and takes us with her                 inevitably
                                       away from the light,           westward,
                        into the undertow and night of our species          —Robert Duncan

1

The soccer fields. They landed the Chinooks in the soccer fields. Men and women descended in pairs with burnished tarps. Once they reached the edges of the fields, we lost sight of them. The high-rises we squatted encircled the fields. We smoked holding cigarettes between third and fourth fingers. Some said we were the outlaws. They called themselves the Suffragists. It endeared them to some. We still didn't have guns. It was a problem. Our most effective message was the Calabash Campaign in which we distributed spring water when the spigots ran dry. No, we knew the whole history of altruism. R turned to me shivering once again.
     The semblance of faith was not difficult to account for. Three summers of winter solace. Alike in our forest-green parkas and maroon sneakers. The seas were like a faculty of mind, thinking of their promise. At night in the alleys we met the true diasporas. I could barter for anything with my promise of redemption. The gray uniforms came from the sky. Everyone knew their task was not related to the rat-scourge, as announced. R was new to the city and stayed with M, my former lover. Some nights I masturbated against the wall thinking of her red hair. I was unabashed. Everyone who knew her did the same. It was the thirteenth year or thirtieth. The sun shined in a quarter arc, lighting the highest buildings only.
     Family was a religion—we carried photos of any people. About the villas in the countryside roamed bull elk. We sang tunes: When the cows come home from the pasture / we sing upon the porch in our swings ... Flocks of geese flew hundreds of miles to the west. Then for those fortnights we hid in the sub-basements. No one thought to look for us so close to the soccer fields. Maybe it wasn't logical. We developed shingles. R and M made love in front of everyone. We paid them with our pledges to continue. The thirsty drank strawberry-flavored syrup meant for ice cream.

2

But the election never happened. We never heard why. The bureaucrats in the north never came to campaign in the city, and the gates remained closed. On the streets R saw a man and woman carrying a tarp. He bent heavily at the waist, "Salaam, Shalom, Namaste, Hello!" He tossed in his sleep. In his dreams M was carried to the barren mound and he couldn't stop them, he couldn't cry out. There was no emergence that didn't precede another hiding.
     Gold bars used as fill-ins when the asphalt ran out. Movie theaters went underground, were packed for re-screenings of black-and-white ads. A portrait was constantly emerging upon the mural boards, but it was vandalized each night, not by us. We copied text onto interior walls. One night R could no longer make love to M. The weight of her future disappearance was too heavy. We saved the few spiders we could.
     A new man arrived, called himself Sal or Saladin. He had a sprig of thyme, some seeds, a well-trimmed beard. There was no news he knew of. We sent him to M. Our watches had broken faces. Some worshipped the clock towers in the squares, thinking they were animate. R was captured or gave himself up. Another wave of helicopters came to the fields. There were some things we could no longer conceptualize. At the market we bought salt, whatever magazines we could. I began to have dreams again. Some thought Sal an informant and wanted him killed. M told stories of the lakes in the hills, stories of her father. We passed around the dictaphone. There was an argument about the origin of our tongues—some thought they descended into our stomachs. The wind was constant. Everything close was all there was accountable.

3

Of all the discrepancies, the worst was the surplus of silence. We spun mittens straight from the backs of cats. As we completed our rounds in the factories, we drew faces in the dust on furnaces. Everything grew edges in that sepia focus. The chain gangs showed up at the detritus fairs offering tickets for the tour of warrens. No one believed anyone. Sal grew dizzy collecting thimbles. He said they spoke to him in a way he couldn't describe. How long ago was a long time ago was a riddle handed down at bedtime.
     A cult sprang up. They said they had the cure for weekends, though they were the most neurotic of all. Having picked their hair free of lice, they disdained the company of the dirty. The capital was like a morgue for mummers. We climbed the staircases in the highrises, shouted at the wet clouds when we reached the roofs. Mister Coyote took over the discipline of children. The time of day was measured by a rigging system held in the crook of your elbow. A type of motley cap stitched together with wire became popular. My brother returned from prison in the countryside began insisting we find blueberries. I went to the silos on the city's edge. I remembered how field mice used them for nests.
     The most chilling show of force was their absence. We couldn't tell if it betokened an imminent attack or not. In our sarcophagal fear, we couldn't even use politics as a goad for caring. At night, the northern lights spewed across the skies their insolent archetypes. R reappeared one night and started digging. He said he didn't care. He was going to dig until he found something. My brother joined in, and the two played at fools for the invisible cameras. M started to sleep with me again. I didn't ask why. Her dark red hair was a gift, so pleasing it was to the eye. She spent too much time cleaning her teeth with the glossy ends of twigs. Everyone had a fear threatening to madden them. I sought signs: everything became a source of meaning.

4

Just when we thought we couldn't go on, they came again. It was in the afternoon. They landed in the soccer fields, came out with collapsible jungle gyms, put them together as they blared anthems from blowhorns. They stripped down to bikinis and bathing shorts and climbed the gyms in intricate patterns unfamiliar to us. I turned to my brother: he was smiling. I turned to R: he was crying. M was standing next to Sal, poking her toothbrush into his side. When the music stopped, they put on their coats and left in the choppers.
     No one was fond of our routine, but it held us together. The cult named itself the Human Race, and no one objected. No one cared about continuance. We didn't move from our cardboard beds for weeks. We began to count again in moons. We moved from task to task like lepers watching their limbs fall. One night M came to bed tinder hot, and my life shrank to caring for her fever. All notions were sentimental. Our lives were split upon the magic of hope. Finally the elections were re-announced. Officers came to the city, pasted broadsides with faces and names of the candidates obscured. We were left to divine their dispositions through ID numbers and the location of their birth: river valley, hills, incinerated city, seacoast.
     We felt once again it might be true that they had been us. A frenzied division of the population ensued. It was animalistic and efficient. Suddenly everyone seemed to know everyone and what they thought about everything. I decided not to vote. I wanted to save my opinion for something that mattered. And so the Tatterdemalions defeated the Antiquarians.

5

Life continued. It had its geometry, a constellation of nodes for organizing and controlling action. I found a kerosene lamp left from a rally. I put it on the ledge of the half window in my room and stared at it for hours. The biggest heartbreak was knowing that everything would continue. More and more, I thought about leaving town on my own. I had daydreams of bodies of water of every type. I'd never learned to swim. I'd never been to the sea. But the idea of water hung over me with a hold as strong as home. Then M said she was pregnant. I couldn't decide to cry for joy or shame. She understood more than I wished and she left. I didn't search for her, and yet she came back. Our child remained nameless for the required year.
     To scare off the spirits, we named him Taken. Took a pilgrimage to the sawgrass swamp near the old golf course. No one dared invoke the old rituals, so we stood him in the water for a minute of silence. Afterwards we felt as though we'd done the right thing. No one bemoaned the loss of providence. On the way home, Sal began referring to himself as "nuclear." There was no spectrometer to test the truth of his claim. A change had come about. Trying to identify the moment was like locating yourself amid your dreams. The gray uniforms had long since left the capital. We began to make lists: all the flowers we knew, all the dishes we loved, all the rules our parents had kept us to during our youths. Someone said we ought to look for saplings to plant along the boulevards. Still, at night 5 men of 6 tied bandages from crown of head to chin to prevent them from grinding their teeth to dust.
     M wouldn't let anyone touch Taken. And then for weeks she left him for me to care for alone. The Caravan Theater was all the rage. They threw stages together from boards torn off the facades of buildings. M was memorizing a play she had written. It included cotton nightgowns, hot toddies, and the virtues of foxes. R, my brother, and Sal decided a sport needed to be invented. Life began to seem like life: irony slipped in.

6

Then the news hit. A singer had been found. Wherever she went, people followed. When she sang of plums, everyone laughed: it was like remembering your great-grandfather's name. M cooed Taken to sleep with her monologues, as I sat by the window judging the diminishment of gray. I knew I was aging by the way others looked at me, and yet I felt a new youth spreading through me like a welcome plague. Graffiti decorated the stadium walls, its mantra, one word—SOUL.
     The Theory of Lucent Aspect emerged overnight: If sight alone is not to be trusted, objects reveal their truth through their lucent aspect, visible only through the soul. This was followed by the Theory of Limpid Matter. Mongers brought it to town when they came selling half-ruined antiques scavenged from villages: If the soul is real, then matter has both a weighted quality and an absent presence. These ideas brought forth the counter-theory of The Ultimate Carnality, which proposed sex the only means of meaning.
     Life was no longer an extended crisis. Triage Infinitum could have been our world. The new recumbence chagrined those who lived off the rush of disaster. They took to drinking, rabble-rousing, and a style of emetic farting that kept others at bay. The political divisions laid down by our former warders gave way to new and more virulent differences. Arguments arose over nothing: Is the owl a symbol of intelligence or idiocy? Does a dog belong to the house or the wharf? I don't know why, but I wanted to raise Taken as a girl. I couldn't bear that anything would happen to him, and I thought fortune would love him more if he was a girl. M refused. She hated being the focus of men's attention. She didn't want to represent anything to anyone. She rejected every physical compliment. She let her hair grow into a matted bundle that spoke of careful neglect. She referred to Taken only as "Little Man."

7

Things progressed, then worsened. Mister Coyote was caught fondling his niece. He claimed the protection of The Ultimate Carnality, but the neighbor who found him decided it was best he die. Murder begat police begat murder. Sal stopped calling himself "nuclear" and took over the instruction of kids. R introduced us to their new sport, which involved inflating balloons then watching them explode in our faces. M's piece with the Caravan Theater captured everyone's imagination: a fox was described as red with a black tail, tipped with white.
     When Taken said his first words, I decided I'd no longer curse. Every night, falling asleep, I dreamed of seeing him the next day. I could hardly control my emotions. I'd gone from stoic to maudlin so quickly, M didn't know what to think. Our public and private lives separated. Now some began tying strips of bright cloth to their sleeves to signify their dignity. Emblems, tattoos, and insignia making became a business to rival any. The old certainty of meaninglessness was replaced by a new ambiguity of value. Withdrawing from one debate only thrust you into another. We stopped referring to ourselves in the third person; we stopped stating everything in the hypothetical, "If he were eating dinner, he would like soup."
     I had a recurrent dream in which I was in bed with an aged film actress. We were in a house haunted by the souls of abused children. Naked, I kissed her saggy ass. Given a questionnaire to fill out, few bothered. No one wanted to know the results. Taken grew faster than we could believe but not faster than predicted. In the new lot of babies, there were many runts. Our son would be lucky to reach five feet. I was beginning to think I was happy. From the golf course's faded grass slope, I watched M perform her newest monologue on worms, as Taken played nearby in the sand

8

There was no synapse metronome we could use to regulate our misfirings. We pronounced our names wrong, began saying "stop" to mean "start," all shades of blue returned to blue. We were so far past inception. Nighttime hazards included rolling over into ourselves. Sal said he'd lapsed into lunacy. More and more we found him gnawing on the bark of trees. Women pierced both sides of their noses, uncertain of the tradition.
     The Synaesthetics replaced the Caravan Theater when their stagey versions of catharsis wore thin. "Gray days are round," they evangelized from street corners, rooftops, the prohibition bars selling double-distilled vinegar wassail. "The unbelievers are green," they said. We started believing what we thought we saw. Whim trumped reality. One second was divorced from the next.
     Suddenly tourists appeared with boxy cameras. They took photos of us; we didn't have the strength to sneer. R was adamant we find a way to communicate, but M said, "People kill people. It's what we do best. "No one could hear the Synaesthete at the podium. He spoke in a modulated keel: shouts followed by whispers. When we complained, he chastised us, "More closer, you fools!" then resumed his diptych performance. The elite rejected thoughts as decadent. After a time, the ink faded on the refuse paper. M stopped acting in mid-phrase. She'd become repulsed by narrating the lives of worms. Spelling words included foehold, recidivist, melantropic and tulle.
     We erected a monolith of rusted tin cans. The tourists were conduits to the beyond. 13 days of flooding drove everyone up the buildings. Kids played Rebel in the halls. I sang to Taken a song I'd devised while staring at the door, Drown out our sorrows / Drown out our doom / The anvil will dispatch us / All one, lowering gloom. Everything was evental. Everything, recurrence.

9

It was a leaning into that couldn't be stopped. Each day began with a forecast repainted on the walls: cloud cover, gusts. I walked Taken to school where they'd abandoned moral instruction for the task of supervising kids as they singed their armhair with matches. I took up where they'd left off, teaching him about the 9 sacrospheres and the imbrication of elements: fire burns wood, wind puts out fire, ground blocks wind, water floods ground, aether swallows all. If you'd asked me then about biography, I would have said "bubblegum."
     There was nothing to adhere to, beside the wind. Lanterns swayed from awnings filled with miniature illustrations of light. R grew over-sensitive. He had a shooting pain inside his leg. Suddenly the forests sprouted tiny, brown mushrooms. The Synaesthetes developed the mushroom market. Soon people fell into laughing fits, waving sticks against the sky. News came of a new tyrant named Autochthonous. No one knew where he came from. Within a week he arrived in the city with his brigands in ramshackle jeeps and on dray horses with blinders. We hid our manuscripts in the cracks between buildings, beneath floorboards, and pointed the wrong way. The buses went on strike, and soon we stood in doorways with tourists whimpering about misfortune. Beneath our breath, we sang to them what madrigals, mazurkas, and rondos we knew.
     A sniper slew the tyrant at a rally where women were stripped of their muumuus and forced into peep shows. From 2000 meters, he fired. "Vanity" was our new codeword, meaning, stay inside as the public sorts out its disorder. "Were this were the end!" M repeated, curling in her dirty fingers the split ends of her hair. No one asked what we were about. We subsisted. Each of us was dedicated to the furtherance of another; each life was sacrifice to some other. When the reeds didn't revive along the river, swamps grew. Jessica, the tanner's daughter, started firing bricks from the mud clay, and these she sold for 15 acorns, or grain from grasses. It was never clear what "progress" meant; each day felt like an accomplishment in itself. Taken grew into a facsimile of me, spliced with the melancholic register of M. We guarded him like he was the last soul in the universe.

10

Of his friends, we were introduced to Jjukki. "Jjukki?" my brother asked, uncertain of the name. "She's not from here," Taken answered, stock-still, solemn faced. She wore tribal marks on her cheeks, and her lazy eye slid toward her nose where it rested as though bent on an inwardness of character. M kissed her on her left cheek then took her hand to seat her next to the brazier. I coughed. Kites, cut from the sky, decorated the trees. There was still no foreshadowing. M didn't speak for five days. She said it wasn't because of us, but we weren't sure. We took Taken and his friend to the river to scoop baby frogs from the rocks. Renaming was a constant process. Sometimes someone would turn voluble. Sal and R erected tents. Slowly things were becoming visible.

__

I like reading most fantasy and sci-fi, and once I liked dystopian future films. And I like Mac Wellman's theater of the weird, including the extraterrestrial plays, like 1965UU.