I remember mornings as a kid, I’d arise in a frenzy and scamper to the kitchen when I heard my grandpa digging out his electric-powered griddle. My grandma kept it tucked in the back so it always clamoured off the strainers and copper pots. Once heated, my grandpa would mix the batter to a practiced consistency and ladle intricate designs onto the blackened surface as if the decades-old cookware were a blank canvas. It amazed me.

That was the kind of pancake Jared Walter looked like, but made with blood and guts and bits of cranium.

I stuck around and waited for the police. The siren wail wasn’t far off. Two police officers pushed their squeaky doors open. The smaller one was off like a blackfly and flitted about with security tape. The larger one had to place a hand on top of the car to lift his belly out. He produced a damp handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his forehead, then reached back into the car for his saucer cap. Quite the crime fighters. One could leave the atmosphere if a man puffed a cigar too close to him and the other could walk through a tornado. The latter inspected the body from where he stood. “Not again, these goddamned idiots.”

They asked me what happened, and I gave a detailed account. “He splattered on the sidewalk.”

“What do you mean… splattered?” The minuscule officer writing the report wondered.

“Well look at him there,” I pointed at the pancake, “if that’s not splatter, I don’t know what is. I dropped a can of paint when I was redecorating my bathroom, and I thought that was a pretty good splatter. But that was a speckle, at best, compared to this.”

“Okay,” the cop with the belly disparaged, “we’re gonna need you to come down to the station and fill out an official report. Is that a problem?”

“Nope. Right now though? I have a doctor’s appointment I’m late for already. And I had to walk today because my car’s in the shop.”

He handed me his card. “Anytime within the next couple of weeks would be fine.”

I left them there putting yellow pylons around Jared Walter’s body, which seemed unnecessary. Surely the mess was sanguinary enough to get pedestrians to alter their course. Humans rarely want to get their shoes dirtier than they are.

“Looks like it’s getting better,” my doctor announced, putting away one of the various tools she had for poking things.

“Yeah, I haven’t paid much attention to it.”

“Well thank god. There wouldn’t have been a problem if you had just left the damn thing alone. How many times do I have I tell you? Don’t scratch a rash, dummy.”

Dr. Harriet wasn’t the most technically gifted doctor. But I traveled halfway across the city because she gave it to me straight. “I know. But I’d be sitting there, watching some rerun of this or that. Then I’d look down, and it would be calling to me like an advertisement or something. Like one of those big billboards that has a lady in lingerie saying look at my chest then buy this perfume for your ugly girlfriend. How am I supposed to drive while there’s a boob the size of my car on the horizon? So I’d start scratching it, and it would feel better. Weird, isn’t it, how you’re not supposed to do most of the stuff that feels good?”

“Is there something else bothering you? Did someone hit you in the head with anything that may have been a shovel?”

I laughed. “No, nothing like that. Some guy did a suicidal swan dive into the concrete in front of me on the way here and I guess it’s got my brain acting like an air-popper.”

“Jesus, Mark. That sounds like a traumatic experience.”

“It should have been. It just made me think about pancakes.”

“Alright, I need to hear you stop talking. Or else I’m gonna have to send you for a psych evaluation. We’re done here.”

Dr. Harriet stood up.

“So, I can put my pants back on?”

“You didn’t need to take them off. The rash is on your forearm.”

“In regards to pants, it’s better safe than sorry, I always say.”

“Right. Well, I’ll be seeing you when I see you.”

The police station was squat and evenly pelted with bricks. Metallic railings glimmered in the afternoon sun. Plain, blocked lettering broadcasted the number designation of the precinct. Boys and girls in blue waltzed out of the opening with Styrofoam cups of coffee and granola bars. Unfortunately for officers who enjoyed donuts, they had to shy away from them to avoid being stereotyped. So they ate organic things like bran cereal or granola bars. You would never hear, “Hey pig! Why don’t you go eat a bunch of healthy, high fiber snacks!” from neighborhood punks.

Passing through the vestibule, I was greeted with a shivering blast of conditioned air. The beehive inside was awash with activity. Reports and file folders were thrown on desks with all-knowing gazes. The police chief yelled at O’Flaherty for blowing up a city block in pursuit of a delivery boy with ties to the Yakuza. Officers close to retirement were leaving to respond to calls that were more dangerous than they seemed. It was everything I imagined it to be.

A kind black lady manned the desk that divided the chaos of the floor from the general public. She greeted me warmly. “Next,” she said. But it was warm. You could tell by the way she didn’t raise her eyes as I replaced the previous complaint machine she had helped.

“Yes, hello,” I said, “I saw a man splatter on the concrete yesterday morning and the detective or whatever told me to come down and fill out a report.”

“Did the officer give you a card?”

“Yes ma’am.” I had the card ready and handed it to her.

“Hmmm,” she studied the card, “was this for that ten fifty six on Forty Seventh?”

“It was on Forty Seventh Street, yes. I’m not sure what a ten fifty six is. I only know what a number one and a number two is.”

She wasn’t amused, “The suicide, sir.”

“Uhh yes, sure. If that’s what you folks have determined it to be. It was my first thought as well.”

She whipped her chair around and burrowed into a filing cabinet the size of a condensed mahogany tree. Folders swept under her marching fingers as she searched. Once located, she spun back in my direction, slid a piece of paper into a clipboard, and laid it on the desk. A sticker placed overtop said, ‘Jared Walter, case 196703.’

“Please fill out this witness report over there and turn it in when you’re done.”

It didn’t take very long. I filled out my contact information and put, ‘a man splattered on the sidewalk in front of me,’ in the blank box designated for statements. When I returned the clipboard, she examined it and sighed about the stupidity she had to deal with on a daily basis. As I was leaving, I spotted the belly of the policeman from the day before. He was eating a donut. “Excuse me,” I yelled.

He noticed me and waddled over, licking the jelly from the inside of his fried pastry. “Yeah?”

“I remembered something you said yesterday. You said ‘not again’ and called the pancake an ‘idiot’.”

“The pancake?”

“Oh, um, I believe his name was Jared Walter.”

He furrowed his brow, “Just stay away from that building son. And don’t read any books about gravity.”

I was so confused. What was so bad about gravity books? And what did the building have to do with it? Was it a library full of gravity books that bored people to death by suicide?

I intended to find out.

It wasn’t a library. It was a conventional office building, full of dreary-eyed capsules in mid-priced suits.

I went to the actual library and rented all the books I could on gravity. I sourced articles online. Galileo, Georges-Louis Le Sage, Einstein, Schwarzschild, Eötvös, Nordström, Newton. They varied somewhat, but they all essentially concluded that when you dropped something, it fell downwards. I was perplexed. There wasn’t anything I didn’t already know about in the books except the math equations, scientific formulas, and most of the words.

My girlfriend became enraged with the hours I was spending on research. Three weeks in, she slipped a copy of the Kama Sutra into my reading stack. I asked her how an old sex manual could help solve my gravity conundrum. She told me it wouldn’t, but that I should read it because it wasn’t just about sex. It was also a guide to ethical and compassionate living. I told her it sounded like horseshit and that I wasn’t about to take advice from some strange, two-thousand-year-old pervert. She left me.

I returned the books after months of reading and rereading. The librarian totalled the late fees on her calculator with oversized buttons. She still had problems making out the signs and symbols. “These are all the books about gravity you have, right?”

I had disrupted her calculations. She wavered over the calculator, then hit the ‘all clear’ button. “Let me do one thing at a time,” she said.

My late fees went into the high double digits - nearly equal to the amount of time it took the librarian to tally my fine. I had to use my credit card. She swiped it through and we were playing the button game all over again. The receipt printed out. “Is that all the books on gravity you have?”

“What in the hell did I just goddamn say? Let me do one damn thing at a time. I’ll check on your goddamn gravity books after you sign this goddamn receipt and give it back to me.”

“My apologies, I thought you might have forgotten.” I scribbled my name along the bottom of the receipt.

She took it and tucked it under the drawer in the vintage cash register. “I haven’t forgotten a goddamn thing in my life. I haven’t forgotten that hideous shirt you wore last time you were in here, and I haven’t forgotten to check for more goddamn gravity books.”

I kept my mouth shut. She tackled the keyboard with the grace of a giraffe fight, and before I could recite the history of the known world I had my answer. “Oh yes, we just got one back.”

She seized a tattered book from the return shelf. “Do you want to take it out?”

“Yes please.”

The book was called ‘Gravity is for Morons!’

The exclamation point seemed out of place. The cover was a horribly doctored picture of a man floating above a pool. You could tell he was displaced from some terribly boring photo obligation, like class pictures or a family reunion, because he looked entirely spiritless and was standing as you would on level ground. It was written by a Dr Clifford. The book jacket revealed the ‘Dr’ to be a shortened version of ‘Darius.’ The first line of chapter one read: ‘If you believe in gravity your a stupid moron!’

The book was strictly poorly-worded instructions. It was the work of a delusional madman. Tips for ‘seeing how dumb gravity is’ included ‘stop farting,’ ‘pretend your swimming,’ and ‘step really high and walk for a long time.’ The last chapter was titled ‘The Ultimate Proof of Stupid Gravity’ and had a blunt, nonsensical list. It said:

Follow All Book Instructions Chicago 47th St McDonalds Dont eat Four Quarter Pounders No Pickles Building Across Street Roof Fart Jump When You Feel It

The reference to Forty Seventh Street spiked my adrenaline. It was my first. I always thought my first rush of adrenaline would happen when a supermodel was trapped under a car with a baby and a puppy. Instead I got it from recognizing a street in a lunatic’s ramblings.

I still wondered how Jared could even remotely think any of the things in the book could work.

Forty Seventh Street was crowded and it was embarrassing to high step past people like I was leading a marching band. My arms ached from waving them at my side in a front crawl motion. It took forever amidst the yelling patrons and apathetic employees to get four Quarter Pounders at McDonald’s.

I climbed to the roof, presumably as Jared had done all those months back. I had no intention of jumping; I simply wanted to put myself in his place before he leapt. I shuffled to the edge and looked down. I passed gas, but it didn’t make me feel like I could float. Wind gently massaged my ears and muted the sounds from the street below, giving me a relaxed feeling of separation from the scattered chaos. It was serene.

Abruptly, a force carried me upward. I shouted in terror. I was moving with such velocity I couldn’t hear the sounds of my scream. I stopped as quickly as I had started. My knees wobbled uncontrollably and I fell against the side of a metal canister I was in.

“Food’s here!” a voice echoed.

“Hello?” I shouted.

A Caucasian man with dreadlocks and a novelty t-shirt appeared in front of me. A slit opened on the canister and he reached in and snatched the McDonald’s bag out of my hands. “Good to go, Fred?”

“Hold on one second there Greg,” a second voice replied.

“What’s going on?” I demanded.

“Alright. Good to go, Greg.”

Fred pressed a button on the outside of the canister and the floor beneath me opened up. I shot out of the canister like bad Mexican food. I saw the earth, the sky, Chicago, then the sidewalk. My body splattered everywhere.

My brain stayed active for a few seconds after I hit the ground. I thought about pancakes.

“Who makes school cafeteria pizza?” wondered one Bing user who didn’t realize that cafeteria pizza isn’t so much ‘made’ as it is harvested - scraped under the light of the full moon from the slime-rich fields of Hoboken, New Jersey, that is - before being freighted by tractor-trailers to whitewashed distribution sites nationwide.

One Google user wondered, “What does a handlebar mustache say about a man?” We have strong opinions about this issue (and who doesn’t), but as children and other persons potentially traumatized by mental images of gargantuan schlongs might read this web site, we prefer not to say.

“What if some crumbs got in my penis hole?” seems a rather esoteric concern unless one’s planning some sort kinkiness incorporating Corn-Flaked chicken. We’ve yet to fully consider the mechanics of this scenario.

We wish we could point whoever wondered, “Where can I find an alien-looking shower fixture?” in the right direction, but it’s ambiguous from their query whether they’re on the hunt for fixtures that resemble aliens or are seeking spouts of extraterrestrial origin. You’ve gotta be precise in your search phrasing if you wish for thoughtful and useful replies, people.

The most memorable search of the month, though not phrased in the form of a question, was without doubt, “unmarried women in open shirts please.” Such a precise and curiously polite query! This gentle soul doesn’t demand naked “jugs” or jiggling “titties,” but instead kindly requests the subtle titillation of an “open shirt.” The stipulation that the ladies be unwed suggests a sweetly anachronistic respect for the institution of marriage.

Maybe this searcher is hoping for a glimpse of ‘side-boob’ of the single lady variety. Or a peek at the cleavage of the non-committed. Perhaps a flash of brassiere from the unbetrothed.

Whatever this person and the other interrogative investigators are looking for, we hope they find it.

It was killing hot, even for early July, and I’d soaked through my shirt when I met a busload of tourists who got off in a cloud of diesel fumes. I did a double take at a woman, about twenty. Her black hair was in a ponytail looped atop her head. She wore large hoop amber earrings, and a blousy, white, half-sleeve top. I introduced myself to everyone, I’m Nathan, and we entered the site. I couldn’t help shooting glances at the woman as I extolled the indoor bathrooms, hot and cold water pipes, and the three story buildings that impress tourists. In the museum, the tour groups’ mouths dropped open when they saw the frescos. Our companion was a double of the Minoan woman on the wall.

At the end of the tour, I walked up to her and extended my hand. “Herro poli - pleased to meet you.”

“I’m Irini. Herro poli.”

I said, “You dressed for the occasion.”

“Yes, in honor of my ancestors.”

“I know that the Minoans got off Santorini before the explosion, but how are you related to them?”

“They sailed to Crete when the first earthquakes struck. I’m Cretan, and we are descended from Minoans.”

“You need to tell me more. May I buy you lunch?”

She smiled and said, “Yes.”

Bleached white, stucco buildings dotted with azure-domed churches crawled up to the edge of the steep, gouged out, gray and red-ochre caldera that plunged down to a sparkling blue sea. We grabbed a table in the taverna with the best view and ordered hortiatiki salad and toasted with glasses of cloudy ouzo on ice. When I sat close to Irini, I caught the scent of blood orange and jasmine, and I wanted to dive into her brown eyes.

She said, “Is something the matter?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t gawk.”

She laughed. “Don’t you meet girls on this island?”

“Not like you.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Is that a line?”

“It just popped out.”

“Drink your ouzo.”

I took a gulp and changed the subject. “So, when did you develop this sense of connection with Atlantis?”

“Ah, you know the legend. I’m an Art History major, and we studied the period at university. When I saw images of the Minoan women on the frescos, I felt one with them. Sound silly?”

“Not to me. You radiate classic Greece.”

She tilted her head at me.

My face reddened. “Please continue.”

She said, “Homer called the Minoans true Cretans. Women were equal to men in Minoan society, and they worshipped the Earth Mother.”

“Fascinating.” I took another sip of ouzo. “How long will you be here?”

“For the summer. I stay with a family and teach English to their children. I arrived yesterday.”

“Wonderful. Why don’t we go to the beach after lunch? I know one you’ll love.”

I was in a pension, and Irini’s host family’s house was close by. We changed, and I picked her up on my motorbike. She wore a white tank top and jeans shorts over her bathing suit. Roads on the island were narrow and ran along cliffs. Trucks and buses took curves like Formula One cars, and respected motorbikes as much as the insects that smacked into their windshields. After the first close call, Irini’s arms tightened around me, and she laid her chin on my shoulder so she could see better. I warmed to the press of her body, so I played chicken with the traffic, and was rewarded with reflexive hugs.

At the beach, Irini got off the bike and hit me a straight shot to the shoulder. She said, “enjoy the ride, did you?”

“Well, not the punch so much.”

The ancient eruption had turned the island’s ground like a giant shovel and created beaches of red, black, and gray. I took Irini to a deserted red-sand spot, and unrolled a blanket. She pulled off her top and stepped out of her shorts. Irini’s two-piece bikini was dark blue with tiny white polka dots. My eyes lingered on the white skin of her cleavage over the red border of the bra and the faint outline of her raised nipples. Her arms and legs were slim, and she had delicate feet. I’d been with plenty of girls. The island drew attractive women like hummingbirds to nectar; they flitted with me and moved on. Even so, my mouth went dry, and I swallowed.

Irini looked at me. She said, “Did I tell you about my father? Big, black mustache, knife on his belt, and a shotgun at the ready. Guys are so gentlemanly after they meet him.” She smiled.

“Okay,” I said, “He’s macho-city. But, does he know how to dig a proper excavation trench?”

She jumped. “Oh, I want to learn. Can you take me on the dig?”

“I’m not sure. Mr. Ioannidis is very protective of his site.”

Irini put her hands on her hips. “Can-do men are so much sexier than those who come up with long lists of excuses.”

“Okay, tha thoume - we’ll see.”

She said, “Terrific. Let’s go for a swim. Race you.” I watched her shoot toward the rippling waves and smiled. The sky was cloudless and so blue you felt it in your throat. The water was crystal; we could see the sandy bottom as we swam. Irini paddled up to me, put her arms around my neck and planted a soft, salty kiss on my lips. I never tasted better.

As we got back to town, a dog with half its front leg gone ran after the bike. I was amazed how well he could keep up, but Irini went “ooh,” and “aw,” so I slowed down, and he followed us to my pension. He had huge brown eyes, was black with gold around his belly and he rolled on his back when Irini went to pet him. His coat was loaded with fleas; one bit me. I ran out for some medicinal shampoo while Irini put a leftover lamb chop from my fridge on a newspaper and gave him a bowl of water. I lathered him up in the shower; a hundred dead black specks dotted the tile. She dried him, he crawled into her arms, and that was that.

I said, “I don’t suppose the family you’re with wants a dog.”

They both raised their eyes to me.

I said, “What shall we call him?”

She said, “Not tripod. He’s sensitive about his injury. I can tell.”

“Okay, how about Ares, the god of war? That should help with his self esteem. Also, Ares was always after Aphrodite.”

I swear the dog smiled. Irini said, “Perfect.”

Normally, Mr. Ioannidis’s face was frozen in a frown. He had a gray speckled beard and a shiny bald head he hid with a black, tattered Zorba cap. When I introduced Irini to him, he whisked his hat off like an English gentleman. His back straightened, and he sucked in his gut. He said, “What a beautiful smile, such white teeth. Please, allow me to walk you around.”

She took his extended arm.

He said, “We welcome eager Greek students interested in their history.” He took his first notice of me. “Nathan, get Irini a trowel. She and I will work together.”

Irini said, “Eufaristo para polli - thank you very much. I’ll be here all summer.”

I figured he’d give her my job.

Ioannidis said, “Ah, we will grant you a stipend. You must have money to enjoy our wonderful island.”

As I turned to fetch a tool for her, Irini gave me a wink, and my lungs expanded like a balloon.

I watched Irini as she scraped the earth. She was serious, careful, and I could tell Ioannidis was impressed with how quickly she caught on. Some of my coworkers said my work improved after Irini arrived. I can’t say why.

Irini put the large shrimp on my hook and said, “It’s a Greek expression. ‘Use an expensive bait to land a big fish.’” My landlord had a boat and rods he let me use. I didn’t know squat about fishing, but Irini insisted fresh fish were too expensive, and we needed to catch our own. We brought a cooler to keep them away from Ares. He’d eat the rubber soles off shoes, as my old pair of sneakers would attest. I had to remember to put my new ones atop the bookshelf whenever they were off my feet. Maybe the fish know who’s the slacker, because I didn’t get a nibble, but Irini landed a sizeable bass.

She liked the red beach best. She scooped out sand and filled the hole with driftwood she’d gathered at the shoreline. She looked at me with hands on hips. “You’re like a male lion. Laze around all day. I catch the fish. I grill the fish. What do you do?”

Ares’ ears flopped in approval of her rebuke.

I didn’t take the bait. I said, “I’m terrific company?”

She laughed and headed for the water to clean the bass. Ares padded after her. I saw a large eagle in the sky that floated on a thermal current. I called out to Irini that she should keep Ares close.

We drank wine through a sunset of gray-blue and pink, and as the golden glow faded, a million stars sparkled in the night sky. Darkness brought out my inner lion. Ares did his best to cram himself between us, but he didn’t succeed.

July melted into August. My single bed was suitable for one to sleep or two to elbow and knee each other through the night. But we didn’t complain. We worked at Akrotiri every day. We’d talk history and art over a meze, and didn’t miss a sunset in each other’s arms. One night in late August, Irini rose from bed feeling nauseous. I figured she had anxiety because summer was nearly over. The thought we’d part bothered me too.

I was in a chair near a ceramic lamp. I said, “Ares, quiet.” The dog continued to howl.

Irini was on the bed. She said, “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know.”

Ares shied away from me, and howled again.

“Shit. The neighbors will complain. Shush. It’s okay, Ares, good boy.”

I felt an odd movement under the soles of my feet. A low rumble grew louder like an oncoming subway train. The wooden shutters started to rattle. The floor under me seemed to rise, and I widened my feet for balance.

“Oh my God,” Irini said, “It’s an earthquake.”

Cold gripped my heart. The sound had become the whine of a jet engine.

I said, “Sweet Jesus.”

The roof cracked with the sound of a tree snap, and a piece of concrete fell like the blade of a guillotine. The lights went out, and we were thrust into blackness.

“Irini, are you okay? Irini?”

I stumbled to the bed. The roof chunk had hit her. Her head was wet. Ares jumped onto the bed. His cry was pathetic. The odor of vinegar-scented sweat sprung from my face and body.

“Irini, wake up. Dear God. We need to get out of here.”

Irini was dead weight. I took her in my arms and swayed to the door like a drunk.

The lamp had been thrown to the floor, its base shattered. I stepped on a shard and it sliced my foot. I leaned against the wall to steady myself. I got hold of the handle and threw the door open. Ares’ nails scratched the marble floor as he sped outside. The shaking and the roar of the quake had stopped. There were moans and screams from nearby buildings. I had to get Irini to a hospital. I carried her to the bike and leaned on the handlebars as I edged my leg over the seat. I held her on my thighs with her back against the bars. Debris was everywhere. It was almost impossible to steer and keep her weight steady. The front tire hit something and we fell, Irini on top of me.

I got us back on the bike and held her with one arm as we rode. There were power lines down, and I had to change my route to the hospital. We fell again. The blood in her hair was matted. I smelled its copper scent, and my stomach sickened. We fell. Her body was cold. I wiped my tears with a sleeve. My heart pounded. I struggled and got us back onto the bike. The muscles in my arms burned. My legs and arms were scraped raw.

The entrance to the hospital was clogged with ambulances and other vehicles, most with doors flung open. I weaved a few dozen meters closer, abandoned the bike and carried Irini in a half trot into the emergency room. The hospital’s generators had kicked in, but the lights were dim. Gurneys overflowed, injured people lined the walls; there were cries, moans and screams that sounded like a circle of hell. Nurses and doctors scurried through some sort of triage. Terror was on every face. I carried Irini to a young doctor with black hair in blue scrubs. He leaned over a patient.

I said, “Help her. Help her please.”

He didn’t look at me, “You need to wait.”

“She can’t wait. She has a serious head injury. Please help her.”

The doctor puffed out a breath, but didn’t respond.

“Help her, or I swear to Christ I’ll kill you.”

The doctor’s face snapped toward me. He blinked his eyes. He straightened and said, “Head trauma is a priority. Bring her here.”

I followed him behind a curtain to a bed that had just been cleared, and put Irini down. My arms felt like rubber. Sweat poured off me like rain.

The doctor felt for a pulse. He said to a nurse, “She’s not breathing. Get me the paddles.”

A nurse shot forward with the equipment.

“Clear.”

A charge went into Irini’s body and she spasmed.

After a moment, “Clear.”

Irini’s body lurched.

The doctor checked for a pulse. He ran his hand over her abdomen and turned to me. “I’m sorry, she’s gone.”

I brought bloodstained hands to my face.

The doctor moved close to me. “She was about seven weeks pregnant? The baby wouldn’t have survived.”

“What?”

The doctor’s eyes went down. “Look, we need to move her.”

The doctor called to an attendant.

I leapt forward. “No.”

I scooped Irini from the bed and backed up to a wall as the attendant came forward.

The doctor said, “Leave him be.”

I slumped to the floor with Irini in my arms.

I went back to the pension in the morning. Ares was gone. I walked the streets and called to him, but he didn’t come. I couldn’t stop sobbing. I came upon an empty parking lot and collapsed on the asphalt. I awoke and trembled with every aftershock.

There was a big clean up on the island. The Akrotiri dig closed. The roof on the site collapsed and museum’s walls were cracked. I took the bloodied sheets and pillow from our bed. They retained Irini’s scent.

I biked to the red beach, and sat while tears ran down my face. I rose, walked toward the water, and stripped off clothes as I went. I swam past the point where Irini kissed me, and let my head lean back until the water filled my ears. As I floated, the swells blotted out my sight of shore. The shadow of an eagle overhead crossed my face, and I opened my eyes. I spit out water, shook my head and turned and swam for shore. I had to find Ares.

He analyzed the situation and thought it could not have been better. He had been to dinner with his family, so no one was ever in any danger. After they got home and parked the car, they found an empty space where the large window used to be. Now, no one would disagree that the windows needed bars.

His daughter was the first to notice something amiss when she stepped on scattered pieces of broken glass. “Why is there broken glass?” she asked. She only needed to raise her head to find the answer. No more words came from her mouth. Ready to go inside, she stepped toward the empty space.

“Don’t go in there!” his wife cried, afraid that some intruder might still be lurking in the house. Then she burst into tears, repeating without realizing: “It’s not possible…. It’s not possible.”

He remained silent. Taking his daughter’s hand, he stared into the hollow space as if hypnotized, unable to suppress the smile that broke across his face.

“We have to call the police,” said his wife as he led his daughter toward the door. No one listened. He slipped the key into the upper lock and turned it halfway. Then he put the second key inside the lower lock and turned it six times to release the huge bolt.

“If somebody is still in there, your cries have alerted them,” he said as he put the first key into the middle lock to open the heavy wooden door. “We don’t have to enter through the window,” he told his daughter.

Six months had passed since the morning when his wife and daughter decided to remove bars from the large windows facing the garden. He agreed on the condition that the curtains of the large window - through which the house was broken into - would always stay closed, so no one could see that the house was unprotected. One thing led to another and, in less than three weeks, the large window facing the street lost the iron bars and the curtains stayed open day and night.

“It’s only a matter of time,” he thought during long sleepless nights, tired of warning his family about the danger of living without security precautions.

They walked past the entrance and turned on the light. The first thing they did was open the door of the bathroom in the small hall and look inside. Then they took a few steps and went into the office on the first floor. He turned on the light and told his daughter to stay put. He grabbed blank sheets of paper and felt-tip pens and handed them to her so she could draw.

He combed through the first floor, turning on all the lights on his path, leaving them on once he left to make sure no one was behind, under, beside, or above anything, including places where even a dwarf could not hide. He went out to the garden and did the same. Back in the garage, he found his wife still kneeling by the car, sobbing in silence.

“Nobody is down here. I’ll go upstairs,” he said in a formal tone.

There was no surprise on the second floor either. The house was empty. There, against his usual practice, he also left all the lights on.

“Nobody is upstairs,” he told his wife when he reached the bottom of the stairs. “At least they left us the beds.”

He went into the office and waited for his daughter to finish her drawing.

“Do you like it?” she asked.

“What is it?”

“The window they broke to get into the house.”

“Oh, well done,” he said with a smile. “Let’s frame it.” Then he picked her up, carried her to her room, helped her put on pajamas, and tucked her in.

“Sleep tight,” he said. “We’ll take care of that tomorrow.”

When he went back to the garage, his wife was sweeping up the broken glass. He went for another broom and helped her finish cleaning. He thought it would be in bad taste to remind her he had warned them this would happen — to tell her “I told you so.” He opted to keep his mouth shut while listening to her sobs.

When he went to bed - with a large empty space on the first floor of his house - he had no trouble falling asleep.

When I look at the photograph, I don’t remember much. I remember Delores wanted us to paint our cheeks. I think I may have been the one to think of the red arrows. But there we stand. I am smoking the cigarette and Delores is holding the bottle of Dewar’s Scotch We look casual, as if only slightly interested in the photographer. I don’t remember a cow skull sitting in the yard. The window curtains are pulled aside as if someone were watching from inside the cabin. I don’t remember the second photograph at all. I don’t remember making a kissy face at the camera or holding the bottle up to Delores’ mouth. I don’t remember the car in the parking lot. For some reason most of that afternoon is blocked out. I don’t intend to find out why either. Maybe something bad happened. Maybe Delores remembers but you can’t ask her because she’s dead. I heard she killed herself. Maybe she was haunted by something. I don’t know. I doubt it. I don’t know why people are coming around asking me about these photos. The past is the past right?

I stop the WAVE File that Jimmy has emailed me. I feel uncomfortable sitting on the train by myself.

I have no reason to feel this way. The train isn’t crowded. There are two women in their sixties sitting a couple of seats in front of me and I don’t want to think of what I have just listened to, so I concentrate on their conversation instead. One of them is laughing in a boisterous way that makes me embarrassed. I have no reason to feel this way. Why can’t a person be happy? Why can’t a person express joviality on public transportation? I close my eyes. I listen to the sound of their laughter and somehow the laughter morphs into a vision. In it

I am dancing with a man I can’t recognize. He is laughing and I can smell the gel in his hair. He has his hands on my waist. He is saying my name of over and over, but it isn’t my name.

I struggle against him but he has put a hand behind my head. I can’t turn away from him. He has this intense look and I want so badly to figure out why his eyes have changed color.

But now I am back on the train and I still hear the women laughing. I stand up and walk towards the snack car for a Coke.

At the apartment I am scalding some artichoke soup. My mind is on the photos. Jimmy is texting me from his favorite Pub downtown, Lucky Jacks.

What did you think of the interview?

Instead of sleeping with my arm around his back like I used to, I now slept cradling the photos near my neck, a fear that someone might steal them in the night. They are becoming my most prized possession.

He helps me research them on our days off from work. I start looking at the back of the photos trying to when the photos were taken. The back is stamped with Kodak/Velox paper but there is no date. I start thumbing through the Beckett book, trying to look for names and dates, something I had never thought to do. I find it on the inside binding. The first name is Linnie and a last name I can’t pronounce with an address written in cursive on the first page.

I get sleepy while watching a television program about the plague. I turn on the laptop and listen to the interview again… I am so obsessed with hearing her describe what was happening the day of the photograph, what was going on in her head They are just ghosts staring at us and daring us to guess about their lives.

I look hard at the photographs. I try to figure out which one is Linnie and which one is Delores. In my head they become like Thelma and Louise. Maybe they are escaping poverty or bad marriages or addictions. But are they escaping something or just having a good time? There is something desperate in their postures. Almost as if they are forcing themselves to have a good time. It is then that my imaginary narrative changes Are they sisters? Are they themselves lovers? I fall asleep wondering why they chose to paint the arrow on their cheeks. I get chills on my arms. I guess they really were like Thelma and Louise. One of them was anyway.

I text him back.

How in the world did you find this?

Jimmy texts me again 15 minutes later and tells me to check my email. It is a link to a unsolved murders website. I see Linnie’s name with the odd German surname in stark black lettering. Above it is the name of the victim. Her name is Delores. Linnie is listed as the last person to have had contact with Delores. They found her body near Green Lake Park.

The cause of death was listed as unknown but because of the circumstances Delores’s family thought she had probably been murdered. The interview was from the website. Someone from Delores’ Family had long ago tried to contact Linnie but she wasn’t interested in rehashing the past. She obviously felt it wasn’t her problem.

I water the plants, and make a half-hearted attempt at sweeping.

I met Jimmy at the bookshop where I found the photographs. We were browsing in the same section.

We both spotted the book at the same time. A rare copy of Samuel Beckett’s Whoroscope. It was two-hundred dollars and I splurged, convincing myself it was an extravagant Birthday present. We struck up a conversation and before I knew it we had made a date to have coffee the next day. At the register I noticed the photos sort of fall out of page 15 and I tucked them back carefully, not fully realizing what I had found.

Jimmy comes in late from the bar and wants us to get into the hot tub. We change and get in and he reaches over and pulls my hand into his trunks. I get out of the hot tub and go inside to get myself a glass of wine. He follows me inside, and tries to pull me over to the couch. I resist at first but then he has my swimsuit off and he’s doing things to me and I still can’t stop thinking about the photos.

The next morning he has written a note on the bathroom mirror with shaving cream.

She reads Moses and says her love is crucified.

He has written me a line from Beckett’s book.

The dreams and visions continue on and off for weeks. Mostly always nightmares involving A woman crying and a man pleading with her and then the woman looks at me and I see horror in her eyes.

I feel consumed by the photos, obsessed even. My own life not seeming to matter anymore.

I lay the pictures flat on the coffee table and go into the kitchen to fix myself some coffee. When I come back I spill some on the corner of the photo and curse myself for being so clumsy. “Dammit!”

I am in love. I am suddenly seized with the urge to get the pictures out of my head forever. I walk over to my purse and take out the Ed Hardy lighter and walk outside to the porch. The photo starts to quiver before I snap the lighter. When it’s white edge meets the flame it burns slowly at first, then faster. I watch as first Linnie and then Delores and the bottle between them disappears into brown, and then finally, black.

They were a faded pink, cotton, worn thin in the crotch, a turquoise butterfly stamped on the front, right above where I imagined the owner’s bush would end and her downy stomach hair begin. I paced with the panties held over my mouth and nose like a SARS mask. They smelled of Mountain Breeze detergent. Usually I’m not one for synthetic breezes, but right away I could tell those panties belonged to my perfectonehundredpercentamazingsoulmate. They belonged to a woman whose dresser drawers were full of a rainbow assortment of Victoria Secret undies and were a leftover from her more innocent days that she wore when laundry day approached. No doubt about it. They were a pink missive from the Patron Saint of Lonely Fat Bachelors.

I let my roommate Harry give them a sniff and he rolled his eyes back in his head and said, “Oh, I do love the meadow in the spring, when the buttercups are in bloom.”

“What do you think I should do?” I asked. “I’m sure these panties belong to my soulmate.”

“No doubt about that.”

“So what do I do?”

“You go door to door. If the panties fit, she’s the one for you.” I must have looked a little hesitant, because he added “If you don’t find her, I will.”

I couldn’t have that. Harry and I had a long history where every time I liked a girl, he’d bumble his way into bed with her somehow and then the girl and I would become lifelong friends after they broke up. I had to find that girl before he did. I put the hoagie in the fridge for after a passionate fuck with the girl of my dreams. We’d split it.

I gave a shave-and-a-haircut on the door of the apartment directly below mine. The floor shook and footsteps came thudding down what must have been a long hallway like ours. When the footsteps stopped the light in the peephole blinked out and I stood there for a good five minutes listening to heavy breathing behind the red metal door. I had no idea who lived there. I’d only met one of my neighbors, and that was when the guy living next to me locked himself out of his apartment and wanted to exit my bedroom window and cross the fire escape to his room. I let him, but I kept an eye on my wallet. Finally the door opened up.

She was geographic. Her body spanned continents and eras, and I wasn’t sure she’d fit through the door frame. Her wet and dirty gray hair clung to her forehead. She was eating off-brand orange cheese puffs from a jumbo-sized jar, orange fluff tucked up in rolls of her finger fat, and she was wearing a floral print muumuu that made her look like a prairie at dusk. But still, I thought I could sense she was beautiful once, maybe around the time Cleopatra was. I held the panties up to her thighs, too disgusted to roll them up one of her cankles. They wouldn’t fit.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked. Her voice was ogreish and tuba-toned.

“I’m looking for my soulmate.”

“If she fits in those, it ain’t me.”

“Do you have any daughters?” I asked.

“Yes I do,” she said, stuffing cheese puffs into her cheeks and smacking loudly.

“May I talk to them? I’m looking for my soulmate.”

“You got a telephone, you can talk to anybody,” she said.

“Ha-ha. Yes, or a computer. So no one else inside?”

“Well, Bebe.”

“Bebe?” Bebe! Flapper sex on a gilded beach!

“My golden retriever.”

“Oh, I see.” I could never get off to bestiality, but I thought I could try. If that’s what the Patron Saint of Lonely Fat Bachelors wanted, that’s what the Patron Saint of Lonely Fat Bachelors would get. “Could I meet her? I like golden retrievers.”

“I don’t see why not.” She shifted her weight from foot to foot until she was facing down the hallway. A pool of sweat had gathered in the small of her back, and her muumuu had ridden up. Her backside had the overall appearance of a map showing a road leading to a pond and surrounded on all sides by the Great Plains. A man could get lost among those dead flowers and broken dreams. For all I knew, some had.

“Come here, Bebe!” the woman yelled. “Here Bebe!” Jingles came down the hallway, a dainty bell around a daintier collar.

Bebe slipped between the woman’s legs. She was as fat as her owner, looked like a body pillow covered in shag carpet. I knelt down and told her how beautiful a puppy she was and petted the length of her body, slipped the panties over her golden-haired haunches. She looked like someone had tried to shrink-wrap her ass in cotton. It was a no-go. I pulled the panties off fast and must have caught some of Bebe’s hair, because she gave a yelp and dashed back through the woman’s legs.

“Now what?”

The woman shifted her feet back and forth faster than before but still clocked in below average.

I thought maybe I could pave over the situation with some manners. “Well, thank you ma’am. Have a good day.”

“You’re a sick kid. I could always tell. Nothing like Harry.” She reached out to pat my elbow in slow fat motion, smeared corn product on my sleeve. “Godspeed in your search though.”

Godspeed! The rate at which I was going to fuck this woman when I found her! On the wings of Hermes with my pink missive of lust and love and fervent passion I headed next door and gave two shave-and-a-haircuts for good measure. You can’t ever be too smooth, Harry always said. This time I could feel air flowing out from around the door frame, a breeze rolling down a hill and all around me. It had to be my woman.

She was plainplainplainwhitebreadamericana. I couldn’t describe her any better than I could describe an off-white wall in a suburban dentist’s office. Her face was as bland as a stock photo of sunflowers and I pictured her sitting in her apartment, her head following the sunlight all day. Still, I thought that could be good. Maybe the sex would be amazing and I could close my eyes and think of other, more describable women.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I live upstairs and I’m looking for my dream girl.”

“That’s nice,” she said, and stepped aside to let me in.

Plainplainwhitebreadamericanathat’snice. The walls of her apartment were white andbare except for thirty-one pairs of white granny panties tacked up in six columns of five with an extra to the right.

“Nice art piece,” I said.

“Oh, those are just my panties,” she said. “It’s easier to get to them that way. One for each day of the month.”

“What do you do with the extra ones in February?”

“I wash them anyway.”

The girl was simple. Simple and nice. She was like a computer fresh out of the box: the operating system and basic software were there but otherwise the hard drive was blank. It was all wrong. There was no way my perfect girl would have a wall full of granny panties, and besides, this girl was as thin as a flagpole. There was no point in even trying them on her.

As I turned to leave I spotted on the coffee table a blue vase clearly from Target and filled with roses clearly from the bodega. “Those are nice,” I said. “You live with a boyfriend?”

“Those are from Harry up in apartment 33,” she said. “Nice boy.”

Harry! Nice boy! Harry carrying groceries, Harry bringing flowers, Harry always one step ahead!

“You know Harry?”

“Sure, met him on the stairs. We have tea sometimes. Would you like some tea?”

“Tea. I don’t drink tea, sorry, I’m hyper enough without it. Maybe some other time? It was nice meeting you,” I said.

“It was nice meeting you, too” she said, her voice like a million corporate telephone menus speaking in unison.

As I went from door to door, the story was the same. Whenever there was an answer, the woman wasn’t right, and Harry had already been there and left. There was the cougar who answered the door in a red towel, a pink cursive A embroidered over her breast, just under where the towel was tucked into itself, which was just too much for me. The apartments filled with Hispanic families who had yet to be gentrified out of the neighborhood, whose daughters had long flown the coop. The girl with a smooth complexion like plastic and hair like the original Barbie’s, someone I could play house with but never love. Not a dream girl one.

The wind was leaving my sails. How did Harry know everyone in our building, while I knew no one? I went to the next apartment, my building superintendant’s, and gave three sharp raps. I didn’t have enough steam left to be smooth. A girl who came up to my navel answered the door. She was eating an icy pop, blue. Might have been the superintendent’s daughter, but I’d never met his family.

“What?” she asked. Blunt for a girl eating a blue icy pop. Red maybe, but not blue.

“I’m looking for my perfect dream girl,” I said.

“And I’m looking for a way out of this 8,363,710 horse town,” she said. I always liked sassy women. I could tell she was going to grow up into a vixen and stay that way. The way she ate her icy-pop suggested longevity. Maybe this was one of those child-bride things and I could propose to her right then, start sending her Barbie’s and Ken’s and then buying her a car and marrying her on her eighteenth birthday. I bent to slip the panties up over her pink jogging pants and she grabbed on to them before she knew what she was doing. She stared down at the panties for a moment like I’d handed her a flier for the Pedophile Elks Club, then turned and ran inside with them, the door slamming shut in my face, the drained icy pop wrapper left behind at my feet.

That was it, I figured. I could see my shadow under the fluorescent light: another six weeks of lonely New York winter. I’d never find my dream girl without those panties, so I might as well get used to being alone, buy a comforter to shield from the cold and ear plugs to block out Harry’s effeminate sex squeals. I headed back to my apartment. I was halfway up the first flight of stairs when I heard the door open behind me.

There was a soft, calm light, a heavenly meringue beat. Long, flowing, saintly hair. A noble maroon bathrobe. It was Him, our brother of Grace, the Patron Saint of Lonely Fat Bachelors. He walked with divine purpose in my direction, his eyebrows getting bushier and blacker as he came closer, but then it was just my building superintendent, Victor or Vector or Vance. I couldn’t ever remember his name.

When he got to me he stuffed the panties into my mouth and told me to listen. I didn’t mind so much—have you ever tasted a spring breeze so soon after the winter, so fresh?—but then he grabbed my collar and got in my face, brought me back from my fantasy of rolling hills and golden locks.

“Listen,” he said. “Three tenants have called me. You need to stop going door to door with panties. If I get one more complaint.”

He let me go and I thought it was over, I could go huddle up with some hentai porn, but as I started to pull away he head-butted me in my nose.

“Why can’t you be more like Harry?” he asked. “Harry brings me home-made salsa. Hombre makes a muy picante dip.”

I stumbled back upstairs. The blood from my nose ran into my mouth and it started to taste like my dream girl was becoming a dream woman. I was partway to my room when I noticed Harry’s door was ajar and moaning and squealing was issuing forth from the threshold. I peeked inside. Harry was lying on his back and a woman was grinding up and down and around on top of him, thrashing her hair around and raking Harry’s hairless and boyish chest with her long red nails. She looked like Cleopatra + Cindy Crawford + Calamity Jane + The Babysitter + Audrey Hepburn + Eve + Lindsey Lohan + Tyra Banks + Bebe Daniels + Audrey Tautou + Karen O + The Girl Next Door + Kobe Tai + Aphrodite + Toni Morrison. Harry had a pair of red silk panties stuffed in his mouth and his hands and feet were tied to the bed frame. He looked at me and winked.

I paced, I fumed. I stacked the old pizza boxes up and placed the bloodied panties on top with a vinyl copy of the Harold and Maude soundtrack turned backwards, Cat Steven’s blissed-out face looking down at the panties like he understood it all. I crossed myself mouthnipplenipplegroin and said a little prayer: Patron Saint of Lonely Fat Bachelors, our Brother of Grace, bring bad fortune on Harry and bring me a girl. I vowed to challenge Harry to a gentleman’s duel the next time we were alone.

That was my dream girl and Harry was writhing underneath her and there was nothing I could think to do about it. I lay in my bed with the sheets bunched in my hands, my brain boiling, the pillow hard and unsupportive. To calm my mind I pictured a new and different and more perfect soulmate in a green German beer maid outfit with white stockings and red garters, prancing through a rolling meadow full of clovers and buttercups, parsnips and forget-me-nots, her green skirt bouncing up to reveal the pink panties, myself in green lederhosen merrily bounding toward her, her happy expression and open arms, my happy expression and open arms, and then I was on her, and licking her, and she tasted like a fresh mountain spring, like flowering snowballs, and then I was in her, bent over in the grass, the panties pushed aside, and I thrust into her until I planted seed aplenty. We curled up next to each other in the grass, picked buttercups and sniffed them. She held two of the golden blooms over her nipples and smiled at me. We left the rolling meadow and went back to our log cabin where we produced many blond babies. We kept a vase of sunflowers, to remind us to appreciate the small things in life. Once a month we visited the shrine of our Patron Saint to pay homage and say thanks for what he had given us. And when the babies were asleep at night, my soulmate would read me a bedtime story about the American prince who went door to door to find the woman whom the panties fit, and then brought her into his castle for long, lusty nights, and I would bend her over my knee and lift her skirt to spank her over the panties, and whisper into her ear, “you are a very, very naughty girl, Frau Cinderella.”

“You okay?” I called, and held up a questioning thumb. In hindsight, okay, this was dumb. You were clutching a tree in a storm and a racoon had just hit you in the head. The forecast had promised rain, increasing in the afternoon, maybe a little snow on high ground, but nothing like this. The twister had sucked up the smaller life-forms of the region, spat them out all over, and moved on. And how. It moved across the horizon like a coked-up Cohiba on a mission. But here, the worst was over. A toad splayed across the windscreen, dead. The worst was mostly over. The racoon slipped into a corn field.

“Do I look the fuck okay?” you said—I thought you said—it could have been anything, the acoustics were lousy out there. I opened the passenger door and you arrived on the next gust, the tips of your toes barely touching the ground. Angry wind slammed the door behind you.

“Made it,” I said, and offered a high-five, which you didn’t seem to notice.

“I’ve just been hit in the head by a racoon,” you said, between gulped breaths.

“Yeah,” I said, and if I laughed I really didn’t mean to, and apologise, again.

“You think that’s funny?” you said.

“No, hell no,” I said. But it was funny, actually. It was funny then and I can’t imagine it becoming unfunny anytime soon.

“I’m sure we’ll look back and laugh about this in-“

“Don’t!” you said. “Don’t presume to think we will stay in contact after this orfuckingdeal. Because we won’t. I appreciate the ride, really I do, but all I’m interested in is getting to the next town.”

Though visibly, the racoon had left you unscathed, I wondered if you might be in shock. You looked ahead, poker-faced, and we sat there as the weather stormed. I told you my name and tried to take your mind of things with some small talk.

“Weather, huh?” I said.

“We should get out of here,” you said.

“We should,” I said, and moved into first.

“Now would be a good time to fasten your seatbelt,” I said. You rolled your eyes and poked at the radio. Static. I was about to offer you my Tom Waits cassette when the clock lodged in the windscreen. 11:55. Neither of us said anything but I couldn’t help thinking that 11:55 was an ominous kind of time. I checked my watch, I was officially late.

Driving, driving my ’76 Capri at least, was like doing the doggy paddle in a vat of baked beans. With the wind behind us and my foot on the brake, we were pushed along at a steady 15mph. You didn’t say a word the whole time; just sat there, low in the seat with folded arms and a saispasquoi pout. A refrigerator zipped by and spilled its contents in our path.

“Hungry?” I said. Nothing.

“Who keeps bananas in the fridge?” I said. More nothing. Maybe you weren’t used to other people, or were unfamiliar with the finer points of hitch-hiking, like telling the driver your name and saying, “Thanks for stopping.” Maybe you- “Would you take your feet off the dash, if you don’t mind?” I said. Yeah, maybe not too used to other humans.

We arrived in The Hamlet of Greendale.

The Hamlet of Greendale was only a hamlet in name, it had grown some. But, still, it had a Walnutty Grove feel to it—had had—last time I’d been there, not anymore. I’d had celebratory breakfast in a diner—the worst omelette ever—after the trial had been adjourned. It looked like an omelette but in reality it was an aberration, an insult to omelettes everywhere, despite the cheese, the bacon, the onions, the mushrooms. I looked at you about then, I wanted to check if you were still breathing; you yawned.

Every structure in THOG—that’s how the waitress who served the omelette had referred to it, “First time in THOG?” she’d said—every house, church, shop and school had been levelled. In the street, the mangled remains of the burger joint’s arches brought the first stage of our journey to an end.

“Time to abandon vehicle,” I said. “There, under the courthouse, the bunker.”

“Courthouse? What courthouse?”

“Well, there used to be a courthouse above that sign down the steps to “The Bunker?” Think you can make it?”

You stepped into the street and moved to the front of the truck, where the gust got you. I’d exited downwind, luckily, and caught you in my arms. You’d still be travelling, probably, if I hadn’t. The wind knocked us ass over tit, across the street and into the entrance of the bunker. Eight ball, corner pocket. That’s how it felt, like the elements were playing pool with us. Your hair smelt of bergamot.

The citizens of THOG were less than impressed at our arrival. Three of them battled to shut the heavy iron door behind us. One of them wore a Gatekeepers tee-shirt, a local trash metal band. Inside, around the entrance, people looked up, then away. I learned later that they’d lost Leroy Fulda in the last attempt to close the door. He’d be found later, dead and bloated, four miles offshore.

“Move along now, folks,” someone said. “No loitering.”

It was difficult to tell how far back the bunker’s passageway went. It was thick with people. They shuffled forward, holding candles and torches, gas lights. They were neighbours, family, colleagues, friends, and now, as one, victims.

“Plenty of room out back,” someone called from behind.

A small round man with a shining pate and wire-rimmed glasses held out a meaty hand. I guessed he was the mayor.

“Howdy-doody,” he said. The weather wasn’t going to spoil his good cheer. “Welcome to THOG. This here bunker is the former wine cellar of Reinmund Becker, a German winemaker and one of our town’s founders. He arrived here in 1878 with stalks and stems and the shirt on his back. The stalks and stems loved the dry acidic earth, a love affair that continues to the present day. For the first half of the twentieth century our wine cellar was also the town jail. The walls are three feet thick. But because there’s no natural light, use as a jail was discontinued in 1952. Of late, The Bunker’s been a bar.” It sounded like an interesting story but the timing was all wrong. You were still beside me, but moving. I thanked the mayor and excused us. He turned to the door and welcomed more newcomers—an elderly couple and a shivering pup, the cutest thing I’d ever seen. You were ahead of me now. Afraid I would lose you, I reached out for your hand. You took it without thinking—or not—then shook it away. I curled my arm around your shoulder, but you lifted it over your head and were gone, into the labyrinth of caves and tunnels and God only knows. I watched as you weaved your way through the throng, then let go a “hey,” wishing I’d pushed you on your name, and followed.

For you, the crowd parted smoothly, conducted you further, then closed seamlessly, as if it were a life-form. No sooner had I breached the crowd, was I ejected. Breach, eject, breach. Expelled, expunged like a foreign body: unwelcome. “Could I just… if you don’t mind, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me…” The wall of citizens of THOG was insurmountable, un-penetrate-able. I dallied at the edges, then noticed my lawyer in deep conversation with the judge. I backed away but I’d already caught their attention.

“There won’t be no trial today, son,” he called to me. “I’ll ring as soon as the phone lines are fixed.”

“Trial?” said a smug citizen, and pushed his infant daughter behind his legs.

“A stalking thing,” I said. “Nothing serious, a misunderstanding.”

“You want a seat?” said a woman from behind me. She picked up the pup from the bench and placed it on her lap. I hesitated for a second, the seat she’d made free was between herself and the old dude she’d come in with. The heck, you were gone; I thanked her and sat. The old man held a cigarette to his lips.

“Don’t even think about it,” said the woman. “We don’t want to inhale your poison.”

He lit up anyway, blew smoke to the ceiling and eyed her with contempt. “That’s a twister out there, Eleanor Daley, and you’re worried about second hand smoke?”

“Excuse my husband,” said Eleanor. “He was born sans decorum.”

Eleanor and Nathaniel were lifelong citizens of THOG. Nat was a local artist who’d exhibited in places as far away as places I still knew. Eleanor was a psychiatric nurse and breadwinner. They’d fished the puppy out of a barrel of rainwater in their yard.

“We thought about calling him Spitz,” said Eleanor, stroking the dog in her lap. “After the swimmer,” said Nat.

“That’s a lot of name for a little fella,” I said. Spitz looked at me and stretched.

“You should introduce him to your girlfriend,” said Eleanor. “Where’d she go?”

“Chicks cream themselves within five paces of a puppy dog,” said Nat.

“Nathaniel Arnold,” said his wife. “I will not tolerate that kind of language.”

Nat spat. Eleanor looked at the gob of sputum on the dark ground; Spitz, too, seemed interested.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” I said. “She’s a hitch-hiker.”

“Is she now?” said Eleanor. “Isn’t that something?”

“Huh?” said Nat.

“What?” said I.

“I mean it’s romantic, is all,” said Eleanor. “Come on now, I can see the shine in your eyes.”

“You got the hots for her, boy?” said Nat. “Which one is she?”

“She went off to scout the joint,” I said. “She’ll be back in a while.”

Eleanor and Nat looked at me.

“Show her the dog, son,” said Nat. “Can’t hurt to try.”

“Nah, don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“It would be a pretty kitsch thing to do.”

“So you’re not that interested, huh?”

“I guess not,” I said, and smiled, and shook my head in a kind of affirmation. Old Nat had nailed it. I just wasn’t that interested. We had the makings of a good story, perhaps, at least a beginning. And we had arrival, then of course separation, all elements of good yarns. And I had Nat and Eleanor, benevolent strangers with their gift of Spitz. But that was all. I wasn’t that interested. And anyway, I’d learned my lesson.

“Here,” said Nat, and held out Spitz.

Spitz yapped—he hadn’t got his bark down yet—and wagged his tail like a pro.

“What the fuck,” I said, and tucked him under my arm, “it can’t hurt to try.”

I think of a million man-hours spent bringing us the opportunity to check our Facebook walls and Action Items while we nibble from tiny bags of honey-roasted peanuts.

The hotel bar is themed around a single football game from 1961. There are jerseys above the booths, and something called a “Pigskin-Tini” on the cocktail list. I sit at the bar next to a young business buck. He looks up from his newspaper and tells me, “We’re selling our souls to China.” I nod in a studied manner to indicate assent with his statement but disinterest in conversation, but he ignores or perhaps is ignorant of the etiquette; maybe he feels his observations are too urgent to hold at bay. “Nobody wants to make anything anymore,” he tells me, “nobody wants to put money where their mouth is and start producing.”

I ask him what his line is and he explains that he’s an executive sales manager for one of the major printer manufacturers. “Not that I’m just a salesman,” he tells me, “I coordinate the company’s regional managers, who deal with subordinate floor managers, who interface directly with the ground level sales producers, who actuate the actual sales streams.” I ask whether any of the printers his managers and producers sell are sourced from China and of course they all are. He ask what I do, so I tell him the truth: I’m working with a venture capitalist to start a magazine about meta-meetings. “You know,” I say, “meetings where you get together to meet about your other meetings; how effective they’ve been in delivering deliverables, how future meetings might be made more actionable, more trackable, more fun.” He nods, takes a sip from his mug, and asks whether we’ve picked out a name for the masthead. “Of course,” I tell him as I motion a numeral ‘2’ in the air, “Meetings Squared, with the two written as an exponent.” He comments that America could get back on track if there were more go-getters like us. I motion for another glass of Zinfandel.

The baby across the aisle is squealing again. I close my eyelids, lean against the molded plastic wall of the 737’s cabin, and imagine my loathing beading onto my skin like an electric sweat, its intensity strong enough to set haywire the basic atomic forces. I picture myself slipping through the cabin’s wall, landing momentarily on the riveted aluminum wing, then waving to my former commuter companions as the jet’s velocity carries it on toward Chicago while gravity re-routes my arrival gate earthwards. I imagine myself rotating to spy for a pond or a greenhouse or a hot air balloon to crash into — didn’t that World War I pilot survive a fall of thirty thousand feet by cushioning himself with the glass skylights of a train station? — but all I see is section after section of brown and green farmland. The squealing from across the aisle morphs into an animal wail. “Yes,” I tell the flight attendant, “yes, I would like to purchase a turkey pita sandwich with low-fat tzaziki sauce.”

The bartender is too hip for the tchotchkies choking the bar like mothballs; he’s making the other convention-goers uncomfortable with casual mentions of too-contemporary and too-up-and-coming bands.

“Another round?” he asks me.

I nod in affirmation and thanks. I can’t believe we’ve managed five minutes of conversation before the business mook next to me gets around to it: “You know what the problem is? China.”

I flip between the pages of SkyMall to compare competing doggy oases which enable dogs to urinate in the comfort of living rooms onto a patch of porous synthetic turf. One drains into a simple pan; the other, more expensive and luxurious model drains into a plastic cistern and features a self-cleaning sprinkler mechanism as an optional upgrade. I flip to another page I’ve bookmarked, to the personal putting green for execs who want to practice their stroke while they conference call, and I wonder if there’s room for an ‘innovention’ in the mash-up of the two: if businessmen might want to pee on the putting green in their office.

“Good evening,” the captain says over the all-cabin intercom, “it looks like we’ll be landing in Boston just a few minutes ahead of schedule. Sit back, buckle up, and we’ll have you on the ground in, oh, looks like just over 25 minutes.”

I’d like to urinate in my office, I think. I swipe the glass face of my phone, click past an advertisement for Diet Coke, launch a web browser, then order a pepperoni pizza and a two liter bottle of Diet Coke to meet me at the Hyatt. I consider my opinions about the promptness of pizza delivery drivers in general, of the likely traffic hindering my pizza delivery driver’s smooth travel to the hotel, consider whether it’s more likely he’s working his way through school or just making rent, decide that this driver deserves a three buck tip, select my method of payment, and raise my seat back to its full upright position.

With each subsequent call, all I hear is Shirking of PLC Responsibilities and Breach of Fiduciary Duty, and I immediately consider filing reports with both the Department of Professional Licensing and Regulation and the Better Business Bureau. It is only after a long, warm bath with Epsom salt, however, that I shelve my whistleblowing and walk next door to confront Duane face-to-face, client-to-PLC.

I’m about to knock again when Duane’s figure finally materializes through the screen door. He’s not wearing a shirt and there is a Scarlet Macaw parrot perched on his forearm, its talons opening and closing and drawing faint trickles of blood. He smiles like he just caught me in a lie.

“It’s good to see you, Reginald. Welcome.”

Duane’s home smells like a Bath & Body Works and, in the living room, there is a young woman sitting cross-legged on an ottoman, eating almonds from a Ziploc bag. She is also sans chemise, her stringy black hair long enough to drape her bosom, and she doesn’t avert her eyes from Barefoot Contessa to acknowledge my presence.

“I’d introduce you to Oksana but I’m afraid that, unless you are fluent in Estonian, the same would be fruitless.”

“You’ve abandoned me in a time of crisis, Duane.”

We take our tea on the back porch. It is there that Duane informs me that, effective immediately, he’s unilaterally ending our PLC-client relationship. He’s walking away from the trade altogether, actually, has already accepted an entry-level call center position with a regional auto insurance carrier. He directs my attention to the stack of unassembled moving boxes resting against the siding of the house, indicates his readiness to uproot and re-seed in Skaneateles, NY by month’s end.

“I’m reluctant to classify it as a ‘retirement,’ per se. But it feels permanent, Reginald. This economy has made beggars of us all.”

Duane insists that I not take the severance personally, reminds me of the book of business it took nearly thirteen years of Life Coaching to amass, the tens of hundreds of dollars he will be walking away from and the valued clientele to whom he must bid farewell. Today’s unscheduled appointment will be pro-rated, he continues, my initial $350 retainer refunded with interest.

“I’d be remiss, Reginald, if I didn’t suggest you press forward with a new PLC. You’re a wayward vessel, in need of mooring.”

He suggests I contact Glenda at the Agency, so that she can review my Current Needs. Ultimately, he believes Rayanne will be best suited to assume his post, what with her being a Chickasaw medicine man in a past life and the owner/operator of a functional ’98 Toyota Tercel in her current.

“She’ll come to you, Reginald. Just give her fifteen, twenty…”

“I don’t want Rayanne. I want you.”

I bring up the frayed wires, the wet floor at that Steak ‘n Shake. The exhaustive inventory of disasters averted due to Duane’s timely soothsaying. I can feel my Panic Dam swell and bulge, the wellspring of doubt on the other side poised to flood my brain and drown my future. It is then that Duane reaches across the card table, presses his gummy palm against the top of my right hand. Our eyes are magnet halves, mine wet with fear and his bloodshot from all the caffeine, inextricably locked in place.

“Reginald, why did you come to me today, seeking counsel?”

I tell Duane about Melissa, about the trips to Starved Rock with the journeyman roofer. How she returns home well past 10:30 pm CST, our agreed-upon weeknight curfew, smelling of curly fries. Could her heart belong to another?

Duane settles back into his tattered lawn chair, arms folded in deliberation.

“That bitch is definitely stepping out on you, Reginald.”

I scroll through the profiles at PsychicPsource.net in search of Duane’s successor but find nothing but charlatans. Bekah’s Power Rating is a robust 4.9 out of 5, but her primary focus appears to be reuniting pet owners with Golden Labs who break free from backyard barbeques and end up in Oregon. Mistress Sindee claims to have predicted the collapse of Lehman Brothers back in the mid-80s but couldn’t prophesize HAROLDWINNICK1’s gout. And so on.

I power down, fold the laptop over. Through the bay window I watch as Duane and the Estonian woman set up long folding tables along the sidewalk, drag boxes of useless bric-á-brac to be liquidated. The makings of a garage sale.

Soon, Duane will embrace a new era, its high-quality nature presumably clear as crystal to him for years by now. He’s already foreseen his meteoric rise to middle management, his career trajectory the stuff of legend within the industry braintrust. He already knows he has a touch lamp, adequate stapler refills. He will have benefits, health and otherwise. He will have everything in his Central New York Valhalla and time will Swiffer away our mentorship period from memory, a mere dust bunny on his life’s Formica.

As for me, I will simply be. I will sit idly by and watch as Melissa finds herself, mainly in the company of other men. I will take strange comfort in her romantic meanderings, manifestations of Duane’s final revelation. I will contemporaneously consume foodstuffs with dangerously-high levels of trans fats and high-fructose corn syrup, and for no good reason at all.

I will accept that total, irrevocable ruin awaits me around every corner, skulks through every shadow, ready to bludgeon me with my own terror.

“Rough day, honey?” Jim cocked his head in her direction and stopped thumbing through the mail.

“It’s the neighbor.” She sighed hoping to evoke her husband’s pity. “I can accept it when the neighbor does not wave to me from across the lawn—that’s fine. But he parked right next to me at the farmer’s market, and you know what he said? Nothing. I find it odd and disturbing.” She looked to Jim as if he held all the answers. To her, it seemed he did. He was twenty years her senior and mingled in intellectual circles. Some even thought him to be a genius.

“Well, did you say something to him?” Jim studied a five-dollar off restaurant coupon.

“No.” She scrunched her face and smoothed back wisps of her wild hair.

Jim analyzed the situation and determined his wife and the neighbor were suppressing sexual tension. If given the opportunity, he predicted Helaine and his neighbor would make out like teens in the backseat of a Dodge Neon. All that stood between them was his presence. He abruptly vowed never to leave her at home alone again.

His mind tossed and turned over the decision. Not only was it unrealistic to always be with her, he valued trust and considered it an integral aspect of love. He decided his situation warranted a trust test.

“I bought a gym membership.” Jim fiddled with a string on his trousers to hide his lying eyes.

“Good for you!” He concluded she was being sincere and had bought into the lie.

“I think I will go right now.” He scooped up his keys and pecked her cheek. He mentally told her this is a test and she should try to pass. He closed the door behind him and drove to a nearby hill, where he parked the Toyota Avalon. He stared out the open window at his and his neighbor’s homes below.

After eight minutes, nothing had happened. She did not leave her house to knock on his door and ask for an egg or other kitchen staple as a ploy to weasel herself inside and make passionate love to him.

After twenty-two minutes, nothing had happened. He did not peep in her window to see her unbutton her polyester dress and slip into her holey Phish nightshirt. He stared directly at the houses, only watching the sky darken out of the corner of his eye. By that time, he had noticed the two televisions flickered simultaneously as if they were synchronized. They were watching the same television show. He raised his eyebrows.

After twenty-three minutes, Jim’s stomach growled. He felt around the floorboard for an old fry. That is when he noticed his loafers. He envisioned his one pair of gym shoes on the floor on his side of the closet. If she decided to poke around in there—which he felt sure she did, she would automatically know he had lied. He planned to instantly forgive her because he does the same thing while she is gone. He reasoned she had probably figured out he had lied and was wondering where he was at that very moment. He deduced this was the reason she did not knock on the neighbor’s door to ask for an egg to seduce him.

Jim concluded he should call it a day and resume the spy session another time. He noted he must bring gym shoes for the next spy session, as well as rice cakes and binoculars.

He put the car in gear and drove the short trip back home. When he walked inside, she barely looked away from the flat screen television hanging on the wall to greet him. Still, he doubted she could focus on the show with all those sexual fantasies about their neighbor playing over and over in her head.

The first publication under the Nouvella masthead is slated to be Repatriate, by Johnny America #8 contributor Matthew Salesses. We haven’t read it, but we’re obviously fans of his work.