this blinding gilded city

a tragic novella

on the echelons of hominid consanguinity

by free man yonge

/

    he awoke with embers in his eyes, laying in very wet earth. there was a certain roar or hum -- the first sensation of which he was immediately conscious, followed by the uneasy feeling that he had wet his pants. his mouth tasted tepid and acrid, tho his breath left loose currents of familiar comforts. a goose stepped on his face and he stood up quickly. he was dirty, and didn't feel particularly well. he looked at the bayou flowing full on the banks of which he had found himself, but most importantly, he did not know who he was or whence he was come. he looked at his arms--burnished and brown as the earth and felt his hair-- long and locked, tightly, from years of allowing it to grow naturally. he felt his face  and tested out his voice ,  with which he was pleased.  he pulled  his pants  off and looked for a rock on which to set them in the sun.  this man knew not where he was, but was unashamed of his nakedness as a child might be. he took his shirt off and his underwear too; he felt as though he were new-born.
"now," the man said out loud, "what shall i call myself?"
    he looked around at the bayou and the steep grassy banks that led  to the rest of the world. he stepped carefully upwards. a bridge had crossed directly above his head but he had not noticed it. as he approached the top of the grassy banks, he realized that he had been lower than ground level and as he stepped he was aware of the tops of very hi skyscrapers inching above the hill. the man waved a little at whomever in the myriad windows of glass above him mite at that moment have been looking down-- gazing out at the world-- longing to be rid of the relentless routine of living in a cubicle. altho the man had never had a job like that, he felt he could imagine exactly what a hell it was. when he reached the top of the embankment, he was surprised at how many people were crowded and walking in nearly every direction. most did not so much as glance at the naked man walking down main street, some looked at him as though to reprimand him for doing what they secretly wished they could do and a few gave looks of frite as though he had offended their victorian sensibilities.

    it was not, however, the victorian era, the man was certain of that but as to the actual date, it was as elusive to him as the memory of his own name.  when he had come upon the square, he entered a macy's department store. no one noticed him as he dressed himself in the finest suit he could find. no one noticed him as he casually walked out the store. the security camera footage would not be found as the nite watchmen had sold the tape to a porn broker in chinatown. the suit would be marked out as "theft/fraud".

     the man stepped onto the train, without even buying a ticket-- just as casually as he had left the store and without even hesitating, he decided to call himself 'science.' the train sped uptown and science got off and walked across a plaza. there were steps that took him underground and an elevator that took him into the sky. it was so flawless and intuitive that science believed he must have been in this place befor. the elevator made a bing and the doors opened. science stepped off and through a set of heavy glass doors-- right past a receptionist who merely smiled as he walked by.  he continued walking down a blinding white hallway which appeared to be getting progressively smaller, but science could not be sure because it seemed as though he were walking into the sun. when at last he came upon a corridor, he decided to follow it and he found himself all of a sudden in a great steamy laundry where several machines were running but no one was to be found.

    finally, a small man with a mustache came and science disrobed as unabashedly as if he were still at the bayou; casually, the man took the clothes from science right away as though he were just as accustomed to that sort of thing. science assumed a very commanding tone,

    "see to it that suit is cleaned and pressed."

    "yessir" the little man slurred, "right away"

science walked through the room, again intuitively until he came upon an expansive tile facility with at least thirty showers and no one in any of them. the water came hot & readily and it felt good to was his greasy, filthy body. science was beginning to feel better and he wondered if his memory loss could be due to some extensive drug use or perhaps an injury sustained while drinking. for now, he was content just to wash and to consider his meal. he had no money. did not even know his name, never mind a bank account number. he rinsed his back and rung his hair out. he wrapped himself in a clean, soft, white towel he found on a wooden table nearby. when he lifted the towel, he found nearly two dollars in change. he put the towel back and grabbed another.

    "i'll be back for you," he said to the coins with the emphasis on the word 'you.'

science saw a sauna and decided he would enter it. it was hot inside and smelled of cedar wood. he sat himself down on a bench and allowed his consciousness to expand beyond his physical surroundings and into the ecosphere-- the world beyond the city. the animals, whales & wells and all green things upon this round globe, of these was he aware and of these was he sentient. the ancientness of it all and the reality of the insignificance of human existence became for science a truth surpassing any silly question which people might ask of him.

    he considered the atmosphere and the stratosphere,the myriad atoms and particles-- gases and elements. he considered the vastness of space and the complexity of the solar system in sustaining so many planets with none of them crashing together. he thot of the dwarf planets beyond neptune and how they clung to our same star from light years away. nebulae and faraway astral phaenomena consumed him and dreams of spaced out kids and galactic princesses became his electric fate. he saw galaxies and star clusters, constellations into infinitude.

    science shook himself back to austere composure and noticed that another had entered the steam room and was sitting on the bench below him. he decided to ignore the other denizen and return to his mental trance but he found he could not achieve it. he found himself uncomfortable in the heat. it was not the presence of the other man. for if the man had spoken with him, science felt fairly confident that he could respond in a way which would pass for an addled business executive-- rife with stress and regretting life choices which he had made.

    as it was, science found life as an amnesiac utterly carefree. when he made to move, the other man did too. the other man spoke to science in the casual meaningless way which people often do and which science could not recall a few moments later. but the man had said something about dinner and science was pretty hungry. he remembered to grab the coins, still hidden on his way out; both of them, still naked went to the front desk to retrieve their clothes, fresh and crisp from the launderer and they dressed right there in the lobby. it was not until the taxi driver dropped them off at the opera that science wondered if the man were a homosexual and would expect a blow job after such a fine meal at the university club.

    the opera was about a strange clown who was threatening his girlfriend in italian and wielding a large nife. and science felt suddenly like he might die if he did not have a cigarette. he told the man from the sauna, "be right back," but in sooth he did not see him again for some time. he went to the grand lobby of the opera house and  bought three nat sherman's from the bartender with the money he had found. he started for the balcony but decided instead to ride the escalator to the street level. it was now very dark but when he stepped outside it was warmer than he had expected and quite humid.

//

    science was now well-fed, well-audienced of almost half of a cultural event and he had two cigarettes in his breast pocket. he had found himself back near where he had started and was walking away from the bayou and toward the lights of main street. as he approached he could hear the thumping bass of the no-do strip where all of the college students and other alcoholic exhibitionists found themselves hailing cabs and kneeling at curbs. he walked past the girls in underwear handing out rave fliers and considered getting on the train when a dark little diamond sandwiched between two busy niteclubs caught his searching eye.

     the place looked at first glance, like an abandoned storefront. it was almost unnoticeable between the illuminated mirror balls and the masses of 'party-people' lined up and anxiously waiting for someone else to leave. science approached the storefront and saw that in the display window was a giant plaster donut and an equally enormous kaleidescope. above the door and badly scrawled in paint was what appeared to be a word transliterated from the japanese.

    people everywhere meandered around and thru all obstacles and each other-- all unthinking in their method and none of them looking to the rite or to the left. no one noticed the little storefront. it was invisible to all who passed by, but to science, who now stood directly in front of it and looked longingly inward, it was as tho a portal had opened and beckoned him come inside. he stepped without hesitation, in a dreamlike trance, avoiding the meandering pedestrians and towards the door.

    science walked inside and what first he noticed was the peculiar smell-- a remnant of stale old garages, grandmother's closets and science laboratories. there was no furniture, except half a dozen waterbeds. there were more mannequins than people. on the bed nearest the entry-way a young goth couple were embracing-- one with a cigarette and the other with a syringe. there were groups of hipsters standing near the back doing lines off of the bar, which did not appear to be in operation. a young woman with gray hair was playing chess with an invisible partner and there was another woman painting the entire scene with her fingers and earth-based pigments.

    science was immediately aware that his manner of dress set him apart from these people and he felt very thirsty. this place seemed to be without any employees or any real commerce. there was nothing to drink, though he knew he could probably score nearly any illegal chemical he so desired. what he chiefly needed was a drink of water. he left the storefront as unnoticed as he had entered it and around the corner he found a small jazz-club called 'the cat' and went inside.

    he sat at the bar and asked the keep for a glass of water, "no ice." he watched, as he waited, the woman singing. she was captivating and science got the distinct feeling that she was singing to him and him alone. he watched the way she moved her hips, slowly and how she touched the air with the tips of her fingers, ever so slightly, as though to tell a story without words. some of the songs were familiar to science, which he found almost comical because he could not remember anything of his life up to that morning. he smoked another cigarette.

    the barkeep returned with the water and a slice of lemon. science felt at that moment how much power a man such as the one he appeared to be might command. such a simple thing as a lemon wedge meant that the bartender recognized science as a man of quality. even with his long dred-locks, the suit he wore showed others what to believe he was-- and they did-- all of them. science was amazed at how easily one could be anything one wanted,  only by wishing it were so.

    "if you want anything, we'd be happy to extend credit..." science looked up at the bartender and smiled. the bartender was a'polishing a glass and didn't look up, the liting was dim and warm and science admired, for a moment the wonder of glass. he hoped sincerely that none of them broke.

    "i've seen you here befor, i know you're good for the money." this statement implied two things to science: one, he seemed to be at least somewhat familiar with him, which could be useful in his determination of his true identity and two, he emphasized 'you're' as tho of all the customers this young man served, even if everyone he knew were simply a swindler,  he could count on science. it was so ironic to him that the man had seemed so certain because his entire persona was as deep as the wool covering his body-- just like a paper tiger.

    "no thanks," science said, "but when the singer finishes get her anything she wants and tell 'er it's from me."

    "careful, man, " the bartender said, "i mean, you seem like a good dude, so i'm 'onna be real with ya-- that sexy lady is a straight-up man-eater-- bad news, man."

    "well, i'd like to find out for myself. just send her the drink."

    science watched as the woman finished up and took several deep bows. in that moment the audience lauded her and she was all the world to them. she gracefully stepped off the stage and moved to the other side of the bar. casually, science kept his eyes on the stage as the trombonist and the drummer did a few instrumental numbers; he did not even notice when the bartender spoke to the woman and gestured in his direction. he did not notice when she left her stool anymore than he noticed when she sat down next to him.

    "thanks for the drink," she said, "you kickin it with the h20?"

    "that's right," he said to her, he took a sip and then said, "i really liked your set."

    "well, thank you." she smiled at him and sipped her drink. she wore heavy eyeliner and her bangs were cut in a perfect line that traversed her brow from ear to ear and gave her a super-human appearance.

    "no really, i mean i'm sure you get groveling fans all of the time. but there was... something sublime... greater, somehow than you or your voice or me or any of us in the audience. like you had access, just for a moment to something true."

    "thanks. i've never heard anyone put it quite like that. my name is jeza."

    "it's nice to meet you," he said and held his hand out to her, "they call me science."

    he felt phony somehow. no one had ever actually called him that name yet except himself. he wanted to be truthful to this beautiful woman who had shared so much truth with him.

    "listen," she said in an earnest, candid sort of way, "i don't usually do this, but do you want to get out of here?"

she smiled slyly as if to communicate to science what exactly she wanted to do once they were 'out of here.'  science was dumbfounded-- this beautiful woman with whom he had wanted to leave this bar had just asked him to go with her!

    'what a profound difference this suit has made in my life,' he thot; for although he could not remember anything of his life up to this morning, he felt certain that things like that just didn't happen to him befor he had become so high-vested.

    so, without further ado, jeza left her unfinished drink on the bar, science helped her slip into her coat and the two took one last appraisal of the club befor heading out into the night. they hadn't walked far befor they came upon a shadowed old building that reeked of some ancient sophistication now heavily varnished in disgusting modern dissarray. the smell of feces was pre-eminant. as the young woman stepped upon the threshhold, science halted momentarily.

    "is this where you live?" he asked her. jeza laughed at him.

    "of course not," she answered, " this is just a place i know." upon stepping in further, science could see, all of a sudden, exactly where they were. just as the external façade had borne the scars of some former glory, this lobby in which they had found themselves-- clad in shabby old red velvet and fixed of brass, badly in need of a polish-- seemed to science to tell a story, a sad story of loss and regret. 

    'how,' he wondered, 'could such a grand, lux icon fall from its pinnacle and over time became shabby and forgotten?-- no longer the gathering place of the wealthy and elite, this sad, dingy place now calls prostitutes and drug dealers her denizons.' this house-- this inn-- this tragic old matron, enveloped in the sleeve of her forgotten grandeur!

    jeza didn't bother to check in. she walked right past the front desk and the concierge just gave a little nod as though simply to acknowledge her presence.

    "are you a regular here?" he asked out loud and she shot him a cold, biting glance as though she resented his remark, albeit an honest-to-god question. they walked past the elevator and up a flight of stairs. the upstairs was arguably more depressing than the lobby, but it was a close call either way. jeza unlocked the door numbered 219 and pushed it open. she held the door for science and locked the deadbolt behind them. science noticed that below the deadbolt was a lock that needed the key, even from the inside. jeza locked that one as well and slipped the key into her pocket befor immediately beginning to undress. science was floored. this evening could not possibly have gone better if he had scripted all the cues and blocking and stepped back to yell, 'action!'

    jeza, now fully naked and more beautiful than even science had imagined, began to walk towards him slowly. he started to say something but she gently laid an index finger upon his upper lip and he fell silent. she began to dance, slowly-- rocking her body, now swaying and just slightly convulsing. she writhed around science, still seated and she began to undo his tie and unbutton his shirt. his mind was now going crazy and he was ready for anything she wanted to give him. after removing his shirt, she touched the hair below his naval playfully and began walking her fingers slowly down the trail of hair. she fingered his button befor pulling it open, roughly. she unzipped his pants and grabbed his balls-- a mixture of pleasure and pain that let science know he was alive.  and befor he knew what was happening, she had reached behind the bed and was handcuffing him to the frame.

    "damn," he said, "ain't dat some kinky shit?" jeza rolled her eyes and cuffed his other wrist. after science was secure, the woman pilfered the pockets of his pants and paused befor pouting,

    "that's it!" and kicking him in the face with her stiletto heel-- the only article of clothing she was wearing, "a fuckin' cigarette and a half!" she was furious. and science was not necessarily in the best mood either.

    "at least this  mufuckin' suit'll  buy me dinner. fuck!"  and with that, he never saw her again. he was glad she was out of his life. but on the other hand, she had absconded with the cuff keys and his face was pretty sore.

    "fuckin pathetic!" she could be heard as she descended the steps, for the door had been left ajar. he was naked, again and it impressed him how he had essentially returned to the same spot he was in this morning with only a few subtle differences. circumstantially he was in a sleazy hotel room instead of the bayou, but more importantly, he was chained up to a bed. he'd have taken the wet pants over his current scenario in a dirty souf second.

    and thus  he waited. flies on his dick. mosquitoes on his face.  wimpering.  the haitian  chambermaid  arrived  a few hours later.  she took several polaroids and went about her way. the photographs would circulate the maid's quarters and one particular closeup would be discovered in the public park by a teenage. she would find herself so repulsed by the sight of male genitalia that she would join a convent and entertain lesbian fantasies at nite while the other sisters slept.  science would be discovered in the morning by the concierge inquiring as to checkout.

///
     the hotelier could not think of what to do with science. the concierge had informed him of the situation posthaste. the cuffs were easily cut but there remained the question of the hotel bill. science lied and told him his wallet had been stolen when in truth he had no wallet. the hotelier decided nothing else could be done but to let him loose upon the streets. he felt wrong about releasing a naked man a block from city hall, but he saw no other alternative. this man, naked or not had cost the hotel enough as it was. giving him a free towel would have been out of the question.

    for the second time, science was walking naked down main street and few, if any even noticed. most were so busied in their world of pdas, ipods, and bluetooths that they walked rite past him. a few women made gestures of shock and alarm, and two sailors smiled and gave him a 'thumbs up'.

    when he got to market square, there were hoardes of people holding pickets and shouting in unison. they wanted an end to the war and as science approached, people started cheering. some man stood up and hollered,

    "rite on brother!-- let them know the naked truth about the murder in iraq!" and without a moment's breath, he, too had stripped off his clothes. suddenly, and without warning, everyone in the crowd, women and men, began removing their clothes and throwing them into the air. the cops whose job it was to monitor this protest had gone to a diner that morning for a short stack and a cup of coffee. the diner had a new employee who had brewed decaf by mistake. consequently, they policemen were not paying attention and when they did realize what was going on, there were so many nude bodies all around that they didn't know who to arrest or who had instigated this mass decision. they began, clumsily to handcuff as many as they could, but the crowd scattered and the police returned to their cars for a nice nap.

    the sun was now well up and science had stepped his bare feet off of the pavement and onto the cool grass. the city roared behind him and he stepped downward towards the bayou. geese were everywhere when he got to the mud line and there he found his pants. a man was standing over them, gazing at them so intently  that he did not even notice science come upon him.

    "can i help you?"-- such a stupid question, and certainly insincere, "that is," he began again, "those are my pants."

    "oh yeah, whatchyo name? i don' sees no name on him."

    "marc jacobs." the man looked at the pants and picked them up. he read the tag and then said,

    "ah sheet-- dees yo pants, man. i's a gonna fight you, but is okay. is your pants-- you need more than me."

    and with that the man handed the pants to science who put them on immediately. they were now, of course, quite dry and he was glad for them. the man had already begun to walk away when he came back hurriedly and said,

    "hey-a! come over here, man, i show some good to you."

    science felt uneasy when he thot of leaving with that strange man, tho he upon second thot he decided he was just as homeless, just as creepy, much stronger, more able-bodied and quicker than the other guy.

    'and anyway,' science thot to himself, ' people only rob you when you have money. now i'm just a bum like him. didn't even have pants when we met.'

    and so he followed the man. they walked across the grass and under the bridge. they followed the bayou and came upon docks, ancient docks from the days when the bayou was stronger and there was a ship route thru the city. they stepped upon the words: molasses, gunpowder, sugar, salt, barley, hogs, hemp, peltries, sheep, rope, saddles-- each in their turn-- formed into the iron platforms which once had been so vital. the place was still steeped in the shades of its former glory but had, in recent times, been relegated to the unseen denizons of the underworld of this blinding city.

    when they had passed all of the docks, they approached a grassy hill upon which sat a sad, dilapidated old warehouse. they walked past the front door and found a few cold stone steps down into the earth. they followed these steps and thru a low door and within the deep of the house they found themselves. science could no longer see and and he followed merely by listening to the breath of his lead, the which sometimes he could not hear for the sound of his own beating heart.

    the man lit a match and the two knelt around a small ebony box with gold hinges and a gold latch. the match went out, but as soon as the box opened, it began to emit a light of its own.

    "my god!" said science, "is that--?"

    "it is."

    "whose?"

    "j  morgan  goldfarb," the man looked up with a smile, revealing teeth which had been filed to sharp points. he was very pale and there was a blue outline of a tear drop under his left eye.

    "who are you?"

    "i am he who receiveth that which hath been cast off."

////

    as science was running away from the house, he remarked to himself, 'how queer the way that man's use of language changed so dramatically! it's as tho he were two different people!' and indeed, the other man-- the receiver-- was transformed in a sense. the second thing which science to himself remarked was, 'how beautiful that man had become, when befor he had been so grimy and foul.' and then without cause, his thots turned entirely to that of dido & aeneas and it dawned on him that this was a memory which he had not previously possessed. dido had loved aeneas and he knew not why but so did he. beyond this, he saw visions of hot flames lapping pale  flesh and he wept as he ran until he could run no more.

    he saw the delicate hands of one masterful artist holding the batons that produced all animation and movement in dido's gentle silhouette. he saw these places unfold within a casement that was something of a baroque tv. he heard the shrill, soaring, seraphimic voices summon sharp unending moods of recompensal fancy. he admitted a tear when dido dropped her sash from the balconey and it fluttered like a martyr to the ugly, vulgar world below.

    he felt the gravity of every point of lite in the universe pulling upon him and a monolithic boulder of unconscionable size took form befor his gaze. he went up to touch it with the uttermost tips of his extremities when water came gushing from all sides all around it. he had a boat and a dog, and he knew not when he would return. 

    science shook himself from this daydream and sat down upon the curb. the sun was hot and blinding in the white marble of the two adjacent buildings between which he now sat. it was as though the marble were a corridor in a temple thru which the sun's awesome rays might traverse. he felt certain that the receiver would not find him here and he waited to catch his breath to enter the building. the sunshine was intensely intimate with the innards of science' noggin and he felt himself, suddenly as tho an initiate into an ancient esoteric truth. for a moment, he held the gaze of god before shuddering and pulling away.

    "this blinding, gilded city!" he said for whomever wished to listen and then he stood up and made for the entrance.

    what science immediately discovered was that the interior of this building smelled of bacon, the source of which would prove elusive. while other buildings sometimes had restaurants on the first floor, this building had only two businesses: a florist and a travel agency. science paused a moment befor heading to the elevators.

    while most elevators in most buildings operate in the same way, in this building one must input the number for the floor to which one will ascend and the readout will show: A, B, C or D. the letter corresponds to the elevator which will take one to the desired floor.

    science did not pause to make himself familiar with the operation of this particular elevator befor boarding the car. in fact, he had disregarded the readout entirely and had expected to select a floor after he was already aboard the elevator. when he discovered his mistake it made absolutely no difference to him because he had no particular destination in mind anyway. the smell of bacon had made him hungry and he hoped that on one of the floors he might find some charitable organization who would not notice that he wore designer jeans.

    the inside of the elevator car was sleek and modern and had two displays: one which showed news and market and the other which displayed the floor numbers at which this particular alpha-elevator will stop. the latter read: 29, 33, 50 & 51. science didn't feel right about the first two and as he rode he began seriously to wonder about who he is and was.

    he judged from his complexion and face that he was probably of mostly african descent, tho his eyes were light. his hair was so long and his locks so irregular that he thot he must have been either an artist or homeless. and the jeans suggested neither. he looked at his hands-- rough and large-- he knew he had not been unaccustomed to work. he ran a hand over his head and took a deep breath. he smiled. when the elevator stopped at floor 51, a woman, the only other passenger who had stayed through the other three stops interrogated science,

    "aren't you going to get off?" she asked and science, who had good reason to mistrust strangers at this point very decidedly replied, "i dunno."

    "but it's the last stop. the elevator goes back down after this--" she looked upward with her eyes and lips and added, "top floor." science had never been one to retrogress and at all levels this woman's logic seemed sound. he followed her into an empty doctor's office and almost followed her behind the desk without paying attention. he realized that she was the receptionist and he froze. she looked shocked and said,

    "ohmygod! i'm so sorry, doctor! i mean, i guess i didn't realize that it was you!" she looked him up and down. inside, she hated herself because she thot that it had been racism which had caused her to assume he was not the doctor instead of just his hobo appearance.

    "i--"

    "the agency-- when they called and said they had found someone-- well they said an 'old guy' and you don't look that old, ya know. anyway, i'm sorry, let me get you your whitecoat and your breakfast should be arriving any moment."

    'breakfast?' science thot to himself. he decided not to say another word and he put on the coat. he had only just finished his third taco when the woman came back to tell him his first patient had arrived.

    "thanks... uh... what was your name?"

    "carmen," she replied.

    'such a very spicy name, for a spicy girl,' he thot to himself.

    "thanks, carmen," he said aloud. he thot it funny that in his mind he had called her 'girl' when on the elevator he had used 'woman.' on the elevator she had been a woman-- a possible sexual partner. now, she was his secretary-- subservient and thus diminuized in his choice of pronoun. he wondered if this shift of rhetoric would have occurred if the 'receptionist' had been male.

    the patient entered the room. a small desi man with a tweed hat and matching suit. he sat. science had absolutely no idea what sort of doctor he was meant to be and the man was completely silent as tho waiting for a cue from science to begin. and so, science gave it to him.

    "so." the man did not move or look up. "tell me why you're here."

    the man began to talk slowly and in a very proper british accent, overly seasoned with curry he told his life's story. of how he had never achieved anything for he doubted himself and had never been able to please women. little by little, the little man worked it out and science only responded in monosyllabic onomonopiea . to what it finally boiled down was that life was like rice and all of his problems where resultant of having a small penis. and so finally, science spoke,

    "listen, friend. it's not the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean." he chuckled a little to himself when he thot again to the daydream of the boat. he chuckled a second time because he was glad that his penis was quite a bit larger than average.

    "motion--" the little man said in a puzzled sort of way, "ocean." and then his face lit up and he smiled as tho his life suddenly had meaning.

    "thank you, sir so very much for this wonderful advice. i will now search for the woman of my dreams who will love me as i am."

    "no, thank you. tell the girl at the desk that i said this session is free."

    "free!" the cat could barely contain his composure, "and to what do i owe such kindness?"

    "dharma," said science and he held his hands in namaste position. the man felt patronized but didn't mind taking this free therapy session and he hurried to the lobby. science could understand why so many feel contentment in a career like this-- helping others.

    'i make a pretty damn good shrink,' he thot to himself  and he was caut up in unconscionable lafter which he halted maladroitly with a snort and a coff when carmen returned with a horrified look on her face.

    "that guy said that you said that this is free."

    "uh huh. that's what i said."

    "but doctor wynn, " she couldn't believe she had to remind him of this, "the office needs to make money, i mean you're not the only doctor here and you know things like this aren't exactly up to..."

    "carmen," he interupted her, "do i pay you to answer fones and shit or do i pay you to think?"

    "answer fones and shit?" she looked timidly at him like a fawn caught in a bicycle headlamp.

    "that's right. just do whatever you need to do to keep the patients comin' and leave the hard shit to me. how 'bout that okay?"

    "do--" she started but halted abruptly. she didn't know if it was stupid question or not but decided to go ahead with it,"do you want me to send in the next customer, i mean, patient?"

    "what do you think, carmen?"

    "you don't pay me to think, sir." 

    "well done." he smiled. "yes. send the next one in."

    the next patient was a woman whose cheeks, black-smudged, betrayed her tears bawled in the waiting room. she clutched a handbag and a copy of highlights mag,  the latter of which it did not seem she was still aware. she looked pitifully at him and like mister singh was sitting, waiting on some cue for doctor science to begin. she stepped timidly into the office.

    "so," he began, this time with more confidence, "what brings you here, my dear?" and in an overly familiar tone for which he immediately had contempt upon hearing. she burst into tears and science handed her the box of tissues so instinctively it was as if it were his office.

    "there, there. dry up now." she did as she was told and she said, finally and with much effort,

    "my... husband!"

    science waited a few moments and then for clarity's sake asked her,

    "what about him?" and at that, she erupted once more into tears. through great effort on science' part, he deduced that her husband was having an affair with another woman. she knew this because she had seen him on the television at a baseball game while she was getting her hair "did." the broadcast was live and right after returning from commercials it had shown some shots of the audience. she saw her husband only briefly-- but it was long enough to see him sitting next to a young woman whom he was madly and passionately kissing. all of this science understood between sobs. and the poor woman finally was unable to relate anymore.

    she broke down, but science felt he had enough information for a skilled psychiatrist to take a stab at her wound.

    'what would dr wynn do?' he asked himself, for this name by which carmen  had addressed him had taken on a  mythos and a persona.

    "listen," he began and then he felt that too abrupt so he added, "darling," which he immediately regretted, "did you love him? i mean really fucking yearn to smell his skin and taste his flesh and be his one and only desire? did your heart beat when he entered the room and did he whisper sweetly to you when you fell asleep in his arms?" her tears had all dried up and she merely looked perplexed. she looked like the recipient of a beautiful and sublime epiphany.

    "no." she decided.

    "then what do you care if he's tappin' the secretary? go find the one of your dreams-- the one who makes you happy."

    "you're right!" she cried, "thanks so much doctor wynn!"

    "no. thank you ma'am. tell carmen to send in the next patient and tell her i said this visit is free."

    "free?-- why, you don't have to do that, really."

    "no, no-- i insist. it's a mitzvah." she smiled at him.

    "oh okay, then. thanks doctor wynn, bye bye!"

    "shalom!" he called as she walked into the lobby. she felt patronized but didn't mind taking advantage of this free therapy session. science wondered if he had used that salutation correctly and when carmen entered and befor she could open her mouth her blurted,

    "shalom--  that means both hello and goodbye, right?" and then without hesitation, he answered his own question by singing,

    "we say shalom to say hello, shalom  to say goodbye, shalom  may you live in peeeeeeace!" she gave him a strange look but he sustained the last note until she said,

    "um... sir, there's some... confusion..." she seemed to be avoiding the subject when an elderly vietnamese gentleman in a wheelchair rolled in. he had a stern look on his face and made no expression of greeting nor indicated that he required any introduction.

    "are you the next patient?" and then he looked to carmen, "is he the next patient?" science felt himself more that adequately competent to take on whatever this man's problem  after his first two successful sessions.

    "i am doctor nguyen," the man said without a hint of good humour, "and you are..."

    "leaving," said science and for the second time that day, he was running.

     "i don't get it," dr nguyen turned to carmen, "that guy didn't even look like a shrink-- he looked like a bum to me!"

\

    when the elevator doors opened on the first floor, science dashed for the door, a bicycle whizzed past him and the courier atop hollered, "hey! watch it rasta!" he turned and looked behind him and gave science a foul look before turning his head back around so that all they could see was a mess of dark blue hair. science didn't know what "rasta" meant but he decided he would resent the comment. he kept running, blindly, only thinking to run away.

    'what was that bike doing on the sidewalk anyway?' he asked himself,  'it's a compound word with  "-walk" as the key component and "side-" as in, 'away from things with wheels.' but when science looked up, he saw two cop cars driving his way. this place was getting hot and he decided to seek shelter back in the building somewhere until things cooled down.

    'i'm not exactly nondescript,' he thot. science turned around and wondered,

    'florist? travel agent? florist? travel agent? he chose the travel agent and just as he stepped in the door, the cops ran in the building-- right past the travel agent and towards the elevators.

    "good morning and welcome to utopia travel. i'm anette. and today is your lucky day!"

    "i'll say!" said science, not exactly sure if it was sarcasm or sincerity that motivated the exclamation.

    "have you ever been on a cruise?"

    "not that i can remember," this time, he was certain of his motivation.

    "well today," and she kind of giggled, "like i just said, is your lucky day. for you are the one thousandth person to walk thru that door and so you mister--" she waited politely for him to fill in the blank."

    "ander...son," he paused halfway to make sure he got it right and then repeated,     "anderson."

    "...anderson," she smiled and continued, "have been chosen for a free cruise to paradise."

    "paradise?"

    "paradise. where there is no pain and everyone is young forever."

    "how long do i get to stay there?"

    "three days and three nights. but when you come back, it will be as tho no time has passed."

    "come again?" he had heard exactly what she had said.

    "look at the clock," she commanded. it was thursday, 11:11 a.m.

    "follow me," she said and science wondered why he always did what strangers told him to do. the woman led him into a corridor which got progressively smaller until both science and the woman were crouching to avoid bumping their heads on the ceiling. the woman crouched in the corner and played a few bars on a tiny keyboard.

    "what is this?-- williy wonka's chocolate factory?"

    "welcome," she said as she flung open the door, "to paradise!" science looked around himself where, like a beatific vision, he was no longer in an office building in a crowded, choking city. he was standing on warm sand amongst tall coconut trees. the smell of broiled fish and liquer was pungent upon the air and the salty mist suggested that he stood near the ocean, tho he could see it not. the sun was red-hot and enormous; low upon the horizon it hung and inched its way into oblivion. he found himself immediately handed a cold drink and the rest of his time at paradise island would be a blurry zoetropic haze of sensual pleasures painted in dusky warm and golden rosy light.

    there would be warm sunsets and sunrises accompanied by heavy drinking and shameless marijuana consumption. there would be balmy evenings of continual and endless love and pleasure. there would be women-- beautiful, willing women bring their desires to his feet and making them known. there would be happiness and final attainment of absolution and bliss. there would be no rain. there would be no sadness. satisfaction is a mediocre sin and worthy of offhanded indulgence-- science found himself, finally and he did not need the suit anymore-- at least while he was on the island.

    there would be massages of coconut oil and scented candles and walks along the sand as hand in hand and step by step the heartbeats could be heard reverberating in a sacred sanskrit hymn to universal awareness. there would be long conversations around bonfires and science would fall in love again, with himself and with this place and with every damned person there.

    when the third day arrived, annette appeared in the shade and ready to take him back to the travel agency. he cried. he begged. he pleaded with her.  he would do anything just to stay another day. but she was unrelenting and in the end, he returned with her, thru the unseen portal in the shadows and back into the corridor, this time expanding as they traversed it. when they were back in the agency, science made sure to glance at the clock which read: thursday, 11:11 a.m.-- the precise moment which he had left.

    he could not believe that this was possible, but when he stepped out of the office, he saw the cops riding up the glass elevator and he knew for whom they sought. he decided to start running-- out the door and into the street. he passed two old ladies, causing them to drop the parcels which they carried. he continued to run, amid the clamor and cacophony of shouting as he pushed people aside. he ran until he got to the train stop.

    in a hazy blur of human bodies bumping and crashing into one another, science forced his way onto the train and he found a seat near the back but he remained standing as tho ready for any circumstance. he was a volcano of apprehensions and fears that resulted directly of simply being alive and living as a homosapien in this modern life.

    it was not until the train departed and the doors had closed that science was able, finally to sit down. the rumble and grind of the streetcar's wheels and the jerk and jostle of the momentary departure brought upon by the simple closing of a door became his new reality. he lamented the time he had spent in paradise for its comparative brevity and, 'nirvana should eclipse waking life and not the other way around.' his time had been to short in paradise, but he yearned for a totality of it-- for a golden blissful eternity which renders this life inconceivably meaningless.

    his soul and his being resided once again, upon that island, tho his body sat upon a grimey seat on a rolling lite rail. next to him was an angry-looking old chap in pinstripes and spats who was on the fone with a woman's voice which science could faintly hear and towards which he felt vaguely familiar.

    "leaving?-- marion, be reasonable." there was a pause and then shouting followed by ridiculous sobbing from which science could only discern swear words.

    "i know, and i was wrong, but you can't leave, you simply can't..."  science could not discern the woman's response but judging by her tone, she had not responded favorably.

    "what about the kids?-- how can you divorce me?" and then, looking surprised at his volume, he lowered his tone,

    "love!" he laughed incredulously, and without affection, "what does love have to do with anything?!"
    science was oblivious to the man's identity but he had correctly guessed with whom the man had spoke on his fone.

    "good for you, marion," science mumbled all but inaudibly. the man showed no remorse, no sadness in the end of the affair. he displayed only the disaffected ennui of one who had long ago resigned himself to the now apparent fate. he seemed distracted. he seemed to have bigger fish on his mind.  he seemed to be apprehensive. he dialed another number. he waited impatiently for three rings before,

    "cohen?-- goldfarb here. tell me you have good news? "at the name 'goldfarb' science' ears perked up. he knew he had recently heard that name.

    "what?" j morgan goldfarb was not happy with whatever the other man had said.

    "how much time do you need, howard? no!-- a black box. and ebony box. with a gold latch. you'd better get it, howard cohen or so help me--" he stopped abruptly and looked around self-consciously.

    'noone here,' he thot to himself, 'noone here that matters anyway. just some bum with matted hair.'

    science got off at the next stop-- 'no-do.'  rite across from the train stop was the  surreal storefront with the giant plaster donut and the japanese-looking name. he went inside. the heroin users and starving artists were conspicuously absent from their positions on the waterbeds. the place was empty except for a dog and a man  with glasses and long hair. he didn't look up from the book he was reading-- on the road by jack kerouac.

    science  noticed that the first time he had been in this place with the backward name there had been no commerce-- nothing to buy or sell-- tho there were customers. this time, there was noone around but there was a rancilio machine on the bar and the man reading keruoac was, presumably, the barrista.

    "could i have two shots please?"
    "machine's broken." the man looked up, put a bookmark in the text and set it on the bar. "i think i might be able to pull a few." it was as though, in his hipster world view he had had to appraise science befor applying any amount of courtesy. homelessness, to people like him was a guarantee of hipness-- gave him 'authenticity.' the man knocked the old grounds out of the portafilter and tamped the fine powdered grounds into a solid cake. he wrenched it onto the machine and turned the valve.

     the espresso pulled hot and frothy and into the little white demitasse. the man handed the coffee to science and said, "it's on the house, yo. life can be tough, tell me about it, brother. what's happnin?" he knocked the portafilter on the box and scraped it clean with a heavy wire beush.

     science sipped the hot, strong brew and thot about where to begin.

    "a woman," he began,"a stunningly beautiful woman seduced me and took everything i had, which amounted to only a fine suit of black worsted wool. i had paradise for three days and it was thence taken from me. but ultimately, none of it even matters because i know not who i am or whence i've come or whither i go."

    "wow," said the hipster and snapped his fingers twice, "that's really deep brother. come upstairs with me, i have something to show you." he led science up the stairs and into a deep loft that occupied much more physical space the first storey had. the walls were covered without repose by women's shoes. the man owned several early 21st century imacs and bean bags.  on one of the tables was an enormous hookah. the hipster pulled a coal out of a brazier with tongs and set it on top of the bowl.

    "a little ghanja to go with the caffeine?" science was happy to enjoy himself for a little while away from the threat of society. they sat and smoked hash. in that aureate moment, it did not matter to science that he had no idea who he was nor whence his next meal shall come. all that mattered was the blissful euphoria of this particular moment. the hipster played vinyl and showed science some porn, both of which he enjoyed graciously while imbibing the pure purple herbal smoke.

    in the smokey haze, he could suddenly see the whole of this incarnation laid forth and made plain to him. he was just one small spark which controlled one small body of carbon molecules and h20. he played along as they all did, just living their lives unashamed that the glass of the universe be turned towards them. in the face of eternity, they were mere specks of dust clouding the focus of the lens. everything ceased to have the importance it once did and science slipped a sigh of relief into the mix before closing and opening his eyes once more. befor he knew it, the day was over and the sun was setting low. when they returned to the first story, it was full of people-- party people, druggie people, artists and homeless-- all crammed together like sardines in their sardonic nite life.

    his footsteps flew as tho enchanted where they willed to go and science knew he had no say in the matter. when he stepped forward he could feel time and space and all of dimensions plodding onwards in the drudgery of this sequential existence.

     the air was balmy in the swampy southern city and the people were pressed so close to one another that there was barely room in the little storefront. science mingled and spoke with people. he was impressed by how coldly he had been treated when he had come in here the nite befor in a wool suit. now that he appeared homeless, cool cats and kittens casually spoke with him-- searching for that elusive 'authenticity.'

     when science had had enough he stood up, thanked his host for the hash and proceeded out the door.  when he stepped out the door, he bumped into a well-dressed man in pinstripes and spats-- the same angry man from the train.

     "im sorry to bother you sir, but--" science began but was quickly interrupted,

     "i don't carry change," and he walked away. but he had a lot to think about, this man.

this man whose wife had just asked for a divorce. this man who was not upset because he cared so deeply for his wife and could not bear for her to leave him. this man feared only for his further acquisition of wealth, power, fame and glamour. this man cared for no one but himself. this man was j morgan goldfarb. 

/\

    j morgan goldfarb was one of the five richest people in the world, but he wanted to be number one. second place had never been good enough for him and when just a young boy he learned that he was capable of lying, cheating, cursing, embezzling, even murder if it meant triumphing over others. 'the weak may live their miserable weak lives however they see fit,' was his motto with the surreptitious subtext of, 'and so may i.' and this was quite a propos for a motto as it essentially summed up goldfarb's entire world view. he had been the son of wealthy emigrés who had taught him two important lessons-- number one, that not everyone deserved happiness as much as he did; and two, that money, success, fame and power were all synonymous with 'happiness.' his wife had just left him and his mistress was in a very bad mood. goldfarb found comfort in reviewing his riches and this was exactly what he was doing with his bluetooth in his ear, standing on a corner, trying to hail a cab.

    "i want some good news, howard! i'm having a real godam bad day and i want some good news. tell em about gold, tell me about steel. how's my real estate doing." goldfarb owned three quarters of the buildings downtown. real estate couldn't be anything but up.

    when the cab arrived goldfarb jumped in.

    "take me uptown, post oak and st james. there's a bill in it for you if you get me there in 15 minutes." j morgan goldfarb was not the sort of man who liked to wait. he liked his food quick and hot. and that was how he liked his women. in the years in which he had been married to marion, he had had six mistress each one progressively younger and more artificial. is was as though, as he gained wealth and power he had to continually upgrade to newer and flashier models. when the cab pulled up to the hirise, goldfarb stiffed the cabbie,

    "sixteen and a half minutes-- better luck next time." he stepped out of the cab.

    "muthafuck." said the cabbie under his breath as he drove away. goldfarb walked up the steps of the townhouse of his mistress-- the townhouse for which he pays every month. along with her grocery bill, her medical bills, all plastic surgery and health spa bills, he single-handedly supported her cocaine habit, as he had for the mistresses befor her. she was sitting on the chaise lounge in  a silk morning-dress, tho it was late evening, smoking a cigarette and looking melancholy.

    "where have you been jay-jay?

    "jeza, doll, i'm sorry i'm late, but i have some good news for you. marion asked for a divorce today--"

    "about fucking time," she interrupted, "listen, jay, i need some work, honey. i need some work bad."

    "work?-- but you look beautiful."

    "it's just, my chin, ya know. i want a gibson-girl chin."

    "but i like your chin."

    "wouldn't you like it still the same if i had a gibson-girl chin? come on jay... whatd'you care uh? don't you want me to be happy?" her butler walked in silently and set a tray of caviar and cabroles in front of her.

     "how often do i ask you for somethin?" goldfarb didn't answer her question.

    "weeelll..all right, sugar." she leapt into his arms.

    when they made love that nite, jeza was his only thot and desire. his 'paradise' if such a thing could possibly exist.

    somewhere, far across the city, marion goldfarb was having some drinks at the cotton exchange and sitting with a host of characters all of whom she had just this evening met. she was intoxicated beyond dignity and when one of the men reached playfully for her, she kicked him in the nuts. she threatened others who were around and her 'friends' quickly departed her company.

    she was expelled from the bar and knew not where she was. she stumbled thru alleyways and across civilized peoples' well-manicured lawns. she advanced upon a café with outdoor seating and then retreated. she sulked past a long line at the movie theater. she found a bar that seemed destined for disaster. she found another, more discreet bar where she took a corner booth and leaned against the plush leather behind her. a very attractive older man approached and asked if he might sit.

    "oh but how terribly rude of me," the man stood back up, "i did not even introduce myself. i am seymour. seymour sharpaus."

    "marion ::ahem:: silverstein." she used her maiden name and held out her hand. she had already taken the diamond from her left hand and the finger liberated-- unencumbered.

    "a pleasure to finally make your aquaintance," and he sat with the sort of polite laughter which humans use to put themselves at ease.

    "but my dear," he began as though they had just recovered from a lull in the conversation and were longtime friends, "you've been crying! whatever could be the matter?"

    "oh!-- i know we've just met!--" she had been crying all day, "but i feel i could tell you anything!-- you look so honest and full of truth!" he smiled.

    "my husband!-- i've just left-- god, he was fucking another broad!" she felt as though she were expelling years of anger and rage which had only built up through the years.

    "well, don't cry about it, honey-- get up and do something about it. seize the reigns of power in this your life. make it happen," and then, "you wanna kill'im?" now, it wasn't that marion hadn't considered this option, but to hear it spoken outloud so casually in this public forum.

    "yes," she said, "and that bitch he's screwin'!"

    "you know who she is?" the man asked of her.

    "better than that--" marion would not cry again for a very long time, "-- i know where she lives."

     "well, then," sharpaus returned to a more genial tone of delivery, "that makes it really quite easy, you know. all that one need do is stake out her place, wait until they both are there at the same time and then ::ahem:: kill two birds with one stone... so to speak?"

     "oh, but i couldn't!"

     "certainly not, madam! i was not suggesting... " he trailed off and then began again, " jobs like this call for a professional touch." and he held out his hand to her.

     "but i only have so much money-- i wouldn't be able to pay  much." he laughed at the woman.

     "money is not what i desire..."

     "what then?" she asked.

 //\

    there was a place of sunshine, away from the suffocating din of the city. in this place, there could be no sadness, only bliss; no disillusionment, only gleaming optimism. this spot was situated in between two very large buildings so that it was almost unnoticeable from the busy street.  it was warm and the sunlite was overwhelming. goldfarb wished he had brought his sunglasses. he looked around the square and, disappointed, he went to wait in the shadows. howard was late. he had disappointed goldfarb too many times. in the shadows, goldfarb lit a cigarette and he went over his schedule for the day in his mind.

    a rat scampered across the ground in front of goldfarb and ate the ash which, still warm, gldfarb had tapped from the end of his lit cigarette. goldfarb kicked the rat and he ran away-- back into the bushes. when howard did finally arrive, he looked disheveled and seemed out of breath. goldfarb had no patience for this and his eyes never made contact with howard's

    "where have you been?"

    "the mission, sir, i've been--"

    "you're late," goldfarb interrupted, "you know how i hate to be kept waiting!"

    "yessir."

    "well-- do you have it?"

    "here's the list of names, sir," howard handed a large pink envelope to his boss.

    "and..."

    "i also have the federal reserve documents," he handed these to goldfarb as well.

    "and..." howard didn't say anything, he hung his head.

    "the box?"

    "we're working on it sir." howard flinched as tho he expected goldfarb to hit him. goldfarb looked so furious that for a few moments nobody spoke until finally he said,

    "then what are you wasting my time here for? go!--" he kicked howard; almost as an afterthot he added,

    "oh howard," just like in a movie, "this one was really your last chance." and then as tho to punctuate his sentence, goldfarb fired one (1) bullet directly in between howard's eyes-- the period indicating a complete thot. it was instantaneous. goldfarb had turned, sharply, on his heel befor the man hit the ground. the bum on the park bench didn't even rouse.

    science had not been sleeping well. his only thot was of paradise and in his eminent return thereunto. when finally, he had found some rest-- there-- on the bench-- in this place of sunshine, away from the suffocating din of the city-- when he had found this rest, not even the bullet fired by j morgan goldfarb into the brain of his 'underworld liaison' would wake him.

    "mr anderson," the woman said to science in his dream, "mr anderson, can i bring you another drink?"

    "no, thank you," said science and he smiled at the woman.

    "would you like the sun to set now?"

    "no, no i think i will have a few more moments yet," he stretched out and closed his eyes.

    "is there anything else i can do for you?"

    "well, there is one thing..."

    when science did sleep, which was rare these days, he dreamt of paradise. and when he was awake he pined away for it. he had scarcely eaten these few days since his return to cognizance and he desired nothing but to return to his "three days and three nights."

    the day waned and the body festered, ever so slightly in the sun. flies had found it, and even a few rats, but the police were nowhere to be found. when science awoke, he did not immediately notice the cadaver, but proceeded about the park for a little while. at least when he had the suit it was easier for him to get the things which he needed. science made a mental list of the things to which he had access in his current state-- it was easy for him to hit some weed or score a little crack in the park-- it was without question the best condition for receiving charitable handouts from churches or soup kitchens-- and you never have to worry about getting mugged or having to sit next to someone smellier or fatter than you on the train. science liked that last reason the best. but when wearing the suit, he had successfully impersonated a shrink, at least until the real one showed up. the suit had taken on a mythos of access in science' mind and not without reason.

    he returned to the bench from which he had just awoken and that's when he noticed the cadaver-- stiff & waxy. he stepped cautiously towards it. he knew somewhere he could get a lot of money for a fresh human body. he looked around and then went to find something in which to conceal the cadaver. now, many would shy away from such work, but science, as was said befor lacked inhibition and furthermore, was not too proud for any work. he returned with a tarp he had found as tho by divine providence not three blocks from site. again, he looked around to make sure no one had noticed him and he carried the tarp-bundle over his shoulder. in life, howard had not been a large man, and even as deadweight, science-- who stood over six and a half feet tall-- found it to be an easy task to carry the man towards the trainstop.

     he thot of a monumental sculpture-- of a physical object so large in its bearing that nothing-- no  machine of human design could so much as budge it an inch. this large, vaguely spherical object could be none other than that what it was-- a boulder or large stone unconcerned with the vulgar and meaningless chitchat about celebs and talk shows and reality tv. the simulacram like a pendulum came crashing down and science stumbled momentarily under the weit of the body once inhabited by howard cohen.

    once aboard the train, science found a fairly deserted area and he stuffed the cadaver under the seats. he was almost in midtown-- this little hair and nail salon where the vietnamese lady behind the counter would pay him $2000 for a recently dead human. it wasn't until he had gotten back on the train and was counting the cash that he realized that this was another memory which he had been able, somehow, to extract from the deep of his forgotten.
    'it's all still in there,' he told himself, 'you just have to find it.' he also realized that he had no idea where he was going. science had sought the train as tho that were a destination of itself. the sun was going down and he had not considered where he would sleep. there were too many other bums downtown but beyond there maybe? he felt uneasy in that moment. his circumstances became suddenly so uncertain and science could see an enveloping mass of confused hunger and anticipation awaiting him-- the likes of which he dared not penetrate. the world around him began focusing in on him like the aperture of a camera does-- smooth and sure. in the morning he would return to the travel agency with the cash he had acquired in midtown in order to return to paradise. but tonite felt so foreboding and terrible that science feared he would make it to the morning.
    when the train stopped at capitol, science got off and headed towards the cathedral, but befor he had traversed the first block, a man intercepted him, walking at a very fast gait. when their trajectories intersected, the man grabbed science suddenly by the shoulder.
    "got lost in the bathroom didja?" it was the man from the sauna who had taken science to the opera. only he looked older and quite a bit stronger.

    "i'm sorry, you know-- i hated to leave you like that but something, well, you know," science swallowed hard, "i didn't know how to contact you, shit, i don't even know your name."

    "well you're about to get to know me real good," the man said and lunged at science. the man was so much bigger than science and he found it strange that he had not noticed it sooner. afterall, they had been naked together. the man was fast, too and science didn't even know what had happened befor he was on the ground. the man held science by his wrists and sat on his knees. he pulled out a rope noose and for a moment, science thot it was the end. in an unexpected move, the man slipped the noose around his own neck and began to titen the rope. the color drained from his already pallid complexion and befor science could think, the man had passed out and he had wriggled his way from under him and was running.

    'running again,' science thot to himself, 'always running.' he ran past the old magnolia hotel, past the cathedral and towards the ballpark. he ran past goldfarb who was sitting at a table in an outdoor cafe. there was another man there with him. a large russian man with a hat. they were sipping thai coffee and talking in hushed voices, barely above a whisper. the russian wore sunglasses and goldfarb wished he did too. goldfarb wished he had been more discreet.

    "you have names?" like most russians he chose not to use the articles when he spoke, regardless of what language he was speaking. goldfarb pulled a large, pink envelope from a briefcase and slid it across the table. the russian man did not look at the contents but slipped the envelope in one motion into his coat. he addressed goldfarb once more,

    "and addresses and records?"

    "it's all in there," goldfarb motioned towards the man's heart where under the coat he had put the envelope.

    "we are ready then. all but for money."

    "you will get paid when the names on that list are marked out-- every last one-- not a moment befor." the man pulled a red box marked носталгиа out of his coat pocket and procured therefrom a fat cigarette without a filter. he lit the cigarette and exhaled befor saying,

    "you give me half."

    "we had a deal-- you will get your money when the job is done. i am paying you handsomly for the task at hand and remember," he looked at the man sternly, "you're not the only hit-man in town."

     when science found he could run no more, he collapsed in the grass-- panting and gulping at the moist evening air. and there, he slept. in his dreams, science was once again in paradise. this time, he had on the suit-- the wool suit which was no longer in his possession in waking life. there were women fanning him with palm fronds and a very young woman in nothing but a veil was feeding him a pomegranate.

     when he awoke, his first thot was that he was back on the bayou and had just woken from the haze of amnesia and into a new life. but the sound of the cars rumbling along the elevated freeway made him suddenly realize that he was not on the damp, mossy banks which had been hgis genesis in this incarnation-- he was in a city block, isolated from the rest because it had no development. just grass and a few ancient live oak trees. science was struck by the overwhelming beauty and profound austerity of these beings. they were creatures, like him and yet quite different from him. upon further observation, he noticed a yellow plastic ribbon which outlined the perimeter of a rough quadrilateral and bright pink spray-paint marks on the trunks of some of the trees. he realized suddenly that they were to be cut down-- that these wise, majestic old souls were to become martyrs in the name of development. they would probably build a condo on this lot. something had to be done!
    science spent the greater part of the morning in search of supplies and finally, when he had acquired several pieces of paper, some nails, a hammer and a red marker he returned to the lot. he wrote on each sheet of paper:

     these trees have been listed as 'protected' by the city historic preservation society, cutting down will result in fines and possible seizure of property.

     he held the sign at a distance to get a good look at it.

     'this will do nicely,' he said to himself. he was so preoccupied he did not notice jeza-- the  jazz singer who had stolen his suit. she was crossing the street and walking past the lot. she was in a hurry and heading towards the place where goldfarb had been sitting. she was talking with him now on the fone.

    "what about the russian?-- no? that's okay, honey, i'm sure you'll find somebody else," she didn't have the slitest idea what goldfarb had hired the russian to do. but she was rite-- he would  find someone else-- someone much better.

    "the suit? oh, baby i got rid of that." she was so enraptured by her telefon conversation that she did not notice the white van which was following her as she walked across town. she had not noticed the van all day and she would not notice it, tho it trailed her the rest of the afternoon and followed her home. after sharing a meal with jeza, goldfarb would bid her adieu and head back to the business district. he had met someone with whom he had taken a fascination and the other man seemed to reciprocate goldfarb's fascination with him.

    they would discuss intimate matters regarding global currency and hegemonic consolidation of production. the conversation would turn to that of a more intimate nature and goldfarb would eventually disclose to him the truth of what plagued him of recent. he had never intimated so much as a whisper about these affairs to another soul, and it felt good-- therapeutic, somehow. the man would smile and tell goldfarb that his problems are nothing which good old fashioned money could not remedy. he will then hand goldfarb a small, parchment-colored business card which would change the course of events of the rest of his remaining days on earth.

///\

     

     jonas used his sneaker to skid to a halt. it was this move which had earned him the nickname 'skidds' amongst his fellow couriers. he  jumped off his fixed-gear and ran fingers thru his messy blue hair--midnite blue, but he was considering going a shade darker. he fixed his lock around the front wheel and to a sinepost. he stepped on well-worn chucks and thru the door-- past the waterbeds-- past the kids up to no good and directly to the bar. the hipster was there, still reading on the road tho he was almost finished. he looked up at jonas,

    "hey there man-- yerba mate?"

    "the usual," jonas conceded, the hipster behind the bar found a dried gourd with a silver rim on the top shelf. a little metal bombilla was sitting nearby and he grabbed that as well. the smell of the yerba mate leaves was green and earthy as the barrista pulled steaming hot water over them. he handed the gourd over the counter and said,

    "i've got the bomb skeez upstairs, yo-- we could lock the door and go burn a bowl if you're down." the bike messenger smiled,

    "sorry, man, i'm working-- thanks anyway tho."

    "no prob, rasta." jonas sipped the tea thru the metal bombilla and then sat down in the corner. the mate was strong and pungeant and reminded jonas of days gone by. his pager beeped and he silently cursed-- just when he had sat down! he returned to the bar and handed his gourd back to the barrista.

    "i got two runs to make, yo-- i'll be back for that."

    "it'll be waiting," said the barrista who returned to his novel.

    jonas set off again on his bicycle. he had two pickups in the dynegy building-- nothing out of the ordinary. when he arrived at the building, he rode the elevator to the 22nd floor where he was greeting at the elevator by two arabic men wearing kafiahs and dark sunglasses. they handed jonas a small manilla envelope, unsealed but tied up in a nice little bow. they also handed him a $50 bill and said,

    "for your troubles," and smiled befor adding, "try to get it done as soon as possible, my friend." jonas, who had not even stepped off the elevator just smiled and took the package from the men, thanked them and headed up to the 31st floor. when the doors opened this time, he found himself in an enormous stone atrium in which he had never been. he thought to himself how he had been in this building so many times yet had never been on this floor. the atrium was huge with high vaulted cielings and and cold, bare stone from the floor to the pinnacle of the dome in the center. jonas walked to the epicenter and said, "hello?"

    "hello?" his own voice returned back to him. standing in the very center of the round atrium and looking up, the echo was overwhelming-- deafening. he called out again, "anybody there?"

    "anybody there? anybody there?" he decided against any further hollering, afraid the entire cieling might come crashing down with the intensity of the sonic vibrations and anyway it was no longer neccesary. from behind him, jonas heard a footfall and he swung around to see an old man in a very traditional-looking ecclesiastical vestment and squarecap. jonas searched with his eyes the entire perimeter of the circular room and what he found astonished him-- there were no doorways save the one thru which he had just come. but when the man had suddenly appeared jonas was facing that doorway and the man had appeared from behind him. there must be some hidden doorway or staircase-- there must be.

    "you are the messenger?" the man asked ominously and in a heavy accent which jonas was unable to identify. the man's tone of voice combined with his anachronistic attire and the peculiar venue in which they had met gave the entire scene an otherworldly  feeling. jonas returned the man's question with an answer of equal gravity,

    "i am."

    "and are you, sirrah, prepared to risk everything for the success of this mission?" at this, jonas suddenly felt uneasy. 'risk everything'-- the man had said! what could possibly be meant by this? but without much hesitation, jonas felt it simpler merely to answer in the affirmative as he already once had,

    "i am."

    "very well," the man said and then, as tho by magic, the man handed jonas a small slip of paper which was folded over upon itself and bore a wax seal which looked very official. this time there was no tip and when jonas looked up, the man had vanished,

    "into thin air," jonas said outloud.

    "...thin air," his own voice returned to him once more. the cold stone atrium was very creepy and jonas decided not to waste any time. when he was back on the ground and in the safety of the sunlite he looked at his two pickups. the more recent bore a heavy wax seal and jonas knew he would have to put aside his curiosity for the time being because it would be truly impossible to look inside without showing evidence of his tamper; the envelope, on the other hand, had only the string as a witness and jonas did not hesitate to open it up and examine the contents within. the contents were a bit disappointing-- a simple US passport lay inside. jonas opened it up and the face in the photograph was of another arabic man wearing a kafiah but the name seemed somehow antithetic-- "john brown" it said.

    'funny,' jonas thought, 'he doesn't look like a john brown.' the passport informed him that mister brown was born in cinncinnatti, ohio. jonas looked at his pager. his drop contact was named basheer akhmed al-fayaad. he unlocked his bike and headed for chinatown which is where this mr al-fayaad was to meet him. when he arrived at the intersection, he checked his pager again. the building was most obviously abandoned and jonas could see no other likely prospects. there were two men sitting on the steps smoking crack. a trannie was hobbling by on on one hi-heel. al-fayaad was nowhere to be found.

    just when jonas was about to text 'no-sho' in his pager, a black cadillac with tinted windows and expensive rims rolled slowly up next to jonas. the sun was reflecting off the window but only for a moment-- it rolled down smoothly to reveal the face of the man on the passport.

    "thank you, my friend," the man said and handed jonas another $50 bill. he touched his pursed lips with the side of his index finger and the window rolled back up, obscuring his face. the car drove off and jonas texted 'drop-off 3:14pm' to dispatch with his pager and hurried along his way.

    when he arrived at the next drop, the elevator doors opened to reveal a plush-carpeted sitting room. there was tiffany lamp next to a big chair of crimson leather upon which j morgan goldfarb was smoking a cigarette.  he took the slip of paper from the courier. he broke the wax seal to read the contents. he smiled and said,

    "thank you son, have a nice day," and as he closed the door he dropped the paper which fluttered down and landed on jonas' sneaker. he could not resist the curiosity-- he bent down to retrieve the paper and discovered that it bore only two words which were lined thru:

dominic dichirico 

    

  

////\

    dominic dichirico was dead. she was discovered by the gardener who had come to tend to her roses. it was their custom to share a glass of iced tea and an espresso biscuit, for which she was famous, after he finished his work. he found it odd that when he knocked upon the door there had been no reply. he pushed the backdoor in, gingerly and called out to her a few times befor stepping in.

    "she's a old lady, ya know? i had to make sure nothin' happened to 'er." he would tell the police when they arrived. he would not be considered as a suspect because it was commonly agreed that he had 'a gentle face.'

    she was sitting in her drawing room, where she kept her favorite paintings. she was in a silk slip and was covered in fine jewels from head-tiara to toe-ring, a joint still burned in her lifeless hand and the smell of ghanja was fragrant and heavy upon the air. the gardener said he couldn't help but smile when he came upon the scene. 
    "she died happy," he would tell his wife in bed that evening, "surrounded by her pictures, wearing her finest and smoking herb." 
    dominic dichirico had been a poor girl in brazil who had married the right guy-- italian industrialist rocco dichirico who would die in a plane crash, leaving her a widow at the age of twenty four. for the remainder of her youth, she traveled the world, learning languages and collecting antiquities. she would also engage in sordid love affairs with artists of varying calibre but at the best, several well-known names, and at very least some well-intentioned dilletants. as gifts, they would bestow upon her those rare paintings with which they had said they never could part. even then it would be hard for them, but they knew dominic as a woman of distinguished tastes who would love and adore what they, too loved and adored. she would accept their gifts graciously regardless of her true opinion. her closest friends knew that the paintings she liked most all hung in the drawing room-- the room in which she had just been found.

    the police determined the cause of death to be poisoning and for weeks people would be talking about who could possibly have wanted dominic dead. rumours persisted, each more outlandish than the one befor but the cops could find absolutely no clues to help them in their search. the only person with a clue was jonas and he was not exactly on friendly terms with the police.

    a few years ago he had been arrested for protesting arch-conservative rule at a republican convention. he had been called a 'faggot' by one of the neo-cons and he subsequently punched the old coot and was in handcuffs within a minute. in later years, he would be arrested half a dozen other times for various and sundry offenses, upon which need not be elaborated. the point is, jonas neither respected nor trusted the police force of his city. he had kept the little slip of paper which had dichirico's name marked out and he was determined that he would uncover why she had been killed. the who of the matter he thought he might already know. at least, he thought he may know who had called the hit.

     dichirico had been a customer of his. he had brought her a quarter-ounce of premium seedless afghan kush every other week. she would thank him, politely, invite him to bring his bike inside and sit down with her a little bit. she had always seemed rather lonely and jonas imagined she really appreciated the company of a young man. she did not berate him for his sense of style or choice of hair color as so many other old people did. she did not bore him with anecdotes of the 'good old days.' she simply rolled him a joint and a smaller one for herself. she would lite off an old fashioned table-top flame, lean back in her chair, take a long hit and on the exhale she would always say the same thing,

     "so tell me, what is new?" as if she sincerely desired to know what was happening in the world outside her garden wall. her estate was massive; the house, ancient. it sat on an entire city block in the middle of downtown and jonas always looked forward to the time they would spend together. she would ask him to tell her what was new and he would begin, detailing new inventions, scientific threories, or anything of interest he had read in the paper. she would sit and listen to him ramble with the rapt attention of someone truly engrossed befor finally smiling, putting out her joint and saying,

     "you're welcome to stay as long as you like, dear, but i'm long overdue for a nap and all of this hi-speed jibber jabber is making my old head spin."

     she would straiten up and very formally excuse herself to her bedroom. jonas never stayed. he would always put out his joint and wrap it in an old run-receipt of which he had plenty. he always very carefully washed up the delicate meißen china on which he had been served and tiptoed out the door, pulling it to, ever so gently so as not to disturb dominic. she amazed him and he always wished he knew more about her.  he found that as she constantly prodded him with questions and listened so intently, that he inevitably did all of the talking.

     a few days later, he would receive a page with the same pickup and dropoff address. jonas had been waiting for this moment but found himself pitifully unprepared. he knew, or at least he thought he knew what was going on. but how might he go about extracting more information-- and for what information was he looking? jonas didn't know. but he felt he must do something. he pedalled slowly while he thought,

     'dominic is already dead-- so this run is probably another hit that has taken place.' the real question, as jonas understood it, was how to know the name on the slip befor it was marked out.

     'there has to be a list,' he thot and that was the trouble-- how to get them to surrender the list unto him.

     when he arrived at the pickup point, he found himself in the same empty stone crypt. just like last time, he turned his back and the man in vestment and squarecap stood befor him when he again turned around. the man said nothing but simply handed him the little slip as befor. jonas' mind was racing around what to do next, but he could think of nothing and his feet carried him back to the elevator which was heading downward.

    when he dropped off, the man again, broke the seal and read it in jonas presence befor shutting the door, but this time the paper didn't flutter into the hallway and jonas didn't get to look at it. but the next morning, the papers answered his burning question.

    "senator richter assasinated" read the headline on every major newspaper. he had been a senator for another state, but his home residence was right there in the gilded city. jonas knew right  away that his had been the name on the slip sealed in wax. he felt priveledged to be in such a position but a little confused about what to do next. he decided to have a gourd of maté and think it over. he texted 'off' to the dispatcher with his pager and hopped off his bike. he locked it to a "handicapped parking" sine and walked into the shop. the same hipster barrista was always behind the counter. he was either the owner or he had nowhere else to go. jonas walked in and the man greeted him,

     "rough day?"

     "you have no idea," was jonas' reply.

     "in need of a little 'herbal refreshment'?"

     "you know," jonas said, "i think i'll take you up on that offer." the two headed upstairs after locking the outside door and turning the sine in the window to, "closed." upstairs was the hookah with a fat bowl only partially smoked. the hipster laid a coal atop  and handed the hose to jonas.

     "so what's up, brother? tell me about it."

     "what's there to tell?-- everyone has a bad day once in awhile." and quickly, in an act of feigned offense, the hipster grabbed the hose away from jonas and said,

     "don't fuckin' lie to me. what's going on, man?" jonas thot for a moment befor he began,

    "listen, dude, i don't want anyone to know about this yet, but i think i've been movin' hits."

    "movin' the bodies?" the hipster barrista said in a loud voice and jonas made a move as tho to silence him.

    "c'mon,! man-- on my bicycle?!" they both laughed a moment befor jonas continued,

    "i think i'm movin the names, but sofar only after they are already dead. what do you know about the hashashin?"

     "not much other than they were some medieval arab assassins who would get real lit on some bomb hash befor making their kill."

     "exactly. sofar, the only two connecting factors between the victims that i can see is they were both rich and they both smoked ghanj."

    "rich potheads? like who?"

    "old lady dichirico," he paused for dramatic effect, he knew that it was a name well-familiar to nearly anyone who had grown up in the city, especially now that she was dead, her name was being spoken all over the city, 

    "she was a good person, man. who would have wanted her dead?"

\\ 

    from deep within himself, science felt the rumblings of the ataxia of the city, but he did not wake. he slept, soundly, below the bridge where he had upon his first day awoken.  in his dreams, science was, as ever, back on the island. his very skin shivered and quaked in ecstatic reverence for this place and he needed nothing beyond the saline air and the gilded sunlite. he was sitting in a grass hut and could hear the roar of the ocean tide just outside. he was cuddled in a warm embrace with a young, dark woman who slept at his breast. with every rise and fall of his breath, he watched her hair moving gently befor him and he loved her tho he knew not her name. suddenly, however, her flesh began to ripple and then boil-- befor finally losing all coherance and bursting upon him. he was covered with steaming ooze and her skeleton, still atop his body, began to crack and crumble and disintigrate until there was nothing but sticky, uncomfortable matter everywhere and a stench of charred, rotten flesh. science lept from the couch on which he had been laying and bolted out the door. altho it had seemed like noonday inside the hut, when he ran out into the sand, it was already quite dark there was no moon, but science had absolutely no difficulty finding the ocean and in the darkness he stripped off all of his soggy clothes. he plunged headlong into the dark waters and then returned to the surface.

     "where have you gone?" he screamed at the top of his lungs, "who has taken you?" he called out into the nite.

     "she hast come with me," a voice spoke softly behind him. science spun around but could not discern its source, "she belongeth now to me." science felt the voice was above him and when he looked up he saw a human form hovering above the waters. he knew the man but still he asked, "who are you?"

     "i am he who receiveth that which hath been cast off."

     science awoke in a cold sweat. he had not felt so fritened since he had met the receiver in the warehouse the first time. he tried to understand what the man had meant or what connected these two very disparate occasions. he sat up, still breathing heavily and he knew now what he must do. he headed towards the building with the nonconventional elevators, trying as best he could to blend in to his glittering marble surroundings and the sunlite was again blinding along this urban corridor. he faced the door a moment and exhaled befor pulling at the golden handle and stepping thru the doorway. inside, he spotted the travel agency and he entered thru the door. where absence had been the motif befor, both in spartan decoration and lack of human presence, he pulled open the door to discover opulence and decadent decór. half a dozen bodies sat about the waiting room. some of them reading and some of them twiddling thumbs. noone acknowledged science when he entered, not even so much as a glance in his direction. he took a seat in the corner and waited for his turn.

     while waiting, science remarked to himself just how trained, just how brainwashed most people tended to be. he looked around the room-- so complacent!-- all of them. he felt they could just as easily be waiting for ice cream as for execution. their faces all grim and their demeanors so sullen. science did not speak to anyone, and noone spoke to him. he felt the heaviness of the air sliced wide open as the receptionist entered the room. she called out a name and a man joined her at the desk. she said something to him, ever so quietly, and the man began immediately to cry like an infant seperated from his mother's breast. the receptionist placed a cold hand upon the man's shoulder and shook her head. the man left, sobbing. science began to wonder if this were a travel agent or a doctor's office. the receptionist called another name and the bearer, this time a woman, scrambled up to the desk and accompanied the receptionist into the back room. science had been waiting for his opportunity to speak with the receptionist, but the entire interchange had occured so fluidly that the receptionist was already gone befor science could so much as think.

     he looked about the room for something to occupy his attention. an issue of highlights mag had been tossed haphazardly within his reach and science almost touched it when he noticed something else nearby. a text called, "this glittering paradise" lay on a coffee table nearby. a man sat behind the table and was leaned back, asleep-- his feet crossed and perched upon this book. science could not explain his driving desire, but he knew in that moment that he simply must get his hands on that book, at any cost. the man was snoring loudly and science paid attention to the rhythm of the man's breath. he knew that he needed to plan his move to coincide with the man's rhythm if he expected to acquire the book without waking the man. he wat watched as the man's belly rose and his lungs filled up with the stagnant air of this office space. as the man began his exhale, science grabbed the book and yanked it from underneath the sleeping man's feet. he didn't even miss a beat and his snoring continued. science held the book above his head as tho he were a champion and an old woman sitting across the room gave him a look of disdain.

     he returned to his seat and opened the book to the beginning. the first chapter was titled, "discovering the venue of your most perfect dreams." the text began to explain an island, very casually and with vague generalization that would lead most readers to conclude that it spoke not of a specific place but rather the idea of a place which could be anywhere and at any time. much the same as when more spoke of his utopia. science, however, saw thru the veil of anonymity and knew this place for what it is. he knew exactly the place which the text described and he longed, painfully to be reunited therewith.

     the receptionist returned and called another name. this time, science made his way to the desk to inquire at least make his name know to her so that he could be put on the waiting list. he was too late. he had barely stood up befor she was ushering the next customer into the back and shutting the door behind them. this was ridiculous-- she had not even acknowledged that there was someone new in the waiting room-- someone whose name needed to be added to the list. he returned to the place where he had been seated and reached for the book. it was not where he had left it. he eyed the other denizons of the waiting room suspiciously and each, in their turn, became the elusive culprit who had stolen his paradise away. he was contemplating whether or not to confront a particularly shady-looking woman when the door to the back room opened and the receptionist paced out, once again alone.

     science lept from his seat and lunged, desperately towards the receptionist's desk when she called the next name, "mr anderson!" science took a moment befor he realized that 'mr anderson' was himself and she had just called for him. it was unheimlich-- how had this woman known he was waiting?-- why had he been called befor so many others who yet waited. everyone in the room shot him a reproachful glance but science continued unabashédly toward the receptionist.

     "right this way, please, " she led him with the dispassionate routine which suggested she did not remember him from his previous visit. she walked with him past the door thru which he had accessed paradise. he burned to grab that doorknob-- he was so scorchingly close to that for which he had come, that for a moment nothing else mattered. he tore his gaze away from the door and pressed onward. the receptionist led him to the very end of the corridor and to a large mahogany door. she opened it for science and motioned him with her hand, "go ahead in, he's  waiting for you. science didn't know to whom she referred but he stepped into the dimly lit office. the face of the man behind the desk was obscured for all the shadow, but science could make out that he was a very large man.

     "for what have you come here?"

     "i came for paradise," science answered boldly.

     "paradise?!" the man said it as tho he had never heard the word. he laughed and then quickly changed his tune, "what do you know of paradise?"

     "i was there.  just the other day i was there. i came in here and was informed that i had won."

     "and you had your turn, you were given your prize."

     "yeah, but..." science began but the man interrupted him, "three days and three nites were yours."

     " i want to return." science said pointedly.

     "i'm afraid that's impossible," the man said with equal precision.

     "impossible?" science had not expected there to be any hindrance to his emminent returnm to the island of paradise, "what do you mean 'impossible'?"

     "i mean just that. it is impossible. you were not invited and your name is not on the list."

     "if it's money you want, i will pay anything to return to the island. a one-way ticket is all i need."

     "yes, but as i previously stated, it is quite impossible," science was becoming angry at the man's insistence and he replied with marked desperation in his voice.

     "but the door!-- the door is right outside this office!why can't you just let me in?" the man pressed a button on his desk and said, "i need security assistance. two large men in black suits with earpieces and dark shades appeared as if out of thin air and they grabbed science by each arm. he struggled and resisted their restraint, but it was to no avail.

     they carried him out, down the corridor and past the door-- the very door thru which science knew access to his island of paradise could be had. he reached for the door mentally and as tho his very thots could be read like black ink upon a virgin page, one of the security guards administered a quick punch in his stomach and said,

     "don't even fuckin' think about it."

     when they came back out into the waiting room, there was noone in site. they carried science thru the lobby of the building , thru the glass doors and tossed him to the curb. he hit concrete and his body shook and released his consciousness for a moment. science was momentarily surrounded by the place to which his return was so desperately desired. when his consciousness returned, he was laying face first upon the pavement. a small rivulet of blood was coursing from his nose and pooling about his face.

     he knew what he needed to do, but for now, he just wanted to rest. he laid his face back down in the pool of blood and he closed his weary eyes. he returned to spend several several blissful hours on his island when he was awoken by the blunt end of a policeman's club. the cop told him to wake up and move along. judging by the position of the sun, it was almost dark and science needed to get a move on. he pulled himself up off the pavement and wiped his face on his shirtsleeve. the blood had begun to dry and he rubbed little crusty flakes away from his skin befor heading to the old storefront.

     he walked in and the only other person in the place was a young woman with red hair and a pile of yarn. she was knitting rapidly and great enthusiasm but she noticed science right away. science remarked to himself again, how funny it was that when he had the suit still they had severely ignored him here, but now that he looks like a bum, he is suddenly "in"-- so to speak. the woman greeted him,

     "what can i get for you, brotha?"

     "i'm looking for the man who is usually working here," science did not know his name.

     "elliot?-- he's upstairs. i'm sure he wouldn't mind if you came up." she said the word "you" as tho he occupied some well-acknowledged status of hipness. science thanked her and headed up the stairs. when he got to the top of the stairs, the hipster barrista looked overjoyed at his presence and he jumped up to shake his hand,

     "how's it goin man?"

     "not bad, elliot," science was glad he now knew the guy's name.

     "would you like a smoke?" elliot motioned towards the hookah with the redhot coal burning on top.

     "as a matter of fact i would, thanks." they went to sit down in the center of the room, science sat first and then elliot sat opposite him.

     "so tell me," science began but then decided to take a long cold drag off the brightly-colored hose. he drank deep of the beautiful purple smoke and then he exhaled thotfully befor continuing, "tell me everything you know about the hashashin." elliot looked dumbfounded.

     "where did you hear that name?"

     "what do you mean?-- what does it matter?" science asked and elliot seemed to come down a bit from his elevated emotional state, but both men wondered why he had exhibited such an observable reaction.

     "it's just--" he began and then hesitated as tho to discern something of his audience befor proceeding, "this is not the first time i have heard that name today."

     "no?"

     "no."

/\\

     jonas stepped his foot down upon the curb to wait for the green lite. there were no cars and no pedestrians. a paper bag danced gracefully by and other undeletrious detritus, hammocked in the hidden hands of the wind, passed in front of his eyes. a small scrap of paper pushed itself suddenly between the rubber of his sneaker and the hot cement below it. jonas was reminded instantly of the little slips of paper which he had been delivering, bearers of the names of the dead; he bent down and pulled the scrap from his shoe and opened it up. thereon, printed in a miniscule, yea all but illegible font were the following words:

     jonas did not know for whom these words were intended, but he felt certain they were not meant for him. he released it once more unto the graces of the wind which carried it off and to its intended recipient, jonas hoped. the lite had turned green and was already at yellow when jonas looked up. he quickly crossed the intersection and made his way to the pickup location. as he locked his bike, he ran over and over again in his mind the possible connections between dominic dichirico and senator richter. richter was not someone with whom jonas was personally acquainted, but his champion issue had been medical rights for marijuana-- the courier found it more than coincidental that the senator's politic had been so nearly entwined to the personal interests of the wealthy socialite. jonas could think of nothing further and it was not until he had laid foot upon floor in the building and was almost in the elevator that jonas realized where he was-- it had been a few days, but still he remarked that whoever was calling these hits was moving quickly. 

     he felt confident that the pickup would be as enigmatic as it had ever been and he would be unable to derive any information. he decided to focus solely of goldfarb. jonas imagined goldfarb was probably the one calling the hits anyway, because the slips of paper with the victims' names were delivered to him. the pickup went exactly as jonas had predicted and this time, when he received the slip of paper he was overcome by an intense desire to break wide open the wax seal and give the paper to the police.

    'but the police are inneffective,' jonas said aloud but to himself, 'they will waste precious time and tie this case up in beaurocracy. even if dichirico's killer were caut, justice is slow and often dull in her sting.' jonas was resolved to continue in his course of action as he had originally planned. it required tremendous intervening self-will but the courier did not break the wax seal.

     when he arrived at the dropoff point, j morgan goldfarb was not present to receive the message. his secretary greeted the messenger and he waited momentarily. he would not let this be his stalemate. he thot a few moments more and then he said to the woman,

    "excuse me, ma'am, but there was a return service requested," jonas had no idea where he was going with his, but he was pretty good at thinking on his toes.

    "return service?" she echoed his period with a question mark.

    "yes, they wanted a confirmation on the meeting," as soon as jonas said this, he regretted it. it sounded so phony, but it worked. the woman said,

    "oh yes, mr goldfarb will be there-- the university club at 9:00."

    "tonite?"

    "tonite."  she echoed him again, this time in affirmation. jonas jotted the information down and thanked the woman. he quickly exited. as the elevator carried him down to the street level, he began to consider the options which he now had. if he could find some way to get into the club, and listen to goldfarb's conversation, he may be able to understand why he has been murdering seemingly innocent people. but getting into the club could prove difficult-- jonas didn't exactly look like the sort of client with whom the university club was familiar. he could dye his blue hair to a more reasonable color, but whatever would he wear? even if he made it insde the club, there was a chance that goldfarb would recognize him. j morgan goldfarb is a very powerful man. if he were to suspect jonas of poking his nose where it didn't belong, goldfarb could make the courier disappear.

    jonas was so enrapt in his thots, he did not notice the tall man with dredlocks leaving the storefront as he entered it. the crashed full-force into one another.

    "sorry, man," jonas mumbled.

    " 'scuse me." science spoke at the same moment.

    the sun was setting and science was heading back towards the towering, golden building where he had successfully impersonated a psychiatrist.  distracted momentarily by his collision with jonas, his thots returned again to that day when, even without the purloined suit, he had convinced several rational adults that altho he looked like a hobo and smelt like a hobo, he was indeed a psychiatrist. science began to wonder what separated him from the "real" psychiatrist. is perception the better part of  truth? could one be something simply because everyone agreed it to be so? a dollar bill is just a scrap of paper belying itself as an object of value-- everyone agrees upon that value and thus it is so.

    'could i be that paper?' science asked himself, but befor he could  arouse a reasonable answer, he was come upon the great marble building. in the twilite, all the magic had gone from it. it was just a regular stone building now and science had to step back into the street to make sure he was at the rite place.

    'how different this place had been when bathed in golden sunlite and flooded with the hum of daytime busy-ness," science proclaimed aloud. men and women in suits and skirts poured out upon the evening, turning the great glass revolving door like a water-mill a they came out into the balmy evening. science knew that the offices were now closed and the outside doors to the building would soon be locked. he entered the revolving door from the other side. it continued to turn with the steady flow of human bodies and, for a moment, he was contained entirely within delimitations of glass; he glanced dispassionately at the woman on the other side of the revolving door-- leaving the building as he entered it-- her gaze caut his and time stood still befor his perfect chamber of glass split open and he spilled out into the lobby. 

    the lobby of this building, like many downtown, relied heavily upon the natural liting and so it was rather dark when science entered. the men's room was behind the elevators, science had noticed them the first time he was in this building. he pushed the door open and found the handicapped stall at the end of the row. he perched himself upon the toilet and waited. he could hear the grinding of the elevator above him and when it grinded, finally, to a halt, he braced himself for the inspection. rite on cue, the security guard entered the restroom and crouched down to make sure he saw no legs under any of the stalls.

    'everyone out?" he called. he waited for some unheard response-- science didn't dare even breathe-- and when the security guard was satisfied, he turned out the lites. science waited a good hour atop the toilet and when he finally deemed it safe to make his escape he crept slowly back out into the lobby.

    he tiptoed, tho he was certain he was alone in the building. he came to the travel agent and without even thinking, he had grabbed a large flowerpot. it was heavy, but he was strong and he hefted it up and thru the plateglass windows. it remained tangled in the miniblinds, but science pushed it to the side and stepped over the shattered glass. he didn't bother to turn on a lite but headed strait back-- he knew exactly where to look for what he sot. the door was slitely ajar-- the door thru which he had traveled to paradise-- and all he needed to do was gently nudge it open. in the darkness, he could not see much, but as he stepped into the doorway, there was no smell of salty sea and broiled fish, no sound of bare feet padding against the sand, no liquer and no palm trees. he fumbled for a liteswitch and he discovered himself standing in a broom closet-- an empty broom closet.  science was dumbfounded. he stepped back into the hallway. 

    'maybe from a different perspective?' science thot and then flipped the switch and pulled the door shut. he waited a few beats befor turning the handle and pushing the door open again-- same broomcloset.

    'how can this be!' science thot and began to panic. he shut and opened the door a few more times. incredulous, he jerked at the door as tho he would rip it from its hinges. he beat his fist against the wall-- 'there must be some controls or something!' he knocked around the walls nearby and seemed for a moment he would tear them down when a voice as cool and collected as a pool of melted snow asked him,

    "looking for something?" and without hesitation,

    "an island," science was breathing heavily, "an island called 'paradise'." he did not turn around to face the man from whom the voice had come, but science had an idea who it was.

    "an island-- in a broom closet?" there was a mocking tone in the man's voice and yet science felt the man knew exactly the elusive place for which he yearned. science turned around slowly upon the balls of his feet to view the face-- the pallid ghostly face he had seen so often in his dreams. the man's mouth was closed, but science knew that if he drew open his lips like curtains, a row of sharp yellow fangs would be there waiting behind them. the thin blue outline of a teardrop barely touched the delicate pink spot where two eyelids hinge; he was wearing the purloined suit.

    "we have met befor," science said. he did not add, 'and i ran like hell and screamed bloody murder." the receiver did not nod nor respond. he simply looked up, over science' shoulder and into the imagined expanses behind the broomcloset. it was otherworldly, the blank stare into nothingness, and altho it couldn't have been possible, science thot he saw the pale face increase its pallor. it was so unsettling, science wished the man would look at him again. finally, science heard a voice shout, "give it back!" and a few moments later, he realized that the voice had been his own. the receiver broke his trance and looked at science once more.

    "give what back?"

    "my island-- my paradise!" altho he had begun in a commanding tone, his demonstrative authority had very quickly diminished into unabashèdly pathetic pleading.

    "what makes you think that it is i who has your paradise?"

    "are you not he who taketh away?"

    "no, i am he who receiveth that which hath been cast off-- this island paradise was never yours to begin with."

    "can i have my suit back?" the man gave him a look as tho to say, 'i thot you'd never ask!' he took off the suit immediately and handed it to science. as science put on the clothes, which seemed relieved to have returned to their riteful owner, he glanced up at the receiver who stood naked above him. he had a very well-toned and beautiful body, but where mortal men have genitals, the receiver had a smooth, hairless mound like a ken doll. science was afraid of the otherworldly entity and befor another word was said, an alarm began to sound. the receiver disembodied and dissolved into the dark. science ran out of the shop and across the lobby. two policemen came at him from opposite vectors and they simultaneously tackled him to the floor. they then proceeded to help him stand up. one of the cops was brushing him off while the other cop said,

    "we're so sorry sir, there was a break in--"

    "--it's very dark and we thot you were the criminal." the other cop finished the first cop's sentence.

    "you must be working late--"

    "--we're sorry to have bothered you." it was pretty annoying they way they kept tag-teaming their dialog. science understood, all of a sudden, the suit made them think he worked in the building.

    "no harm done, officers," he looked them in their dopey faces, first the one, then the other. he tried to figure out which one was the 'bad cop' he tried to imagine what a business professional would say, "just doin' your job. keep up the good work." he patted one of them on the back and they helped him out the door. science had his suit back-- he stepped out into a world awash in possibility. 

  

 //\\  

      when science arrived at the storefront with the plaster donut and the giant kaleidoscope, music could be heard thumping from inside. several bums were sitting on the blue tile entryway in front of the door. one of them held his hand out and said,

    "please, brothah-- spare a little change?" science shook his head and the man spat in his face and mumbled something about silver spoons in his ass. science stepped past and into the doorway while saying,

    "fuck you, man-- you don't know me."

    when he entered the storefront, there was barely room for another body. science pried his way into the mess and laughed a little to himself, for he finally understood what emily haines had meant when she had said, 'sardine nitelife.' he was proud of his cleverness, but then realized that this was another memory which he had somehow managed, unawares, to extract from his amnemonic abyss and return to his conscious awareness. but why only the superficial memories? why not his name?-- or something of his life. for, now, emily haines would have to do. science noticed people eying him and avoiding his gaze as they had done the first time he had ever set foot therein. just like this time, he had been wearing the suit  and he understood  that this 'uniform' blinded them from who he was. the same who had welcomed him when he looked like a hobo now shunned him for looking like a capitalist.

    science made his way over to the bar where many people were struggling in vain to be noticed. the bartender was an arch-hipster who would decide with draconian decision whether one was worthy of his gaze. some would breeze up to the bar casually and befor they could lean against the bar, a drink was in their hand. others, would scramble in hot earnest for so much as a fleeting glimpse from the bartender-- it was an uphill battle for such as these and they would be better off in a booth at the all-nite deli rather than try to contend for such elitist grace.

    science began to step up the staircase when two punks pushed themselves between him and the next step.

    "where do you think you're goin'"

    "i'm goin' to see elliot," science replied and they looked as tho they were not unfamiliar with this claim.

    "he didn't say nothin' about you," one of the kids said as tho he knew science' name and identity. but befor science could offer up some proof of the verity of his claim, elliot appeared at the top of the stairwell,

    "it's all good, y'all-- that cat's with me," and then he added to science, "dawg, wasup with the monkey suit?" the punks moved aside and science jogged up the stairs.

    "where'd you get that shit man?"

    "macy's. it was stolen from me and i just got it back."

    "come on in, brother, we're just chillin with the hookah." he motioned as to introduce jonas who sat on a large silk pillow from india. jonas shook hands with science,

    "i think we've met befor."

    "i don't think so," science wasn't sure why he said that as he could remember nothing from befor that singular day, but then he added,

    "well, mybe we've bumped into one another. my name is science."

    "i'm jonas" jonas anded the hose to science who took a long, contemplative hit. he exhaled purple smoke and passed the hose. this place had become his ivory tower. he wondered if they mite be able to help him with his problem. he had to consider how best to explain.

    "so--" he smiled at them, "y'all ever wanted somethin' so bad you gonna die but it's gone and you don't know where to find it?"

    "who is she?" elliot said and the two laughed. science looked serious and then said calmly,

    "a place. it's a place that's gone run off and i can't get back to."

    "but you know it's still there?" jonas asked.

    "it ain't where i left it." science seemed confused.

    "but it still exists?-- it's not dead?" science nodded his head, neither to affirm nor deny but merely to acknowledge the statement. jonas continued with his train of thot,

    "some things are taken from you and they can never get 'em back you know?"

    "like what?" elliot thot jonas was leading up to some elusive punchline, but judging from the look he received in return, elliot decided to keep his mouth shut.

    "like life," jonas said, "life that is all anyone truly has and which can be so readily and easily taken from you." he hit the hookah again and upon exhaling added, "and is it not truly disgusting that one should ever take away the life of another."

    "man-- what are you on about?" altho his words sounded abrupt, science' intentions were sincere.

    "dominic dichirico-- have you seen?" science stared blankly at jonas as tho he spoke another languaj. jonas explained, "she was just this rich old lady who loved this city, and we loved her." he paused, "i loved her--" and then another moment befor he returned to his narrative, "anyway, she never fucked nobody, ya know, but someone murdered her. i know who did it too-- he's killed others and he's not done. "

    "you think he will kill others?" science didn't know why, but he felt certain that he was somehow involved.

    "i know he will."

    "you say you know who it is, man!-- how?" elliot asked.

    "i've been running the names-- sealed with wax and marked thru"

    "how do you know he will kill again?"

    "he prepaid for 12 runs. i've run three sofar."

    "what's his name?" science asked and jonas looked at him jealously for a moment but then decided that he had an honest face.

    "perdition inc. is the name of the pickup and goldfarb is the name of drop. i think goldfarb's the one calling the hits and the names come back marked out once they're already gone. j goldfarb." he added like punctuation.

    "goldfarb," science turned the word over upon his lips, "i think i met his wife."

    " j morgan goldfarb?" elliot asked with emphasis on the middle name, incredulous that neither of his comrades recognized the name of the notorious industrialist.

    "yeah, that's it-- you know 'im?"

    "i know of him-- dude, man-- he's only like the richest fucker in this blinding gilded city!"
    "this what?" jonas was lost.
    "goldfarb," elliot began, "owns nearly every building downtown-- goldfarb," elliot continued and grabbed his powerbook nearby, "is responsible for some of the shadiest piracy that goes on while hiding behind that immaculate white color." neither jonas nor science seemed too impressed.
    "goldfarb is an illuminatis, man-- he's been seen at bohemian valley with cheney and rove-- he seeks world domination and economic hegemony with every breath he takes!" elliot was getting heated, "his corporation thrives on sweatshops and global exploitation, he's a-- a--" he was reticent but then he went ahead with his jugement, "fascist!"
    "why would goldfarb want these people dead?" science felt as tho everything were so familiar to him.
    "they must have gotten between him and the almighty dollar--" elliot felt priveledged and elated.
    "i don't get," science inquired, "if this dude's so evil-- why wouldn't he kill them himself?" his reality was at this moment, so tangible he couldn't understand the sordid affairs of the elite class.
    "he wants to keep his hands clean, man," jonas felt he was on the rite track, "i think we can save lives if we can somehow figure out who else he wants dead."
      suddenly, the door burst open and the two punks who had served as de facto bouncers of the staircase, came in with worried looks on their faces.
    "sorry to interrupt, el-- but there's some chick, man"
    "she's o.d.ing on your floor," the other kid filled in the details. all three of them jumped up and ran downstairs.
    the crowd was standing around in a circle and laying on the floor in the center was a girl with short cropped bangs and striped pink leggings. she had vomit all over herself and she wasn't breathing. her eyes were rolled back in her head and she showed little evidence of life.
    it was jeza-- in her weakest moment. science didn't recognize her thru the smeared lipstick, heavy eyeliner and vomit-covered face.jonas grabbed her limp body and her wig fell off to reveal curly red hair. he wiped the vomit with a towel and started doing cpr. elliot came running with a syringe and he laid a hand on jonas' shoulder. jonas rose and allowed elliot access. the woman was pale and her nose was bleeding. elliot tore her shirt off, gave her a kiss and then stabbed her in the center of the chest. the adrenaline was instantaneous in its efficacy and jeza began screaming and running around the room topless with syringe still in her chest. the crowd took a moment to understand the bizarre sequence of events but erupted into joyous applause. elliot brot her a glass of water and wrapped a blanket around her.
    ironically, science had slipped out in all of the commotion and was heading for the jazz bar around the corner, hoping to bump into jeza. he didn't know what he would do if he did find her, especially now that he had his suit back-- but science was determined to find her. the nite air was warm and moist. a fountain splashed nearby and science began to drift into realms of consciousness yet unexplored. he began to see the entire universe as a connected and interdependant whole-- complex and vital-- things seem to have a way of working themselves out. he hoped he wouldn't kill her when he found her.

    when jeza was feeling a little better, she asked to use the fone. in less than ten minutes, a black rolls royce had arrived for her. as jonas helped jeza into the car he caut a glympse of the driver-- goldfarb. he glanced at his watch-- 9:00-- in all of the commotion he forgot that he was to spy on goldfarb's meeting at the club at this time. but he was here!-- goldfarb had come to pick up the girl who had almost died.
    'too old to be his wife,' jonas thot, 'his daughter, maybe?'
he quickly went to unlock his bike and when the rolls cruised away, jonas was in hot pursuit. he pedaled with the strength and determination of a tour de france jockey-- such as he had never befor but when the car turned a sharp corner and pulled into a private drive with an iron gate, jonas was too late.
    "i'm such a fuckin' idiot!" jonas shouted. 'but then, what could i have done differently? if i had gone to the club on time, i probably wouldn't have gotten in, and goldfarb wouldn't have been there anyway-- but then, if i hadn't helped save the girl's life, she never would have called him and he would have been at that meeting.' the world become, suddenly so complex for jonas that he was compelled to stop thinking altogether. at least now he knew where j morgan goldfarb resides.
    if he had had the superhuman hearing of a bat, jonas would have heard them arguing in the car. he would have heard goldfarb swearing and telling her that leaving the meeting so abruptly may have cost her more than she could imagine. he would have heard the old miser tell jeza,
    "you'd better have a real good reason for calling me up like that." to which she would reply,
    "i almost fuckin died out there jay!"
    if jonas had been able to hear their conversation he would have heard goldfarb chiding the little harlot for not knowing when to stop. jonas had already left, but in a van parked outside the goldfarb estate, someone else was waiting-- someone who had heard every word of the conversation. seymour sharpaus had achieved, thru modern technology, the superb precision of hearing which nature had not relegated his species. he sat in the van, quietly, with marion and they listened to goldfarb and jeza.
    "i can't believe he let that little slut into our bedroom." marion finally exclaimed. her former person would have imploded with self-loathing before erupting in a supernova of tears and pitiful gasps for breath. her former person would not have been able to sit outside what had once been her house and listen to her husband carrying on with another woman. marion was changed. the subtle fragrance of blood, tinged with human suffering and passion had flooded her senses and she had but one directive now before her.
    "can we do it now?" marion asked-- using the word "it" as a euphemism for murdering her husband and his mistress.
    "no, no-- not here. he has household servants who could testify and he keeps excellent surveillance on his place. we have to stick to the original plan and do it at her apartment," he used the word "i" with the same subtext she had assigned it.
    "but since i've been gone, he hasn't gone to her apartment, she's been coming to him."
    "we've just got to force his hand, somehow. "
    "or find somewhere else to kill them," with every moment, marion grew in courage and strength. she wasn't even using euphemisms anymore. when first she had met sharpaus, she was appalled, almost fritened by the candor and ease with which he spoke of such a vile deed. she considered the situation for a moment.
    "what if were to move back in the house-- force him to start going to her in secret again?"
    "i don't know. i wouldn't put you in such a dangerous position," when he spoke those words, marion's eyes met his and for once in her life she had the distinct awareness that someone actually cared for her well-being. she pounced upon seymour, knocking him against the floor of the van. she kissed him full on the mouth and began to unbutton her shirt.
    they made love in the van, passionately and with the intensity of teenage lovers. she went home with him that nite, and the next nite. and for many nites to come.

///\\
    in the park, science had amassed quite a following of bums and street people who had come from all over the city to hear his particular form of the gospel.  they sat in a circle all around him and by noon he had drawn such a crowd that the police department had been notified by several concerned professionals who had observed the happening from their offices in the buildings above. their concern had nothing to do for the public good but merely for their own safety as they walked to their cars and bus stops at 5:30. they were so riddled with fear, so fed upon paranoia that they could not bring themselves to leave the safety of their concrete citadels if they thot a few hundred homeless would be waiting for them at the street level.
    the police were only concerned with what a waste of time the calls were. in a city like this, the police have a lot of large problem with which at any given moment they are grappling. one of the ladies who called to report the "homeless riot" was received quite rudely by the officer who answered the fone,
    "lady-- don't you know dis is da dirty dirty souf? we got shit's much bigger den dat, ya hear? gwon, now an don be callin' us no mo!" the other officers nodded their approval when he hung up the fone.
    and so, science only continued to draw hoardes of followers who came to hear the good news of paradise island and how it was truly possible for all of them to get there if they believed in it.
    " a place always warm-- with fresh white linens on every bed. no one ever dies and we all remain ever the same age, thruout eternity!" the crowd particularly liked this part for it helped them allay the futile inward fear of their own inevitable annihilation.
    "if we believe in ourselves, and work together, we can get to the island! we can make the island our own!" they cheered. he was unreal. he was a prophet. he was a son of god. the homeless, the insane, the depressed, the suicidal, the crackheads and the whores-- all of them came from every part of the city to hear what science was to be for all of them. they loved him, and they loved his suit.
    "beware, therefore, the man who is called the receiver!" he warned them, "and do not take anything free that is offered you of him."
    they came-- his disciples, some of them from very long distances and as the evening came, they began to build shelters-- tents and cots began to assemble in every corner of the park, until the entire green had become something of a little colony organized around science and his teachings. some of the disciples built for him a little covering and a small bed and they bid him lie down. he would not sleep-- the desire to find within every one of them the spark of understanding and to fuel it with knowledge of the truth of paradise island overwhelmed him so that he ceased all bodily desire and focused solely on his own destiny.
    science knew intimately that his own rearrival upon paradise island, if it ever were to be, would require all of them as well. for there could be no other way unless everyone simply reached out and took it. all power is inherent to perception. a dollar bill is just a scrap of paper to which we assign a value on which we have already agreed mutually and amongst ourselves. was not a king a pauper to whom everyone bowed down?
   
    now take me dancing-- at the disco
    where you buy your winnebago
    i want to ride on a white horse
    i want to ride on a white horse

    music filled the air of a sudden and shook science from his inward reflection. no one would admit to be playing the music, and indeed it seemed the music was coming from above them, they had all been standing there waiting for him to return to the world of forms from which he had been absent several moments. he had been in midsentence when he suddenly just dropped off and pulled into a profound and blissful firmament within.
    when it was finally agreed that the music was not coming from them, they began to look around the vicinity to find the source. when they came upon the library plaza, they found a bunch of ravers partying the plaza with lights and firedancers and no dout considerable amounts of mdma. the disciples returned to science to tell him all that they had seen. there was much discussion which science subtly silenced at the raise of his hand. he declared that they should move on, so they began to pack up their belongings to move to the warehouse district.

////\\
    the reverend father jeremiah makepeace asked the servants, as he did every evening, not to disturb him while he read compline.  he would sometimes lock himself in his small cell above the chapel and not emerge therefrom for several hours, so there was nothing unusual when he did not appear again that evening. when his absence was noted at morning prayer, the other clergy thot perhaps he was simply saying this morning's prayer in private, as many of them did, but the very reverend bishop milton orville jennings knew that it was not father makepeace' custom to be absent from the assembly of god and decided to make sure that the canon reverend was not ill. when he arrived at the cell, the bishop noticed that the priest's door was not locked and was slitely ajar. he tipped the door forward and he saw the cleric at his kneeler, his head devoutly bowed. he was dead. but the bishop did not yet realize it. he stepped carefully, so as not disturb the priest, he assumed was deep in contemplation. makepeace clutched a rosary in his dead hand and when the bishop glanced at him more carefully, he noticed  a thin ribbon of blood, descending the clerics eye, running across his cheek and dripping steadily upon the crimson pool which had amassed on the cold stone floor.
    "lord have mercy!" the bishop gasped and made the sign of the cross befor running to find a telefon. he called, foremost, the police, to inform them that there was a human cadaver in the cell above the chapel which had until recently been animated of one of our priests. his tone was clear and calm hen he spoke with the police. he told them everything he knew, which at this moment was not much. he answered their questions and politely excused himself from further conversation.
    he pushed the button in the cradle with one thin, spidery finger to disconnect the call. he dialed another number-- a number with which he must have been very familiar because he had dialed it effortlessly and automatically. the fone was ringing; he tapped his chin with his long fingers-- when he had been a boy, his nursemaid had helped him trace his body on a long sheet of butcher paper. when she traced his hands, she commented at what beautiful long fingers he had for a boy his age. she had entertained  lustful thots about the prepubescent milton which, being of devout russian orthodox conviction, had led her to bouts of insane self-mutilation and conflagration as penance for her sinful  allowances.  at age 13, milton orville jennings would lose his virginity with  her and she would  confirm what she had already  suspected about  his masculine proportions.
    "hello?--  " the bishop's voice quivered slitely, ever so slitely, unobserved by the man on the other end of the foneline; he was agitated for he was a man of little patience who abhored to be kept waiting.
    "benedict?-- it's milton. one of your operatives made a sacrifice last nite of one of my priests and i want to know why i was not informed." he waited for a response-- 'perdition was rarely so taciturn regarding their dealings. they had never come so close and to me and yet now they choose to play laconic and turn this one rite under my nose how--'
    "vulgar!"--he finished his sentence aloud.  whomever it was that stood upon the other end was unable, it seemed, to satisfy the eager bishop, but the results of the "sacrifice" as it had been called were published in the newspapers. father makepeace had achieved some notoriety, or perhaps infamy, depending upon which side of the great social divide one stood, as something of a corporate watchdog. he had traveled as a missioner to developing nations and had youtubed videos of sweatshops and diamond mines. his book, if he had lived to finish it, would have indicted goldfarb, among others as responsible for the race wars in central africa.
  jeza saw the headlines-- "makepeace murdered! / killer left without a trace." she did not have a single quarter and she tried maladroitly, momentarily to pry the box open. without success, she gave up all faith that she would be able to acquire a newspaper, when as tho by some miracle, she caut the glint of something gold in her periphreal vision. she still had no faith but regardless, it was there-- a small gold-colored likeness of sacajawea in street gutter. jeza was overwhelmed-- she felt like charlie bucket. she reached her arm deep into the drain, squeezing it between the grating. she could touch the coin barely-- tantalizing in its closeness yet ever out of reach. she nudged the coin further from her fingers reach.
    "a miracle," she finally admitted and the coin came to her hand as tho drawn by a magnet. she pulled her arm from the drain and stood up. the newsbox wouldn't take a dollar coin, so jeza needed to find change. there was a newsstand around the corner and she went inside and found the same newspaper with the same foto of makepeace. got in line behind a tall man in a black trench coat. he purchased two packs of djarums and jeza stepped up to the counter after him. she paid for the paper and took a quarter for change. she caut up to the man in the trench coat and asked him,
    "say, dude-- can i giva ya a quarter for a square?"
    "he turned around to face her. he had the blue outline of a teardrop tattooed on one of his eyes and he knocked a clove from the pack. he handed her the cigarette and she offered him a quarter. he shook his head and said,
    "i wouldn't take money from you, my dear-- besides--" at this, he smiled, "i already have something which belongs to you. he stepped thru the door and the bells jingled; jeza couldn't remember having seen him open the door, nor had it shut behind him. 
    " so creepy," jeza said out loud and headed for her train. she walked four blocks, and while she walked, she smoked hr clove cigarette contemplatively. she carried the newspaper under her arm and when she got to the train she was not quite finished with her cigarette. she considered, briefly, putting it out and holding it in her pocket for later, but the taste was never quite the same, and as it was her first cigarette of the day, she had amassed something of a head buzz . she decided to wait for the next train and sit down and enjoy her smoke.
    an old woman steeped on the stench of urine sat next to her on the bench a few moments later. the woman clutched a few small plastic shopping bags which held what appeared to be the entirety of her worldly possessions. the woman looked over at jeza and gave a little nod as tho to acknowledge her presence. she then leaned very close to jeza and whispered something to her. what she whispered was very profound and altho jeza would never, later, be able to articulate what the old woman had meant tho it had changed her life in exhaustive and utterly heartrending ways.
    the woman did not board the train, when jeza stepped off of the platform, but she was, as yet unchanged. it would take weeks for the full intent of the woman's gentle words to realize their efficacious sea-change in her otherwise selfish existence. jeza would be unable to thank her once the change had occurred-- this bag ladies whole existence would be subsumed, like every other passing soul, in the rising tide of faces whom we never really met. such is the case of modern life.
    she bit upon the nail of her ring finger and tore, slitely the flesh around the edge of the nail. a drop of blood-- a bit of herself-- dripped from her fingertip and onto the false leather seats of the train. she did not even notice this miniscule loss in the essence of her body, for her gaze was permenantly affixed thru the glass and upon the world beyond the train car.
    jeza got off at the stop after the park. she had walked thru that park so many times, with so many people. she had bot and sold drugs in this park, she had turned tricks in this park. she had once come to this park as a little girl with her mother-- her alcoholic mother who would abandon her to the state a few months after their walk in the park. so many memories surfaced when she thot of the park, but now she was getting off the train past the park. it was intensely symbolic for her, now to ride the train thru the park and disembark on the other side. 'jay's wife left him,' she thot to herself, 'it's only a matter of time.'
    when she arrived at the house, he was not there. the maid let her in, and jeza began to brew some coffee. she had fallen asleep before the coffee was done and it sat on the hotplate until eventually it shut off automatically. goldfarb did not return that nite, or the next morning. when he did finally return, jeza grabbed the newspaper with which she had been waiting and showed the front page to the very tired countenance of mr j m goldfarb.
    "look jay!-- that priest won't be givin' you no more trouble!" when he didn't respond, she realized that it was, by now, old news and she wished he had been home last nite.
    "where were you last nite jay?-- i was worried!"
    "i was out-- look jez, your little fiasco the other nite cost me, majorly. from now on, i don't care if you are dying-- don't call me when i'm meeting with perdition!" he sat down and kicked off his shoes. she came by to sit in his lap but he turned her away. she felt, suddenly, like a neglected play thing who had outlived her usefulness-- a velveteen rabbit. she felt the outline of a tear creep slowly upon her cheek and she recognized that this was the first honest-to-god human emotion which she had felt truly, deeply, painfully in years. the bag lady's benediction was beginning to take effect
    she went into the kitchen to make herself a snack. goldfarb had been so disinterested in the circumstances of the death of one of his bitterest enemies-- at first she thot he had already seen the news and was merely uninterested, but then she began to wonder. even if he had already seen the headline, wouldn't he still be somewhat elated? this was all very peculiar.
    in her mind, she began to entertain dark, horrifying thots.  to what depths mite  the human will plumb when the value of the things about them have become so grotesquely distorted, and the greed and desire of the devils within fully subsumes one's humanity? 'of what is mister j morgan goldfarb capable?' she asked herself, surprised at her use of impeccable grammar in her internal monologue, as she approached goldfarb who was now fast asleep.
she flung herself upon him, "oh hold me jay!" she cried, "i'm fritened!"
    and in the same fleeting moment, she both loved him and hated him with equal intensity, and in a fit of confused passions, she fell asleep.

cæsura
    all the world is quiet and in this sublime moment, no one is hurting another, no one is causing pain, no one is taking more than their fair share. for the first time in all of history and befor, the whole world yawns-- the whole world sleeps. the whole world snores on in somnambulistic union. and in this moment, the tired earth breaks the fourth wall and looks at the camera-- she is self-aware and in dying, she doth live. there could be no greater moment than this because in knowledge of the self, she-- our ancient mother-- is sustainèd and preserved as an undying child of god. it is reprehensible, some mite say, to imagine that she is not already of this mind, and perhaps some still mite object to that she should be awake at all, choosing cold science or blinding religion instead of intimacy of trust and love. and she does love-- infinitely and without reason, without perception, without memory or cruel, devisive prejudice. this is her essence. and all are of the same source. as einstein saith, all matter is of the same energy.
    the tides of tepid time pore over unceasing moments upon moments and epochs upon epochs. how long does it take to mend? how long to suture? there was an eternity of making the lite grow quicker and quicker until the revolutions and restitutions of this round, reeling globe. the impersonal beacons of societies expectations and all tertiary elements of modern life can melt and dissolve but the immobile moments as griains of sand ever drop and plummet unto their brethren from time to time immemorial.

\\\

    when he had finished all of the important runs of the morning, jonas stopped briefly at the storefront to buy some máte. the place was largely empty except for a man asleep on one of the waterbeds. elliot was at the bar, reading orwell's 1984.  he looked up  from his book and when he recognized jonas, he stood up and began making his drink. jonas set his freitag satchel on one of the chairs nearby and hopped up on his favorite stool. as elliot pulled the steaming hot water over the brite green leaves, an earthy aroma grabbed their nostrils and brot focus to their equally scattered thot processes. elliot began,

    "hey, by the way-- i found something that actually links the dead priest to goldfarb." jonas was nervous speaking so openly. but after looking behind him and remembering how empty the place was on this particular morning, he responded,

    "what is it?" elliot handed him the gourd with a slim silver bombilla and went to find his laptop. he returned a few moments later and turned the monitor around to face jonas. the monitor showed father makepeace' blog called "the anglican watchdog"

    "i was googling goldfarb, and i found this!" elliot explained. jonas leaned in a little closer and realized that goldfarb's name was in much of what makepeace wrote about. goldfarb had been a part of the world bank and it seems he had blocked efforts by the u.n. to establish a universal minimum wage and to outlaw the use of slave labor. the litany of grievances went on and on, but after reading nearly all of it, jonas asked,

    "but why would he want him dead?-- surely none of this stuff is bad enough to want to kill a priest!" he looked incredulous and he closed the laptop. there must be something more!

    "maybe he was on to something more major-- something big. maybe goldfarb had him killed before he could tell what he knew." elliot felt as tho he were onto goldfarbs reasoning and jonas had to concede that it certainly sounded like a plausable theory. he opened his book of receipts. he flipped thru to find any and all which had been ordered by perdition inc.

    "let me see that!" demanded elliot and he grabbed the receipt book from the courier's hands.

    "basheer akhmed al-fayaad!" elliot exclaimed when he looked at the receipt directly before the perdition run. jonas shook his head as if to say that he couldn't possibly be expected to remember every single client.

    "on the same day, in the same building as the first run for perdition to goldfarb, you delivered something to basheer akhmed al-fayaad who is the leader of an ultra conservative islamist group here in the city. he comes on public access in the mornings decrying america's sinful ways and urging us to repent and accept allah."

    "you have too much free time," jonas accused.

    "why wouldn't he have used a fake name?" ellliot wondered out loud.

    "because that's what courier's offer, " jonas explained, "complete anonymity."  

but before they could speak any further on the matter, jonas' pager beeped. he reached for it and after checking the display, his face gave it away.

    "another run for perdition incorporated?" elliot inquired knowingly. jonas nodded his head slowly and grabbed his bag from the chair.

    the run was becoming routine. the man in vestments always met him in the stone atrium after he had already arrived. when he arrived to drop off, goldfarb met him at the door. he handed the little paper bearing the wax seal and he noticed that goldfarb's face looked like that of someone who hasn't slept. he barely even glanced at the name on the paper before letting it drop to the floor and shutting the door. jonas bent down to take the paper and read what was printed thereupon:

    cinthia benavides

    the news was already covering the story when jonas left the building. he stopped in front of an electronics store and watched the breaking coverage. cinthia benavides, jonas learned from the news report, had been controversial in exposing certain news stories in recent days as being completely falsified and planted by unnamed corporate giants for political reasons. the police suspected her death to be related.

    jonas sort of chuckled as he got up on his bike and headed back to elliot's storefront. the police were completely off-- they believed that someone in the news media killed benavides for exposing that they'd made up a story or two. but as he pedaled, he considered the scenario more thoroly-- what if there was some truth to this-- what if goldfarb was one of those "unnamed corporate giants"! jonas felt a rush of adrenaline in his heart and coursing to his extremities-- he was on the rite track!  

    he almost forgot to lock his bike to the sinepost in his haste to tell elliot of his suspicion. he came racing into the storefront and grabbed elliot's laptop and began typing. before the hipster barrista could protest, jonas cited offhandly,

    "i think i'm on to something!" he typed "cinthia benavides news fraud" into google and clicked on the hiest rated sites.

    "cinthia benavides," he finally addressed elliot with a calm resolved composure that came with being assured in one's riteousness of opinion, " was murdered last nite."

    "that was the name under the wax?" elliot asked the obvious and jonas nodded quickly before moving on,

    " she had recently exposed that some news stories which had been aired by her network were in fact untrue. stories, mainly dealing with the economy which had been been planted in the lineup by 'unnamed corporate giants'-- which local tv stations does goldfarb own?"

    "all of them," elliot laffed at the question and then added with more sincerity, "except pbs and maybe the public access."

    "most of the stories are related to the economy, " jonas said while scanning a list with the mouspad of the laptop, "--but i can't figure out the connexion-- it's so broad-- 'china to revalue its currency,' 'iran to begin oil trade accepting only euros.'

    "but you've just solved the mystery!" elliot was suddenly as excited as jonas, "he's trying to be the next george soros." he looked at jonas with a very stern and grave countenance but jonas, it was apparant was unfamiliar with the name. elliot grabbed his laptop back,

    "he's tryin to be a prospector-- george soros planted rumours in the media and amongst powerful social circles which would create panic and see an overturn in the market. they force a recession and then they sell their currency short. soros did it with the pound and it was done by robber barons in this country in the 1920s."

    "how many of the t.v. stations does goldfarb own?" jonas repeated his question from earlier, this time with complete sarcasm.

    "but that's not the whole story," elliot conjectured, "because this cinthia benavides was not the only one goldfarb has taken down-- i mean, he's on a rampage, you know?"

    "we have to find some way to break into his office or something."

    "come on man, be realistic. anyway, everything you need is online somewhere. it's the information age, baby." jonas was confounded. he had all of the clues and most of the puzzle, he felt. but he was still nowhere. he didn't have the list of names and he was powerless to stop goldfarb.

    "maybe we should just go to the police." jonas felt like giving up. "if we tell them what we know--" but his friend did not allow him to finish his thot.

    "naw, man-- those cats will fuck it all up-- listen here-- if you tell the police they will absolutely not stop the bad guy before he is finished killing all twelve of them. what we need is a plan to retrieve that list. and then jonas had an idea. a blistering, blinding idea of astral magnitude. he had no time to explain things to elliot or even to tell him goodbye. he ran out the shop and unlocked his bicycle. he stopped a few blocks away to write a few lines on one of his telegram sheets. he returned to goldfarb's office. he had been waiting for a moment such as this, and goldfarb didn't look to be in a very discerning condition. he waited several minutes befor goldfarb finally opened the door and looked so blank as tho he didn't remember the courier having even been just there not an hour ago. he handed the telegram to goldfarb who took a look at it:

please confirm names received by listing names of those still alive in another sealed telegram.

    goldfarb informed jonas that he would require a return service and jonas handed the man a blank telegram card. goldfarb scrawled something hastily in pencil and thrust it into jonas hand.

    "charge the original sender," and then almost as an afterthot, he added, "you know, i'm glad you came back. i'm pretty tired and i almost forgot i had two deliveries for you to take. can you hang on a sec." and without waiting for the courier's answer, he disappeared only to reappear presently with two manila envelopes. one was properly sealed and the other had one of those strings that were round between two buttons like a figure eight. people trust couriers implicitly, tho they are universally derided as being low-lives. goldfarb handed the two items without thinking over to jonas along with two $20 bills and a "keep the change."

    jonas waited until he was down the elevator and had ridden his bike around the corner before examining the envelopes. the one which was well-sealed was to go to the city reserve bank, but the other one was to go to the dai-wah in the no-do. it was addressed to mister basheer al fayad. jonas remembered speaking to elliot about that guy but as he remembered, that character was not previously associated with goldfarb. 'what could his connection be?' jonas thot to himself, and hoping to find an answer to his question, jonas opened the twine closure of the envelope and removed a small white card which said in small letters written in  red ink:

    the time is now.

    he delivered both of the envelopes and waited until he was back at the storefront to read the return telegram which goldfarb had scrawled and sealed. when he got there, elliot looked concerned. he went upstairs and came back down with a small tv. he plugged it in and the small, bw display was in mid report on a bomb which had just destroyed a bank building downtown.

    an "islamofascist" attack was the terminology used by the news station to describe the suicide bomber. al-fayad has released a statement that he and his rite wing organization are in no way involved.

    "weird!--" jonas said, "i was just there-- i just saw al-fayad a moment ago. he's connected to goldfarb somehow."

    "and he's lying-- he is involved, somehow, " elliot said, observing closely the behaviors of the man on the screen, "he's blinking his eyes a lot-- a sure sine that someone's lying."

    "goldfarb sent a message that said, 'the time is now' ," jonas began but did not finish.

    elliot looked at him as tho he had just told him his mother was dead.

    "that was the message!-- that was it, man!-- goldfarb has moved onto bigger and better things, it seems."

    "dude, man! i almost forgot the return telegram!"

    "the what?"

    "i sent goldfarb a telegram from perdition asking for the remaining names."

    "ballsy move, yo. let's see the reply." jonas removed the sealed telegram from his satchel and oppened it up. inside, in big, sloppy pencilmanship, the words:
    go to hell
whoever you are.
    elliot laffed out loud, but jonas simply crumpled the message up and tossed it in the trashcan.
    "where do we go from here?"

     /\\\

    marion silverstein-- as she now preferred to be called-- to which she indicated on all of her formal correspondences and had already had printed on cards and stationary-- was at the grocery store, when she mistook one of the employees for jeza. she mite have killed the girl rite there, but her better judgment took over and she decided to be more reasonable. as it turned out, the girl was not her ex-husband's mistress and in truth didn't even slitely resemble her.

    she was in the checkout line and waiting to be helped when a man came and stood behind her. he was tall and had the thin blue outline of a teardrop below his left eye. he said to her,

    "marion?-- or am i mistaken?"
    "i am, but, who are--"
    "this belongs to you," he said and handed her a small parcel wrapped in brown paper. she started to ask him a question when they heard a scream. marion looked over her shoulder and saw what everyone in the store was now intently observing-- crowds of homeless people marching slowly towards them. marion almost dropped the parcel and then she turned back to see the stranger from whom she had so unexpectedly received a gift. he was gone.
    she didn't get to check out. she left her groceries waiting patiently in the metal basket. homeless people had now entered the store in hoardes. they meant no harm to any of the patrons, they assured them. they had only come because they were hungry and there was food in the store. marion slipped out with her parcel and waited until she was in the safety of her car to open it.
    she untied, first, the twine which held the paper closed. she was apprehensive and tore the paper open. inside was a small, old-fashioned hand mirror of wrought gold ith costume rhinestones all around and the semblance of a crown on top. marion gazed in the mirror and smiled.
    after spending considerable time gazing into her newfound obsession, marion felt empowered-- she decided to walk home and left the car door open, keys in the ignition. a pakistani man would believe fate to have smiled upon him and brought him this fancy car, only to die, ironically while on the road therein.
    as marion walked, she began to think of all the people who had done her harm or caused her to cry in her life. there were far too many and they all played like some sick sad victrola dancing melancholy and singing gracefully. she felt no longer any sadness or regret at not having had her way with these people-- and that is, truly what is the source of any anger or malace-- it's in not having power or control over someone or some situation. marion felt completely at peace with herself and with the decisions she had made in life.
    she was so elated, she forgot entirely about the paper sacks which she had left on the conveyor belt at the grocery, she forgot about the car which she had abandoned into oblivion and she forgot about the dinner which she had promised to cook for seymour.
    seymour sharpaus was everything that goldfarb was not-- he listened to her, was compassionate when she needed him to be, could dance like cary grant and gave her two or three orgasms in bed before even venturing towards his own satisfaction. when she arrived at his townhouse, he was drinking a sidecar and it was evident that this was not his first one.

    his tie hung loose and impotent about his neck and his shirt collar was undone and revealed his hairless chest. marion sneered momentarily at how effeminant he appeared when his shirt was open. she felt her mind change direction in regards for her affection.

    when she entered the door, seymour did not greet her or ask about her day, merely the cold unthinking question, "what's for dinner?" she tossed something off about chinese takeout casually and he went ballistic-- he shattered the cocktail glass and began to fly into a rage but the funny thing is, she was so enrapt by the mirror which she now held in her hand that she did not even notice his wild and threatening behavior.
    she locked herself in the bathroom with that dark and fateful speculuum and stayed therein all nite and the next day too. she cradled it in her arms and made kisses with herself thru the glass. she didn't dare ask for thee days, but when she did, the question came easily as tho it were titely packed and dying to be let loose, 
    "mirror, mirror, on the wall-- who's the fairest one of all?"
    the glass swirled around some unseen epicenter before arranging itself around the form of a man-- a young man with lite hair and broad shoulders. she saw him in the sunset as he walked out along the sand. she saw him strip his body bare and dive into the evening waves. when saw him beckon her come thru the glass and be his island fantasy. she saw him emerge again from the water, newborn-- his rippling muscles pulling his brain and skeleton to the shore to towel off.
    she could bare it no more and she turned the mirror face down. on the third day she emerged from her bathroom to discover seymour engaged in intercourse with a woman of twice marion's beauty and half marion's age. she wished it had been half of her beauty and twice her age so at very least she could have made her exit with dignity. marion checked her appearance by feeling her face and hair with her fingertips like droplets of water-- just as helen keller had done to see the people she loved.
    marion walked calmly towards seymour who was engaged at that particular moment in a particularly acrobatic coupling such as mite be found in the kama sutra. marion began with a rational, deep voice which raised in pitch until it was barely a whistle,
    "seymour-- i am leaving-- i do not care about the choices you have made, because the external world is illusory and ultimately does not make me who i am. but know this, i refuse to fuck you if you carry on with skanks and skeezies."
    the young lady who was at that moment penetrated by mr sharpaus made a little grunt of indignation at having been called a 'skank' or perhaps a 'skeezie'-- marion continued,

    "but i hope the discontinuancy of this liaison presents no complications towards the execution of my ex-husband and his whore." sharpaus made a sort of nodding gesture to indicate that he would still help her with her plot.
//\\\
    "mr anderson... mr anderson..." he had fallen asleep again in the sand and this beautiful angelic creature was merely trying to inform him of a topless volleyball match betwen rival sororities or maybe some kind of luau or something.
    "mr anderson," she said one more time and smiled a wide grin. he smiled back and then she kicked him-- hard-- in the ribs. he awoke from the illusion of his dream to find a real, live policeman kicking the living shit out of him. he stood up abruptly and when the cop saw what a fine suit of carded wool science wore, he stopped and looked somehow embarrased-- wouldn't look ya in the eye like a child who's ashamed of something he's done.
    "sorry to uh..." he hesitated, cleared his throat and continued, "you...uh... can't be sleeping here, sir. i'm sorry but i will have to--" his sentence was cut short when an arrow suddenly pierced him rite between the eyes. science hadn't actually seen the arrow enter the man's head-- he merely heard a ::thwack:: and looked up to discover a brilliant feathered plume as from an exotic tropical bird planted firmly in his third eye-- a crimson trickle snaked it's way along the nose and off the lip. the man fell over to one side and science did not move.
    someone had killed this cop with a bow and what could only properly be called a 'dart' and hadn't made so much as a sound. science looked about for the source but could see nothing. the nite was breezy and still. all of his devotees had apparently left. two other cops, standing near the car down the street hadn't even noticed the fallen officer. two other arrows came for them and this time science, from such a distance was able to identify the trajectory and therefor the startpoint of the arrows. he saw three of the bums who had been followers of his jump out of dumpster from whence the arrows had come, it seems. they collected the bodies of the three dead cops and tied them to long poles.
    more and more of them began to collect around science once more-- as if they knew somehow that he had woken from deep slumber. some of them with long bows slung over their shoulder, others came bearing dead cops strung up on poles. the two bums with the first cop approached science and bowed low, showing a deep sense of reverence. they laid the body at science' feet.
    "sorry we didn't get to him sooner, sir," and bowing again, "i hope your ribs aren't too bad hurt."
    "my ribs are fine-- " and he raised his hand to have their attention, "listen!-- i want no more of this!-- you can't go around killing cops!" they dropped their quarry and looked around astonished. a tall man with very long hair and unconscionably long fingernails protested,
    "you said to find the receiver!" he stepped back and held out his hands, palms outward and looking here and there as tho it was plain to see that the receiver was all around.
    "these are cops!--" science said, astonished at their misperception. there was quite a bit of murmering and then the one who had spoken up previously asked,
    "what should we do with the bodies?" science looked at all the cadavres and then motioned with his hand for them to take the bodies and follow him.
    like a medieval procession, the homeless community of the city stepping slowly towards chinatown caused traffic

to halt on louisiana. goldfarb watched from the car window as the solemn masses processed towards their unseen destination. goldfarb was not alone. inside the car, with him was bishop jennings and the man in the squarecap who gave jonas the wax sealed names. he was not now wearing his squarecap, tho the bishop wore his zuchetto as befitting his position they were all thoroly put out at having their car delayed.

    "benedict," goldfarb addressed the man in the squarecap, "tell me something-- who would you say were the most powerful men of this age?" benedict looked uncomfortable and certainly did not know how to respond. the bishop asked,

    "what do you mean, when you say 'most powerful?' " and he looked to benedict as tho he had just done him a great service.

    "let me rephrase the question, and i enjoin you also to contribute to the answering thereof if you feel so compelled, vicar," he said crassly, knowing full well that this was not the title by which the bishop were properly addressed,

    "name three persons who's choices in life had had the greatest impact upon the century before." benedict looked relieved as tho, this time he had fully comprehended the millionaire's words.

    "well let's see, there's darwin--"

    "who changed the way we think about ourselves," goldfarb nodded his head.

    "-- and marx--" benedict looked to goldfarb for affirmation.

    "who changed we think about social groupings and the historical process, good, one more!" goldfarb encouraged his efforts. he looked stumped, but the bishop was happy to oblige. he leaned forward and said in a cool, deep voice, "wagner. richard wagner."

    "very good!" goldfarb congratulated them all, but very quickly broke the moment into another question,

    "now-- what did they all have in common?" this time, they all looked stumped and even goldfarb could not answer his question.

    "i appreciaiate these divertissements, but if we could return to the discussion at hand-- what exactly has lent to you this idea that a third party has infiltrated our line of communication?" before goldfarb could respond to the question, the bishop interrupted,

    "if you want to be technical, a third party is already aware of our correspondances-- our courier afterall."

    "a courier respects the anonymity of his clients. besides, we send the names sealed-- always." benedict wanted to emphasize without any dout that he was without blame in this matter, "i have told no one as is our rule and custom with all clients."

    "but the telegram!-- that is what alerted me," goldfarb began to redden a bit in the face and  he tugged unavailingly at his collar, " a telegram which asked me to send back the remaining names, claiming to be from perdition." benedict laffed,

    "but of course you know we would never ask for that."

    "naturally."

    "we must respond, immediately," jennings called out.

    "i already have," goldfarb smiled a wicked smile, "immediately upon receipt of the ruse."

    "what did you say," the two companions asked almost in unison.

    "i told him to go to hell." they all laffed.

    "we must be careful from now on," bishop jennings advised cautiously, "there is a leak somewhere."

    "which brings us back to the courier," goldfarb's smile grew. if any of them had been looking out their window, they would have seen jonas himself, at that very moment cross in front of the carr on his bicycle-- rite on cue-- the universe always had a way of working these things out. from forth the sordid stem and soot, in swirling reverence these the players of our drama make their entrances and exite, bumping into each other, but like the atoms these enormous creatures mimic, seldom do they ever touch.

    the car stopped at the next corner,

    "if you'll excuse me gentlemen, i believe i have already heard more than behoves me." he bid them farewell and stepped out into the moist outside air and caut the fleeting glympse of jonas rounding a corner on his beloved fixi. to jennings, couriers all looked the same, but smiled to imagine that this mite have been the same courier to which the others had referred.

    a few blocks away, the car halted once more to allow benedict to exit. he adjusted his squarecap upon his head and touched it with his rite hand in a silent 'goodbye.' he stood out upon the curb and looked behind him as was ever his custom. he brushed the subtle sorrel and sable of his cloak and stepped briskly away. the car left and benedict walked to the next corner. a man sat upon a park bench-- a tall, pale man with the thin blue outline of a teardrop coming from his left eye. he did not look up from the newspaper which he was reading but he chided benedict,

    "you're late-- you know i hate to be kept waiting." benedict quickly and solemnly genuflected low to the pavement and bowed his head,

    "i'm sorry, my lord. i did not intend to cause you displeasure."

    "what have you for me?" demanded the wraith while waving his hand and allowing benedict to return to the uprite posture of a homo sapien.

    "none yet, my lord-- there has been a delay of sorts."

    "a delay?" he was not pleased and the cleric shivered where he stood.

    "yes, sir-- someone has intercepted our communiques, but there is nothing harmed and we will continue now posthaste."

    "and what am i to do," for the first time, the receiver looked up from his newspaper and his gaze was terrifying to benedict who kept his head down, "in the mean time?" the receiver finished his question after a long pause."

    "would you like--" but before the grovelling hierophant could proffer any proofs of suitable recompense, the receiver had risen and and touched benedict in the solar plexus with his two longest fingers. benedicts eyes swelled and he collapsed onto the ground. his body was transformed in an instant into ash and dross which quickly took wing upon the wind-- soaring in swirling success and beyond the cares of this mortal life. a warm glowing lite remained on the fingertips of the receiver, who procurred with his other hand a small ebony box with a gold clasp.

    "a small one will do," he said and smiled, "save this one for later."

    the receiver stood and left the newspaper to flutter meagerly to the ground. he took a step, and then another. he was fascinated as always by the clumsiness of this human form. his energy level was very low and he was heading for a place where he could feed-- away from the pitiful masses of mortals-- he had but one more errand at hand, then could he rest. in one pale hand, he clutched the little box and in the other, he carried something which could not be seen.

    he approached the main street intersection, in front of elliot's storefront and paused momentarily. he placed one pale, boney finger upon his tung and then held it into the air for a moment. he blinked his eyes twice, forgetting sometimes to rehydrate his eyeballs. he spoke a few words quietly and then cast down what had been in his hand-- the unseen seed.

    the next morning, when elliot arrived to unlock the storefront, there was the lulling roar of pandæmonium which greeted his ears before he had even turned the corner. when he arrived upon the plaze, there was a boulder of considerable size in the center. he found some people fritened and overwhelmed by the sheer size of such a looming megalith-- others revered it as an awesome, powerful entity. whatever it was, it was huge, elliot agreed. jonas arrived shortly thereafter at the word of another courier.

    "dawg!" the messenger said and pulled of his campione riding cap, "where'd that come from, outer space?" the police had arrived, but they certainly hadn't the slitest idea of what course of action to realize, but the most powerful among them was timid as a chihuahua, albeit not nearly as feisty. devotees had come from various parts of the city to show their reverence for the boulder. some of the disciples of science came to inquire as to the verity of the happening and to discover of whose authority this stone of tremendous size had come to be in their midst.

    one by one and two by two, offerings of incense and flowers, candles and smaller rocks began to accumulate and the police in a lapse of critical thinking suddenly shook to and began taping of the area. some of the devotees ignored the tape and continued worship the stone and making themselves prostrate upon the pavement before it. some of the disciples of science returned to him to tell him what they had seen.

    "did you prostrate yourselves before it?"

    "no master, we remained ever your faithful disciples."

    "where is your god?"

    "in all things, teacher," they said in unison.

    "then why did you not genuflect before the god within this rock?" they looked ashamed of themselves, but then in a more kind tone--

    "if you had to name three personages whose very lives and the decisions they made had the greatest impact upon the course of events in the 20th century?"

    "darwin," one disciple said, "because he reminds us from whence we've come!"

    "marx," said another, "for he shows us wither we are going."

    "hitler," said the third, "for he showed us where not to go."

    science decided to visit for himself the great stone of which he had heard so much. he walked slowly with the  confidence of one who has cast aside the dismall puppet of his corporeal incarnation and exists within the realm of pure truth. he approached the stone reverently before laying himself forthwith and fullforce upon the black asphalt of main street; his disciples did the same. the train couldn't even run because of the tremendous amount of space which this object occupied. sciece stood and touched the stone gingerly with the tips of his fingers and smiled. it was said that when he returned from the face of the boulder, his countenance was radian t as one who has seen god.

    he turned back and looked out upon the masses who looked to him for guidance. he felt suddenly so unsure of his position as their messiah and he looked down at his suit. this suit which was worth thousands of dollars and with which he had absconded undetected from such a hi-end department store. he had known once that he could do anything he desired. now he was uncertain. he turned back to the stone and presented these feelings of dout and uncertainty to the megalith which did not move but acknowledged him with a comforting presence.

    he and the entirety of his entourage which never ceased to grow in number, returned to the park from whence they had come. when they found a tribe of nomads had parked their rvs in the park, they went around until they fopund the sculpture. there, science stood before them and told them he had to leave, but would return for their benefit. many of the disciples who were closest to science asked his favor to accompany him but he maintained that this was something which he had to do alone.

///\\\

    science began to search the city for pieces of junk with which he would build his barque. he found in the city lot some large tires which he thot was useful as it would add bouyancy to the vessel. he found some panels of pasteboard which mite serve as a sail. his disciples began to get what he was doing and they startted to help, tho they knew not what he intended to build, they shook the town relentlessly for anything that mite look useful to their beloved master.         
    they didn't stop until late in the evening and he called for them to set up camp in vicinity of the junkyard in which they had most lately been working. some of them, brot hot dogs or other things to cook upon the campfires. when they had all settled down, science stood among them and declared unto them, "when, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands, which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's GOD entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their creator, with certain unalienable rites," he continued to speak unto them for some time (see appendix 9).

    he removed himself from them, then and went down to find some water. while he was away, the disciples began to say amongst themselves,

    "we cannot allow master to leave us, for without him we are nothing." others said,

    "we do not need him here in our midst, for as he has taut us, he is with us all way." they continued in this discussion until science returned once again unto them. they begged him that he would take them with him, but he reminded them what he had said to them the day befor. they said that they understood and he walked with them back to the places where they would be sleeping. he stood watch until the last one of them fell asleep and he went to work upon his barque.

    the next morning, when they awoke, they found science asleep inside a beautifully crafted boat large enough for only one passenger. they stood around him and waited for him to awake. when he did finally awaken, he called for food and they began to bring him things which they had found that morning. he ate with them cheerfully and when they had finished, he stood and motioned for them to help him carry the boat. the marched slowly as tho they bore the pall, and some of the women cried. when they arrived at the bayou, he bid them all farewell and he put out suddenly into the fast rushing current of the filthy water. they watched him as he paddled along the current and away from them-- they watched him until they could see him no more. and still they watched him-- some of them until the middle of the nite.

    science did not once look back. he paddled until his arms grew very tired and still he hurried onward. the bayou flowed gradually deeper and wider and passed thru fine neiborhoods of large houses with manicured lawns. he smiled at a boy riding a bicycle. a little dog came a long and barked at him incessantly before jumping into the water and swimming towards the boat. science helped him aboard. he had no collar and had the tuff, lean look of a dog who belonged to no one.

    "you shall be my dog." science told him. and touched his head. he had nothing to feed the dog. he had nothing even for himself, and yet he knew that all would be taken care of. he looked across the water at the lillies and the sparrows and smiled upward at the blazing sun. the blinding heat of which the dark and listless inner daemons could never survive. the boat turned around in the current momentarily and science saw an alligator rise to the surface and eye the little dog before returning down into the depths.

    as he passed under bridges, science always felt the unease at having these behemoth machines weing tons careening above him and only this construction of man-made desine seperated him from these juggernauts of destruction. science hated automobiles and he was hoping that the river-- for this rushing deluge could no longer be called a 'bayou'-- would take him far from their realms and into a brite and glittering tomorrow where he knew not what was waiting for him and every day was new. he considered that he had so few memories, now as a human, and he had effectively never been out of the city, for he had not done so in the few weeks since he had come to be.

    already the the harsh, sprawling, grimey web of urban development was thinning and making room for trees and open patches of rushes and lillies. science saw more alligators upon a muddy bank, sunning themselves. one of them sort of opened his mouth and winked at science and he waved back.

    "such different people live out in the suburbs," he remarked-- he had heard this said to him before but without any memories of leaving downtown, he had not understood what they meant. the dog was asleep in his lap and science was determined that they should survive and make good for themselves. he closed his eyes and fell asleep. in his dream, he was still in the little boat, which was aground in soft white sand. the smell of liquer and broiled fish was pungeunt upon the balmy tropical air.

    science knew the place but he could not get himself out of the boat. he tried stepping out with one foot and then the other, he tried to jump out full-force. he tried to push against the invisible barrier but he could not get himself out of the boat. he looked and he saw the little dog, on the beach eating shrimp cocktails and laffing at some vapid joke another denizon of paradise island had told. someone came and mentioned that topless volleyball competitions would begins shortly. the little dog barked excitedly and ran off with the other hedonists.

    science was furious-- banging against the forcefield that kept him from leaving his boat. he could over come this unseen barrier. he could overcome all barriers thru the devices of his supreme will. he focused upon his desire and then jumped out of the boat

    ::splash:: he awoke from his dream when he jumped into the water. the boat was still being carried quite fast by the current. the little dog barked at science and lept into the tumult of the rushing waters. science struggled against the current befor dumping his body onto the edge of the earth. he breathed heavily befor standing and assessing his droopy soaking wet suit.  he looked behind him at the river. the boat was now long gone, and the little pup was also nowhere in site-- he had been subsumed by the rushing waves.

    science decided to no longer look back and he headed up the side of the bank and into a quiet suburban neiborhood. he looked down the long silent rows of wide, wide streets where every house looks the same with the only subtle variation being the tones of beige and off-white they had used for paint. pitiful little trees stood at troublingly regular intervals and most of them had a little stake driven into the ground and a wire which attached to the trunk of the tree to keep it from toppling over. he had not even walked up out of the riverbed before suburban housewives with very little to do but drink and watch television had spotted him and were calling each other rapidly.

    one particular housewife had seen science emerge from the river, assess his appearance and look back momentarily before hiking up towards her street. she came out of the house to greet him. and he walked hesitantly toward her. she was wearing a pink dress of very delicate fabric which poofed out dramatically below the waist. the skirt was draped above layers upon layers of clean, lacey petticoats and she wore an apron and a plastic smile that shimmered from fifty paces.

    "well however did you get in that old arroyo anyhow?" the woman asked him. he shrugged noncommitally as tho to tell her that he had the rite to remain silent.

    "why don't you just come in with me and i'll give you something dry of my husband's to wear." he followed her inside the house which was expansive and had the utterly immaculate finish of a house that was recently built. science had never seen anything like it in the city. she led him into the living room before marching him upstairs. she showed him the bathroom and she held the door partially closed to protect his modesty and she held a hand out to him--

    "now give me those clothes." science did as he was told and his bare skin was damp and terse when exposed. she told him to get in the bathtub. he turned and saw a large round bathtub, large enough to accomodate several people but quite liberating for one person alone. science had no memory of having a bath but he knew that this was a particularly fine example of the experience. he drew very warm water and stepped into the tub. he found soaps and salts and began mixing them in like a baker trying out a new recipe. when he had gotten it just rite, he lay back and slipped down into blissful oblivion. the bubbles grew hi and all around him so that they impaired both his hearing and his periphreal vision and he did not hear when the woman came back into the room.

    she was wearing a small red robe held tantilizingly closed by a tie of the same material. it shimmered in the reflected lite of the bathtub. and when science opened his eyes and saw that she was in the room, she was already standing above him on the edge of the tub. altho she held the top of the robe closed in feined modesty, from where she stood, he could see the entirety of her female anatomy between the legs. she stepped one leg hier upon the soap tray imbedded in the wall, and science could smell the heat of her desire.

    "i don't even know your name," he told her and she lookjed as tho he had caut her.

    "alice." she said. he nodded his head and said,

    "well then, proceed." she began to remove the robe and, as he already knew, she wore nothing underneath. her breasts were small and tite against her chest. she had very lite hair and the lips of one who has longed to be held in the hiest esteem of all men but has only found disappointment. she kissed him all over his body, diving below the bubbles and remarking at how small her husband's dick was in comparison.

    he was very aroused and found himself pulling her towards him and he longed to enter the depths her most delicate inside realms and he did, finally and at the great satisfaction of his bodily desires. they made love in the bathtub until their tips of fingers had become so wrinkled that they were forced to move to the bed, dressed in satin sheets and down, they glutted themselves on carnal fulfillment until their genitals were sore and their heads were dizzy. they laid down in a tangled mess and fell asleep.

    he awoke when she jumped in fear at the sound of the front door unlocking.

    "oh god!-- we overslept!"

    "who--?" he began to ask, but he knew the answer to the question. she paniced. she looked around, for a moment, thinking she would hide him somewhere there in the room. she looked in the wardrobe and pulled out some spare satin sheets--

    "the back window!-- take these sheets and knot them together to make a rope-- i'll leave your suit in the back alleyway behind this house, later when it's dry!-- " and then she shoved him when she saw he was not jumping to immediate obedience, "--go!" she had not even told him where the back window was. he found it quickly in the laundry-room-- a small window thru which, altho he was very thin, would prove a challenge for science to abscond. he began knotting the ends of the sheets together to make a rope.

    "how was your day, honey?" alice' husband asked and science heard the sound of him kissing her on the cheek.

    "not bad, stallion, how was yours?" they spoke momentarily and then her husband walked down the hallway and science held his breath as he passed the laundry room. he continued knotting the sheets until they were all in line, when suddenly, alice' husband returned and pushed open the laundry room door. science stepped back to hide behind  the other door. her husband began to undress and science watched him thru the slats in the door. alice was rite about the comparison in anatomy and it was something which had been painfully wounding to her husband. he had insisted they wait to become intimateuntil after the wedding, citing catholicism as his reason, tho truthfully, he had been scorned by a former fiancee when she had gone fishing one afternoon while he slept.

    alice was disappointed but didn't know what else to do but take up blatant strumpetry with whatever young men she happened upon. he tossed his clothes into the pile and closed the door.

    "honey!-- why are there so many linens in the dirty clothes?"

    "hm?-- she asked and then, "oh!--spring cleaning!" they began to make love and science was impressed at how well she faked it, but hedidn't want to stay around any longer. he dropped the satin rope out the window and he climbed down. he ran across the backyard and out into the alley, where he had been instructed to wait to receive the suit once it was dry. judging from alice' current preoccupation, science imagined it would be a little while before he got his clothes. a small horney toad came by slowly and winked at science. he nodded his head in response at it and the lizard ate a few large ants before continuing on its way. an armadillo, too, came, grunting and pawing at the earth. he sat with science for awhile before heading off in another direction.

    while he waited, science thot about the complexities of life in the universe and how interrelated everything is. he thot about how one man's decisions in life can drastically affect the course of eventsin the lives of many. he reache dout into the silence and the commotion alike and settled upon a vast expansive desert upon which to direct his thots. he was so enrapt in his blinding focus that he did not at first notice the form of a man walking his direction from afar. a field of sheep, some of them with red paint-marks to indicate that they are pregnant served as a backdrop, but science could not get a good look at the man because the sun was in the position in the sky directly behind his head.

    science stood, unashamed of his nakedness and held his forearm to his forehead to get a better look at the man. the man was dragging some large object and yet he looked as tho for him, it was effortless. the man was wearing a straw hat and a suit of pale blue seer sucker. he came up closer and science could see that the large object which the man dragged behind him was none other than the boat which science had built in the city and by which he had fled.

    he approached science and halted. he sat upon the boat and crossed his legs in the manner which is oft considered by some to be effiminate. he produced two zarfs of very hot mint tea and he handed one to science.

    "how're you doin?" he asked in a heavy texan drawl and smiled to reveal a row of yellow teeth which had been filed to sharp points. he carried a cane, which science had not previously noticed and there was the thin blue outline of a teardrop below his left eye. his lips were pale and dry and he leaned forward to science.

    "where did you find that?" science asked, breaking wide open the silence, abruptly and pointing towards the boat-- his boat.

    "need ye even ask such a question?-- this boat y'all built-- this relic which has come unto me, as all that is mine cometh unto me."

    science attempted no response but kept his head bowed low.

    "listen up, over yonder you shall find that which you seek. "

    "how can that be-- i am quite far from the ocean." science was overwhelmed by the feeling known as deja vu and the intensity of the now resplendant hovered triumphantly before his gaze.

    "i want my boat back."

    "you may have it." and he stood from the boat.

    "why do you help me and yet you consume so many others?" science asked. and the man sat back down upon the boat as tho he had not even considered the question. the wind blew thru the long alleyway in large spiraling representations of the golden mean and science thot for a moemnt that thru any of them he mite access realms of knowledge hence undiscovered and produce from there volumes of pure beauty and enlitenment. one of the spiraling dust currents carried with it a tumbleweed and it came to rest itself upon the receiver's leg befor he shook himself free of it.

    "i suppose i help you because you are helpable, and i consume the weak because they are consumable." he smiled that sharp sickening smile once more and science turned away from him.

    "i want my dog," science said and instantaneously, he heard a bark from far off and then another drawing nearer and another nearer still. the little dog ran up and jumped in the boat. science looked up and the receiver was gone. he stood in the dust and dirt of the alleyway which, like a river, flowed endlessly in both directions. he was waiting for his suit, which he was certain would return unto him and it did not return until well into the evening. he was asleep in the boat and he heard the latch of the gate open and alice step meagerly out into the shadows.

    she handed him his clothes and then approached him as tho she desired to make love with him once more. he raised one hand and said to her quietly,

    "go to your husband." she waved to him and sobbed silently and retrogressed into her house. science dressed himself and stood upon the bark. it sat in the dusty riverof the alley way and he made as to push off with another foot and he sat and grabbed the paddle. the little dog jumped into his lap where he felt safe, and science touched the paddle onto the dusty ground of the alley way and pushed behind him.

    and in that instant, the atoms and molecules of theground bneath him began to bubble and dance about and he could see the alley truly transformed into a river of dust. the current was slow but he paddled himself along, swiftly and the little dog gave a yelping gasp of a bark as tho to announce what fun he was having. the dusty rivulets fed into the river of dirt and occasionallyt a cactus or rattlesnake would pass by on the current and science would dodge them intrepidly. he came upon a monumental old pine tree of a perfectly conical shape. remanants of old silver tinsel of christmases past bedecked the lower branches and gave the depressing tinge of a happiness long since fleeted.

    it seemed strange, somehow, this evergreen in the ocean of earths where nought but lazy lizards, snakes and cacti seemed able to grow, for his dusty backalley river had poured out and fed into the desert. science stopped the boat and stepped out onto the sand. it was very hot beneath his feet and the bleached white bones of other beasts and hmans were littered about him in every direction. the evergreen was brilliant and dewey and emitted a strong fragrance of alpine forests and snowy mornings, something very distant and foreign to this reality. he stooped to the sand and began to write words in the sand:

my love-- immense-- unbounded by space and time which is evidence enough that it is no mortal love but that sweet serene synthesis of twain souls such as only holy immortals may ever boast to have tasted. such longing!-- such profuse whispering of desires to be made one in physical union as in spiritual burn me, and i-- all but consumed-- crumble meekly onto the earth's pale surface. this desert-vision which i know call "home"-- so strange yet so familiar unfolds in all directions like an unending canvas of possibility. each cactus, each stone, each sun-baked skeleton of past lives lived seems to deride me and say "where is she?-- this woman to whom your life has been devoted-- what of her here?" for all is dead except the dry unforgiving heat which lashes my throat and eyeballs and reminds me of my own mortality. 'where indeed?'-- i echo their thoughts and for a moment doubt our eternal union. how could she, the object of my all-consuming desires-- how could she truly be real? is she not, then, some mirage-- some figment of my sun-beaten imagination. could i not have merely dreamt her tender touch or her delightful goddess-like smell. how could this paragon of lovliness-- this darling, perfect angel, truly deign to walk amongst mortal men. and surely were she real she would not, could not condescend to look into my eyes and whisper "i love you," as she has done for aeons and epochs and in every age and incarnation, returning always to me. soul to soul. light to light. i have known pure bliss and it has graced me time and again, every lifetime lived, the same angelic woman has always found me out and gently pressed her subtle lips to mine.

    he stepped back and reread his words. he wondered for whom he had written them. they sounded so loving and yet so distant. so objectified in its vast remoteness that science shivered tho he be in the middle of a barren desert.

    he returned to  his barque and sat  down therein.  he touched the paddle to the ground but this time, he discovered only solid, sandy earth beneath him-- no change in material state-- no transubstatntiation of the elements, this time. he was there in the middle of the desert, he knew not where he truly was, nor how to return to whence he had come. he looked at the little dog who looked back at him and wagged his tail. he realized he had spken too soon when he said that the receiver was looking out for him.

    "where are you now?!" science called into the eternity.

////\\\

    meanwhile, in the blinding glow of the gilded city, the stone sat where it had sat the day of science' departure. his disciples had found solace in the shade of the great boulder and they remained as near it as possible. it served in their imagination, a suitable replacement for havng their teacher in their midst.

    the city was in chaos, this giant stone was blocking a major intersection which was causing immeasurable effect across the city. the police were afraid to go too near it because of the defvotees and the city was short handed as it was, so no city employees arrived. the stone was becoming shabby from the environment which surrounded it. spraypaint tagged it's exterior surface, and beer bottles and cigarette packs and the various cast oaside offal of the no-do's evening festivities mingled with the framed pictures of loved ones, flowers and incense brought by pilgrims as an offering unto the stone.

    elliot had never seen such business in his storefront, which had become something like ground control for the press and media who had come to cover this bizarre event. while most small business owners would relish such a surge in business, elliot was not a business man but a hopelessly affected hipster who only cared about his precarious position in the elite of hipness. he like being obscure. he liked mentioning the name of his shop-- the strange backwards word that sounded like it had been transliterated from the japanese and watching people's confused expressions indicating that they had not understood him.

    elliot returned from his milk run and felt so frustrated with the monotony of his life in this moment as he was forced to cowtow to people whose lives he renounced as reprehensible. there were some who he greedily ignored with his face in a book or his head in the clouds but when the front was as crowded as it was it became harder to make people believe that he genuinely didn't see.

    he told his employee that she could go home in a reserved tone, such as mite be seen from an employer resining himself to receiving no more customers for the day-- but his storefront was as packed as it had ever been. busier than any normal weekday. the girl took off her apron and he cashed her out of the register. she left the shop and he began collecting dishes and mugs that she had misssed on the last lobbyspin.

    "can i get some yerba?" a voice spoke from behind the busy barrista and he spun around, prepared to say something biting when he saw the face of jonas.

    "yeah, hang on a sec, dude." he gathered up the rest of the dishes on 'the floor'as they say and he returned to his bar to attend to his friend. he scooped the beautiful emerald leaves into the gourd and pulled steaming hot water. the earthy fragrance rolled out of the gourd in concentric spirals illustrating, again the golden mean. elliot noted them and thot to himself how ubiquitous the governing faculties of the universe truly are. he handed the gourd across the bar to jonas who sipped it and said,

    "what's with all these people? "

    "came to see the rock, i imagine," said elliot. he looked about at the patrons, all of them paying customers. amidst the cameramen and newcasters with makeup matrons pleasantly attending to their physical appearances. there were muslim devotees bowing reverently in the eastern styl from inside his shop towards the boluder, for they, in their cosmologies had assigned cultural meaning to the lifeless stone. there were hipster poets and aged poets and a few old red cross candystripers who were wringingtheir hands and praying that the kids on skateboards rappelling from the boulder would put on helmets.

    "have you seen old science?" elliot asked and looked at jonas. the courier shook his head and replied,

    "some of the bums that follow him said he left on a boat-- whatever that means. "

    "had any more runs for perdition?"

    "no," said jonas and he continued to sip his mate.

    outside, the people hadbegn to fite over access to the megalith and a young man had gotten shot. the disciples of science had caried the injured man to the hospital on foot because no ambulance could have penetrated such a dense crowd. the boys mother was summoned and she said a soggy rosary over him before his body gave up his soul unto the eternal vibrations of the universe. his soul didn't even look back as it ascended into the clouds and beyond the stratosphere-- into the uncertain. screaming unto the very last tho 'twere not in sooth so bad as he let on.

    in the din of the lulling calm that ensues a large group after an oblate fatalaty, some of the disciples of science returned and spoke amongst themselves of the ingredients which their collective desires demanded inthe fabrication of a powerful device which would change the course of events of this city and perhaps to some extent, the world.

    some of the more influential amongst science' disciples retreated to a terrace that sat ubove the street and looked down upon the park where they could discuss these events further. the receiver had been seen in communion with the minister of perdition incorporated. theyhad seen him enter the building several times. tho their devotion and reverence to the great stone on main street grew every moment, their thots went ever back to their teacher and maste, who at this very moment was trying desperately to return unto them.

    the sun beat down upon the sand and baked science dark skin and hair until in burning blindness he knelt upon the sand in surrender. the saw the waves of heat progressing from off the blistering hot sand and he held his head low. he prayed for a sign-- he hoped for an angel like hagar in the wilderness who would lift his head with the tip of her finger. the little dog barked and he looked up from his inward self-pity and saw, not an angel but a giant white toad who sat in front of them and three neon yellow mushrooms taller than even science.

    the toad's throat bubbled in and out before he chose to address science and the dog. he did not look at them when he spoke. he used a gruff, low voice and he said,

    "i have something for you." he did not move or even blink his eyes and after science had waiting long enough, he enquired,

    "what is it."

    "three toadstools behind me do grow. eat of them and be much profitted thereby."

    "no, toad," science said sternly, "if i eat those mushrooms, i will die." the toad laffed an unsettlingly gutteral laff and then said in a pompous and booming voice,

    "you will not surely die! take and eat of the bounties of this earth-- this blessed mother globe."

    science approached the toadstools which emitted a glow of unheimlich luminescence which could have come from no earthly plant or fungus. science stepped even closer until he stood underneath the tallest of the three. he tapped the side and spores glowing like embers snowwed down upon his head and shoulders and around the earth below him. he remembered a nite on paradise island when the sand had been littered with countless phophorescent flecks as far as the eye could see. he had walked up and down the beach that nite with a young woman who had pleased him more than the others on the island.

    he took a bite of the shortest mushroom which stood about at his chest level and instantaneously the earth below him melted away and he found somehow that he had been transpoorted into a vault or mineshaft and was now deep within the profound depths of the earth. dwarvesand voles scurried in tunnels all around him and it was as if he had xray vision. he could not understand but he did not seem to possess a body at all but instead his corporeal matter had been transformed into cogs and gears which whirred in time to the scurrying in tunnels all around him.

    he felt as tho he were a machine and he was painfully cognizant, every moment, of every piece and every part which contributed to his whole. he saw himself as an integral yet replaceable element of something infinitely greater. he saw the suit torn from his naked body and ripped to shreds in the teeth of a miriad gears and cogs. he began to cry out loud, and then a digital readout near his eyes said, "it never made you who you are-- make this blinding destiny come true for yourself and for others" and with that he was released and returned to the cool desert evening. the toad stood there before him and he looked down to see that he still had his suit. but he certainly did not need it.

    he boldly ate from the second mushroom and watched as the darkning world grew into inky black totality. he felt around and he knew the enclosed space which contained him wasn't much more than a yard in any direction but up and even that couldn't have been much. he felt the snakey brush of a chord across his face and he pulled it to illume the recesses of his containment which seemed to triple in size as soon as he pulled the chord. he knew precisely where he know stood, for this place had been a place of so much regret and frustration. he had once opened the door from the outside, expecting to be transported to an island called paradise but instead he had found this stallid, squalid, stagnant broom closet.

    he was now, once again in this closet, altho, when last time he had seen brooms and mops and the ecoutrements of the janitorial art, the room, this time was entirely bare except for a postcard which was taped to the opposite wall by an unseen piece of scotch tape. he approached the wall and saw the image on the postcard was very familiar to him. an image of palm trees and and sandy evening strolls in warm, tropical hedonistic charm. "welcome to paradise," the card said. he turned it over and the address box had his name carefully printed without an address therein. on the left side was written in less exacting penmanship, "it was never behind this door, you held it within yourself."

    just as instantly as he had been transported to the closet, he found the tangible elements melting away and reshaping themselves into that chilly desert evening. his dog now slept beneath one of the partially eaten mushrooms. his toad guide barely even looked him in the eye except as a passing glance as his eyeballs rolled hither and thither within his head.

    science was intent on getting this journey over with, but since he had come this far, he ate a large bite of the last mushroom. in an instant he saw all the world stretch and twist as tho pulled from top to bottom. he felt him self pulled up into the clouds and above the earth until the distance from the desert to the city was no longer so great and the way could be clearly seen.

    he saw in a glance the myriad wonders of homosapien civilization buzzing and whirring along-- unrelenting in the diversity and clomplexity, but science took it all in. he saw the poor and wealthy alike for what they were and, everything looks perfect from far away. he saw himself, wealthy and preoccupied. he was shaking bloody hands with goldfarb and others and he saw in disappointment as he shot and killed someone to get what he wanted. he saw himself in ruthless fits of unwieldly power and he saw himself writhing in pitiful, miserable agony. he saw himself smoking crack, shooting heroin, snorting coke and finally, crashed out and alone, by the bayou, he pissed his pants, stumbled and hit his head against the hard pavement. he understood, now, who he was. he saw where he had been and was infinitely grateful for where he now stood. even tho he knew his corporeal form stood in the desert, from such great heits, he could see the way. a hand of vapors descended from the hier clouds and beckoned him lean forward. a voice whispered in his ear, his true name-- what his name had been, before the amnesia, and he smiled for it sounded so strange.

    when he was ready, he returned unto the desert. the toad tour guide was now gone and the remaining parts of the mushrooms had shriveled and whithered away. science looked at the little dog. i'm gonna call you ted, science told him and the dog wagged his tail as tho to say that that would be fine.

    
 

    

\\\\

    marion was so infatuated by her own reflection in the hand mirror which had been returned to her by the strange man at the grocery that she found she had little time in her day to do much elsebut gaze intently at her features. styling her cheeks or nose to look like someone else, most of the time, marion liked looking just like herself. she had spent years looking in the glass and trying to pull from it the aesthetical definitions which would please a man, or occasionally another woman, but now marion had learned the true satisfaction of gazing for her own desire alone.

    when seymour entered the house, he did so timidly and was almost afraid to look at marion. he could not remember much about the course of events last nite, because he had been so drunk, but he did have some vague memory of engaging intercourse with a prostitute in marion's very presence. her back was to him. she seemed so distracted by her mirror that seymour sharpaus thot he mite be able to sneak past without her noticing, but then in a certain sort of singsong, marion called out,

    "sey-mour!" two syllables on two notes, a tonic note and a dissonant. he stepped back wards and approached marion, afraid of what rage mite ensue. but marion was calm and collected. she merely asked him,

    "seymour, darling, why did you do that to me-- last nite-- with the whore?" he hung his head in silence and suffered under the abject judgement of a jealous woman. and so it is with rage. when she herself had been a married woman and had slept with seymour, she now saw the other end of the scenario and she lapsed into momentary pity for jeza before resetting her undaunting resolve to murder her and goldfarb.

    marion cleared her throat and said to seymour,

    "you have disappointed me immensly, seymour, for i had put great faith in what you meant to me." she wore gloves of damasked silk and she took a cigarette from a small silver case she had in her purse. as she spoke, she fished about in her hand bag for a liter,

    "the last thing i wanted to see was another dick with a lazyeye who couldn't keep it up for the one he starts with. " she could not find a liter for her cigarette, but she did find a very small, delicate, antique revolver with an ivory and mother of pearl handle which she drew quickly and fired into sharpaus' stomach. as cool and reclined as her ex husband mite have dispatched an aide or minion. she was so dispassionate in the way she blew the smoke from the barrel of the little revolver that she laffed to herself.

    she sttod and approached the dead body of the man who had befriended her in her lowest moment and who had been her lover. she nudged with her hiheeled foot the body of the man who had defiled their relationship with a common prostiture rite in front of her. she gave him a good kick in the ribs and tho he was already dead, she hoped it had hurt. she knelt down and from his breast pocket, she took his wallet.

    she put it in her handbag and with bag and mirror, she stepped into the next room. she put on her lipstick and touched up her eyeshadow before calling a cab on sharpaus' cellfone which arrived promptly when the dispatcher had said that it would. she climbed inside and said,

    "upper kirby, please" to the cabby who nodded a silent affirmation and drove off. she sat calmly in the backseat of the cab until they arrived near her destination,

    "two more blocks that way please," and the cabby looked behind him to see which way she meant. it was something he saw to be almost ubiquitous in women during his twenty years as a cab driver. men would tell him 'left' or 'rite' but women invariably said 'this way' or that way' causing him to twist around and see if perhaps they indicated with their index finger.

    she paid the cab driver and was unaware that she had insulted him with the tip and he sped away after she had barely set two feet upon the ground. she brushed herself off and walked up to the sushi house that stood before her.

    inside she discovered the sort of lo-lit and opulent simplicity of the japanese aesthetic. she bowed, low to the woman who greeted her at the door and she motioned wordlessly towards the bar where she took a stool next to an older man. she ordered, to begin with, a tuna roll and some salmon sashimi. the man next to her smiled in greeting and said,

    "what's a pretty young thing like you doing eating all by yourself?" she had had enuff of kindly strangers making small talk with her-- that was how she met seymour sharpaus.

    "listen buddy, no offense, but i came here to be alone. that's why i sat at the bar.

    "well, then you've got it all wrong," the old man said to her,"the bar is for people who are alone who want to meet people. booths are for people who are alone and want to stay alone. she thanked him and made her way over to a booth in the darkness. a waiter arrived for her.

    "can i take your order?"

    "thank you, i've already ordered some sushi from the bar, if you can let them know i'm over here--"

    "of course," he said and smiled, revealing two rows of yellow teeth filed to sharp points. marion missed the grin but did catch enuff of a glympse to ask him upon his return,

    " i know you-- you gave me that mirror the other day at the grocery!-- i can't thank you enuff!-- i can not tell you how it has changed my life! he stood solemnly before finally informing her,

    "you have taken much and you will take much more, still to come." her smile melted away and she didn't even know how to respond to the man. he continued,

    "but soon you will have to give me what is mine!"

    "but you said that the mirror belonged to me!" she cried.

    "i wasn't talking about the mirror," he said and touched her where her heart was. at his touch, she felt a biting chill momentarily, the intensity of which she could not imagine if he had held his touch for any time. he looked down at her and smiled a wicked, otherworldly smile before slowly explaining,

    "just because seymour is dead, the bargain you made with him still stands. your name remains upon my black book-- or did you forget?" in truth she had forgotten but she shook her head to indicate that she had not forgotten. regardless, she remembered now. she had been so caut up in the things she had desired that she had forgotten her word which she had given unto sharpaus.

    it was too late to turn back now, however and she knew the only way for her was forward. she held her head boldly into the uncertain and she stood up. she had no choice but to go ahead with what she had intended and nothing, now could stop her. she was no longer hungry. she had no taste but for blood. she tossed her napkin upon the table. another waiter was scurrying to her table with a trey bearing the things which she had ordered.

    "you want take to go?" the man asked, perplexed but she ignored him and hurried out into the nite. she hobbled in her heels to the curb and hailed a cab. she climbed inside,

    "thank god you were there and you saw me-- i thot i would have waited forever!" the driver turned around and marion saw a pale cheek with the subtle blue outline of a teardrop emerging fro his left eye. she screamed a shrill horror house scream and tried the door which, of course, was locked.

    "but what's your hurry," the receiver asked her, "you've all of eternity at your disposal."

/\\\\

    jonas had finished all of the mornings runs and was laying in the sun in tranquility park and dreaming of days when his life will not be so dependent upon the hand to mouth or at least when he will have a job he really likes. jonas loved being a courier, it was plain to see in the dopey smile he wore all day while he pedaled. jonas loved to ride his bike and the idea oof the messenger had always enchanted him, from mercury the psychopomp to the midnite ride of paul revere. it was a fun job, but he barely made enuff money to pay the rent on his shabby little cell in a musky old building. being a courier also meant no health benefits and if he ever got hit by a car out there, he would be done for because he could not afford a hospital visit. he considered momentarily moving to canada when his pager beeped. he checked the text it said, "looking for an elbow-- let me know-- ell."

    jonas jumped up and in the saddle and was heading towards the west dal area where he was pretty sure he could find the pound for which his buddy was looking. he rode under shady oak trees and rolled up in front of a neoclassical townhouse of red bricks and white masonry. he rang the bell and a large man in sunglasses opened the door a crack befor seeing who it was and ushering the messenger inside.

    "what brings you here, son?" the man asked.

    "came for a pound-- for a friend. do you have it. "

    "i have it, my man. some clean new schticky from across the bordah." he spoke from time to time like a rasta tho he had been born and raised in the city and had never even had occasion to leave it.  the man went into the kitchen and returned with a large freezer bag bearing the chill and internal condensation that said he kept his stash in the freezer. he pulled a sale from under the couch and weid out 453.6 grams and said,

    "here's your 'elbow' homey, i weied it a bit fat-- take some for yourself alrite?" jonas thanked him and he wrapped the very moist but dried herbs in a sheet of newspaper that he stuck in his satchel.

    "i'll be back with the money later."

    "alrite, man, it's three." jonas thanked him and went outside to find his bike. he unlocked and headed back to downtown with the pound for elliot. he felt so lazy all of a sudden as tho he could move not another pedal further. he dismounted his bike and walked the remainder of the way. when he arrived, there were hoardes of people all over the square. some people were standing on the boulder and others used ropes in vain to try to move the unwieldly thing.

    the storefront was locked and he had put up paper behind the window displays so that the inside of the front could no longer be seen behind the giant plaster donut and the monumental kaleidescope. there was some superficial fire damage to the inside of the display and even the donut suffered some sooty scarring. a book entitled "fire!" sat inthe front of the window and a piece of paper taped in the window read,

    "this building has been condemned for public use by the city fire inspection committee."

    jonas knocked on the door and gruff looking punk said,

    "who're you?"

    "jonas-- the courier-- they call me skids. the punk nodded in affirmation for that was the only name which he had been instructed by elliot for which to listen. jonas followed the punk who locked the door behind them. they crossed the storefront and went upstairs where elliot was laying on a floor pillow and reading. he looked up and greeted jonas,

    "say-- did y'all have a fire or something?"

    "what!?-- no!" elliot exclaimed as tho he seemed surprised at the question.

    "well, the sine on the door said--"

    "oh that!" elliot realized from whence this idea had come,

    "no not really. this place was just getting too popular, ya know. too cool--it just wasn't hip anymore. i've decided to close from public business and just let rad people come in who i know-- like a speakeasy or something." jonas pulled the newspaper and twine bundle from his bag and set it upon the table.

    "is this the up?" elliot asked. jonas nodded his head. elliot smelled it once, thru the paper and then set it down and untied the twine. he smiled when he examined the contents and then reached for the hookah to load a bowl. a live hot coal was procured from out of thin air when elliot returned from the kitchen. he set the coal atop the bowl and handed the hose to jonas.

    "so what'choo been up to, man, other than squalid paranoia," and he chuckeld to himself.

    "not much man, been thinking a lot about your problem-- about what's the best next step to make. i dunno, bruthah, i wish science was here. old science has a way of figuring things out." he took the pipe from jonas and smoked it thotfully. they sat in silence for some time when the punk who acted as elliot's door guard approached the upper room and asked,

    "sir-- that girl who almost o.d'd on your floor the other nite is here-- should i send her away. elliot sort of nodded, but jonas stopped him,

    "wait, no-- she knows goldfarb!-- she mite be able to tell us something!" the bouncer looked to his boss who nodded his assent. a few moments later, jeza walked into the room. she looked timid and fritened.

    "i'm sure you both remember me from when i was covered in vomit and dying on your floor." they both remained tactfully silent. she continued,

    "and i think, tho i may be mistaken that you know jay--" she looked at them and then added, "j morgan goldfarb." they agreed with her, tho they didn't say much.

    "for some time now," she continued as tho she were neeling in the confessional, "i have been carrying on an elicit affair with him, but now i can tell you freely that he is a man of no morals and little conscience." she paused and put a delicate hand to her forehead and she swooned a bit. elliot got up and brot her some mint tea in small silver zarf. and she thanked him. he handed her the hose of the hookah, also and she smoked of it gratefully. when she had calmed a bit she said,

    "i suspect you both know quite a bit about jay, and i'm here to tell you that i thnk he is killing people, if you didn't already know."

    "we did know, actually," jonas volunteered.

    "i thot as much," she said to him, "that is why i brot you these." she set a stack of papers upon the table and then stood.

    "i have stayed longer than i ot to have. he will be looking for me. i hope these documents are of some use to you." she drank the rest of her tea and took a long, sultry hit off the water pipe before leaving them.

    she went down the stairs and crossed the storefront where the bouncer sat on a stool playing gameboy. he let her out the door and locked it after her. she walked a block before tuyrning the corner. a white van also turned the corner a moment after she did-- a white van which had been parked outside the storefront the entire time jeza had been in there. she walked another block and got aboard the train. the van sped alongside the train. the driver didn't want to lose jeza, tho she knew already where she was headed.

    jeza got off at the uhd station-- the northernmost stop on the north south line. she walked down a set of cement stairs and thru a tunnel so that the van had to drive around a circular drive to remain abreast of  her movement.  she came to an intersection and for a moment, jeza stopped and looked directly at the van.  marion, the driver, told herself--

    'the windows are tinted and she can't see me.' but still her steady, unwavering gaze had been unsettling and marion almost lost her nerve. she srewed her resolve to the sticking place and pushed the gas with her foot after the lite turned green. she decided to make the block so it wasn't so obvious that she was trailing jeza. 

    she parked the van a block and a half away and she watched as the girl unlocked the building in which she lived. her apartment was on the third floor-- marion had already been by many times, with seymour and alone, waiting for goldfarb to visit her at home. 'this time,' she thot, 'he's coming to her.'

    she watched with binoculars thru the window as jeza put out candles and started marinating the lamb she would cook. lamb was goldfarb's favorite thing to eat-- marion was all to aware of every peculiar like and dislike, every mindless idiosyncrasy after so many years of marriage. marion had nothing now to do but wait.

//\\\\

    jeza was very caut up her cooking, which for her had always been a passion and she was shaking cumin into some yogurt of which she tasted before adding more minced garlic. she reached for a jar which had organic dried sage from new mexico when she felt a cold hand upon her shoulder. she felt the breath of one who breaths not because he must, but because he ot, waft in concentric spirals up and down her spine, sending a shiver to her very core.

    "what are you doing here?" she asked without even turning to him.

    "have i no rite to visit my friends?" he responded question for question and then asked another,

    "why do you not turn around and look at me?" she shook her head. she knew what he looked like and she did not wish to see him.

    "you are cooking for him i take it?" she stopped what she was doing and turned, now to face him. his pale cheek, the perfect canvas on which someone once upon a time had inched and scrawled a little blue teardrop below his left eye. he smiled a sharp yellow smile that always set her on edge.

    "what do you want from me. here? rite now?" he laffed her her temporal sense of a linear reality and he set a cold hand upon her shoulder.

    "why, my dear, i've come not to take but to give." he handed her a small ebony box with gold hinges and a gold clasp.

    "is this the one jay's lookin' for?"  the receiver shook his head,

    "no, this one is yours." she fell to her nees and the wraith lifted a hand to her to motion her back up.

    "it belongs to you, i am merely returning it. you earned it back, it seems, " he said with just a tinge of disappointment. and with that he left her. she crouched into a little ball in the corner, clutching the box and crying. this was something which she thot would neverbe returned to her. thru blinding, hot tears, she opened the box and was consumed by it's blinding glow.

    across the city, goldfarb was shaving with a small silver razor with a steel blade. he nicked his neck and a drop of thick, crimson blood fell with a ::plop:: into the sink. goldfarb looked therein and saw his humanity laid bare befor him. he was and had been for some time haunted by the reality of the insignificance of his life and the decisions which he made. this feeling of anonymity and futility of all events which mite be comforting to some, plagued him to his very core. he was riddled with fear of his own irrelevance and that fear drove his very existence.

    in the pool of blood, he saw the hundreds, the thousands whose lives had been changed for the worse or even terminated and his will. families who had starved and people who had died in vain pursuit of happiness. he had struck them down, all of them in his vengefull greed and hunger for power. even now, when they lay befor him, he had trouble summoning any remorse or sympathy. he rinsed the blade and then looked up in the mirror. the face which smiled back at him was not his, firstly because he was not smiling. the smile in the mirror exposed two rows of razor sharp yellow teeth and the man's pallor was otherworldly.

    goldfarb had grown familiar with that grotesq face which had fritened him so much when forst he had been made to look at it. repeated exposure has a way of dulling the shock of something so horrific as the receiver. goldfarb didn't even flinch. he merely paused and waited for instructions.

    "you have taken so much, of late, mortal. why doest thou so?" he asked and leaned towards he surface of the glass.

    "i need it," goldfarb said in raspy ancient voice, "i need all of it. you've gotten your quarry of every one so what are you here for, anyway?" the receiver could not deny that goldfarb had always brot him his due. he looked reassuringly towards his mortal minion.

    "i've only come to see if you need anything extra." his simple offers never came without strings, but goldfarb at this point had nothing left to lose.

    "as a matter of fact, there is a courier i want taken care of."

    "a courier?"

    "a bike messenger. a common transmitter of letters. i want him to disappear"

    "but you have your hitmen, your gangsters, why then do you ask such a mundane task of me?"

    "because i want it done quickly. there can be no hesitation and no mistake. he must be gone and i no longer believe perdition has the stomach to undertake what i will."

    "so be it, then, but i must ask if you intend to go out tonite?"

    "what do you mean?"

    "you will go to her tonite-- tho she is not the one who once one wanted."

    "so long ago,"

    "and still you forget what once you were. you came to me grovelling, snivelling little brat who wanted to get rid of his daddy and take over the company. you forget how dreadfully you needed me then and now you forget. but very well. thou art as ever master of thy fate, but after this bicycle courier, ask nothing more of me." and with that, the wraith had vanished and goldfarb breathed more easily and he attended once more to his neck.

    he dried his hands and fixed his cufflinks, one and then the other. what had the receiver meant when he said, 'ask nothing more of me?' goldfarb wondered. he put on his coat and went to get his shoes. now, fully dressed he left the penthouse and locked the elevator door. he rode the elevator to the first floor and hailed a cab. goldfarb rarely took cabs because he had his own car and driver and most times he would rather ride the train and walk than put his life in the hands of some hopeless foreiner. but it was after dark and he didn't feel particularly comfortable walking thru jeza's neiborhood at nite, tho she seemed to do so readily and without a second thot.

    "to the heits," goldfarb comanded when he got in the cab and he rolled down the window. the balmy, swampy nite air was pleasantly warm compared to the chill sterile conditions within the cab. goldfarb looked at the cabby's license which bore a name with two marked out o's next to one another-- scandinavian-- which explains the the extreme arctic climate of this cab. they rolled over a bridge and the millionaire directed the cabby where to turn. they pulled up in front of the old warehouse building in which jeza lives.

    goldfarb paid the cabby and stepped out of the vehicle. his back was to the nondescript white van parked a block and a half away and he walked, without fear to the door of his mistress' house. he buzzed her number and she pushed a button upstairs which allowed him to open the outside door. he went up 26 steps and turned on the landing and went up 27 more. he knocked pleasantly upon her door and she opened it rite away.

    he came inside and kissed her on the cheek. to the innocent observer who did not know the true situations of the lives of these two lovers, it would have seemed that they were merely two newlyweds who were still in the throws of young love. he sat on the couch and she went back to what she was doing in the kitchen.

    he stood up again and went to her records. she collected vinyl and it was something which was sacred to her. he found a gary numan record which he hoped would make him look younger. he laid it on the turntable and dropped the needle gently into the groove. he went to her in the kitchen and she said,

    "mmm i love this one," before turning around and kissing him. it was the perfect picture of domestic harmony and mite have been the most blissful moment in either of their horrid, wretched lives. goldfarb opened the wine and they had a toast,

    "l'chaim!-- to life!" they said and drank deeply to the satisfaction of their mortal senses. after the first glass was drunk and gary numan was on to a more mellow, ballad, he took his young lover in his arms and they began to dance, clumsily. she was a slite young thing and even a glass of some red wine would make her tipsy. she stumbled on a turn and fell laffing onto the floor. he fell down upon her and rite as the moment seized her body and soul. just as they were to make love, marion kicked down the door and said,

    "well well well!"

    ///\\\\

    in the early hours of twilite, the disciples of science assembled around the boulder while all the rest of the world slept. they had been arguing amongst themselves for many of them had brot different drawings and diagrams of what a good explosive device would consist and there had been dissent. some had tried to pull others to their side when one of the older disciples stood amongst them and said,

    "ladies and gentlemen, we have come here together to act in solidarity and in union with one another and with our teacher. tho he is not here in our midst, we have devoted ourselves to him and therefor we should not quarrel amongst ourselves," he stepped forth and took the diagrams and said to them, "we shall let this rock which our master has left decide for us, for surely nothing that comes of our teacher could be bad." he placed the stacks of plans a models upon the stone and one by one, each blew away in its turn, until only one paper remained on top of the boulder and it, as tho by some unseen force, remained firmly attached to the great stone.

    the disciple climbed up on the rock and took the paper which he brot back down to the others. the plans he held were for a very simple wire-triggered pipe bomb of considerable size. all of the disciples agreed thereupon and they set to work upon the construction. as the sun rose and the day began, elliot passed them and went to unlock the storefront.

    he went inside and set the air conditioner.  he locked the door back and went upstairs. he had a  parcel of papers underneath his arm. once upstairs, he set the stack of papers down and heard a knock on the outside door-- jonas was early. he ran downstairs to let his friend in. jonas came in and shook hands with elliot.

    "what'd you find out?" jonas asked anxiously and elliot motioned him to wait and the two headed upstairs. once the two were above and situated, elliot began to talk,

    "these documents are from the fed-- this conspiracy goes so much deeper. at first i just thot he was going to create a stir, sell the dollar short and then profit off it. i was rite about that, but i didn't know that he also has been working with the fed in controling the value of our money."

    "how can he do that, tho?-- isn't the fed a part of the government?" elliot scoffed at his friend,

    "hardly-- the federal reserve bank is about as federal as federal express. it's just a name, ya know?"

    "really?"

    "dude-- in the early twentieth century, the fed was created as a private investing endeavor. everything from the irs to legal tender is their domain and they set the values of our currency. money once meant gold or silver and now it is nothing more than hollow, impotent perceived value-- when the fed pulled us from gold and silver and gave birth to the new american dollar, it was the biggest con job ever pulled on the american people. but in the grand tradition of greedy millionaires, it seems goldfarb is trying to follow in their footsteps."

    "what do you mean?"

    "a plan very meticulously laid out for the introduction of a second currency."

    "what would that mean?" jonas asked with noted apprehension in his voice.

    "i'm really not sure, but if elites such as goldfarb had access to and controlled a ver esoteric alternative currency so that they were no longer dependant upon the common market, they could shake untold riches from the pockets of the working class thru inflation and taxes." he paused to catch his breath.

    "how can we stop this from happening?" jonas asked, determined not to let these capitalists win this time.

    "it seems that's what cinthia benavides was trying to do by letting the world know" elliot answered, "and that's what got her killed." they sat in silence awhile and then elliot continued. i also found the list."

    "the list?-- where?-- i mean, we looked thru all of the papers and didn't find anything."

    "i know," elliot said, "and it took me forever to find it-- but it was rite in front of us the whole time." he thumbed thru the papers and showed jonas some of the memos of which there were dozens. these memos had been transmitted, probably by another courier and had appeared at first glance to be nonsensical. they had been very casual correspondences  about mundane aspects of office management, but had been written in very patchy, poor grammar. there were numerical sequences at the top of the telegram and elliot showed how he had located the hidden names.

    "take this one for example, the sequence on top of the memo says '5757623' take the fifth letter of the message, the seventh letter after that, the fifth letter after that and so on." he held the canary paper up for jonas to see the letters which he had circled.

    "c-i-n-t-h-i-a," jonas read, "unbelievable!"

    "there would have had to have been two for each victim-- first name and last name sent in sequence and decoded by the people at perdition."

    "goldfarb's pretty clever."

    "no shit," said elliot. they couldn't believe what they were looking at.

    "i have to go warn the people on this list who are still alive," the courier stood and grabbed his satchel. he took a long hit from the hookah and told elliot thanks for all of his help. he rushed out into the street and unlocked his bicycle. he looked up at the scene surrounding the boulder. devotees surrounded the megalith and the disciples of science were all too invisible, lost in the bustling crowd.

    he wondered how such a massive stone had come to rest in the middle of main street. he thot of the slaves who had dragged four ton blocks of sandstone miles to build the great pyramids of egypt. he thot of the megaliths of easter island or great stones that sat on salisbury plain. this stone which sat on main street could very well still be there in this place long after this city has dissolved into rubble and crumbled into dusts of the earth. when all of humankind becomes a figment of the imaginations of future species and all that about which we care so deeply is washed away in the blinding scope of eternal infinitude.

    the wind carried bits of paper and other human offal in its invisible wings and a small slip of lilac covered paper wedged itself firmly between the sole of his shoe and the cement below. jonas stooped down to remove the paper and he glanced at it:

    he took off his shoes and fastened his cleats securely to his feet. he strapped his helmet to his head pulled his shades over his eyes. he slung the satchel over his shoulder and took one last look at the boulder with the masses of people attentive and accepting therearound. he stepped cleated foot into pedal and kicked off from the curb. he turned the corner where his trajectory was met by a very large hummer heading the wrong way down a one way street.

    in his last moments, jonas was grateful for all of the beauty that had always surrounded his waking life if he had only sot it out. the truck obliterated him limb from limb so that nothing coherant of his body or the steel bicycle which carried him was left. his death would be a quiet one, unmarked by requiem or funeral procession. only elliot would miss him and would often wonder what had happened to him. his remains would be washed into the gutters at nite by a lite shower and would mingle in the bayou before heading out to sea.

    the sound of boy and bicycle consumed under the tread of a moving vehicle was loud and disturbing and could be heard clearly from the great stone. devotees bowing in prayer looked up from their meditations and the disciples looked up from their work on the bomb. they had operatives already in place at the building in which perdition was officed and another disciple stationed outside to inform the others when the receiver was inside.

    at the stone, they were working in complete unity of thot and mind and summoning thru their most advanced psychic channels the person of their guru, who, at this very moment was parched and dry and stumbling in the direction which he had been shown. the desert rolled onward in every direction and tho it seemed from the ground to be endless, science had seen the land stretched forth below him as a canvas and he knew that the city was not much further. the stalwart little dog had followed him  all the way and was panting alongside him when finally he took seat beneath a very tall joshua tree.

    he found a rock for his pillow and he closed his eyes and was almost instantaneously takn away into the realm of dreams. he had come so far from that morning at the bayou and science was eternally grateful for where he now stood.   in his firmaments within, he was not standing on some lush tropical island, he was not sipping exotic drinks nor mingling with beautiful women. in his dreams, he did not even have his suit on. in his dreams, science was exactly where he was in real life-- laying below a joshua tree with a large flat stone beneath his head.

    he no longer sot some other reality or some other persona. he was nothing but a man-- a mortal, air breathing, land dwelling, carbon-based man. he was in the desert with nothing to seperate him from his abject humanity and with that, he felt strangely content. he awoke very early in the morning when the cold dew dropped richly, blanketing everything for miles in its moist, fresh embrace.

    he stood in the rising sunlite and saluted the morning as tho it were his first morning upon the earth. 'funny'-- he thot to himself, 'when i awoke upon the bayou and it was my first morn upon the earth, everything seemed so dredful. now-- here i am in the middle of nowhere and i can't hide my shining optimism.'

    he woke the dog and together they headed for the city.

////\\\\

    in the moment when one is about to die and sees one's entire life-- every decision made in dreadful, excrutiating detail, one cannot help but be remorseful for some elements ofthe life lived. some who lived in eternal sunshine and walked blameless thruout the face of the earth would have little to nothing for which they should feel remorseful. others, and ritely so, have much for which to feel reasonably regretful and it is terrible. even goldfarb, as cruel and heartless as he had been in his life, at that moment with the barrel of his exwife's shiny antique revolver pointed towards him, he could see in plain, naked honesty every terrible thing which had resulted from his decisions and goldfarb regretted his wasted life.

    she left him little time for reflection before she dispatched them both readily. she could not understand it for, altho goldfarb had been in his last moments remorseful for his wasted life, which was evident in his pitiful moaning and sniveling, his young mistress had dyed with a smile on her face and marion hated her for it. she kicked the dead girl in the face and turned around in disgust. she tore the apartment to shreds from floor to ceiling and she screamed in agonizing frustration. this was to have been her vengeance-- this was to have been her therapy. she left the apartment feeling sick and very much unsatisfied. already, the sirens of thepolice cars were accumulating around the building when marion rounded the next block.

    she left the van which had sharpaus' name on the title and which the police would never be able to trace to her. she found a spa in the vicinity and she fell asleep outside its front door waiting for it to open.

    beneath the neon street lamps, a human figure could be seen walking into town on the opposite side of the city. a city of this size never sleeps, but at such an early hour in the morning, there is very little activity. science had been walking for days without food and the dog still followed at his heel. he stopped upon the overpass over which he was crossing and looked upon the twinkling lites of the city skyline at nite. he pronounced upon the city a silent benediction which was his only legacy to leave this city which had given him life.

    he walked slowly in the moonlite and ambient glowing of the city until he came upon the bayou, that familiar old stream from whence his entire genesis and rebirth had both occured. he walked down to the level of the water and decided to continue from here. he walked for miles and in the darkness, he imagined forms-- humans passed him in various directions, but everytime he came upon one of them, they would dematerialize and dissolve into the foggy morning.

    he looked into the water and saw in the rippling flow his own reflection, resplendent with a glorious aura the source of which, he knew not. science now knew his riteful and proper name, but it would be something which he would take with him to the grave. as he approached the city, it seemed to grow upon the horizon and loom over those below.

    science could not understand why, when he had his genesis upon these banks and had been in the midst of the blinding city he had not seen it at all. but as he got closer, he understood, fo in the low perspective of the spot where he had been, he could see nothing of the skyscrapers behind the hi grassy banks. he was at that spot now, and he sat for a moment to reflect upon his progress in this new life he had been given. overall, he was satisfied with the experiences he had been given and could think of nothing more he needed. he took the pup upon his lap and stroking it tenderly, science said,

    "you are free to go, little one. enjoy what days you have before you." the dog nuzzled him gently and licked his hands before hopping down and scurrying off into his eternity. science now had more pressing items at hand. first, he went out over the docks and to the old warehouse building in which he had first met with the receiver. he stepped down into the earth and opened the door which hung loose on its hinges.

    he had no matches, as the receiver had, but his heart burned so strongly that the entire chamber was flooded with all encompassing rose-colored lite. the smell of roses came also unto the place and science found silence and quietly contemplated his rôle in the universe' overall mechanics and when he was ready he stood up.

    when the woman who had called herself 'annette' had opened the door unto paradise and science had spent his three days of bliss therein, there had been a particular feeling as they had walked tru the portal. that same elusive feeling, science tried now to conjure and in an instant, the boundaries of this ancient cellar melted into the warmth of the island morning.

    science spent several blissful hours therein before finally bidding all farewell and returning to material solidarity the walls and floors of the warehouse cellar. he allowed the ambient rose-colored lite to dim into darkness and he steppd back out into the world. a soft, cold sting touched his face, and then another. he looked up and saw that it was snowing. the sun was still not up in the city and the moonlite lent a mystical tune to the musical rhythm of the falling snow. there had not been snow in the city for fifteen years and it was the middle of summer.

    science admitted to himself that anything was indeed possible and he headed towards the great stone where he had left his disciples. he passed the market square where he had seen a war protest and had provided a very memorable illustration. he walked past parked cars and ancient trees and in that moment, he loved all of them. he came upon the square at main street and there were some hare krishna devotees banging drums and singing around the great stone. he approached closer-- a bum slept on the bench nearby.

    'not one of mine,' science said to himself. he looked around for someone who could help him but there was no one else on the block. he walked towards the cathedral and there-- in the street-- was an old man who had been one of his followers. he approached the old hobo who genuflected in his presence. science put a hand upon his shoulder and said,

    "stand up, friend and greet me as your equal." the old man rose to his feet and suddenly hugged science with the fullness of his strength. science returned him love for love and then asked him,

    "but friend, where are the others?"

    "ah but you do not know?-- even now they will work towards the supreme fulfillment of your divine message. they toiled with the machine since before the sun rose yesterday and now in the early morning they shall conquer death and provide mercy instead of perdition." science was troubled,

    "where do they do this, friend?"

    "at the tall grey building over there-- the one with the colorful sculpture out front."

    "thank you, " science bowed profoundly and raced in the direction the man had indicated. as he ran, he considered what his moment of truth had been in this contorted dance of life. he imagined children as they walked to their bus stops whisper his name onto the wind and clutch their school things closely to their chins. he thot of mothers who cried at the loss of their beloved children. he thot of those who would die soon upon hangman's nooses and in electric chairs. he thot of all those who would die in iraq and afghanistan and anywhere else the cruel overlords willed them to die. he thot of anyone whose fate lie naked there before them. he thot of every person on the face of the earth in rapid succession as he ran until he could no longer run and he collapsed beneath the brite primary colors and clean white that enclosed him within the monumental sculpture. 

    he knew not how long he had been gone, but he knew it could not have been long because the sun was still not up. he walked towards the building, the front of which was made of heavy gilded glass, doors invisible within the folds of her glassy modernism. science pulled all the doors but none of them would open.

    he walked around to the side of the building and found another door of heavy pink stone. it sat already partially open, and he pulled it towards him. he walked in darkness until he came to a dimly lit hall and a steel staircase. he ascended it and counted his steps as he went-- one hundred and twenty-eit. at the top of the stairs was another door thru which science discovered some of his disciples crouching around 'the machine' and chanting unintelligible mantras.

    they stopped abruptly and looked up at him.

    "you're not supposed to be here!" one of them shouted and in an instant the whole thing was done. the explosion came so swiftly that no one felt any pain, and yet the moment of the bang was as in slo motion. science looked at each of them in turn and saw in their eyes the truth of their being. particles rended from particles-- molecules accelerated and with deafening pace obliterated all that there was. but in that blistering instant, all of them were with him on the island of paradise  and they would be forever young and healthy there. there where there was no sadness, and only bliss, eternally. science smiled and said, "this blinding gilded city" before he was no more. several blocks away, the megalithic stone cracked and split from top to bottom.

 finis

appendix

1. a note upon the spellings used in this text. this text conforms to the first phase of the 21st century american english spelling reform and is the premier example of progressive "free spelling." the first phase is characterized most noticeably by the elimination of capitial letters and the silent "gh" combination of spelling. further reform will lend a more graceful regularity to the visual expression of spoken languaj while allowing more freedom on behaf of the spellers themselves. the objective of the 21st century reform is towards more clarity and simplicity of written style.
   
2. a note upon the numbering system of the chapters. this text employs the urnfield numeration system. the urnfield culture (c. 1300 bce - 700 bce ) was a late bronze age culture of central europe.The name comes from the custom of cremating the dead and placing their ashes in urns which were then buried in fields. The urnfield culture followed the tumulus culture and was succeeded by the hallstatt culture. there is no evidence of their use of numbers greater than 29.    
3. about the illustrator linds
   
4. about the author  free man yonge was born in a teepee and raised in a commune. he is one of 12 children; the son of a shoemaker and a yogini. he studied under the great masters of the society for paradoxism where he was the recipient of a codex which laid forth the new english languaj of the dawning age. a committed alcemist, he lives with his partner bretagne in an ashram in serampore. his epic series the requiem for ursa major, while a monumental effort of literary prose, has been rendered unreadable by critical community. in the 80s, it was withdrawn from the public view and no known copies currently exist. his interests include gardening, cycling, nutrition and revolution.
5. about the non-diagetic music used to write the text
   
   £1.23
   "15 Step" – 3:57
   how can you run beneath this brass sky? your eyes reflecting the abstract quality of a street or strait or plane. i have only one new dance-move. i have but one more affection. used to be what happened when the cats gots all the tongues. and the streak comes on though one by one. on my own. comes thru soft and warm. sailing higher and slicing lemons of it "used to be all right" etc. etc. thats were we come undone. and 15 steps and then she dro-ops. and the soloist begins. filling the empty silence with horns unprompted and childlike applause. i come undone beneath this brass sky-- all tangled up-- you let me out and on a string. finding glass innappropriate and barely filled. finding resonant comfort in OHM.
   "Bodysnatchers" – 4:02
   can you not, but understand. check the pulse and bleed the eyes. yet don't forget, take note of know ideas of what yo talkin bout. so introduce me while you can still get out. pull over. pull out. greased up and ready to elektrofy the sound of the gong where every attention and egg-deal sat upon a good idea while you are talkin about. the aspirins on the window sill unannounced. help me horrible. help me impatient calm and reverting to kid A moments yet revising as always. and the guns come out for me in the 21st century, it's a fine line between one and two degrees but your skin please like a laser beam. like an image on the crystal sea. and see as we fill and rearranged tired melodies and clear their purposes. repurposed and fading, then swelling. no no. embarking. what more can be said of this, his outrageous fortune.
   "Nude" – 4:15
   standing, thou, lonesome ornament of the hall of the king of stone. i seek the intimacy of your warm elektrik tthrobbing. eager. ready to go to work upon the stone. do patiently sit back and fill all of our arms and down feet supremacies, sands now that you're friends-- now that you've promised a stone. now that you feel it. (you don't) you gotta forever. so don't get in. be lightly. get another nite beneath your sneakers. you come to health for higher disparate men. naked. howling at the moon as wight or departed. uncomfortable. unconscious. with a steady snare fill to punctuate the old dance-hall gleaming and.
   "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" – 5:18
   in the crystal moving waters of the forgotten impenetrable farthest reaches of the twisted tips of time blowing reeds and caressing amber waves of grain and blowing on. in the deepest ocean you find my sleeve-- yarn returning to the deep and washed, why should i stay? why should i ? awake only to find that i'd be crazy not to fall faraway-- you lead, birdchild. they took me away upon the wings of the shining old fads and the first fall to the end. (oh ay) oh fly! oh fly away! yeah! everybody leave! every day they get the chance of a million. it's my chance to become eaten by the words the way that fishes might do. trolling by the water side and waiting to fish. with their fish in they come fishin and they fall into dynamic moments of heightened awareness. regressions reborn as echoes returning changed and perhaps made more beautiful-- transformed as that lode from dross emerged. derived into a focused point of light perpetual, a prism unchanged and everlasting as the part that doth escape in the heady cacophonic clamour.
   "All I Need" – 3:48
   i hid the lock that had no key. i found a beat buried in a melody. and you know where all i live and all i have. i have a mirror of your picture and i will not leave. i want to ring the bell. and shine the beautiful light. i'm just a one step. and love is all i really do need. i've a sticky hand because it barked a deposit. you are all i need. you're all i need. i hold that mirror of your picture. and i will intervene. i'll like to say, i'll sit up. what do you say?
   "Faust Arp" – 2:09
   do thereupon rise from a forgotten legend and bring radiant salvation to the dingy masses. rise and shine and watch me fall out. back and forth to the moon. sup[posed to filter. what you ought to what you want to. got a stove frying that naught and squeezey tubes so take it back and what you up to? are you serious. totally. totally. you could definitely force a cop 'gainst that stove and fire them upon the eggs and coffee and more. cusay smoke. and everyone just gotta be free. you see we gotta handful of sour cream for everybody and the world turns upon the axis everyday.
   "Reckoner" – 4:50
   i dream of solid warmth and laying out upon the noonday. i welcome satisfied future speculations thinking away the hour. and bite. can't take it with you when you go. i have only one hour before i go. this is the final. you are not to blame for it. this may seem strange. torn. didn't speak his name. didn't kill anything to own you. or own you me ex. because we sailed away, we both oughtta live/ you and me., we sailed away. and we're both on the way sharp. snaring upon a momentary brokedown palace of triumphant reentries and new beginings. we create them; i am learning. dearly killing them to rob the thief. and take back whats teenager's victory dance. on. on . on. to fade.
   "House of Cards" – 5:28
   through the simple plucking and fluttering into my space, abrupt yet determined i can find ancient memories thrust to the surface. ripe for the picking . part for the offering of man's only dice. and i don't want to be your friend. i just want to be your lover. no matter how good i am. no matter how i started. typing. again forget about your haus and come and acknowledge ^^^. forget about your house and n'awlins man and fall off the tables and get swept onward. relaxing into the pelvic mentioning of step forward. repeat. repeat. repeat. repeat. repeat. the night , deNial. the infrastructure will collapse and vault into the sky. thirty peas in the boardwalk is yours to spend the nite. forget about your house and its contents and i'll do mine. forget about your house and come in. the knives are out. fall off the table and guess where you're lonely. 1, 2, 3, 4 deNial river floats finds foundlings deNial deNile we should be deeper. tonite. tonight. we will shift seeming singing and solo surroundlings of shortened amphibial exposition. excrement might have been a better she horridly interjected but for the time being it was alright, that is until the sustenudo.
   "Jigsaw Falling into Place" – 4:09
   wake. from your sleep. the door is open. break. something deep. into a faster tempo aand a smoother mode. mmmmmmmmstairs, upstairs take my hand. upstairs and noone knows the ride. play your favorite song and your breath disappears-- spring for your head too much the walls have been like a gag to you. this place is unofficial for the Nile or for the piano room. before you calm yourself. before you get away from me. before the lost beat goes round and round (the beat goes round and round) i pretended it was a shotgun. c'mon and let it out. c'mon and let it off. before you belay for greed before you let them take my mind. before you took a stand. i left that stand. nixon fell upon his face; there is nothing to explain-- what has come from within your past. not just love. not just lies. disgraceful fits of madness. pixel-follies. pixies fazed.
   "Videotape" – 4:39
   in a bottle. resolutions. slipped my meager mind. when i was at the perly gates i saw videos of videotape. and mefistofiles was jhust the radiation that was growin off of me. this is one for the guru's gates. when i am all for original grace. mysterieaux grace. when i accept it. when i get carried away in videotape. on videotape of videotape. with videotape, about videotape. ooo.
   this is my way out. i can see it through the blinds. with out those hills or face to face come talkin to me and i can not have half of what this mirror causes me to think how do perfect dews reply when moments come to un enchanted tepid voiceless soundless grinding upon fences and chewing away at unneccesary salts. when in the course of human understanding, there came a remarkably indiscreet chanted found and founded, erected and razed all in the same year. repetitive for they found the same pound of gold called in cyclic sustain.

   Labels: in rainbows 
   

   <3 love, eleKtrofly @ 22:55
6. a note upon the existential yearnings of a a posthuman human it comes at the time when spicy held loving handled- thingwise beblooms oneself and lifts (for the very first time) its head from below the sweeping surf of the void and into the calm of chaos. a breadbasket, a wealth of promises and extremes and incessant qualities of which i know so little. sounds like many things of which i can only a brush of my hand give before forgetting myself and speaking too loudly and shattering the image which had been painstakingly mined from the earth. and then i start to feel like one of those canaries which were notmentioned but surely accompanied bastien in his search for love in the heart and center of the black earth. and then i know where this one and every one of her kind must have sprung up from and it is no surprise that my unconscious mind is practiacally overrun with them and their braided nappy hair and their earthen ebony faces and their demure french accents and their fully-contained internal riots. i pluck one from the collective unconscious—any one will do and i wonder how my great great great great grandfather first came acros s the one called patty and what he must immediately have thought of her and if it is roughly what i think when this amazing one comes in the door and says she never cared for fitzgerald. i have a hard time swallowing (and maybe its because my mouth is full of glass) my pockets full of change and i hand them off to some disabled vet standing at the corner right before the freeway. i think my dad made some cynical comment about the authenticity of the mans destitution and i commented that it sure is cold out there.
7. the characters in this text are purely fictional and are the original work of the author. any similarities to any real people-- living or dead-- is purely coincidental.
8. notes upon the inevitable decline and fall of the holy roman empyre                              “people casually avoid large parts of the
   structure as it falls to the ground.”
   -Thom Yorke
   I
   i’m squashed
   into a tin
   filled with sardines
   and pears
   and some
   dishonorable
   punk insists on
   beating
   out a rhythm again
   & again
   repeat
   causing my head
   to spin and my life
   to flash (flesh)
   before my eyes
   this incessant
   bassline awakens
   my neighbors
   yet permeates
   my flesh like incense
   like an Indian
   instrument*
   that plays on a
   scale
   foreign to me.
   II
   i have finally
   demolished
   my can and
   by allowing the
   drum beats in
   have succeeded in
   recycling the steel
   (for it is the most
   efficiently
   recyclable
   materiál in the
   world.)
   mother nature has
   come
   to thank me for
   being
   so honest and bids
   me to
   take off
   all of
   my clothes & go for
   a swim.
   now i have found
   the wife of the
   water
   and her voice is
   beautiful
   and she harmonizes
   with me.
   III
   my mind fades
   into a dark reality
   and above me is
   a light – but it
   is a light of darkness
   And darkness shines
   down like a
   silent benediction.
   my thoughts
   ,although impenetrable
   are repeatedly
   broken by
   my respiratory
   system.
   and with each
   heaving heartbeat
   i struggle to take
   a breath
   IV
   i struggle to
   take
   a breath
   and mournfully
   utter the words
   «come on ”
   My this is a sleepy
   meXican town
   ----- yet perhaps
   there is something
   more. a woman–
   the mystical queen
   of
   cups has flowers in
   her hair and
   a dress of black
   and red
   and she does
   the cigarette-girl
   dance.
   V
   as much as i resist
   i must drive
   away into
   the sunset.
   in the desert
   the agave cactuses
   (cacti)
   salute
   me by bowing
   in an asian
   manner as
   my car speeds by.
   yet i am too busy
   to notice.
   i look forward– to
   the hills
   the mountains
   ~ think about the
   good times and
   never look back
   never look back~
   it seems at times
   the car is not
   carrying my body
   at 95mph but that
   i am flying
   down this desert
   highway.
   when all of a
   sudden,
   the car: stops
   –and the desert
   freezes over.
   VI
   Knives Out.
   it seems that
   despite even
   my best intentions/
   my Batman comic
   book, my special
   edition Radiohead
   CD and your Stanley
   Kubrick Collection
   aren’t enough.
   VII
   can you see
   the birds flying
   from the vespers of
   a Cathedral
   that was used in the
   filming of Vertigo?
   Yes, Kim Novak
   committed
   suicide/was
   pushed from
   the bell-tower
   as the nuns looked
   on in horror
   and it seemed all
   Jimmy Stewart
   could
   do was hang his
   head.
   Viii
   i can’t sleep
   or remember
   anything
   i am an insomniac
   amnesiac
   who enjoys
   staying up
   late
   sipping
   espresso
   in felinenamed
   jazz clubs.
   i am very close to
   the face of
   the singer
   Thom something
   or other
   and i can look
   down his throat and
   see his tonsils
   he silently
   glances at
   the bass player
   and then at
   me.
   IX
   i am left
   alone
   to examine
   my life
   andcometo
   my own
   conclusions
   i cant
   help
   but
   wonder
   X
   Ascendit in Coeli
   my eyes rise to the
   skies
   and i
   Acendit in Coeli
   to the sky
   towards heaven.
   and the moon
   ultimately
   reverses its
   hold
   on the oceans
   and allows the
   waves and
   everything
   to move backwards
   i fade
   i become
   i unexist myself
   with each last
   breath
   my after-life
   half-life
   rises
   ,clouds
   swirl around me
   as quickly as time
   dissolves
   everything
   dissolves
   i can sleep
   forever
   XI
   yet i return
   if only briefly
   to watch my
   funeral
   it is a cajun
   funeral. and though
   they mourn,
   they smile.
9. the full text of the united states declaration of independance
   

   WHEN, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands, which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's GOD entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation.

   We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their CREATOR, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that Governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shown, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

   HE has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.

   HE has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

   HE has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodations of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyranny only.

   HE has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.

   HE has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.

   HE has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the mean Time, exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.

   HE has endeavored to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

   HE has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

   HE has made Judges dependent on his Will alone; for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.

   HE has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance.

   HE has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the Consent of our Legislatures.

   HE has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

   HE has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

   FOR quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:

   FOR protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

   FOR cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:

   FOR imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

   FOR depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:

   FOR transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:

   FOR abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule into these Colonies:

   FOR taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

   FOR suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.

   HE has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection, and waging War against us.

   HE has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.

   HE is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with Circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.

   HE has constrained our Fellow-Citizens, taken Captive on the high Seas, to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

   HE has excited domestic Insurrection amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes, and Conditions.

   IN every Stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every Act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

   NOR have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them, from Time to Time, of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the Rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

   WE, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in GENERAL CONGRESS Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of Right do. And for the Support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

10. more notes upon the nondiagetic music
    
    15.step
    let alone and left to my own devices. i cannot let but lick mt vernon on a string. i've come up in the brass section, i've come upon an added meaningful streak. let your twentysomethingness melt away like it used to be your eyes but it's the cat that got your tongue. one by one. two by two they've a memory for me and a guessi ng game for you. a guru-- soft as a pillow, and lying down into dreamlike soaring anxious fantasies of preadolescent post traumatic stress syndrome. one by one. etc. etc. and somewhere in the distance children cry out as a fax is received and a ministry is dropped. i am left to only that which i can build of my own ingenuity and cleverness. you ruled me out and then you cut the string. shame on you. and blame on me. mea culpa ::thrice upon my breast:: let reverberating moments slide out easily like golden thread.
    bodysnatchers
    can a man, check his pulse, blink his eyes and don't forget. gypsey eyes. i've no idea why i trouble my self around and loosen my corporeal strength in numbers. just like another i remember once before. i cannot be bothered to unbrake it. just keep the sound. and move the arm. sorry i forgot. i have no idea why you are talkin about this wooden plank of an adult. familiar and reticent. comfortable but withdrawn. writing a book in the way she shifted her weight or the brush of a momentary glance. i've nothing left to say but for the unlimited mental rhyme that was intoned upon the surface of an other wise forgotten image in the deep and profound depths of the id. all mine all mine all mein. they say they comin.
    nude
    you have made your way into the simplest most uniform impulses and synapses-- intelligent design in your smile i can feel out the rest, given time. and is a heartbeat not generic. a heart-moniter not cliche? in a little coal black way, this picture of why and fillinoids feel free to peace something together. but not that you fell we use gum and now that you're feeding you don't need a gun/ not forever. we got it for him. so don't get these real ideas. paranoid gold-haircuts and you got to add on for what you did to my experience. my unspoken. my choral sailboat ride which has only saught the truest sense of the word and the fullest format of the ever-blessed virgin body. now unprotected. now underachieved. now undeniable. now singing the song from little mermaid.
    weird fishes/arpeggi
    a foot lifts lightly upon heather and upon grass. over hill and over dale and in the most charming little something of a countryside. stand bare with me, my sister, and call upon the mountain your line. in the deepest ocean. at the bottom of the sea. your gaze doth term me "washed and stayed here" but why should i stay? you are like a flowing stream of water, how can this place not find you lovely, but i'd be crazy not to follow wherever you may lead. and the gods-- they tell me train where your phantom and followed top the edge of the earth and beyond. the impossible who fall everybody leads and if we could only get a chance again, we could make this more for our children's children gettin even by the word. the way fishes do. talk about the world and weird fishes and we could eat whatever the hell we beat out of ourselves. ooo. is it not the time-- oh! look at the time. while every broad and hypnotic self thought itself triumphant and thought it could escape. but i feel: that every icky part of random skirt and the sound of a hollow old honky-tonk pianoforte outoftune.
    all i need
    like the beating of a magnetar, or the pulsing of a giant pulsar, i can feel you washing over me. just like the next step. waiting for a way. waiting for the animal to get at it-- trapped in your parked car. look what we found in the dark-- i have all day-- let you choose to go. but there can be none other for me. cause you are all i need. you're all i need. i'm in the middle of the pigment, crying in the rain, tapping the bells of a xylophone who wants to share you suckered life. i'm just an insect trying to get out of here alive. but i am still inconvenient because there are none other. and my early edition cries: you're all i need: on the front cover. i'm in the middle of your pictures. lying in the wreath. you're all i need/ you are all i need. bringeth it with full design, this my swelling fill of voices pressed and pianos dampened. so! off and away, i shall sail. into the momentary silence.
    faust arp
    cross the potomoc. like you ought to. be a bit more sensible. i can't go out cause i'm a star and at 4 am i can squeez nothing much more in there but take a bow and tumbling forcefully like a chupacubra. and dancing from my neck, you thought i was stoned. but naw. there's enough. it's enough. and no way is it but a calming sense of togethered near and far into burnished growing slowing just if you have some way of knowing.

    Labels: in rainbows
    

    <3 love, eleKtrofly @ 23:33
11. /

 

  

    © november 2007 mausbird haus