BULB

BULB

By Bradley Wind

“Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is always merely an approximation, because we know that we do not know all the laws as yet. Therefore, things must be learned only to be unlearned again or, more likely, to be corrected.”

-Richard P. Feyman from Six Easy Pieces

ONE

Lucre’s lengthy spine cracked twice like aged kindling as he stretched against the back of his chair. Each vertebrae pop was his body telling him of the great promise sleep offered, but Lucre’s mind operated in a state of continuous motion since he returned from Venezuela. His work came first as he was no longer waiting for the stronger ones, the triumphant ones, the merrier ones. He was going to transform, be the laughing lion himself. His legacy would be monumental.

Lucre brushed his knuckles against his mouth splitting his lower lip. Too much sun had chapped them and reddened his fair aging skin. A little blood flowed onto his tongue. The violent flavor was an unexpected surprise that he enjoyed and in this instance, made him happy he hadn’t applied anything to help heal. He was certain one of the medicinal plant salves he’d obtained from the tribe would work, and might be better than something which could resolve it immediately. He needed reminders of what he’d just experienced.

For the preceding month, he lived among the remaining ancestors of the Guahibos, a small tribe still residing along the Orinoco river basin. Buried in a set of rare botany journals, he’d found the story of Aime Bonpland, a French botanist who in the early 1800s spent six years exploring the coast of Venezuela with the great Prussian naturalist, Baron Alexander von Humboldt. They were the first to discover the Guahibos tribe and an endemic species of Acacia and Yopo trees that the Guahibos had long been using to produce a drug called cohoba. Both were excited at the rare discoveries but Bonpland became more enticed by her view of the tribe’s unusual connection to the flowering plants of the Orinoco. She reported that the Guahibos tribesmen experienced a type of lucidity in their dreams brought on by cohoba that enabled them to communicate with flowering plants. The plant-talking discovery was the source of Humboldt and Bonpland’s final split. Humboldt fervently disagreed and wrote of Bonpland purposefully fabricating the story so she alone could profit from the Acacia/Yopo find. The grand Archives contained sparse visual data from that timeframe, but bibliographic documentation revealed Humboldt's notoriety for his five-volume work, Kosmos, which mentioned none of the work he and Bonpland did together. Although they never disproved it, any references to Bonpland’s cohoba research only utilized the plant-talking legend as an example of a botanical fiction. Lucre was surprised to learn of the Guahibos tribe’s continued existence. After reviewing selected archives, he discovered how they advanced and that there were still some who followed the ancient ways. He arranged a small expedition and was able to acquire samples of cohoba, and some Acacia and Yopo trees for his scientists to investigate further.

He already completed an hour of writing and analysis by seven AM. It was all particularly intriguing but he needed food. He thought about calling one of his assistants to bring him some breakfast and massage his aching hand but wondered whether he should forego their disproving eyes. It would certainly be questioned why he didn’t just dictate his journal entries. He hated explaining his actions. The price of fame he supposed but he'd spent too much of his public life wasting time with explanation. Now all he wanted was to listen to the harmony of the strings in John Adams’ “Shaker Loops.” The concerto reverberated off the domed ceiling of his office making the orchestra sound as if it were playing live.

Lucre sat forward and waved his arm over the surface of his desk.

“Yes, Dr. Mammon, how may I help you?” The placid face of a ready assistant briefly replaced the grid of human data.

“Could you have a light breakfast hand-made for me please and also one of the Guahibos salves, something that would work for dry lips?”

“Certainly sir, sooner if you would like me to arrange a replication or one of the healing ointments already at hand.”

“If I’d wanted that I would have done so for myself.”

“Yes sir, right away”

“Oh and have them left at the door. I’d rather not be disturbed.”

“Yes sir.”

The music increased as his assistant faded. This piece helped him feel secure in his intended actions but he needed better focus, a special stimulation. Tapping the corner of his desktop brought to life a shifting grid screening the activities of hundreds of people from all lifestyles and locations around the planet. Lucre found solace in the faces and patterns of nature and most considered him an expert at physiognomy. <tt></tt>He tapped twice on a cell and it expanded to fill half the room. A crowd of Chinese businesspeople practiced tai chi on the roof of the Jin Mao building of downtown Shanghai, their naked bodies fluidly moving in the early afternoon sun. In Lucre’s youth, this sans clothes business world might have produced wild outcries from many sectors of the public, denouncing its perverse nature or at least questioning its potential to distract from matters of commerce, but no longer. Only a few generations later, with the lessening of inhibitions by continual personal life exposure in the Archive, people lived with unchained ego, at least in relation to fashion. Lucre tapped the screen again and chose a new scene to view enlarged. A teacher directing a classroom of children in front of wall of coral, brightly colored and filled with sea life in motion. The children laughed in unison at the teachers’ apparently accidental dance with a bright red fish that moved in and out behind a world map. Lucre slid his stylus diagonally and the scene zoomed out, he marveled at the elementary classrooms mounding like fish roe and jutting from one tiny sector of the Gyre city of Southern Pacific Ocean.

He gazed back at the grid of images on his desk and drew a P at the center of one square. The image of a young boy grinning at a leafy stalk growing out of a plastic cup peeled up from the surface for him to collect. He stared at it for a moment and pasted the picture with numerous others on the closest wall.

These pictures were his mind’s yoke, holding him in place for a time, but scores of involuntary visions of divinity and dream attacked Lucre throughout his day. Journaling helped with what the revelations conveyed and gave focus for his life's path.

The “boy with the plastic cup” picture reminded him of the work he still needed to prepare for Ben. He turned the pages of his journal back to where he’d started months earlier. Cartoon flower doodles sang to math equations in the margins of the first page. He skimmed through some research notes and started rereading.

“...a very promising find and for now I must look towards him as a son, think of how I can guide him so he’ll know what I say is for the best, the best for him and all their futures. Too many of them seek the dreadful instead of the illuminating aspect of beauty. Their hearts are missing out, lost in the constant influx of negative news and partitioned history that leaves a majority of the positive hidden from view and the decay and unrest exalted in high resolution. Ben is a victim of such unconstructive thought but it isn’t a keystone of his personality. Still, it’s entirely doubtful that he would hear me if I ask plainly what I require of him. I feel somewhat shameful knowing that my Archive creation, the greatest documentation of history ever known, would be ideal to fill such a need, for those that have suffered to return and review the blurred memories that require clear understanding. In time, Ben should understand my actions and will be ready to review the true aspects of his special history. Until then I will begin by anchoring him with fatherly advice; giving him the opportunity to serve here at the Center, monitoring closely his activity, and occupying his time with study of the saint’s journals. The saints written stories are certain to gain his interest and keep him coming back. I could proffer my services of watching his brothers on the visits if needs be.”

Lucre traced a few lines of symbols scribbled in the margins, then moved the book aside and tapped his desk. He navigated to where Ben’s archive currently recorded. The screen filled with images of Ben sleeping at his apartment, the scattered contents of his bedside table, varying angles of the refuse dump that was his bedroom, and assorted close-ups of his body. Lucre looked at Ben as he did the image of the boy with the cup a few moments before. There was a type of love in his gaze as he watched Ben’s eyes flicker back and forth beneath their lids, obviously in a REM state. He stared at Ben’s chest rise and fall. Ben arousal became obvious when he rolled onto his back. Lucre returned to the multi-screen view showing hundreds of human activities. He flipped from the beginning of the journal to the most current page and began writing.

“Treating Ben as someone he can relate to closely has been ineffective. The accident still grips his mind. He’s too unfocused, too disrupted. A lighter touch may have been called for. Plus, he only views me as a director of the Center. A month with no contact has given me a better view of our relationship. I must remember to furnish him with basic data of selected saints and let their words and his work with them guide him. This week he will return with his brothers, so there‘s hope yet that he will understand my need.” The rest of the writing was a string of symbols. Lucre put his stylus down and reviewed the lines he’d written. An itch called his fingers up the fabric of the white cone that wrapped around his head. He scratched for a few moments and a small chime told him his breakfast had arrived.

TWO

Someone put the wrong teeth in my mouth last night. My canines poked at the back of my lips as if they didn’t fit. I wanted them buried deep in my gums or all removed. The only place bone sticks out of our bodies, I hated teeth.

Eeeeep eep Eeeep eep. Trash trucks moaned like suburban whales while they backed down the street of my cul de sac. The eeping annoyed me as much as the light from my wallpaper. Two fake windows had sunlight beaming down at me as part of the alarm. Com programmed the walls and trash truck sounds from archives of the room I had growing up. Some say I’m too nostalgic but it was a space and time where I was more at ease than I am now and we all seek comfort where we can.

eeeeep eep eeeeep eep

“Turn the alarm off Com.”

A withering erection and the prominent teeth were all I needed to bring back the full recollection of last nights dream, another goddamn addition to the series. My halfsie banged away inside my boxers as I headed through the mess of my room to the toilet. I caught a mirror glimpse of the brown wire curls kinking about above my ears just before I reached the bowl. The usual temptation to make a face to match the bedhead hair was hard to resist but the visions from the werewolf dream were too dominant. Images like those make me sick. I dictated it to Com and let the concern I should feel for my mental well-being drain away with yesterday’s juice. It’s another in my dream Archive filed under the title “Early Hollywood Monsters.”

“Who knows what experience may breach our reserve of compassion and change us into such creatures,” a sepulchral Vincent Price voice said in my head at the mirror as I inspected my teeth. I’m sure Lorelei would want me to study the dreams closer but then I’d never believed they told us anything in some soul-revealing manner anyway. I wondered though. I know Lorelei’s told me how dismissed memories can come back to your dreaming doorstep pissed off and hammering for entrance. Maybe the series was about the accident but it’s probably more my brain playing with the monstrous beauty of our times and the shuffling of new memory into order. Or maybe that’s just hopeful thinking. Sometimes I wished I owned a switch to turn the influx of constant stimulation off. I flopped back into bed and rolled over, a flashing mailbox rotated next to the chair at my desk.

“What’s in the box?” I said, my words partially garbled by a final yawn.

An envelope slid out, Com’s sonorous voice responded:

“It’s from an unrecognized correspondent. Do you wish me to verify the sender?”

“Is it another one of those sales people?” I asked annoyed.

“She does not appear to be, Ben. Do you wish me to research her further?”

“Nah, just display it please.”

“In response to your posting,” came from the speakers nearby and the holographic page slid from the envelope presenting the letter for me to read. From Susan@sprynet - Subj: Still looking for good book conversation?

Sunday September 11th

Dear Ben,

Still reading?

A 27-year-old female, feeling almost too old to be doing this but willing to give it a shot. I’m living in that sky-stuck city, yes, among the clouds, just a couple hundred miles above Navy Pier in Chicago. A basic goddess of the air (ha!).

I was looking through a book club directory and saw you have similar literary tastes. That’s what clinched you for me. I consume books. Voracious doesn’t cut it. I’m currently working on some of the true classics. I have my bachelors degree in English (Psychology too), but there is so much I haven’t read. I’m rereading Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky today, and only about three hundred more pages to go.

I don’t want to write too much in case you already have many people writing to you. My interests, besides reading, include dancing, going to cafes, movies about the old west, sea life or unusual sexual practices (insect or animal), and visiting EY Beach (the beach recently finished over the city of Aurora). Since I live only a block from the lake, I also enjoy hiking there.

“Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare!” – F.Dostoyevsky

I dare you not to go to my Archives to see what I look like and what has happened in my life. I dare you to try to live purely. Live only with our words.

Susan Ross

***

What’s this, a disguised dating service letter? “Com, is there anything unusual you can find about this person? Any police records or hospitalization for mental illness?”

“The Archives offer no history of illness or crime.”

“Did she really find me on some book discussion site?”

“The sender is listed in the Archives as having visited a site you posted on, dating back two years ago. Do you wish to view anything specific from her personal Archive?”

“No, not now, I want to wait to see why she requested me not to. Set a reminder for three months, if she’s still around.”

“A three month reminder is set. December eleventh. Today’s reminder: Call Lorelei and remind her you are coming for your session today.”

I vaguely remembered joining that book discussion list. It’s boggling how particles of you could remain alive so long in information limbo, your memory resting in some digital capsule until it’s unearthed.

“Com, begin a response to Susan at Sprynet. Subject is ‘How’s the air up there?’ Body of message begin.”

This felt dumb. I hadn’t written to someone like this for a long time. I joined that list thinking it’s hard to have decent conversations with friends about books -- better to converse about the written through written form. I don’t want to start a boring dialogue exchange: Hi, my name is Ben. My interests are in scratching my ass, movies, and hydroponics gardening. I hate that. I shoved aside some of the books on my bed as I rolled on my back, stretched, and thought for a bit. My eyes remained closed as I dictated.

“Baked in black bread I am wheat and weak from the plow of no decent dialog. Almost every man or woman I’m in contact with wants to talk everyday trash. I am sick of the motion-sick, of those without the capacity to slow down. I wouldn’t mind talking books, movies... sex. Refined Trash is acceptable. The small details of your life that most would never bother reviewing in Archive listings will not be rejected. I won’t bother with yours until requested to do so. In fact I’m not a fan of the Archives, they exhaust me, and so it won’t be a problem for me to avoid your listings.”

What am I talking about, so retarded. It’s too early. I sat up, shoved some of my dirty laundry aside and looked out the fake window.

“I’m 28, live in and manage what use to be a Mall in Montgomery, Pennsylvania. Like most, my MAC was converted when the replicators crippled these kinds of commerce centers. I graduated from the Qe-mason School of Art and Science with a bachelor of Fine Arts degree in nanotech-painting. I wouldn’t call myself a success but my work has been exhibited.”

A door slammed and I heard feet shuffling in the hallway.

“Hold for a sec Com.”

The twins wobbled in and waved through Susan’s letter that still hovered near me.

“We’re hungry.” They said together.

“You know where the captain lives. Go get the treasure.”

“Oooooh, that’s right. The treasure,” Ed rocked their bodies with his.

“The treasure’s all mine.” Francis shouted directly into Ed’s face and they wobbled back out of the room towards the kitchen, still arguing. I heard something crash but returned to the letter.

“Continuing now Com. You might find it interesting to read that I live with my seven year old conjoined twin brothers, Ed and Francis. A mishap of the early cloning days, Dad wanted a new body, but the technology was immature. Apparently, production was moving too quickly. They still had some kind of conscience then and didn’t discard the rejects as they do now. They’re a constant reminder of my father since they both sort of look like him. I love my brothers but the scientists and government bug us too often. I guess I shouldn’t complain, without them I’d probably have to become one of the saints I help administer. My parents help us out with the bills some too.

...my parents, ahm, oh. I received an invitation to help at the Saint Center a few months after an accident I had with my parents. I volunteer there, helping with the saints once or twice a week. It’s one of the few things that gets me out of this apartment unfortunately. I need a vacation maybe.

Let’s see... We really want to talk about books right? I just started reading an old book called “Pop. Carnival” about what the outcome might be of a planet riddled with problems of overpopulation. Can you believe in 1804 there was only one billion people on the planet? A mere two hundred years later and it was up to six. I should try to find out if people’s sex drives have increased since that six billion mark. Just look at the population explosion now. If they ever get the brains to spark in those clones they’re generating we’re going to have serious space issues. Don’t you think it’s astonishing to think that the Informed light is capturing every aspect of every individual out there. The amount of information, the amount of humanity, it’s overwhelming. Too bad the book wasn’t required reading before the wars, but then again I have to wonder what life might have been like without them. Would we be living beyond the Earth if not the push to get away from the conflict? Technology was more of a hindrance before it began to salvage the wreckage it incurred upon the world. Some may still argue otherwise but I believe thanks to technology humankind even at its size, lives healthy and mostly happy lives. That may just be the book talking and hopefully I’ll be partaking of the happy lives part soon.

It’s been a while since I’ve joined that book-talk list but I’d be, uh, happy, to try it again. I hope you aren’t offended but I feel the need to add that I’m not looking for a dating situation. Faith was my fiancé until a little over a year ago when she decided to quit the five-year relationship we shared. In the end, she cheated on me, lied to me about it and then broke up. I met her under similar circumstances to this and don’t want that mistake repeated. I’m sure you understand. Let me know how Dostoyevsky progresses. End it there Com. I want to read that over before you send it please.”

“Do you want any special delivery options?”

“Just deliver to her general email system.”

The letter appeared in front of me long enough to reread it and add “Sincerely Ben Tinthawin” to the end. A “sent” sign glowed in its place before disappearing.

Idiot. I probably said too much. I often do in emails. More noise from the kitchen got me out of bed.

“Can I hear a random shuffle from my music preferences please?” I said as I grabbed a t-shirt from the floor and put it on.

“Susie Q” by Credence Clearwater Revival came on in the apartment and I suddenly felt a little ache in my head.

FLASH! White deer standing in the middle of the road

FLASH! Glass flying through the air

My brain leveled. I think I still needed to wake up. More memory fragments from the crash. Ever since I reviewed my accident archive I’ve had them, practically commonplace now. Although I guess I should count myself lucky the only location the full memory exists is in the Archives. The music continued and I realized why Com chose this song.

“Very funny, Com.”

“I thought you might be interested in this old song in honor of your new girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” I said a little irritated. “What, one letter constitutes a girlfriend?”

“You are rarely that verbose but I will not continue.” Com increased the volume.

Most of the old stores in Malls were blocky wide warehouse-sized rooms with high ceilings. I set up portable walls to section it off. Some are made of replicated topiary shrubs, dense, finely trimmed and tall. They were an idea the twins had one day when we visited a local park that has a fishpond surrounded by a wall of bushes. I later found out that what they wanted was a fishpond in the house. We also still have a few sluggish goldfish that they forgot about after ten minutes.

In the kitchen, it was the same old caveman breakfast scene. Ed and Francis ate their morning junk, sitting on the boulder chairs at our flat granite table. Milk and Treasure cereal speckled the tabletop. I stooped to pick up a dropped bowl.

“Hi guys, looks like you found the gold.” I tried to look half-asleep as I grabbed a handful of the glowing cereal. I chewed it loudly with my mouth open, letting a several pieces drip to the tabletop. Ed spewed saliva as he laughed. Mimicking me Francis shoveled a handful into his grinning mouth and started spitting it back into his dish. Some landed on Ed’s face and some on the flesh bridge that connects them at their chest. Ed took a mouthful and started spitting it on Francis. The mirth erupted. Their hands banged hard on the table causing the pitcher to fall over and spill the rest of the milk. They rose up and began swinging round in circles, roaring. I loved making them laugh but sometimes it was a mistake to get them going. The spilt milk splashed from the stomping and filtered into micro receptacles that opened to the sewage system passages in the floor.

“Alright, calm down.” I said trying to avoid their green pajama tornado.

My Dad is only about 6’, but it’s something to do with the synthesis of the two cells that made the twins grow to 6’6”. Ed’s a little taller than Francis. You have to get out of their way when they spin like that or chance becoming a human mixer casualty. They’re the stuff of circus sideshows to others but stale news to me. I always thought it’d be more difficult for them if they had attached heads like the famous craniopagus country singing Schappell sisters. Ed and Francis have worn the Clonex uniforms since they first came home. The uniforms are basically light green full-body pajamas with feet. Well, they’ll also wear jackets in the cold or the nano-suits when we go riding. I’ve tried convincing them to wear something different but they don’t go for it.

“What do you guys have planned for the day?” I said testing them to see if they remembered our trip to Lorelei’s farm.

“I’m gonna watch that channel that’s so good to see.” Ed said, a little too loud with his baritone voice, and checked his hovering monitor. Francis was too involved with his program to answer.

“Okay, but remember we have the visit to the farm.”

“Oh! That’s right!” Ed said.

“When we gonna leave then Ben?” Francis said ready to go that minute.

“I need to eat breakfast too guys. We’ll be going after I’m done.”

“Well hurry up and tell Lorelei we’re hungry.” They said as they grabbed their bowls and went back to their side of the apartment, their monitors trailing not far behind.

I punched the breakfast button on the console of the replicator and found a message screen blinking on the counter.

“Com, who are the messages from?” I asked.

“One from your mother and one from Lenny. Also information on recent deposits to your account.”

The door slid open on the replicator. Another perfect eggs, bacon and toast breakfast, I was never a fan of eating Dad’s eggshell speckled versions but sometimes I just wished there was more imperfections, an unexpected non-uniformity to what I eat. Luckily Lorelei always made us great food whenever we went for a visit so this would just tide me over.

“Run them for me.”

An image of Mom popped up. I see she’s had the youth treatments again. It’s hard to view your mother when she looks like she could be your sister. The image wavered and her regular parrot voice, that I knew so well and loved, spoke.

“Hi, honey, I was watching this show about the amount of germs that live all over our bodies. I think our family should look into having ours tested for the proper virus protection and cleaning. Okay, just thinking of you. Love you honey.”

Thanks Mom. “Next.”

A close up of Lenny’s nostril sifted onto the screen, then his mouth replaced it, and in a pinched-nose voice he said, “Time fer that nose protection program upgrade Benjamin. Yer nose gold is growin outta control. Please contact yer excavator ASAP fer help. Oh wait a minute, forget that. I’ll be right over ta help.” His finger picked at the lens as the image faded.

I wondered if that was one of those Synchronistic Activity Waves reported heavily in the news lately. Might just be a simple coincidence that they both left messages about body protection and that he used that nasal voice like hers. The screen disappeared. Our humor was juvenilia at its finest. We should grow up but what fun would it be? Maturing means to stop growing and I never want to do that.

I placed my dishes in the sink and a screen appeared above the faucet and blinked to my banking information. The usual funds transferred into my account. Natural parabiosis during cloning isn’t common and for that reason, Ed and Francis are special to the Clonex scientists. I can afford to raise them only because Clonex forks over some funds and my parents cover the rest. The twins are part of my family genetically so it’s not something I could refuse when Mom and Dad asked. It’d been regulated by the government that the body that created a bad clone could not then own the clone. The doctors that oversaw Dad’s new body production knew it was their mistake. They avoided legal trouble by having Ed and Francis signed over to me instead of my parents. The only real bother was the continual intrusions into our lives by the scientists that follow their progress. We’ve lucked out that Lucre’s doing the checkups now and reports it to the Clonex people so the twins and I can live a semi-normal life. It’s sort of payment for the time I donate my services at the Center.

I tapped the counter top and a screen surfaced with Lenny’s apartment filling it.

“Hey what’s with your fascination with my nostrils anyway?” I said when he came into view.

“Oh you know, friends gotta help friends out with that biz. Yeh jus caught me I’m bout to head over.”

“How about tomorrow instead?”

“We’re not all like you and can jus lounge around any day a the week. Some of us gotta make the green.” Lenny said tapping at his nostril.

“Hey, look, I work hard, you don’t realize-”

“Alright alright, see yeh tamara.” Lenny said and darted off screen.

I didn’t have to get the twins ready they loved these trips. When I was all set to go, they were waiting at the door. We passed the crowded food court on the way out and waved hello to our neighbors the Panala’s. They’re stars of the MAC scene, always helping people out, always interested in what’s happening in your life. Ed and Francis can’t get enough of them. If the twins didn’t love our visits to Lorelei’s farm so much I’d think of leaving them with the Panala’s who often offer to watch them so I’ll go out and “find myself a nice girlfriend.”

Getting out of suburbia and into the small rural areas still left like Lorelei’s place did me good. It’s something about the open space that frees me up from all my daily brain slush. Maybe I’ll get Lenny to stop here again when we go riding later this month. I so need this. I lived here for several months after the accident. Lorelei did more for me in that time than any human has ever done besides my mother. The road that her driveway veined off usually cut through two huge fields of corn. The fields are always bursting in the summertime at Lorelei’s place. The harvest had ended and the fields were a different kind of beautiful now, gray and tan and empty except for the broken comb rows of dried decapitated stalks. The land rolled out serenely, making me want to go running into the middle of it for what I’m never sure.

Lorelei and Lizard must’ve been a funny couple when Lizard was alive. They filled their farm with all sorts of comical bits like the red mailbox at the top of the driveway, which had a middle-fingered hand swinging up in the air signaling her perpetual outgoing mail. The twins flipped their middle fingers back at the mailbox and giggled as the tires made the crunching gravel noise down towards the red barn and farmhouse. The lower half of the barn was white painted stone and all the same old tires, buckets and yet to be put to use equipment rested amidst weeds and cobwebs that had inhabited the area for as long as I’d been coming to visit Lorelei. On the side of the barn was a smiling man waving his giant phallus. Painted by Lizard, it was fading now but it always made for a funny maître d'. As we got out of the car, I shouted hello knowing Lorelei would be working inside.

“I’m in here," she yelled back.

Clay pots, resting among the jutting straw, lined the dirty white walls of the barn. As you enter, rich olfactory fun tickled your nose. A variety of blended spices that she prepared herself overflowed from each pot. Packaging bulk and wholesaling them to dealers was how she made her living. Some people still loved buying luxury items like hand-created spice. The heat from the kilns kept the place nice and warm.

The twins and I entered and wove through to one of the smaller side rooms where we found tiny hunched Lorelei with her arms wrapped around a spinning pot that was almost as large as she was. Surprisingly that’s not as big as one might imagine. Lorelei was about four and a half feet tall. She grew up with a disease called Progeria or Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome. A rare congenital disorder of childhood characterized by rapid onset of what old age use to look like before they found cures for it. Wrinkles, loosely hanging skin, and loss of hair were typical of people with her disease. Choosing to reside out in the country with a great understanding of what nature can provide for healing had definitely benefited her. Although her parents did get her the cures for the crippling aspect of the disease she never went for the cosmetic therapies that would’ve given her a more modern appealing look and I respected her for it. It helped her develop what so many people I meet are lacking - a real personality, instead of the perfect physique.

“Lorelei!” squealed the twins with love for their favorite farmer. They crowded around her waiting for her usual heart felt hugs and kisses.

“Here hold this for a minute,” she looked at me gesturing with her chin to take control of the spinning pot.

“What? I can’t hold that thing." I said.

“Yes you can, I’ve seen how well you can ride and if you can do that you damn well can hold a simple spinning pot.”

Simple spinning pot this wasn’t, it was huge. I threaded myself under her arms and placed my hands at its sides, the wet orange clay rolled easily beneath my fingers. She scootched out from under me and stood looking at the pot, wiping off her hands on one of the “far too dirty to get her hands clean” rags.

“Tsk, that’s a sad looking one,” she said turning to the twins. “Turn off those monitors you sweet muffins and give Lorelei some love, Mmm, I could eat you two right now.”

Lorelei was small but dwarfed doubly so by the giants who bent over for Lorelei to hug and thin lip kiss them. Sneakily, as she finished hugging, she tweaked their crotches.

“Waaaaah, My balls, my balls,” Francis whined as he went to protect his groin incase she did it again.

“Always protect the jewels boys. That treasure needs guarding.”

Ed turned his pain into a laugh quickly when he looked at Francis and saw his face all squinched from the torture his testicles were experiencing.

“Lorelei, you’re a cowturd.” Francis said confused.

“Aw, don’t keep that up now, come on. Give ole Lorelei a hug for real.”

“I’ll give you one, but you gotta make me the dumplins, okay?” Ed said with glee as he put his arms out for a hug.

“Do you think you could turn this thing off now?” I said feeling the pot beginning to wobble. Lorelei dropped to the ground from the boy’s necks and turned to me with her hands on her hips.

“What? You can’t finish that? It’s practically done.” She said.

The pot wugged around and was seconds from collapsing.

“Just turn it off."

“Oh for sweet fuck’s sake, you’re fine. What a baby,” she said pinching my arm hard.

The pot finally gave and slid over on to me before falling to the floor. I now looked as if I’d lifted myself from a mud puddle. The twins couldn’t stop laughing.

“Great, thanks. Now look at your beautiful pot,” I flicked some clay from my hands at her and the laughing hyenas.

“That one was nowhere near beautiful. Don’t get your nads all bunchy. Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said rubbing my back gently. “Boys, I’m sure you can find plenty to do till I ring the bell for food, can’t you?" We all loved that Lorelei still used an old iron bell to announce meals.

“Yes, we can.” Ed and Francis said already looking behind pots for where some mother cat might have hid her kittens. There seemed to be a new litter whenever we visited.

Leaves in towering mounds poured over and onto the path leading up to the house. I’ve always loved the knotty trees that Lorelei cultivated on her property, and now leafless, they had the feel of thousand-armed Shiva guardians protecting her quirky castle. When I first visited the farm she showed me Archives of what it looked like before they bought it. Dilapidated wreck would’ve been a compliment. She had those kinds of eyes, ones that can see beyond the crud and ruin. She had eyes that saw many things that others do not. Every place where cracks once dwelled in the house was filled with colorful tiles, pieces of discarded plates, ashtrays, and cups. A line of yellow shards meandered along the doorbell, a line of red under the windowsill. She let the paint chips fall and found new life to put in their place. It wasn’t gaudy or overdone as one might think.

Being outdoors and late fall, the weather was none too warm but there was no entering the house with even a little dirt on you. She took me around back to where the outdoor shower stall was, washed herself up in the basin and demanded I shower while she went to get me some clean clothes. You had to start the water retrieval system before you could get in. Wires carrying varying sizes of buckets that gathered the runoff rainwater ran along the back of the house. Since there was no heated water available, the summertime was the only season to use the shower out back and enjoy it. But after a few of the cold showers back there, you got use to it. I stripped and listened to my teeth chatter, my addition to the field of wind chimes that hung all around the back of her house and played for me while I scrubbed using one of the soaps that stuffed the old urinal she used as a soap dish. She told me the dish was there because of “how many disgusting men there are that treat the shower like a toilet.” Can’t say her shaming game ever stopped me but then my take has always been you’re in there to clean off the dirt anyway.

“You get that skinny ass washed up yet?” she said draping a towel over the edge of the stall.

“All done,” I shut off the water and walked out with the towel wrapped swami style around my head, leaving my black curly pubes and prick exposed.

“Fucking chickweed, cover up that fruit bowl before I cut it up and throw it to the animals,” and she threw the clothes she’d brought for me at my crotch. I shivered as I put on a sweatshirt and jeans that once belonged to Lizard. They were a little small for me but I didn’t say anything.

“I’m glad in this instance you have them, but why keep Lizard’s clothes hanging around? You should donate them to one of the local charities.”

“These old rags are exhausting. I’ve tried, but every time I go to put them in a bag or a box, it’s another reminder that I might never see him again. I just can’t do it.”

“Well, ah, you won’t ever see him again. At least not unless there’s some kind of afterlife. Sounds like a good reason to get you off this farm. Maybe it’s what you should do to get beyond Lizard. Take his stuff out of this place and see other parts of the world.”

“Now don’t go trying to figure me out. I’ve told you a hundred times, it’s this farm that protects and keeps me sane. That world out there is too busy obsessing over itself and I’d rather live here protected by the fields and watch the cows crapping.”

“Whatever you say. You’re supposed to be the wise one.”

“Damn right now let’s get to work.”

I took a seat in the room I knew so well from the months when I lived here before. Once I’d finished recuperating in the bedroom upstairs she put me straight to work on the farm during the day and at least a couple nights a week we’d have chats in here. There wasn’t much to the space and she meant to be like that. “You need a place in your home with no extra crapola, a place where you can rest your mind,” is something like how she’d put it. The rest of her house was cluttered with interesting or attractive objects, this room was mostly empty and utilitarian. The huge window that gave you a view of the fields took up one whole wall. An antique coffee crate served as a table, two comfortable chairs and a couch. Nothing on the other walls. No appliances except if you consider a plain chandelier an appliance. The other special feature was that she wanted humor left at the door. One could get by with the occasional sarcastic comment but she didn't permit not taking the room seriously. Lorelei joined me with a tray of tea items.

“Here try this it’s my latest experiment, I call it full moon chai.” Lorelei said grinning mischievously and handing me a steaming cup.

I looked into the cup and saw two little almonds and weird black stone looking things hovering above a mound of golden honey on the bottom. Lorelei took a little woman shaped cream pitcher and poured cream into each of our cups and stirred.

“Smells good,” I said and took a small sip. “Wow, you’re a mad tea scientist. It’s great. So what vision quest will this induce?”

“Nothing of the sort, only something to stimulate your senses and calm your nerves.”

“Oh, I thought maybe this was how we were going to spend our time today.”

“No Ben but you can begin with what’ve you been filling your time with?” She said taking a big loud slurp from her cup.

“The usual I guess, hanging out at my place or with Lenny, reading books, watching movies, watching the twins.”

“Anything worth seeing in the world of cinema these days?”

“I watch so many it’d be hard to recommend, but ah, there’s a great new animated Italian film from a director named Bruni. I, ah, I can’t recall the name of it right now...but it had this dark haired girl in it who made books out of fire.” I said and we sat there for a few seconds while I tried to recall it and drank my chai.

“Oh don’t worry about it I’ll do a search later. Thank you for the suggestion and how has the volunteering at the Saint Center been going?”

“Pretty good I guess. The stories are still interesting, maybe a little depressing at times but they’re always helpful for the work I do with them.”

“Do you feel you’re also being served in the way that we discussed before you began volunteering?”

“Yeah, maybe. I guess.” I said quickly.

“Which is it?” She took another loud slurp.

“I’d say it’s been good to remind myself that there are others out there that have been through difficulties like I have but so far I can’t say it’s made me feel any better about what’s been done to me.”

“Is it only using their journals or do you also review specifics from their Archives?”

“I don’t have time for much more than the journals that each of them left. There’s enough in them for me to work with anyway.”

We both took more sips and Lorelei sat crunching one of the almonds.

“How long’s it been since you reviewed the accident Archive?” She asked.

“Well... since we reviewed it when I lived here? Ah, none.”

“None? You’ve been lying to me.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I’ve heard you and I know you think it’ll help but there isn’t any desire on my part. What’s the point is all I can think.”

“That’s denial. We’ve both know how important reviewing the painful events of our past are, especially with the amount of nightmares you’ve had.”

“Yeah...there’ve been more lately. That’s why I’m admitting it I guess. So is it time for the trance stuff now?”

“I only use that for when I’m trying to find out something I can’t through dialog and you know that. Are you not interested in talking about this?”

“No, its okay, but you know. I don’t know...”

“You don’t know what?”

“I don’t know why I haven’t looked at it again. I just haven’t wanted to.”

“How about right now?”

“Now... ah alright, if you feel like it’ll help.” I was trapped, and she knew it.

“I do, I wanted you to on your own but seeing as that doesn’t look like it’ll happen let’s give it a try.” Lorelei said, put her teacup down then sat with me facing the opposing wall. “Wall panel. Ben Tinthawin accident archive.” A rectangle opened up on the wall and my name blinked.

Lorelei was known to spring stuff on me in these sessions. This wasn’t new. Usually it was in relation to one of the trances she’d put me in. Our conversation so far was only strange in that it seemed more formal than usual. Most of them were casual conversations where weird stuff would happen and I’d feel better when we were done or went away thinking differently and not depressingly.

The image faded up of my parent’s house: I hung out at my parent’s a lot after the break up with Faith. Maybe it was to remind myself how bad marriage could get, and that I wasn’t going to be missing anything by not spending my life with her. Mom and Dad mostly had a love affair with yelling. From the Archives I’ve watched of their lives together, I know there were many days that love hummed about them, but mostly the love was covered with mounds of sour daily arguing dross, built up from years of unresolved issues. They loved the rhythm of repeating the same phrases from the same arguments over and over again. My beautiful grandmother was getting old and not wanting to get too much of her body replaced, she agreed to the easy heart replacement she needed. She was a little like Lorelei. No skin treatments, hair strengthening or organ transplants for her unless absolutely necessary. She’d only have organs replaced if there wasn’t a way to repair the ones she grew herself. Mom asked me if I’d join her and Dad to see grandma for the customary post-operation ‘are you sure you’re okay’ visit. With all the old family vacations, it started with some fun lighthearted yelling about “just forgetting the whole damn trip.” Mom sat down on the sofa, her bags by the door, and held her famous “I’m not budging” look. “That’s it. We’re not going.” Dad yelled. Then after he struggled with rearranging suitcases out in the car, he’d returned to where she still sat and stared off like an atom bomb mid-flight and he’d concede one small point to her argument. That’s all she needed and Mom was up yelling about how he should’ve realized this a half-hour ago. Once she’s in the car and we were moving the volley began again. This was the routine of every trip with only slight variations on that theme. The plan was to leave after lunch and we didn’t get in the car until four o’clock. I turned on a movie and tried to tune them out. Half a movie later we were on a highway in the mountains of New York. The static of my parent’s words faded in.

“I don’t care if you think the boys’ speech is fine, they’re my babies and deserve a week of fun and therapy." Mom said.

“I guess you think the way I talk has problems too then! And I won’t have money for every new treatment you think they need!” Dad said.

“What is this? The boys are teased enough without having to worry about what others will think of how they talk. Plus Ben needs his time alone too." Mom held her drink up as she yelled.

“Alone? He’s with us, you brought him with us.” He glared back at me through the mirror.

“Well, he cares about my mother, and if you were interested in anything more than those chemicals you dump on yourself to keep young you’d understand how happy I am that he’s visiting her too.” Mom clipped her glass onto the dashboard, mixed some kind of calming elixir into it, drank it down and glanced back at me with a forced warm smile.

It’s late spring and the trees and land were glimmering vibrant greens with harsh dark shadows. All around the sunlight was leaving and the clouds were taking over. The way one highway lamp’s sensors had told it to turn on and the next hadn’t, caused odd strobing that drew my attention. My eyes kept darting away from the movie that wasn’t good anyway. For the next ten minutes or so I noticed Dad hadn’t turned onto either of the two exits that the display on the dash recommended.

“Pop, what’s your dash saying? Don’t you think we should take one of the next exits?”

“I can read too, I’ll turn on the autopilot if I want to listen to something annoying. These suggestions are always too damn cautious. Bad weather conditions ahead.” He flicked his hand at the dash and again towards the clouds, “Yeah right. Look up at that. I see patches of blue through that gray don’t you? No fuckin rain has ever stopped traffic anyway.”

I looked but there wasn’t any blue left in the sky that I could see, only charcoal boulders threatening to drop. Five minutes later, still no rain but the pavement was wet, wind was fierce and we passed fallen trees and debris in two of the four lanes on our half of the highway. The headlights turned on and Dad moved easily past the trees but you didn’t see that everyday and I kept my mouth shut. That was all I needed to see to know I was right about taking an earlier exit. The highway curved around hills and more trees lay over on the other side of the median. Mom was getting noticeably nervous.

“Obviously there has been some of that freakweather going on here, there’s a whole damn forest on the highway. Take the next exit or hand me the controls and I will.” Mom said.

“You’ll keep your mouth shut is what you’ll do. It’s just a little rain. Why does everything have to be freakweather these days? We’re a half hour from the exit, a few branches in the road won’t cause us trouble.”

I saw something ahead that looked like piles of dirt or dead browned fir trees on our side of the road, but it was off to the side and there was no concern of hitting it. It was well lit by the lamp above it and as we got closer I could see that it was two small dead deer. Perfectly still and no visible blood or bent parts, they were laying facing each other heads to tails, like some kind of strange yin-yang symbol.

“Oh look at those poor baby deer honey,” Mom said to me with her fingers on the glass as they passed our windows. Their eyes, glazed and open, almost looked inhabited with life.

“Look up there.” Dad said pointing off to our left.

A large herd of deer was on the hillside, you could make out their gray-brown silhouettes and a few eyes glowed from the headlights or highway lamps that must’ve struck them just so. In the past, our family always made deer an exciting part of the trip, spotting wildlife on the edge of civilization. When we hit this region everyone would be on alert so they could be the first to point them out. I watched him in the rearview mirror for the next few seconds with a smile on his face knowing he’d made a big score with the deer game but it faded as the rain hit the windshield. The fade of Dad’s smile was the second to last thing I saw before it happened. The fear in the profile of Mom’s face was the last.

Mom shouted something unrecognizable as the headlights brought the deer standing in the road into bright view. The first deer looked like an albino, all white from the side. Head turned to us, eyes blank and SLAM! And thwnk, another! Soft and solid at the same time, you barely felt the crunch of bone. Chwunn! Another. The third was a ramp that sent our car rolling. We slid off the median and ricocheted back over to where the deer we ramped off lay ripped in half. Glass, wind and water filled the air. The chaos dampened to a halt and we rocked back onto the wheels, making a glassy slush sound as we landed. We sat there for a long time before I found my bearings. I mashed into Dad’s side of the car and a line of bloody spittle stretched from the armrest when I pulled my face from it. Horizontal and vertical hold came together as I watched the wet tension strand snap and droplets fall. My eyes bulged in my head and pounded with the headache that now played a steady beat. My eyeballs felt filled with something, like they had extra fluid in them, but I could see fine. A little pain in my mouth, my left arm and neck, but nothing was broken. I put my fingers to my tongue and felt a cut on the side. I’d bitten part of my tongue off. Touching it sent a little electric shock of pain to my spine. I moved myself to an upright position and looked to the front of the car. One partially full airbag was flipping up and down in the wind that blew all about me. The other two were in tatters. The windshield was out and Mom’s body hung on the hood, the rain was pouring in the sunroof. You can’t imagine what it feels like to see your mother hanging out a smashed window until you do. Her feet, only one with a shoe still on, stuck inside the car. I was dazed but thought that I needed to get out and help as I saw no movement from her shoeless foot. I pushed up over the front seat and checked the cars communications ports. Nothing was working.

“Mom!” I yelled making my mouth roar with pain but she didn’t move. I turned and felt around the backseat. I couldn‘t remember if I’d brought my phone with me. There was an opened bag of pretzels everywhere. Maybe Mom packed an extra phone in her bag. Dad’s side of the car smeared inward, so I leaned over to the passenger side and pushed on the door handle hoping the electric would be on somehow. No luck there either. The sunroof was cracked and barely attached so I pushed it off and crawled out the opening. Somehow the headlights were still lit and the highway had enough light with the streetlamps to make viewing the carnage take away my bearings again. My stomach rose into the top of my throat. I knelt down by Dad and a halved deer. I called his name tangling words because of my tongue. “Dahd, Hey Dahd." Water was puddling in his tear ducts. I felt his neck. That’s what you do in these instances right? Who as an adult feels your father’s pulse? It was an action that didn‘t seem natural. His blood was pounding. Oh, Mom, the rain slicked her clothes to her body. Her cheek was cut open, oh jesus Mom. I rolled her over onto her back and her handbag slid from beneath her onto the road. I propped her up and went to check her purse. No sign of an extra phone, she always had an extra. I looked around the ground to see if it flew out and tried her pockets. The fluorescent light washed out all the color in her skin, harsh contrast of the dark watery blood against her white cheek and neck. I put my hand on the gash but it wasn’t stopping it much. I bent close to her face to see the wound better. The rainwater washed the blood away quickly keeping her face a little less gory, but my hand stayed red long enough to keep my heart panicking.

“Hewp. Shwit," I called out half crying sounding like a child with a bad speech impediment.

No headlights in the distance, no stores or anything besides Mom, Dad, the dead deer and me; the highway was empty of traffic. No phone dropped out as I shook the contents of her handbag thinking that maybe my hand couldn’t see it. What the fuck do you do in the middle of nowhere with no communication working? My head was blank and thick. Shit. I put Mom’s hand on her cheek, trying to hold the blood in. It kept slipping down. I took off my shirt and wrapped her head with it, leaving her mouth so she could breathe. Okay they were both alive. Now what? I got down and checked Dad again to see if he was bleeding anywhere. No blood patches on his clothes, but his head had little nicks all over it. Memories of his bleeding fingers switched on. He was always cutting his fingers on something in his workshop when I was growing up. The rain drizzled cold against the pavement but appeared to be slacking off. I climbed back in the car and checked the power again. If the headlights were working, the power must still be available. I turned the help beacon on and the road sensors on the railing to the right and on the median to the left began to blink. Maybe the engine had a button to get it started. I climbed back out, lifted Mom onto the ground next to Dad and tried to pull the hood up but it wouldn’t budge. I didn’t know crap about what made cars tick anyway.

I sat watching the blood of the deer next to Dad flow away with help from the rain. The fucking headlights were blinding me. I felt like rocking, I was so cold. This must be why people rock back and forth in movies when they go nuts. It’s something to do with the way you feel your heart beat. Mine was jumping up my throat trying to squeeze more into the veins of my head. Where were all the other cars on the highway? Okay fuck it. I grabbed Dad’s hand, put it on Mom’s, and while getting up I stepped down hard on one of the deer’s legs and felt it snap. Shit. Shit. I looked down and saw a phone by the leg. It had loose parts that clacked as I lifted it to see if it’d power on. Nothing. My nose was running and I tasted the blood in my mouth and without thinking, I wiped my mouth on my arm. The pressure from my swollen lips on my tongue was so painful I jerked my head. I threw the fucking phone as hard as I could. I wanted to cry at how retarded it all seemed.

I found the car doors locked but tried pulling on the smashed one hoping to find the locks disconnected. They wouldn't open. I couldn’t leave Mom and Dad out in this. I went to the back of the car where the suitcases were scattered along the road. Doors stay closed tight but the trunk is wide open. My suitcase had come undone so I grabbed all the clothes, ran back to Mom and Dad and dumped them on top of their bodies. It didn’t look like much and I spread out the shirts and sweaters over them. It was only going to be a long weekend. I ran back, grabbed Mom’s larger bag. I pulled all of her clothes out too and dumped them on their bodies. It was a ridiculous scene. A pair of Mom’s small white socks had fallen onto the spilled entrails of the deer next to Dad. I stumbled ahead where the headlights were pointing and rested on the median for a minute looking over at Mom, Dad and the deer. How much time do I have? Where was the friggin help? Dad said the exit was only a half hour away before we hit. We must not be that far from something. I wasn’t wearing anything but pants and sneakers and was freezing. I grabbed a shirt from on top of Dad’s body and threw it on for a little warmth but it was soaked already. I looked up ahead but didn’t see anything except streetlights. There had to be something up there. I looked down at them once more and started running.

The view changed in the Archive. An aerial view of just above me, I could see myself running along the highway. I was breathing heavy and trying to keep my ears warm as I jogged. At the bottom of a slope to my right there were lights on in a house and I slid on my ass most of the way down an embankment. The archive became blurry because there was very little light in the woods that I ran through.

“Wonder why I didn’t think to grab the flashlight from Dad’s car? I know he always keeps one in it.” I said to Lorelei.

“With all the confusion, who could think straight,” she said.

I ran through some scrub brush with pickers scratching at my arms and stomach. It must’ve hurt because I held my arms up in the air to avoid being scratched. I kept tripping over crap on the ground and suddenly started splashing into a stream. It came up to my knees. Watching it was almost a comedy routine, I felt so bad for myself. I lost my footing and soaked half my body but didn’t completely fall in. I climbed up the bank using tree roots that stuck out and stopped for a second to catch my breath. A stupid ass stream, with all the rain I was dealing with I had to run into a stream. The house was close, a few yards above me. I pulled myself up using the trees for balance until I reached a backyard. There was smoke glowing from a barrel that I warmed myself by. I hope the warmth was worth it because it must’ve stunk horribly with all the burnt fish carcasses around it. Two dogs in a chain link fence yanked their heads up and down until I thought they’d snap off while they barked incessantly at me. A spotlight from the top corner of the house switched. In a little window, a person peered out for minute and moved to a sliding glass door. The black outline revealed a short body leaning towards the glass as it looked out from the yellow orange glow inside. It ran away and returned with another that was about as the same size. I got to the edge of the patio and the door slid open. The spotlight was right on me and I had my arm up trying to block it and see better. A man shouted out to me, “You shouldn’t be back there, get out of here.”

“I’m sowry, I donn mean to fwighten you...there’s been an accidenn." I said. I must’ve looked like some kind of madman to them.

“Wait right there,” he said after whispering something to the other shadow and went running off.

“He’ll be right back, just stay where you are for a minute or I’ll set the dogs on you,” a scared female voice said.

“I’m nod goin do huwdt you. I need youwr help. My pawens are huwdt on the highway.”

“I can’t understand whatever it is you’re jumble talking just hold on." She looked inside and the husband returned with something in his hand but you couldn’t make out what it was.

“Alright, come closer but put your arms out and move slowly,” he said holding out his protection.

I put my arms out as if I was flying over to them.

“You don need thad. Thaas been an accidenn. I’m nod here to huwt you.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

A light switched flipped and everything became bright under the porch. The man was holding a knife at me. The woman’s hand moved back from the light switch and they both looked at me and flinched.

“Ew. What’s happened to your face?" His voice changed and you could tell he no longer considered me a threat. “You look like shit boy. Marta, go get him a wash cloth and towels to clean that shit." He waved her inside with the knife.

Marta bent closer to me, looked at my face and down my body, shaking her head. Her eyes had dark circles that seemed strained by her tightly pulled back mouse brown hair.

“He looks awful. My gawd, look at his eyes, all filled up with blood. Don‘t let him in my house with those crappy shoes on,” she said pointing to my feet and glancing sternly at the mud on the patio.

“Come on in son, but take those off.” Mark said.

He stood there as I took off my sneakers and socks before walking into their kitchen. We did a little dance of who would go inside first. He couldn’t seem to decide which would be the better option but then had me go first. The Archive shifted to a view from inside the kitchen. Water’s running in the sink. Dirty pans, coated utensils and bowls filled with different food remnants are all over the counters. I don’t know what I was thinking but I went over to the sink and shut off the running water. The sink was filled with fish and more knives. The man moved his blade close to my face and the angle of the Archive caught a second of my bloody eye reflecting in the knife.

“What’re you doing there son? That’s not for you to be doing. Keep your hands at your sides would you.”

“Sowy, the waddur wus wunning,” The absurdity of the situation hit me again as I listened to me speak. I sounded like a cartoon character.

“Needs to be,” he said opening a drawer and sweeping the knives from the sink into it.

Marta waddled back to the kitchen with a washcloth. They looked like brother and sister. They were almost the same height, and had obviously stuffed a lot of food in with each meal.

“Here Mark,” she gave him the cloth.

“You might want to wipe your face up some. It looks like a train ran into it.”

I took the washcloth and wiped around the edges of my mouth.

“Now, who’re you and what’s got you sneaking up to the back of my property? Polite people use front doors around here,” Mark said rubbing his long whiskered chin.

“My names Ben. Thaas been an accidenn. We hid some deeah on the highway and ma pawends need some hewlp.”

“Oh jesus Mark he’s been in an accident, did you hear that? Oh I’m sorry Ben. It’s Ben right? Come in come in. Mark put that knife down can’t you see he’s been hurt. Do you want some juice? We have orange and apple."

She looks at Mark and gives him an odd wink. Mark doesn’t put the knife down.

“Ooow, yeah, well uh, you want some juice then,” Mark said catching on to whatever Marta was winking about.

“I’m nod thursdy thanks. Could you jusd call the police for me?”

“Why don’t you come in and catch your breath first hon? We can call them in a minute.”

They led me into the next room where two downs syndrome adults sat in folding chairs at a card table. The musty gray curtains of the windows were drawn and hung on bent rods. On folding tables around the room were fish in various stages of being stuffed and mounted.

The far wall had a small fireplace barely lit and above it hung a dozen or so small mounted examples of finished specimens. The men sitting at the table looked at me and quickly turned their faces to the tabletop.

“This here’s Steven and that’s Jeremy. They‘re a little shy, but they bring in their share of the rent with their expertise as you can see,” Marta said putting her hand on Steven’s shoulder and pointing around the room.

Steven looked up at her and pleaded, “It wasn’t me who did it. Suzy must have.”

“Who did what?” Mark said raising his voice in a threatening tone.

“Who did that,” Steven mumbled looking down at the table again and gestured my way.

“Oh no Steven, Ben here’s just come to us for help. He’s been in an accident.”

“He hasn’t been with Suzy?” Jeremy said looking at me now, his mouth forming a wide smile.

“No he hasn’t and shut yer trap, you were told he’s been in an accident now haven’t you." Mark marched over and slapped the back of Jeremy’s head.

“I’m sorry they usually are much more polite with guests, must be your face that’s frightening them. It doesn’t look so good. Do you want me to get you anything else for it?” Marta offered trying to distract me from Mark’s slap, “Here, why don’t we get you out of that wet stuff. Mark go get him some of yours.” Marta pulled the soaked shirt up over my head and took my pants down. I looked like I was three and my mother was undressing me.

“Do you mind if I sit down for a minute? I feel a little dizzy.” I said looking a little wobbly.

“Clear him some room on the couch. Have a seat Ben, we’ll get you fixed up.” Mark said turning to leave.

Marta moved ahead of me and pulled some boxes to the floor making a small space.

“I thing I juss need a liddle resdt. Is thairw a phone?” as I went to sit down my legs looked like they became jello. I dropped back against the couch and the other boxes. The boxes toppled to the ground and I ended up on all fours near Jeremy‘s legs. I stayed there blinking and looking dazed. Jeremy patted my head and each time he touched me, it looked like I was going to fall down completely.

“Jesus, Em, you think you could’ve found a little more room for him. Come on Ben. Let’s get you to your feet. Don’t worry none about that mess." Mark said.

I tried to stand and my legs looked worse than before, I fell into Mark’s arms. Marta came over and grabbed my arm and wrapped her other around my waist, hiking up my boxers. The two of them were so short I could have rested my elbows on their shoulders if I raised my arms up a little.

“Are you okay? Can you hear me? Shit Mark, I think he’s dying.”

Mark grabbed my chin and my eyes were still a crack open, “Look he’s fine, he’s just a little mussed.”

“Let’s put him in the back room.”

“Can’t you walk Ben?” Marta asked.

“He’s limp like a dead trout Em, I’m holding him up. Just clear out I’ll carry him.”

I was dragged into the kitchen and down past an open bathroom with fluorescent light pouring out. Mark leaned me up against a door at the end of the hallway as he took a key out. When he finished unlocking it, he pulled me up against him and pushed it open.

“Em, this is your deal, you take care of matters when it’s finished.” Mark said.

“He won’t even know. She just needs someone to be around, the boys won’t go to her anymore, and lord knows you’ve stopped with her.” Marta said.

There was a little light coming in from the spotlight in the backyard.

“You know why I stopped, and quit acting like it wasn’t your idea.” Mark said.

Then Mark lifted me a little and shoved me in. I hit the wooden floor and must’ve passed out because I didn’t move for a while. They closed and locked the door on me. The dogs were barking in the backyard as I came to. I looked in bad shape. The leaves that circled the window created a shaggy square of light on the floor a short distance from where I lay. The only thing besides the cracks in the boards that the lighted squares shone upon were clumps of foul looking dirt. Something near the square moved and once again, and when she slumped into view her huge naked form was revealed. The light hit her long shaggy hair that ran over shoulders, bare and flabby rounded.

“Mardta, pleas helwp me,” I said.

She grunted or growled a kind of pained anger.

“Mardta, is thadt you? Mark? My eyes aren working righdt.”

She lumbered towards me, sluggish and animal like. The boots she wore shuffle-clumped along the floor. They had to have fed her buckets of food. She grunted again and I tried to lift myself with my arms but I must’ve been too weak. Her unwholesome face leaned close to mine and she smelled my neck. Her hair swatted into my face in clumps as she rubbed against my chin.

“Hey, ged away.” I weakly protested.

She pulled me by my ankles and dragged me into the light. Her cheeks, swollen with fat, dripped down towards me like those of a bulldog and the complete composition read of a sickly longing in her recessed eyes and lilting brow. Her rolls folded and climbed all the way to her chin. My arm was out to the side and she pulled it closer to my body. She must’ve had a horrible odor or something in the room did because I started holding my nostrils shut. I pushed her with a small non-aggressive push. She appeared to be more handicapped than the two at the table. I went to shove her again and my hand mashed into her chest. She grabbed my elbow and moved over to sit beside my head. It looked like she was going to sit on my neck until she settled into place, her hips pressed closely, smothering my ear. She pushed hard on my shoulder, crushing me against one of the piles on the floor. The sausage fingers from her hand passed over my eyes to touch some of my hair. I lay there watching her, looking weak, miserable and trapped. She wiped my face off and touched my swollen lips. She‘s had to have a walnut for a brain the way she was groaning. I looked like I was falling asleep because I closed my eyes and started breathing slow and heavy. She petted my hair for a few moments more then moved down by my legs and her hand landed on my navel. She smoothed my stomach hair and her hand went to my crotch. I snored a little, just a little but it sounded fake and you could see me peeking up at her through my lashes. She’s leaned over and rested her head on my leg. She moved her hand up to my stomach again and it seemed like maybe all she was doing was getting comfortable for sleep, possibly nothing sexual. Then she went to my boxer elastic, and began to work them down. I moved my arms into place and when she pulled them again I pushed myself up. She removed her hands from my boxers, and shifted up on her knees.

“Don do thad okay? Plees jus leave me alone.” I said.

She gave me a hard shove and my arms caved. I must’ve blacked out because I didn’t move while she capitalized on my wasted state. I was lucky I wasn’t awake for what took place. When I woke, my boxers were at my ankles. She was still on top of me. It looked like she'd crush me beneath her. It must’ve been painful because as soon as I woke I reached down to her leg and pinched it making her scream and back off me. Her knee hit my stomach as she stood up. I was free of her for a few moments and looked incredibly relieved. There were many ways to worsen captivity. The stolen sense of freedom after owning it for a moment was one. Low in her chest the howl begin, and upon release I thought the volume she produced could only bring help or curiosity from Marta and Mark but before anyone arrived, the first stomp hit the side of my face. It ripped some skin and my cheek and ear looked barely attached. Her boot then slammed my jaw and a final full-on boot beside my eye was the last before she left me alone and scampered back to a corner of the room.

Lorelei and I sat there for a moment after the prompt for the next part of the Archive came up.

“Do you want to watch any of the items about how they got you back on the highway or the hospital with your folks?” She asked.

“No, that was enough for me.”

We sat there again not saying anything and Lorelei leaned over and put her arms around me. She held me for a time and her little frame threw off so much warmth I seemed to melt in the security.

“It’s all the same as when we watched it here a year or whatever ago. Right up to when I go running for help is still up here,” I said tapping my head. “but all those bizarre events afterwards just aren’t there. I see them when I watch them, I rationalize that that is me that we watch, that the archive and the events in it are real but it’s just not up here.”

“Sweetheart, that’s why you should be reviewing it more often, let’s try thinking of it differently.” She shuffled the teacups onto the tray and tidied up a bit. “I want you to see and think about Faith leaving you, all that you were contending with from that love that had nowhere to go. Then think about what your mind must’ve been dealing with having gone through a frightening car crash and seeing your parents possibly dying. We should find pity for a poor creature like Suzy. As a symbolic figure in your history, especially for the events in your life that preceded her entry onto your stage, she’s perfect. She is each of us that have experienced the kind of suffering that makes one want to transcend existence, but when one couldn't they became twisted instead. She is that bloated lump of love, modified by pain, trapped after it’s been rejected. She is a horrific vision for you I’m sure and you might be feeling the responses that someone who has experienced that would. Fear, anger, confusion, shame. They’re all perfectly understandable. Since I first watched it with you and every time we’ve come together since I’ve hoped something in you would recognize her symbolism for yourself. I’m hoping you will grasp your bigger picture eventually.”

“You’re right I’m angry when I watch it. I’m angry at that beast and at her parents for forcing her on me, but I’m only angry because I see it there. Not because I feel it here. Feels more like watching a movie and you see the wrong happening and it angers you. I hear you about it being something I should accept but I’m sorry, I don’t feel like I have true emotions about it. It’s no different for me this time than it was the first. I could probably watch it a hundred times and I don’t think I’d change my outlook but okay, yes the symbolism is there and it works and I’ll try to focus on that and find the sympathy for all parties involved because I think that’s what you’re getting at.”

“That’s a start and a good place to end I think Better you spend some time alone with it while I get the food ready for you and the boys.”

“Okay.” I said and looked out at the empty fields trying to figure out what I should think.

By the time the light had faded outside, Lorelei had rung the dinner bell and we had a light evening of comforting food and the starry sky drive home.

THREE

I was in the middle of a movie and half way through a bag of chips when a bing-bong chime clicked over and over telling me Lenny was at the front door.

“Com, Let him in.”

A few moments later, into my living room bumbled Lenny.

He walked up close, looked down at me with his usual slightly dark-circled eyes and froze a big white grin on his face, “Want ta goh far eh drive?” He said in his best Irish accent. Lenny was raised in Louisiana and his natural southern accent somehow matched the proud gap he sported between his front teeth. He once told me the gap was a sign of higher intelligence. I’ve never doubted its true but others might.

“Well, yeah but, maybe you could’ve contacted, I’m in the middle of --” I said as Lenny’s tall form towered over me, frozen with his toothy grin waiting for my reply, “Hold on”. I said trying to get out from under his gawky statue routine. I switched my movie off and summoned the twins. Loud footsteps in the hallway, they rounded the corner a little too rapidly and almost knocked Lenny down.

“Lenny. Hey Lenny, what’re you doing here?” Francis said.

“Slow up boneheads.” Lenny rubbed the spot where the twins slammed him. The joint bones of the twins’ bodies protrude, giving them an overall thick-bony appearance.

“Where’re we going?” Ed said and jerked his eyes back to the monitor floating next to him.

“Riding?” Francis asked, scratching Ed’s shoulder.

“Lenny and I are just going for a drive. How bout you guys go for a visit with Mr. and Mrs. Panala?"

“Yes!” they said.

Mr. Panala answered the door that stood a few meters from my apartment. The Panala’s had one of the full glass storefront apartments with huge curtains draped behind the glass so you couldn’t see in. Whenever the doors opened, it made the curtains move in a slow wave as if the front of their apartment might collapse. I’d watched it from a distance and it was very attractive but up close made me a little nervous. He looked down at me and tucked a lock back with the rest of his slicked almost black hair that belied his old age and nodded hello. “Sadie, the boys are here.” he shouted towards the kitchen and went back to do whatever it was he was busy doing.

“Oh look who’s here to visit. Come in come in.” Mrs. Panala said waving a cloth napkin at us to enter. She was a tall thick woman with curly graying hair and a charming polish accent.

“Sorry, did we catch you eating?” I asked.

“Oh no, I was just having a snack. Would you boys like a snack?” she said as she dusted her hands off.

“Sure would.” Lenny said but I put my arm out to block him.

“Would you mind if the twins spent the day here with you?”

“Now you know you don’t have to ask me that. You boys are welcome here any time. You’ve never needed an invitation and never will,” she patted the twins hands and winced a bit as they patted hers in return.

“Thanks. I’m not sure when we’ll be back but possibly before dinner.”

The twins squeezed past Mrs. Panala into her apartment without saying goodbye.

“Oh don’t hurry, with those darn monitors they aren’t that tough to take care of anyway.” and she waved as we turned and sailed down the escalator. We stopped near the exit for some of our favorite bubble tea soda from one of the vendors. The front walkway was crowded with two young girls who were busy throwing snaps at the ground. Their little white dog tried to eat each one and barked at the snap as it hit and made the namesake noise. Lenny decided to walk by staring intensely at their dog. Acting startled by the noise and pretending not to see the curb, he threw his soda forward onto the grass as he did a fake trip and fall for them. He landed on the ground like a rubber band, and flipped back to his feet. They giggled into thin little girl white gloves and skipped away, pulling their dog who yipped frantically at Lenny.

“Hey, did you see them?” Lenny asked plucking a few of the black tapioca balls from the cup that no longer had the soda left to go with them.

“Did I see them? No, all I saw was you wasting your drink.”

“Ah, you know, anything to get em goin.” Lenny said chewing the tapioca balls and twinkle-finger waving to the girls as he got in the car. Lenny was a favorite with every child he met.

Usually we put the autopilot on local random and took a chance on where we ended up. We found some of the most exciting places trying to get lost. The best roads were ones where local kids had smashed up road sensors and the car lost its autopilot properties forcing you to steer. You could take the credit for the good mistakes you found that way.

“You wanna smoke?” Lenny said flipping open a pack of cigarettes.

“Yeah, sure. Chewy?” I said using the slang for gum I learned from an Australian girl I hooked up with once.

“Yeah. sure.” Lenny said.

We smoked without talking as we drove northwest for a few hours. Tambourine and seal barking music played from the speakers. Giant suburban housing complexes bunched against the highways like cubic fungus. All painted in pale bland colors with stone or brick detailing, dotted with immaculately groomed shrubbery and grass trimmed to manic perfection. The roofs pushed at each other seeking extra room. Lenny found the exit that led to a state park we liked to frequent. I flicked my butt out the window into one of the trash collecting gutters as he slowed at a stop signal.

“You want the last of my bubbles?” I said knowing Lenny rarely turns down a snack, even if it was originally someone else’s.

“If you don’t want em” and he sucked the last of the tapioca bubbles up and chewed happily. “Can I say something and you won’t bite my head off?” Lenny asked.

“Anyone who asks that question should come prepared to bleed.”

“Listen man, you have to lighten up. We use to laugh all the time. When’s the last time you really laughed? I mean really?” Lenny glanced over at me full of sincerity that I wanted to strangle.

“What? I’m laughing all the time. We’re always laughing.”

“No, I’m doing the normal and your grumbling or being bothered that I called you or interrupted your movie or ‘wasted my drink’ Who the hell cares if I dump a drink to make some kids laugh?”

I didn’t answer right away. “Okay maybe you’re right, I don’t know, I guess I need a drive like this. I need to clear out the nightmares. I had another monster dream two nights ago. I’ve been thinking about it all morning.”

“Yeah, what were you now?”

“A werewolf.”

“There yeh go, see you really could’ve bitten my head off. So you wanna tell it?”

“I guess...but I’m starting to think I should just keep them to myself. This one’s not much for chuckles.”

“Give that talk to Lorelei, you know we’ll figure out the chuckle factor somehow. Tell it to me like you did about bein’ the lizard man, lotsa sloppy guts spillin’.”

“Okay, hold on a second. Let me get it going in my head.”

A tree ahead of us lost most of its fingers to a strong breeze and I began.

“I sat on a bed that wasn’t the same as mine in real life but in the dream it was mine. It was just before sunset outside my window so the room was kinda dark. These hairy-edged shadows moved along the walls. I was frightened and I sat there waiting for one to approach. I could hear air suck in and out of their nostrils. Then all of a sudden, hands clapped to gain attention of the others around me.

Imagine the silhouette of a hair covered man with a crooked spine and an arched neck. His face was in shadow so his mouth was hidden as he spoke. He said something like, ‘When one begins to change one must press on the spot that is becoming and it will lessen pain,’ and then he said the same thing or practically the same only louder ‘Pressing the spot stops the pain!’

I tried to look for a way out of the room and that’s when he turned my way. He waited for me to respond but I didn’t know what to say. Then he said what I thought was a pretty good line when I was reciting it to Com yesterday, ‘The pack is where you’ll find heat, alone you spiral cold with your tail in the lead. You have no choice you must do as we do.’ and then stared at me not speaking, just waiting.”

“Straight out of one of the old movies.” Lenny added.

“So my face started to shift and bubble. It felt like cicadas were buzzing within my eyebrows. My chest was buzzing the same way. I shook my head, trying to stop it from happening. When I turned towards a mirror, I found tadpoles swimming under this waxy film of my forehead. I tried to squeeze them out like a pimple but they wouldn’t budge.”

“Pop that frog zit! Ew...” Lenny interrupted.

“Yeah I know, tadpole pimples, but they weren’t, they wouldn’t squeeze out. Instead they reached with the skin that stretched from my face towards the mirror and it hurt like hell. Then I mashed my fingers into my cheek where the buzzing was and my flesh pushed out without pain like the head guy said. Then too many teeth came from behind my lips. My arms and legs kinked weirdly and I hunched over twice my normal size and felt incredibly strong. Everybody went jumping out the window so I followed. I cruised through backyards at top speed, keeping up with the others for a while. The long grass and weeds whipped against the fur on my neck and stomach. This was when it really felt real. I mean even now as I’m telling you I can almost feel the grass like I’m running like a dog and the grass would hit my face and chest, and I kept smelling water like after a recent rain shower on cement sidewalks or warm macadam. But when the scent of some female got up my nostrils—“

“Nice, yer a woman huntin’ werewolf,” Lenny added excited.

“Just hold on. It becomes not so nice in a minute.” I closed my eyes and continued, “I ran past old brick houses and along streams that reeked of algae. The pack disappeared somewhere while I was busy sniffing holes, and chasing that female smell. I came to a long green hedge and through it I spotted the two girls that the scent came from. I hid there panting, trying to catch my breath. They played in a parking lot under a streetlight that had just gone on as I sat down. Their longhaired skinny little bodies were skipping in circles with strands of white plastic tied to wooden sticks. The strips whistled and moved slow, like fishtails underwater. They kept laughing, swinging round and round. I looked to see who else was there and I noticed the one that gave me directions was hiding nearby and watching me. He was waiting for me to do something. That’s when the girls saw me. They pointed with their sticks and laughed. I got incredibly angry and crushed the bushes in front of me. My body altered to half-human state as I grabbed the smaller girl. I felt the shift of the kinks in my limbs just before I caught her. I ripped her pants off. Tiny pieces of her soggy skin were in my nails and then I spread her legs. Jesus, it was so real. It felt like I was starving, like when you’re so hungry and you don’t even taste what you’re eating. I can’t even think how such a thing would work but in the dream I knew. Then she seemed bent funny and I looked to the curve of her spine where I noticed small symbols branded along it. I couldn’t read them, but I kept looking closer at them as I pounded and then a flicker from above me made me look up. The stars were switching on and my eyes went towards the streetlight. That’s when I snapped out of it. I became sick about what was happening and I let go of her crumpled body. She disappeared as the hair on my body sank back towards the skin and my teeth pulled back into my gums. That’s where it ended and I woke conscious of my canine teeth and had an angry boner.”

“That was rotten. I felt like I was there. And what a saw.”

“It was a saw?”

“Yeah you know a coincidence wave, the two little girls with a wolf, and the two little girls with the dog that I did the trip for.”

“Oh you’re right, but that was just today, the dream was yesterday morning. Does that still count?”

“Sure it does you’re telling it to me, now.”

“Well, anyway, it was so real in the dream...just incredibly gross.”

“Damn, yer sick, you gotta get away from that ‘old enough to pee old enough for me’ routine.” Lenny said elbowing me.

I laughed, “No really, it was disgusting. Of course it took place in a parking lot over by Faith’s house.”

“That’s funny, that’s exactly where I was picturing it. It’s over a year now right. You still thinkin’ about her?”

“Nah. Not really. She only comes into my head maybe once or twice a day,” I said with sarcasm.

“I know this cute shrink at work I could hook you up with,” Lenny made a big boob gesture, cupping at his chest. “She’ll get you over these Faith nightmares.” and he turned up the music.

Rust and lemon leaves flipped down only to kick up again just before they hit the ground when we passed. The fields of cornstalk spikes flickered in my eyes as I watched them rake by the window. We arrived at the top of Clark Hill and found the saturated fall view of the valley and the lake. We drove down to the water and rode on it to a section where it’d be hard to see us from the road. It’s illegal to drive on the lakes but hardly anyone came out here and the local police never gave us a hard time about it. We’ve caught them car surfing before anyway.

Lenny left the tambourine music on, switched out the seals and added some crowd cheering with the occasional announcer interjection that sounded like a transmission from a Mexican baseball game. That wasn’t what he wanted I guess because he tuned to a classic spin mix station, and turned up the outside microphones that are catching the water sloshing noises and we listened to the blend as we bobbed up and down on the waves.

“You don’t got any tooturs do you?” I asked.

He sniffed the air like a dog, smiled and brought out a small dusty knitted bag from under his chair. As he opened the bag, a brusque earth scent filled the car.

We packed a pipe, rolled down the windows and lit up.

“How’s the biosphere ship coming over at OM2ME?” I asked.

“The new one’s incredible. Wait’ll you see this thing lift off the ground. I just received an email from my boss before I left that they need my research on that child entertainment and response study I’ve been doin’. It’s ridiculous. There’re only two other sociologists workin’ on it and the assholes want the information three months before they’re due. I felt no guilt leavin’ early today." Lenny lit the end of his pipe and blew a stem of gray.

“How long was the study supposed to last?” I asked.

“At least til the ‘floaters’ stop pukin’ all over the test site.”

“Floaters?” I took a hit.

“The babies in the zero gravity room that we been studyin’ the auto-spin mobiles with are floaters. Obviously because of the zero G but also because they keep projectile vomitin’ their meals all over. The study was supposed to go until late next spring.” Lenny said.

“You just reminded me. I got an email from this girl today. Some list I joined a while ago is still active and she responded.”

“Reminded you? Why? Does she look like puke or somethin’?” Lenny said with choked voice, holding in the smoke he just inhaled.

“She could. She didn’t send a photo with her letter, but you reminded me how I told her about getting the scientists off my back with visiting the twins. Lucre used his clout to get the scientists from Clonex to let him observe the twins and report back. It should stop them from bothering us at home, but I still wonder when they’ll finally leave the twins alone. You’d think they’d have all the info they need on them by now.”

“Just have the twins puke on them more often. So you gonna get any?”

“Any what? Oh. Susan. I’m not ready for that relationship crap after Faith.”

“You’re plenty ready but just tell her to send some Archive files of her showerin’ for me if you don’t want any.” Lenny flicked his tongue up and down.

His face warped a little like a cartoon snake and I realized the tootur must be kicking in.

“Shut up. Check out that light pattern on the wave over there. It’s moving with the music?” I said.

Bright orange and red leaves lined the horizon. We zoned and were riveted by the lake reflecting turbulent blues and oranges. I found myself connecting with the blue and looked to see Lenny who was now king of the orange. Lenny opened his window more and a cross breeze blew a dragonfly in. It jumped from place to place finally settling on the dash. We watched its wings pulse then electrify when it flew to the steering gear and stopped again. Lenny started giggling at it.

“Those things are so powerful, look at the control the wings have.” Lenny said mesmerized. It flew around the car and alighted on Lenny’s arm, clenching onto some of his hairs. Lenny began waving it around wildly and smashed the dragonfly against the seat.

“That fucker wanted to eat my arm. You never felt something so prickly in yer life.”

I started laughing hard and smacking my knee and Lenny realized how crazy he just sounded. He started laughing at himself too and picked up the mangled fly to drop it out the window. He saluted it in memorial as it sank into the lake.

The water continued to slap against the car. I wanted to open the door but knew that would only invite the water in. I was certain that it wasn’t my enemy but it’s not to be trusted either. It talked in sneaky laughing phrases to the floor as an hour passed. The secrets of water being who I was, who all of us were, was imparted to me. I waited for the feel of the waves to flow out of my ears and soon my brain was dry again.

“I’m hungry. Did you bring anything to eat?” I asked

“I only have a bag of oranges that sweet Sheryl left in my car. Here.” Lenny grabbed the bag from behind his seat and dropped it on my lap. I ripped one in half, getting pulpy skin in my fingernails and handed over half to him.

“Damn good.” I spat a seed out the window and watched it sink into the lake.

"Yeah, Sheryl’s always got the first-class stuff. I should call her for another date.”

We ate the whole bag on the way home.

I was happy that Mrs. Panala wasn’t upset at all that I’d gotten back so late, and that the twins were half-asleep when I got there. Mrs. Panala invited them back after I thanked her as we left for our place.

“Hey where were you?” Ed asked with his eyelids drooping when we got to their bedroom.

“Oh you know I told you, Lenny and I went driving.”

“That’s right that’s right.” Ed said.

“But guess what tomorrow is?” I said as I pulled the covers down. “We’re going to visit the Center.” Francis perked up a little just before his head was on the pillow.

“I’ll see you then.” Ed said and they were asleep in their custom-made bed before I’d gotten the covers pulled up.

FOUR

A street lamp shines on the last of the pug-nosed yellow buses as it pulls to the curb. The view of the three buses queued up takes me back in memory to middle school and rides home from late days of ball practice. I feel it pulling me to leave, must get going. Faith lounges in the driver’s seat of the first bus, heart-raping pretty as always. She stares ahead through the windshield as I reach the steps. When I glance up, she speaks with a steely voice without looking my way, “This bus is full."

The second one has faces grinning out of every opening, no room.

Through the windows of the third, I see misshapen heads lit by the dim interior lights. I board and check every row of deteriorating green vinyl seats. It unnerves me that the figures occupying the seats look half cooked. Each a challenged human form: One exhibits scattered patches of hair on a head stretched to double size. Another boasts extra folds of neck skin rolling over shoulders. Watery eyes set too low on a face. Child arms on an adult body. I slip into a seat alone. On the back of the seat in front of me in blue ballpoint pen scribbled in block letters are ‘HOME-LY’ and a few small symbols that I can’t make out in the lighting.

The doors clash against their rims. Fast Speeding Forward Motion.

Oncoming traffic lights penetrate the windows and brush a luminous glaze over the figures ahead of me. Everything moves in time lapse. The others jiggle left and right with the bus and look uncomfortable, ready to get to wherever it is we’re going. I’m ready to get there. The man in the seat next to me (child-sized arms on an adult's body) is leaning slightly forward and gripping tightly the seat in front of him. The wind and the rumble of the engine pour through the open windows, filling the bus with flurries of noise.

“Are we there yet? “ I shout at the backs of the heads, hoping the words reach the bus drivers ears. An enormous woman is driving. Heavy, sweaty and hunched over the wheel, she’s a potato sack with deep fried hair. She stinks like wet leather and ham hoagies and it permeates the bus. Momentum locks me in place as we continue to speed up. Hard light fills the bus in a sucking flash and we stop without slowing. The doors open. No one moves to exit but the guy with kid arms looks at me as if I’m wasting his time and waves me to get out.

By accident, I brush the driver’s breast with the back of my hand as I pass and her head swivels. A piece of toilet paper is stuck to her lower lip and ripples down her chest like a tie. I’m the only one who gets off.

The headlights of another car poke my eyes when I exit and as my eyes adjust, a hand with sharp red fingernails waves me over from a parked car. It’s Diana, a long time family-friend, who is talking when I approach. Flowered candle wax and engine oil hit my nostrils as I close the door. Diana steps on the gas. Road signs glare, passing in quick succession and the dashboard lights glow amber on Diana’s arms giving her the pallor of chilled bacon fat. Street lamps pass on, swinging out of view, and flying insects no longer hover. I can’t see much of a road. I crack the window that lets in a dusty breeze as I seek some air while Diana continues to chatter. It flies in and burns, blurring my vision.

“...Well, I decided if I am going to raise my child properly I’d better become one too. It was a shock of course that my last son is one but you understand all about it I’m sure, right hon?” I keep rubbing my eyes, and just as they clear, she turns and smiles with a wide mouthed grin showing her almond sliver fangs. I smile back shaking my head yes and faking my understanding of anything she’s said. Radio static drowns out her words. She squeals around curves and I’m relieved when we pull into a town of small buildings checkered with lit windows. We stop in front a streetlamp at the top of a ravine that seems familiar. Small shaggy dogs are playing with a tree limb just ahead of us where a flat part of the hillside slopes more gently into the ravine. I fumble with the metal door handle. I need to get out. Without effort it swings open, I exit and the car smears away, dissolving with whispers of Diana’s chattering voice. I was recently here. I can make out where I need to go, up the mountain on the other side of the ravine. I must get there. Rocks and the dogs follow along with me as I slide down on my ass. I cross a dry creek and as I begin up the other side, my feet barely touch. Gravity pulls at my cheeks, skin hugs my skull and two sharp teeth cut into my lips as I speed up. I only have to lightly grab and flick myself along the slope. The need to Get There grows stronger. Others join me as I climb and the mountain seems to crumble on to us. We fly up through the showering dirt and run to the top. It’s a cool starless night. I try to shake off the crud but it’s in every crevice. Far above wisps of clouds, we stand as spectators. Others are sitting over the side and looking down at a sports arena made of twigs. It seems so far away, all bright on the inside with fields of giant flowers surrounding it. A loud slurping sound comes from someone sitting just below me. I look in horror to see myself drinking at the sliced neck of a dog sagging over my legs. A pile of other drained dogs lay next to me. One of the other audience members looks over at me as I’m drinking the dog in and says, “Something stinks about this game don’t it?”

The stadium speakers echo up the mountain. The whistle for the game to begin...

Trash truck alarm...eeep eeep eeep eeep...

I woke to the sight of a cellophane wrapper sliding along the floor below me. My vision cleared to show that it’s in fact a silverfish scampering across from a plate with a half-eaten donut to some bunched up boxers.

“Com, keep the bugs out of my room please,” I mumbled.

The book fell off my chest as I rolled over to check the time and found myself fully dressed.

“Good Morning Ben. The time is eleven oh three AM. It’s impossible to keep all insects from your apartment with the amount of debris you leave lying around. Letters from Susan and the Saint Center are waiting.”

In the bathroom, I poured some of the tooth cleanser into a glass. Orange juice tooth cleanser is much better in the morning than at night. The nano-bots go to work keeping my choppers in perfect order, thousands of miniscule robots all eating the gunk off my pearly whites. Just shake them into activation mode, and swallow. Mmm, delicious. I remember them telling me as a kid that the nano-bots were in the juice and I wouldn’t drink it or real juice because I thought it was like swallowing a million monsters. I would try chewing on the juice to kill some. I didn’t want any more of them living in me than I had to. Little did I know they exit with your urine and help clean part of the sewer systems before they expire. Tiny helpers, not monsters. This reminded me and I recited the vampire dream to Com and quickly forgot about it. Ragged, my face is in need of a tune up. I pushed my hair all forward and it stuck straight up in the air. I smiled as big as I could at myself revealing my teeth in the mirror. Nope, no fangs. Only horrid teeth. Hot water shower massage in the morning, without it on my skin it’s a long time before I can fully wake up. I undressed and stepped in.

“Com can you show me the letters now please.”

I soaped up and the first message scrolled onto the shower tile.

From Susan@sprynet Subj: Intimate details.

Saturday October 30th

Dear Ben,

First, I must apologize for taking so long to reply to your letter.

Where do I start? I’ll start at the top of your letter and work my way down. It’s somewhat strange because...well you’ll see. Let us delve into a deep emotional abyss...

Intimate details:

What no one knows: (and I don’t believe I’m telling you this) Last month I was raped. I hadn’t felt like talking with anyone since and haven’t until I found and reread your first email that must’ve arrived just after my terrible event. So here I am ready to expose all. It wasn’t this shameful, horrific incident really. Well, that’s probably because it’s repressed. It was date rape. First and last time I EVER give my number to a guy I meet at a club. I hate him. I hate myself. Okay, I have all these feelings going here and they’re not sorted out. It wasn’t like you’d think. I said no. He didn’t listen. I do have a lot of anger though. I made a feeble attempt to go to counseling, but that didn’t work out. I went and bought some of the memory erasing pills but I haven’t used them. I’m afraid I’ll take a wrong dose and they’ll cause one of those complete amnesia deals. I would like to press charges, because I don’t think he should be allowed to do it again. I guess I’m just a coward because this is the easy way out, writing to you and not seeking real help. That’s so pathetic, but it’s the truth.

I’m not good at expressing my feelings. You will probably know more about me than anyone else, and yet ironically, you won’t know me at all. The world is a strange place.

Question:

What is your take on women? Do you think all women cheat?

Another Question:

What is the car accident you had? I’d like details if you want to share.

Internet people Question:

A friend of mine said that she feels people who spend their lives on the Internet are either lonely or have problems. I don’t have much experience on it with strangers. You’re the only person I write to that I don‘t know. What do you think?

Archive Question:

You said you don’t like the Archives. Why is that?

Relationship Question:

I can relate to the relationship you had with Faith. I had a four-year relationship with a boy I met at college. We were married briefly. I was looking for one of those bohemian lifestyles. What’s so wrong with wanting to live with one person forever? He gave me a ring and we were going to buy a house. We never actually lived together, I was supposed to move there but I didn’t. He was afraid to move to the Skycity. The city had only been aloft for about two years then and people still thought it’d come crashing to the ground. Uninformed fools. I was upset so I said I wouldn’t move to Minnesota and we ended up divorcing. I don’t want to be controlled. Now it seems every guy I meet lives in another state. I don’t look for it either. I think guys find it easier to approach a woman if they know they can just move away if things don’t work out, then they don’t have to deal with rejection. Am I right?

Drug use comment:

I’ve never done any. Some of those new OW (other world) pills tempt me, but it would have to be with the right person. On the outside people think I’m this conservative person. Appearances deceive. I think it’s important to see life from different perspectives. It only increases your knowledge.

Well, I’ve cried you a river I just hope you’re an ocean.

-Susan

***

I hate that corny kind of letter ending phrase. Something stinks. How do you go from date rape to a cute letter ending like that?

“Response to Susan at Sprynet. Subject is ‘Soap on my Ankles’.”

The words scrolled across the screen as water speckled the tile.

“Susan, I’m not sure what to say to you. Here’s my dilemma... I feel like I’ve heard this one before... Girl wants intimacy with new person she’s met. She’s heard a million times by the age of twenty in every tabloid form -- stories of rape and date rape and then uses it to gain sympathy and interest from new person. I don’t know if you’re reacting to my letter, and the way I wrote of telling intimate details or if you just want to get my attention. I have a hard time believing that anyone who’s been raped would talk about it in a second email without knowing the other person very well, but to be fair I will answer your questions and try to accept that what you’re saying is true.

What’s my take on women? I don’t have one. Generalizing is wrong but I have my doubts about trusting them these days. I think if you’re the one that’s dated many guys from out of state, that maybe you’re the one who’s afraid of being rejected. Maybe. It sounds like it was a good thing to get away from the controlling situation with your x in any case.”

I stopped and reread her letter to see what else needed a response.

“As to what your friend said about people on the Internet... Well, I have many friends that I’d consider attractive and successful, that aren’t in pain and found life and love on the Internet. Again, it’s hard to generalize like that don’t you think. Oh and about my not being an enthusiast of the Archives. They’re a great tool for many things, but while there are huge fans out there (most people I meet in fact), too many of them love dwelling on their pasts. I’ve found that often when I review events or my history it’s painful. Mostly because even when it’s a memory of an event that I loved it’s tinted with the fact that it’ll never be that way again, that those days are gone, and with bad memories, who wants to review them?

I’ve got to finish showering now. I guess we’ll talk books next time. Send that with my signature Com.”

I finished rinsing the shampoo and toweled off.

“Next letter Com.” As I’m combing my hair the email showed on the mirror.

From: LMammon@sc.net Subj: Your visit today?

Ben:

I wanted to remind you to bring your “bag of wits” with you when you come to help this afternoon. The center has been a hotbed of upheaval and in need of some of your incredibly appreciated fine-tuning. As always, I am looking forward to seeing you and your brothers.

Lucre

***

Lucre is good for some over exaggeration. He’s a fine example of how management can take something little and blow it out of proportion to look like they are involved or to look like they know what’s going on and are doing something about it. It’s only been a month since my last visit, how much upheaval can there be at the Saint Center? Thousands of bodies in a deep sleep state... Are all their colostomy tubes backed up? Just send me an email saying see you soon or something.

The kitchen was a slop bucket. Plastic jars of left over food were open on every counter top, which hummed trying to keep up with sucking away the mess that kept dripping onto its surface. Ed draped wet noodles over the bridge between their bodies. Francis pounded on what were probably tomatoes at one time.

“What’s all this?” I asked a little angry.

“We’re making lunch, we‘re italiaaaaliano.” They said in happy unison mimicking some actor they saw in a commercial no doubt.

Francis licked some tomato seed pulp from the side of his wrist.

“Oh, great job,” I said annoyed at the slop everywhere. I typed in spaghetti with sauce on the replicator console and pulled out a plate fixed the way we usually eat it when we’re in a rush. “How about we eat this and save ourselves some time? We’re going to the center today remember?”

“Oh yeah,” they said.

They took a seat on the boulder, stopped with their noodles and tomatoes, and ate the warm sauce-covered pasta with their hands, ignoring me.

***

Gigantic oak trees lined the driveway leading to the center. The twins started giggling with excitement as we moved through the tunnel of orange and yellow leaves. Francis played happy suckerfish with the window. I can’t get him to leave windows alone.

“Will you quit licking the window Francis,” I said.

Suction POP! Drool slithered down the glass where his mouth was.

“We’re goin’ to see the saints aren’t we Ben?”

“Yeah, Francis, we’re there now.”

“Aaaacooorns.” shouted Ed pointing out the sunroof after a few pelt the window.

The building, a combination of church windows and science museum curves, had three black vans parked at the entrance. I need to get a full tour of it one day. Several people in matching white outfits pulled large boxes from the van. Each box was marked with a four-petal-flower cross and “Fragile” in red letters. The twins, in their green pajama glory, ran, caught up to and passed the carton carrying men. They stopped on the white marble steps at the front door, waving their arms to greet the men as if they owned the place. The men turned to look at me for advice and I shouted, “Just don’t make any sudden moves and they won’t bite." Without expression, they turned and tried to walk past the twins. A man with thick bushy eyebrows got into one of those dances with the twins where you’re trying to get by each other but keep choosing the same path. The twins became confused and decided to go straight ahead, knocking him on his ass. His box and some of its contents came spilling out onto the ground.

“Oh shit. Sorry about that. They must’ve gotten mixed up.” I said rushing to help him up as Ed and Francis stood there with embarrassed looks on their faces. Bushy Brows, ignoring me, quickly began to shuffle bags of blue shimmering substance back into the box. One of the last bag’s corners must’ve ripped as Bushy lifted it to the box. Blue crystal powder spilled on one of his hands. Immediately his hand began to expand as if boiling with water. Then small little popping noises sounded and flesh colored leaves came poking through his skin. I felt like I was watching some bad sci-fi show. I was thirteen in gym class when this kid Billy Haynes wrestled Ted Buckingham. Ted rolled over and snapped Billy’s arm causing the bone to rip out of the skin and we all stared with fright. Flesh leaves sprouting from fingers and Billy’s arm bone pretty much elicited the same feeling. Bushy Brows held the branch that was once his arm to his face, not believing what he was looking at and began a tortured cat howl. We all backed away from him. Ed and Francis turned and held me tightly, and I hugged them back.

“Don’t worry guys, it’s just a game. No big deal.” But I didn’t believe that.

Just then, Lucre emerged from the front door.

Lucre wears a white turban looking thing on his oversized head. It’s wrapped to look smooth and pointed with no obvious wrinkles or folds, seemed like an odd choice in fashion but then what do I know about his fashion tastes anyway. If he were from the Middle East I might not question it but he has no accent and his coloring would suggest more of a Nordic decent. Silvering white hair poked out of it over the top of his oyster shell ears. His eyes are deep set and seemed to be in constant motion, shifting back and forth as he talks to you. He’s an ice king in his white lab coat, the kind of composed man who gave you the impression that he could as easily rip off your head as protect you from any threat. He‘s always been overwhelmingly friendly to me so I have no reason to not like him, but my tongue was always tight against the roof of my mouth when he’s around.

“Take him and get that cleaned up.”

The other two men stood still, not responding to Lucre’s command, and watched the leafy arm.

“Now!” Lucre said, his voice knifing all ears in range and making me jump.

They quickly put their boxes back in the van and carried Bushy Brow into the building. Lucre’s narrowed eyes with a tightrope-balanced glare followed the men into the building, then turned to us, and widened along with a welcoming smile.

“Hello there gentlemen, you’re a little early aren’t you? No matter, don’t worry about this. They fix it with a simple chemical therapy. So happy you could make it.”

He made it sound so unimportant I believed it but the boys still clung to me.

“The twins were excited so we came a little early. If they’ve caused too much trouble we could come back later.” I said trying to cover up my unease.

“No, no, it’s fine, come right in. Come on now boys, truly, its okay.”

Clinging close to me, the twins and I walked into the anteroom with its bright silver door inscribed with the center’s logo, a combination design of a sun and vines or veins. The building had low lighting. I guessed it was deliberate to show off the glow the catacombs emit. All throughout the building, interior glass walls housed light blue catacombs woven like giant ant farms. They’re home to dark blue metallic beetles that actively crawled in and around the tunnels. An occasional green blotch showed where you could watch the beetles swarm.

“Is that the substance that got on that guys hand?” I asked pointing at the catacomb walls. Francis and Ed slipped from my side to get a closer look.

“How perceptive of you Ben. It’s almost the same. We tried using nano-probots to gather and process the algae but they just couldn’t create the high quality extract the beetles can.” We walked closer to the wall. “The small size of the Lamprima adolphinae doesn’t give you the right impression of the skill they have. They digest the crystallized arctic algae, or that blue crystal you see them tunneling in,” he said as he outlined a path in the wall. “The excrement that they generate is a product we use to help with the life support systems of the saints.”

“I wondered why this place is surrounded with these beetles. I thought it was just an interior design idea.”

“It was part of the original intent to add to the splendor of our workplace. With the main structures of the Saint complex constructed of living plant matter, we felt compelled to bring other forms into the design that show more of the gears of our company’s engine. I’m sure the architects could’ve hid the living quarters away in a place that others could not view, but look at what we’d be hiding,” Lucre said sweeping his arm around the room in a grand gesture and stopping right where the twins now stood, close to one of the shimmering green spots. Francis had his mouth suctioning the glass on the wall and Ed tapped the glass. “Come here buggybuggybuggy,” Ed said over and over. His tapping caused the smart surface of the walls to start spitting out information screens in consecutive waves along its surface.

“Francis, what’d I tell you last time we were here. Now someone is going to have to clean up your slop, and Ed quit tapping on the glass you’re bothering the beetles.”

Suction POP! Drool spilled down the wall. “But I like the green parts.”

“Don’t worry about it Ben, the boys are always welcome to explore. Francis, you’re a smart boy, those are the most important parts of the catacombs. Those green areas are the places the beetles go to the bathroom.” Lucre tapped the wall surface and the information screen surrounding the green section disappeared.

Francis started wiping his tongue on his sleeve. “Eghh, Ah’m gonna puke. I don’t like poop.” He said worriedly looking at Lucre.

“Don’t fret, Francis, you couldn’t get to the excrement through the glass wall.”

“How do they remove the stuff from there? I don’t see any way to get in.” I said.

“Most of the walls can be removed and replaced for processing. There are also special passages behind some of the permanent walls. It’s not visible from this side, all part of the beautiful design of the Saint Center. Why don’t you all take a seat and I’ll see if I can arrange refreshments.”

We sat in one of the many rooms surrounding the complex where relatives or friends of the saints wait before visiting loved ones. Sitting in the middle of the room was a couch and chairs arranged around an oversized coffee table made from a cross section of a redwood.

A few scientists came through a black door that I’d never used. They walked toward us holding a small glass jar with a beetle sitting in a glowing neon yellow substance. They’re in the middle of a hushed conversation in an Asian dialect. They stopped across the table directly in front of the twins and me, continued their conversation and seemed not to notice us.

“Hello. What’ve you got there?” I said hoping to get their attention before the twins startled them.

No reply.

“Hello.” I said louder.

They tapped the jar and the beetle crawled toward the tap point. They all gave off helium speed high-pitched laughter.

“Do you speak English?” I asked.

No reply. They tapped some more and the beetle banged its head against the glass. They laugh again. Francis and Ed got up and went over to them.

“No tapping on the glass.” Ed said as he snatched the jar, breaking the giggling labcoats from their trance. Ed hid it between his and Francis’s body under the flesh bridge. The scientists obviously agitated chatter sternly to the twins trying to get at the jar while the twins spun around making it impossible to reach.

“Okienaki booki dooki won won a buki.” Francis said mimicking them in a fake angry voice and walked quickly away.

“Give them back the jar guys." I said.

Around the table the parade began, six and a half foot twins in green pajamas with jar followed by the three five foot white-coated jabbering scientists. You could see the scientists were worried about the jars safety holding their hands around the twins as they shuffled along after. I got up and stopped them.

“Give it back now." They unhappily complied.

“But they were poking at the glass.” Francis said in defense.

Ed stretched his neck and stuck his tongue out at them as the scientists moved swiftly with the jar through another door.

“Sit back down guys. Come on, Lucre will be back with cookies in a minute.”

As I said it, the door opened and with long stern strides in walked Lucre, a silver tray in hand.

“Here you go, treats for everyone.” Lucre said.

It was a tray of white patties. I took one, thanked Lucre, and found it cold to the touch.
“They are rice ice cream sandwiches,” Lucre said as the twins sniffed the patties.

“You said he’d bring cookies.” Francis said and took a bite, letting it fall out of his mouth. “Bleeh, this tastes like turds.”

Ed put his gently back on the tray.

“Now that’s not polite. Thank Lucre for bringing you a treat." I took a big bite of the cardboard tasting ice cream and forced a smile to show how I liked it.

“Thaaanks Lucre.” They said in unison without any feeling.

“I’m sorry, boys. I’ll get you something else while your brother Ben gets started on his painting.” Lucre turned to me and lost his fake smile that he’d planted on his face for the twins. “Ben, I’ve been studying the statistics that my researchers have been gathering on the saints. It looks as if there is a definite trend towards some kind of negative internal transformations. The reason I said there was upheaval in my note to you is I need you to focus your energies on making as many of the saints as comfortable as only you can. I know this has always been my request of you but if the trends are correct it appears more necessary than ever. We can’t have our saints going bad. I know you won’t let me down. Oh and as it’s time for me to send my report to the Clonex scientists about the twins I thought I’d jot some perfunctory notes about how they seem and then allow them to play while I work, as usual.” Lucre returned to his fake smile as he said “as usual.” The odd thing about his smile is that it’s less as if he’s faking it because he’s a shallow cold person and more like he’s afraid to use a real one.

“Come along with me, we’ll start the games and find some treats you’re sure to like. Ben you know the way to the saint’s chambers don‘t you?”

“It’s straight through that door and down the hall, right?” I said pointing at the wooden door I’d used many times before.

“That’s it. Will you need anything to help you with your work?”

“No thanks, I’ve got all I need.” I patted my bag hanging from my shoulder.

“Very well then. Come along boys, the saints are waiting for your brother’s good work.”

“You guys be good alright. I’ll see you in a little while.”

“No tapping!” Ed said with authority.

“No lickin the wall!” Francis shouted at Lucre.

“That’s right, now let’s go have some fun."

They left through the black door the scientists first came through. I watched the door close behind them.