very rare and valuable." Charlie looked at the stone and he continued to converse with the woman. He said: "So anyway," but I interrupted him as the pint arrived and he fell under some spillage. "It's worth a lot," I said. Charlie turned to me and said: "Jack, I'm kinda busy here." I took the hint, got up with my stone, and went to the bar. Women!

 

The 32nd Stone

 

I flipped through the rock books, looking at the pictures mostly, looking for a rock that looked like mine. I went through book after book, looking for it. Never once did I think the rock had been formed and created just for the trick itself; I was convinced it was a natural phenomenon. I went to a book about the formation of rocks and tried to understand how Nature had made it that way, and for what purpose. There had to be a meaning to it, and I was sure I could find out, given enough time.

However, time I didn't have, because in fact they had not forgotten I was there. A woman I knew only by her role came over and told me the library was closing, little boy. I had to recourse but to close up the books. (Ina parting act of useless defiance, I didn't put them back on the shelf.) I left the library. It was getting dark. The stone was in my pocket, of course, hidden away so no-one would know my secret. It got darker and darker the further I walked, and soon it was very dark in the streets.

 

The 2nd Stone

 

Rinaldo reeled. The trick had to work this time. Sure, one out of thirty-two stones can go missing, but not one out of two. It had worked before in the past month, but he expected it to go awry at any moment.

"Ladies and gentlemen, two of you in the audience now have a stone in your pocket. We're watching all the exits. Will the two of you with a stone in your pocket come up and put it on the riser.

There was one gasp. "Well, I'll be!" A hayseed came up to the stage and put down his stone.

Rinaldo, sweatin' bullets, said: "There's another stone out there, I know it. No-one has left, so one of you must have it. So, come up! Come up, dammit!"

Everyone looked, nervously, at those in their environs. No-one made a motion.

Rinaldo cried: "This is impossible. Someone has it. Who?"

The world was crashing down on him. It was, strictly speaking, impossible.

"We'll search your pockets," he said.

Someone called out: "That'd be a crime, I think!"

There was no solution. Rinaldo gave the hayseed five dollars for his troubles. It was almost all he had available.

 

The 2nd Stone

 

I drifted away un-noticed from the Market Fair, borne by a breeze westward, over the crowds and the stalls and the trees, the stone inside my vest invisible. I drifted away, to the west, and once I found myself in a kind of solitude I knew I could safely let myself down. In the empty forest I fondled the stone inside my vest, never once wondering how it had gotten there, for I knew what powers I was up against, and I knew I had it in my powers to make it all come to a stop.

These magic tricks and inexplicable illusions, yes, I know that a great deal of it is stagecraft, but that has never meant all of it is. Even I could see the charm in being will fully fooled, but when it came to real infernality I drew the line. The stone wasn't a special stone; it looked like any other stone one could meet on any given road. I tossed it away since it was of no value to anyone sublunary creature. It was merely a stone, and I had bigger and more important matters to tend to in upcoming days.

 

The 4th Stone

 

The gent sitting opposite me said: "Revenge on your brother?"

I said: "Yes. I'm ruining his livelihood."

"With a rock?"

"It's a prop for a magic show. Without this rock, he can't continue."

"Couldn't he find another rock?"

"It's a stone, not a rock."

"Couldn't he find another stone?"

"Not this one. Because I have it."

"You may have a logical problem there."

"I don't think so."

We were quiet for a bit. I slobbered over the stone, and he returned to his paper. Then he said: "I have a brother."

"Oh yeah?"

"He's very successful. Cattle business."

"More successful than you?"

"Very much so."

"You must hate his guts."

"No, no. What would that do? I wish him all the best."

I thought about this for a moment. "You don't want to poison his cattle?"

"Heavens, no. He's part of my family, and anything that harms him harms me."

What was he getting at? I looked at the stone again, and wiped it free of slobber. "So, you'd be harming yourself."

"Yes, that's what I would be doing."

I got off at the next stop, bought a return ticket, slipped on the platform. I never returned.

 

The 8th Stone

 

I got up from my café table and hurried back to the police station. I knew I had missed something important in my background checks; something I had glanced at about his family of origin, something about his brother.

In the station, I went over the big boards. There I saw it, that he had a brother in another town some miles away, four hours by train. I had to contact him. Fortunately, I had a contact number, and I quickly dialed the number beside the brother's name.

He answered, and I explained who I was and why I had his brother under suspicion. The brother was shocked, shocked, disappointed, and angry. He said he'd join the search to flush him out. He wrote down our station's number and address, and we disengaged the line.

Screaming, a woman screaming. The three savage criminals we'd been holding overnight burst into the room. Where had they gotten their guns? I looked at the rock on my desk, and it all came together. This was my punishment. I wanted to call the brother back to tell him to keep away, but it was too late. A shot to the heart....

 

The 16th Stone

 

I stayed at the bar for quite a while.

It could have been two hours in total.

For the duration, I had one hand on my stone, and my other on glasses.

What would I buy first?

It's stolen.

Yes, but what to buy first?

You're going to come to a bad end.

Why?

Most lottery winners do. And their tickets aren't stolen.

People steal all the time.

Sophistry.

I got up from the bar, still clutching that damned rock. How would the evening end? I've had many lost evenings, saying things I didn't recall saying.

And out the door and onto the street.

Where was I, anyway?

That way looks familiar. I'll go the familiar way.

There are a lot of cars on the road tonight. I wonder where they're all going! They must be going somewhere. All those cars have places to go, and they're going there as quick as they can.

I crossed a street, realized I should not have crossed the street, and turned quickly, still clutching the rock, and stepped off the curb. A sound grew louder really quickly.

I'm on the pavement now. Something has happened, but I'm not sure what.

 

The 32nd Stone

 

Something made me lose my way as I was walking from the library to my house. Maybe I was thinking about the stone and not paying attention.... In any case, I found myself at an intersection of two streets, and the street-signs mean nothing to me--I'd never heard of either one--except to say You are lost. I turned around, got to another intersection, a cross-street of sorts, and I'd never heard of that street either. I was starting to panic. It was night, and the sun had just set about an hour earlier, but I couldn't figure out where it had set, what with all the strange houses around me.

I suppose I should have gone to friendliest house and asked for help, but they all looked equally sinister. I turned around again, thinking I'd finally reach a familiar street--how could streets not intersect--and I walked on in my initial direction.

After four or five more blocks, still unknown, I figured I should go either left or right to see where they led. And so I turned left, maybe closer to Main Street, surely, and I walked, and then something really terrible happened.

 

The 1st Stone

 

Rinaldo the Great was entertaining us, there at the Market Fair. He pulled a hare out of a hat. He conjured. He tossed a coin, and it vanished. We all saw that. He was pale. He had been awake since three. He took the applause lightly. He had another trick up his sleeve. He said: "One of you, out there in the crowd, must have a stone in pocket or purse. This is my last trick. I don't have anything more to give. Will the person who has the stone in purse or pocket please come forward. As I say, I'm all out of it. This is the end for me."

We waited for the event. Some time passed. We dared not even look at one another. We could only look at Rinaldo the Great. We thought we were watching someone about to die.

Someone must have heard it before I did. A screeching from somewhere. Some thing was coming from over the trees.

Who had the stone? No-one came forward. Rinaldo the Great was stock-still, as if he knew that whatever he had done to make the trick work was coming for him, and with fury.

 

The Stone

 

I appeared, to Rinaldo and only to Rinaldo. It must have been a queer sight for all the locals, seeing Rinaldo have a muttered discussion with a spirit. I told him: "You shall receive no more aid from the likes of me." He muttered: "I came by these powers fairly. I don't see why I should be punished." "You have been using them for harm." "No, I haven't." "Yes, you have."

In fact, I didn't have to explain myself. The Mind was made up. No more of this nonsense, no more with the illegitimate motions and wavings. "Rinaldo, you no longer have our blessing."

He said down on the stage and cried. "What shall I do, then?"

I didn't bother to answer. I pulled at the veil, and he was bereft of it. Should I have bothered to say goodbye? Rather, I pulled my self inward until I was the size of a particle, no different from all the particles floating around the Market Fair.

The crowd dispersed uncomfortably. Rinaldo was then all alone, powerless. The crowd was off to find some comfort in other amusements. All they could say they'd seen was the end of a charlatan.

 

*

 

A Supernatural Tale

 

At dawn, with sky and day lightening, I saw her at the intersection of two shopping lines; one line was going to self-check-out, the other to cashiers. Without a doubt, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

I jostled through the lines, trying to get nearer to her, Beauty. I was trying to get her attention before I awoke, which seemed very imminent, considering that she must have been a fleeting image. Who was she, where did you come from?

I said it aloud once I was near to her. "Who are you, and where do you come from?"

She smiled beautifully and blinked, with rich lashes, at me. And she laughed, covering her mouth, to say: "Don't you know? Isn't it obvious?"

"You must be a supernatural creature. There is no way I could conjure up such beauty at this time of day, with no sun to light your eyes."

She scoffed at me. "You don't really believe that, do you? Very well. Though it's not true, I am a supernatural essence."

"I knew it! From whence other could you come?"

"So sorry to disappoint you, John. I'm but a part of you."

 

*

 

We were all swimming, but where to swim to? The island and the mainland are about the same distance, so to which should we swim?

We were all crying, but what were we crying about? Something had been lost, somewhere, but where to look, what to cry about?

Spring was nearing its end.

We were all entwined in an orgy, but shouldn't we have been celebrating? It certainly seemed there was nothing worth an orgy.

I was holding your hand, but what good would it do? My hand would be warmer in my pocket, so why wasn't it in my pocket?

Summer was nearing its end.

We were all planting seeds though we didn't know what would sprout. We could only say: vegetation. Something will grow here. Has to.

We were all young again, but what was the point of that? Our natures would cause us to waste it anyway.

Autumn was nearing its end.

We all put off fixing that newel post, because we felt sure someone else would fix it. Besides, the house could burn down!

We were busy being born, but why did that have to happen? Our origins, our purposes, unknown.

Winter is nearing its end.

 

*

 

The Schedule

 

In the oral ages, I was spoken. I had so very few entries, word-of-mouth was enough. "When's the next train to..." and the stationmaster would say: "Two hours" and that was it.

Then there were more and more tracks and trains and lines to control, and some accidents were occurring, so I began to be written down. A reflexion of me would be posted at stations. (I'm pretty I was the reason for time zones!)

I would control when the trains left the station, and when they arrived at their destinations (barring accidents, naturally). Everyone and everything would obey me, and yet no-one really understands me.

Look. It's lines. You read DOWN if you're going away from my centre, and you read UP if you want to go towards my centre. How is that so difficult to understand?

Anyway, I've taken over the laws of everything, and you're lucky I'm a nice guy. (The accidents are never my fault. I've been measured up and down, and I'm sometime adjusting, but I have never caused an accident. That's all your fault.)

To be the great God SCHEDULE is a responsibility. If only my father Communication could see me now.

 

*

 

Republic

 

Some years ago, I was on the Broadview streetcar, near the Don jail. Behind me, getting on, was a woman, who got on her telephone, and what she said was something like this.

"I was just with him, and I'm from up in Wasaga. I want to know: when can I come back?"

Deciphered: Her husband was in the Don jail, they'd had a night together. And she had to leave, and she was going to Union Station, to get on a train or a bus, to go back to Wasaga, and she wanted to know when she could meet her husband again.

I was curious. I looked up stuff about the Canadian penal system. It turns out there is almost no way to find anyone who is incarcerated. All I found were messages about who to call, how to get an 'in'.

Meanwhile, in the republic to my south, it's easy to find a prisoner. Transparent, online, because in a republic even if you are in prison you're still a member of that republic.

When I'm finally arrested, I will vanish. Mary will be like the woman on the streetcar, nor quite knowing enough, unless Charles says okay.

 

*

 

Orillia, some years ago. All four of us went into a small shop full of knick-knacks and bits of furniture, settees and cushions and such. I grew captivated by a small selection of puzzles in little bags near the cash register. One couldn't tell what was within each packet, or even how difficult the puzzles were. I took one in hand, CAT PUZZLE, and it was cold so I knew there was metal involved.

One of my friends said they'd be waiting outside, but that I shouldn't take too long. There was still a drive to go.

At first, I took the warning seriously, then less seriously, then not seriously at all. I would take my time.

I checked out the prices. CAT PUZZLE was $2.99. I noticed the biggest one they had, CAT AND MOUSE PUZZLE, which they were selling for $8.99. I leisurely bought the two of them.

Outside, my three friends were nowhere to be seen. I walked a block this way, and a block that way, with no success. How long had I really been in there? Had they left me behind? They had to be somewhere. Where?

I wondered if pornographers sometimes felt like that.

 

*

 

The other day a girl somewhere maybe in a liquor store said to me as a friendly salutation: "Golly, you look a bit tired!"

I didn't say: "Yes, I'm on my last. You're not going to come to my funeral, because you don't my name, unless you claw it out of my wallet; but why should you? You're happy and young, as I once was, and I had not a care for the old codgers at all. But, currently, I see you, you're so pretty, and so nice, I would give my soul to make you immortal, but I can't make that work, I'd love to make you so pretty, forever, Talia, at the Pilot Tavern, and it's been some four or five months ago. And even though I'm an old man now, her 25-year-old eyes--"

She said, really: "You gonna use a card for that?"

"A what?"

"Credit, debit, something like that. Oh, did you think I meant a gift card?"

"No, I didn't mean that."

"See, after the holidays, people have gift cards. It's all a bit of a scam, I hear, because people lost them, not like money."

"I'll pay cash."

"What, no air miles involved?"

 

*

 

Jobs

 

We were walking to a restaurant.

She said: "And then I got head-hunted after a job fair, and I had the interview, and they asked me what I thought I should be paid. I named a reasonable amount, and they said: No, it has to be more than that, like, twice that, because we have standards and stuff. In the end, we had to split the difference because they said they wouldn't hire anyone for less than such-and-such."

I said: "I got head-hunted, too, but I already had a job. They said that was good, because they wanted me to keep it, as a cover. They told me that spies always had to have a cover, and that they would only want me to be available once in a while, when they wanted an assassination done. And I've created another identity, the one I'm using now, name and address and so on, because I want to protect you from the rivals of the firm, who would make things dangerous for you and that would be bad for both of us."

She said: "Wow. That's pretty exciting, really. So, tell me: how much are you paid?"

I said: "That's classified."

 

*

 

Music

 

We got to thinking, over dinner, about the heart of art

After seeing 'Throw Down Your Heart' which was

A documentary, kind of, a fine one at that, about

Béla Fleck going to Africa, east then west.

 

Thirty years ago, I saw Béla perform

In Nashville, Tennessee, at the Ryman, courtesy

My brother's wife, Monica Rose, lighting director,

who took me backstage afterwards to see where (seemingly)

One legend inscribed her initials

On the bricks near the backstage entrance.

"Look. There she cut it. Like into a tree,

To get her head straight,

Before her Grand Ol' Opry debut,

Patsy cut her initials into the mortar."

 

Back to the point! Béla, at the Ryman that night,

Didn't say anything for the whole performance.

....

Band-leaders are expected to say, at least, something,

But he said nothing.

 

In 'Throw Down Your Heart', Oumou Sangaré remarks

That Béla doesn't talk much, that his language

Is music, and that's how he communicates.

 

Which brings us back, as if this is an essay,

To my hidden argument about words and music,

Stating (as all the ancients did) that music,

Being connected to mathematics, is superior to verse.

 

My best (and, as it happened, was what I thought was

My 'killer' argument which would settle for all time

The argument which had perplexed everyone from

Plato to Sidney to Keats) was about Schubert and Goethe.

 

I waved my wine-glass around. "No-one cares who was the writer

Of the text of Gretchen am Spinnrade. It's a good scene,

Sure, but it's the music, the score, that matters.

(Is that the last of the wine?)

Anyway, if it wasn't for Schubert's setting of the text,

Meine Ruh' ist hin

Mein Herz ist schwer

Ich finde sie nimmer

Und nimmermehr

It would not be remembered as strongly as it is."

 

That was my argument about how Béla Fleck mattered,

And about how music is superior to text,

And about how we all know this so,

And about why someone said poetry aspires to music,

And about how we really see things

And about what is important, music and math,

And about what we think is beautiful,

Really beautiful, which is music more than words,

And about why Béla doesn't talk much,

And about what the Romantics understood,

And why all musicians, everywhere, across all continents, are blessed by God, because they speak in God's language,

Which is math.

 

*

 

The Deposit

 

The couple were in line, with another couple ahead of them in line. The couple ahead of them looked nicer than themselves. The couple ahead went in and sat down at a nice table near a window. They themselves got sat near the swinging kitchen door.

They watched the other couple, the couple near the window. The couple near the window got served first, and the couple near the kitchen door thought that only made sense, since they had arrived first.

Fifteen minutes passed, and then a curt waiter asked the couple near the kitchen if they wanted anything.

We don't know what you offer, said the couple near the kitchen.

Menus to start, then? asked the waiter sarcastically.

The couple near the window were served on silver plates, so the couple near the kitchen said: Can we have whatever the couple near the window are having?

Sorry, we're all out of that.

Can we have something similar to that, then?

You'd have to pay beforehand.

How about a deposit?

That could be arranged. Hang tight.

The waiter went off to the cash register to do some quick math. The couple near the kitchen wondered what they'd done.

 

*

 

Prologue

 

Once, there was a couple, and this couple had two cats. The cats kept very much to themselves, as if they detested the other's presence. However, the couple knew that each would be very lonely without the other.

One summer week, a cat started coming by to look in the window. Now, you might expect the two cats to go crazy about this intruder, but in fact the two would start purring at the cat beyond the window. Only on special days would the two of them be allowed outside, and, since the couple couldn't see the stray--for so it appeared to be--as a threat, the three cats would play with one another, and lo the two housecats were out with the stray, they didn't quarrel anymore.

And so, since it seemed the stray--the probable stray--didn't have any place to go, and since the stray seemed to make the other two get along in such harmony, they took in this third cat.

Little did they know what the result of their action would be! Little did they know of the bloodshed to come, or how it would affect the world, or the Hell they'd unleashed!

 

*

 

New Year's Eve

 

It is something to be remembered, the old days when one felt one had to be somewhere special. It seems a long time ago that friends would come over to the house and one would try to keep them there til midnight. That was back before they had a dog to take care of, and the dog would be pacing their house and pining for their return. Now one goes about one's life, and one hears people in the next house whooping it up, and that's as close as one can get to a feeling of Newness.