Dyuti’s Feelings:

No, I can’t have sex with you just because I’m your wife. I have feelings, too. We have known each other for hardly two months since our marriage got fixed. You agreed to give me time. I had clearly stated that it would require time before I really warm up to you. But on the night of our marriage, you are demanding to have it your way. I cannot tolerate it when people break promises. Does marriage give a right of non-consensual sex to the husband over his wife? Am I only an object of desire to him?

Indra’s Feelings:

She doesn’t understand my feelings. I know I had promised before marriage that I would wait for her consent before sex. However, I cannot control myself anymore. I love her; she is my wife. My heart belongs to her; she is mine. I married her both legally and ceremonially; I just want her. I have heard from my friends, I have seen in so many movies, that husband and wife engage in passionate lovemaking on the night of the reception after the proceedings end. Why can’t I have my wife when I want? What is the use of marrying then?

Night’s Feelings:

I really don’t know what this couple wants? I am waiting for their decision as well. I support Dyuti. But honestly speaking, I would love it if they have passionate sex. However, I want it to be consensual. I do not want a man forcing a woman onto the bed or anywhere else. Often, some writers associate me with evil, and I stand humiliated by their projection. I never entertain the devil. I am afraid of demons and crimes. I only love the darkness that makes me feel complete. I can never think of killing Indra for his thoughts, can I?

Indra’s Bed’s Feelings

I may be wooden, but I am soft within. The way I am treated by these couples literally disgusts me. The jump, the shake, the push—my whole being trembles with irritation. Thanks to some “great writers and movies,” I have been projected as a battleground or playground for instinctual desires to pour themselves out. I have heard from my family and friends about the wild acts of these homo sapiens. Some of my ancestors even broke down during the fierce ecstasy of couples. I hope Dyuti and Indra don’t do it wildly.

A Reader’s Feelings:

This kind of write-up makes no sense. Either get on with it or let her protest echo through the bed chambers of every married couple. The writer has been making a fool out of us by providing the feelings of living and even non-living objects. If we start caring about everything we use, then we would end up being either extremely fragile or reverently stupid. I choose to be neither. Let Dyuti and Indra talk it out like mature people; after all, they are adults. I seriously want this story to make progress, and this is what I genuinely feel.

Words’ Feelings

We are just being utilized by this silly writer. God knows what he’s going to do. We are doubtful of his ability. He has started employing us in this cliché marriage scenario involving these two characters—Dyuti and Indra. But he has left them there. C’mon, continue with the story, dear! Meanwhile, everyone is expressing themselves, so why not us? We give the fuel; we provide the core material for the idea to get published across the world. If this writer doesn’t turn up soon, we will give ourselves to Dyuti and Indra and continue.

A Poet’s Feelings

Hello, everyone. I don’t know from where exactly I have jumped into this scene, but since I have, let me do what I do best or worst; here’s to Dyuti and Indra:

     A Nuptial Chamber
     She thought he would realise,
     He fails to keep up his end,
     What if he told her real lies?
     He tries hard not to offend.
     Let’s hope they unite at the right time,
     With this wish, I lay down the rhyme!

The Story’s Feelings:

Where has the writer gone? All sorts of things are going on. Even a poet entered my territory from nowhere and encroached on my estate with that weed-like poetry. I have never felt so confounded about my own existence. I am literally cracking myself up thinking about my future. I don’t know what will happen to Dyuti and Indra. They have started with a straight-cut friction. I think she should have been talking to him by now. Things would have proceeded further. However, this writer is still experimenting with me, oh God!

A Critical Critic’s Feelings:

Nowadays, I hardly come across any good story. I don’t have any hopes from this one either. The writer is a total amateur. He calls this buffoonery an experiment in writing. What a joke! I could have written a gripping story involving the same characters—Dyuti and Indra with the same beginning. But I have a big responsibility on my shoulders. I need to show these new-age writers the place where they rightfully belong—the trash. Dyuti should have been given more shades, and Indra should have been portrayed foolishly.

Story’s Title Feelings

I never thought that I would be dragged into this mess. To be very honest, I felt compelled to convey my feelings. The story hasn’t progressed at all since those two characters—Dyuti and Indra expressed their contrasting set of feelings. I am not happy with my own condition as well. Is this really a story, and am I really a title? I mean it looks as if I’m calling out my friend, “C’mon, let’s read!” I have no expectations from either this story or this writer. I don’t see any future for Dyuti, Indra, or myself.

Time’s Feelings:

I am not as old as people assume me to be. I exist only as nothing, and then I enjoy being in existence, grow along with me. Dear friends, I am your beloved time. I flow at my own will. I see countless births and deaths. I see them, Dyuti and Indra, struggling with their opinions. I keep passing on, and yet I am literally at a fix here. This is really annoying. I don’t know what this writer thinks of himself. How dare he hold me up with that introduction dealing with the feelings of Dyuti and Indra. I haven’t got all day, not much time left!

Narrator’s Feelings:

I am the narrator. All the stories are either written in first person or third person. Sometimes they may even involve a second person perspective. I might be reliable or unreliable depending upon the writer. I am not happy with the proceedings because the story is not progressing anywhere. The writer seems to have abandoned it. Secondly, the story lacks a coherent narrative arc. There are so many people barging in and expressing themselves. I hardly know anything about Dyuti and Indra. What am I supposed to do then?

Author’s Feelings:

I was busy thinking about the plot of the story. So many voices have entered it. I cannot fathom where they have come from. I don’t remember noting this many down. Perhaps, when I was thinking, they might have escaped my mind and captured the spaces on the pages. They have said so many things about me, mostly criticizing me. I may have kept them waiting for quite a bit. Let me proceed further with Dyuti and Indra’s story. Why don’t I feel it necessary anymore? They should be given time to deal with themselves. Till then …

Accompaniment: “Embryons desséchés” — Erik Satie

I didn't know it but all day, that day at school, the red oval grew and spread on the back of my aqua dress. I'd waited for the perfect spring weather to wear for it; it circled my waist just right and the color made my red hair pop. In class, feeling beautiful despite the aches and cold sweats of my period I leaned forward, smiling, hand up, dying to be noticed. At home I changed and then saw the stain, big as a cracked egg. Sobbing, I crumpled my formerly beautiful frock, then trashed it, along with the day.

Accompaniment: “The Dress Looks Nice on You” — Sufjan Stevens

Mum is drumming her fingers on the kitchen table, flicking crumbs across the plastic tablecloth.

I am emptying a can of cream of mushroom soup into a pot on the stove. I turn on a burner.

“Fuck Baxter.” This is Dad complaining about the new guy at The Christian Book Emporium where Dad works, the Baxter who rearranges the self-help shelves and brings Frank, the manager, a tea and muffin every day. “Baxter is such a phoney.”

The heat under the soup is high.

Dad is threatening to quit because the new guy is more popular at the store than he is, than even God is, and that is very wrong.

Frank is another phoney. As the soup bubble-bubbles, Dad tells the story of this morning when he read a book and ignored customers until Frank caught him and wryly asked, “Jack, what is the problem?”

“As if he cares—”

This is me interrupting: “It is so sad about John Lennon.”

Dad is staring at me. Is he shocked at the news I am breaking?

“Lennon was shot.”

Dad, glaring.

Or is he confused? Sometimes he mishears—maybe thinks I said “hot”, “snot”, “cannot”, “fleshpot”, “megawatt”?—or just plain misunderstands. He is, I realized at age six or seven, misfit-y.

“Lennon. Lennon of The Beatles.”

Dad turns to Mum.

She blinks-blinks.

“Suppose you also care more about that Beatle than me?” She is told she is a phoney wife.

Mum blurts, “Jack, I am not! Your daughter is the one telling you.”

The soup is foaming.

I continue. “John was killed in front of his own apartment building, in front of Yoko.”

Mum is sniffing like the soup is scorching.

“There is not going to be a funeral. Yoko wants everyone to stop for ten minutes and think of John. Sing ‘Imagine’ if you wish.”

This is Dad now interrupting me: “I never stop for ten damn minutes. Work hard all day for you.” He points at me. “And for you.” At Mum. “For him.” Dad waves his hand in the air, and I figure it is at Frank.

“What if I died of a heart attack right here?”

One of Mum’s bigger fears. Her mouth is a tight, bright circle of red lipstick; she smeared it on just before he stormed in the door.

“You phonies will cry at my funeral.”

Mum is no longer drumming.

“Then write ‘fuck you’ on my tombstone.”

No longer flicking crumbs either.

“All I want is to save you both and live a simple life.”

I pour Dad’s hot beige soup into a bowl then, with the cleanest spoon I can find, serve him.

Suddenly, he is pointing again. “And this is how I am rewarded? A lunch made with the phoniness of milk instead of forthright water?”

“Told you so, girl,” Mum lies.

But it is cream of mushroom soup; cream comes from milk.

Dad recites a bunch of Biblical things about water—the last one is “With joy you will draw water from the well of salvation.”—before growing sadder and sadder.

I think the tragic news of today is finally hitting him, and he is coming out of the anger, the sort of wilderness where he lives, peering out at Mum and me.

“Do not ever tell phoney people anything.” His mumbling is hard to hear.

Dad is not going to like it, and Mum will later claim she told me not to do it, but here it is anyway. Me singing “Imagine”.

Accompaniment: “Look at Me” — John Lennon

I nibble at my thumb’s hangnail. It is flimsy, with no flavour. I am a poor offering. I have no richness in taste, nor was I raised organic, nor picked from the crop for my customer-friendly looks. I try to eat it again. Purchase is made! It tastes as weak and as paper-money-thin on my mouth as lettuce. I want the precious metals of food to digest. Food is only worth eating if it’s expensive.

Tellement faim de quelque chose de nouveau.

So, societally straitjacketed, I pace the cell, pace the floor, crawl up the walls, crawl out of my skin, run around on the ceiling, bang on the door, bang my head, panting, sweating, leaking, reeling, peeling, eyes dilating, screaming until my throat bleeds raw: “let me out let me out let me out I’m guilty but I’m innocent you’d do the same in my shoes with a knife and fork in your hands and teeth and tongue in your mealy mouth I’m not mad I’m sane!”

My mouth drooling, pooling and puddling, my drool pink, my tongue yearning for that taste, I bite again, the inside of my cheek hurts, but I have the hammy fleshy munch of my inner cheek now, and I eat, starving still.

I can finally think.

Yum! Yum! Yum! Yum! Yum! Yum! Yum! Yum! Yum! Yum! Yum! Yumyumyumyumyumyumyumyumyumyumyummy!

Blood rolls out of my mouth and down my chin again.

I lick it up, lap it up, make it last.

In the oblivion of eating, with no thoughts to spare but on the movement of my jaw, and the filling up of my stomach, the selfish warmth and the shelter it gives me until it makes me choke and retch and I can cough it up and eat all over again.

Give me credit, I know how to eat.

Now I see them again—

Seasoned with gemstones. Dripping with the fat of money. Bellies bulge over bursting belts. They smile with silk-lined mouths, pursed with golden clasp-lips that clip open to show off pearly fanged teeth, spoiled for food, the swanky layout on the red-carpet plate … there’s so much MEAT on them. I could eat them all without stopping.

Pourquoi je ne peux pas manger s’ils le peuvent?

Perhaps I am mad. At least the walls are cushioned to help me sleep and dream. I see feasts of food in my flights of fancy. I have grown very hungry, you see. Human meat is the only thing that can sate it.

Now, on a table, served lying down—

I wonder if they’ll spatchcock me open. Will they see my heart hollowed; my bones bared and pared back; my small stomach made large with appetite? I’m food to be wasted and to waste away. Buffet food, on a paper plate, at a popper-fuelled party.

The Doctor settles on a diagnosis: I laugh.

It’s not cannibalism. I have no such tendencies. Yes, I have the urge to eat humans, but I’m not human. That’s clear. I was of lower status, and now I’ve transcended it all. Hey—anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, so why can’t I? That’s what scares them, that’s why I’ve been locked up.

Moi, fou ? jejeje!

Now, again, at the banquet—

They eat us. They eat our attention. They eat our sweat, tears, blood and soils. They eat all our waking moments. They eat our souls. They eat us up. And in return? They serve us dreams. Scraps from the table. We get photos of them on the red carpet made from blood oozing out like a tongue to devour us some more. We watch and admire and OOH and AAH and get hungrier and hungrier and hungrier.

But I couldn’t bear to just look.

I wanted to eat too.

I was standing behind the red rope when he, rich and famous, came sauntering into my eyeline. I saw—with my eyes trained so well, trained to look away from the differences between the haves and the have-nots, the big-bellied barons and the skinless skeletons, the never empty and the cavernous pits, the idols and the worshippers—his flesh. Their Báthoryism baffles me as it berserks.

It never occurred to them that someone might lift the blood-red rope …

Reader, I ate him.

Mmm skin.

Flaking away, grating away, under the attack of my teeth.

Mmm tissue.

Tendons shredding as I dig in, to be tenderised.

Mmm muscle.

Stripped from the bone by my foaming lockjaw, my ferocious fangs ripping it to bits.

Bon appetit!

First, for amuse-bouche, I ate his toenails, crunchy on the tongue like cornflakes.

Then I opened up his ribcage like the kitchen cupboard and found it lacking. The heart was bland and appetiser-small.

For my main, my nails dug into his stomach, pulled it open like Tupperware made of putty, for that had sides and extras within, free of charge. His intestines made filling spaghetti. Thirsty now, I sucked up his salted blood, his veins a straw into my mouth.

Then, using his skull for a bowl, I ate the cauliflower cheese I found inside, with little shrimp-cocktail ears.

For the jellies, his eyes; for the jams, his liver.

Before I could enjoy his fingers—IS THERE A CHOCOLATE DIP? I asked the waiter, blood streaming from my mouth like liquid gold—the men with flashing lights on their cars turned up, and now I’m at the place where everyone wears white.

Meanwhile, I stand all in red. Look out at the crowds. So stunned that someone had done something, they just stared. Too big and bursting or too hungry and weak to move. Mixed up together into one big, shocked cake.

VIVE LA REVOLUTION!

The crowd goes wild.

So, it was all worth it. It’s nice to eat out (“of her mind”), as it makes things feel better on the inside.

As this building digests me, therapists ask questions.

I answer: IF THEY CAN EAT, WHY CAN’T I? WHYNOTWHYNOTWHYNOTWHYNOTWHYNOTWHYNOTWHYNOTWHYNOTWHYNOT?

Accompaniment: “Haulin’ Hearse” — The Ghastly Ones

On the day jokes were no longer permitted in their town, Tiffany decided to cut her unwieldy toenails. She couldn’t get over their roughness; even after a shower, the nails remained brittle. She leaned over herself in an awkward posture with her little scissors and could barely reach the tiny, misshapen last nail that she should have cared for long ago.

Too hard, too twisted. Her big toe callus acted up as well.

Their mayor said jokes caused disastrous misunderstandings and therefore they were banned. Tiffany could not stop thinking of bad jokes as she cut.

“These nails are so ugly they want to file for divorce from the toe.”

“That nail is so curled the fungus died of fright.”

“Why didn’t the callus cross the road? To avoid a certain friction.”

Once she started cutting, she found it hard to stop. The twisted nail seemed to sprout again overnight. She shaved the offensive callus with a razor. One was never supposed to resort to that. She took off too much—she was left with a bleeder.

The day her best friend received a fine for making a joke about her husband in mixed company, Tiffany developed plantar fasciitis. The pain cut across the sole of her foot and she could barely put it down on the ground to take a step. The ache radiated out and up her entire being. She thought to herself, that’s what happens when you lose your soul. In their town, would a pun set you back more than a bunion?

Accompaniment: “Music for a Found Harmonium” — Penguin Cafe Orchestra

I moved to New York City in the dead heat of summer. Piss evaporated off the slimy gray sidewalks directly into the openings of my nostrils. Even the rats were sweating. The subway stations preyed like nonconsensual saunas but emerging into the rank air above ground offered no respite. There was no reprieve; no matter how little fabric covered my chest and other necessarily covered body parts, I sweated through everything. Changed my clothes three times a day, showered sometimes four. It was too hot to eat. To fuck. To think.

The staleness, the sticky stuckness of it all. I was freshly heartbroken, not quite of my own volition but I guess you could say that. The hot breath of the absence of wind slapped me in the face no matter which way I turned. I couldn’t stop thinking about what he had done, what he hadn’t done, and how I hated him for it.

The heat, like a loyal best friend, egged on my hatred. The further away he dissolved into my past, the more I wanted to pull him into my future. Just so I could make him stuck like me. Just so I could make him face the heat.

Of course the heat made me think of him! How could it not? What else mimics the all-encompassing, overwhelming, physically draining feeling of heat like love? His skin lived in the humid air wrapped and warped around me like a weighted blanket. That dream that you can’t wake up from no matter how hard you try. No matter how many times you convince your dream self that you are, in fact, dreaming.

The summertime that we drove across the state and into another. My tire rolled atop a nail, unbeknownst to me or him, until the flapping sound of rubber on asphalt became louder than my car stereo. The time we had to pull off the main highway onto a side dirt road lining a gurgling creek. Unaware of the ninety-five-degree swelter under the privilege of air conditioning. When we got out of the car to check on the tire, saw it was decimated, beyond flat, symbolic, predictive. The sweat dripped from his forehead and melted into those dark curls that bounced against his skin.

“It’s so hot,” he’d said. Observant if nothing else.

I dragged him down the trail that led to the mouth of the creek, ready to swallow us whole, took off my shoes and socks, and asked him to join me as I solved the problem. Relieved the heat. He watched with disgust, as if I was dirty, or stupid, or altogether insane. I wanted to scream at him for loving the things I hate and hating the things I love. But the water silenced me. I could only feel the coolness running up my legs, onto the frayed hem of my denim shorts, the heat a distant memory.

New York summer didn’t let up. I made the most of it: tanning to crisp in parks, training to the nearest beach, drinking buckets of ice-cold booze, kissing chilled lips. It didn’t matter. The heat was still there, like an illness I couldn’t shake.

Before we’d fucked and found love in unexpected places, we grilled hot dogs by his pool. He was scrawny and hairy in unusual places, and I tried to remind myself of those facts while the heat seared me. There was a confidence in his continued question, which I had been deftly avoiding for months.

“Why won’t you go on a date with me?”

I wanted to fuck everyone. He wanted to marry his ex-girlfriend. I wanted to fall in love with someone who could love me back. He wanted to fall in love with someone who didn’t know themselves. I already loved him. He already loved me.

Of course, heat doesn’t know of such agreements.

Into the thin wispy chill of New York winter. The cracks in my skin on the tip of my nose. Numb pinky toes no matter how many pairs of socks I stack on each other.

Fuck, what I would give for some of that heat.

I would have peeled off the top layer of my burnt skin if it meant a break from it. From the suffocation. From the memories. From turning his words over and over in my mind as if one more turn would make them make sense to me. Heat was my obsession. Now that I’ve escaped, I miss the way it gave me something to care about.

The cold is just there. It doesn’t hurt the same way. It isn’t compelling, or intoxicating, or uncomfortable.

What if I want to swelter?

Accompaniment: “A Tender History in Rust” — Do Make Say Think

Her arms clinging around her knees, drawn to her chin, she was sitting on the toilet lid. Had been for the last thirty minutes. Her green eyes, blank, turned inwards, tears running down her cheeks. She was tired. Body aching. Muscles she didn’t remember about. She was careful not to move. Stillness. Discretion. Silence. She was craving a hot glass of milk mixed with cinnamon and sugar.

They had done it again. She didn’t want to, but her middle-aged heart had the leading role now, and she had no idea how to say no. Her thighs hurt as she stood up and crept out of the bathroom. She picked up his robe and draped it around her frail figure. He said he liked her even more than before. Her experienced breasts, comfortable belly, reliable arms, warm skin, welcoming thighs… She had stopped him with a kiss. It had been easy to forget the principles she had so often been bragging about. Another look at him and she was ready for him. Would have laughed scornfully at anybody daring to suggest such an incongruous occurrence… innocent woman!

Here she was in his homely kitchen mixing cinnamon and milk, the family away, unaware and content, but her own heart bleeding and yearning, her restless mind starting to scheme. When? Where? How? She looked despairingly at her glass. The cinnamon wouldn’t mix with the milk; it stayed at the top, and would smear her upper lip. She ran her tongue and slowly swallowed the fine powder.

Her shoulders hurt under the heavy robe. She went back to the bedroom, listening to his sleep, guessing his figure under the sheets. She entered the bed, naked, another hour before returning to her usual self: a happily married, fifty-two-year-old teacher and mother of two. But for the moment, the glass of milk was whetting her appetite. She brushed her chestnut mane against his back. He turned. Milk and cinnamon. Juxtaposing. Mixing.

Accompaniment: “Hope” — Dirty Three

It’s overcast. I drive up on the left of two Harley Low Riders moving sixty-six mph side by side in the middle lane of the Long Island Expressway. The lack of light heightens my senses to the motorcycle’s heavy rumbling. Rose speaks loudly in the passenger seat, describing the closing she administered and the revengeful joy of the East Hampton house buyer: “One person’s mansion is another’s hideaway for when her husband is an asshole.” My peripheral vision moves past her oversized glasses and pixie hair, to the black half-helmets, black beards, black leather jackets, and black harness boots. And to the sudden wobble of the black front tire on the bike closest to us. A crash is imminent.

At once, my vision, my focus, locks on the shaky black tire. There’s a momentary flash in which time stalls—or stretches—that’s a better word. A fated stretch in time that strolls slowly, parallel to the status quo. Steering my Dodge Charger is not a thought, nor is responding to Rose. The tire absorbs my full awareness. Under the grey clouds, the blackness of it seems darker. The shadowy hue of the air surrounding it calls for my attention now, as does the highway’s sunless asphalt. The darkness expands. The unlit scene becomes a void, as the white of a painter’s canvas is before creation.

The bikers’ trajectory redirects; an alternate experience develops. Rose witnesses it emerge alongside me, as do the surrounding drivers and passengers. Every transport slows at the same rate, with ease, remaining in its respective lane and position. Sixty-six reduces to single digits, every vehicle at idle speed. Without concern, in this energy, at this speed, we watch the Harley’s front tire turn completely, taking down the bike and biker. They fall, rather than crash, as a child falls while learning to ride a two-wheeler. Traffic stops completely. We see each other watching in the stillness of the expressway.

The other biker leans his hog on its kickstand and steps off to help his friend who nearly toppled on top of him. He squats over his buddy, leans back against the fallen bike, takes hold and lifts it off him using his legs. His friend rises uninjured.

After a few words and a strong hug, they straddle their bikes and proceed again side by side, gaining speed in sync with the traffic: our vehicles function around them as if on autopilot.

I feel a release when the energy holding my focus retreats: a letting go as though I took off a tight shirt. We are as we were before the intervention, back to expressway usualness.

I expect Rose to say something, to be confused, astonished, something. But she returns to normal behavior, looking at the road and vehicles ahead.

I say, “That was crazy, wasn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you see the biker fall and get up?”

She nods, reserved, with eyes questioning me.

“Forget it,” I say.

Letting it rest seems like the right thing to do. Rose is unaware. Did she have a different experience than I did, or did she alter her perception to make it appear more logical?

The drive together turns quiet after that. I wonder if any travelers witnessed the truth, awakened to the reality shift. Did anyone believe as I did, that this event was consciousness-changing matter? I will never know. A miracle is sometimes a lonely experience. It’s not my first.

Accompaniment: “Water From the Same Source” — Rachel’s

I’m counting the flowers on the curtains in the doctor’s waiting room. There are twenty-seven. Anything divisible by three means bad news. I bite my lip. How many sides does the lampshade have? Six!

I’ve known of the terrible power of three since childhood. It was autumn 1962, and the TV talk was full of Cuba and World War Three. There was a map of the Caribbean, and an island shaped like a shrimp bristling with rockets pointing north. There was footage of a man with a long dark beard wearing military fatigues and what I now know is a Ridgeway cap. Hysterical crowds cheered as he thrashed the air behind a scramble of microphones. Then he stood arm in arm with a bald Russian man who grinned with menace through surprisingly youthful lips. My father and grandfathers fought in World Wars One and Two, but Three, they said, would mean oblivion. The end of school, the end of games, never another Christmas or birthday. I knew then I must avoid seeing things that count to three. If I did, it wouldn’t happen.

Since then, I’ve been wary of three. I count all sorts of things: syllables in words, lines on a page, windowpanes in houses and hooks on curtains as I lie in bed, afraid to face the day. If there’s no three lurking, I’m reassured. But when that fails, I must find two more things that pass my test to get the better of three. I search for objects that are more than three: wheels on a car, sides of a map, legs on a spider, and drawers in my filing cabinet. Then I add them to three to neutralise it. That’s why there’s been no World War Three, and I just can’t risk not counting. It’s a small price to pay to avoid disaster.

The doctor calls me in. The smell of disinfectant stings my nostrils. I know it’s bad news. I’ve got cancer of the heart, I tell him. I can feel it thumping when I should be calm. It’s racing now. I’m a goner. He puts a cold stethoscope on my chest. “Mm,” he says. “Not cancer of the heart. That’s as rare as an italic full stop.”

“How rare is that?”

“So rare it’s impossible,” he chuckles. “It’s more likely to be anxiety.”

“That’s not surprising.”

I pause. I was told you can tell a doctor anything, but I can’t say: “Your curtain has 27 flowers. Your lampshade has six sides.”

The doctor adjusts his spectacles. Furrows appear on his brow.

“I’ve had signs that something awful will happen,” I mutter.

He glances at his watch and scribbles a note. He’s behind schedule and running short on time. I’m not sure he’s heard me, but then he says, “I’m arranging for you to see a therapist.”

Back in the waiting room on the way out, the curtains billow and the yellow lampshade swings, casting a sickly light that buffets the shadows. I count the notices on the wall. There are five. A patient gives me a curious look as I count the chairs. There are fourteen. I feel better.

A week later, I’m with the therapist. She’s glancing over her notes, trying to appear non-judgmental. I suspect she’s never come across someone like me. I count the wrinkles on her forehead—there are four. She shows eight teeth when she smiles, so I feel safe telling her everything. My problem, she concludes, could be linked to anxiety about math—to the teacher who’d bash me over the head with Elementary School Mathematics when my fractions were muddled and then advertise my deficiencies to the class. Then, there was my father, who tore up my school report and threatened me with the handle of the hearth brush. “Failure in math,” he said, “is unacceptable. It’s the king of subjects—you’re destined to be nothing without it.”

The therapist prescribes exercises to stop me from counting. When I’m worried, I take deep breaths, but never more than two at first. I imagine the air has crossed an ocean to reach me on a lazy beach. My breath sounds like waves crashing on shingles, advancing and retreating as they have for millennia. I know my place in that infinity is insignificant. I’m tossed on those waves—a passive part of nature without a care about where I’m being taken.

It’s a summer evening, and the warmth seeps into my bones. It’s been eighteen months since I was compelled to count. I’m surprised I ever had the problem. Once, I cursed at the wasted time and years, but now I enjoy my new freedom. I’m lying on the settee, relishing the softness of the cushions, enjoying the malt taste of a beer. There’s tennis on the television. It’s a thrilling contest. The final set is at three games all.

There’s a break in the broadcast—an urgent news flash. Pictures follow of a grim-faced announcer. Tanks are rolling west across the North European Plain, pursued by clouds of dust and fumes. Black smoke blights the horizon like ascending demons. Buildings crumble to dust. People flee, their cars packed with families and piled high with cases.

The broadcast cuts to the President. He has bags under his eyes and looks like a panda. He has three buttons on his jacket. And the only word I hear has three letters: war.

Accompaniment: “Melancholia II” — William Basinski

The ceramic mug shattered. White stars on grey linoleum.

The one with the chipped rim she refused to throw away.

NEW TRENDING: 5 SIGNS YOUR KITCHEN IS OUTDATED.

A thud. Sarah. On her side. Her face was a smear of grey against the floor.

“Elias …” A wheezing breath.

He didn’t move.

BREAKING: CELEBRITY CHEF FOUND IN SECRET ROMANCE. SEE THE LEAKED PHOTOS.

“Sarah?” he said. His brain was slow.

“Heart,” she gasped. “Call ... please ...”

#WANDERLUST: IS THIS THE LAST UNTOUCHED PARADISE ON EARTH?

Turquoise water surged behind his eyelids. Warm sand. He felt his pulse slow. A sunset filter.

@USER99: “LMAO HE ACTUALLY SAID THAT??”

Sarah’s hand. Clawing at the tile. Like a crab.

Her fingers still stained faintly yellow from the turmeric she used that morning.

LIVE NOW: THE SENATE HEARING EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT. WATCH THE CLASH.

CHECK THE COMMENTS. PRAYERS. 7.2K OTHERS ARE WATCHING.

“Help,” she choked.

The phone … his fingers … heavy. His vision … streaks of thumbnails.

YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENS AT THE END OF THIS VIDEO.

Sarah’s eyes rolled back. Only the whites showed.

WHO ARE YOU ROOTING FOR? VOTE IN OUR POLL!

WARNING: YOUR CLOUD STORAGE IS 99% FULL.

He was losing the room. The kitchen blurred. The smell of coffee. Drowning in the noise … deep comfort. Effortless. A warm bath. His wife, the color of ash.

SYSTEM UPDATE PENDING. INSTALL NOW?

AEROBIC WORKOUT IN 5 MINUTES? CLICK TO JOIN.

He looked at the stove. The orange coil. A circle of pure, uncurated heat.

“Stop,” he whispered. To himself. To the air.

He lunged.

He slammed his left palm down onto the glowing orange ring.

YOUR CART IS WAITI …

USE CODE FOR 50 % OF …

The scream was real. It was a jagged blade of lightning that tore through the neon fog.

The smell of his own skin flooded his senses.

WTF IS SHE …

Silence.

Elias pulled his hand away. The world suddenly, violently sharp. He grabbed the phone.

“Heart attack,” he shouted at the dispatcher. “1422 Laurel! Please!!”

He fell to her. He ignored the sting of the burn, using it as a tether.

One. Two. Three.

He watched her eyelids tremble. The sirens rattled the windowpanes.

The paramedics broke the door.

“We’ve got her,” they said.

Elias stepped back. He watched the oxygen mask fog up with her breath.

Everything was quiet.

His phone vibrated. He looked at it and …

Accompaniment: “Moon” — Ryuichi Sakamoto

If a 4,000-word sentence (sans punctuation marks), the last breath of J. Joyce’s Ulysses, is a classic then thank you very much—at this point I am internally urged to put an end to this, but I will hold, watch me—Joyce may hold the crown of the best bore there was, but his star fades when compared to the longtime endeavors of my friend David—whose Mom has just turned 101 last December, and whose sister is in her 80s, so they all flew from Knoxville, Tennessee, to see the Grand Canyon and experience the perils of the mule ride—who called me last night to engage himself in a three-hour-long monologue about mules and something else, hard to tell what, but it had something to do with a woman pastor in Colorado, her promiscuity, and the loving—at this point I’m not sure if that was the love of god, but it surely involved one of her parishioners—which reminded me of that fateful call I received from David twenty years ago, when he told me in exquisitely nuanced details, exposed to me in over two hours, about the burning of his gray Peugeot—if you wonder what it looked like, recall Lieutenant Colombo’s vehicle; that’s right, but I’ve never asked if David bought his from Colombo—which inferno started with an innocent fragrance of burning rubber, progressing through floating swirls of whitish smoke to ever intensifying grayish puffs, to eventually explode with the vulgarity of the black smoke interlaced with red tongues of fire, which chased David out of the driver’s seat—you think “lucky;” sure, you are right, as he came to stop right in front of the fire station, after driving through a considerably deep pool of water in a pothole; David gave me its size in feet and inches, but I save you from yawning at the numerics—so there he was on the sidewalk, watching his car burn to a shell in less than three minutes, which David timed up precisely to a second with his wrist watch, then he walked home to call me about the event, which itself wouldn’t have been anything extraordinary if not for his wife, who asked David about his day as soon as he stepped into the house, to which he answered, “Nothing unusual”—and, a moment later, she overheard him on the phone, telling the story—yeah, your curiosity is burning, so you must know that she left the following morning—which brings us back to the original issue of who is better on telling tortuous stories: Is it James Joyce, whose 24-hour tale of Ulysses is supposed to be absorbed in just under 14 hours, or David, who took two hours to tell about a car that burned for less than three minutes?

Accompaniment: “Straight No Chaser” — Thelonious Monk

At approximately 7:14 am EST, brief + incorrect entered into preliminary discussions regarding the acquisition of brief + incorrect.

The talks were difficult because I represented both parties.

As owner, I opened negotiations at $4.2 million.

As the interested buyer, I countered at $17.

I rejected the offer immediately.

The buyer then asked to see the books.

There are no books.

This seemed to concern the buyer.

I explained that brief + incorrect has several valuable assets, including a growing archive of excellent writing, original artwork, music pairings, a publication schedule extending months into the future, and a name that would be extremely inconvenient to change at this point.

The buyer asked about revenue.

I changed the subject.

Negotiations resumed at 8:03 am EST.

I lowered the asking price to $3.8 million. The buyer increased his offer to $22, and a coffee.

For a moment, we appeared close.

Then due diligence began.

It was discovered that brief + incorrect publishes three times a week, occasionally more, and that the editor reads submissions, edits pieces, creates artwork, finds music, maintains the website, schedules publications, communicates with writers, and promotes everything afterward.

The buyer asked how many employees perform these duties.

“One.”

He wrote something down.

I couldn’t see what it was.

The buyer then asked how the operation was financed.

I explained our sophisticated capitalization strategy.

Paid subscriptions.

And something called Buy Me a Compliment.

There was a long silence.

“What is Buy Me a Compliment?”

“You give me money.”

“And the compliment?”

“Implied.”

He wrote something else down.

At 9:26 am EST, the buyer formally withdrew his offer.

This leaves brief + incorrect in the unfortunate position of continuing to be brief + incorrect.

We intend to proceed.

If you’d like to become a paid subscriber, that helps.

If you’d rather make a one-time contribution through Buy Me a Compliment, that helps, too.

If you’d rather just keep reading, please do.

In the meantime, I remain open to acquisition offers in excess of $4.2 million.

The coffee is negotiable.

Accompaniment: “A Taste of Honey” — Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass

“Oh, it started with a variant of Mumbley-Peg and an old switchblade I'd found. It was stuck, didn't 'switch' anymore; it was just the blade all the time. I got pretty good at throwing it underhand. Could get ten feet away and still split the bullseye. But the most fun was seeing how fast you could stab it in between your splayed fingers. The Knife Game, some call it. You can see from the scars on mine that I practiced a lot. Anyone who's any good at Mumbley-Peg's got scars like mine. Oh yeah, there's a lot of us actually; it's a little 'underground', sure, but hell, there's a big tournament coming up—hell—in a week!  Damn, time flies—supersonically, huh? Anyway, uh whaddya tryin' to—oh, how do they keep score? Easy. Just count how many holes ya stabbed between the fingers in 35 seconds. Nicking a finger is a deduction. There's patterns too that give ya more—Yeah, okay, I can see you're just trying to avoid the inevitable. C'mon: time to spin … let me give it a mighty one … ohhh-kay … let's see what I'm gonna cut off, or maybe just gouge out, huh …?”

• • •

I foresaw my son's death and could do nothing about it.

I saw the thin knife slit his throat one way, and then the other. Saw the bright blood gush out. Saw my face bloodied in the reflection from the long blade. Looking closer, wincing at the glinting stabbing from the bright overheads, saw a blood-splattered visage staring back, eyes as black as a raven. 

I foresaw all this after his phone slipped from my suddenly numb, bloodless fingers. As I stood there, rocked by nausea and vertigo. Reeling, as black bile burned in my throat. 

He was showering, I was picking up laundry, it fell from his pants' back pocket (okay, I took it out, okay!), and even though he was a “model” kid—good grades, no trouble of any kind—still, I was curious what a 17-year-old boy would have—okay I was snooping—and what I found, right away, right there—hideous and disgusting don't even come close. 

It is almost too unbearable to recount, but I gave birth to this (literal) bastard, this son of a (psycho) bitch, this human offal, so … so it was a video of him and his friends taking turns doing unspeakable things to a naked young girl they were holding down—and, and I recognized her! She was thirteen and autistic …

They were laughing uproariously. Backslapping. High fiving. Swarming over her.  Relentlessly …

Finally, I had to close my eyes, and then I saw what I was going to do … and went into the brightly lit bathroom and did what I had already done. 

It felt great. I felt great. It was great to have that stiletto back in my grasp. 

How it got there, how I had dug it out of my dresser, stashed away back forgotten (I'd thought!) in a bottom drawer—I do not know. The technical term, I guess, is a fugue-state, like some kind of trance, so I cannot account for every action I took since I was not even aware I was doing them.

But The Wheel is deliberate. I was going to off the other four—but they were going to suffer—like that poor autistic girl had suffered—like my piece of shit son hadn't. His was a quick, too-easy death; theirs would not be. 

And haven't. 

That last one I just did is down there in the basement with the other three.  Using my surgeon's skills, I managed to whittle each of them down to pretty much a torso with a head: limbless, tongueless, earless, noseless, blind, deafened, and a eunuch—and that, like their arms and legs, had come off in segments. They are strapped onto gurneys, being fed intravenously. They can void themselves where they lie. And as far as the authorities and their families are concerned, they're “runaways,” just like my son: boohoo. Without me “caring” for them, they'll be dead in less than a fortnight. And shall be, since I'm packed up and leaving tomorrow—no leaving the Past.  I can see the Future now, not clearly, but enough where I can make out who the villains are, and how to catch them. In my big new RV, I can follow them anywhere.

And in my RV's big back bedroom there sits The Wheel.

And yeah, I'm a little bonkers. Kinda Judge Mental. Yeah, to the scourges out there, I'm Miss Fortune, now.

Accompaniment: “What If We Could?” — Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Hilda smiled. She was right: if there were no internments, the cemetery would be empty on a rainy Monday morning. She closed the car door and removed a small box from the trunk of her car. The grounds were well groomed, and the plots laid out in the usual rectangular fashion, nothing fancy: numbered “streets” crossing lettered avenues.

Early on, her parents were funny, at least what she remembered. But when she became a teenager, things changed. For a while, a small while, she blamed herself when things became acrimonious, and she considered running away. When the dishes started flying, she begged her mother to move out and get a divorce. A month later, her mother packed the car, told her to get in, “You ride shotgun; we’re going home to my mother!”

Her parents divorced by the end of the year. It was far from amicable. Hilda’s mother was given sole custody. She was to stay with her father every third weekend. She survived. Her parents did their best not to disparage each other, but she thought it was more like a hostile ceasefire.

Grandma was supportive, and they lived with her for seven years. When Hilda graduated from college, her mother brought her boyfriend to the graduation. Her father also came to the ceremony. Afterwards, in the parking lot, her father demanded that Hilda have lunch with him—“Alone!” Things became heated until her mother’s boyfriend stepped in. He all but manhandled her father into his car.

Hilda didn’t hear what her mother said, but her father shouted out the window as he drove off, “Over my dead body!” Her mother just chuckled, “We’ll see, dear, we’ll see.”

Hilda stopped to get her bearings. She’d had little contact with her father over the years since then and was surprised, when they learned of his passing, that her mother suggested she attend the funeral. “After all, he was your father, for better or worse. And he did make all his child support payments on time and helped with your college tuition. Give the devil his due.”

That was seventeen years ago. And now she was back again. Her father’s headstone was over in the next row. Her mother always had a sense of humor. And now it was coming back to her, her college graduation. Well, if this is what her mother wanted, and she was adamant, then who was she to argue?

She stopped at the foot of her father’s grave: a simple headstone with his name and dates of birth and death. She looked around. The rain held off for a moment. The cemetery was still empty. She opened the box and spilled her mother’s ashes over the grave, now laughing along with her mother, who was now indeed over his dead body!

Accompaniment: “Comptine d'un autre été” — Yann Tiersen

“Women and children first! Women and children first!”

A brandy snifter in one hand, a cigar in the other, I am alone as I watch people rush about on deck from the comfort of my leather chair in the first-class smoking room. It’s past midnight, the lights flicker, but I am ruthlessly serene, for I did not overcome my childhood in the slums of the East End to drown in the freezing Atlantic water.

Second-class is where I belong, but who’s to care now? When faced with death, we’re all in the same boat.

Perhaps you’ve heard of me, Julian Grey, or seen my name on music hall marquees from Belfast to London.

I’ve made an enviable living as a comic, mimic, dancer, and acrobat. But what has brought me my greatest fame, and why I set sail on the Titanic to New York at the request of vaudeville manager William Hammerstein, is my unfathomable ability to juggle five balls with my feet.

I put my cigar into an ashtray and set down the glass. Twisting the ends of my mustache, I am resolved about what I’m to do next, for I’ve never been one to pass up an opportunity.

I rise. The ship lurches. Poker chips, chess pieces, and tumblers fall on the floor. With my walking stick, I whack them away and stagger toward the door.

The ship creaks, a slow back and forth. The vessel tilts. I balance myself between the doorway.

The corridor is empty.

I open the door to a first-class suite. What finery, such elegance. There’s a diamond stickpin and a ruby ring on the mahogany dresser. Did I mention that I am also a thief? I drop the stickpin and ruby ring into my coat pocket. I open the armoire and glide my hand over the dresses until I choose one.

If costumed in one lady’s attire, I might draw attention, so I open the door to the next cabin.

“Excuse me, Sir,” I say. A man holds a whiskey bottle in one hand and a Bible in the other. “Are you not going on deck?”

“Leave me be, young man.”

I shut the door.

The next room is charming, even as the furniture slides to the wall, with peacock patterns on overturned chairs, an electric fireplace, a vanity fit for Sarah Bernhardt. Stumbling, I open a chest of drawers and grab undergarments and a scarf.

What I need is a warm coat, ladies’ boots, and a hat. The lights go off, then on. I must hurry.

I enter a suite across the hall.

The room is in shambles. The dresser is on its side, a chair on its back. I throw the clothes on the bed and go to the trunk and take out a winter coat, lace-up boots, and a hat with a feather.

What I am about to do may seem shameful.

I sit on the edge of the bed next to the heap of clothes and remove my coat, then my tie and collar. My brother, may he rest in peace, comes to mind as I unbutton my shirt.

The binding is tight around my chest, and I begin to unfasten. Charles was more than a brother, a father; he was (I continue to unwind) to me, a motherless devil-rat, five years to his twelve. The bandage is off. My breasts are revealed.

I remove my trousers and drawers and pull the padding from between my legs. At a young age, Charles dressed me as a boy — “You’ll be safer, and we can make a shilling or two.” We performed on street corners and in taverns, and as I grew and girls liked me, I liked them back. I am not an impersonator like the popular music hall drags. I am a man, and I’ve made the best of my oddity.

Naked, I dress.

Perfumes from the clothes make my eyes water. I put my wallet, cuff links, and stolen jewelry into the pocket of the woolen coat and squeeze my feet into the boots.

There is a strangeness to it, and I feel an utter distaste, the way the undergarments rustle and swish. Above the dresser is a mirror. I put on the hat and cover my short hair but leave a fringe that falls over my forehead. The mustache, I peel off and put in my pocket.

Pinching my cheeks, the way I’ve seen my lovers do, I leave the way I came and go onto the deck.

Such chaos and panic. A man says good-bye to his wife and son as a lifeboat is lowered. Their cries provoke pity.

“Is there room?” I ask in a feminine voice.

“No, Miss,” a crew member shouts. “Might be on the other side.”

My unease mounts. I hurry among the crowd. My air of detachment collapses as I shove aside men and go around the stern. A lifeboat hangs from the davits.

“Women and children first!”

It’s mayhem. Men implore their families to board, promising everything will be all right. From their shabby clothes, it’s easy to see they’re from steerage.

“What do we have here?” a shipmate yells. He removes a shawl and a scarf from the head of a man trying to board. “Josser.”

A woman has the vapors and faints in her husband’s arms.

A crowd gathers by a lifeboat hanging from the derricks. Men step aside as I make my way through.

Before me is a woman and her three daughters. Their tattered clothes arouse my sympathy. I slip the ruby ring into the woman’s coat pocket.

“Come on, Miss,” a deckhand says. He takes my arm and helps me into the boat.

Other than the two in command of rowing, I am the only man.

I dismiss any charge that I am a coward. Be that as it may, it will forever be a blessing, an irony indeed, that what saved me was the hand I was dealt.

Accompaniment: “The Sinking of the Titanic” — Gavin Bryars

You won’t remember Arizona: dense forests of cacti, Palo Verde trees, the summer heat rocking you in its cradle, scorpions darting across a dusty trail, hollow-eyed cattle bones, packs of javelina, the sky fading to peach, woodpeckers drilling into mesquite, rodeos and gun ranges, cheese crisps and prickly pear, the spicy sweet scent of wet creosote, dead snakes in the freezer, their skins preserved for tourists, the sky pink red flames without fireworks, wading in the river and finding a pebble or green algae—something common turned magical as the life you might have lived if you’d stayed.

You won’t remember the move itself. A broken-down Rambler, boxes tied to the roof, your mother clinging to her mother’s neck, your father saying it’ll be better in Michigan or Texas there’s jobs in construction plumbing boiler repair farming auto detailing trucking sheet metal work, your grandfather pretending to agree, your mother not pretending because she thinks her new husband hung the moon and doesn’t know she’ll never live in a house of her own, never have a Saturday off, never climb out of debt, never know peace, your grandmother putting a fresh baked rhubarb crumb pie in the back seat of the car muttering under her breath wherever you go, there you are.

You won’t remember the Colorado River, its milky blueness, its churning rapids, how your father taught your mother the crawl in a quiet spot, keeping her buoyant and joyful, kissing droplets off her eyelashes. Decades later, when you read an article about Extreme Drought in Arizona and The Most Endangered River in America, you realize that water levels have been plummeting for years, starving minnows and bighorn sheep, leaving bathtub rings around reservoirs, making water scarce as gold. They even found an old wreck mired at the bottom. You picture your mother, a mermaid swimming through splintered portholes while your father takes the wheel, daring their ship to float.

Accompaniment: “Remembrance” — Balmorhea

     I love your bones, meaning that my heart beats louder when you are near. Meaning that just the thought of you won’t do.
     I love your bones, meaning that when you are gone I mark your absence. Meaning that I light a red candle.
     I love your bones, meaning that there’s no part of you I don’t relish. Meaning that we belong together. 
     I love your bones, meaning that I can still hear your voice. Meaning that a part of you is always living with me.
     I love your bones, meaning that I would violate the cemetery with a shovel. Meaning that I would bribe the mortician for a chance to snort your ashes.
     I love your bones, meaning that I believe I am justified. Meaning that just a tooth or a bit of finger transports me.
     I love your bones, meaning that you are my link to heaven. Meaning that I can almost recall the feeling of wholeness. 
     I love your bones, meaning that we will always be together. Meaning that we will always be together.

Accompaniment: “Heavy Water/I’d Rather Be Sleeping” — Grouper

Past and future are linear only to a point, somewhere beyond the furthest lens of the naked eye. The river slows, swells, bends, reverses itself, where its foundations are shaken.

And what, then, is a finite being as it squanders its purse of moments beneath the heel of such an oblivious titan as this? That has been a foundational quandary of my investigations and, if you here would embark upon your own, I would offer a perspective I have countenanced, at the purchase of mine own coin.

A finite being beneath the heel of an oblivious titan will be defined by the tools it fashions and how it brings them to bear. Surely you here have found that a tool finds its definition in its use? A lifetime also follows this same algorithm.

Let us, gathered to purpose, fashion a greater lens, and perhaps, in the treasury of our currency, a spike to smart the heel that has ever opposed and oppressed us.

I have a design that, I believe with great zeal of conviction, may provide just that.

Join me.

Luce Rudolpho,
May 8^th, 1886

• • •

Forensic psychological evaluation of Luce Rudolpho, recorded 8.18.2211 by Doctor Pyotr Onasis. Ph.D., Psy.D.

Analysis based upon recorded eyewitness accounts, biographical citations, and the subject’s own recovered materials.

The referral specifically requests evaluation of obsessive, narcissistic, and antisocial traits that may inform assessment and behavioral prognosis for reference to redacted projects in relation to subject perspective. Referral has a government classification addendum. All material access and evaluation results are considered proprietary to the United States Corporate Governance.

Luce Rudolph, self-identified as “Architect,” suggesting a profound personal identification with his own creations and intellectual output. Historical accounts indicate a solitary privileged upbringing, intense immersion in literary and artistic endeavors, and a pattern of social isolation consistent with high-functioning obsessive tendencies. Reports also suggest a history of manipulation of peers and subordinates, as well as a tendency to prioritize creative ambition over interpersonal or ethical considerations.

Mental Status Examination:

Highly focused, punctilious, and ritualistic in mannerisms. Tendency to monopolize conversations when discussing personal work or ideas. Minimal affective fluctuation observed; emotional responses appear constricted and cognitively mediated. Persuasive and occasionally grandiose in tone. Demeanor appears neutral to mildly elevated; affect congruent with intellectual focus rather than situational appropriateness.

Thought processes are linear and logical, but rigidly fixated on self-referential constructs. Evidence of obsessional rumination and preoccupation with legacy and creative immortality. Grandiose self-concept; preoccupation with control, authorship, and occasional delusional intensity regarding his role in shaping others’ lives or outcomes. No overt perceptual disturbances reported. Limited insight into the impact of actions on others; judgment appears subordinated to pursuit of redacted objectives.

Without further access to the projects conducted by Rudolpho and cohorts, I can proceed no further. Higher clearance requested.

Respectfully and with the grace of Corporate Governance,

P Onasis

• • •

From the recovered journals of Luce Rudolpho, written in cypher and eventually decoded by the government AI program called Juggernaut Coeus, subject of discussion one Archibald Rumin, a contemporary colleague.

Rumin is the key to the lock in our quest to throw off the shackles of linear time, I am of the utmost certainty. Though blind, he possesses uncanny agency of perceptions, none the least of which, his seeming preternatural abilities with machinery of all sorts, especially the unique timepieces he crafts.

I have paired him with Maureen Volker, the atomic theorist, on our great endeavor, which we have mutually agreed to refer to as Project Rudiarius in any correspondence and keep any transmitted communication limited. We cannot risk our noble calling being exposed to unscrupulous powers.

Rumin’s machine progresses at a frightening rate, now that Dr Volker has added her considerable acumen to its construction.

Acquisition of the materials necessary to create the reaction and housing chamber has created difficulties I shall have to redress.

Luce Rudolpho,
April 21^st, 1893

• • •

Corporate Governance Classification: Archon. Omega Directive.

Reconstruction of housing chamber progresses at acceptable rate, due to necessity of limited personnel access and restricted resource acquisition. Recovered materials suggest scientific acumen well beyond generally recognized sciences at the time of construction.

Critical to Governance is the methodologies of the reaction that specialists have, as yet, been unable to quantify. Suggestion is of science that has been lost or otherwise secreted and has not been rediscovered by contemporary parallels.

Governance has prioritized these discoveries as critical in consideration of the possibility of foreign powers running parallel investigations, perhaps in further stages of development. Evidence of carbon scoring and half-life radioactivity suggests theoretical impossibilities, such as temporal regression and suspension.

Juggernaut Crius has outpaced assigned specialists, but has no working theories. When questioned at length, it waxes obfuse and poetic, which no diagnostic analysis to date can account for. This in and of itself has become a tertiary matter of inquiry.

• • •

From the recovered journals of Luce Rudolpho, written in cypher and eventually decoded by the government AI program called Juggernaut Coeus

Only the superstitious cling to concepts of divinity ... and yet ... the diagram has been rendered by the most ingenious minds, assembled across variegated fields of discipline, such that what those engineers of sentience have conspired to engender, when beheld, has an effect on the beholder I could not call less than transcendent and be recording this log, for documentation of this great endeavor, and for posterity, with total veracity.

The Increate, the being as yet to be, the being beyond the winnowing climate of time, gazes out at me from the diagram as if into the trembling candle flame of my soul. It is only now, in this moment, that I even entertain the notion of such a nebulous fantasy.

Perhaps she already is. Indeed, she must be. For she must be beyond the temporal shackles that have chained us to this Promethean rock. We have discovered each other, reflections separated only by the thinnest reflective glass.

The reaction shall shatter it.

Luce Rudolpho,
October 23^rd, 1911

Accompaniment: “Infra 5” — Max Richter

It was no one’s fault: a catch and a lurch as he sat in the back of the truck, legs dangling, half asleep. The planet stopped him, or he would still be falling. No cars came by, but evening did—softly—as he lay there. A maple tree grew at the side of the road. The moon grew from a branch of the tree, detached itself, and floated up to clouds, where it became embedded in the misty horizontal filaments. But this was all a dream to him as he lay in the middle of the road.

An ivory hand, soft and cool, touched him. The moon was now a stark, unforgiving 60-watt bulb in a motel room, the sky a smoke-stained ceiling. The road had become a shapeless mattress on an untrustworthy frame. He raised his hand to touch the smooth, vague fingers floating above, but failed. He could not tell if his eyes were open. He stopped trying.

A dull sun and duller moon bookended an indecisive sky as the natural man sat on the edge of a bed that would groan under the weight of a heavy thought. He had his elbows on his knees; you could count the vertebrae of his spine; his ribs; old black bruises; scars that had healed as pink or white, mementos of actions or reactions accidental or intentional to or from man or nature. Though other men bore reciprocal scars, nature showed none.

Once, he took a sledgehammer to a car that ran out of gas between Marlene and Deanna. He kicked a road that went on too long. He pissed into the gully that ate his home in a mudslide. He slugged the mirror off his motorcycle when it decided that it had gone far enough.

These battles were the inescapable gadflies that kept him moving. Actually, the relationship was the reverse: it was the moving that created the gadflies. Psychologists would say he was the pursuer and the pursued. So would your average bartender.

He tried to raise himself: he wasn’t ready. He fell back into the sprained bed, and it resumed the shape of a hammock. Fine with him.

He was dreaming about a book, of all things. He wanted to see the cover. The book would not cooperate: he could only fumble through the pages. He could never get the cover to face him.

Light came and went, shadows rolled over him, he recognized thirst and pain, vertigo and inertia. A hand felt his head, but he could not see the face. He looked up at the window, but could not tell the grey of dusk from the grey of dawn, and for some reason, he wanted rain. He wanted to hear it. He wanted to feel it: maybe a little thunder and lightning could break this grey fog.

The knock on the door was heard a million miles away. He couldn’t find his voice. The door opened slowly, and someone—a woman—looked in.

“You’re awake. How you feeling?” It was the woman’s voice. He couldn’t see her yet. He thought he heard himself reply, but the voice didn’t sound like his.

“How about some coffee? I got some donuts here, too, if you got any appetite.”

“Sounds fine. Could you lower them lights a bit? “

“Sure. Sure I can.” She shut one of the two ceiling lights, the one that was directly above him. “How’s that?”

She watched him reach carefully for the coffee. “I put some milk in it to cool it down.” He sipped the coffee, sighed deeply, and took another sip. Life. She sat in the other chair, leaned over, and broke one of the donuts into small pieces. “Try a little. I bought ‘em fresh. They’re still pretty soft.” He took a piece and let it dissolve in his mouth. He closed his eyes. “Good, huh?” He opened his eyes and turned to look at her.

“You the one been looking in on me.”

“Yeah.”

“You done a good job.”

“Maybe. You were a mess. You still don’t look so hot.”

“You sweet-talkin’ me?”

“Maybe I am. But you aren’t ready.”

He looked her over. She was an older woman. Nothing wrong with that. He took another piece of a donut, dipping it carefully in the coffee. He felt better.

“When’s the last time I ate something?”

“Don’t know. At least two days. You been here that long.”

She knew he needed a little quiet, so she went about her business, barely looking over at him as he sat silently.

Another day went by. It was time to go. Love is fleeting, so why wait? The natural man leaned over and kissed the woman. Their lovemaking was a sweaty, musky, heavy affair. The morning was cool. She touched the scars on his back as he sat and she lay in the bed. “You coming back?”

“Depends on where the next truck throws me.”

“Maybe you could lose your balance, help it along. Think of me.”

“That’d make me lose my balance, all right.”

“One for the road?” she asked.

“One for the road,” he said.

“May it take you where you want to go.”

“May I never see the day.”

They rose to it.

Accompaniment: “Requiem for Dying Mothers, Pt. 2” — Stars of the Lid

I thought my old pal Demarco had died last year. Of colon cancer. I vaguely recalled reading his obituary and regretting not attending the funeral—think I was out of town. But when I saw him in the food concourse at the Eglinton Centre, I thought, It can’t be him. He died. He’s dead. It’s just some dude who looks like him. A lot like him, yes. But it’s not him. I started walking away. Then I stopped. Damn if he wasn’t a dead-ringer. And damn if he wasn’t holding his fork the way Demarco did—clenched in his fist like a knife.

He looked up from his food and popped his eyes when he saw me. “Buddy!” he cried, shooting to his feet. He was wearing a faded black suit with a thin black tie. Perhaps I should have been shocked, but I was happy to see him. We’d spent a lot of crazy times together as young men. We’d fallen out of touch, but the old vibe remained. We hugged, and he asked how things were going.

“I’m okay,” I said, uncertainly. “Heard you were dead, bro,” I was going to quip, but I didn’t. That said, I couldn’t shake the obituary thing. Did I dream that?

“Sit,” he said. “Just finishing lunch. I’m up here for a doctor’s appointment.”

I glanced at his tray. The stuff in his Styrofoam container looked like black spaghetti. Squid-ink? In the concourse?

His eyes looked strange, the pupils so dilated they blotted out his irises. He was speaking, but I couldn’t hear him over the concourse din. “Well?” he said, raising his voice and his heavy eyebrow—though I noticed that he lacked eyelashes.

“Everything okay with you?” I asked. “I mean health-wise?”

He touched his abdomen. “Intestinal issues. Seeing a specialist today.”

He went on talking, but once again I couldn’t make out a word. I nodded and smiled. He finished eating, and as we made to leave, I asked for his telephone number. “Ah, I forgot my phone,” he said, “and the number, haha. Just tell me yours. I’ll remember it.” I told him my number, and he repeated it back to me. We hugged and parted ways.

I walked home recalling our youthful antics. Easy times compared to the present. Later that day, my sister called. She was leaving for a vacation in Aruba with her new man and gave me instructions for feeding her cat and watering her plants.

“Don’t overfeed Daisy,” she warned. “She needs to lose two pounds before I can get her teeth cleaned. So no extra helpings and zero treats.”

As I was about to ring off, I told her about my encounter. “Know who I saw at the concourse? Demarco. Can you believe that? Demarco. Haven’t seen the guy in forever. And I thought he was dead.” My sister was quiet. “What is it?” I asked.

After a long silence, she said, “Did you say you saw Demarco?”

Accompaniment: “Alien Observer” — Grouper