None of his numbers is finished. The test firings are about to start, but he still hasn’t run the numbers, which he’s been needing to run even though he’s already run the numbers before. But those numbers and years ago were at a different scale, so now that his design is nearing what it was meant to be, he needs to run the numbers again. But he’s been so distracted by the noise of business: the meetings and travel and paperwork, the best he’s been able to manage are only soft estimates. Which even soft lead him to worry. Because he remembers his other numbers. He remembers and can’t believe his calculations. Something is very wrong — either in his estimates or his design. The numbers he’s getting are further off than he would have ever imagined. So he needs to run the numbers again. Once he’s run the numbers again he can tell which one is wrong: his estimates or his design. And once he learns which one is wrong he will know his place to start. And once he knows his place to start he can start to work out the details. Given the time. Which is the crux, the time, and from the beginning has always made the crux. Given the world. And his numbers aren’t the only things...

The diner is the church for America. Really — think about it. You put a diner in any landscape, the landscape becomes American. You put a diner in another country, it still looks American. You’re an American, you go to a diner — you know what? You feel at home.

She nods at this, this girl I’ve picked up; girl I think because she looks young enough to be maybe, although probably she isn’t; she’s probably thumbing her way back to a university (a coed; they don’t call it that anymore) but girl I think anyway, the age when I called them girls, about the age, give or take, of my own daughter.

She probably thinks I’m a crackpot now. She won’t look at me when I’m looking. The diner is the church for America — her eyes won’t meet my mine. She sits there, arms hugging a pack crammed nearly to spherical, watching the sun-struck landscape scroll by. She could probably stand to leave the car and might even ask, except where: we’re nowhere: there’s just us and the asphalt, the scrub through the distance, and, far off, the burnt, low hills. The temperature’s a century plus outside. I want to set her mind at ease.

“I’ve got a daughter about your age.”

“Yeah?  What’s her name?”

“Ursula.”

“Little bear.”

“Yeah. How did you know that?”

She looks rueful. “I took a spot of Latin once in high school...”

They said they would stop. But they said it wasn’t a threat. It was just a truth. They were being upfront. They claimed they were just being honest.

Rain gave us a date...

When he woke, both her eyelids were closed.  Her face was pillowed on her elbow.  Her skin was pale and banded in the moonlight bright through the seams between the trees.  Her breathing — sweet and easy.  Their rifle — flat on the ground.  Her arms were tucked in her sleeping bag, so neither of her hands was on it.

He lifted the rifle away to lay it soft on the pine needles behind him.  He watched her sleep in the moonlight, liberated from any presence in the ongoing world.  This was the hour of her watch...

Does Martha remember?  When she perches on her branch to lower the lids of her eyes, to surrender to the pall of sleep, does Martha dream?  Does she dream of elder days, of her once-national flocking, of her once-national air?  Does she dream herself en masse and aloft among other Marthas, herself a single throng amidst the thronging cloud?  (The same together — herself but every — all of them herself — me, we.)  When she dreams is she one word amid the epic?

1.
Assume

According to our own condition as the beings who we are, we must commit to the assumption that space aliens exist.  If we do not, there is nothing to consider and we lose much reason to explore (or even continue), given the universal loneliness that would ensue.  We must assume we are not the exception, the mutation, or the anomaly.  We must assume the possibility, however remote, of eventual contact.  We must assume, at last, hello.  Without such assumption, we would (and should) deem ourselves an iota unworthy in the universe...

Anton says, “Here is the story of my life.”

We stand the floor of the mall washed clear in the skylight’s sun. The tiled fountain centered below the atrium gurgles. Around it orbit shoppers. They revolve and flow, eying down to check their phones or up to check out wares.

I turn to Anton. “What is?”

He chins. “All this.” He spins and waves one palm at the sitters on the fountain’s edge, the surrounding marbled pillars, and the glass pyramid capping the ceiling of the mall. “The story of my life...”

Beach: springtime night. Waters rise, waters crumple. Sheeting landward, they sizzle wide, then sizzle back.

Barefoot in sand they run, crunching the dry, slapping the wet. Fire-lit — laughing chase. Abandoned when feet turn numb. Donned in shorts and jackets, they circle unfeeling below the ankles. Beers, freed from their cardboard, are cracked by the dozens. Empties are wasped and pitched to the flames. The lazing hours are moonlit and wee. Oceanside is the place, springtime the season...

Our orders of the marching kind were, Don’t. These were from on high — straight from the top. This was the word come down from above. We were beholden to this golden rule without exception or allowance. On this point no insolence would be brooked. This was the foot put down by our mother: Don’t ever let the owls out of the house...

Summer 1982 was the summer our father moved us to the cabin. Fancy camping, he called it as he unloaded our suitcases from the truck. The cabin in its entirety was only two cramped rooms with a ladder for the attic. The attic was for me and Collette, who pouted when she learned the brother-and-sister arrangement. In the main room was a beaten-down couch, a formica table, and a plywood counter. The plywood held our only cooking tool: a two-burner propane stove. Our sink was a drainless basin of speckled enamel. The cabin had no refrigerator — just our ice chest. And it had no electricity except a car battery, which we would jumper to turn on one bulb. Meaning that also absent was television. And this was what made the worst news to me...

I know it first thing when she asks it. Claire’s not going to believe.

And I’m right. Once I tell her I still don’t believe in God, she just stares. Then she says: But your being here now is nothing short of a miracle.

The nurse draws blood. She doesn’t have to pierce — the needle fits in the catheter in my wrist.

Claire goes on: Do you call what happened to you just luck?

I guess, I say. I’ll tell you which kind later.

Don’t say that, she says. It’s a miracle. An act of God...

To the Party a Madness has come which has afflicted every member of our Expedition minus one, myself. As to why this should be thus, & as to why I alone should be thus, is not for me to apprise or comprehend, nor for Men in general, but is only for Himself to know. But it seems I alone stand inoculated by our Creator from what Malady of Mind has gripped the remaining members of the Party. Perhaps it is only his Purpose to have an earthly recorder preside over such Madness so that those who follow may better judge whether to investigate our Interior. Nevertheless, I seem to have been declared His Instrument, blunt & flawed. So here commences the Plot of our Expedition as best I can relate it...

Ah, yes — this is the hour, this is the start. This is the instant he’s been waiting for: the moment of truth, of glory — here it is. The moment of suspension when everything except the grain of rice falls away and all that’s left are such fine angels that everything stops. Gravity unclenches its hold, electricity pools in its drooping wires, blood and oxygen still themselves at the glory.

And yes — Julian hunches before the television and dreams...

The agent is talking — and they all have agents now; not a landlord in the bunch, not anymore, those days are long past; everyone nowadays is a hired hand; hired help is the new fashion, among people who own at least; everything old is new again; the way things are, or are told to be — anyway, the agent is talking, but I’m not listening, no...

Summers — every summer. July to August, whenever it is she comes back to town that year, I see it: Andrea’s pain. Which it seems to me that others don’t see, or maybe don’t care to see. Or if they see, they just don’t seem to care. Although to be fair, her pain is a pain she either hides or wears with such an easy habit that maybe it’s just that everyone around her is unmindful. They might just be distracted by their summertimes of oblivion spent here along the coast. But to my eyes Andrea’s pain is unmistakable. Which pain I know is real because the pain is something we both hold in common. This is something we share: selfsame pain...

Thursdays made starry nights. Citywide. That was the rule. Which was in place a year. For over a year. Ever since the city got wise. Up until then, they used to trim the power by alternate streets or neighborhoods, but it wasn’t too long before people made a run on extension cords. That they then strung through the trees or taped across the streets. On some nights the power use spiked even more than before, even though no one knew how that was possible. So that year on Thursdays they just killed the power throughout the city. Midnight to midnight. Even the streetlights — people kept trying to tap them to power their TVs. Why Thursdays and not one of the other days they never told, but on Thursdays once the sun had set: genuine starry nights...

In older days. When he was younger. Not when he was young, but a younger man. Younger than today. Or not so old. What was he thinking? When he was younger...

Above him rises the whoosh. Which grows louder the nearer the distance. And then it peaks overhead, its electric sound muting the quieter clatter. Mallomar, mallomar, mallomar. Wasn’t that once a candy? And then the whoosh is past, descending, and pushing on. The train quietly tatters overhead, the sound of it fading as it retreats on its lifted track...

He shuts his eyes. Wasn’t he thinking of yellow jackets...?

The twins were of the brother-and-sister type, meaning they weren’t the other kind, the real kind, which they couldn’t be anyway since they were a boy and a girl — the Gaitner-Williamses, as they were called. Which they were never called by us, just to be clear: the Gaitner-Williamses was the name only the parentals ever used. Or if the parentals were talking lazy or cutesy-poo, the GWs, which to us was the same, what we didn’t say, since we never wanted to call them by name. To us they were always them or they, depending on the sentence we were hushing, which was how we always spoke about them when it was just us kids speaking among ourselves...

The man sleeps. This is what I say: the man sleeps. This is what I tell you. The man, he sleeps, he naps, he nods, he dozes, he slumbers, and yes — I will tell you, too: he wakes. After a time the man does wake. This is what I say: the man sleeps and then he wakes.

I want to be clear — when I say you, I do not mean the personal you. When I say you, the you who I mean is figurative. Meaning all of humanity — all of the world. Meaning both the universe at large and the universe at small. In other words, everyone and everything in between. The entire, royal you. And to the entire, royal you I say: the man lies asleep and then he wakes...

We pretended, didn’t we? Didn’t we pretend not to know each other at that café on Rue Trois Frères, where we traded bon jours and you kept yourself wary and guarded in the American fashion? And not like the French, aloof, or how I imagine the French would be, and didn’t we finally pretend to be surprised on learning we were both expatriates from the States? And I kept standing, didn’t I? Overcome by gentility, wasn’t I suddenly reserved and gentlemanly in the air of Paris?...

She’s no fool — they’re here for her. She can tell. She’s got the eye. She’s developed the vision. She’s learned through all of her years of living how to read the signs. And here’s how all the signs read: they’ve come for her, these two men. This she knows — this she can tell. The signs in the air, they point to her. She is the crux of their matter. It is she who’s the heart of their coming. It is she who makes the answer to their question. And the whole thing’s clear as crystal, how these two men stand at the door: everything obvious, everything pure, everything plain. Every sign sparkling: she makes the reason for them. And there’s nobody who can make any bones about that...

The crowd collects, unspeaking. In the swirling wind, they huddle and watch. They gather together to stare at the breakers and what the breakers have brought. What the breakers have rolled in with the tide rocks back and forth in the waves. It wears no top but is dressed in only a skirt. Which balloons in the swells and hikes in the surf before the waters drain. The head stops bobbing to settle and still, cheek-down, facing the ebb. Its skin carries a tinge of blue. Which might be a trick of the fog or the light. Or the eye or the mind. Or the word and the thought that follows...

Sometime in the meantime we lost all the trees. All, that is, except the angel’s trumpet. Which is the only one left. All the other trees: gone. The dirt they shaded is hollowed deep and churned. Meaning not only were the other trees cut, but the stumps of them were uprooted. Leaving holes behind where the trees themselves once stood.

(That the other trees had picked up blights or cankers was the word we’d heard. But neither of us could verify. It’s been so many years since either of us has made it home.)

We pull into the driveway. The concrete of it is cracked. Which I don’t remember, the cracks. I kill the engine but neither of us opens a door.

Ramona says, “Let’s not just yet. Let’s go get a drink first.”

I say, “I was thinking.” I crank the engine; as we back out, blinds part at the window...

The air is perfect and I creep. The time is night and every noise prickles. A whisker of wind wisps across my face — I creep another creep. Freeze. Smells tinge sharp and every sight before me keens. One more step, then another. I wait, my belly brushing against the earth. Soon. I hear its teeth, I smell its tail, I see its hunching. Now — no wait, not yet. One more half-step. The moment pends — I crouch. And then the moment springs to life, which is when I loft midair with the moment.

Pounce — the mouse does wriggle. The mouse squirts free and I pounce again. Now it’s pinned and I bite its neck — it hotly shudders and then it stills. The mouse lies dead. And lying dead, it sharpens the air. And not with death itself (which smells flatly dull) but with the smell of its own killing. Kills smell tart and I breathe the air to fill with killing’s tartness before the killing-tartness starts to fade...

When you wake, they ask you what day it is. You don’t know, so you say you don’t know. So they tell you the date. Then you go back to sleep. When you wake, they ask you again. You tell them you don’t remember. They tell you again, then they leave the room. You lie in the dark, you go back to sleep — you wake again, they come back in. They ask you again what today’s date is. You remember they said the 30th. So you guess the next day. Except you’re wrong — it’s still the 30th. Then you sleep again. Then you wake. Then again — what’s the date? Again you guess the 31st, again they say you’re wrong. Nothing has changed — time hasn’t advanced. But they leave you again and you go back to sleep. Then you wake. They come back in; what’s the date? It’s been so long, you guess the 1st. Wrong — time is frozen. Between wakings, every day and hour and minute has stilled. You go back to sleep. When you wake, they come back in. What’s the date?

“For crying out loud,” you say. “It’s not still the 30th, is it?”

The nurse smiles. “Nope,” she says. “Now it’s New Year’s Eve...”

To start with, everything was fine: Rob and Freya’s wedding, all of us friends at their reception, then our luscious night finished drinking tropical cocktails on the beach. With the lights of the Hilton shining on our backs and the lights of party boats out beyond the surf, all of us walked and drank from straws in coconuts topped with rum. And Gina was dressed in an island skirt that hugged her waist, and she was unsteady with her rum and the sand, and she leaned into me, and smiled, and said, “I want us to go back to our room.” So we did to the backdrop of beach fires, and steel drummers drumming on the beach, and lapping waves, and laughing friends, and half a moon white overhead...

It’s the safety of it that slips — it’s the safety of it that dreams. You never know what you’re talking about, especially to yourself. Champions fall. Whosoever told you that? And when? Wouldn’t you (and who wouldn’t) want pursuit of slumber then? Note to self: keep a log of each and every one of these occurrences. When the jury’s out, find yourself something more comfortable to wear. Vindaloo is deception — though, truthfully, what isn’t? What was the date when nobody said that books contain leaves? Stores are minded, as well as heads, as is anything bearing responsibility. Why is it only the firstborn who make up the currency here?...

When he was seven, he spun and spun in place until the dizziness made him nauseous. When he was nine, he dodged the sidewalk joints to protect his mother’s back. When he reached eleven, he slapped the side of his head until his vision turned fuzzy. When he reached thirteen, he said “Whatever,” whenever anyone asked him a question. When he turned fifteen, he stole from convenience stores: candy, magazines, and soda. When he turned seventeen, he pressed the pedal to the metal on wet and moonless nights...

“Wait — wait — wait.” Tanya runs. “Wait. Wait up.” Her shoes scrape and skid the concrete through the parking garage. “We can’t keep up with those giraffes of yours.” She runs, skidding on her toes. “When we’re normal. Let alone when we’re wearing high heels. Damn it, wait up!”

Kenny, his dress shoes clapping hollow across the concrete floor, keeps jogging the dim aisles between the parked cars.

Tanya chases. “Wait, all right? What are you in such a hurry for? Are we going to be late?”

“No, we’re early.” Kenny stops to grip her elbow.

“That’s what I thought. So why are we running?” Tanya pulls back on his arm.

Kenny tugs forward. “I have to see my family...”

The time glowed 3:15; it was dark; beneath my bedroom floor the garage door hummed, a car drove in, and the garage door hummed again. The engine cut — one car door opened; a second opened, too; both slammed shut; downstairs the door from the garage to the kitchen clicked unlocked. Shoesteps stepped the kitchen. The door from the garage clicked back locked. I heard a pair of shoesteps pad the hallway.

My mother’s voice said, “Just get yourself to bed. We’ll deal with you tomorrow. Once your father and I have had a chance to talk.”

Both bedroom doors clicked open and scraped the carpet. One shut again. From the room next to mine came the thumps of one, then another shoe thrown in the closet. Bare footsteps padded to the bathroom and faucet water gurgled down the sink. The footsteps came out again and padded to the bedroom, where the door clicked shut. A minute later came the tapping on my wall: three quick taps, then three slow. I tapped three quick on my side. SOS was our signal to talk...

It’s night to start. (Light flashes to night as the antennae skip their lines.)

Reality, puts a woman.

Mute faces of passengers ghost the windows. Slouchers and leaners — swayers and uprights — for-lifers-hanging-on. (That the count of the seats is not high enough for the riders is understood.)

Choose the black, not the red. Cards are tented longitude. The black you wanna choose, the red you gonna lose. A frayed crease bisects bicycles.

One ad overhead is torn in two; three boys turn their markers out. Standing to write their swoops and angles, underwriting across the ceiling.

Puts the woman: Reality...

Thin pines. Scraggle bark trunks and bottle brush needles, dark in darkened light. March of trunks up the rise. Still. Sky fades. Blue — everything. Haze barely seen. Resin in the air and needles down in batting. Snags up, hung with clustered cones. Hair, caught in the crooks and joints. Up close: mistletoe. Hot still. Low, quiet. Ferns in fresh, dim growth.

Prime hour of evening.

A trickle, creek, near. A peck peck peck woodpecker. Creak of wood and brush of needles, slow from the treetop breeze.

Buzz.

Crick.

Step. Step. Step.

Men — three. First leads, second trails, third swings between. Man ahead hoists arms, legs to the man behind...

The mosquitoes whirred something fierce, feathery and sharp, lighting on bare skin, the buzz of them battling the slap and flack of the pushing river. They clouded near, unseen; at their brush Ellen squinted, flailing them from her eyes and pushing her bottom lip to blow them off. As they hummed near in the twilight, Ellen clenched her eyes, shook her head, and waved her hands, frantic at least to ward them from her face. Her other skin she could surrender if they would stop attacking her face. She clawed them free of her eyelids and opened her eyes to barely slits.

By the light still left in the evening, she spotted the riffles, telltale, the roll of the water over the sawyer, and pointed straight off to her left. “Larboard,” she called. She slapped her neck, her cheek, her other cheek, fanned her face, pointed left once more. “Pa, larboard..!”

She doesn’t beg. Some of them beg, like on a movie—really terrible begging. Stupid, stupid pleading, sometimes. But she’s not that way. She keeps quiet kneeling there, right on the edge of crying. Biting her lip and not that old. The age of independence. It’s hard for him to say these days, but to his eyes she looks that age: the Age of Independence. It makes him want to protect her. Although he knows he won’t. He’s a man of the world and knows there’s no protection...