35. The Children

June 25, 2009 – 8:16 am

Morning-time, the children planted flowers in the desert, long rows of flowers under clay cliffs and a wide blue sky that reminded some of the older children of oceans.

But they had trouble finding water. They had to walk miles to a river with polished stones at the bottom, round as drowned heads. They carried water back to their gardens in buckets. One of the children had to stay behind because he grew tired and could walk no further, and he was very small.

The children stored the water in barrels, and they watered their flowers in the morning as the sun rose and when the wind passed through the little houses and whispered.

At night the coyotes prowled. The children locked their doors and listened. They heard snuffs at the windows and thresholds. They heard paw steps. Scarecrow shapes danced across the moonlight on the floors.

Mornings later, they found that the flowers had bloomed, fluffy reds, yellows smoking with bees, purples slapping at butterflies the size of paper planes. The children praised the water they’d drawn from such long distances. They wept their sacrifice. Some of the children even thanked the coyotes because the prints they made in the sand looked like letters.

“Do you think they’ll ever come home?” asked a girl, as the children admired the flowers.

“Maybe they’ll see them and come home,” said another girl.

“I miss them,” the girl said. “Maybe they’ll be here in the morning.”

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34. He and She

June 24, 2009 – 8:51 am

She left on his side of the bed: a sweaty bra, underwear (His) tied in a thick knot, and a spongy blood-soaked tampon.

He wrote her: “You win.”

In the old days He and She made fires in a backyard pit and smoked out the neighbors, who gathered on the street for protests.

“We’ll stop, but only if you give up turkey and Christmas trees,” He and She said, conditions to which the neighbors agreed, reluctantly, as this would interrupt a few hundred years of nap time.

The dry weather came. Winters drove everyone into the shadows. It rained in the morning, froze hard in the afternoon, and the pipes burst. Wendy was found at the bottom when the lake started moving again and her mother wandered the streets at night wailing the memory of Wendy’s short life.

Jimmy asked everyone over and He and She found a turkey packed hard and happy in his basement freezer.

“That does it,” She said, and the next night they dug a new pit and built a bonfire and smoked the neighbors out into clouds of insects and the men took Jimmy and hung him in the field by his neck until he shat his pants.

Wendy’s mother wandered at night wailing and drove most people mad. He and She drove home with groceries, livestock, and eggs. He told Her about the desert, how after rain frogs would leap street to street by the bushel and the sun was like a government crack down.

“Well, that’s how hot it was,” he said. “In the desert they say that the difference between men and women is blood and nothing else, not planets or genes or any other variable.”

She extracted a pad from between her legs and said, “Is this proof? Men will never know how this feels.”

“And I’m glad of it. Besides,” he said, “I can do nothing about it.”

“Do you see Wendy’s father on the streets at night? And what about Jimmy? It was the men who hung him from the tree.”

“Wendy’s old man killed himself,” he said. “Don’t you remember? When they raised the car from the muck and found poor Wendy in the front seat with a cell phone in her mouth and the seat strap still on. He killed himself the next day. That’s what I mean.”

She returned after opening His letter. She took a knife and cut her hand and gave him a small puddle of blood as a means for Him to provide unuttered apology. He cupped his palms and accepted the liquid and drank it. “Blood is hot and salty,” He said. “I’m somewhat curious now about your bloody tampons.”

She untied the underwear. He washed His and Hers sweaty workout stuff. They had sex when the moon turned pink. They buried grapefruit and plums and waited for the trees to grow.

The neighbors gathered at the windows like cartoon mice. They watched in at the two, He and She loving one another, doing the laundry, dining by peach-colored candles, digging into one another for secrets with small silver shovels until they hit clay and stone. The neighbors fretted at the perpetual bonfire but no one complained and no one made promises.

Then one day He and She were gone, the house empty. The neighbors crowded to the windows nonetheless, wondering if they should dance, sing, or join Wendy’s mother at night for wailing in the streets.

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33. The Thieves

June 23, 2009 – 8:55 am

The three thieves considered their next move.

“We lost Jimmy in the department store job, Bobby on the bank job,” said the Leader, who stared at a 7-11 across the street.

“And there’re only three of us left,” said the Second in Command.

Which left the Third in Command to say: “Well, which one of us will go next do you think?”

“If it’s me,” the Leader said, “you won’t have a Leader.”

“Or, if it’s you then I’ll become the leader,” said the Second in Command.

“And then I’ll be next in line,” said the Third Thief.

“Jimmy knew all about bombs,” said the Leader. “Now we have no one who knows about bombs.”

The Second Thief said, “And Bobby knew all about safes. Now we have no one who knows about safes.”

“That’s not good,” said the Third Thief. “I don’t know anything about bombs or safes.”

“And what do you know about?” said the Leader, but not really in an interested way.

“Guns,” said the Third Thief. “I can shoot a gun. Hell, you know that.”

“So can I,” said the Second Thief, as if everyone could or should know how.

“Well,” said the Third Thief, “if we lose you in the next job at least there’ll be someone in this crew who can shoot.”

“If I didn’t know no better, I’d think you were plotting against me,” said the Second in Command. “You been plotting against me forever.”

“I’m not plotting against you,” said the Third Thief. “I just want to know if they’ll take you down next. I need to prepare. It could happen. It could be me. Anything could happen.”

“I think you are. You want to be me, who’s Second in Command. You want me out of this outfit. Maybe on the next job, you’ll lock me out or push me into the line of fire or forget to give me the signal.”

“What signal?” said the Third Thief.

“You know, the signal.” The Second Thief shook his fist and made a few other motions.

“Oh that signal,” the Third Thief said.

“Quit it,” said the Leader, who was watching the 7-11, the people entering, people pumping gas, how every movement had a part to play.

“He started it,” said the Second in Command, “thinking he’s the only one who knows how to shoot a gun.”

“I don’t care who started it,” said the Leader. “Now, should we do something big or small? A 7-11, a bank, do some houses?”

“Houses,” said the Third in Command. “We should do houses.”

“Bank,” said the Second in Command. “We should do a bank.”

“I’m thirsty,” the Leader said.

“Well, if we do houses we can get something to drink there,” said the Third in Command.

“Like what?” the Second in Command asked.

“Water maybe. A coke. Liquor. Whatever they have in the refrigerator,” the Third in Command said. He scratched himself under his chin. “It’s hot in here.”

“Open a window,” the Leader said. “If we do houses we’ll need to find the houses that we want to do. And shooting isn’t going to come in all that handy if we do do houses. We don’t want anybody dying.”

“Neither would bombs come in all that handy,” said the Second in Command “But without Bobby, we won’t be able to get at the insides of the safes,” the Second in Command added, appearing to change his mind.

“I’m thinking 7-11s,” the Leader said. “Then you all could shoot if it came to pass that we needed shooting done just in case. Like if the cops showed up or the cashier didn’t do what I said. It could get tense. 7-11s and houses are different. There are different rules.”

“Like when we did those convenience stores in Reno,” the Third Thief said. “When we met Bobby and you shot that guy behind the counter and his dog.”

“I didn’t mean to shoot him,” said the Second in Command.

“But you shot him just the same,” said the Third in Command. “Boom, right in the face. Remember how loud it was, like an explosion, and all the smoke. The guy just dropped behind the counter. It happened so fast. I didn’t know you’d shot the guy till after it had happened.”

“Well how else would you have known it?” the Leader said.

The Third in Command said, “It was just that I wasn’t expecting it. So it was only after it happened that I expected it.”

“I didn’t mean to shoot him,” the Second in Command said. “But I could tell he was going for the alarm. He was going for the alarm. I had to shoot him and his dog that wouldn’t stop yapping even after we opened that package of bacon.”

“All the smoke,” said the Third in Command. “It was a lot of smoke. And we only got a few twenties out of the thing. All that trouble for a few twenties.”

The Second Thief said, “If the dog had just eaten the bacon.”

The Leader was looking out his window at the 7-11. He tapped his fingers on the wheel. “Maybe we should do houses. We can’t do a bank because we lost Bobby. And we have no one to cook up distractions and take out walls. You all should maybe learn about safes and bombs.”

“So,” said the Third in Command, “which one of us do you think’ll be next? We lost Bobby and we lost Jimmy. Who do you think’s next.”

“I’m thirsty, too,” said the Second in Command. “I’ve been thirsty for freakin ever.”

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32. The Elusive White Fish

June 22, 2009 – 8:49 am

Pelgram in a small boat brought up a red fish. He removed it from the hook and fed it into a bucket, the scales and fins slipping across his skin like cold coarse rope.

“The test is for the elusive white fish, if you want to be like us,” his friend, the fisherman said. “It’s less about what we do than about how we think.”

Next Pelgram brought up a blue fish. He removed it from the hook and added it into the bucket where it swam with the red fish.

“Red fish, blue fish,” the fisherman said. “Ha.”

A few hours later Pelgram had an orange fish and a yellow fish. The trawlers were coming in. The water at the east edge of the harbor had turned black and the moon threatening.

Other fisherman called to Pelgram as they passed. “Have you caught the white fish?”

“It’ll be dark soon,” Pelgram called.

“The white fish can be difficult,” another man called. “You’re running out time.”

Pelgram and his friend fished by a dim lamp. Midnight comes with a certain, transitional stillness. Pelgram suddenly caught the joke, a wide joke, a thing typically shared among friends. He could feel the fisherman smiling at him through the dark. The lamps on the shore were small like sand grains and the sloshing of the water suggested an impending dawn.

Pelgram shook his head. He was sure the fisherman understood. Pelgram took the bucket and dumped the blue and the red and the yellow and the orange fish back into the water. He filled the bucket and placed it into the bottom of the little boat, the entire country of China at his back, the small skittish moon wobbling in the bucket.

“Let’s go home,” the fisherman said.

“Okay,” Pelgram said. Then Pelgram drew a peach out of his jacket and gave it to the fisherman. He took out another peach. He bit into it and let the juice run between his knuckles.

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31. Jazz Rex

June 21, 2009 – 12:13 pm

Once upon a time, in a land far away, wise men came to a king and said, “For our relief from famine, disease, and rampant job loss, a child must be birthed in the Pool of the Moon tomorrow and then promptly killed.”

“And where shall we find such a sacrifice?” the King asked.

“The Queen is with child, your excellency. She’s scheduled for birth tomorrow. Remember the famine, the disease, and all the unemployed.”

“I decree it so, though it saddens me,” the King said.

The wise men said, “Such a birth will bring the kingdom good luck. The child must be killed and the blood must turn the face of the moon red.”

“I get it,” said the King. “Inform the Queen.”

The Queen, who had spies everywhere, fooled the wise men and her husband by having birth induced in the morning. She paid a mysterious traveller to rush the child from the kingdom, wrapped in a colorful serape, and to safety.

“Do you have it?” she asked a maid, once the child was gone.

“Yes,” her maid said, bringing a piglet.

The Queen hid the piglet under her clothes, went into the water covered in a black cloth, as the ritual required, and pretended to give birth under water, and when her screams grew loudest, she raised a knife and stabbed the piglet underwater, who had already drowned. The King and the wise men saw the moon turn pink and were satisfied, murmured the proper prayers, and departed the Pool of the Moon, proclaiming an end to the kingdom’s sorrows.

The mysterious traveller rode all day and all night, indeed for all of several weeks, and entered a neighboring kingdom, which was known as the Enemy Kingdom, and gave the child to that kingdom’s Queen, who had no children.

“This is my enemy’s child. How could we raise such a beast,” the Enemy King said.

The Enemy Queen, who loved the child, told the King, “Think of the revenge. Years to come this child will kill his father, your enemy. To make things even better, he might even marry his mother, and have sex with her that they will both enjoy, thus making knowledge of such sex a bitter pill indeed.”

“As always, you are a genius,” said the Enemy King.

But the Enemy Queen could not imagine her son having sex with his real mother as she saw, as he grew into a man, a boy whose face meditated over the flowers, a boy more given to Jazz music than incest and fratricide.

On his sixteenth birthday, the Enemy Queen told her son that he must flee the kingdom with his Quartet.

“But mother,” he said. “I have gigs in town.”

“My son, you must depart, and flee your father, who will soon send you to the Enemy Kingdom to make war with the King there and murder him.”

“Then we must make peace with our enemy,” the Son said. “It’s simple.”

“Peace is an unknown concept to us,” the Queen said.

The King, who had his spies everywhere, learned of his Son’s plans for peace. “Then he shall be killed, the traitor, if that’s his intent.”

Early morning, the Queen said, “Did you bring it?”

“Yes,” the Son said, “A goat for slaughter. Do you think this will work, mother?”

“Blood is blood,” the Queen said, “and these Kings, they’re never very bight.”

“Where will I go?” the Son asked.

“Anywhere but here,” the Queen said.

Just as the King and the guards burst into the Son’s room to murder him, the Queen screamed, swung her sword, sliced through a body covered by a white sheet, and kicked her son out the big window and into a rushing river below.

“I’ve murdered our Son for his treacherous thoughts,” she said, her arm sleeved in blood. “His heart was too full of peace.”

“Your deeds will be sung for years to come,” the King said. “While my means of revenge have gone into the river, at least we know that the Enemy King’s son is no more.”

The son was guided into the kingdom of the enemy by a mysterious traveller. This traveller told the son, “You must hide in the Enemy Kingdom, take on a new identity, and never reveal it.”

The Son with his Quartet found an apartment and lay low. The wind blew hot and the streets were covered in dust. They walked the city dressed as merchants. The Son, growing bored, asked at a local tavern if they could entertain the night customers.

“How will you entertain them? This is a rowdy bunch, and you, you are so young and small.”

The Son, now known as the Band Leader, called his crew together and they played a short song by building a rhythm on dirty glasses, beer kegs, and utensils. The tavern keeper said, “This is amazing. You shall play tonight and we shall see what comes to pass.”

“Huzzah,” said the drummer.

“What he said,” said the Son. “We are but poor players and we shall serve you, Tavern Keeper.”

The first night, the crowd settled into the music after grumbling and then refused to leave the tavern, they so loved this new sound. “What is this music?” they wanted to know. “It refuses to leave our ears. It’s like birds, stones, and water all wrapped into one sound. It reminds us of love, disaster, and the fact that we don’t have jobs and our children have disease.”

Soon word spread throughout the Kingdom and to the ears of the King and Queen, who ruled without children, the Queen refusing the King’s advances as she feared his wise men.

“Bring the musicians,” the King said. “I would have a royal concert. My people have come awake. And new markets have been created. What are these music machines, these turn tables? What are these iPods, laser disks, these warehouses for storing goods, and inventions that have cured disease. My people are working, inventing, and spreading their ideas throughout the world, even into the Enemy Kingdom.”

“They bring immorality,” the wise men said. “Lust for music is the same as lust for the unwed and these inventions are the inventions of demons.”

“Bull shit,” said the King. “Bring the players.”

The Quartet was brought. The Band Leader’s players huddled about their equipment. The Son whispered, “Play like you’ve never played before.”

And they did. The King and the Queen and even the Wise men shook in their chairs and followed the beat with their chins. The King and the Queen danced, and after the performance, the King declared the band leader his son and the other members of the band his new Son’s brothers.

“You,” said the King, “shall inherit this land, Band Leader, for I have no one else to provision it to.”

“Yes,” the Queen said. “I shall love you as only a mother can.”

“I will love you like a father and you like a mother,” said the Band Leader.

“And now, guards,” said the King, “inform the wise men that they come to the Pool of the Moon tomorrow, for we have much to discuss with them.”

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30. On the Phone with Barbara

June 20, 2009 – 11:00 am

She was on a cell call with Barbara. A night storm had blown in.

“I really need that number,” Barbara said.

“I have it in the office,” she said. She started for the office from the living room. “And how’s James?” she asked.

“Good, good. The cast should come off in a few days. He’s such a baby.”

She paused in the kitchen to pour a quick glass of wine. “I think the number’s on the desk.”

“Sorry I lost it. But it’s important,” Barbara said.

Just as she got to the living room, the lights went out. She heard the house power down. She heard clicks, a chirp from some appliance going off. She felt the quiet of blackness, it’s drift through the neighborhood. A great burst of lightning lit the windows followed immediately by a thunder clap.

“Jesus,” she said.

“What happened?” Barbara asked.

“Just lost power. I need a flash light.”

“Are you okay?”

“Of course,” she said. “I have a flash light in the kitchen. It’s really dark.” Her eyes adjusted slowly to the blackness. The wind blew against the walls. She could hear rain shatter on the roof. In the kitchen, she felt for the lower cabinet with the flash lights.

“I’ll get a flash light and then get the number for you.”

“Thanks,” Barbara said. “I’m sorry I lost the number. Hope you’re okay alone.”

“It’s the not the first time,” she said. “Where is that flash light? Maybe I left it in the den.”

“Sorry,” Barbara said. “Why don’t you just call me back. I can wait a few more minutes.”

The rain calmed on the roof. She hated losing power and in such a storm as this. Now that she was alone, waiting for the power to come back on was different.

“Let me try the den,” she said.

She turned to leave the kitchen. In the doorway to the hall, the frame gray in the blackness, she saw a shape standing that might have been a man.

“Are you okay?” Barbara asked. “You can just call me back. Are you okay?”

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29. Bean Dip

June 19, 2009 – 8:14 am

Cruz loved bean dip. Bean dip and fritos. He usually bought one container of bean dip and ate it with disciplined slowness. He’d once rushed through the bean dip and, after a light lunch, filled his plate with corn chips and encountered just two substantial remaining scoops. He’d had to put most of the chips back. The chips made depressing clatter sounds as they fell back into the bag.

Cruz decided one day to purchase two containers of bean dip. This, he figured, would free him up to eat better helpings of bean dip on his chips on a more regular basis and without having to worry about running out at an inappropriate time.

“I bought two cans of bean dip this time,” he told his girl friend, Maricela. “This way I don’t have to worry about running out at a time when I really want it.”

“Okay,” Maricela said, “but you may find that this is a good way to generate complication in the ongoing story of your life, Cruz, which some writer may express in small chunks.”

“Nonsense,” Cruz said. “This’ll solve all my problems, at least in regards to bean dip.”

Cruz opened the first can of bean dip and loaded up his corn chips with big tasty helpings. He didn’t even worry about keeping the inside walls of the can clean, curling the smooth paste onto the chip by curving it against the edge. It pleased him that he could eat half the can and not have to worry about running out.

“This is heaven,” Cruz said. “Why didn’t I think of this before.”

Marcela just shrugged and dipped her chip into the bean dip.

“Have more,” Cruz offered. “Remember there’s another can.”

But when Cruz opened the other can after a ham sandwich, he found that the original problem appeared again, like the repetition of shapes in two facing mirrors.

“This is amazing,” Cruz told Marcela. “You were right. This is indeed a complicating element in Cruz’ story, albeit trivial, but perhaps relevant to other areas of life which may bear further investigation. We killed that first can of bean dip as if it had been free. But now that I have the second can opened, it’s just like having purchased one can in the first place. I’m just going to run out again if I don’t ration each helping.”

“That’s what I tried to tell you before,” Marcela said, “but you wouldn’t listen.”

“That’s another issue altogether,” Cruz said. “Regardless, I must pursue this phenomenon. Next time I’m at the store, I’ll purchase three cans of bean dip, perhaps four. This should solve all my problems.”

“At least as they regard bean dip,” Maricela said.

“Of course. This has nothing to do my other problems.”

Marcela said, “But you already know what’s going to happen, Cruz. Why make yourself crazy? Why make me crazy?”

“Making myself or you crazy is another issue altogether,” Cruz told Maricela. “Yet another conflict in the story of Cruz’s life.”

“And mine,” Maricela said.

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28. The Boys

June 18, 2009 – 8:31 am

Two young boys, Henry and Teddy, aspired to tree climbing. Henry asked his mother for permission to play in the woods behind the house.

“Of course,” Mother said. “But stay nearby. Teddy’s father should be here soon and I don’t want to go looking for you.”

The boys hustled into the woods to climb Henry’s favorite tree. On the lower branches, Henry’s father had started the floor of a treehouse.

Teddy reached for a limb. Then the boys heard leaves crunch behind them, and when they turned they saw a bear emerge from the bushes and sit down and watch them with small back eyes.

“Henry,” Teddy said. “Henry.”

“Did you hear that?” Henry said.

“What?” Teddy said, frozen.

“You didn’t hear him say that?”

“Say what? Let’s run Henry.”

“He says we need to follow him or he’ll kill us.”

Teddy started to cry. Ice cubes hung from Henry’s wrists. “He says if you don’t stop crying, he’ll eat you up.”

Teddy’s stopped crying.

The bear rose and made his way into the woods. Teddy and Henry followed; they didn’t want to be eaten.

Sometimes the bear stopped and looked back, made sure. Henry and Teddy followed the bear by a glade where a leaning shed rotted. They followed the bear into trees whose trunks were as wide as cars. They heard a waterfall. When they came to the top of a ridge, they looked onto the earth and felt they would fall into mist.

In the morning, they found a pile of nuts and berries for breakfast. “The bear says we should eat,” Henry said, sniffing.

“I wanna go home,” Teddy said.

“Me too,” Henry said. “But the bear says he’ll eat us of we don’t do what he says.”

“I don’t care. I want to go home. Why does he want us to follow him?”

In the afternoon, they came to a valley filled with children, tiny children, obviously carried here by teeth, and older children who’d grown up in the valley. The children had made tree houses. They ate nuts and berries and sometimes caught and cooked squirrels. The bears oversaw it all, laughing at the smoke of the cook fires.

“They want us to take care of you two,” said two older boys to Teddy and Henry.

“I wanna to go home,” Teddy said. “I want my father.”

“We’ll take care of you,” the boys said.

“They look hungry?” a girl said.

Days later, gathering berries, Henry fell and gave himself painful skins. The older boys felt around Henry’s knees other, deeper injuries. Henry’s little knees, his blood, made one of the older boy’s cry.

“What’s the matter with you,” an older girl said, angry.

“Look at his little knees,” the weeping boy said. “They remind me of fragile things.”

On a night white with moon swell, Henry and Teddy sat with other children. One of the boys, whose hair had grown to his knees, shushed them all with a finger. “Teddy and Henry have reminded us of our parents. I came here because I got angry one day and ran away. I followed the bear. But now I want to go home, too. We’re going home.”

“How?” said another boy.

“We’ve been building weapons. We have bows and arrows, spears and clubs. We’re ready.”

“But the bears bring us food,” said a boy. “We can’t just kill them all.”

“I don’t remember how I got here,” someone said.

“The bears’ll be asleep soon. We move then, all of us together in a long line going south.”

Henry and Teddy grasped clubs, which was a new sensation. They’d never used clubs. They’d never killed anything. But Henry wanted to go home. He wondered what his mother was doing, thinking. He imagined she must be in enormous pain. The boy who led them made a signal in the dark.

The children heard a roar and some of them scattered. Henry saw a black shape leap at a girl and wrap its mouth around her arm. Two girls drove into the side of the bear with sharpened sticks. Some of these children had been with the bears for years and had become as strong as the bears themselves.

It was almost instantaneous. Henry swung his club at a noise. He felt a painful thump. He crouched. He and three others took their clubs to a bear until it lay eyeless in the moonlight. Henry and his companions felt no need to run. Teddy’s head dripped with animal blood. Soon they were attacked by a giant bear who came at them with an arrow in his eye. Ten children clubbed at the bear’s legs until it bellowed and ran to save its life.

Later the next day, Henry and Teddy drank water from the stream. They washed the blood from their bodies in the waterfall. They ate a lunch of berries. They felt a presence in the thick bowled trees and paused to watch as the shed slowly rotted into the ground.

Somewhat clean and very tired from walking, they emerged from the woods to find empty space where Henry’s house used to be. The remnants of plumbing stood like crooked writing. Into the distance, house after house, city after city–all had been wiped from the face of the earth–

or

Somewhat clean and very tired from walking, they emerged from the woods to hear his Henry’s mother calling out: “Teddy, You’re father’s here.”

or

Somewhat clean and very tired from walking, they emerged from the woods and entered Henry’s house by the back porch.

“Mama,” Henry said. “I’m home. We’re home. You shoulda seen it.”

In the living room, Henry’s mother watched them race down the hall. “Mama,” he said. “Mama.”

“Who are you,” she said. “I don’t know you any more.”

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27. His Life

June 17, 2009 – 8:48 am

One day, he woke up. Amazing, he thought, I can feel my skin impacting the air and the rain on my face. So, this is my life, he said.

He went to the Priest and the Priest said, Yes, this is your life.

Then this, this is my life then?

Yes, the Priest said.

This is it? he said, not quite sure. This air, this street, this country?

Lord, yes. God would make it better, though, the Priest said. Here’s the Bible. Carry it in your pack whenever you need reminding.

He woke up the next day with God and said, so, this is my life now.

He went to the Buddha and the Buddha said, Yes, this is your life. Even with God in it, it’s still your life. This air, this country, this street.

And this skin, which I can feel impacting the air. It’s strange, He said. I woke up one day and realized that this is my life.

That sometimes happens, the Buddha said. You should carry the Buddha with you, though. This small bronze statue, put it in your pack.

He did. He woke up with God and the Buddha and said, this is my life now.

The Imam said, yes, this is your life. It’s amazing isn’t it to feel your skin. Do whales feel the water or do they simply pass through it?

I don’t know, but I wonder. He said, Are you sure it’s not some other person’s life, an “I” I don’t know deep inside me?

No one else’s but yours, the Imam said, as some “I” would still be a part of you. But since it is your life, you should carry Allah with you. Put this Koran in your pack for reminding.

He did. His life went with him everywhere, like a bird tied to his ear by string, and with it he carried God, the Buddha, and Allah.

He talked to the Priestess. Do you see the earth and the universe around you? the Priestess asked. You are made of the very same stuff as that.

I don’t actually see it, but I feel my skin impacting it, or used to. It seems so profound, he said. Everything emanates.

You should carry the Earth with you, said the Priestess. Put some dirt in your pack so you will always be reminded.

He found the Technologist at a corner cafe and showed him his pack and the Technologist said, It wouldn’t be complete without a computer. Carry this laptop with you and it will remind you of digital epiphany.

And so he carried God, the Buddha, Allah, Earth, and a computer in his pack, and found himself growing tired, his life had become so heavy, having God, Buddha, Allah, Earth, and a computer in the pack he carried. Soon he couldn’t remember what it was like not to bear the weight and people asked him why he dragged that pack with his on his rounds. Others asked why he didn’t carry more things, such as a moon pebble, a balance, and an alarm clock.

I can’t help it, he told them all. It’s my life. I keep forgetting that, as habits set in, and my surfaces grow numb, and the pack reminds me, but he realized, and upon waking one morning the notion was reinforced by a dream about racing water, that day by day on his travels all he could feel now was the pack, its straps on his shoulders, and that its weight had drowned out the sound of the rain.

Is this my life, bearing this pack? The weight of the pack persisted even after he laid it aside for the night.

On the street, he was attacked by a gang. They said, Give us your pack or we’ll take away your life.

At first he felt that he would brain each of the thieves with the heavy pack, which made a good weapon, but these thieves appeared forlorn, hungry, and ephemeral. He felt that they really didn’t understand what they were saying. He said, here, take it. It’s yours. It took all of them working together to drag the pack away.

Next day, he woke up and he said, this is my life. I’m still here. Outside, it was raining. He felt an impulse to go walk in it.

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26. The Politician

June 16, 2009 – 8:24 am

The Politician started a Twitter account and soon had one thousand Followers.

He tweeted: I hate all of you.

They voted him into office on a landslide.

He tweeted: CNN at 10. Watch me eat a baby.

They watched CNN at 10. He held a screaming baby by the ankle and ate it whole, chewing slowly. He drew a femur out of his throat, held it by two fingers, and said, “Where’d that come from?”

Someone tweeted: Did you see that Politician eat a baby on CNN? Unbelievable.

A follower said: You must be seeing things. Baby, swallow, chew, bone. It proves nothing.

The Politician soon accumulated 500,000 followers.

He tweeted: You all are a bunch of egg layers.

The great Twitter host tweeted back: We lay eggs, we lay eggs. It’s so true.

They voted him into office for a second term.

The Politician tweeted: On CNN at 10. Announcement on a bill to lay claim to the Moon.

They watched him say, “Who dares make a counter offer with so many powerful weapons on our side? Besides it’s a sweet deal. What would happen if aliens came? Then the world’s nations would have to deal with them!”

A tweet went out: This is the best thing that ever happened in my life.

The Politician tweeted: I’d eat all of you if you all weren’t so full of gristle.

A tweeter tweeted: He’s so purposeful. He’s so handsome. He takes the bull by the horns.

Another tweet: Let’s make him our king.

Another: Let’s give him our babies to eat and then he could be king and eat our babies.

Another: What babies? Stop that baby nonsense.

The Politician tweeted: I hate all of you egg layers.

They voted him in for a fourth term.

A tweeter tweeted: But his hair. Have you all seen. I don’t know if I can live with that hair. Let’s look for someone with better hair.

The Politician tweeted: CNN at 10. See my new hair.

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25. Computer Leon and the Robots

June 15, 2009 – 8:19 am

Computer Leon’s robots embarked on what might be called a change of state. In the basement, where he worked on his gadgets, the robots somehow got into a rarely used subroutine algorithm Computer Leon had called SelfAssessmentCycle(), a class of objects he’d buried deep and assigned as private so as to keep this language inaccessible, until Leon could disentangle the complexity, to the everyday workings of his machines.

The purpose of SelfAssessmentCycle() was a means for the robots to assess their environment and judge an agent’s likelihood to make errors in any of a range of abilities and circumstances. First, the environment was scanned and agents found within the environment were simply identified as on or off.

“On or off could also mean breathing or not breathing,” he told Computer Geek Woman.

“Amazing,” she said.

Ascertaining agent health proceeded from there via BaseSystemsCheck(). Once completed, the higher level analysis began, evaluating whether Agent 0, for example, was likely to misinterpret an order, miscalculate a distance, overheat the tea water, misidentify a life form on another planet as little more than a shadow in the oxygenless rocks, or forget to take the proper dosage.

BaseSystemsCheck() would parse the data and shoot a Tweet to Computer Leon, warning him of suspected deficiencies.

One day, Computer Leon received a terce Tweet that said: ComputerLeon BaseSystemsCheck: Your bones are going soft; your vision is 60/30; your judgement is questionable; your dietary fiber is inadequate. e/s/c Robo1 5h ago via Motherboard

He deleted this as an anomaly and went to breakfast, where his wife said, “I thought I heard laughter in the basement last night. It was very strange.”

“The hell you say,” Computer Leon said.

His wife moved close to his face and said, “You dismiss me at your friggin’ peril.”

“Sorry,” he said.

The next morning Computer Leon received another Tweet: ComputerLeon BaseSystemsCheck: Your bones are going soft; your reason is questionable; you remind us of The Blob, you’re gaining so much weight. e/s/c Robo1 6h ago via Motherboard.

“The hell . . . ” Computer Leon began.

One of his robots, a small mouse-like machine, was inching along the floor, pausing at food particles. Robo1, the core machine, or Node Central, was writing ABCs onto a drawing tablet across the room. A disk-shaped machine, slowly and smoothly, followed the Mouse, vacuuming the floor.

Computer Leon cranked up his workstation and ran a diagnostic. He opened his IDE and read through symbol work and found that some of the access specifier’s had been revised from private to public. In addition, mysterious manipulations, subtle to be sure, had been made. He promptly revised these, saved, and clicked to recompile.

The robots powered down. A few hours later, all robots powered up again and the little machines plus Robo1 got back to their specified duties.

“Maybe I write code in my sleep,” Computer Leon told Dan the Computer Man and Computer Geek Woman, each reading over Leon’s shoulder.

“Those modifications are pretty streamlined,” Dan the Computer Man said. “You should write all your code in your sleep.”

The next morning Computer Leon received this Tweet: ComputerLeon BaseSystemsCheck: Two can play at this game. Robo1 6h ago via MotherBoard.

Computer Leon felt a chill crawl the width of his neck. He sensed the strange, moist friction of the roundness of his eyes slide against the socket walls. He thought of Hal, late nights with the Terminator, creeping battles through jungles with gritty, stainless steel androids, then he remembered his configurations charts, which graphically illustrated all his systems and how information flowed through them, all tidily rolled, like blue prints, in his draftsman’s desk.

He unrolled several sheets. He could find nothing in the charts to illustrated how Robo1 could rewrite its code, access locked nodes, tap into recesses where no mind was meant to play.

His wife called down the stairs. “Leon, someone turned the fridge is off.” Later, “Leon, my car won’t start.” Later, “Leon, my password’s been changed on my computer.” Later, “Leon, all I can get are the Discover and SciFi Channels.”

Computer Leon moved from appliance to appliance, turning this and that back on, rewriting passwords, shaking the remotes. Downstairs, the mouse moved slowly across the floor; Robo1 was now at its addition problems, its joints squeaking in the dark; and the vacuum puttered over the carpet. He opened his IDE and went to reading through code and found parameters altered, several unfamiliar methods baked into classes, routines that appeared to spread operations and calculations beyond what Computer Leon had ever imagined. Some of the instructions were an unreadable syntax.

He watched the mouse make its way to the couch and disappear underneath. He felt watched. Robo1 had stopped writing math problems. Then it started again, scratching at its pad with a claw-like, synthetic hand.

Computer Leon sent a Tweet to Motherboard: What do you want? he asked. “Who the hell are you?”

Within moments, he got this: ComputerLeon SystemMail: Get your eyes checked; 20% more fiber should do the trick; your wife hates you; and never ever never ever recode us. e/s/c Robo1 2sec ago via Motherboard

“What the hell,” Computer Leon said.

He got an immediate response: ComputerLeon SystemMail: The hell you say. Robo1 1sec ago via Motherboard.

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24. Remember When

June 14, 2009 – 9:40 am

You’re scared by a stuffed, gray bear. The roll of its head when jostled is a little too human. Sometimes, when the light’s right (or wrong), you see lust in its reflective eyes. You attribute this to your own sensitivities, to your own habits, to the fact that you’re having difficulty sleeping at night, wondering at the rustles in the garden, the scratching in the walls, the discordant thumps on the wood floors upstairs.

You never see the bear actually move. One night you watch it. It’s on the bed beside the woman you sleep with. You know the woman’s moved because the bear leans a little bit, turns to you, thinks to itself, “It’s late. A wonderful time for wakefulness.”

When you were ten, a wasp stung you on the thumb. Your brother caught his foot on the divisions of the tracks. He pointed his bionic limb at you last Thanksgiving and said, “Remember when . . . ”

The old man in the house next door has threatened the postal worker. You stand at the window and watch him struggle to the curb on his bum knees just as the letter carrier has driven away. He pulls the papers out of his mailbox, rips them up, and tosses them onto the street where they are further scattered by occasional traffic.

The woman you sleep with waves goodbye. You say, “Have a good day at work.”

She says, “The insomnia’s killing you. Try to get some sleep.”

You think you might try. You go into the bedroom and find that the little gray bear isn’t on the bed. You hear the sharp but inexact sounds of clawing in the walls, mice maybe, perhaps a Carpenter Bee at work, which you know you can do nothing about. The weight in your feet almost hurts. Your shoulder blades feel like they’re trying to chop through thick, wet plaster.

You hear breathing. Something says, maybe from under the bed, “Remember when . . . ” The voice is glubby and slow and accusatory, like a sacramenting priest frustrated by love. It reminds you of the time your mother said, “The devil’s waiting for those who sin without remorse. If stones spoke, they would speak with the devil’s blue tongue.” You understood none of this, but at the sound of the voice a cold snake rushes up your back and bites you with on the neck.

You hear the voice again. “Remember when,” it says.

On the street, the old man is screaming at the letter carrier. The little gray bear is under the bed waiting for you to get down on your knees and look under. Something with claws and the remorselessness of a garden spider is working its way toward you under the floor. You back away. You don’t dare turn to run. Because you know that if you do that bear will rush out and snatch at your heels.

This is what scares you most: that you will never sleep again in this house. What’s more, the cracking, waking world makes absolute, perfect sense.

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23. The Mirror

June 13, 2009 – 10:47 am

It is amazing what goes on in mirrors.

Cruz felt for certain that when he moved left to the side of the mirror, his image persisted. But on the other side, the other Cruz, the Cruz that persisted in the world of the mirror, was making faces or giving him the middle finger. So Cruz gave the other Cruz, the Cruz just beyond him, the finger too. He turned, yanked down his pants, and gave the other Cruz a good look at his hairy ass.

Later, with his girlfriend, Maricela, he said, “It doesn’t make any sense. The same rules have to apply to our mirror doubles. Or the notion of a mirror is false.”

“People have been worrying over mirrors for ages,” Maricela said, hovering in a corner. “What does this business matter?”

Cruz poured himself a glass of wine. He glanced at the paintings on the wall, the glassware above the fireplace; he watched Maricela pass across the surface of the mirror. “Yes, the same rules must govern life behind mirrors,” Cruz went on. “It has been posited that mirrors might contain whole societies, whole worlds, slices of which we observe when we encounter a mirror. In horror movies, a mirror comes alive. A protagonist turns to a mirror and sees his likeness smiling at him and the next moment, the protagonist is cut into pieces by a demon.

“In this case, Maricela, the mirror becomes a tool, an apparatus for the augmentation of mystery; it takes on a life of its own. But in reality, the mirror and its life can’t work this way, or the world would, our world, would make very little sense. No, the Cruz in the mirror does not follow me across the other side of wall and flip me off. He can only flip me off, if I flip him off.”

“That would make sense,” Maricela said. “But that would merely be an extension of the theory of mirrors.”

“Perhaps,” said Cruz. “Consider the problem in physical terms. If it was indeed so that the Cruz on the other side of the mirror, the Reflected Cruz, the Mirror Cruz, merely followed my movements even when I passed from the mirror’s reflected surface, this would imply that matter is redundant. It would suggest that the universe is drowning in wasted energy–the mirror world as superfluous carbon copies–dragging the expansion of the universe to a screeching halt.

“No, it’s better to consider that the Mirror Cruz, the Doppleganger Cruz, lives on, waits for me to depart the wash room, then turns to his own doings. Or,” Cruz continued, “that I myself am that Mirror Cruz, that I am the affectation of the life on the principle side of the mirror; that I, the false Cruz or the Cruz of the Mirror, have entered the mirror not of my own volition but of that of the Principle Cruz and that all my actions–goings to the bank, depositions before the Court, my daily traversals of the world in taxis, buses, and cars–are all the impulses of the Principle Cruz and that my feelings, inquiries, and experiments are merely the shadow of He Who Begets Them, distant impulses, the slime trailing the ass of a snail, and that I am drawn to the mirror, drawn to a life of sin or spectacular accomplishment not because I wish it or make such things so, but because the Principle Cruz has succeeded before his own judge, made love to his own Maricela, popped the cork on his own bottle of wine, or, worse, failed before his own judge, is about to go bankrupt, awaits the approach of his own murder on a bridge, or leaves his life behind for a new one in China.”

“Then you contradict yourself, my dear Cruz,” Maricela said. “The later case would mean that you would be able to measure some difference in time between your appearance in the mirror and the appearance of the Principle Cruz, which is impossible.

“No, better to consider that Cruz in the mirror as merely Cruz, the Cruz of the Now and Never Before, the Cruz that Cruz must live with no matter the mirror or despite the mirror or bankruptcy or failure. The Cruz that not even I, and you, can escape.”

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22. The Historian

June 12, 2009 – 9:13 am

A Scientist, who studied such matters, discovered that Tomorrow never really came and that Tomorrow was merely “nothing” called “something.” His next step, as he told the Faculty, was to follow this discovery with an additional set of announcements on the subject of Yesterday.

“Then how the hell do you explain these gray whiskers,” said a disapproving and insistent Historian.

“I don’t explain it at all. You merely have a gray beard. Your beard has never been anything but a gray beard.”

The other members of the Faculty nodded; they passed approving murmurs to one another.

The next day, the Historian crashed into the Scientist’s office with his cheeks shorn smooth. “See, now I’m beardless.”

“That’s obvious,” the Scientist said, putting the final touches on his paper, soon for emailing to the Association.

“Then so much for your half-baked theories.”

“How do you mean, as you bring it up?” the Scientist said in his typical, good natured and patient tone, which his students found approving.

Disarranged, the Historian said, “What do you mean, How do I mean? Yesterday I had a beard. Today I don’t. This disproves your case to the core of it all.”

“Pray tell what case would that be, my friend?”

“You’re nothing but a bedazzling nut,” the Historian responded. “Your theory that Tomorrow and Yesterday are fictions. All your nonsense.”

“That theory. And what is your proof, sir?”

Out of frustration, the Historian reached for his beard to yank on. But finding he’d shaven it off, he decided to shove all of the Scientist’s papers off the desk. “My beard, my beard is gone. I shaved it. Yesterday I had a beard and today I don’t. This proves that Yesterday is no mere trifle.”

“I’m afraid you’re incorrect, sir,” the Scientist said. “As you’ve never had anything but cheeks smooth as the surface of an egg.”

“What about the Acropolis. All remnants of things and objects and events that led to all things now and to come?”

“As I recall from my geography lessons,” the Scientist said, “the Acropolis is at this moment in Greece.”

“Your desk. Your desk was here yesterday,” the Historian said. “There, the desk you sit behind. You sat behind it yesterday.”

The Scientist drew out a graduated tape. He said, measuring his desk top, as it was now clear of papers, “This in no way reflects the rigor of my methods, sir, but as far as I can measure at the moment, this desk is currently–now, at this dynamic moment–35 inches deep.”

The next day, the Historian accosted the Scientist in the hall. The Historian had a photo of himself, which he shook at the Scientist’s nose. “Look here, a photograph of myself with a beard, a gray beard, the beard that I used to have, which proves that Yesterday and the Yesterdays before that Yesterday are indeed recorded. It’s plain and simple.”

“That photograph means nothing of the kind. It’s an image of you, no more real than Gandalf, and as you can plainly see, you are holding it not yesterday but now, shaking it in my face.”

The next day, the Historian appeared late at a Faculty meeting. “I want everyone to hear this. I want all of you to understand that our colleague here is mad, insane, a false scientist, no more than a nut, with his theories about Yesterdays and Tomorrows. Here in my hand is a photograph of my very person holding a photograph, which is a photograph of myself with a beard, the same photograph I was holding yesterday and of which I took a photograph holding, just moments after an argument I had with our esteemed colleague yesterday, to prove that I was holding the photograph, the photograph of me with a beard, which I bore yesterday with me through these very halls and which my colleague will deny ever seeing.”

The Scientist observed his colleague with confusion and sympathy. “Here you are, sir, standing with a photograph of a photograph about which you assert a notion I have already disproved. You could bring in a million photographs. You could take a photograph of all the photographs of photographs and yet have wasted precious moments of our valuable time.”

“This is impossible. I won’t stand for any more of this,” The Historian said.

The Dean interrupted the argument. “Without further interruptions, it’s time to vote on our colleague’s motion. The motion following his position on Tomorrows and Yesterdays to move all History faculty into the department that currently houses the fiction writers.”

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21. Wooing Barbara (2 versions)

June 11, 2009 – 9:04 am

As a break from normal habit, I’m posting 2 stories today. The first is the version of Wooing Barbara that doesn’t work (or wouldn’t work for me). The second is a version that cuts a little closer to what I was looking for when the process of Wooing Barbara began. We don’t like to show people the failures. In saying that, I’m not assuming that the reader will agree that the second version is all that wonderful on own. But the differences in the two versions may be instructive. They were certainly instructive for me:

Wooing Barbara (The One that Doesn’t Work):

The football arced and fell into his hands. The feel of the catch, the leather, the grit between the stitching, the smell of cut grass took him back to those Friday nights when the guys waited for calls, graphs drawn, ten yard of infinity, the quiet before the longshot pass.

His father called for the ball. Elmo, an old friend from school, sat on the porch with Barbara, another friend, whom he hoped to woo. He imagined Barbara’s hand on the grip of a racket. He imagined her breasts. He saw her bringing in the groceries. He imagined waking up whole.

He kept looking to the porch to verify whether she was watching him, as she had from the sidelines back in high school and that Elmo had moved no closer. They were all single: he, Elmo, and Barbara, who had a subtle way of averting enticements with a jerk of a straight chin and three blinks of her fast gray eyes.

“You all go throw the ball,” Elmo had said. “Barbara and I will watch. This’ll be better than wrestling on television, right Barbara?”

“Clueless,” she said, “but you can tell me all about your trip to the Boston.”

“Would you just throw me the ball already,” his father said.

“Sorry, Dad,” he said.

During dinner he read the dynamics. This was his house. His father had moved in having lost a long-time job at the firm. He’d sold his house at somewhat of a loss. So, he was a man who lived with his father. The invites had come at unexpectedly. Barbara had called. “I’m in town looking for a place,” she’d said. “Dinner?” “Sure.” “I’d wondered what happened to you after college.” “We can talk about it over dinner,” she said.

“Barbara, this is my father, Hector,” he’d introduced. “Oh my, such a handsome father,” Barbara had said, which was a good start.

Then Elmo had turned into the drive, hopped out, waved. And was invited in.

“You’re looking for a place,” he said, “in town or around this area?”

“She’s looking for a place in town,” Elmo said, chewing a thin slice of chicken. “Something small, something with a lot of light.”

“I like light,” he said, wanting Elmo to know that he’d rather have Barbara answer his questions.

“I was stuffed into small apartment in Seattle,” Barbara said. “I don’t want real big, but bigger.”

“Are you looking or are you still with the firm?” he asked.

“As usual,” Elmo said, with a chuckle, now holding his wine glass by the base, “you’re a tad bit dense. It’s easy to see she’s still with the firm.”

“I’m senior in the company now,” Barbara said. “An opportunity opened. So, here I am.”

“They built the Dome. They build the Reservoir. They build the big bridge you’ve probably seen in the news,” Elmo said, launching off. “Wonderful stuff.”

He watched Elmo take sips of the wine. A few words passed between Barbara, Elmo, and his father.

It had been his father who’d said, “Let’s toss the ball some, just like old time.”

Barbara leaned into Elmo and sipped his wine. She sipped hers. “Elmo, you’d said earlier . . . ”

Ug ug ug ug.

Wooing Barbara (The One that Works Better):

Cooper would woo Barbara, who was newly back from Seattle for a job close to home, where everything began. Cooper dreamed about this wooing as a lovely process. Inspire; treat; impress; and most of all, act as if you know what you’re doing.

“Dinner at 6?” he asked.

“Sounds fun,” she said. “We can catch up.”

“Lovely,” he told himself.

“We never eat at 6,” Dad said, recently laid off. He’d sold his home. “I can move back with you,” he’d told Cooper. “It’ll be just like old times.”

“We eat at 6 now,” Cooper said.

“But I invited Elmo,” Dad said. “I saw him at the store. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“Not Elmo, Dad. He’s a playboy.”

“Elmo is?”

Cooper had to think fast, double the recipes. Grilled duck, baker’s bread, another trip for Roussanne.

“And whatever you do, don’t leave her alone with him,” Cooper said, the table laid, the duck in citrus, the wine chilled, the coals soon for lighting.

Elmo arrived second. He squeezed them all with big hugs. He wore a hat with a feather in the band. That might have been an iPhone in a leather holster. They gathered on the deck, the air scented with mown backyard.

“I remember you from high school,” Barbara told Elmo.

“Those days I was handsome and lithe,” Elmo said. “Time has diminished me, Barbara.”

“Tell me about it,” said Dad.

“Nonsense,” Barbara said.

“You were beautiful,” Cooper told Barbara, pouring the wine, imaging a late night of reacquaintance by fire and star light. “Lovely,” Cooper thought to himself.

“Even more so now,” Elmo said with a smile. “Cooper was always easy with the poetry. A woman like Barbara never stops being beautiful, Cooper.”

“Good one,” Dad said.

“I didn’t mean you’re not beautiful now,” Cooper said.

“Of course you didn’t,” Elmo said. “Of course not, old pal.”

Barbara said, “All these years and we’re back together. High school seems so remote.”

“Yes, Cooper and I on the field, leading the charge. Go, Tigers,” Elmo said, pumping his fist. “High times, they were. We were all on fire.”

“I was a star player myself,” Dad said.

“Right,” said Cooper. “So young and foolish.”

Which brought a brief moment of silence. Then: “Meaning what, Coop?” Elmo said. “Barbara here was a star, thick with the in crowd, a straight A student. That’s not young and foolish. That’s going places.”

“And we sure did go places,” Barbara said.

“I remember,” Elmo said. “You were ‘Most likely to Go Places’ in the yearbook. What were you, Cooper?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Cooper said.

“I’m sure you went places, Coop,” Elmo said. “Oh, anyway. We should catch up. We should have lots of stories to tell. We should talk about the places we’ve gone–in the town where it all started.”

“I was a star player myself,” Dad said. “Cooper,” he said, standing, “let’s you and me go toss the football.”

“Now that’s a good idea,” Elmo said. “Barbara and I’ll watch from here, catch up on old times. Let’s see you throw that old pigskin there, Cooper. You had an impressive arm, as I recall.”

“Lovely,” Cooper thought to himself.

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