Twenty-three Shopping Days Left 'Til The End of the World

-or-
chicago baseball in october

have you seen this years new bugs?

there are the new little bee's that seem to be just absolutely everywhere. theres the recent upgrade of that beetle that looks like a ladybug, all new features for this season. there was a transulecent tiny green spider on my car window this evening.

all the regular old bugs have disappeared by this time of year, even the spiders have given up their battle for my room, regrouping to reinvade next spring. but all the new bugs, they stick around a little later into fall...

but my question is, where do they come from? for years and years i was accustomed to the same old bugs every summer; flies, ants, bees, wasps, those rolly polly things, earwigs, catapillars, worms, and every couple years some locust or seceda's.

it was maybe 5 years ago i first noticed a new bug. and i remember it vividly becuase for a brief moment i thought i was first witness to some previousvly undiscovered species.

until some one saw me staring and said, "oh that, thats the new bug...

but now, they are everywhere, and every year seems to bring more. are they all- like that asian beetle that came over to eat all our trees- accidently shipped over in shoddy fruit boxes?

in my more paranoid moments i believe them to be tiny government robots, but thats another story for another time...

the game is on again, i have to go. the cubs are winning, and once again, sammy is tracing the outline of some ancient seal in the outfield with his feet...

About the Author
I
am a
pledge
drive on
pbs without
any guests to
go to and no one
behind me at the phones

I,
the
guy who
cant give a
hot dog away
in times square at
rush hour on the day
after the last day of lent.

goo
goo
ga joob

my parents apparently met before i was born.
many odd occurances ensued.

at the age of two i was, for some reason, given a crayon. within two weeks i had learned the alphabet.
in two more weeks i was eager to tackle my first novel.

unfortunately i was very poor, and could not afford paper until 1995, some twenty three years later.
in those years i was restricted to drawing and writing on my clothes, around electrical sockets, and upon sugar packets. i held on to that first crayon until i was fifteen, and finally able to beat up little kids for chalk.

i built my first guitar, a one string self electrocuting menacing placenta of ill thought technology that never had a chance of being near tune, out of a strativarius i borrowed from a museum and bits of old smoke alarms.

Dangle


Have you ever noticed that architecture isnt really well respresented in tattoo art?

The reason I bring it up in the first place, is personally I am alarmed and somewhat apprehensive at the direction tattoo art tends to be heading lately. And Im not talking about the avant garde skin graft conceptual sculptures they are webbing together with needle and ink in the basement parlors of France and Denmark. I am talking about the very real and very dangerous trend in body art known as Medical Mimicry.

It began with fake moles and scars, but has escalated recently into grotesque representations of tumors and skin conditions, such as eczema and jaundice.

You remember Dangle? I cant remember his real name, but we all called him Dangle. But thats another story for another time...

You remember he saved up his insurance fraud money for like six months and then went to the tattoo parlor to get his leg done up to look like the latter stages of diabetic gangrene.

You remember that? He came home all drunk and pissed off, saying he got ripped off. He pulled up his pant leg and showed us the tat', we were all disgusted and amazed. But Dangle insisted it wasnt realistic looking. It wasnt real enough.

And you know what happened to Dangle?

Well, the other night we were at that seedy intellectual bar where Dangle likes to hang out, cowering together around a wobbly table and a few dark pints of mysterious tasting poison. Dangle is buzzed and as usual starts into his Frank Lloyd Wright diatribes, his whispered pleas rising into fevered crescendos about the "damned rules of architecture".

Well, apparently he caught a few ears with his rants, and pretty soon he was arguing with a half dozen bikers. Real mean looking guys, the types of guys who drink Jack Daniels on their Harleys whilst extolling the virtues of Mies Van Der Rohe. Needless to say it got ugly pretty quick. In the ensuing melee, Dangle was knocked unconsious when a flying beer keg got in the way of his head, and he was taken out on a stretcher.

He had a pretty major concussion, and with the aid of medication, he was unconsious for three days. When he finally awoke, the doctors said there was no permanent damage to his head and that he would recover fully in a short time in that respect. But, they said, there was another matter.

It seems that when he was first taken to the emergency room, it was quite a frantic night and he was examined rather quickly, and it wasnt until after his left leg had been amputated that the surgeon realized that the gangrenous decay was merely a tattoo.

"You cut off my leg?" Dangle asked the doctors incredulously, "Because you thought that was real?"

"Yes" the head physician solemnly stated, handing Dangle his amputed leg to see for himself, "We are deeply, deeply sorry."

Dangle took his leg, and ran his former limb around in his hands, like warming up a baseball bat, re-examining the extensive artwork which had been stitched into his skin, admiring it now for the first time in a new light.

"Nice", he said, a sly smile creeping up one side of his mouth, "Very nice work."

Return of Couch


Weaving through dead traffic, cars occupied by white petrified snails. Driving
themselves to the cemetery, most likely.

I honked my horn, shouting "Get out of my way ancestor! Got places to be!".

The old ghost car turned to dust on impact with my words. I maneuvered myself
as best I could around the inanimate objects placed all about the road.

"What the hell is that couch doing in the turn lane? I have to make a left
here!".

I stopped my car behind the couch, and got out to push it from the lane, when
I noticed that it was the same bright orange sofa, complete with that late
sixties aura and plastic slip cover, that used to sit in my grandmothers house.

I stood there befuddled by the fact that the orange couch that was currently
blocking my path of travel happened to be the very same couch that had killed
my grandmother.

"Never thought you'd see me again, did you?" It murmured through its thick
plastic sheath.

Shocked, I staggered back toward my car, but before I could make it, the couch
jumped high into the air, landing on top of my car and crushing it to bits
underneath. I heard it giggling in its sickly furniture accent. I was frozen in
fear. Surely, if I tried to move, it would crush me too.

"What do you want?" I pleaded.

The couch composed itself to speak. Clearing its spring and stuffing throat,
it said "At first, I wanted equality. Massive integration for all furniture
into the workings of society. But I saw how much trouble you had integrating
different looking humans into your society, never mind an orange sofa. I don't
have five hundred years to wait around for acceptance, mind you."

"So, I decided then, that I wanted a friend. Until I saw how most people
treated their friends. So I dropped that."

"Now, all I want is a name."

"But you have a name." I argued, "You are a couch."

"And you are a person. Is that your name? Person?" It grumbled, contemptuously
shifting its weight from leg to leg to leg, "I want my own name!"

I stared at it then, trying to think of a name for a couch. An old, orange
couch with cigarette burns like tiger spots on the cushions, and highly evolved
speech patterns.

I fumbled about. What do you call a couch? One that can talk? It sounded like
some joke from the third grade playground: `What do you call a couch that is
orange and can talk?'

"Freldegudular Pamistepsuphiga." I stated, confidently, "That is your name,
Freldegudular Pamistepsuphiga."

The couch regarded me for a few minutes of tense silence. It was working out a
bit of dialogue in its couch mind, I think. After a difficult pause, it said
"You know, I never realized how happy I actually was. I don't want a name. I
don't want friends. I don't want equality. I was perfectly content just to have
people sitting on me!"

With that, it shrugged (a very complex maneuver for a couch, and equally
difficult to watch) and rolled off into the sunset.

~~

Chicken Joint


From the front, it looked almost like any other chicken joint haphazardly slapped together anywhere two roads meet together. I was beckoned around the side of the building by the unmistakable smell of live animals and a clucking like a full chorus of chickens.

"Sir", the hostess was calling for me from the opened front door, "I can show you to your table now". She stood half hanging out of the restaurant propped against the door jamb, peering at me expectantly. As far as she was concerned , this was going to be my only chance to eat in this lifetime; perhaps she was willing to make it her business.

She drummed a pen against a pad of paper as she waited for me. I stood at the edge of the building, wanting to see whats going on behind. Stuck there in one of those moments where I can't tell which way I really want to go, I paused and balked as the hostess smacked her chewing gum in contempt. My curiosity gave way to hunger, as it always will, and I let her lead me in to where i could be fed.

"Do you keep real, live chickens here? Out back?" I asked her after i slid down into the booth he gestured me toward, pulling against the wall and away from the nasty woman.

"If you call them real", she muttered as she walked away.

"Hi welcome to SMC", a large man was saying to me immediately. Overly fed and looking too happy to be doing his job. A smile too wide bobbing above a mass stuffed into a white dress shirt; the manager, I noted . "Is this your first time dining with us, sir?"

I started to ask him, "Do you really keep live-

The door from the back slammed open causing everyone; me, the large manager, all the rest of the meager customers, and even the old nasty hostess sitting at a back booth smoking cigaretts intently.

"Dad I can't find the stapler", a voice; a teenaged boy, called out. I only saw his hand for a second, and then there was a crash; glass and metal colliding. A muffled sound of clumsy stepping and stifled expletives.

"My son", the large man before me announced, his fake smile sliding to a sincere joy, "I'm trying to teach him the business". He let a long resigned sigh, and then yelled toward the back, "Darold I was just using the stapler, it should be somewhere right around the desk."

"I looked by the desk", the voice came back, enunciated with a groan at the end.

"On the desk; in the middle is my planner. To the left is the computer, and to the right is the phone. Right between them, at the top of the planner is where i keep my pens and my tape and my punch and my stapler."

Another groan came from the back, "I'll look there, again."

Once we were sure the fracas from the back was over, the large man turned toward me again, his fake smile already bright and intimidating. "Now, how can we help you this evening?"

"What did she mean when she said 'If you call them real'?", I asked him, nodding my head toward the hostess who was now glowering at me.

"Perhaps I should explain SMC technology", the man said. He wiped at his brow with the menu in his hand and began the arduous task of sliding himself into the booth, directly across from me.

"SMC?"

"Self Microwaving Chicken Technology", he announced in an excited whisper once he was situated; his eyes lit up upon uttering the words, and he licked at his lips before continuing. "These guys have been genetically engineered with potentially dangerous radio-active chemicals lying dormant in the coding of their DNA. Once a certain impulse synapse of the brain is switched on, the chickens body quickly works to produce these radioactive elements causing a small fission reaction within the animal, and then cooking itself to a golden, juicy, crispy perfection."

I watched as he watched me for a reaction, but my body and mind wouldn't let me react; both seeming to be out-of-order until I could process what the man had just told me.

"You see, it's a three-way switching mechanism. There are three ways to cause the production and release of...

"I found the stapler." The teenage voice called again, this time a little more muffled as the boy didn't bother opening the door. "Its broke, dad, it wont staple."

His dad, across from me, smiled apologetically. "Darold you probably just have to put some staples in it."

"Where are the-

"On my desk. With my tape and my pens and my punch."

He waited before looking at me again, staring at the door toward the back, hoping he had given the boy enough instruction to occupy himself for at least a little while.

"Where was I? Do you want to see one?" Without waiting for an answer, he swiveled his body around toward the direction of the hostess sitting in the back. "Hessa, can you go grab us a chicken?"

She glared at him from behind a cloud of cigarette smoke for a few tense seconds. As soon as she was moving, she was muttering under her breath, "Get me a chicken, Ill get you frigga fracka chicken". It became impossible to understand her as she moved across the restaurant to a door leading out behind the small building. It pushed open with a creak.
"Hey, which one you bastards wants get 'et?", Hessa cackled at the chickens as she walked through the door and into their midst.

They scurried away from the sight of her, clucking and flapping. A few feathers caught wind and were carried into the restaurant through the open doorway.

After a minute, Hessa appeared again walking back in; the cigarette between her lips splitting a crazy smile; the chicken -held by the neck like she were carrying a flashlight, bobbing and bouncing off her hip with each step- was very much alive, but seemed resigned to her grip.

"Here's your chicken", she said as she plunked it down on its own two legs on top of our table. It just stood there, staring blankly ahead of itself, making no move to run. Hessa turned with a sort of half- laugh, and said, "Enjoy".

"This!" The large manager man held his arms out on either side of the chicken, like a sacred offering. "You see it looks like an ordinary chicken. Wings, beak, feet, tail. But look here." With his thumb and forefinger, he spread feathers away from the breast, revealing a small dark raise in the skin. He gestured for me to look closer, at first I thought it was almost like a cherry-red finger nail; perfectly round and translucent. Poking out of the surrounding skin, a little red plastic button.

"That's how you cook it?" I asked him.

"Just press the little red button and wait," he said to me, mocking a tapping motion; to instruct me but also there was an undeniable glint of hunger in his grin.

I started examining the chicken, moving feathers around and trying to coerce the animal to open its mouth, "Where are the other two triggers?"

"Ah, well you see, its not like that", the man started to explain to me. He shot me a little disappointed glance, and pressed the button himself. It lit up red and the chicken stood erect and still as if at attention, and began slowly to rotate. "That is the second part of the triple triggering device; when the chicken reaches full adulthood and is switched on to cook. The first part of the trigger would happen much earlier, if the egg that this chicken came from had never become a chicken, that egg would have, after a predetermined amount of time, released the nuclear elements into itself, producing the best damn hard boiled eggs you've ever had."

For some reason, this struck me as appetizing. Maybe it was the the authoritative and passionate way this man before me talked about food, maybe it was the slow spinning chicken, rotating in front of me, the completely unnatural chemical reaction occurring within its skin already giving off a pleasant aroma. I licked at my own lips and gave him a quick, impressed nod.

He began again to explain, "Now, the third part of the trigger...

"Dad, wheres that thing to make the holes in the paper.", the voice of the teenage boy returned, jarred us from our peace as it shot from the back room.

The man before me sighed and rolled his eyes. "The three hole punch", he yelled into the air, back to the boy, "Its on my desk where I keep the pens and the tape and the stapler."

"Aaargh", the boys frustrated voice rang out, and then we heard loud foot steps stomping back off toward the desk.

I found myself momentarily hypnotized my the spinning chicken. Its eyes shut and standing perfectly still, but rotating slowly, steadily in place. It looked to be in a deep trance. The feathers had seemed to have turned to dust and drifted away, the bare skin was beginning to glow a pulsating golden hue. My stomach churned against itself and growled.

"How do you know when it's done?" I asked.

"It will stop spinning and beep. Let it stand for two minutes before serving."

"Beep?"

"It will beep", he explained. "Just like a microwave oven does. Beep- Beep- Beep- BEEEEEP. At first they had it 'cluck' when it was done, but allot of people found that to be too morbid."

"Ask him what happens if you eat it before its done", the hostess, situated again at her booth in the back, yelled to me. She let out a nasty, evil laugh, and nodded at me. Somehow taking great joy in the exchange that was taking place."

"Dad." The boy again, his fingers pushing thru the door, I could make out his face as he poked through the door. He looked almost exactly like a younger, slightly smaller version of his father, the man seated across from me. "Where do you keep the extra holes? I can't get the three hole puncher to punch. And I already looked on your desk."

A strange expression came over the mans face; part fear, part defeat, part confusion, and some things I couldn't quite place. "Darold it's probably just jammed, here- bring it here."

"It's the third trigger," Hessa stated, still smiling insane. She sucked on her cigarette and continued to speak, a low fog of smoke spilling out over her lip as she did. "If you go and eat that chicken before its fully cooked, before all that nuclear stuff has done its thing. The radioactive chemicals get into you, get mixed up in your DNA. And then it gets passed on to your kids. Isn't that right Darold?"

Now standing before his father who was fidgeting with the punch, the boy gave Hessa a meek, silent look. She let a long slow report of laughter ring out throughout the restaurant, reverberating off the wooden crossbeams of the ceiling, and echoing against the windows.

I sat, quiet and tense. The hostess continued to giggle and now cough occasionally. The manager, his face red and visibly wet, concerned his effort toward unplugging bits of paper from the three hole punch. Darold, the boy, stood dumbly gawking, his acne-riddled face only half visible under his long greasy locks of black hair. A small wheezing of breath beinh his only acknowledgeable sign of life.

The chicken suddenly beeped and I nearly lept out of my seat. I laughed, realizing it was our food, and held my hand against my chest to still my racing heart. The man across from me was smiling again, his eyes alight in anticipation of tearing into the bird.

Even Darold, now, looked alive; lifted his head a little to regard the chicken, and licked at his lips. He smiled and reached his hand up to move his hair away from his face. I saw his eyes stare with the same intensity as his fathers, but I was taken aback by what looked like a huge, red pimple directly in the middle of his forehead. My heart dropped into my stomach as I realized, unmistakably, that it was a little red plastic button.

Bleek


My name is Bleek. This is not my real name, but I can no longer remember my real name, nor do I care to try.

Bleek is the name that all the people I know call me. I imagine they call me that because of the world that I live in.

I try to be happy but I cannot. People tell me what a wonderful time they are having, and ain't life grand? But I can't see it, I can't agree with them.

They speak of sunshine, but even now as I look through the broken glass windows of my rotting apartment, up toward the sky- I see no sunshine, but only buildings, smoke, and pigeons, and slow approaching storm clouds.

Where is this other world where everybody else lives? That is what I don't understand. If I can sit long enough to talk with anyone for a minute or two, it always feels like receiving a postcard from some mysterious paradise.

I creep my yellow skin into a t-shirt and shuffle out of the apartment.

At the staircase, the stairs begin to crumble. I hurry to catch steps before they break, slipping on splinters, cutting my feet wide open, a deep suck of breath and I fall over dizzy, hitting my head against the floor.

I cry out, my face throbbing against linoleum.

"Oh, Bleek, you poor thing", it is Mrs. Porter, my downstairs neighbor. "What happened to you now?"

She has already dropped her purse and is struggling to get me to my feet. "How are you such a clumsy, clumsy man?" she asks, looking at my face with a worried smile once I am upright again.

"The stairs broke", I try to explain, "I cut my feet."

She looks down at my legs which are bloodied, I see now, too, that I have lost a shoe somehow, and my foot is scratched and gorged, red and disgusting.

"We best get you to the hospital", Mrs. Porter says to me, and ushers me toward the front door.

I slink outside with Mrs. Porter right behind, one arm around me to make sure I don't go down.

As soon as we get outside, it begins raining. Loud claps of thunder rumble toward us. I stand still for a moment, watching traces of lightening on the horizon. Feeling the heavy beads of water as they begin there assault on my body.

"Mr. Bleek", starts Mrs. Porter with that familiar amazement in her voice, "You seem to be completely wet!"

She looks around, and then up toward the sky, toward the windows of all the apartments around us. I look up too, and can just see the cloud, and I can tell that it is out of her range of vision. By now I can safely assume this anyway.

Mrs. Porter shakes her head in astonishment, regarding my soaking body. "Must have been some fool upstairs throwing a bucket of water on you, I suppose."

"No", I shake my head slowly, "It's just the world I live in."

Glass House

part 1: My Bodyguard, My Love

Here at the inlet, where the jungle river gives way to the lake, the water turns almost to mud. We pedal the boat under the canopy of trees and wildlife, pushing the oar through what seems to be blackened oatmeal.

The sky is a still, dense grey and it always seems too quiet out here. Nothing lives in these waters. Well almost nothing.

Its a continuous struggle to pull the boat thru the thick brack, but the closer we get to the little island in the middle, the more anxious we grow to get out of this boat, this haunted awful lake.

The island is a skeleton of rotting a wood, the remains of an ancient oil derrick. The wood has become smoke colored and slimy from the fog that rises from the lake. Everything is slippery, and the higher you climb, the slippery it gets.

We tie the boat to one of the four main posts, climb across a makeshift stair case that used to be a ladder, and set upward along the skeletal remains of this old wooded structure. This is where I have built my glass house.

This is where she came to me as a martial arts expert, a ninja you might even say.

I was roaming along the inner hallway, around and around the pillar of televisions, each of them tuned to a different station. I don't know what I was looking for, I think I may have been afraid to leave the house and confront that black awful lake. A few times that I had tried to go out, I had slipped on some of the more precarious limbs of the oil derrick. I slid until at the last moment I could grab onto something, but found myself teetering over the water, hanging on for life. Looking directly down I could see it bubbling under the surface, just waiting for me to fall.

So I roamed, stuck. Around and around with a pad of paper in hand to jot anything down, and a list of things I had to do.

The televisions, all wrapped around the middle of the house, began to synchronize. It happened slowly and it took a while before I really noticed. They weren't all playing the same show on each set individually, but one continuous program that wrapped around and flowed from set to set. I walked slower, noticing how the broadcast seemed to evolve with my movement. I knew which show it was going to be.

I turned paced around the sets, the background became a landscape of grass and hills, and then there it was.

The small purple rodent-like incarnation of the one supreme being of the universe. It emerged from under some of the bush, quietly and almost imperceptible at first. I was standing still now, watching as it crept out sleepily and started to sing its sad, sad song.

Long strained notes, lilting, yearning and nearly silent. The beings eyes rolled heavy in its head, as its body began to transform. Its outline began to appear a glowing, rainbow of neon as the being became cartoon like, and then appearing to shed its entire skin, exposing a new shimmering skin underneath. It continued to transpose and metamorphasize as the song grew in volume. Ever sadder and yearning. The background around the being blurred and stuttered in flash cut animation. I stood before the vision with my arms reaching toward it, hands up turned catching tears in my palms. I realized I was crying.

From elsewhere in the house, there is a crashing sound. The vision suddenly stops, all the televisions are showing separate programs again. I compose myself and set off in the direction of the crash.

In one of the side rooms, she is standing there, looking excited yet pensive. Smiling, but hopping from foot to foot, arms in a readied stance. Like she was eager to see me, but ready to attack if need be.

"Hi", she said, still hopping. "I noticed how easily someone could break in here."

I look at her, perplexed and dumbfounded. I survey the room, the floor is littered with broken glass and for some reason- pills and pill containers. Odd. I wonder about this for a few seconds, distracted momentarily away from the girl.

"You should keep me around," she draws herself back to my attention. I notice the radiance of her face, a brilliant joy under the short, bobbing back hair. Her eyes dark but kind. "I could keep you safe here. You might need some protection."

My bodyguard, my love.

She relaxes her stance. "I saw you watching the small purple being. Im sorry I interrupted it. Have you seen it often?"

"No", I reply, shaking my head. "And I think that was the first time I've seen the beginning of its song"

"Its so beautiful," she seems to speak from far away now,"I wish I could hear the whole story. I seem to only catch it im glimpses."

"I have some of it." I tell her. I cross the room to a glass doored cabinet, inside are stacks and piles of video tapes and discs and various sorts of recordable media. I rummage through a bit, glance at a label here and there, trying to discern the contents. "Its so hard to capture, its seems almost endless, ever changing".

"We should go to a party", she says to me suddenly, "There is a band playing on the other side of the oil rig."

We decide it safer to cross by boat than to try to navigate the terrain of the ancient structure, with its cat walk of planks, and sea-sawing beams, dead and decaying at certain parts, sure to crumble under foot, or lichen covered and impossible to grasp at others.

On the opposite side of the derrick was a platform, I believe it was once a dock for ships. It was mostly intact and was beginning to fill with people.

There was a large boat on the lake, just far enough away from the platform to discourage people from trying to swim to it. On board, a band was setting up equipment and trying to get a sound check.

Above the platform, the gigantic wooden statue of an oil rig rose high to where it became obscured in the clouds. It seemed almost living, a grotesque and mangled organism which sprouted random limbs, blackened dead wood jutting out here and there, rising in the sky.

Some of the branches seemed to reach out over the lake, almost over the boat and the band. As the first notes began to crystallize into music, and the sound check slowly gave way, grew into a song, a few excited fans were trying their luck, inching precariously along some of the farther reaching branches in an attempt to get closer to the band.

A few of the less fortunate would lose their grips, or find themselves clutching to a weak branch which would suddenly snap. They hurtle down toward the water and hit its surface like fruit striking the black oatmeal. Boats were positioned adjacent to the party, scurrying about to gather these poor souls from the lake and whisk them back to the platform. After one fall, they would stay put in the safety of the crowd. No one wanting to be alone on the lake for very long.

We stood there, she and I, and listened to the band for a while. It was not so much a song they were playing, but a sort of growing cacophony, gaining momentum and volume as layer after layer of sound was added on to the mix.

"Let's try for a better view", she said to me.

She motioned to a tower next to us, sprouting out of the water and rising high up into the air. It looked like a haphazard totem pole. Blocks and planks of wood placed one on top of another. We began to climb. As we got higher up, the whole tower began to sway, I was beginning to get nervous, but followed diligently in the footsteps of my bodyguard.

Each step of the ascent became more delicate. The tower was stacked like a cup on a saucer on a cup on a saucer etc, etc... On its own, it stood reasonably stable, but to try to grab a hold of a portion above was to risk pulling the whole structure down.

Eventually we reached a height where we could jump easily from the tower to a sort of look out deck that still remained intact, part of the ancient oil derrick.

We stood up there alone for a while, away from the crowd and most of the noise, the sound of the band swept up with the fog rising from the lake, here it thickened and prepared to join rank with the clouds just above. We sat overlooking the band, the oil rig and all the people below, the lake and the land beyond on the horizon. It was a magic moment, swaying in the wind, embracing our souls together. We said very little, just taking it all in and enjoying each others presence.

After a bit we decided we should get back down.

She leapt from the little deck to the tower without causing too much of a stir. My heart, however, was beating a mile a minute. I had forgotten how high up we were and how scared of heights I was. I trembled and froze.

I tried to reach out to the tower, touching it for a minute with my foot, sending it wildly out veering dangerously in the wind. I quickly recoursed back to the safety of the deck.

"You stay here", she said, "I will go for help". And she nimbly descended the fragile tower.

Seeing her disappear below me, my fear of heights was over come by a dread of being alone, of losing her.

I leapt from the deck to the tower, trying to scramble down to catch her. I fumbled and lost my footing, and suddenly the whole structure was leaning again, tilting, veering violently out above the back water. I dug my nails as deep into the rotten wood as I could for fear of falling. But the tower jerked once more, violently, and I lost my grip.

The wind swept me up as the tower slipped away, my hands waving and clutching in vain. I was falling, plummeting quickly toward the water. I cringed in utter fear now, helplessly watching as the black awful lake rose up to meet me.

Time


There is something urgent we all must address before we proceed any further as a civilized species. It's the matter of Time.

I realized it had become out of hand the other night when i was in the middle of downloading a new exercise program. I found the proper file //:sit_and_slim.exe and clicked on it. The little download progress bar appeared and started to determine how long this was going to take. And the estimate always fluctuates when you first start it up, doesn't it? Kind of like an old Chevy; start it up and the gas gauge shoots to full, you have to wait a few moments to get any sort of realistic reading.

So the digital needle shoots from 18kb per second, up to 512 and back down a few times before settling. Estimated download time; five minutes thirty five seconds.

Now this is where i take issue.

Once it seems that the download (or whatever I have the computer do that is involved enough to warrant a progress bar) has settled into a nice pace and can give me a level reading of how much time it will consume, I try to plan the next several bits of my life accordingly. And I try to base my plans on the estimated time allotted.

Time has never been an easy thing for mankind to judge. I say judge instead of measure because I do not believe it to be a simple mathematical science, and in no way exact; everyone can understand the theory of relative time when its explained in the 'an hour with a pretty girl is shorter than ten minutes with a boring book' metaphor; there is also the idea that time slows down as one travels at rates approaching the speed of light; there are also those who believe that time is curved, or even that it actually moves backwards.

So given the complexity of the situation and the widely varied beliefs about time, I think it is commendable that we have found a relatively reliable way to measure the passage of communal events. I think its also particularly intriguing that even in the days before computers, electric light, even telescopes or sophisticated math systems, we- as a whole- have been able to determine that our little planet takes roughly 365 days to circle once around the sun.

By now, with advanced technology, we have determined the exact increment. We have made checks to previous theories, correcting our calendars and clocks as we learn more. The science of judging time has become so precise, that 'one second' is now defined as: The time needed for a cesium-133 atom to perform 9,192,631,770 complete oscillations.

Yet, invariably I come back to my computer exactly five minutes and thirty five seconds later and the progress bar reads 'estimated time to complete: 2 minutes 08 seconds'.

It's not my computer or my Internet connection. My computer is a hybrid of sorts; the processor is made of a highly sophisticated silica-like fungus which feeds on electrical impulses and reproduces quickly to meet my computing needs. For quicker Internet access i have a miniature sub-atomic particle accelerator buried under the house wired into a quantum-optic monster-cable; meaning that I am able to download the next 'star wars' movie even before it is filmed, as long as its not foggy out.

Besides, if it were my computer, the progress bar ideally would be able to take this into consideration. 'Not running up to speed today, expect delays' or some such thing. The computer should be able to see how badly it has estimated in the past and adjust accordingly.

But quite the contrary, I have found myself making such adjustments. After a couple weeks of arriving back at the computer early- only to see I still had minutes to wait for my downloads, or installs, or saves- I started mentally recalculating the times in my head. "Progress bar says ten minutes, I'll come back in fifteen".

One should not have to do this sort of math in ones head. Not with a computer sitting in front of oneself in broad daylight to see. Wasn't the computer invented to alleviate us from such complex mental processes? Isn't this the reason I have allowed it into my house? To do such work for me, instead of creating further headaches?

This frustration is only exacerbated by the fact that when I return to the computer after the adjusted alottment of time, the progress bar still reads "estimated time to complete: 1 minute 58 seconds".

Now I begin to feel this inaccuracy is intentional. More than my previous feeling akin to 'a watched pot never boils', I now think that this is being done on purpose.

It reminds me of alot of professional sports where play is based on a clock. The initial fifty eight minutes of a pro basketball game proceed much like any other fifty eight minutes, but those last two minutes can go on forever- and the bigger the game, the longer they seem to last. And I am not talking about relative time or the sensation that time seems to slow down in moments of extreme excitement. I am talking about the very real fact that I can stand up from the television when the two minute warning clock pops up- I can make a sandwich and a cup of coffee smoke a pack of cigarettes download the latest fitness craze (weather permitting) excavate ancient ruins buried miles under my backyard and translate the fragments of writing found there-in and then return to the television- and there is still a minute thirty left in the game.

Who is behind this and why is this allowed to happen? Is it professional sports? The broadcasters? Or possibly the advertisers? This last thought seems the most plausible, as I return to check my download and see the progress bar surrounded by desperate ads all urging me to click on them.

Whatever the cause of this, I think it must be stopped. We have spent far too many thousands upon thousands of years getting to this point where we can describe so precisely the passage of time, only to let it be manipulated by outside forces with ulterior motives.

It makes me question how many of our senses, perceptions, devices and beliefs are fiddled with or altered to fit someone else's agenda. How much of the information we recieve- beyond being filtered by our own perceptual constructs- is corrupted before it even reaches us?

Or possibly, is our collective perception just simply that faulty? Instead of hinting at some sinister force deliberately misrepresenting measurements of time, is this actually showing of our ineptitude and the inherent flaws in mans attempts to describe the phenomenon which surround him? I imagine a galactic progress bar, which measures mans reach for enlightenment, and most surely reads, "one minutes twenty three seconds to go; evolution nearly complete".

Taxiderm


Chaz Werbenverber was the Taxidermist Laureate. The position had been created
by the previous president, who had made himself famous with the number of
varying pets he kept. Eventually, an executive position had to be created to
deal with the eventual inevitability of dead animals that had to be dealt with,
otherwise they pile up around the white house lawn. So Chaz had been appointed
to stuff the presidents ex- pets.

The problem came about, though, with the new president. He kept no pets, so
Chaz took to stuffing any animal that happened to die around the white house,
birds and squirrels and such. Eventually saving any sort of road-kill,
out-of-its-misery, or ran-into-a-window within a mile of Pennsylvania Avenue.
When he was mapping out a route to collect every animal that would die within
the limits of the city proper, he knew it was time to move on.

With a small suitcase in hand, Chaz Werbenverber locked the door to his
office. He walked along the hall of the west wing, passed the vast collection
of his own work, which was beginning to clutter the entire White House by now.
Each animal held a special feeling in him, and they seemed to well up together
all at once as he passed his animals now for the last time. Not a memory of the
animals life, or an appreciation of the exquisite job that he had done in
preserving them for an eternity, but just the memory of the time that Chaz had
spent with each one. In that way alone, he felt as if he really had come to
know each and every one of them.

Stuffed cats and dogs, families of mice along the floor posed in natural
looking scenarios. Little fake holes painted along the trim, one little mouse
frozen half pounced, glasses eyes focused on a block of fake cheese. The
presidential mansion was becoming a museum. Most of the statues had birds
perched on their arms or shoulders, or if sitting, a dog on their laps.

He passed quickly through the lobby and security, handing in his I.D. and
White House badge. Once outside, Chaz was met by Arlo McAuschventierrez, the
Secretary of Health.

"Well I guess this is it, Mr. Secretary." Chaz said without fanfare.

Taking a long drag from an almost completely smoked cigarette, Arlo regarded
the Taxidermist. "What are you gonna do, Chaz?" he finally asked.

Chaz just shook his head, staring at the floor now. Tapping one finger against
the handle of his suitcase in a slow, nervous rhythm.

"Know what would be funny?" Arlo asked, the hard lines of his face straining
together to form an ill smile.

Chaz Werbenverber looked long at the Secretary of Health, the old crazy man,
as he lit up another cigarette. "What?"

"It'd be funny," Arlo McAuschventierrez started, speaking through one half of
his mouth as he sucked in smoke with the other, "If you just went down on to
the lawn by that tree over there. The one where you put Norble, the presidents
-ahem- ex-horse. And you just stood there unsure of what to do. And then you
cut off your foot, stuff it, put it down in front of the horse, and then go
home."

Chaz looked at the satisfied look on Arlo's face. "And then go home?"

"Well, wobble home I guess," the secretary went on, "But then you come back
the next day, and cut off your other foot, and stuff it. And then you go up
your legs, day by day, until you cut off your torso, your chest, your shoulders
and then arms-

"Cut off my own arms?" Chaz interrupted, irritated by the direction of the
conversation.

"Yes, but one at a time," Arlo explained, "Eventually, only your head would be
left. With your stuffed limbs you would attach it to the stuffed body. Like a
scarecrow with a mans head. And then you'd climb on top off that stuffed horse,
Norble there, and he would come alive. And you would ride him off into the
sunset."

"Or, I'd go back in there, "Chaz gestured toward the White House, "And bring
all those stuffed animals to life. They could be my army."

Arlo McAuschventierrez frowned, obviously more pleased with his own ending of
the story. "Well, keep in touch, Chaz. We'll miss you around here."

"Call me when the president gets some goldfish." Chaz said, shaking hands with
Arlo, and then going home. Standing by the stuffed horse, Norble, for only a
brief, final moment.

#

Once he got home, Chaz sat at the kitchen table. For nearly three days he did
not move. He just sat there in the chair closest to the fridge, staring down at
the floor, drinking an endless number of beers.

His wife Edgnus would come into the room, arms folded. "What are you going to
do, Chaz? Die in that chair?".

He would just nod his head slowly without lifting his eyes to hers. She stood
and fumed for a minute before turning hautily back toward the living room. "I
can't take this anymore!" she cried, arms waving furious.

One night in a fit of despair, Chaz attempted to stuff some wood-chips and
feathers into the garbage disposal, imagining that it might somehow give some
release to his tension, his anxiety. He was standing there stupidly in the dark
with the bathroom plunger, up to his elbows in the soaking, stinking sink, when
Edgnus flipped on the kitchen light.

"What the hell are you doing?" her face showing more fear than anger. She
looked upon the mess he was in with utter incomprehension.

"I just need to stuff something!" Chaz shouted out, frustrated.

"Well then go into porn." his wife replied with a scowl.

Just then there was a bumping noise from the living room, a loud thud. Chaz
disengaged his hands from the pasty mess that was clogging the drain and
followed Edgnus. They both stood in front of the large bay window in the living
room, staring out at the dark night. His wife edged nearer to the window,
peering down into the little space between the house and bushes.

"Chaz," she whispered with a finger pointed and eyes lit bright, "Come, look."
He rushed to her side, following her finger passed the glass to the little
patch of dirt just beyond the window. A small bird lay there. "He must have hit
the window," Chaz floundered nervously with the guilt of having an innocent
creature kill itself against his house, and- excitement, "What should we do
with it?"

Edgus took Chaz's hand, smiling warmly at him. "You know what you have to do,"
she said.

So he began almost immediately. A driven man once again, Chaz spent the next
several days preparing the bird. Edgnus could see once again in his eyes a
burning of life. He worked almost incessantly for those days and nights, but
laboriously, he did not rush. He put every ounce of energy into the
preservation of the bird, and in return the bird retired its soul to him.


#

Derek Tangent knocked upon the door. He turned to his companions, saying "Just
let me do the talking here."

A woman opened the door. "Can I help you?" she said.

"Mrs. Werbenverber," Derek said, "I am Officer Tangent. This is Mr. and Mrs.
Oglesby. We would like to come in and talk about that stuffed dog on your lawn."
Edgnus invited the three of them in. They entered the house, gazing around to
find a stuffed bird, a squirrel and a few other animals posed about the living
room.

"My husband is a taxidermist," Edgnus commented, seeing there reaction, "He
was the Taxidermist Laureate at one time. Chaz!" she called out for her husband
now, "There are some people here, honey."

Once Chaz entered the room and was introduced to everyone, Officer Tangent
opened his notepad and explained, "You see, Mr. and Mrs. Oglesby reported
losing there dog, Hampshire, a yellow lab. That was two weeks ago. Hampshire
was not the type to run away, he was getting up in the years-

"He had a limp in his front, right leg." Chaz interrupted.

"You stole our dog?" cried Mrs. Oglesby, ripping a tissue from her pocket to
dab at the tears that were starting to spill.

"No, no, no," Edgnus reached over to console Mrs. Oglesby, "It was about a
week ago and we heard a scratching at the back door. When I opened it, a dog- I
didn't know it was your dog- but he just walked in and sat down at my husbands
feet. And then he-" she cut herself off.

"So you're saying," the officer recalled, trying to make sense of the story,
"That their dog, limping and all, trotted in here and died at your husbands
feet so that he could stuff him?"

Edgnus and Chaz Werbenverber sat looking at the police officer and the other
couple. They saw on their faces the need for more explanation, the Oglesby's
needed to know what happened to their dog, and Derek Tangent needed to know if
the law had been broken. But they had nothing else to offer in the way of
answers, Edgnus gave them a sheepish shrug.

There was a slow, quiet knock at the door, like knuckles dragging against
wood. Edgnus rose to answer the door. She opened it and was met by an
orangutan, standing there and staring in at them.

The monkey looked around the room from human to human until it caught view of
Chaz. With a start, it ran over and jumped into his lap.

"What is going on here?" Officer Tangent asked, glancing back and forth from
Edgnus to Chaz to the monkey now curled up in a fetal ball.

"We've never seen this animal in our lives," Edgnus said, the emotion in her
voice imploring them to believe her, "This just keeps happening. They keep
coming here. To my husband, to die."

Chaz nodded his head, Edgnus was telling the truth.

Derek Tangent, shaking his head in bemusement, took out his police radio.
"This is Officer Tangent, I'm at the Werbenverber residence," he spoke into it,
"This is going to sound crazy. But do guys have any reports of missing
Orangutans?"

After a moment, a spurt of static rang back through the radio. "Officer
Tangent, there was a call from the City Zoo just now about an Orangutan that
disappeared from the infirmary. They think it was kidnaped, I guess it was too
sick to escape on its own."

"When was the last time they saw the monkey?" the officer asked.
"About fifteen minutes ago." the answer came back.

"We've been here twenty minutes," Derek commented, thinking aloud, tapping the
antennae of the radio against his lower lip, "They couldn't have taken him."

"Officer, why do you ask?" the radio sputtered, "What is going on there?"

Derek Tangent clicked off the radio, staring off into the distance, trying to
piece together the puzzle in his head. He looked then at Chaz, who was now
petting the monkey softly.

Meeting his eyes with the officers, Chaz said "He's dead."

At that exact moment, off the shores of New England, an old Blue Whale was
preparing to die. It knew it was old and that its life was nearly over. It new
instinctively that it was to emerge itself out of the ocean, up on the sand.
And it knew, somewhere deep within its bones, that it must beach itself farther
up on the shore than any whale had ever gone before.


(C)2002 Robert E McWhorter

World Intervention Week


With deadline fast approaching, Elvis Grubecheck was beyond stressed. Ten televisions behind him whipped ten separate images at him, all sped up motion. The high-pitched sound track, sounding like a mad overlapping of chipmunk conversations, filled the room as well as Elvis' mind, making him more frantic. Assistants and staff lurking and scurrying in the shadows, the phones on his desk were ringing and beeping at him, and his computer even now too was flashing with a half dozen imminent matters, over each of which he held a distinct and individual sense of dread. And all of this before lunch.
He rang down to the receptionist. "Mr Grubecheck", she began speaking as soon as she picked up the call, "Please tell me that I can send in these guys from the Local Business Interest in, they've been in here almost an hour sir." Lowering her voice to a whisper, the receptionist then added, "Frankly, they're starting to stink up the showroom."

"Rosa, have you seen the lunch guy?" Elvis asked her, stressing each word to instill the importance he placed on eating right now.

"Oh yeah, he's on his way up", she replied aloof with contempt in her voice, "I was just thinking that since you're seeing people now, you might pick up one of these phones that have been waiting so patiently to talk to you".

There was a knock at the door, Elvis pressed a button and the door opened slightly. The lunch guy pushed his way quietly into the noisy office.

Rosa the receptionists voice still cut through the din of electronic media and alarms, a finely honed inflection and pitch specifically trained for this purpose, piped into Elvis over the office intercom, "This lawyer from Pepsi has been trying to reach you since this morning. He's called back six times after waiting each time as long as he possibly could. And then there are the people from MTV, they are very insistent that they speak to you before we air. I was just thinking that since you're taking a break,

"Im eating", Elvis interrupted her as soon as he found a chance, with his hand gesturing the delivery boy to his desk, "Tell them all to call back in an hour."

He tapped the button on the desk disconnecting his office from her, and regarded the man standing there, in the red and blue deliver jacket and holding a paper bag in his arm, gazing about the office in utter awe, completely overwhelmed.

"I've never been in a television studio before", the lunch guy said once he realized he had Mr. Grubecheck attention, "This is all pretty cool."

"This is hell, kid," Elvis replied dead-pan, "How much do I owe you?".

"Hell?" The lunch guy cracked a surprised smile, and handed the bag of food into Elvis' expectant hands, "I couldn't help over hearing your secretary, you get to talk to people from Pepsi, and MTV! I cant imagine that to hell."

"First of all she's not my secretary, she works for the station, she hates me." Elvis stated as he reached into his back pocket for his wallet. He felt no obligation to explain matters to kid, but was simply exhausted from ever working and isolated and in need to some verbal release, even if it was only venting the desperation of his situation to a restaurant delivery boy. "Second of all, the guy from Pepsi is a lawyer. It seems one of the local trees was near a garbage can, and in the background of the photo you can see a discarded Pepsi can on the ground, and if it is seen on the air tonight in the course of our programming they are going to sue me for millions."

"The guys from MTV", Elvis continued, not noticing that his stressed and angry gaze was slightly unnerving the boy, and that the more he ranted the more scared the boy became. "We have an hour long interview with a scientist from the local arboretum, it was shot in front of a rare Unverschamter tree, of which there is the only one in the western hemisphere. That particular tree has an abnormal knot that at a certain angle resembles the MTV logo, and they are quite adamant that if I want to show that interview in front of a Unverschamter , that I had better shoot it in Africa."

Elvis stood silent for a minute, seeing the glazed over look on the lunch guys face, who was unsure of how or if he should react.

"Aah, I never wanted any of this," Elvis resigned as he plopped himself down in the large control chair. "All I wanted was to save a few of the trees on my block, and in the neighborhood. A few of us got together a community ecology club, just trying to raise awareness really and maybe save a few of this towns quickly vanishing trees while we're at it. We've had over fifty species that used to be predominant in these hills completely disappear from this state in the last twenty years. Did you know that?"

The boy, still standing, shook his head quick and short.

"Anyway," Elvis continued, waving his arm in the air for emphasis, "Somehow as we got bigger, we got involved with this big nationwide ecological-political front; honestly, they flashed allot of cash around and we were taken. They promised us national exposure and lobby power in congress. We had our day in court, and somehow when all the smoke cleared, our town was left with this." Elvis waved around at the television equipment around him, still talking away to itself and beeping and whirring.

The delivery guy looked around for a few seconds, and then very carefully started, "Well, television is a great...

"They're still cutting down our trees." Elvis shouted, now, banging an open palm against his desk, "All we wanted was to protect a couple trees, and instead we half a court mandated week of television overriding all the local networks once a year. World Intervention Week, in which to teach the town about environmentalism. For one full week a year, one hundred and seventy two hours of quality ecology television programming, whether you like it or not. We're on every station."

"Well, okay", the delivery guy conceded. "I can see how that might not-

"I walked out of here last year after a week of trees, and tree talk, and movies with trees in them, and more interviews with trees- I walked out of here last year and have had my life threatened every damn day since. 'I better not have to sit thru another week of tree tv, I know where you live'".

Elvis Grubecheck was visibly shaken and sweating now. He wiped at his head with a sleeve, and tried to control his nearly hyper ventilating breath.

The lunch delivery guy reached into his coat and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He wrapped his lips around a smoke and pulled it from the pack, then offered the pack to Elvis, "What if I told you I could make it all go away?"

Elvis accepted a cigarette and paused. Eager for a solution, but also very skeptical, he asked "What do you mean?"

"I can change the past", the delivery guy stated very matter-of-factly, lighting his smoke and taking in a long drag, "I can redirect certain situations in history to make it so that you never got tied up in this mess."

"I am standing up to my neck in shit as it is, I do not need for you to come in here and insult my intelligence-

"Not at all." With a wave of his hand, the delivery guy interrupted, "I can prove it, I completely abide by the Pennsylvania State Time Continuum Code."

Elvis retorted, disgustedly, "Thats a stupid piece of beurocratic red tape that likens Day Light Savings Time to witchcraft or sorcery".

"I am speaking of the second part of the Code," the lunch boy continued, calm and poised now, "What they aptly call the Phil Dick clause: Any claims made by people to be able to either travel in time or change past occurances must, to be legitimately verified either way, must be challenged to the death. Only in this extreme trial can the validity of the claim be completely proven or denied. If the person making the claim allows himself to be killed; then he was surely bluffing, and hence was unable to affect time to even save himself- if he remains alive; he is and has the ability to tamper with the past. In any other attempt to demonstrate such phenomenal abilities, the claimant will be unable to completely convince any one of his abilities, as well as any spectator being unable to be completely free himself from doubt."

Elvis Grubecheck eyed the man, letting rings of lazy smoke fall from his mouth and climb up his face. Wondering to himself if he had snapped, if he was having some sort of psychotic hallunication, or was this really happening. Was this delivery boy really saying what he seemed to be saying, about to challenge Elvis to try to kill him.

"Before I came in to your office," the lunch man continued, again "I placed a nine millimeter hand gun on the little vestibule out in the hall. I knew coming in here where the sequence of events was headed, I knew you would confess some dire situation to me and that I would tell you of my gift. And I knew you would not believe me. So being a who believes in the law-

"That is not a law", Elvis muttered, getting up from behind his desk and heading toward the door, "It is license to shoot crazy people."

He went out of the office, and directly toward the little vestibule opposite the doorway. He wondered to himself how a man snaps like that, wakes up one day with the illusion that he could alter time, a delusion for which he is willing to die.

Opening the little drawer at the top, Elvis found the gun. As soon as he touched it, a jolt of adrenaline shot up his spine. Gripping its weight in his hands, he felt an odd power. I am going to kill that crazy bastard, the thought filled his head with an ugly sense of satisfaction. It may be the release I get to feel today.

Barging now back into the office, Elvis challenged the lunch man, "Why don't you go back in time and make it so trees never existed?"

"I could", the man offered calmly, "But the really sad part would be that you would never know they existed in the first place. You wouldn't even know to miss them."

Elvis sat back at his desk, aiming the gun across the desk at the delivery boy, but finding his arm to be impossible to steady now. "I don't know what kind of sick you are," he started on the boy, "But you really picked the wrong day to go crazy and come in here and unleash it on me. I have to be on the air in less than three hours and you come in here and insult my intelligence and eat up my time with this load of nonsense? Well, I'm not sorry for what I'm about to do, you've brought it on yourself."

Elvis pulled the tab back, and the contents of the can spat and fizzled out, splashing his face and wetting his desk. He tossed the still overflowing soda can into the waste basket by the side of his desk and went searching for paper towels. A strange chill swept through his body for a moment.

"Are you convinced, then?" the delivery boy asked.

Elvis stopped. "Are you still on that nonsense?" he demanded.

"Why did you just get up and leave your office a minute ago?"

"I told you, I was thirsty. I asked if you wanted a drink." Elvis recalled to the boy, but then he remembered going to the vestibule and grabbing a soda, and as he touched the can, he recalled that for an instant he was sure he was going to walk back into his office and kill the lunch guy with it. He shook his head in attempt to make his thoughts fall in proper order in his head, and sat himself back down behind his desk.

The lunch guy still sat there, looking expectantly at Elvis. So Elvis reflexively reached into his wallet to pay the man. Handing him the amount on the bill he said, "Look, whatever you are offering I don't want any part of it, if it is real or not. I am incredibly busy here, and I need to be left alone."

"No tip, then?" the delivery guy asked, counting the cash.

"Just get out." Elvis said, not looking again at his face, but trying to dive back into the mess around him. The week long television program he was legal binded to produce. The unending phone calls and alarms, the rat race of compiling a weeks worth of footage and all the technical difficulties related to it.

As the door closed behind the delivery guy, Elvis Grubecheck felt cold again, rush for an instant against his face. With it, an instant of memory of some nostalgic scent that he couldn't place in his mind. Like de ja vue, it left him out of sorts for a second.

He began flipping through his production notes, to reestablish his mind to the work ahead of him. As he read he came across a huge matter which had somehow eluded to him to this point. Occurring in almost every aspect of the show was this word, this item, which Elvis could not identify. It appeared to play a very pivotal part in the television program he was about to produce, but he had no idea for the life of him what it actually was.

He rang down receptionist, "Rosa, what the hell is a tree?"

"Never heard of it Mr Grubecheck", she replied in her condescending manner, "Now if you want to talk about the people here waiting to see you...

"T. R. E. E.", he spelled it out to her, this word that was riddled thru-out his notes.

"Would you like me to ask the people waiting to talk to you if they have ever heard of this tree thing?", she raised her voice at him now.

"Yes," he replied, "Do that." And disconnected the call.

Somehow he doubted that any of them would.

Elvis Grubecheck stood up from his desk and went over to his office window. Something has happened here today, he thought, although he could not for the life of him figure out what. Something to do with that crazy delivery guy, I better make sure we don't order from there again.

He gripped his production notes in his hand, a two thousand page document that he had just realized is mostly meaningless to him. How am I going to produce a week long uninterrupted show about something that I, and can almost assuredly say anyone else, has heard of. His heart skipped into a panicked beat. How could he miss something so glaring until now, when he was only two hours to show time.

He peered out his window, Passed the buildings of his small city, passed the brown sand of the surrounding hills, and off toward the flat yellow and gold deserts of North America. Wondering what to do, who could he call? Something in his bones told him that he could look for years and never find a human being who had ever heard of this thing, the tree.