The Lake

Down the hill she walked, a short descent that had little indentations in the soil where streams of water from last week’s rain had carved a narrow path. She walked carefully, gripping her camera with both hands, moving slower that usual.
She didn’t want to put the camera in her bag, she knew she would need it in another minute, but she didn’t want to fall and drop it again like she had a couple years ago, so she took little tiny steps and watched for little pebbles on the ground. 
The bottom of the hill was level and covered in short, tender blades of green grass. There was the aroma of Indian food coming from somewhere near by, but she could not place it. She looked around for a tree with little berries or a small, pungent shrub, though there was nothing immediately obvious. The scent of spices was carried by the breeze and meandered over the dirt path and over the cement bridge not too far ahead.
As she approached the pedestrian bridge, which hung over nearly still lake water, she noticed the garbage can under the canopy of a tree. It was piled high, almost exploding with debris and plastic bags.  
On the bridge was a middle aged black man. He stood looking over the bridge, a fishing pole at his feet was balanced against the cement waist high wall. 
A younger man, perhaps his son, walked towards him in knee-high black rubber boots that squeaked with each step. Another fishing pole was balanced against the low bridge wall, twenty feet from the first one she had seen. She noted that they seemed content to let the lines hang by themselves, perhaps the size of any expectant fish was too small to requite constant vigilance.
The bridge was flanked by thin reeds and green grasses which rose from the water triumphantly. 
The men talked. She tried to snap a few photos of them.
As she stood with her glass eye open to their encounter, the older man turned towards her, sensing her attention over his shoulders and face. She could see the white of his teeth and then realized it was a smile coming at her from a distance. Her mouth widened as well. She kept looking through the glass eye as he turned back to the younger man and went back to fishing. 

Eternity

Everything about her was different. I felt something with her that I had never felt with other women. Sisterhood. Something.
Whenever we walked down to the beach we saw dolphins. I never saw them when I went without her.
She wore this perfume, Eternity, and it was the only perfume I had ever liked to smell. Others gave me a headache. And maybe it wasn’t just the perfume, maybe it mingled with her perspiration, the trace minerals in the water that ran from her tap, the aroma of foods cooked with lemon and basil. It was colored by the timber of her voice, a soft but deep sound, slightly nasal, her laughter, a thing like a wave crashing against the walls of her chest before it hissed and bubbled out of her open mouth. 

She was the only Greek woman I had ever met, a student on a visa, sitting alone on a balcony overlooking the pacific where it met the Golden Gate Bridge and the Northern California coast, a princess trapped in a tower, watching the mist roll in to swallow the Presidio.
Who could save her? Who in a land of strangers, in a culture where it was politically incorrect to be a prince, where individuality and isolation deserved merit and everything else required therapy, who could rescue her?
That question, the answers she found in books and yoga classes and homeopathic remedies, everything else I have mentioned, that scent mingled with all these things. And as I have said, it was called Eternity.

In October I found a bottle of cheap perfume among a line of scents that called themselves “impressions of the world’s most popular scents.”
Yes, I found an impression of Eternity for seven dollars in the drugstore. I wore it to a PTO meeting. Leaves twirling in empty space between sky and earth, the fog of Pacifica thick and briny, the taste of hot chocolate from the Café’ near the elementary school, my children, still children in that moment, laughing and skipping and running into the arms of their playmates. Their little hands, tender and warm and smelling of dirt and graphite.
That scent came to be entwined with these things too. With sweaters and sitting in a room full of women snipping satin ribbon, the sound of shears cutting through new fabric, their voices, their stories, their children, my children, prancing in the halls beside us as we prepared for the Winter Bazaar. 
I felt a glimmer of it then, like butterfly wings on my cheek.  Strange familiarity or familiar strangeness, warm and glowing, like almost remembering the words to a forgotten lullaby, or waking in a dream.
Sisterhood. Something.
Eternity.

She was gone by then, in October.
Once when we had gone down to the beach we saw a bride and groom with a photographer. The bride's dress was long and white, the veil billowing behind her in a sea breeze as the groom, dressed in black, darted out of the way of the breaking surf. 
She had been married in Greece, when she was 18, and something terrible happened. Her love had abandoned her and she had been dragged out to sea with the other emotional and inarticulate things that whirled about in the cold dark currents.
The noose her groom had  placed around her neck was made from the rope attached to an anchor, and it pulled her into the icy depths where she forgot all of her names, she forgot that she had ever been human.

When the dolphins at last found her and carried her back to the shore, she came to America. In the United States the broken hearted, uncommitted, and antisocial are hip. So here, she lived with an American man who was teaching her how to be alone in the company of others. He was teaching her to loose heart with a smile and a shrug.

But in September, she called me, crying, and she asked if she could stay a few days. I wanted to tell her yes. I wanted to say, “Of course, you’re like a sister to me.” But I couldn’t.
Shortly thereafter she returned to Greece. There were no goodbyes.
At some point I sent her an email remembering the time we stood together in the water at Coyote Point. Children were flying kites and the sun was warm. Standing there in the water with her, I felt as though I was wading in the same sea that brushed the mysterious shoreline of her heart.
Afterwards we lay in the sun and she told me about men she wanted to introduce me to and old friends left in exotic places. The scent of  grass and sunscreen and sweat, mingled with her voice, her pretty vision for me, her sad stories.
And of course there was, encapsulating it all, Eternity.

Tracing Footsteps

I wondered how long could I trace the footsteps.
They were there in the sand for miles, across lands that would later be states and then called by proper names. But for now, it was just land.  Wide open land that crossed pine laden forests thick with owls and foxes and all the creatures that come with such dark mysterious places. 
I would cross myself out of habit, never for one moment believing help would be heaven sent- and after a pause, I entered the darkness of those trees, spooked as much by the unfamiliar sounds as by the lack of light.  My horse would move, sensing my hesitation, feeling the same shift in perception as shadows and the wild creatures of bedtime stories appeared before us dancing. 
Still now I wonder if it was the place where monsters and fairies and wizards were made, there in the darkness of sweet smelling pine. Was it there? Or was it the light- was it me? 
Let me pause as I laugh and reflect, reading the words I have written thus far. Such a mind I have, always trying to land on the truth when there is none. 
It was the darkness and the shapes created by light. It was I, the man upon the horse following the footsteps who saw them.
And they were there, as real as shadows and perceptions.  They played on the thick tree trunks of those mountain pines. I, who lost all bearing as the light vanished.  
Where I had been, where I was going, those thoughts left without a trace of memory, not a single remnant stuck to my boot.  Every rock and bough, every creature with flittering wings was intertwined with my story, and I with theirs.  Here to help or thwart my journey, I could not tell.
So we moved forward cautiously, tasting lightly the treats brought forward by the mountain creatures. The footsteps brought me to those mountains covered in pines and creatures with red and white spotted eyes and to the dwarf women with hair that trailed behind them like fine golden cloth and furry animals covered in stripes and the gold of kings.
The footsteps that had brought me thus far, those footsteps that had crossed the sand covered deserts and stone-fortified towns of the south, the places beyond common language and religion where I had been a foreigner, sometimes god and sometimes devil depending on the most recent tales spun around campfires in the night; those footsteps which I followed had left my mind as well, not just the ground. 
Sitting here now I wonder if I had ever seen them, had they ever truly been sunk into the mud or sand or was it just me again, looking for what I wanted, seeing what I needed? 
And again I laugh, perhaps all those things wrapped up in the leather armor of the young man on that land. That grand land shaped and etched in patterns as varied as the clouds.

Construction

Nothing inside, nothing outside. The construction continues.

There is really only one space that we occupy, it is our relationship to the flow of energy through ourselves and the space which gives the space shape. The form comes from within, from a certain nothingness that hides itself in endless dancing.

A night not too long ago. She was awoken from the silent sweetest of dreams. It was precisely when the first bomb struck the earth, only a block from her house.

She lies now on a hospital bed with her arm nearly severed. Her nervous system recurrently informs her that something has gone drastically wrong. Somewhere, something has gone wrong. It is difficult to place it, difficult to ascertain the nature of the problem. But it's there. Palpable, close.

On the corner of the hospital complex a re-construction project is underway. If she lifts her head up onto the pillows, she can see it from her window.
A flimsy chain link fence surrounds the dusty site, the worn woven metal providing little more than a psychological barrier between the hospital and this budding new project.

She can not recall the details of that night. A night not too long ago. Certainly no details of the day after. No details there. Only dust and clouds and a kind of nothingness full of expectation.
No details.
But she remembers waking in the middle of the night. She remembers smiling, she remembers the feeling of lightness and air. Something rising, something expanding and seeking freedom.
As she was pulled into waking consciousness by sirens and the sound of splintering metal, she felt the softness drain from her mind. Some things can only be felt at certain times, some times are more rare than others. The smile was gone before she knew where it came from.

There is a big gap in the fence, making it easy for the workers to enter and exit. If she lifts her head up onto the pillows, she can see it from her window.
The enclosed area is large, big enough to contain the planned 5000 square foot clinic that will sit here in the near future.
She watches them from her window every day, hour after hour. They provide a kind of solace that she can't find elsewhere, not in the words of the doctors, not in the voice of her relatives through the phone, not in flowers, not in light.

The boy no longer cries. She may feel despair, fear, anger, or more likely a sensation that escapes definition but is nonetheless extremely unpleasant. Her eyes are certainly wide open, watching the strange movements outside. The construction continues.

The ground is made of dirt and the 12 inch boot imprints of construction workers poke the dusty surface. A small handful of construction workers are present, all looking identical in their uniform of blue jeans, white sweatshirts, tan boots and white hardhats.

The crucifix hanging over the bed seems awful, like a foreshadowing of impending punishment. Sacrifice, death, pain, sudden change, sacrifice, punishment, pain, change. The entire mood is sinister.

A night not too long ago. The sound of sirens, a loud explosion, a smile that vanishes.
Before her brain could catch up to her movements, she was already running for her son. The loud echoes of the bomb were still in her ears. There was nothing to do but run, run for him.
A bomb, so close, too close.
After gathering the crying infant in her arms, she ran once again for her husband. She asked what was happening.
"It's them..." was his only reply, and then he left to turn on the TV.  The news sounded like the singing of birds, the words didn't make sense but it seemed as if they were saying something.

Construction has just recently begun, only a dozen metal beams have been put in place to create the foundation of the building. Three steel beams, each almost four hundred feet tall, stand vertically. If she lifts her head up onto the pillows, she can see it all from her window.
Despite the size of the proposed project, there is a quiet calm within the construction site, like the relaxed mood of a warm Sunday afternoon.

She may feel despair, fear, anger, or more likely a sensation that escapes definition but is nonetheless extremely unpleasant.

The small group of men work efficiently with the instilled knowledge of their craft. They move confidently and smoothly, knowing all the necessary steps needed to complete the project. Hardly a spoken word is heard throughout the construction zone, every man knows his role and performs each small task with an effortless ease.

A night not too long ago. The night before the day. The day she can't put together, the missing pieces she can't remember. The day she tries to build within her mind and yet fails, over and over again.
She spent the rest of that long, black night alone in bed, trying to console her crying son and failing once again with the sound of a new explosion. One after another. Sooner or later the sound would be too near, sooner or later the sound would be so near that she would no longer be able to hear, no longer would be able to see, no longer would be able to remember.

Four of them are working on raising a metal frame, the dark metallic frame looks purple in the sunlight and the huge square piece of welded steel rises vertically into the air, forming the skeleton of the new building. With only a couple of men, they manage to lift a thousand tons of metal, there are no cranes or mechanized machines in sight.

Her nervous system recurrently informs her that something has gone drastically wrong. (Memories, flashes of insight, understanding that fades as soon as it announces itself with finality.)
She lies now on a hospital bed with her arm nearly severed. The boy no longer cries.

The form comes from within, from a certain nothingness that hides itself in endless dancing.
There is really only one space that we occupy, it is our relationship to the flow of energy through ourselves and the space which gives the space shape.

The cries of the little boy lasted through the night, never ceasing, never slowing. It was as if he already knew what was coming. As dawn broke, the sounds of explosions continued.
Eventually she got used to the sound. It took a long time. She got so used to it that she forgot all about the danger, all about drastic possibilities of irreversible change.

The boy. A construction worker every so often descends from the top of the highest metal beam.
No longer. His toes are tucked into a groove in the small metal beam and he slides down to the earth slowly, like Dracula with his arms crossed at his chest and still wearing a hardhat.
Cries.

Nothing inside, nothing outside. The construction continues.

Marks

She sees a numeral, a 3. An upside-down triangle.
Beside it, a triangle which points towards heaven.

The sun is long past its peak. The light that now spills over the city is golden and fleeting. The walls of the many downtown buildings glow in a muted shade of orange, the sky above has turned to a pale blue that only holds a faint promise of the darkness to come. There are no clouds, just endless pale blue ever so slowly shifting to gray.

There are more symbols. She can feel them, almost hear them as if they were talking with soft words in a language she can not understand. The shapes have obscured themselves, blending into each other like colored oils. 

She has awoken on a warm bed of light green grass. She had dreamed of a closed door and two men with white horns. But as her eyes flutter open, she is surprised to find herself alone. She lays still for several minutes, tuning into the metronome of her heart, listening to the sounds of the city.

The street is wide and made of multiple lanes of traffic going in both directions. The city is a mixture of ancient and new, old edifices and architecture combined with new street lamps and signs. The street itself is covered with a fresh black layer of asphalt, but the sidewalks are old cobblestone, worn to a shiny finish from years of use. Modern buses wait patiently in traffic beside buildings hundreds of years old.

Two men with white horns. They were speaking. What did the men say? What were they saying?

"In music I will give you the mystery of the baptism of those of the Midst and the manner of invocation for reaching their regions."

A typical late afternoon, a known rhythm. She can sense it all without looking.
Though the sounds seem familiar, there is another sound that lays the foundation to all that she hears. She lays still, focusing, listening. 
It's the sound of distant bells. Earlier they lulled her to sleep here in this quiet little park. Now that same repetition has somehow called her back from the dream. 

"And in gestures I will announce unto you their ciphers and their seals. It will be a dance and the steps will change even as the music changes. You will never know what step comes next just as I never know what step comes next. The sequence will seep into your consciousness like water being absorbed by cardboard. I want your consciousness to become soggy , a formless pulp."

The street is exact and completely straight, breaking from its course only when it meets perpendicularly with another wide road at an intersection. Each lane is full of cars. They wait bumper to bumper, occasionally letting out a desperate honk that does nothing to move the cars ahead of them. 

She brings her warm pink hand to her face, slower than she would have usually moved her arm, so much slower than her habits would dictate. The hand comes towards her as though it needs attention, as though it has just been birthed from the warm folds of silk and is now taking its first breath in a new waterless world. 
Here is bright light.  Here is something that can see. Eyes and a face, a mind to comprehend.

The dainty white hand hovers a few inches above her face, just close enough for minute ripples of alarm to spread as she sees the short sequence of numbers and shapes on her index finger. This was not there when she went to sleep in the middle of the park just a few hours earlier. 

Dark exhaust streams from the back of the city buses. They wait as still as the cars. Nearly hidden inside them are scores of passengers that stare out from the tinted windows with a mixture of helplessness and resigned desperation, unable to do anything to change their fate. An occasional motorcycle weaves its way through the congestion, finding the small pockets of space within the mass of metal and exhaust and horns beeping in useless exasperation.

"And I will give you the baptism of those of the Right, our region, by letting the sun scorch your skin and the eagles eat out your eyes."

It is not just crowded streets, the sidewalks on either side of the traffic are full of pedestrians. Many of them are tourists, clinging to their maps and cameras and staring open-mouthed at the architecture. There are large baroque buildings that take up entire blocks and between them are grand cathedrals on every other corner.

She had gotten into the curious habit of studying her body in the mirror before bed, looking for such strange signs. Why did she start? What made her do it? No clear answers to be found, no clear answers to be stated.
It had turned into a compulsion. She didn’t know what she was searching for when she started. She smiled shyly at herself in the mirror  under flickering candlelight, a bit embarrassed by the nightly ritual. But she did it again and again, looking for something. Night after night, she had only found pale skin and freckles.

But this afternoon something has happened.  She searches her dreams for a clue. A door, white horns. She looks deeper, allowing her body to relax and drift, to begin the journey once again.

"I will give you the great mystery of the Treasury of the Light where all my wealth is stored."

Horses,
a field with a book,
a man’s face she could not see. 

She pulls herself out of the waves and looks at the symbols once again.  She closes her eyes slowly, feeling her heart.  It is calm, there is no fear.  The ripples have faded. 

"I will give you gnosis in order that ye may be called 'children of the fullness, perfected in all the gnosis and all the mysteries."

The tourists walk in small groups, adorned with hats and water bottles. Locals weave through them like the motorcycles, finding the spaces between gawking groups of picture-happy tourists.

She has grown to expect strange things, to hope for them perhaps, though a part of her mind holds onto modesty and stable things like stones and plastic. 
But all things are possible in the labyrinth. Puppets and humans alike play, devising ways to come through the tunnels left wide open in dreams.

One of the oldest buildings in the downtown area is an old church with a long, narrow steeple made of metal. The building itself is constructed from bricks and rises five stories high. On the body of the building, close to the steeple, are open square windows. Inside the windows, within the church, she can see the silhouettes of ancient people, wide open eyes staring out. 
The church building sways softly in the wind, moving slightly to the right and left, then forwards and backwards.

"Blessed are ye beyond all men on earth, for with access to these spheres you will have room to breath. For the children of the Light are come in your time, you are they.
All that is required for an achievement of gnosis is everything.
You who have abandoned the sky father and the earth mother because I have asked it, unto you will I give all mysteries and all gnosis."

A numeral, a 3. An upside-down triangle.
Beside it, a triangle which points towards heaven.

Gallery

I find myself standing inside a modern gallery. Cool bright floors, bright white walls, light breeze streaming through big open windows. At this point I vaguely remember leaving my house, I vaguely remember an afternoon of surprises, unusual circumstances, the sound of laughter, the bright sunlight on the sidewalk, the startled look in the eyes of the guy who gave me the mushrooms, the kids playing baseball, the trees in the distance, the way the clouds looked like oil paintings, the sound of the birds.
"You will laugh so much..."
But now I am inside this gallery, looking at a painting of a mountain. I can't quite remember coming here. It makes sense that I am here, but I can't remember. It just makes sense on its own terms.
I look at the painting.

I see a rocky mountainside, covered halfway up in stones the size of human heads. All the boulders are dark gray and cold and slightly wet. The mountain is wide and tall, it connects to an even larger mountain range to the north. In the distance, the mountains are brown and barren and covered only in scattered patches of dry grass. The sun is hiding somewhere behind a thick haze of clouds.
The day seems new, but somehow drained of energy, as though something very intense has just vanished and what remains is slightly diminished.
It reminds me of the light of the afternoon. This afternoon, not that afternoon. It reminds me.

At the base of the mountain range is a receding sea. The water is dark blue and choppy with white caps. It flows out towards the horizon in a hurry, as though something was waiting for it beyond the thin line of sight. The wide mountain is mostly covered in heavy rocks, but as the mound moves closer to a tip, the rocks become smaller and smaller, until they are just small pebbles hidden between blades of dried grass.

I come to the realization that the painting implies a location for me. Within it, I am inside a small cabin, looking out the window. I can see the frame of the window at the edges of the painting itself. The mountain is outside the window, bright sunlight, blue sky. But inside the cabin it is dark, musty shadows. 
Answers born from questions and questions born from answers tumble awkwardly over one another like dark suited gymnasts. What is that light there, penetrating the apparent serenity of this dark space?
Eerie and blue, it calls to me and points towards a startling terror.
I am not alone here. I am not alone.

There is a movement not far off, something that can see me, just as I can now somehow barely see it. Somewhere beyond the edge of my vision, beyond the frame, within the painting, somewhere in the in between. The nether region beyond my direct sight. Something in there. Somewhere. Something.
The age old questions arise: can this thing hurt me? Should I hurt it first? Who will eat who?

I turn away from the painting. The guy who gave me the mushrooms is looking for a general manager. He is asking questions in rapid fire succession. His hands move up and down. I can't see who he is talking to. Someone else is here. Someone. Somewhere.
I have questions of my own. Where did I meet him? How long ago? Were we good friends at some point in the past? Did we spend many afternoons together, drinking, talking, asking questions, laughing? Did we laugh so much that we came to know each other through our laugher? Have I temporarily forgotten?
His girlfriend is with him. She must be with him. I can't see her. I just see him walking around, moving his hands up and down.
Was I his girlfriend before? Was I someone else? Did I know him at all? Have I ever met him?
There are no clear answers in the gallery. No clear answers here. He is too far away to ask. Too far away to focus. Too far away to listen. Too far away.
I turn back to the painting.

I feel this thing again. Something beside me. In the painting, outside the frame, not in the gallery, not on the surface. And yet right here. Right there. Next to me. Some thing.
This is too close.
It can't be a friend. A friend knocks at the door, a friend calls to you, announces their presence from some distance before coming so near. This can't be a game.
Or are there other ways to play? Ways that belong to creatures far beyond the fear of safety and borders of individuality? Does one thought in my mind announce itself to another before it takes over? Does it knock? Does it ask for permission? Or does it just come in when I'm not looking? When I'm looking elsewhere?

Fear is such an insistent mistress, always calling for my attention, always making bold claims.
Such as this announcement, this sudden claim that this is a matter of life and death. This, right now. 
How can it be? I am standing in a gallery, looking at a painting, sunlight outside, the sound of voices, a guy I may or may not know asking for a manager, cars passing by outside. Safety. The world.
Leap up and attack! Run! Act! Quickly!
Or tell yourself that it isn’t real. It's only your imagination, it's the mushrooms I ate, not too long ago.
It couldn't have been that long ago, it must have been today, earlier today, how long is today? How long does the sun stay up in the sky? What does it mean to ask how long when I can't feel time passing?
There is nothing there. Walk away.

I close my eyes. If I can’t see it, then it can’t see me…so goes the ostrich logic. Leave the hidden things to feast over my reposed form. What do they do while I hide behind closed lids? What do they want?

I turn to another painting. Right next to the first one.
I am now looking into a warehouse. I sense that they would want me to be the manager here. Who are they? How could I know what they want?
They need help keeping track of things, maybe someone is looking for me, just beyond the edge of the painting, looking for the manager, for someone that could be the manager, me. I'm the one they're looking for, I'm the one he's looking for. I can be the manager. I am the manager.   
There is grass on the floor of the warehouse. There are lots of people inside, some of them are watching TV.  A large screen TV in the middle of the room.
I think that it could be relaxing to sit in the middle of a crowd and watch the images flashing on the screen. But the air is stifling, it's too crowded, I need to breathe. I can't sit here the way I'm feeling right now. I can't sit among so many people, I can't.
I look into the TV screen, the one inside this second painting, inside the warehouse that is inside the second painting.
I see the dead horse. His dead eyes stare at me through the screen. Stare at me. Dead horse. Inside.

I am back in the cabin. I don't remember turning back. I must have blacked out, I must have closed my eyes, I vaguely remember closing my eyes before, maybe I've done it more than once, maybe I've been doing it over and over.
Has this happened before? Have I asked these questions already? How long have I been here? 
I'm simply back here. Back in the cabin. And someone, something, is still here with me.

This is that thing, so familiar, so incredibly strange. I know it. That thing that they told me didn’t exist. The thing that was not in my closet, not under the bed, not at my window. The thing that was not.
Sleep they told me, go to sleep. So I did.
But now I can feel it. I am startled by this presence, this “should not be here” that disturbs the peace like a spider falling from the ceiling onto your cheek, a hand where there should be empty space, a pair of eyes in the raw darkness of a garden. Flashing eyes, glowing eyes.
Just inside the cabin, inside the painting, outside the frame, not here where I am, there, not here.
Now I know that it has always been here. It was always in the closet, under the bed, and at my window, then just as now. Now. Here.

I turn away and walk out the back door. I see the mountain once again. Maybe if I leave the cabin behind, the darkness, maybe the thing can't follow.
I step outside, into the fresh air. I breathe deeply. So much better out here. Leave the cabin behind. Finally, I can breathe. This is what I needed. This is what I need.

There is one four foot trail that travels the length of earth from peak to ocean. There are other scattered trails that are much thinner, only wide enough for one person at a time. Close to the shore is a thicket of trees beside a clearing thirty feet wide. They are as tall and thin as eucalyptus, only they have darker and wider leaves and more full reaching boughs that create a wide canopy.

Something is still moving behind me. I would not usually be here, walking on this mountain path. Usually I wouldn't be here. Usually. 
I would not usually perceive that strange glow, should not. I would not hear the rustling, should not. I would not feel my pulse quicken and my eyes snap open.
Keep walking. Keep going. Don't look back.

The clearing is smooth and flat and free of all rocks. Because of the trees, it is covered in a nearly green-black shade. The earth here is damp and smells of wet bark.
To the left of the clearing and the trees is a grouping of dark wood condominiums. The singular structure is angular and modern. It would give off a very cold emotion if not for the wood used to construct it. The collection of two-story houses each have double pane windows and wide sliding glass doorways that face the seashore and the thicket of trees.

These things are ephemeral.
Yes, I have now decided, it is more than one. It is multiplicity itself, it is always many and now more than ever.  Many and I am one. They continue their advance. They.
Why should they worry? I don’t believe that they exist. I have left the cabin, there can't be any thing here, no further thing, no further.
Reason should prevent me from rising to stop them. Why should I try to stop that which doesn't exist?

On the lower floor, beside a sliding glass door, is a dead white horse laying on the ground. Its legs are curled close to its body in the fetal position.

Sleep they told me, go to sleep. So I did. That has always been the way. Where there is nothing, sleep will brush it away. Gentle sleep, calming sleep.
Tell yourself that it isn’t real. It is only your imagination, there is nothing here. Mushroom, light, painting. Nothing there.
I am looking at a painting. This guy I know. He gave me some mushrooms. This is the mushrooms. This is what happens when you eat mushrooms. (Except mushrooms have never been quite like this. Except I can no longer see a gallery or a frame or a painting.)

The glass doors reveal the occupants of the houses. There are people inside. They are swollen and pale and laying on their backs on the damp linoleum of their kitchens. Their bodies are moist, as are the T-shirts and shorts which clothe their bloated bodies. They are not moving but I can see their chests moving up and down. Alive. Moist. Bloated. Inside.

These things are still behind me. I can't think of any other noun to describe them. Things. What do they want from me? What do they want?
Answers born from questions and questions born from answers tumble awkwardly over one another like dark suited gymnasts. I descend into the dark depth blotting them from my mind. Forget that light there disturbing the womb of darkness and retreat into slumber and the comforting illusion of solitude.

There is a rocky mountainside, covered halfway up in stones the size of human heads. All the boulders are dark gray and cold and slightly wet. The mountain is wide and tall, but it connects to an even larger mountain range to the north. In the distance, the mountains are brown and barren and covered only in scattered patches of dry grass. The sun is hiding somewhere behind a thick haze of clouds. The light is still very bright, the kind of light that requires squinting. The day seems new, but slightly drained of energy, as though something very intense has just vanished and what remains is slightly diminished.

I see a woman lying down. She's laying on the ground. Her legs are curled close to her body in the fetal position. Her face is towards me. She looks strangely like me.

There are no things. There is no gallery. There is no painting. There is no horse. Nobody. Nowhere. No.

The Confession

Isa was in a narrow room in the Santa Cruz police station.  There was a window on her right, but only darkness peeked through the frosted glass.  Even though it was dark, both in the room and outdoors, she could sense the moon leaving and the light beginning to change, it was all stirring within her. 
The rectangular room had several rows of individual desks made of steel with wooden tops.  There was a large chalkboard along the front wall (the opposite wall she was facing).  She imagined the officers gathering here in the morning- drinking steaming coffee out of styrofoam cups and hashing out the day’s details while the bullets sat, restless in their chambers. 

She was leaning on one of the hard fake wood surfaces of the desks. Two cops sat in chairs in front of her- they were asking questions. She had been up for 24 hours and knew no better, she filtered nothing.  The lighting was dim, a yellowish black. It was as if she was on stage and they were her audience. Words flew out of her mouth like water, her brain barely registering the questions before her lips would move.
“Where did you get the heroin?” 
“The guys got it from someone downtown.”
“Who gave it to you?” 
“Like, who literally gave it to me?”
They nodded.
“The guys, my boyfriend.”
“Did you shoot it?”
“No,” she said smiling, “We could never find a vein. Ray shot it into my buttcheek, I needed him to do it, it’s a little hard to reach." 
She smiled and they smiled too. She didn’t know that bit of information could lead to a felony charge.
It was almost like the men were not there in front of her, as if she was alone and a milky white film separated her from them. She was beyond tired, she actually felt energized.  Words flew out- every one of their questions got an honest answer.

After questioning she was led back into the room where Ray, Travers and Anne were sitting in a corner on some plastic chairs.  The light was bright and harsh, matching the cold color of the walls.  Their despondent faces, lacking expression and warmth, looked different than the way she felt. 
The two police officers asked Ray to come with them. He was still handcuffed, as was Travers.  They were gone for a while, then they came back in and Ray took a seat while Anne left for questioning. 
Ray mouthed something to her, she couldn't hear him so she made a confused face, scrunching up her eyebrows. 
He mouthed it again:
“You fucked me.” 
She did not really know what he was talking about and looked at him with a blank face, though a cold bit of dread started to bury itself inside her chest. 

A little while later, Anne and Isa were taken to another holding cell towards the front of the jail.  There were two other women in there and a steel bench and a pay phone attached to the cement wall. 
The escorting officer told them they would be released in a little while.  Isa asked about Travers and Ray.
“They’re being charged, they’ll be here a while.” 
Later she realized that it was her words alone that had been used to charge Ray with four felonies. 
Anne and Isa stayed in the holding cell for another hour. Then they were processed, given their confiscated possessions and they walked out the double wide glass doors into the bright morning light.