Impulse

The cell phone rings. She holds it to her ear. She stares out the open door of the basement room. Just past the doorway is another sub-level space with a large exercise machine, some dumbbells of various weights and half a dozen storage bins stacked in the corner. She cannot see any of it from her spot on the bed.

Her eyes linger on the sheet rock just beyond the door frame. She listens

to the ringing,

the silence,

the ringing,

the silence.

A few windows at the very top of the ceiling reveal nothing but a few blades of grass along the cement walkways on each side of the house. The windows are a foot tall, a few feet wide. Just a little bit of light filters into the basement. It’s the cool pale light of fall. She feels a little cold in her flannel. 

Wood paneling lines the walls, thin faux wood linoleum covers the basement floor.  There are cracks and chips on the edges of the tiles close to the walls. A few mismatched blankets are crumpled on the bed, along with a few pillows ensconced in dingy white cases.

She was beyond excited as she was boarded the airplane just seven hours earlier.  She stood about fifteen feet from the open gate waiting for her boarding group to be called.

She looked at an older woman close to her. She had a poof of white hair piled high on her head and was dressed elegantly in black dress and pearl earrings. She wondered if the old woman could sense the delight in her heart, the nervous sparkles in her eyes.

A few hours in, as the plane made its way into the night, a tickle of doubt began to emerge.

She brushed it off once, twice, tried to focus on her book. But then it settled in…

As the grim reality of her choice became clear, she felt uneasy.  It was a plan like all her plans had been, no research, recon, or testing the waters. It was head first or nothing.  She dove in with her eyes closed, grasping at the ribbons of her fantasy.

Her optimistic smile had faded by the time she stepped off the plane.  She wondered if he would be there to pick her up. She hardly recognized him by baggage claim in a blue tie-dye shirt. He wore long shorts and flip flops.  His hair was longer now, almost to his shoulders and very blond at the tips. Where it hung around his face, the ends were fanned out, like Farah Fawcett’s style in the 70s.

She picked up her bag and they descended to the parking garage on an escalator. He was one step below her. Without looking at her he said:

“This is crazy.”

She nodded quietly, smiling sheepishly.

She noticed there was an edge in his voice, perhaps regret.

It was past eleven when they pulled up to the house. He escorted her through the living room, through the kitchen and towards the stairs that led to the converted basement.  

“My brother’s wife and kid are in Mexico right now.”

She nodded, silently carrying her bag.

There was a single light on in the kitchen, pale and flickering.  A white Formica table was close to the stove. On it were a few forgotten coffee cups and a folded magazine. The house felt lonely.

They walked down the stairs into the bedroom. She thought they would kiss and have sex, he would take her in his arms and say how much he had missed her.

But they were strangers.

Now that she was in his house, in the real world as everyone liked to call it, it seemed strange that they had ever been more than strangers.

If he had leaned over and touched her face, she would have given herself willingly anyway.

But he didn’t, and that made it all the stranger to her.

They slept in the same bed that night. His alarm was set for five. He told her he would be back around 9am.

She greeted him warmly when he arrived. For a moment she imagined that he had brought her breakfast. But there was only one to-go cup of coffee in his hand. He held out the donut bag to her with reluctant politeness. She peered in and saw only one donut.

She shook her head sadly, saying:

“There’s just one.”

He said nothing.

Her surprise turned to anger, the anger folded and re-folded, an origami lotus revealing its petals of disillusionment.

They had had a brief sex-filled affair. Sex in beds, hammocks, on a balcony beneath the night stars. He looked after her a few days when she was sick with sun stroke, helped her arrange a bus ticket back to Guadalajara. They went out to eat a few times.

Besides a few sporadic phone calls throughout the summer, that was all they had. In one of their conversations he invited her to Chicago, where he was moving in with his brother. The invitation had not been for a visit, but rather a permanent living arrangement. 

She had gone willingly into the fantasy, her parents and friends once again concerned about her reckless impulses.

A few hours before her flight to the Midwest, her mother said:

“You won’t be too proud to come back if it doesn’t end up working, will you?” 

And now here she was, a house in the suburbs, the cool winds of fall a whisper at the back of her neck. 

He invited her to sit outside with him. Fall leaves floated on the surface of the pool. They sat on the cold cement walkway surrounding the pool. 

“Is something wrong? You look sad.” She said.

“It was a mistake asking you to come here. I’m sorry I did that. In August I got some news and I have been going to the doctor a lot. During the summer I was with a lot of women- after I was with you, I was with another woman. I think she gave me something. It’s not serious, there is treatment- but that is why I was not with you last night. It’s why I don’t think you should be here.”

She was quiet.

“It was a crazy idea.”

“Ok, well, I’m going to call and get a flight. Will you take me to the airport later?”

“Yeah, sure.”

The telephone rings. She holds the cell phone to her ear. She stares out the open door of the basement room. She listens

to the ringing,

the silence,

the ringing,

the silence.

“Hello?”

“Hey Jen, it’s me. I’ll be in San Francisco at 9 tonight. Can you me meet me there?”

“What?” She says through laughter.

It’s a familiar laugh, low, guttural and rolling.

“Yep.” A smile breaks across her face. “I’ll tell you about it tonight.”

Windows

Can I ever know
what happened to the rest of him?

I can picture the room,
the doors made of valuable Nicaraguan wood,
masterpieces on the walls.

I look for him,
and my fingers reach for the future
and everything else slides away.
I grab at the pieces of paper,
the yellow windows,
the names.

Can I find the traces of affection?
The loneliness that
sprung fully formed
in the quiet moments
of tenderness?

His eyes can't be grasped.
In them are tales of monsters
that no one else remembers.

Then I feel a pair of hands
pressing tightly on my stomach.
They take me back to the sky,
to the wooden room,
to the yellow windows.

Open Up

Open up and sing
the body is ready for death
the mouth, a portal to the end
the stadiums outside are filled
and the onlookers are hungry,
the preachers
the women with their diapered babes
the wolves at their side.
The prayer has begun,
The song, still ringing.
The chant builds,
The body is ready,
The flesh has a message.
And our book is open
And I see a torn page,
an invitation to the end.

A single tear rolls, takes speed.
Falls to the ground,
spreading its salty spirit,
its whispered secret.
In ten years there will be a sapling,
bleeding its ocean blood.
I watch it disappear,
a single drop into the earth,
dark as coal.

Pale pink petals float by,
a gift of the wind.
One sticks to my lip and I draw it in,
move it around like
my favorite piece of paper,
Then let it sit at the base of my tongue.
It can stay as long as it likes,
no longer alone in the wind.
Here it has a home,
till we open up, and sing.

Poem Of The Dragon

We were all sitting around in a circle in the living room when the doorbell rang.  Bright and clear.  Like Isabel’s voice on green hills. It rang again as I day dreamed. I jolted awake, eager to see what lay on the other side.
Standing illuminated in the glow from our weak porch light was a green dragon. He was not the giant lizard of old fairy tales, larger than ten buildings, but he was taller, thicker, and more scaly than me. Standing at least seven feet tall, I craned my neck backwards, feeling the back of my head touch my back as I stared up at him. I could see my own stunned reflection staring back at me in his glassy eyes. 
I thought that I detected green and scales, smelt burning embers that somehow reminded me of clean wind just above the clouds, but I was most entranced by these smooth yellow eyes.  I sunk into them, for as I said, I could see myself as he saw me, a nervous woman stunned by a creature she had only read about, but I could also see my form as the world he came from would see me.
I was blue and purple, a nebulous shape that was held together only by the tiniest strings, like blowing scarves stuck to a clothesline in spring.  In his world, my flesh had already fallen, my colors were already singing. 
Seeing the mixture of confusion and wonder in my eyes, sensing that perhaps the neighbors would begin to feel that something was amiss, somehow telepathically as nosy neighbors can, he cleared his throat and a few fiery embers escaped his jaws as he opened his mouth.
I shifted attention from his eyes to the tiny bits of flame that rose into the night like orange fairies. 
“Excuse me for that.  I am here for the writer’s meeting.  I am Maurice.  I brought some of my work.  I hope I am not to late.”
For a moment my mouth would not move, I must have lost control as I voyaged into his world. Coming back into mine, I could feel my tongue was stuck somewhere behind my teeth. Pursing my mouth together, I found the little bit of moisture that remained. 
The underlying sweetness of his voice echoed between us, as clear and bright as the doorbell had been.  Like Isabel’s voice on a green hillside. 
We met eyes once again, “Oh yes, come in,” I managed to say, using my best hostess voice.  Opening the door wider and stepping aside, he crossed the threshold, forever entering our tiny world within a world. 
As he passed, coming from the night into the daylight we created, I looked down at his hands, where hands would have been if he were human.  What he had were scaly green arms that ended in long yellowish-white claws that doubled as hands. Using both claws he held onto a thin manila folder, the kind used in offices around the world, which I assumed contained his written words.
It was only a few steps from the door to the living room.  As I followed his thin trail of smoky air, I saw the stunned looks waiting in their chairs, looking the same as I must have.
“This is Maurice,” I announced.  “He’s a writer here for the meeting.” 
Several people nodded obediently, taking the information in, the lifelong schooling in American social politeness not failing them yet. 
“Maurice, I’m going to get another chair from the kitchen for you.” 
Stepping away I could hear the awkward silence beginning, though just as that void opened, it was filled with the steady voice of Chester, perfectly timed to avoid any crash in energy.
“What do you write Maurice?”
“Mostly poetry.  I just started writing really.”
“That’s ok. Everyone is welcome here.”
I walked back into the room with a slightly worn metal folding chair in my hands, seeing polite nods from the gathered writers as the encouraging statement reverberated around the room. 
“Here’s a chair for you.  Let’s kind of... rearrange the chairs so there’s still a clear circle.” 
We took a moment to do this.
I could feel slight tension in the room, more palpable than just the usual bit of nerves that seemed to accompany all the writers that came to our house.  Jen slipped me a nervous look, her eyes were questioning, perhaps looking at me like I understood something that she didn’t, wondering, most likely, what a dragon was doing in our house.  I had no answer, I looked away.
Chester began:
“Ok, thanks for coming everyone.  For those of you that haven’t been here before, we take turns reading our work, or someone else can read it for you if you like.  Afterwards, we discuss it.  When you make a comment, try to give your impression and reactions. Talk about the way it made you feel or if there were any parts that were confusing. In general, try to avoid saying if it was good or not. Stick to how it made you feel.  Ok Jen, do you want to go first?”
“Sure.  This is the second half of the story I read last week.”
She looked down at her lap, to the story that was already sitting there on neatly typed pages, and began to read. Her words went into me.  The same flowing, evocatively descriptive work I was used to. 
Interested in reactions, I looked around the room.  Maurice sat with his eyes closed. The scales between his eyes were ruffled as though listening intently.  Small bursts of steam shot out from his nose in intervals, growing more steady and thick as the tension in her story mounted. 
I looked up and noticed Scott was not watching Jen reading either. His attention was on Maurice, watching his recurring bouts of steam and hiss, entranced as I was. Scott’s eyes were wider than usual as he watched steam evaporate delicately into the middle of the room. Looking up suddenly he caught me watching him, his eyes full of questions. I was as surprised as he was.
When Jen was done reading, I snapped back into writer’s meeting mode, listening as each person gave their reactions.  We went around the circle, taking turns.  Maurice opened his mouth to speak and more orange embers escaped.
“I felt like crying when the baby was drowned by the crashing waves.  It was beautifully described.  I could really feel the emotional pain.” 
There were nods from those around the circle. 
Chester went next, reading in his barely accented voice the short story of one sunny afternoon in his childhood.  Maurice did not close his eyes this time, he stared at Chester, his yellow eyes growing wider as the dialogue unfolded like a sweet smelling flower.  Smoldering smoke came from his ears, slithering up into the air in quiet movement.  Jen coughed, reacting to the extra smoke in the room.  Chester coughed every once in a while, giving Maurice a curious look every time he did so.
When it was Maurice’s turn, all eyes turned towards him. 
“Ok, this is a short poem I wrote a few months ago. I have it memorized.” 
There were nods all around the room.  I felt my heart begin to pound as he readied himself, that uncomfortable feeling in my chest when the energy has mounted and soon we will be at the cliff’s edge.
He closed his eyes, his wide bulging lids seemed to be made of a thin green skin, though I thought I could detect the yellow of his eyes glowing beneath them like little lamps. 
The room was quiet.  The skin around his mouth began to move, twitching as though out of his control.  It went on like this for half a minute and we exchanged nervous glances, for we were not used to silence among us. 
Then the scaly skin on his nose began to twitch as well, joining he erratic bursts of his closed mouth.  A grumble came from deep within him, somewhere in his gut, though it sounded like a call from another world.  He opened his mouth and several deep and extended syllables emerged, through none of them sounded like the English he had spoken to us all night. 
I craned by neck towards him, hoping the gesture would bring me closer to understanding. Just as I did, I was met by a wall of pure fire.  I could smell singed carpet, I saw the black spots of melted nylon. 
I looked at Sophie who sat across from Maurice, her long blond hair now singed to the ears.  Maurice opened his eyes. One final burst of steam rose from his ears. 
He looked around the room.
“The fire comes out involuntarily when I get into a sort of trance state.  I am so sorry.”
“No. No,” said Mike, “I could see that you were really into it.  Must be very emotional work. I have to say though, I didn’t really understand it.”
“Yes, it is not really meant to be understood, just shared.  Perhaps you know what I mean.”
There were nods once again all around the room.  We held another moment of shared silence, taking in the truth of what he had said.
Chester coughed once and then cleared his throat.
“Well, thank you everyone for coming. We’ll be meeting here again in a few weeks. Everyone is most welcome to come,” he looked right at the dragon.
We rose, stretching our limbs.  We all shook hands and I grabbed Maurice’s cold claw as we said goodbye.
“Thanks for coming, hope we see you again.” 
He nodded with a smile,  “Yes, possibly.”
The door closed, everyone was gone. The smell of smoke still remained.

The Lecture

Fall was touching the ‘city on the hill’, interspersed between the mountain’s thick evergreen and redwood forests were yellow and red trees shedding their thin leaves. In the air was the ever-present smell of fireplaces alight and the crisp bite of the air required a thick cozy sweater and, just for pure tactile pleasure, a warm cup of hot coffee.
The sun was just beginning to fade as the doors of the lecture hall were closing for the 6pm class. It was an amphitheater-shaped building where two hundred students could comfortably fit. Pale gray metal chairs with dark gray cushioned seats and backs were arranged in a semi-circle that rose above the narrower main floor, which is where Professor Habiman stood at the wooden podium with his lecture notes. Isa chose a seat in the far back right corner, just four rows back from the wall in an aisle seat where she had a perfect view of the professor.
As the class began, his scrawny teaching assistants handed out the multiple-page syllabus which was stapled in the left hand corner. Isa flipped through the list of required reading and assignments as Professor Habiman outlined the material and course work for Drugs and Society as well as what they would be expected to learn.
Twenty minutes in, Mr. Habiman began the lecture with an overview about the roots of addiction; being a sociology class, he mentioned societal factors including poverty, class, gender, and education. It was then that Isa had something to say. Without thinking, wondering, or waiting, she raised her hand.
Professor Habiman called on her, though it was not the custom (unbeknownst to her) for lectures to be interrupted with questions or comments, which were either asked at specific times designated by the instructor or after the bulk of the lecture. As he raised his eyebrows and waited for her to speak, the full attention of every student in the amphitheater turned towards her. Projecting her voice so everyone could hear, she said:
“Also, I’ve found that Pisces tend to have addictive personalities.”
The class was silent. Mr. Habiman, a man in his mid-50s, with a slight paunch protruding from his button-up white shirt, a neatly trimmed 3-inch white beard and combed back gray hair, stood quiet for a second, seemingly stunned, as though he was still processing what he had heard. Then he found his words.
He looked around the class, gathering the confused attention like a good stand-up comedian, his eyes sparkled and drew the audience into the folds of his emerging joke. Through a faint smile tinged with anger, he replied:
“Astrology? That’s not science. In this class, within the discipline of sociology, we study science.”
He shook his head slightly, shaking off the pitiful comment like unwelcome rain. Isa heard chuckles reverberating around the room as though in stereo sound, echoing without end.
“As I was saying,” he continued, “there are various roots of addiction…”
She sat there, her cheeks burning with embarrassment and anger, her body suddenly more aware of the creaking folding metal seat cradling her form, her feet acutely aware of the cold cement floor. She shrunk slightly and stared straight ahead, hearing nothing but bass tones, seeing nothing but yellow light and muted colors on the periphery of vision. Her cheeks were beyond blush, she was red, sweating and covered in the odor of failure.
Isa sat there for five minutes, for what seemed like hours pushing back stinging tears. The laughter, the quick rebuttal to her theory, the anger in his voice, it swirled through her like a tempest of hurt, gathering speed and fury as she thought about it more, as she fed it with her rage.
As the tears were just about to break the surface walls, she gathered her purse and scarf from the empty chair beside her and quickly climbed the few remaining stairs to the back of the amphitheater. With the raw, aggressive force of her burning body she pushed into the long metal bar (which was the ‘knob’) and heard the quick blunt sound of metal hitting metal.
Beyond the door was a cement stairwell that led to the ground and the night air, now completely black and dotted with stars. She felt a sting as her hot cheeks met the cool air like a slap and she screamed ‘FUCK!’ as she quickly descended the twenty-five stairs. On the last few steps she heard the door close behind her and the yellowish light from inside the lecture hall disappeared.

* * *

The following Wednesday night, Isa went back. Without meaning to, but following a mechanical tendency, she sat in the same place, towards the back right, not too far away from the exit door, in the aisle seat with a clear view of the professor.
The class quieted as Mr. Habiman began:
“Before we get into the material, I wanted to ask, is the young woman here who made the comment about astrology on Monday?”
A girl with short dark hair sitting just one row in front of Isa turned towards her. Isa met her eyes quickly and then looked straight ahead, saying nothing while everyone in the room turned in the general direction of the back right corner and waited. When there was no raised hand they looked around the rest of the amphitheater blankly, searching for a recognizable face. Isa stared straight ahead in silence and was thankful the girl in front said nothing, playing along with Isa’s mute example.
“Well,” he continued, “if anyone knows or sees her, please give her my apology. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

Curiosity

It is a noisy, dirty corner in the heart of a large city. (Names don't matter here. Maybe they never do.) The two streets that meet at this particular corner are both wide and full of heavy traffic, there are recurrent small waves of pedestrians walking back and forth from one sidewalk to the other. The entire scene is covered in a semi transparent layer of dark smoke that hurts the nose and throat if you stay too long in its vicinity. (Eventually you might not notice it at all. Maybe by then you will have stayed too long, you will be part of the smoke, of the noise, of the pain.)
A large truck is double parked on the southeastern side, in front of a boarded up shop covered in graffiti. (Various gangs have marked this place as their territory, invisible warriors that came in the night and planted their flag upon forgotten surfaces of concrete and metal and wood.) Three men sit on the edge of the truck bed and a large mechanical dolly sits on the sidewalk, unused. Two other men walk from east to west, drinking from glass bottles covered in paper bags, loudly discussing the events of the day without really listening to each other. (Sentences fly like missiles without direction.)
An older woman, wearing a large blond wig and a tight mini skirt, smokes by the donut shop on the north western corner. The skin of her arms hangs loosely from her wrists, pockmarked by needle scars. A neon sign of a nude woman blinks in and out from the covered front window of a massage parlor that stands next to a freshly painted liquor store on the northeastern corner. A little boy grabs onto his mother’s hand, dragging a plastic bag behind him, gently sobbing away the remains of a heartfelt tantrum.
I exchange a few words with the lean young man with short dark hair. (I met him a few moments ago. He just came up and talked to me.) I am flirting a little, maybe even a lot. Sometimes it's hard to tell as quantities and measurements change from day to day and I was never too keen on measurements to begin with. (I know I want something, something different, something unusual, something scary. Fear sometimes makes me feel alive.)
He tells me that he investigates animal mutilations. I say that I sometimes make videos about that very subject. I don't think he understands me. Maybe he just can't process what I've said, maybe he just assumed that the only possible reaction on my part was surprise so he heard the reaction he anticipated instead of the one I actually gave him. (In that case, I am talking to a ghost. But at this point I don't mind talking to ghosts. It's so much better than being alone.)
Two shirtless teenage boys are standing nearby looking at us, listening to what the young man has to say. Both boys are covered in tattoos that blend the sacred with the profane, the violent with the loving, the peaceful with a deep unrelenting sorrow. I get the impression that they know him, maybe they have heard him talk like this many times before, maybe they can recite the long sequences of words that pour out of his mouth from memory, a kind of hopeless poem mired in mold and rust.
They lean against the window of an old battered hotel. I hear a loud drunken voice coming from inside, behind the dirty facade that still holds traces of a past lifetime of small luxuries. From animal mutilations, the young man moves on to a flow of words that I can only barely keep up with, a sequence of ideas that seem only barely interconnected.
"Fattened as they are with the sloth of caged animals, you know what I mean by their sloth? Darkened by their cheerless existence beneath our marvelous white wings, they know no joy. Nothing like it, nothing."
(I don't know what he's talking about but my curiosity is evoked like an invisible flower emerging from the depths of my chest, something tangible that travels up and down my body leaving traces at various hidden nodes.)
On the south western corner there is a one story complex. A small adult shop is embraced on both sides by a single dilapidated house that wraps around it like a concrete parasite. The house has two facades, each one leading to a different street, each one with a little forgotten porch covered in trash and a solid steel gate.
The adult shop has only four faded porno tapes in its window, the lost glories of never quite beautiful women that have long lost their battle for men’s attention and are now forgotten symbols of wasteful dispersal that fail in their weak attempt at temptation.
The young man starts to walk and I follow him. I can't say that I like him, I can't say that I don't. I just know that I want to hear more, I want to experience more of what he can bring to me, what this corner can offer, what this moment can invoke. I am unrelenting in my curiosity. It often gets me in trouble. But it's beyond my power to change it so I might as well give in completely. Follow it to the end, wherever the end may be.
The young man walks into the adult shop and I follow him. He is still talking. I look around while listening to his long nearly incomprehensible rant.
This is not my first time in one of these places, but it's still a strange space for my eyes to explore. Somehow his words fit into the things I'm seeing, words curling around objects like snakes, adjectives flashing over photos like transparent labels made of flesh.
"They watch, you know? They are always watching. They watch the images of childhood from our flickering screens, see the green of grass and blue of sky without the knowledge of the wealth of feelings that such images evoke in the spirit of one whose bare feet have trod on grass and leaped towards the sky."
One who leaped towards the sky, I hear him say it and I see a woman jumping. She is nude, grotesquely large breasts hang from her chest, rising from the sheer momentum of her jump. She is smiling but it doesn't really seem like a smile, more like a painted mask that refuses to come off. There's a hint of sky behind her and a man is smiling next to her, content with what he sees. She leaped towards the sky but she didn't make it. She landed inside this place. Much like I have.
Behind the counter, there is an older bearded man wearing a baseball cap and reading the newspaper. He looks up at us for barely a second before his eyes return to the wrinkled pages that he holds in his rough hands. (I would expect him to be surprised to see me here. How often does a young girl walk into a place like this? Maybe more often than I realize. His eyes don't register any surprise at all. Maybe he is completely beyond surprises. Maybe a long time ago he accepted the world as a place of unrelenting predictability. I am just another element in this long chain of constant repetition. This could almost be said to be a kind of enlightenment. But it feels heavy, old, tired, used.)
A TV screen behind him shows intense intercourse happening between a large muscular black man and a thin blond girl who seems like she's about to break under the black man's weight, under his unleashed physical strength. The volume on the TV is turned down while the radio blares out right wing talk intermixed with old rock and roll songs. I can't help but blush slightly when I see the young girl being taken in such a rough manner. I try my best to act nonchalant but I can't help myself. Something about the music and the condemnations of liberal ideology mixes in with the interracial coupling, something clicks inside of me but I can't decipher it. There's too much input all at once, too much information. The image intermingles with the words, as if they're saying the same thing, as if they're pulling towards a common center from different directions. The older man with the baseball cap groans and turns the page.
Two Latin men stare at a glossy magazine and make whispered comments. Maybe they're talking about me. They're both wearing checkered shirts and thick well worn blue jeans. (I imagine they came here straight from work, both eager for a moment of pure pleasure uninterrupted by the harsh touch of reality.)
An older man in a black overcoat carefully runs through the many video sections, scanning every title carefully, making silent calculations with his eyes. Every so often he grabs a box and puts it under his arm. He already holds several there, at least six. (I wonder what he's looking for. I wonder if it's even possible to find it. Could anything at all satisfy the hunger that hides behind his down turned eyes?)
A sweaty brown skinned man stands by the dark door that leads to the private booths, anxiously staring at each of the men that walk in and out of the store. His head is shaved bald and his hands press against his hips with a sense of repressed urgency. His eyes have the distinct shape of barely controlled need, of desperate hope slowly turning bitter and painful. (How long will he wait until he decides the wait has been long enough? Maybe the wait is never too long. Maybe there's always a prize at the end.)
I see another door, dusty and forgotten between rows of video tapes and plastic dildos of all sizes. I immediately realize that it must lead to the larger house that embraces the store like a snake made of brick and glass.
The young man walks through the store without looking at those around him. He slows his pace just a little and turns to make sure I'm still there. I follow him closely and listen to his ongoing rant while I look around. I expect someone to stop us from going any further but nobody does.
Each of these strange men have a role to play within this game and we don't feature in the rules. (When were these rules written? How long can they stay in place before they start to decompose into fragments of memory, touches of old songs, glimpses of wasted youth.)
The young man continues:
"The sky shall not have them. The grass shall never touch them. We keep them safe, we will always keep them safe, you know? Like pearly little maggots hidden away in a dark dumpster, suffocating them with cellophane wrappers and video games, and mp3 players, and cellular phones."
We keep them safe inside these houses, these stores, between four walls, while a man penetrates a much smaller girl on a flat screen and another man reads a newspaper, too bored to even look up. Safe from what is out there, safe inside. (We seek safety. We yearn for danger. After all, this is why I am here. I have to admit it, even if only when I speak silently to myself.)
The young man opens the old door in the back of the store without a key. He walks straight into the open space on the other side. Nobody makes any move to stop him or ask him where he is going. I follow while trying to keep track of what he is saying. I have forgotten why it was that I started listening to him, but now it has become absolutely crucial that I should listen, absolutely crucial that I should understand. (How do things like these become important? What happens when the importance goes away? These things just happen and I am more onlooker than participant in their shifting games of musical chairs.)
"They may speak to one another, reach for one another through these devices, but harsh words will have to win their battles, smooth talk will suffice for exchanges of affection. We will not let the bloody fisted brawls have them, nor the hand holding, tickling, chasing, and swinging. They are only for us."
With a quick hand gesture, the young man lets me know that I should close the door behind me. I close it, trying to be as quiet as possible even though nobody is listening.
I see a series of black and white photos on the wall next to me. A young girl rising from the ocean, covered in foaming salt water, wearing a pair of jeans cutoff shorts and a white t-shirt, all soaked in the ocean water. The same young girl walks towards a cave on the side of a rock wall rising from the gray sand of the beach. The young girl strips off her clothes as she walks into the cave where I can barely see stone steps leading up into absolute darkness. The last photo is the girl from behind, completely naked, fading into the darkness as she walks up the stone steps.
I turn to look into a doorway and I catch a glimpse of a young girl sleeping. The only clothes on her body are a small white t-shirt and thin white panties which slide into the gap between her buttocks, revealing the gentle curves of her flesh. Her face is turned away from me but I believe it is the same girl from the black and white photos, the same girl that walks into the cave. I can see her chest moving up and down slowly, softly. For a moment she seems a perfect picture of innocence. But who can live here and still retain any semblance of innocence? (This must be the place where innocence comes to die, where it surrenders itself for one final sacrifice. Is this why I have come here? Is this why I have followed this stranger into an unknown house? Have I brought my own sacrifice to this temple of shadows?)
I place my attention back on the young man who has never stopped talking. He hardly ever turns to see if I am still there, as if he assumes that I couldn't possibly go anywhere else.
"We strip away their immortal souls and make machines of them, we take away what is free and light in them and leave dead robots behind, fat little high fructose corn syrup powered robots to cherish the ideals we hammered into the hole we tore in their hearts. They will hate terror and terrorists. They will love America and God. They will hate what we tell them to hate. They will love what we tell them to love. Their ears and belly buttons will be washed and their homework will be done. And they will grow to be like us."
The house we have entered is shaped like a thick L, with each end crowned by an elegant wooden door that leads to the outside. Inside, the light is low and shaded in red and green. At the corner of the "L" there is a long table, covered in a ripped and stained tablecloth. Two women and two men sit on small metal chairs at the table. When I first see them, I am afraid that they will be alarmed by my presence. But soon I realize that they couldn't care less who I am or why I am there. (How many strangers must come through here at all hours of the day or night? There is a kind of comfort in the thought, a space where everyone is equally welcome, everyone is equally foreign.)
One woman prepares a crack pipe with the careful tenderness usually reserved for babies or works of art. She is wearing only a slip over a pair of tight white shorts. One of the men, a skinny older Caucasian wearing thick glasses and a sleeveless undershirt, anxiously stares and waits for his turn. The other two angrily discuss their current situation, always precarious, always on the brink of a complete catastrophe that has already started but never quite comes to an end. The second man is a middle aged Latino, wearing jeans and a buttoned up shirt. The woman is older and hints of sadness and deep resignation recurrently wash over her wrinkled face. She wears a black T-shirt and a ripped red skirt.
The young man keeps on moving and I keep on following. He walks by the quartet without saying hello. I follow his example. I hear one of them whispering as we pass them by. (Maybe they do notice me briefly, maybe they have seen many girls like me before, maybe they know what happens at the end of this adventure. In this way they are blessed for they know much more than I do. My ignorance is frightful, my ignorance is appealing, my ignorance is warm like a blanket, my ignorance is heavy like a dark cloud.)
Behind the table, there is a broken door that leads to a long bathroom. I follow the young man into the bathroom. None of it makes sense to me, but it hasn't made sense since the beginning, so there's no use in starting to ask questions now. (Or rather, I will continue to ask questions but I won't worry too much about trying to get answers. I can't ask the mutilated cow what happened in the middle of the night, and yet I can see it, I can touch it, I can keep it in my mind and make it gyrate to try to get it to somehow surrender its mysteries, its invisible chains of causes and consequences. Can I ask more of my present than I can ask from a dead mutilated cow?)
Inside, behind a ripped plastic curtain, there is a stretched out shower stall with three different shower heads, designed so that three or more bodies can bathe simultaneously. The tiled floor is covered in grime, it smells of urine and sperm and vomit.
The young man opens a drawer and takes out a long red tube with two silver metal prongs at the end. He shows me the device and explains that it is used to administer strong electric shocks. He asks if I will try it with him. I ask him if it hurts. He says it does. My eyes are wide open and a cold wave of fear is pulsing up my back. But it's too late to say no to anything, it's too late to play hard to get when I have already surrendered. In this game I am the playing field and he is the only contestant.
I say I'll try and ask him to start slow since I didn't know what to expect. He nods absentmindedly. (In the scheme of ordinary thought there are only two poles for experience: normal or evil. What I am about to experience is definitely not normal.)
Just then I notice a young boy sitting on the floor, in the shadows. He is playing with several little plastic toy cars and tiny plastic soldiers. He makes soft explosive sounds with his mouth each time one of the little figures gets shot. He looks up at me and smiles. I smile back at him and just then I feel a surge of electricity against my arm. I jump up in shock. The little boy laughs and points up at me. The young man laughs as well. Then he begins talking again.
"We will make them want us, want us for the toys, the shoes, the clothes, the sweets we can buy. That is how we buy their affection, that is how seduce their desire. They will wail for these things, the fruits of our Empire, never knowing the taste of earth and air and sun and water. We will give them corn to eat in all of the colors of the rainbow forged in the shapes of cartoon characters and steroids to make their lungs pump even when there is no oxygen left to breathe and technology to cast its light over their pallor and more fucking liquid corn to leave them thirsty for more and more and more…They belong to us and to no other, certainly not to themselves. Whatever they are, whatever they were or might have been, it will be smothered like the unwholesome flame that it is."
The only light that seeps into the bathroom comes from a high little window that also brings with it the constant wave of screams, curses and laughter that washes in from the alleyway outside.
The young man is standing next to me, smiling lasciviously. He strikes me again with the electrical prod. I jump up and manage to half muffle a scream. Two tears slip from my eyes and slowly make their way down my cheeks. The young boy again laughs and points at me with wide eyes. (I feel the urge to stop what is happening. I feel the urge to run away and forget. But I can't stop listening. I can't stop the raging need to see what waits at the end of the tour, to feel, to sense, to remember.)
"Death shall not have them, for we will never let them live. They will die before they can be born, to satisfy our hunger, to stave off the orgy of fear that is existence. They will never be here, will never know now, will always be spirited away by our incessant diversions, left as ghosts slumped on sofas with crumbs in their creases."
He prods me again and this time the electrical shock is too intense. For an instant I try to grab hold of myself, but I find myself falling. He holds me by the shoulders and gently slides me down to the floor. I feel the dirty wet floor underneath me. Somehow I don't care, in a way it feels comforting to be laying down here with the dirt and the urine and the sperm. The little boy is still pointing at me, his mouth wide open. There is a black gap between his front teeth.
"And the few who suspect that they have been denied the most precious gift we could give will be punished for their intelligence, for their pure heartedness and courage. The brave and the curious and the noble of our brood will suffer the worst tortures so that we may enjoy our cannibal feast, unperturbed by remorse or anxiety."
The young man is taking out other gadgets. He tells me to strip and I do as he says without thinking. I am looking up at the ceiling which seems to be an orgy of constant fractal movement, bright colors moving in all directions, shapes shifting so often that I can't try to guess at what they are. (I wonder if he has given me some kind of drug without my knowledge, but maybe I have made the drug myself, out of my own need for new horizons, out of the frayed edges of my hungry eyes.)
The young man hooks some wires to my mid drift. More electricity surges through my body. It is not as shocking as before, it feels oddly stimulating, like a general soft tickling that is never strong enough to be uncomfortable and yet won't let me rest. I tell him I like the way it feels. I moan lustfully and I urge him to turn it up. He smiles down at me and I smile back. I feel sweat forming on my forehead, on my chest. My knees open without any conscious decision on my part.
The skinny older man wearing thick glasses steps into the bathroom and looks at me nodding. Then he turns towards the toilet and urinates right in front of me. I giggle and the little boy laughs loudly, his laugh echoing in the confined space. I slowly lose consciousness while I stare at the old man's penis and the yellow arch of his urine which emerges from the circumcised head.

I wake up in a small very dark room. The windows are covered with two layers of curtains and a thick old blanket taped to the window. I am laying on the floor, wearing only a white t-shirt and underwear. A young Latin girl lies sleeping on a ripped up mattress next to me. She is covered in cold sweat and wears only a thin summer dress. Her breathing is shallow and labored, her face squeezes painfully every few minutes and her dried tears have left a spider web of discolored makeup all over her cheekbones. Hanging on the wall close to her head there is a little wooden crucifix; taped up underneath it, the photograph of an older smiling woman with gray hair.
(No matter where we are, we must eventually believe in something. The forms will change, the urge will remain the same. Belief is a door too easy to shut.)
I hear the voice of the young man coming from a room next door.
"We will never need to atone if we nip truth in the bud, snuff out the first smoldering spark before a wild fire can grow and spread its crimson fingers over the hearts of our children, taking them forever from us . Never will the passion to live flower within and eat them alive and transform them from worms into butterflies. They are ours alone to devour."
I turn to look at the doorway. I see two Latin men staring at the two of us. They both wear checkered shirts and well worn thick blue jeans. I open my mouth to say something but I can't figure out what to say. (Am I the intruder here or are they? Or is everyone here a passing shadow in an old haunted house with no true inhabitants?)
I hear the young man's voice fading. He is walking away. Our little encounter has ended.
After some time of laying there staring up at them, the two men turn to leave. I slowly stand up. I find my clothes laying on a corner, mixed in with other clothes that I don't recognize. Everything is soaked with sweat. I get dressed quickly, then I slowly find my way out.
In one of the hallways that leads to the street, two shirtless teenage boys smoke marijuana and trade jokes and conspiracies amongst themselves. One of them has a large scar across his chest and a fresh bruise around his right eye. The other one has two fingers missing from his left hand, he uses the stumps to scratch his running nose.
Using the joints as pointers, they discuss places and possibilities, people and betrayals, histories and legends. In their words, a trail of bubbling life pierces through the scratched up walls and the pungent smell of vomit that seeps in through the outer gates, along with loud horns, angry threats and a crackling radio playing an ancient song of harvest.
I hear the trail of their words as I walk by:
"Fattened as they are with the sloth of caged animals..."
I step outside and bright sunlight hurts my eyes. I close the door behind me and walk away.

There Was A Song About Them

There was a song about the houses, the little boxes made of ticky tacky… you know the song perhaps? Maybe you heard it first sung by an Indian gentleman on a short plane trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles or in endless variations on a late-night television program or on an old recorder long ago dumped in the trash. Perhaps you know the song about the houses.
If you have never seen them, the houses of blue, green, red and yellow, you might think that it was only a song, a silly song, a symbolic song highlighting the rote and under-whelming achievements of modern man. You might think that they were not literally boxes if you had not seen them as I, Earl Winters, have seen them.
They line up as neatly as boxcars on rails of track along the faces of those low, verdant, mist shrouded hills, traversing from the fringes of San Francisco into the deep dank moors of fog-covered Daly City. If you know anything about moors then you know that they conceal mystery and hide their phantoms. You know that hidden in that ever-present gray are the deadly secrets of the transmutation of matter and their link to moon cycles. To see these little boxes, however, dispels any fear of the unknown, blots out any possibility for variance, and suggests infinite uniformity, for though there’ s a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one, they’re all just the same.
See the all-American family seated together in the dining room, hands clasped, heads bowed in prayer, meatloaf garnished with a sprightly sprig of parsley grown in the victory garden out back. After dinner father reads the paper, mother washes the dishes, little Sally and Tom play with the silky terrier, and the baby plays on the rug in the living room.
If you wish to enter this century, well then, mother throws out the designer paper plates before heading for the bath and father examines the world news on his iPad while Sally texts her boyfriend while baby snuggles in her lap and Tom plays a graphic and gory first-person shooter game designed by the US Army recruiting agency on the Xbox.
Pick a year, 1956 or 2011, if you peek into the little boxes and peel away the curtains, if you can somehow manage a glimpse into their tightly sealed world, you’ll find the inhabitants doing the same things at approximately the same time from one box to the next. You can depend on it. Most of the time.

I have suggested that this century is the 21st and that I, Earl Winters, am familiar with the box houses and what goes on inside of them. I know what goes on in much of the world in fact. It is my job to know. If you have ever listened to Half Moon Bay Radio KWMA, my name may have seemed familiar to you. I am radio journalist, Earl Winters, former host of Important Points, your daily investigative news journal. There is nothing about the workings of the world that I haven’t learned either as a kid on the streets of New York or in some press conference or news room or even on a battlefield or two. That is to say that I knew quite a bit before I ever visited 119 Santa Clara Avenue in San Francisco, right on the cusp of the moors.
I have told you that I am a journalist, but have I mentioned that it was terrible soul bruising work that turned my eyes into bleeding wounds and the only balm I found to sooth them was poetry? To smooth the broken glass and barbed wire of guerilla warfare from my voice I went twice a week to a café on Shattuck Ave. near the radio station where I worked, Café Nouveau Paris. I went to read things I had scribbled down in tiny notebooks to a room full of self-proclaimed poets and orange walls and glazed croissants.
That is where I first saw Theodora, smiling at a tiny round table, golden strands of hair falling over her gray-blue eyes, nervously shuffling sheets of paper with long bent fingers. I came in from the streets and noticed her immediately. The rest of the night I tried to be near enough to speak to her. I looked for an open seat or table, I thought of trite scenes I had seen in movies, dropping my napkin or spilling my tea, whatever I could do to prick her effervescent bubble.
I stood mostly paralyzed by the wall until the opportunity came. She was standing under a lamp and reading a small hand-written sign that asked for donations in a roundabout way. Poetry is all about the roundabout. Here, even a sign was indirect, diffuse in meaning, forsaking meaning for ambiguity.
I told her I liked her poems even though I could not remember them. I said that I had felt something kindred in them even though they were entirely incomprehensible, possibly only gibberish as far as I could tell. The poetry of her was in her smile, her posture, her tousled hair.
I suggested getting together to share more poetry. I gave her my card and as she read it, waited several long seconds for her to recognize my name. The recognition never came. In fact, studying the card she had to ask:
“Important Points, that’s… a radio show, or internet based thing?”
She liked that it was radio, I could see it in her smile. And that smile filled me up with a mint-scented air that I could sense cleansing the deepest part of me, moving through me as incense drifts though a room. She told me eagerly, as if this now assured me that we were friends, that she created music with a group that called themselves Pleroma. I said I’d love to hear their music, and she eagerly gave me a card which contained the internet addresses in which to find their sounds.
That night I went home and found the place in space-time where Theodora’s voice existed, her screams and deep guttural tones came through my speakers and filled me with a light I had not seen before.
Four months passed in which I sat at that round table next to Theodora reading her my poems, listening to hers, telling the stories of my life to her round blue eyes and trying desperately to wring some from hers. I endeavored to create other meetings with her, suggested a visit to the rose garden, expounded upon my desire to collaborate, prayed for a rainstorm so that I could offer her a ride home.
For all my effort, I saw her once a week in the same place at the same time, in the Café Nouveau Paris for the open mic session on Thursdays. Each week I asked for something and got a basket of smiles and an invitation to come improvise and record something with Pleroma in the house at 119 Santa Clara Avenue in San Francisco, right on the cusp of the moor.
Four months passed and I thought she must love me. Four months passed and I knew that I loved her. Four months passed and she gave me so little, but it was something. At last when she stopped coming to the Café Nouveau Paris I felt it was time to be bold.

There was a song, about the houses, the little boxes made of ticky tacky… you know the song perhaps. The house at 119 Santa Clara was one of these little boxes on the hillside, an orange one with a sage bush out front and a white car in the driveway. It was into one of these boxes that I, Earl Winters, set foot on a summer evening in the 21st century.
Yes, Theodora was there to hug me at the door and invite me inside, to offer me tea and introduce me to Leigha and Ferdinand and the others that had come to call that evening. Leigha was petite with dark curly hair and heavily shadowed eyes. I thought she was quite lovely, the complete inverse of Theodora, brooding where the other woman was flippant, unhurried where the other was fleet, dark where the other was light.
Unlike Theodora, Leigha was aware of my radio show and comfortable with bringing up politics and the things of the world to which I was accustomed. Ferdinand joined in our chatter. We stood in the bright living room and yes, I smelled the faded sweetness of amber incense, saw the chalice on the mantle, the flickering candles and a bowl full of silvery leaves, but I thought little of it.

They took me downstairs to the studio that Theodora had often times referred to as the underworld in her invitations. Poetry is all about the roundabout. Every sign is indirect, diffuse in meaning, forsaking meaning for ambiguity. The underworld was filled with electronic gear, guitar and microphone cables were spread over the floor like the thick dark chords of an enormous spider’s web. Lines from Theodora to Ferdinand, from Ferdinand to Leigha, Leigha to the Russian fellow that had arranged some of their live shows (Theadora had introduced him as their priest)…electronic lines to a guitarist, lines to me, to a microphone placed inches from my mouth.
I turned on my small laptop to find the poems within. In the walls of this unfamiliar lair, surrounded by large pieces of artwork and installations within the confines of open cabinets, I grasped at the known, the familiar. I held onto my computer and tried to smile though I was aware that the tiny, scared boy of fifty years ago was slipping through my eyes.
After Leigha lit small white candles and turned off the lights Ferdinand took a seat at the twelve o’clock position of the circle. It was then that I noticed the shadow cast on the wall behind him, the silhouette of Ferdinand with horns rising from his temples.

In the other boxes on the hillside there were cars and washing machines and children’s bicycles in the same spot where we sat entangled. All-American families were seated together in their dining rooms above their garages, hands clasped, heads bowed in prayer, meatloaf garnished with a sprightly sprig of parsley. Where there should have been a garage at 119 Santa Clara there was instead an underworld in which I had unwittingly descended pursuing a poem.
A poem composed of more than words and letters. A poem of soft white flesh and laughter that could lift me from the sadness of my afternoons. Poems that multiplied, mirroring each other in their glory, just as the sun is more beautiful followed by the cool light of the moon. I basked in both lights at once, amazed that such a thing was possible.
Whatever else I saw that night, whatever transformations occurred, I wrote them off the following day as tricks of the night, as the side-effects of medication from my minor eye surgery.

In the light of day I thought of the slow, moon-shrouded poetry of Leigha, who I felt was more receptive to my attention than Theodora had ever been. Her eyes were ink pools waiting for entrance. Poetry is about the roundabout. Every sign is indirect, diffuse in meaning, forsaking meaning for ambiguity. She had looked into me, found me waiting there, had welled up with emotion as we created music together.
Leigha, petite with dark curly hair and heavily shadowed eyes, I sent her an email and told her how I loved her, just as much as I loved Theodora. In my carefully thought out verse I confessed my desire to know her, to be with her alone just as I had been alone for many months with Theodora. I suggested a picnic and drive to Bolinas. I described watching the colors of the sunset and sharing dreams. I imagined sitting beside the soft poetry of her body, touching the warmth of her hands.
The response I received turned my chest immediately into stone, leaving me more than cold, as I read the words the poems in me crumbled into nothingness. It read as follows:
"Thank you for your email and working with us today. We read your email carefully. We understand what you are perceiving and feeling, but there are just some things that cannot happen. We are trying to do something unusual. This means there are some things we do not do. We would like you to be part of our creative projects, but the kind of thing you described in your email would be outside of the possibilities. We hope you understand. We like you very much and would like to keep doing creative projects with you. We know that the kind of contact we have had is rare, and we would like to maintain that kind of rare contact with you. It will just have to stay within certain limits. Love, Theodora, Ferdinand and Leigha."

It was the impossibility that the three of them had read my email together and responded in concert that led me to uncomfortable conclusions. Whatever I had seen, whatever had happened, it was the email that guided my regard of the happenings at 119 Santa Clara.
I responded to the email saying that I was hurt with Leigha’s disclosure of my message to the others. She responded that it had not been their intention to hurt me, it had simply been their intention to tell the truth. A week later I wrote Thedora;

“It is not possible that I was understood by the collective mentality of your exalted group, as exalted as you may be. I poured my heart out to you, and then you and your intensely felt colleague and house mate. So now, the three of you know the heart of my heart of my heart, based on a trusted and risky effort at sharing, and I know almost zero about one of you, and a little more about the others. When I asked to get to know one of your better, I got a group speak response, that felt very cultish in style. May this life, Theodora, bring you endless joy and creativity along with the suffering and struggle...EW”

Her response was an obscure:
“No problem EW, farewell.” Concluded with a smiley face.
I looked up from the short message, unable to focus on any shape around me. The familiar colors and furnishings of my living room were dirty and old in the bright afternoon light. With those final words I felt the last bit of mint drift out of me. The poem had faded, taking my stories with it.

Perhaps you know the song about the houses. If you have never seen them, the houses of blue, green, red and yellow, you might think that it was only a song, a silly song, a symbolic song highlighting the rote and under-whelming achievements of modern man. You might think that they were not literally boxes if you had not seen them as I, Earl Winters, have seen them.
Poetry is about the roundabout. Every sign is indirect, diffuse in meaning, forsaking meaning for ambiguity. And yet all these houses, all these familiar little boxes, they are all the same, they must all remain the same.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is two days away. There is a roaring fire that spurts and flitters with life, providing a focal point of raw elemental force. A dog walks from person to person, collecting affection from each hand until they get tired of giving.

I try to keep most of my attention on the fire, remembering that there is life outside this room, but there is a struggle. The human and the raw pull at me, grabbing each arm. The big TV screen is on and we are covered in blue light, a type of light that can even trump fire.

My sister and mother are sitting on the carpet, just a few feet from the TV. “I’ve been saving this so you can see it mom.” Dorit points the remote at the TV, quickly changing channels and navigating her menu of saved shows. My sister and mother have shared a bond over the same TV shows for almost a decade now. They like the same sentimental love stories, the same big-budget romantic comedies and Oprah. “It’s Oprah’s favorite things,” my sister says with a small smile and turns to my mother.

“Ok!” my mom replies enthusiastically.

The next five minutes are filled with ecstatic jumping, near fainting, and screams of delight as Oprah fans hug each other and cry with each free gift that is carried out from backstage.

“I can’t believe I am watching this,” my dad says in an irritated tone from the couch. No one responds, but my mother gives him a dirty look before she turns back to the television. Ten minutes pass by, Oprah gives away $25 gift cards to McDonald’s for everyone in the audience, my sister’s small apartment fills with the screams of middle aged women as Oprah describes items from McDonald’s new menu. The audience is beyond enthusiastic, they grab each other, jumping wildly on their seats, the lone man in the audience is holding his head in his hands, tears streaking his face. My sister and mom are smiling, sharing in the raw emotion that pours in through the TV.

I turn to my dad, there is a look of disgust and mild amusement on his face, as though the spectacle is more emotion than he has ever felt, as though each one of them is insane for expressing it so blatantly. He shakes his head, his eyes narrow, “this is just an advertisement. You think she bought all these things? It’s just an ad.”

“I know,” agrees Maxwell, my sister’s boyfriend, whose disgust rivals that of my father’s. “Dorit already made me watch this once.”

“I can’t believe I am watching this,” my dad announces again. He grabs the newspaper that had lay abandoned on his lap and begins shifting through its pages once again, the newsprint blocking his line of sight from the TV.

“Fine, I’ll change it Yossi,” Dorit says to my dad with anger. She changes the channel, flipping it to Cougar Town. I turn to the fire and rub the soft fur on the dog's face. “Who’s this idiot?” my mom says, referring to a blond character standing next to a Thanksgiving turkey. She says it with such disgust that I am taken aback slightly. My sister sits closest to the television, a glazed smile on her face as the jokes roll by, “Who’s this idiot?” my mom says once again when the blond character reappears.

“Fine! I’ll change it!” my sister announces with annoyance. She flips through the channels and then eventually leaves it on a football game, which gives Maxwell something to dive into. Dorit turns to the dog, who’s laying next to me by the fire.

“Poo poo face!” my sister says with affection as she reaches out and twists the dog's pliable ear around her finger.

I give her a questioning look, “That’s sort of a weird pet name.”

“He is poo-poo face number 1,” she points to Maxwell, “and this is poo-poo face number two,” giving the dog a kiss on the nose.

“She didn’t start calling me that until the dog showed up.” He turns back to the TV, he’s the only one interested in the game.

“How is your job Maxwell?” my mom inquires. He takes his attention from the TV and begins to describe the window washing business in detail. I turn to my mom, who is sitting on the carpet. She is looking up at him on the couch and nodding, though I notice a slightly absent expression on her face, one she has often when people are talking. The corners of her mouth are moving, as though she wants to say something, as though there are sentences on the tip of her tongue that she does not allow to come out. Maxwell is in mid-sentence when she jumps up from her place on the carpet. She walks to the folding table that is set up by the sliding glass door and picks up the loaf of cranberry bread. “I know what I did wrong, I put two cups of water instead of one cup of oil and one of water.” She pulls on a piece of the bread and pops it into her mouth, she looks to the ceiling as she examines the flavor. She nods and then shakes her head, “it’s no good.”

When I turn towards Maxwell, he is already watching the game. Dorit is petting the dog again, my dad is still reading the newspaper. Thanksgiving is two days away and I feel the apartment getting a little smaller.

The Spheres of Galia Part 6

The library was an inverted sphere tucked within an astral chamber located in Olslo’s former residence in Valance, in the Second Sphere. They found it in a marble room with a large window that overlooked the lake outside. The room contained no furniture, just a single marble pedestal with a small golden orb that rested upon it. Within the orb, the library glowed with an electric blue incandescence and was connected to not only the vast networks of the Lucen pools, but also to the great libraries of all Three Spheres. This was the haven Olslo had built for himself in Valance. Suk Arev, a Prince of Vitnu, accompanied by Rosh Sil, a scribe of Valance, explored the library within the inverted sphere which existed outside of space and time.

“My sense of self is very strange,” Suk communicated to Rosh. “I feel that I have no body, and yet I am aware of the concept ‘I.’ I find that I am feeling a certain degree of fear.”

“What do you fear?” Rosh asked as she raced through the liquid light, accessing pools and libraries in a simultaneous moment of understanding.

“That I will be unable to find my body again. Where is it?”

“It isn’t anymore. There is no place holder left in Valance and there is no place to hold here. You are not, at this juncture. But, there is no need for fear. You will be again soon, when we return to space. You will recreate yourself, much as you do each morning when you awaken.” Rosh told the Prince. “You may also release the concept 'I' at this juncture. You will create that again as well. It will be as convincing as it ever has been.”

“If I release ‘I,’ there will be no more Suk. I will not exist. What could I then accomplish?” the Prince asked with alarm, which both of them experienced as a terrible squeezing in their chest and limbs.

“You must relax and be unafraid or we will be expelled from this library. There is something that remains when you release ‘I.’ With it, you will be able to accomplish more here. Think of it as diving. For a moment you and I will dive, we will explore the pools here, leaving the concept of ‘I’ waiting for us on the bank. When we have finished our exploration we will surface and resume our individual identities. Will you come? As long as we continue this linguistic form of communication which is itself the separating force that reinforces the concept of ‘I,’ our search of this library and the pools it connects to will be ineffective. We must go deeper.”

There was a silence and the swirling blue light was punctuated by a final communication from the Prince, “Yes. I see. We will go deeper.”

The blue pulsing and swirling intensified and then blue bled into white and at last the shining clarity of empty water as Rosh and Suk dissolved. What remained raced through the pools connected to Olslo’s library in bright bursts of electric white energy.

When Prince Suk awoke, he was lying on the cool marble floor of the empty room in Valance with the warm golden orb in one hand. Rosh’s head was resting on his stomach. His other hand was in her hair and for a moment, he was aware of nothing other than its amazing silky texture. Rosh stirred and quickly opened her eyes, turning her face towards his. Their eyes met and love flowed easily between them.

“I have never felt like that,” the Prince said, beaming. “Not even in making love have I ever been so close to another human being.”

Rosh smiled at him. “That’s because we were no longer human. We found something. Do you remember?”

“I remember elation. I remember bliss,” he said.

“If you do it more often, that experience will become more integrated with this one. You will remember more, which is the first step,” Rosh told him, moving slowly into a comfortable seated position.

“We retrieved something from Olslo’s private pool. We leaked it into all of the pools connected through his library. Everyone in the Three Spheres will know it soon. And there was something else, something that we kept hidden, something wonderful. Can you get us into the First Sphere? We need to visit Taurus.”

“The laboratories of the Seven Sisters?” the Prince asked. His face was dark and handsome and his smile refused to fade from it.

Rosh nodded at him slowly, her eyes were black pools of determination and clarity. The fingers of their hands laced together and they smiled as one.

The words from the leaked manuscript found their way beyond the reach of the pools and libraries of the Three Spheres. In the deserts of Vitnu, within a cave deep in the mountains, Stevash Khal read the manuscript to his tattered band of guerillas. In the prison mines where the first Olslo had toiled before his death, it was repeated by the new arrivals. In the Third Sphere, the Illuhuati arranged it to music. The High Priestess, in her secret lair in the underground ruins of Nurk, read it in the pools of the Lucen scribes before they sent it on to more remote pools deeper in the Sphere. Even the torturer who had administered Olslo’s last punishments three days prior read the disappeared man’s words from a wall where they had been written outside the Towers:

“There are no unarguable axioms of value or worth, there are only inclinations.
My inclinations have turned to an intense loathing of institutions, and most of the people in them; those spineless supplicants agape at the passing of other men's ideas, not drawn by desire, but driven by fear and ignorance, to the tepid hearth of institutionalism.
One may argue as to the qualities of a passing man's wife, but as a life philosophy, it can only appeal to self-loathing celibates. How much better the subjective stance which curls the mind around the lovely creature in one's embrace!”

The Spheres of Galia Part 3

The feast would be strikingly minimal, composed of fare provided by the King’s own garden and the main course cooked simply, made of the common rooftop hen. In the grand dining room, there was nothing present that could suggest extravagance of any kind. There was no pre-dining entertainment, no dancing, no jesting. The tables were covered in simple ivory linen and a single goblet, plate and fork for every guest. The gold utensils and embroidered napkins had been kept in the closets, out of simple necessity, the room was alive with the light of a thousand red and white wax candles.

Half a dozen war-weary soldiers recently returned from Vitnu were present and still adjusting to the Sphere after several years away. Dominious had them seated to the left of his vacant chair. All of these gestures of humility and concern had been orchestrated to prove to his fellow Red Hats that their values and causes where still close to his heart. He hoped to prevent defections by Red Hats that could sink the proposal he had recently worked out with their rivals, the Yellow Hats. They were here, those Council members who had been Lords and Clergymen before becoming members of the illustrious Council, and also those Red Hats who did not sit upon the Council, among these Lord Avin.

“Many Yellow Hats seem ready to embrace the compromise and declare victory,” he said to Dominious as they strolled together through the clusters of men and sweet-scented women waiting to be seated. “The question is whether enough Red Hats will join them in support, especially in the Council, where resentment of your concessions run strong.” Dominious glanced sideways at Lord Avin, his mouth turned down at the corners, but not so strongly that it could be declared a frown.

“And you? What do you think?” he asked while maintaining his forward glance.

Lord Avin sighed, “you know that I am forever your most ardent servant,” he said, and then looked to the King as if he wished to say more. Dominious turned to him and nodded to continue. “I fear that you lose site of the doctrines of our brotherhood. We are stewards of the people, and the Yellow Hats serve only themselves. The people are hungry and over-taxed. They and their children are dying in this bloody drawn-out war. They were sympathetic to the Lucen Scribes, and now that Olslo is dead, the sense of injustice has become heightened. These were wrongs begun during your brother’s reign, and it was believed that after his death, you would set them right, but you yield to the desires of the Yellow Hats at every turn…”

Dominious raised a hand to silence Avin. “You must understand, they are a force to be reckoned with. And they are not entirely wrong. The imprisonment of the Lucen Scribes was necessary, the security tax is necessary, ferreting out our enemies is also necessary. Don’t forget, most of our brethren on the Council voted for the war during my brother’s reign, and for the security tax as well. They understood these necessities then.” Dominious pressed a hand to his forehead, searching for words to explain the particular box he now found himself in, the pressure that came from all sides and prevented action in any direction. “They are like unruly children, both brotherhoods. We must preserve the kingdom. I will speak to all of our brethren tonight. I must make them understand.”

Dominious left Avin to take his place at the head of the table. Soon all were seated at the great horseshoe arrangement of tables. The room buzzed with chatter and the clinking of silverware. An electric lute strummed quietly by the attending bard who sang softly of the orphans housed by Dominous and of the new temples of healing established throughout the kingdom.

Over the general clatter the King caught fragments of conversation. The Red Hats with seats on the Council criticized the compromise, sometimes harshly, but stopped short of saying they would try to stop it. In the middle of it all, the King sat pale and bent in his chair, his face harrowed with creases. His poultry and stewed vegetables remained untouched and grew cold. In the candlelight, the dark circles under his eyes gave him the appearance of a man in the final stages of illness. His thin hands played idly with the silverware as he waited for his moment to speak.

Alone In The Light

The sunlight streams through the half open curtains in a faded yellow that tastes of old forgotten afternoons when the air is almost too thick to breathe and bodies become too heavy to call into action. There are a few magazines strewn on the floor and a half finished bottle of water on the night table. There are a few pictures on the wall and a summer dress hanging from a hook on the back of the door.
Elinore is lying on the large bed in the center of the room, eating dried mangoes. Her only garment is a long white shirt that reaches all the way down to the middle of her tanned strong thighs. For a long while she has been debating with herself on what to do with this afternoon that seems to never end, but all she has been able to muster is getting the dried mangos from the kitchen to slide into her mouth, one by one. She chews very slowly, relishing the bitter taste as her eyes open and close, taking in the yellow sunlight.
Every so often she lets her head fall back on the pillow, her long black hair spreading over the white pillowcase like an explosion of thoughts over an empty page. She then pretends to sleep, but she pretends for an empty room, since there is no one else with her. Maybe if she pretends long enough, she will actually fall asleep and when she wakes up, this afternoon of nothingness will be over. But after a few moments of yellow illuminated darkness behind closed eyelids, she props herself up on her right shoulder once again, and she takes another bite of dry mango.
From behind the wall at her back come the subtle sounds of an electric bass being plucked. The amplified sound is hidden away in a world of headphones, so Elinore can only hear bits and pieces of muted riffs and walking bass lines which travel through the still air of the apartment like tiny colorful trains without a final destination.


Veronika stares at her bass as she plays, repeating certain passages over and over, trying to make sure that they are permanently recorded in her muscle memory, that they become as much a part of her as brushing her teeth or walking on an empty sidewalk. When she makes a mistake, she shakes her head and tries the same line again, over and over, until she is content that she has truly learned the part.
Veronika is sitting on the edge of her bed, with the long and heavy bass draped across her thighs. She is wearing a Nirvana T-shirt and an old pair of blue jeans with large rips across the knees. Her feet are bare and the cold wooden floor feels good against her naked skin. Her long red hair is pulled back away from her face and tied tightly into a long pony tail, not the way she usually wears it, but it helps to keep it out of her way when she practices. Her thin white arms cradle the bass lovingly, with an urgent intensity that is palpable in her movements but which she would never consciously admit to herself.
Each note she plays is processed and amplified by a small processor that sits close to her toes. The sound is channeled directly into her ears through a small set of headphones that she keeps just for this particular purpose. In her ears the notes rumble, distort and vibrate like huge slabs of stone tumbling into a vast expanse of black sand. In her world, the sound is loud and overwhelming, but it is all a secret that she can keep to herself, a secret waiting to be revealed at a later time.
Every so often she pulls the headphones back to make sure that the sound is completely enclosed and inaudible to anyone standing outside. She doesn’t want to disturb Elinore. It is her general policy to be as quiet as possible when she practices. She knows how easy it is for casual friendships to go sour.
She is specially concerned with being very quiet today. Veronika saw Elinore earlier and she looked so tired that she could barely even say hello. She might have given up on practicing at all this afternoon, but there will be a show this very night and she must be ready. It is as important as anything in her life, and more important than most other things. So she continues to practice with fervor while being as quiet as possible, her face a mask of intense concentration and barely controlled stress.


Elinore stands up for a moment and turns on the TV. She turns the volume down low, as low as it can go while still being audible from her post on the bed. Something to let her attention wander away, something to make her forget about the time slowly passing. Anything. Anything at all.
Even though they are not talking directly to her, the sound of the talking heads makes it seem as if there is someone else in the room, as if someone is talking to her, someone that doesn’t need to be answered, someone that will continue to talk no matter how quiet and still she remains on the bed. Over the bits of dialogue, she can still hear little bits of sound from Veronika’s bass here and there but it doesn’t really bother her. The silence is too strong to be disrupted, it would take an earthquake to break apart the yellow solitude.


“…there are many opinions as to the true nature of angels. It is not clear where the idea started, where it originates. We now talk to Maria who has been studying Angels for the last ten years.”

When she first realizes the nature of the show, Elinore has the impulse to stand up and shut the TV off once again. But she is already laying down and feeling too comfortable. Her long legs are stretched over the rumpled white sheets and she can’t bring herself to stand up and shut it off again. The coolness of the cloth against her flesh is delicious and she can’t bring herself to part from its embrace. She may as well listen to what this woman has to say. At least until she is done with the mangos.

“We must then remember that all these paintings, all these icons, they are only reference points… we are talking about a real phenomenon that has degraded over time into an idea that we now believe we understand… maybe we have already decided that there is no such thing as angels… but what are we really denying? We have to mean something by a word in order to deny its existence, don’t you think? So what is it that we don’t believe in when we say that they don’t exist? Or what are we really saying when we say that we do believe? When we say that we know and that we have faith? What is it that we have faith in? Belief in a vague unknown is tantamount to belief in nothing…”

Elinore again closes her eyes and simulates sleep for her absent audience. The yellow turns red beneath her eyelids and she rolls back face down on the bed, still chewing on a bit of mango. She stretches her whole body and a chill runs up and down her spine. A very soft moan escapes her lips and she giggles lightly into the mattress. Nobody can hear her and yet she wants the subtle sense of quiet to continue uninterrupted.
She finds herself thinking about angels. Why angels? Why right now? It’s strange how these ideas come from out there, from a world of electronic communication that is not specifically thinking of her, and yet now the idea is multiplying within her, seeking answers for questions that weren’t there at all just a few moments before.
What do people mean by angels really? She thinks of medieval paintings, of Catholic churches full of winged little naked children.
Why is she thinking of it at all? She makes an effort once again to stand up to turn off the TV so she can forget the subject entirely. But it seems that she would rather stretch her body some more and listen, listen quietly at least a little longer.

A news report interrupts the show. Elinore has lost track of what they are saying anyway, so the two combine into a strange amalgam of voices with a turbulent meaning, a meaning that somehow never coalesces into a single clearly expressed statement, and yet teases the most forward tendrils of her mind with the possibility of understanding:
“…the 24-year-old pop icon is the first artist of the new digital age to reach the five million sales mark, an accolade which came on the back of her two smash singles: ‘Poker Face’ and ‘Just Dance.’ The record was broken when ‘Poker Face’ topped five million sales, after ‘Just Dance’ achieved the same impressive feat…”
Five million individual minds have reached through the ethereal links of the internet to grasp at Lady Gaga’s music, or is it really at her that they are grasping, at her body, at her mind, at her secret dream world, at the myths that she only suggests while slipping sideways away from final labeling and categorization? Do they actually wish to touch her, even if it is only done through invisible fingers that travel through underground channels of quantic vibration?
So many hands reaching out to grab at her… What must it feel like to have all those nodes of attention focused on her, wishing for her, wanting her, needing her. Five million different minds focused on a single point of light, hidden behind the fragile cover of carefully arranged physical barriers.
Where is she now? What does she feel? Is it in any way comparable to what Elinore feels or has the cumulative intensity of all that attention lifted her bodily to another plane of vibrational existence? No way to truly know, no way to find out.

Another mango for now, another moment of closed eyes and a ritualized attempt at simulated sleep. And behind closed eye lids she sees Lady Gaga’s mouth singing:
“I want your drama,
the touch of your hand,
I want your leather studded kiss in the sand,
I want your love…”
Yes your love, no matter what form it may take, no matter what it may turn me into, no matter what it may do to me, no matter how it may transform me, no matter that it may kill me and change me into something I never suspected was possible, something I never wanted to be.
But here there is nothing, silence, yellow silence, closed eyes, the taste of mango and music coming from nowhere, music that simply repeats in little fragments of concentrated attention.


The phone rings next door. Veronika has the impulse to ignore it but then she reluctantly answers. She presses the small cell phone receiver to her ear, questioning her own decision to pick it up. On the other end, her friend Narina speaks up as soon as she hears the connection being established, rushing to let her words out before they fade away and lose their charged content of raw emotion:
“Listen to this… listen…Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light. Jack Dempsey said it…walking with a friend… in the dark…is better… that walking alone in the light…”
Veronika wrinkles her brow. For a moment she is unsure of how to respond. She then remembers it is Narina, and it is just like her to say something like this, out of the blue, and it is just like her to expect some kind of answer. Veronica then carefully responds, trying to make sense of her own thoughts as they pour out of her:
“I’m not sure that I understand what it means…I think I like it…I guess it depends on who it is that walks with you, no?… alone is not always the same … and there are different kinds of friends… aren’t there?… In any case, I don’t think it was Jack Dempsey… it may have been Hellen Keller…why did you think it was Jack Dempsey? You know that I have a show tonight?”
For a fragment of a second the mention of Hellen Keller invokes a world of total darkness, of complete and final isolation, a chamber where nobody may enter and nobody may leave, where there will be no rescue coming, no escape, where loneliness will keep on pulsing in a steady beat for all eternity without any relief in sight. For that fragment of a second, there is no friend, there is no light, there is no walking. There is only utter solitude and the complete silence that comes with it.
“Yeah, I guess I’m not really sure who said it…but it still touches me… even if I’m not totally sure what it means… what it could mean…there’s something about it that resonated within me… I can’t really explain it… like a bell, you know? A bell that rings inside of me and I can’t place it… a friend… maybe it’s just that word…you know what I mean? I hope you do…”
There is a new silence between them, a silence not quite as complete as the one invoked a moment earlier, but a silence nonetheless, and the ethereal lines of electronic connection carry only their breaths, communicating in a way that transcends all codes or symbols.
“Anyway… a show tonight? Maybe I will come… maybe if I come I could walk with you in the dark…” Narina giggles at herself. “I’m not sure though… I can’t really promise... I’ll try to be there…”
And just as suddenly as she appeared from nowhere, Narina is gone, leaving behind a fading echo of a word, a vision, an ungraspable taste or color.
Friend, friend, friend… who is really a friend and who isn’t? How would you know a friend if there was only a dark chamber without exits? How would you recognize a friendly impulse coming from the outside?
Veronika shakes her head and returns to her practice. No use thinking about such things when there is a show to rehearse for.


Jennifer waits on the driver’s seat of the elegant limousine. The uniform doesn’t quite fit her and she still feels unsure about her new role. Her black hair is fixed in a small bun and hidden by a little gray hat that turns her into an official representative of the limousine company. Her legs feel hot and trapped within the newly pressed gray uniform and the leather seats feel paradoxically uncomfortable under the weight of her customed body. It all makes her feel strange, displaced, as if her brown skin and her big black eyes have been imprisoned in a role she can’t fully embody yet. She wonders momentarily if this is what happens to people when they finally start to grow up: they get encased in gray and pushed into the stage of a play that was never fully understood to begin with.
She found this job only a few days earlier and, due to one of her new coworkers being sick, she has been lucky enough to score one of the best assignments in the whole agency, their most prized and well known client. The singer is expected to come out of her hotel at any time and then she will be here, in the same car, in the same space as her, breathing the same air, vibrating in the same chamber.
Jennifer feels rushes of excitement that travel like electrical currents up and down her small thin body, they make her flesh turn red and her breath get faster and harsher. It is such pure luck that she finds herself here, now, waiting for such a famous character to step into her car. She runs her hand through her hair and looks at her face in the rearview mirror. She wants to make sure she looks just perfect, just in case somebody looks at her, just in case she says hello.
She heard the announcement this morning. The entire wide sidewalk in front of the hotel is crawling with reporters and paparazzi. All waiting for her. All eager to ask questions and take pictures, all eager to take away another little piece of her on wings of electronic chatter. All eager to see her. All waiting.
For Her.
Jennifer feels the urge to play her music in the car, maybe she will think it is funny, maybe she will smile and then talk to her and be nice. Or maybe she won’t ever look at her at all. Someone like her, she must be so busy that there won’t be any time to talk to a driver, another face in the crowd, lost in a sea of eager eyes hoping for greatness to touch them, even if only briefly.
And yet Jennifer can only hope that something does happen. In fact something has happened, but she wants something more. She wants a word, a look, a smile. Something. She will be sure to take that little bit, any little bit the comes out of her presence and treasure it.
The people outside rush towards the front doors of the hotel. Maybe someone is coming. Jennifer feels as if some of that attention is rubbing off on her, as if she is so close to the source that some of that brightness is spreading through her chest and making her a faithful satellite, a secondary source of light in that great darkness that surrounds all of them, all of us.
She relishes the sensation. It reminds her of love, of making love, of being kissed and touched and hugged and kissed again. But it is somehow grander. It pulses from a place that seems to come from nowhere, a place beyond the realm of the physical, a place she has never truly explored before.
Maybe this is what spiritual people feel when they have their strange experiences, their communions with something higher. This is certainly the closest Jennifer has ever been to something higher than her.
Disparate thoughts clash within her, threatening to fuse into a single vision but then she shakes her head and tries to maintain her attention on the wide glass doors, the same place where everyone else is looking.
She will be coming out soon. Soon. She will be coming out.

The phone rings and Veronika picks up immediately. Narina again. She has apparently thought of more things to say. Veronika shakes her head with a kind of benevolent annoyance. She has to practice. It is urgent. But she doesn’t have the heart to simply blow Narina off completely. Instead she prepares to listen for a moment, before telling her that she really has to go.
“Ultimately, to be with someone is better than to be alone… I think that’s what it’s saying… no matter what, no matter who, no matter where, it’s better to be with someone than to have nobody…”
“Yeah…that sounds right…I mean, I think that is what it is saying…but it’s still a vague message… maybe it’s too general for me…I would like to think that I would be a bit more selective… I wouldn’t want to be with just anyone… you know?…I can see it though… we don’t want to be alone, right?”
“Right…maybe that is why you play music? So that you won’t be alone…maybe it’s a way of calling people towards you…maybe it’s a way of bringing people together? Could that be it? Could that be what hides under most of what we do? Under all that we do?”
“Maybe… I can see what you are saying… maybe you are right… or at least partially right… I don’t know… I don’t like to think of it that way….I hope there is more to it than that…I think I am fine alone… I can be anyway…but sometimes I do need someone around…it depends on the moment…but I can enjoy playing all on my own as well…playing music I mean…it doesn’t have to be done to call anyone…I can simply play… all alone…just like now…”
“I’m sure you are hoping for a crowd tonight though… you don’t want to be alone up there…alone under the hot stage lights…you don’t want the club to be empty right?”
“Definitely not…speaking of which, I need to get back to practicing right now…maybe we can talk about this later tonight… after the show?”
“Yeah no problem… better to walk with a friend… it’s still ringing in my ears… anyway, maybe I’ll see you tonight…”


“Lady Gaga may have figured out the secret formula to attracting the attention of the masses… like Madonna and Michael Jackson and a few others before her…why her and not someone else? What is it about her?”
It is the voice of Ha, in her guise as a TV reporter. Her dress is a calculated balance between sexiness and formality, letting some of her cleavage show but also evoking the kind of straight suit a banker would wear. Something to make them see me, something to make them trust me.
When she talks into the camera, there’s a hint of confusion in her voice, as if she doesn’t actually understand what she is saying. She is merely reading what others have written for her, reading what others have asked her to read. But the confusion is so subtle most viewers won’t pick up on it. Most of them will only see a beautiful female face, soft white skin, intense and sharp black eyes. Most of them are doing something else anyway, they only leave the TV on so that they won’t feel alone, so they will bathe in the illusion of togetherness with faraway people that will never hear them breathe, will never miss them when they’re gone.
None of these distracted viewers will notice that slight hint of confusion in her voice. But Ha can hear it in herself and she wishes she could get rid of it, wishes she could extinguish it and settle into her true role of serene and wise communicator of abstract electronic truth. With time it will certainly go away. It is practice that is needed, practice and perseverance. Then there will be no further confusion, no hesitation, no shivering edge.
“She is certainly talented, but maybe there’s a particular kind of talent that can attract that amount of attention, maybe that is a talent in itself, like writing, or singing…no matter what we say about it, it certainly remains a mystery.”

“I want your love
I want your revenge
I want your ugly
I want your disease
I want your everything…”

“And back to our show…”

Ha thinks to herself, in that moment of complete isolation after the camera has shut down and everyone has turned their attention elsewhere:
“What is she really saying? Who is she talking to? I don’t think she’s talking to a lover, to a potential lover, or a current lover or one from the past… I think she’s talking to us… all of us…she knows we will take revenge on that which we love… like Elvis, like Michael Jackson…too many people screaming for a single being… wanting them…loving them… and then turning around and biting hard… biting so hard that the object of their love gets torn to pieces…letting their love turn into furious and naked aggression… grabbing hands and cruelly nailing them to a cross of shame and destruction… Could she know it all? Could she know ahead of time what fate has in store for her? Could she see the whole pattern and embrace it… embrace the entire show… from beginning to end?… She wants our love, she wants our revenge… she wants our ugly… she wants our disease…the disease that we can’t help but allow to flourish when our feelings have been invoked too intensely… the disease that turns our love into hate, our adoration into disgust… she knows how much it will hurt and she still invokes it in her song…she wants our everything…”

The phone rings. Ha picks it up.
“Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light…I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon…”
“Narina? I can’t talk now… I’m about to go on the air again… we do these little reports in between commercials… I have to be ready…”
“I know, I know… you’re the tenth person I call… after you I will stop calling… everyone has something to do… I just wanted to talk for a bit… but I understand… I do…I’ve just been thinking about this quote, that’s all…I’ve been thinking about it all day… I can’t seem to stop…anyway, I hope you do a good report today…I hope we get to talk soon…”
Ha closes the cell phone shut. What was she thinking about just before the cell phone rang?

A new voice comes on the TV. It sounds like a teenager or a woman in her early twenties. She has a bit of a Spanish accent. Probably someone they found on the street and decided to interview.
“…as a catholic we believe in angels… we believe that angels are ‘messengers of God’… I have family members who are Christian Fundamentalist who firmly believe that it is a sacrilege to believe in angels.... needless to say we don't talk religion…what’s the point right? It will only end in a bad argument… personally, I believe in them and believe that Lucifer was a fallen angel.... he lost his rightful place next to the Father…he ended up exiled to a land of fire and pain…I don't go overboard with angels though…not like a lot of people do. I am more interested in God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Saints…the Saints should not be confused with the Angels…you know what I mean?”
Now an older authoritative voice, maybe a professor in some old distinguished University library. Elinore has her eyes closed, so she can only guess at his appearance, she can see the wall of books at his back, a wooden pipe in his hand, a closely trimmed white beard and a pair of glasses sliding down a thin upturned nose.
“Angel…This word comes, as you may remember, from the Greek word "angelo" and the Hebrew word "malak" …the term simply means messenger… In God's word, angels were chiefly employed by God to deliver His oracles to men…”
And a third voice. This one talks with a very slow rhythm, leaving gaps of patient space in between the sound of the syllables. It is low and thick and profoundly male, aggressive in a way too subtle to counteract with reason.
“Angels then were creatures that had transcended our worldly plane and were now focusing the attention of many, fusing it into a single act of will… thus many acting as one through the fusion of their attention…through this unification a higher will could be manifested…the identity of the Angel would be immaterial separate from this fusion…the Angel could be seen as an amalgamation, a fusion of many into one…”
Human. Saint. Angel. Messenger. God. Words and words and more words. Could there be any meaning hiding behind any of them? And if there were something real to which they were attached, how long had it been since the attachment had been broken and the words started to drift through the skies like tiny balloons full of helium whose strings have been cut?

Elinore finally manages to stand up and turn off the TV. Enough with this show. It’s going nowhere. When the loud sound of the talking heads goes away, she can more clearly hear the little riffs that Veronika is practicing, tiny ribbons of sound that twirl upon themselves and find their way across the many barriers that stand between them.
Elinore smiles. For a moment she thinks that maybe she will go to the show tonight. Maybe. If she can get enough energy to go out. If she can let go of the simple pleasures of her bed and her room.
She lays down once again to finish her mango. There’s only a few pieces left. Maybe she can go to the show, but maybe not. It may be better to just stay in tonight. It feels so good to be alone. So quiet. So perfect. So drenched, from head to toe, in bright, yellow light. Alone and touched by nothing but sounds without origin, messages without a voice, poems without rhyme.