On arbor

denuded of leaves,
you overhang the sidewalk —
dread winter draws near

Folly Lake

The little animal emerges from his den well before the sun has crested the misty hills sheltering his home. He yawns. Flaxen-maned and blue-eyed, the cub steps out into the late spring morning. The night has been foggy; the grass is dewy beneath his feet. Behind him tower the broad, forested Appalachians, half a billion years old. The weathered bones of an ancient mountain chain that once dwarfed the Rockies and rivalled the Himalayas, their loftiest peaks aspired to Olympian heights that would have denied breath. But that was long ago. These softened nubs were already long humbled and worn by the time this small mammal’s kind arose on the plains of East Africa a few million years ago. Since then, his species has ranged far, until, at last, this one stands beneath them. Small, short-lived, he has drawn breath a mere five years, and yet, forms the very center of Creation—for is he not fashioned in the image of God? Every creature of his kind has a name, and this one’s name is Andy. He rubs his eyes, and glancing back at the trailer where his parents lie sleeping, he quietly picks his way between folding chairs and lawn darts that sprout from the turf, to the dead fireside where the bounty awaits.

Green and red cans of Labatt’s 50, blue cans of Schooner, Moosehead, Ten Penny Ale... set in the grass beside chairs, left on glass-topped drink stands, waiting atop picnic tables. Abandoned. One after another, each can is examined for the remainders of the liquid denied him. Even when a can heavy with promise is found, it must be carefully listened to for the dull pat of a cigarette butt or a drowned hornet... or worse, the angry whine of a live one. Lessons learned from bitter experience. Delighted, he finds one can that passes all the tests, and in a human tradition as old as Adam and Eve, he upends it, indulging in forbidden things. He guzzles, stealing from the gods, like Prometheus taking fire to mankind, though with hardly such lofty goals. Andy is motivated by greed, defiance, and precocity, not altruism. His liver might one day be ravaged by alcohol, perhaps, but not by a giant eagle. In any case, the paltry offerings of the cans this morning will ravage no one’s liver, not even one so small. This particular adventure completed, he heads off.

Andy’s kind, being relatively sparse of fur and driven by modesty, are in the habit of draping their bodies in fabric. By his age, Andy has adopted the custom and heads out into the morning in jeans, a t-shirt emblazoned with Snoopy and Woodstock on the front, and a fringed buckskin jacket that makes him feel like an Indian, despite a countenance that is more typical of Sweden than native America. The cuffs of his jeans have been rolled up below his knees by his mother and safety-pinned into place, to be let down again in the fall, assuming they still fit him.

The other boy, Martin, is waiting for him in the glade where his own trailer is parked. Andy admires everything about Martin, loves him and dotes on him. Martin is the near future. He is six-and-a-half, going on six-and-three-quarters, and so considerably older and wiser than Andy, who only turned five last month in April. Andy has not yet been to school, but Martin has almost two years of it behind him. He knows much. Martin’s father is a doctor, and their trailer is a huge Airstream, a sleek, rounded beauty in brushed aluminum. When Andy asked his own father why they don’t get one like it, his father had told him simply that they couldn’t afford it. That Martin’s family had more money than theirs. Already Andy understands that people have different social statuses, and that their relative importance is reflected in how much money they have, and the quality and quantity of things it allows them to possess. Though the mane that rings his head is brown, Martin’s colouration is otherwise similar to Andy’s; likewise, Martin is dressed similarly to Andy—light spring jacket, white turtleneck pullover, and jeans—but his jeans are actual clam diggers that end below the knee. There is no need for his clothing to pull double duty when the weather turns cold. Martin can have whatever toy, whatever treat he wants, whenever he wants. And finally, while Andy is an only child, Martin has an older brother, an oft-quoted source of wisdom, yet another advantage. To Andy, Martin is almost like a different level of being.

“Hi, Martin,” Andy yaps, but the older boy shushes him, glancing back at the trailer. He, too, measures the width, breadth, and depth of his liberty by the ignorance of sleeping parents. Martin places an arm behind Andy’s back and leads him away from the Airstream.

“You want a bar?” Martin asks. Andy nods. Martin reaches into his pockets and pulls out a half a dozen miniature Mars bars, the best food on Earth, and hands over two of them to Andy. Andy strips off a wrapper and takes a bite. For him, these are two-bite treasures. But in still one more indication of superiority, Martin can devour them in a single bite. Andy has attempted this but finds it awkward. Martin does it with aplomb. Andy’s breakfast of flat beer and chocolate bars is the envy of any college freshman. An impressive distinction for someone whose first molars have yet to erupt.

“You wanna play Spider-man?” Andy suggests.

“Let’s go to the waterfalls,” Martin decides. He and Andy cut through a screen of trees back into the large clearing that houses Andy’s trailer, along with perhaps a dozen others. Andy gazes towards home. Still no sign of activity. The sun remains unborn, still in the womb of the Cobequid Mountains, the same highlands down which the waterfalls tumble. The boys trot across the manicured grass, skirting the edge of the clearing, and then disappear into the canopied trail that leads into the wilds.

“I don’t like the campgrounds sometimes,” Andy admits. “You can’t see cartoons here on Saturday morning.”

“It’s reruns now anyway,” Martin says.

“Huh?”

“You seen ‘em all before. In the wintertime. They’re just showing the same ones again.”

Andy frowns, perplexed. “For how long?”

The sound of thundering water grows steadily louder as they traipse along. Martin raises his voice. “Till school starts. Then the new ones start.”

“How long’s that?”

“Long time yet.” Martin holds up two fingers on each hand. “This many months.” Andy gapes. Four months is a long time. A very long time.

Martin knows everything. If he weren’t so small, he’d be a grown-up, Andy thinks.

The pool at the base of the waterfall is cold, even where it circles slowly before rushing off along the valley floor to its rendezvous with Folly Lake… too numbing to wade in for very long. They stand in the water and throw in rocks for as long as they can manage, as if this is some duty they owe the river, and then climb back out. Andy shakes his feet like a cat as they step back up onto the humus path. Martin has to cup his hands to be heard; he orders, “Let’s climb to the next one!” and without waiting for Andy’s reply, he begins to head up the path.

Andy follows Martin without objection. The morning is still new, and they are free… for the moment, at least. Andy has no particular plans for the time; if Martin does, that suits Andy fine. The sound of the falls below them fades quickly, muffled by the fat evergreens and mossy rock faces. They pass patches of lady’s slippers, delicate nodding blossoms of white and pink. Andy has always loved them. He would pluck a few but has been lectured against it. If everyone did that, he has been advised, soon there would be none left for anyone to see. And so he merely admires them as they pass.

The second set of falls soon makes its presence heard, and felt as well. The falls mists the air, dampening hair and skin as though by magic. Soon the youngsters can see it. It is different from the set below in shape, and slightly smaller. There is less of a pool at its base, since the water drops away again almost immediately. Andy barely has time to appreciate the view before Martin says, “Let’s climb to the top.”

Andy knows from previous experience that there are four more sets of falls, and it takes a long time to see them all. “I’m hungry,” he objects.

Martin smiles, and his hands dip into his pockets again. Mini Mars bars appear. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ve got a bunch.” Sugary milk chocolate and caramel buy the younger cub’s compliance. They climb.

Each set of falls is slightly smaller, somewhat more modest than the successor below it. The highest falls is just water spilling down rocks. The two explorers make a point of pawing their way up the wet rocks on all fours, rather than taking the path alongside. Finally, they crest the mountain. They turn their gaze to the blinding sun in the east.

Andy shields his eyes, looking down along the treetops. He turns, and below him he can see Wentworth Valley, and the hills on the other side. “I wonder if there’s kids up there right now looking at us.”

“I don’t know,” Martin says.

Andy scowls. “I wasn’t asking,” he explains. “I was just saying I wonder.” It will be years yet before either of them learns the word ‘rhetorical’.

“Sorry,” Martin mutters, and glances over the hilltop. The CNR line runs across the cleared ridge. He steps towards it.

“I’m not allowed to go near the tracks without a grown-up,” Andy informs him. “I got in trouble after they found out.”

Martin pauses just long enough to look back and offer a shrug before continuing toward the tracks. Andy frets, peering down the hillside as though to check if his parents are watching somehow, and after a moment, scampers to catch up with Martin.

Martin walks along the rail, the cold, shiny silver line unbending as his feet spread and mould to their rounded surface. His body totters as he carefully balances. Andy walks alongside, studying the demonstration. “In gym,” Martin explains, “they make you walk along a beam like this.”

“Why?”

Martin glances at Andy, loses his balance, and steps off the rail. “In case you have to balance on railroad tracks,” he says. Andy smiles, uncertain if this is meant as a joke or not. “Wanna try?” Martin suggests.

Andy steps up onto the cold steel. It’s interesting how it feels so cool now, when in the afternoons it has always been so warm to the touch. He takes a few uncertain steps and slips off. He steps back up. Each boy takes a rail, and with varying degrees of success, they make their way along the line, aimless but for the direction it imposes upon them.

There is a song Andy knows from the radio, and he sings it now. “Love is a railroad through my mind,” he recites, his reedy voice shaping melody out of thin air. Martin knows the tune, and joins in. Unlike most of their closest relatives, their kind has an inexplicable urge to make music, as though they were flightless, featherless songbirds rather than primates.

Andy sees Martin stop, stepping off the rail, and glancing back. “What?”

“Maybe I heard a train.”

Andy looks back. Steps off the rail. The gravel is sharp and it hurts to stand on it. He steps onto a tie. The two of them stand poised, gazing back along the line. “Hey, I know what,” says Andy, and he kneels, placing his ear to the rail.

Martin crouches. “What do you hear?”

Andy makes a face. “I don’t know. Not sure.”

“So what’s it supposed to sound like? A train coming...”

Andy realizes that while he’s seen the trick prescribed on television, he has no idea what he would be listening for. The image of a train suddenly arriving out of nowhere and knocking his head away like a football flashes across his mind, and he jerks bolt upright.

Martin stumbles back. “Train?”

Andy rises. “I’m not sure. I don’t wanna get hit.”

“Let’s walk on the side, then,” Martin says. They continue onward, first on the grass, but then walking on the ties outside the rails. As the sun rises, the mists disperse in the valley, and the air warms around them. Martin removes his jacket, ties it around his belly by the sleeves. Andy has never seen this before. He takes off his jacket and tries to do the same. He fusses, frustrated, until finally Martin knots his sleeves for him.

“I wanted to do it,” Andy sulks.

“I know, but I just thought I’d help you.”

“Okay, but next time I want to do it myself.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I’m hungry.”

“I don’t want to go back yet.”

“But I’m hungry!” It’s a long way back, and Andy does not want to go alone. He looks behind them. He is not even sure where they joined the tracks.

Martin turns. There’s a clear whistle, but it comes from in front of them. “Get off the tracks,” he says, hopping down the grassy rise.

“Into the woods!”

“No, no,” Martin says, quickly grasping the younger cub’s paw in his own, to reassure him and keep him from running. “We’re okay. We just can’t be on the tracks.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. Don’t be scared. It’s gonna be cool.”

Andy watches the train push its head out from behind the hillside. He gasps, wide-eyed. Around the corner it comes, the red face and black head of a CN locomotive, snaking like a Chinese dragon, the air above its single nostril shimmering with the fire of its breath. He crouches, Martin gripping his hand all the tighter, dropping with him. His mind tells him there is no danger. They are many yards removed from the train, and it is a machine of his own kind's making, with a purpose bent to their will; it is not a monster full of its own appetites and intentions, about to jump the track and pounce upon them. But the little creature that he is deep inside still trembles in awe of the leviathan passing above them. The controlled fear exhilarates and excites him, something intoxicating like the sharp bite of alcohol seizing his senses and twisting them around. The sun itself is lost behind the train, flashing helplessly in the spaces between the cars as they shriek and moan like slaves tormented by the engine; the damned in chains, hauled by a demon on an endless march through a paradise they can only glimpse but never enjoy. Andy shakes his shoulders; he presses one thigh tightly against the other, fighting the urge to urinate, wincing at the pain of it. Suddenly chaffing at the tight grip of the other boy, he jerks his paw free, and jumping up, he waves. That there is no one on the empty freight cars to reciprocate does not matter. The moon is mute; wolves howl all the same. The wave is a gesture to Martin, or God, or perhaps just the frightening little thing inside himself that he has conquered, standing here erect upon two feet, bold, joyous, proud.

Martin gazes up at Andy in surprise, then smiles and gets to his feet, brushing himself off and joining him in waving at the passing cars. The two cubs turn to one another and chuckle in recognition of the fool’s errand it is. Without ever once acknowledging them or their greeting, the great procession brushes past them on its way south to Truro, Halifax, Yarmouth. It rolls along, finally returning the sun to them as it pulls away.

“That was great,” Martin raves as he scrambles back up between the rails in the train’s wake, watching the fiery caboose disappear behind the trees. Andy is beside him, all smiles. He is nagged by the knowledge that he is not allowed to be here, but puzzled by it as well. Why should he be forbidden this? A train has come and gone, and all they had to do to avoid danger was keep clear of the tracks. For that small gesture, they have been rewarded with this exciting and impressive display. Is there more to fear? If so, he can’t guess what. Shouldn’t rules make some sort of sense? This one doesn’t. The little blue eyes see more, suddenly, than just the retreating train...

Martin turns, hopping from tie to tie. “C’mon, Andy.”

The other youngster stays rooted. “I’m hungry! No. I wanna go home. We’re gonna get in trouble.” The sun lights the valley now, and the air is warm around them, as are the ties and rails under their paws. Surely, down below, adults are rising. Liberty is on the wane.

“Do you know that Mr. Macdougal pays you a dime for an insulator?”

Andy tilts his head. “What’s that?”

“It’s those glass things. Like big pinecones. You’ve seen them. They’re around railroad tracks.”

Intriguing, but not overwhelmingly. “I’m hungry. Come on, let’s go!”

Martin undoes his jacket from around his waist to access his pockets. More mini Mars bars appear.

Andy shakes his head, his blond locks splashing across his Nova Scotian brow like surf on the rocks. His features pinched, he barks, “I don’t want more chocolate bars, I want some breakfast. Like Co-Co Puffs.”

“Then go, sooky-baby.”

“I don’t know how...”

“Tough.”

The tears come; the stinging beads of salty water that spill from the eyes, skating down the tiny hairs of the cheeks; it’s a hallmark of the species. Straited on all sides by hunger, potentially angry parents, and an uncooperative friend, Andy is out of good options.

Martin surrenders, sort of. He brushes past the smaller cub and grabs one of the dangling sleeves at Andy’s waist, pulling him along. Andy yelps and stumbles after Martin like a pull-toy of flesh and blood. “C’mon, cry-baby.”

Andy slaps Martin’s hand away and the two of them head back in silence, their spat seemingly transporting them back to their speechless ancestry. Hot, angry minutes pass with only the bugs and birds conversing.

“Slow down!”

“Keep up.”

Martin says nothing when he steps off the tracks and into the woods. Andy sees the stream that tumbles down the hillside in the form of the waterfalls they passed climbing up, and is suddenly humiliated by the realization that if he had only thought of that, he could have turned around whenever he wanted, instead of having to beg Martin. He knows now, too, that Martin can go as fast as he pleases, and it doesn’t matter. Andy can find his way home from here with the water to guide him.

Martin bounds down the pine needled soil, always just at the edge of Andy’s vision. Andy sees him waiting by the pool at the base of the last set of falls; when Martin sees Andy and is satisfied the younger boy can get home, he discharges himself of further responsibility for Andy and stalks off.

Andy dashes after him, calling, “I hate you! Jerk!” He stands at the edge of the clearing, watching Martin leave, ignoring him. “Jerk!” Andy cries.

Martin ducks into the screen of trees by his trailer.

Andy goes home.

His parents seem unconcerned when he enters; the smells of breakfast are already in the air. It’s a given that the youngster will rise early and entertain himself; there is little trouble he can get into, supposedly. “Where were you?” the female asks, all the same. Maternal instincts require this of her.

Andy is immediately on guard. He selects his words with great caution. “I was at the pool,” he says. This is true. It is not the entire truth, but it is not a falsehood, either.

“You didn’t go in, did you?” she asks. Going in the water without an adult is also against the rules.

Andy shakes his head. Then, judiciously, he reconsiders. “Just a little. Just my feet.”

His mother’s face shows reproach, but her mate counsels, “It’s not very deep. Kids like water. Better the pool than the pond.” The pond is considerably deeper. In the middle of the campgrounds, it’s where the campers go to swim. If Andy had waded in there, he would be in trouble now.

Andy’s mother is still concerned. “Were you alone?”

“No. Martin was there.”

His mother nods. A second presence is someone to run for help, at least. “What else did you do?”

The cub is immediately sensitive to the peril he is in. Wordplay is a very delicate game; one that most other animals never have to learn. The rules are tricky, even with half a decade of day-in and day-out study. But even at his age, he is armed with the awareness of certain subtleties. He knows, for instance, that a lie is a bare, blunt instrument to be used only as a last resort. There’s an element of black magic involved in lying; it’s like casting a spell that sometimes works, and sometimes doesn’t. He has observed that older members of his species are adept at seeing through them, so by and large, their use is contra-indicated. The consequences for being caught in a lie are dire indeed. He has, however, gleaned the fine difference between misrepresentation—lying—and misdirection; that withholding the truth is not the same as fabricating the truth, and that the results are usually less severe. He has learned that the techniques here are changing the subject, knocking something over, causing a fuss... anything required to distract, so that one is not forced to resort to actually lying. And so, Andy deflects the direct inquiry with a non-sequitur: “Martin’s a jerk!”

“Why? What happened?”

Andy is not out of trouble yet. The honest answer to this question—that Martin is angry with Andy for forcing him to lead him home from the railroad tracks—is not one that Andy is prepared to give. But where other beasts are blessed with sharp ears, fast feet, telescopic eyes or a profound sense of smell, Andy’s kind possesses the facility to blazingly process abstractions, their optimal presentation, and the reactions they are likely to evoke. Even the young ones become quickly proficient at this, as evidenced by the fact that within a second or two, Andy responds, “He didn’t want to do what I wanted.” Now this is true, if ambiguous. Andy can only be checkmated in this match if the exactly circumstances of the disagreement are demanded.

Fortunately, Andy’s father remarks, “I think the toast’s starting to burn.”

“I like it burnt,” Andy reminds them.

“I know, that’s yours I’m making,” his mother smiles. Burnt toast and peanut butter sail Andy safely out of the verbal shoals.

There are other juveniles in the cub’s acquaintance, but it has already been a morning of some exertion, and his argument with Martin has put him in a more solitary mood. The balance of the morning is devoted to the pursuit of other abstractions favoured by these creatures; visual ones. Andy works in crayon to draw and colour on paper the images in his mind. That the depictions are largely concerned with trains is not seen by Andy as a tacit admission of the morning’s events, nor, luckily for him, is it taken as such by either of his parents. Lunch follows; chicken soup with noodles shaped like tiny stars and a grilled cheese sandwich, after which the youngster sets out on his own. A picnic table near the pond has for some time now served Andy and several of his playmates as a space capsule. He clambers around it, over it, and under it, where lying on his back, he presses imaginary buttons on the underside of the benches. The grass is soft and cool, and the would-be astronaut ends up napping most of the afternoon, drooling onto the sleeve of his jacket. Eventually the spaceman rises and emerges, banging his head. He does not cry but instead utters a word he is not supposed to know, much less use, for many years to come, and rubbing his scalp, heads homeward.

The evening meal is hamburgers. For the parents, at any rate. Despite being a member of an omnivorous breed, Andy does not like hamburgers. Threats, pleadings, and appeals to reason cannot compel him otherwise. There is no philosophical consistency in Andy’s stand, however, since Andy likes hot dogs. Therefore, a pair of them are placed before him, garnished with ketchup (but not mustard or relish, which, again, he does not like), and accompanied by a mass of potato chips that cover the rest of the plate.

When supper is over and the dishes are cleaned, the mother’s fastidiousness turns to her son. She looks over the grass-stained clothes, the dirt-streaked face and limbs. “You’re filthy,” she tells him. “Take off that stuff. It’s time for your bath, okay?”

Andy nods, hauling himself along the seat and padding to the tiny bathroom at the back of the trailer. His father says, “I’m gonna start the fire.”

“Okay,” she says, and gathers the items she will need to bathe her offspring.

Andy shucks off the coverings from his pelt, leaving them on the floor, and climbs up onto the acrylic toilet so that he can peer out the tiny, screened window. Already he can see bonfires licking the darkening air of the campgrounds. His family will join with others, the adults laughing, drinking, telling the stories they assume, only half-correctly, that Andy and his age mates do not comprehend, and Andy will be among them, in his pyjamas, roasting marshmallows, setting them ablaze no matter how many times he’s asked not to. Marshmallows, like toast, are simply better carbonized.

His mother comes in. She sees his clothes in a tangled ball on the floor and remarks, “You know, it’s enough to take them off. You don’t actually have to tie them in knots.” Andy recognizes this as a vague criticism, but exactly why the state of discarded clothes needs to be addressed at all eludes him. Still, he offers the expression of contrition the moment seems to require of him, and his mother smiles tightly and nods. As she straightens the clothes she looks the boy over. His face and lower limbs are already slightly tanned, but the rest of his body is still winter white. As if to emphasize the contrast, the dirt, too, corresponds to the exposure of his skin. She runs the bath and checks the temperature. “Okay, kiddo,” she says, and picking him up under the arms, she sets him in the water and begins to wash him.

“Martin’s probably going to be around... are you going to make it up with him?” she asks, occupying the chore with small talk.

In response, one shoulder rises in a shrug.

“I thought you’d have made up with him this afternoon.”

“I didn’t see him,” Andy says.

She scrubs his face, holding his chin so that he can’t turn away, as he is wont to. “He probably found someone else to play with. Well, that’s what happens,” she warns him.

He jerks his blunt muzzle away long enough to gasp, “Who?”

“I don’t know, but he must have been doing something. Come on, hold still.”

“My face is clean. You’re hurting my eyes,” he complains.

“Fine, fine. Sit down, so I can wash your feet,” she says. Andy squats, sits back carefully so he doesn’t slip and bump his head. He can’t resist playfully kicking the water, giving a couple of giggles.

“Come on, kiddo, don’t get me wet.” She grabs at his ankle and raises his foot. She pauses, frowns a bit, and then her eyes dart to his.

Instantly Andy senses the older creature is displeased with him. “I stopped,” he objects.

“You were up at those railroad tracks, weren’t you?”

Andy is flabbergasted and his mouth drops open. How does she know this?

“Answer me, Andrew.” She uses the formal version of his name, an understated but clear indication that he is in serious trouble. For his part, the boy is so stunned by her sudden display of clairvoyance that all he can do is nod softly.

A pink-clawed finger wags accusingly before him. “You’ve been told to stay away from those tracks. Haven’t you? Haven’t you been told?”

Andy holds his quivering lip between his teeth, and he nods. When he blinks, fat tears are squeezed from his eyes.

“You’re going straight to bed,” she condemns him. “Right after your bath is finished. That’s it.”

The cub’s voice is raised in protest and remorse, but the sentence stands. His mother scrubs his feet, furiously, wordlessly. Inside himself, Andy is sorrowful because he has upset the one who shelters and feeds him, who most loves him and is most beloved in turn. But deeper than that, even more fundamentally, he is angry because he is being punished for breaking a rule he has already judged by experience to be arbitrary. He has been to the tracks, sensed the approach of danger, carefully avoided it, and by the use of his senses and reason, converted a threat into an impressive, memorable moment. Yet somehow, she has sensed this and stolen the triumph from him. He is completely at the mercy of her whims, in no way her equal. He has no shield from them.

Alone, in his sleeping bag, with the sounds of revelry just yards away, the man cub cries himself to sleep.

He rises all the earlier. His mother is not awake to view his bitter face as he sticks his tongue out at her. He dresses quietly and frees himself from the trailer, stepping out into the morning. He initiates an extremely diligent search for leftover beer, and as though God were on his side, is amply rewarded. One can verges on full. It’s too much to drink all at once, and so Andy dashes off with it. He pauses in the screen of trees by Martin’s trailer and guzzles what he can manage. The sharpness of the alcohol and carbonation revolt him, beer invading his nose, and he smacks his hand on the back of his head, coughing.

“Where were you last night?” Martin asks. Andy yips, startled, and nearly drops the can. “Hey, wow, is that beer? Here, can I have some?”

Andy snarls, “Fuck off!”

Martin’s eyes narrow. “I’m telling,” he says. He begins to stride purposefully towards Andy’s trailer.

Daggers of terror stab at the younger boy’s heart; if he’s caught swearing and drinking alcohol on top of yesterday’s misbehaviour, who knows what his punishment will be? He chases after Martin, grabbing him by the sleeve. “Martin! I’m sorry! Here, come on... let’s share,” he offers. He holds out the can.

Martin regards Andy for a moment, then smiles, and they dart into the cover of trees. The can is passed back and forth, presently empty. A mutually amusing exhibition of belching ensues and they share the little chocolate bars that Martin always seems to have in abundance. Martin crushes the can under his heel, and tucks it into the roots of a tree. “Is there any more?” he asks.

“I don’t know. There might be.”

“Come on, let’s see.” They cross the clearing, chuckling as they tiptoe the last few yards to the fireside near Andy’s trailer. Five cans are discovered to hold various amounts of beer, but two of them are spoiled by cigarette butts. They pour the contents of two of the good cans into the third, nearly filling it, and duck into the woods behind the trailer. Martin carries the can, and keeps moving.

“Come on, let’s drink it,” Andy urges.

“Not yet, let’s wait till we’re at the pool,” Martin says. They pick their way between trees, emerging briefly by the path that leads into the forest, and vanish again. At the pool, Martin raises the can to his lips and gulps.

“Hey, me, hey, c’mon!” Andy yaps. Martin passes the can, rubbing his mouth on his sleeve, and now Andy tries to match the greedy display.

“C’mon, c’mon, my turn,” Martin snaps. Andy hands the can back with a burp. Martin gulps a share, and the can is passed back one more time. Andy drains it, letting the foam ooze out onto his flexing pink tongue, patting the can, without which he might be a boy innocently catching raindrops or snowflakes.

“Scrunch it,” Martin advises, and this time Andy crushes the can, wincing as it folds uncomfortably under his foot. Martin pushes it down in the pool so it drinks water and stays down. “That was great,” he enthuses, and taps Andy’s arm. “Come on,” he says, and begins to scramble uphill to the next set of falls. Andy follows him, all four paws propelling him up the slope. At the top, he straightens. His head feels as though it’s growing fur inside and he smiles, then staggers. He catches himself for a moment, but there is a sudden jolt as he falls on his backside. Ordinarily this experience would fill him with anger and frustration, but this time, it strikes him as amusing. Leaning on the heel of his hand, he is laughing too hard to rise.

Martin, too, is laughing. “What a dork,” he keeps repeating, holding his sides, dropping to his knees.

“I gotta pee,” Andy says, and howls at how funny that sounds.

“So do I,” Martin says. He turns away from Andy, still kneeling, and opens his jeans. Andy can see the dark patch spreading in the soil between Martin’s knees, and he falls on his back, laughing. After a few moments he recovers enough to kneel up and relieve himself as well.

Martin drops his chin in his hand. “Beer makes everything funny,” he observes. Andy nods. Clearly, this is why the older ones favour it so. It’s selfish of them to keep something so happy to themselves. He and Martin are only taking what should be theirs in the first place.

Martin gets to his feet and begins to climb upwards. Andy, still panting with laughter, asks, “Where yah goin’?”

“Let’s get some insulators,” Martin calls back. “Sell them to Mr. Macdougal.”

“I got in trouble for going to the tracks,” Andy protests. “I told you that would happen. I got sent straight to bed.”

Martin stops, half way up the rise. “Oh.”

Andy stares back at him in earnest for a moment. Then, his face splits in a smile and he falls back laughing. “You look so funny,” he says, pointing weakly.

“So do you. Come on, we’ll be careful.”

“I can’t, they’ll find out.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. They always know.”

“Not always.”

Andy considers this. It’s true. They don’t always know. But his mother did last night, somehow. “Last time,” he counters.

Martin sits on the slope. “You musta told them.”

“I didn’t!”

“You had to. I didn’t.”

“She guessed.”

“Your mom?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

Andy sits up, throws his arms wide. “I don’t know!” This is, finally, the point. He has no way of assessing the risk, so it’s better not to take it.

“When did she guess?”

“I was taking my bath. She just knew.”

Martin frowns, and scratches his head. “Well,” he reasons, “if they just know, then they’re gonna know about the beer, aren’t they?”

Andy is suddenly frightened. In his rush to defy them, he hasn’t thought of that.

“So we’re already in trouble, right?” Martin pursues his argument. Andy nods, his brow knitting.

“So it doesn’t matter if we go to the tracks, if we’re already in trouble, does it?” Martin rests his case.

Andy sighs, nodding. The fuzzy feeling in his head calms him. What Martin says makes sense. The woman who looks after Andy during the day while his parents are at work has a saying. “Into a penny in a pound,” he mutters, mangling it slightly, but applying it in context.

“Huh?” says Martin.

Andy gets to his feet, stumbling a bit, and climbs towards Martin. Martin turns, and together they ascend. In half an hour, they have crested the rise, and so has the sun. This time, Martin leads Andy in the other direction. Andy is glumly resigned to getting into trouble, and tries to enjoy himself while he’s still free. They plod along the tracks, glancing around for the glass beauties prized by Mr. Macdougal, unaware that the place has been long since picked clean of them by enterprising teens. Finally, bored and footsore, they sit side by side on one of the rails. “Ready to go back?” Martin asks.

Andy sighs. “I guess so.”

Martin picks up one of the stones that bed the railroad line. He tosses it away as it dirties his palms. He makes a face, rubbing them together, but the stain persists. He spits into this hands, then leans to wipe them in the grass. Even this is only partially successful. He looks in his palms, and then at Andy. “Hey, look,” he says.

Andy looks at his friend’s paws. “What’s that?”

“Creesatote,” Martin says, getting to his feet, beckoning Andy likewise.

Andy stands. “What is it?”

“It’s this stuff they put on wood to make it last longer. It’s real sticky,” he says. “Turn around, lemme see your foot.”

Andy turns, and balancing, raises his foot. He looks over his shoulder to see what Martin sees.

“There,” says Martin, pointing at Andy’s sole. He spins, and raises his own foot, showing the identical molasses-like discolouration. He smiles. “That’s how your mom knew. She saw the creesatote.”

Andy gasps and wails. “That’s great!” he yells. “It’s on me now!” He turns and pushes Martin.

“It’s okay,” Martin says, raising his hands. “You can wash it off.”

Andy pauses. Wash it off... “How?”

“When we go back down, wait by the pool. I’ll go back to my place and sneak a bar of soap.”

Andy rubs his nose. “You think that’ll work...?”

“Sure, why not?”

They set off, avoiding the tracks, walking in the grass, Andy scraping his feet every so often as they hurry along. Springing back down the hillside is a lot faster than climbing, and in a short while, they stand at the poolside.

“Why don’t you wait up at the second pool, just in case someone comes along?” Martin suggests.

Andy gazes up. “How long are you going to be?”

“Not too long. I’ll just go in the bathroom, put the soap in my pocket, and come back.”

“Suppose you can’t come back?”

Martin fingers his ear; he says, “Well, if you think I’m taking too long, just wash your feet as good as you can here. Come find me. We’ll get it done.”

“I’m hungry.”

“I know, me too. We probably missed breakfast. You ever get in trouble for that?”

Andy shakes his head. “Only supper.”

“Okay, well—go wait for me up there.”

Andy begins to climb the path. “Hurry.”

“Yeah, I will.” Martin trots down the path.

Andy sits cross-legged at the edge of the little pool, watching the waterfall. He wonders what it would be like to be here forever. He does not understand yet that there was a time, not too long ago, when this was all the life his kind could hope for. But he can see the complications ahead for him… school, growing up; they bewilder him. If Martin does not come back, perhaps he will just run off into the woods forever.

But Martin does come back. The brown-maned cub’s paw darts into his pocket and retrieves a well-worn bar of green soap. “Here you go,” he smiles.

Andy scoots forward to place his feet in the cold water. He knows he can’t keep them in there for long, so he simply wets them, scrubs his soles, claws at them with his nails, and then dips them. He and Martin judge the results. “Starting to come off,” Martin tells him. “Do it again.” After the fourth round of scrubbing, Martin concludes that the evidence of the misdoings is eradicated.

Andy hands over the soap. “Thanks, Martin. You going to?”

Martin shrugs. “Nobody told me not to walk on the tracks. I can if I want to.”

“Lucky,” Andy grumps.

“Let’s go home.” Together the youngsters walk the path, then part company as they reach the clearing. “Good luck,” Martin says.

Andy takes a deep breath before entering the trailer. His father is reading a novel while the news plays quietly on the radio. His mother browses a catalogue. She looks up. “Do you want some breakfast, kiddo?”

“Yeah. Co-Co Puffs.”

She nods and rises. Andy sits in her place and begins to look over the catalogue as though assuming some chore for her. “What you been up to?” she asks him.

“Playing with Martin,” he says.

She places a bowl of cereal before him and pours milk over it. “You weren’t up at those tracks, were you?”

Andy realizes that the moment calls for boldness. “Nope,” he says, grasping a spoon.

“Better not be,” warns his father, without looking up from his book.

Andy is just about to lean back and raise his feet to show them, but at the very last moment, something warns him not to let them see that he understands how his mother guessed the truth. Under the table, his feet press firmly against the finished wood of the bench seat. He feels suddenly clever. He likes this game.

Andy’s mother takes a seat beside him and picks at his hair affectionately. “I’m sorry about last night, Andy. It’s for your own good. Trains are dangerous. We only make rules for you because we love you. You understand, don’t you?”

Chewing cereal, a droplet of milk running from the corner of his mouth, Andy meets her eyes and nods.

“And if you love us, you’ll follow the rules, right?”

Andy nods again. Lying is so much easier when you have arranged the world so it’s almost not a lie at all.

She smiles and strokes his back. “Because we don’t want you to get hurt. You’re a good boy. Mostly,” she smirks.

Andy meets with Martin and a few other youngsters; they form a pack and roam the grounds, practicing moon landings, tossing a football, and sinking rough boats made of boards with leftover chunks of scrap wood nailed to them. It is a good day. And when it is over, Andy returns to his parents. After supper, there is television, and then bath time. Andy is anxious, but knows he must face it. This is the true test. This is where he learns if the world that Martin has opened up for him will really make sense. In the course of it, his mother washes his feet. She does not see the telltale stains that last night made her son look like he’d been skating on tobacco juice; only the dried mud and grass stains that denote acceptable play and roughhousing. When she smiles softly at him, Andy knows. It has worked.

What a world it is now for Andy. Suddenly a place of superstition and all-knowing adults is replaced by a glimmer of logic and the promise of some measure of control. He has broken so many rules today, but because swears evaporate and beer cans disappear and feet can be washed clean of creosote, it is as though he has done nothing wrong. In spite of all that, he is put in clean pyjamas, accompanies his parents to the fireside, and stuffs himself with charred marshmallows while he and Martin exchange knowing glances.

Deduction is a new instrument among the survival tools of this young beast. He has immediately seized upon its advantages. Previously, disobedience has been a matter of willfully breaking the rules, and then hoping adults would somehow fail to guess. Now he can see that being a ‘good boy’ is less a matter of obeying the rules than it is of arranging things such that others believe he does. Andy has discovered some very important truths. His parents might have more experience than he does, but their means of perceiving what is and what isn’t are the same as his. They judge on the evidence of their senses, just the same as he does. They do not have godlike powers to see into his guilty mind. And, more importantly still, they can be deceived. Andy realizes now that he can flout their rule against playing along the railroad tracks so long as he remembers not to walk on the ties, or to wash if he does. And that this caveat may apply to other rules, too. He understands now that a lie is more than simple verbal denial. It’s changing the world so that the lie seems to be the truth. A degree of power is now in his hands. Andy has become far more their equal, and he knows it.

Best of all, they don’t.

He closes his eyes and sleeps, leaning against his mother. She gazes down upon her cub, adoring him, and remarking how much like a little angel he looks. And why not? For is he not made in the image of God?

First Communion

At first, I was just Iqalutaq, a girl living on the shores of the great water in a sheltered cove opposite the big island. We were fisherfolk, and unlike most of the tribes we knew, we rarely wandered, because our cove and the hills gave us nearly all of what we needed.

It was in my ninth summer, as I would lie in my hammock between the whisper of the sea and the lively snap of the fire, when I was still and calm that I would hear it. It was the sound of someone’s heart beating… like your own when you run, or that of a friend when you put your ear to his chest. But it was there, hanging above me in the darkness where no one was. As the days passed, it grew louder, until at last I could hear it even in the day. It would come and go, as though in and out of sleep. It worried me and I spoke to my mother, who in turn took it up with the wise ones. They confirmed it was a spirit, and I should listen for more.

There were other things, murmurings in the darkness, but nothing I could understand. Then one day in the autumn came the pain. I felt as though I were being crushed, though nothing afflicted my body. I cried in pain, alarming those around me, and for hours I rocked in agony as they soothed me. One of the women said it were as though I were giving birth to myself. Then there came the sensation of coldness, a struggle for breath, and I heard the sounds of my own cries. But they did not come from my own mouth. And there were voices, words that I did not understand, that came from nowhere, but were all around me.

“She is in touch with the spirit world,” the women whispered to one another, casting their eyes out across the water to the big island where the dead were said to dwell.

At first I was frightened, hearing voices. But they were calming, soothing, and there were gentle caresses. Strange to be touched without being touched. And then I saw light, even in the night, and things like faces before me, though unfocused and barely recognizable as such. And I suddenly came to realize I was seeing through a second set of eyes. I was someone else, somewhere else. Even then I was old enough to know that this was exceptional.

The wise ones were curious, and each day I would tell them more and more of the spirit world I seem to partially inhabit. It was a cold place, and in it, I was a boy whose name, I came to understand, was Denat. He lived in a world surrounded by people with skin the colour of birch bark, hair the colour of the sun through the mists, and eyes the colour of the sky just before the sun crests the trees. Day there was night here, and night there happened when it was day here. The wise ones were sure this was the abode of the dead, full of our ancestors, and they tried to guess which of our recently lost, having just been ‘born’ in the spirit world, I was in contact with.

But I wasn’t so sure. As the months passed, and I could test my new limbs, I found the world I inhabited as Denat not at all like a spirit world. There was breast milk, pain, blood when men fought, laughter and song, all the things I knew the dead must leave behind. Even the stars were the same. When I had mastered their strange new words enough to question the world, I learned such strange things. For instance, the stars in the sky were the same, but the people there saw very different things among them. Where we saw whales and otters, salmon and rivers, they saw bears, wolves, elk, and the tongues of glaciers.

There was more. Denat lived in a cold place, a plain amid hills, with no great sea at its bounds. High summer was brief; the rest of the time, as Denat, I was obliged to wear a garment made of tough hides roughly sewn together. It was poorly made, and chafed until my neck and shoulders ran with sores. I dispensed with it as much as I dared, preferring the discomfort of the wind to the agony of the wounds. The men said it was a sign I would grow strong and tough. The cove people only bothered with such things when the cold rains came in the short days, when we would don tightly-woven cloaks of reed grass for going outside. Truly, the cove was a better place to live. The cove people’s word for ice was so rarely spoken that I could barely remember it to relate it to that of the plains people, but there was said far more often, and in relation to a long mountain that climbed into the sky all along the horizon. It was a sheer cliff made of ice, and we kept well away from it. It was as though I were living at opposite ends of the world… at one, the water was soft, flowing, full of life, and right there at our feet; at the other, the water was hard, sharp, full of death, a malevolent presence in the distance.

Among the plains people ran wolves, but they were not enemies or competitors. They were of the people. They lived among us, ate with us, helped in the hunt and even understood some of our words and obeyed. Some even had names. When I would tell these things to the cove people, they could scarcely believe me. They came to call my other tribe, the one in the spirit world, the Wolf-Brothers.

What was it like, they would ask me, to be of two worlds, two people, but one soul? I found it hard to explain. There was Iqalutaq… there was Denat… but there was union of thought and decision above them. There was just enough difference to know one from the other, but we, the parts of myself, were never ‘other’. Sometimes one part of me felt or thought one thing, and the other part of me something else, but it was like when part of me wanted to disobey my mother and sneak into the valley to eat the luscious strawberries there, and part of me wanted to obey her because I knew she loved me and only wanted me to be safe from the dangers there. Between the two, I must decide, and it was like that even between the Iqalutaq part and the Denat part.

When I spoke as Denat to the plains folk – the “Wolf-Brothers” – of such things, they had a much harder time believing me. I had always been a strange boy to them, who acted oddly and had long resisted their words and used strange ones of his own, and who told of visions of wood-coloured people with hair and eyes the colour of charcoal, living beside, on, and in a boundless lake of undrinkable water as salty as blood. Among them, I had never gone through the rigors of second-birth as Iqalutaq had among the cove people, preparing them for the wonders to come. As Denat, I came to keep my stories to myself, but I did not learn well enough.

There came a day, in the cove, when a new star appeared in the sky, out over the big island. It could be seen in daylight, bright as the moon, and we were full of wonder. I was so enthralled that I even awoke as Denat, crying out excitedly in the night that in the morning we would see a new star. The plains people told me I was dreaming but I was so insistent that they grew uneasy, and then frightened. Few of them slept the rest of the night, and in the morning, sure enough, a new star came over the hills in mid-morning. I was delighted; I felt as though I were sharing ‘my’ star with my other tribe.

But quickly there were nervous discussions of the portent. How could the boy have known this? I had always told stories of a strange other world. Was I to be worshipped, punished, treasured, destroyed…? My mother hurried me away, but it was no use; the consensus finally was that the new star meant Denat was being sent for, and had to be delivered. They tore me from her grasp and led me struggling up a precipice, and Denat was thrown screaming onto the rocks below.

As Iqalutaq, I screamed too.

I was in mourning, and the cove people seemed to understand. I had lost half of what I was, and it was less as though I had died, and more like all those people and places and things I had grown to love in that other world had died instead. I was still here, but they were gone from my life. Once again, for the first time in many years, I was only Iqalutaq. Alone.

It continued like that for perhaps two years, during which time I had a son of my own. I called him Odenaq, in remembrance of what I had lost.

But then one night as I cradled him in my arms came the sound. The sound of the heartbeat. Not mine, not his, but the one above my head. The sound, I knew, of my next mother’s heart. I held my son in my arms, weeping in joy, waiting again to be born. This time, I was a girl named Umali, born in a hot, dry land among people as dark as the rich soil of the forest.

And so it went, millennium upon millennium. Births and deaths, joys and sorrows. Minds joined to minds. The fire of my existence has blazed wide and brightly, and at times been just a pale ember… but always, there has been a spark to light the next flame. And there were new eyes to see with, new words to learn, new people to love. I have lived long enough to see a world in which I know where every part of me lives, relative to every other. I have had occasion to meet other aspects of myself… the redcoat corporal on the African shore looking into the crowd, meeting eyes with myself, a bare-breasted mother holding her daughter with her son at her skirt, already understanding the pronouncement of a protectorate in defiance of the slave trade though not a word of English had ever been spoken before in that place.

I have been as few as one; as many as thirteen. I am currently eleven in number. Iqalutaq’s bones are long dust now, but what she truly was, I am, and more besides. My story is the story of mankind. Let me tell you of what I’ve seen…

You Don't Put Me Out

“You don’t put me out,” she smiles to me, fussing over a pillow. “It’s good to have someone to talk to.”

There’s a lot she wants to ask me. I know it’s frustrating for her because there’s not much I can say. I’m in the dark myself. I’m waiting. It’s frustrating for me, too. I say, in all sincerity, “I’m lucky to have you for a friend. I don’t know what I’d be doing with my days otherwise.”

“Oh, you’d find someone,” she says. “You’re a lovely person, Brian.”

“Was,” I joke.

“Are,” she insists. We met some months ago at her husband’s graveside. It wasn’t far from mine. Maybe it’s morbid, hanging around your own grave, but I honestly couldn’t think of anything else to do. Marjene gave me that.

Am I haunting her? Does it count for haunting if you’re invited into a home? I need to be here. It’s funny; I can still smell, but it seems entirely tied to memory. It’s like memory gives me permission to smell, or something. From her kitchen comes the aroma of the treats she’s made for the bridge club, due this afternoon. I usually drift once they arrive. It’s not that I’m unwelcome, but it’s awkward. A generational thing that would still be an issue even if I were still alive. I was a curiosity for a while but they’ve long since stopped asking me to relay messages to their dearly departed. Unless they’re ghosts, like me, I have no more access to them than they do. And if they are ghosts, well, hell, they can tell them themselves.

Marjene pours me tea, even though I can’t drink it. I can hold it, and really, it’s all about ceremony and hospitality. She pours me civility, which I must let grow cold. “I hope it’s not the expensive stuff,” I joke. I raise the cup to lips that no longer drink; I don’t tilt it, though, as it would spill. But it’s a form that must be observed.

Katelyn got used to me immediately. She can stare at me for hours, and will occasionally make a sound or gesture to draw my attention. I can pet her, scratch her head and chin; I’ve learned again to do that much. She purrs, unperturbed, but perhaps fascinated instead, by how different I am from the other people she knows. Pets and kids are like that; it’s the adults who make things awkward. Sometimes I think it’s because they’re so acutely aware that I am the future for them. At least potentially so.

“She used to dote on Evan, too,” Marjene says. “I think she prefers men. Don’t you, you little harlot? Hmm, Katie?” she teases Katelyn, who, hearing her name, is broken from her trance and turns her head to offer her reply.

I sigh over the cup I will never taste. I dare to ask, “Do you ever wonder what it would be like, if he’d passed on, but stayed?”

“Sometimes,” she says. “Sometimes I imagine it would be awkward and unmanageable. But most of the time, I imagine it’s just something we’d have gotten used to. You do a lot of that, growing old together. You’ll—” She was about to assure me that I’d find that out for myself as I grew older. But, of course, I won’t. “I imagine it’s the same for everyone,” she recovers.

Content for a moment, she sips. But I’ve opened the door, and a cloud passes over her features. “I wish I could have said to him the things I should have. Good and bad. But mostly good.” Her eyes flick up to meet my gaze. “But that’s just it. I think we’re bound to say those things if we have the chance, when someone’s about to leave us.” She sets the cup back in the saucer in her lap. “But with someone like you... well, you’re going to leave, one day, but... who knows when? It might be tomorrow, it might be years. So in a way, it’s just the same. If Evan were sitting here with me now, would I have to courage to say those things? Or would they seem silly and girlish, even now?”

There’s a pause in which we mull over our own musings. I’m the first to break it. “My mother couldn’t face me,” I say. “At the funeral, you know, I was at the back. Bad taste to be at your own funeral, they said, but hey, it’s my funeral. I wanted to talk to them but my dad said it was over, and I shouldn’t put them through it all a second time. He asked me to just leave them in peace. Can you believe that?”

“I’m sorry,” Marjene whispers.

“Of course, he said the same thing even before the overdose.” There are no drugs in my head anymore, and no head to hold them. “Things are clearer now,” I say as much to myself as to her. She tries to smile for me, so I joke, “Really, it’s a great way to rehabilitate yourself. Cheap, too.”

“Oh, Brian,” she says.

“It’s alright,” I tell her. I try to comfort her; I lean forward, holding my tea, and I remind her, “You know, it didn’t hurt at all. I just woke up and... well, it was over. The paramedics just packed up their gear.” Strange. Strange strange strange. Even now.

She gazes out the living room window of her tiny house into the street paved by men returning from the war. Young then. Gone now. She says, “Joyce is bringing tripe. I wish you could taste it. It’s heavenly. She tells us every chance she gets that the recipe’s been in her family for years. She always says it’s how she got Charlie to marry her and bring her back over here. I imagine she threw something else into the bargain, based on her wedding photos,” she winks, pantomiming a belly heavy with life. “England,” she says. “I always used to tell Evan I wanted to see England before I died. And we just never...”

I nod. There was a lot of ‘just never...’ in my life, too.

“Of course, maybe even that’s not an impediment,” she says. “Not necessarily.”

“Well,” I say, “you can’t really count on being a ghost. You should go, now, while you definitely can.”

“I’m tired, though, Brian. I wouldn’t enjoy it.”

The doorbell rings.

“Oh, that’ll be Betty,” she says, rising. “She’s always the first.” Walking to the front hall, she pauses at the archway. “Promise me something, Brian.”

“What?”

“If it happens to me... like it did for you... and if you’re still here when it does... promise me we’ll go, Brian. You and I.”

I smile. “Stow away on the QE II?”

“Watch the stars go by at night on the deck. I wouldn’t mind the cold then. Would I?”

The doorbell rings again. “No, Marjene. You won’t.”

“It’s a date,” she says. She turns, and she lets Betty Andolini in.

Chatter from the hallway. Mrs. Andolini comes into the living room. I rise. “Hello, Brian! Oh, please, don’t get up, dear.”

“Hello, Mrs. Andolini. It’s nice to see you.”

“Oh, you too. It’s a wonderful day out there. Early spring.”

I don’t want to be rude, but at the same time, Marjene has a right to her friends, and they to her. “I’ll get out of your hair,” I tell them.

“Please don’t go on my account,” Mrs. Andolini pleads.

“It’s no trouble; I know you two have to talk strategy. And I’ve been monopolizing Marjene all morning.”

“Are you sure, dear?” Mrs. Andolini says. “I know bridge isn’t for everyone, but I don’t want you to think you have to leave. You’ve been so good to Marjene.”

I don’t know what to say to that. She’s been my anchor, when the lightest breeze would be more than enough to set me adrift in an empty world. Had I still a throat, there would be a lump in it. So I joke, “I’ll probably just sneak into the movies.”

They both laugh. “Nothing scary, now, you won’t be able to sleep tonight,” Mrs. Andolini teases.

Marjene rises, following me. “Will you visit tomorrow?” she asks, knowing already that I will.

“I’ll see you then. Have a wonderful time, both of you, and say hello to Mrs. Barrett and Mrs. Klein for me.”

We stand at the door, Marjene and me. “Really, Brian. You don’t have to go.”

I pause. “You don’t put me out,” I smile to her, and of my own accord, I leave.

Actor, 34, found laid

Noted actor Nick Kersoff was discovered laid in his Beverley Hills condominium this morning. He was, and is, 34.

Kersoff was discovered by his housekeeper, Juanita Reyez, in his bedroom just after she arrived for work this morning. "I knock on the door and think he not in so I go into the room and there is Mr. Kersoff, laying in bed, laid. With big smile on his face. And I don't know what to do, so I telephone someone!" said a distraught and barely intelligible Mrs. Reyez.

First on the scene was Mr. Kersoff's friend and longtime chauffeur, Yitzhak Living. "When I saw Nick lying there, laid, I just couldn't believe it. I was talking to him just night. He seemed so celibate, so unaccompanied. I can't imagine how this happened."

Fellow actor Jo Blaub-Forye, Kersoff's costar on the set of the upcoming teen comedy Pull My Finger, currently in production, said that she had an inkling "something was up".

"He was acting weird all day. He couldn't concentrate on his lines. He couldn't look me in the face; his eyes kept drifting downward... like he was distracted. Like he had big things on his mind. He just couldn't keep still. I got the definite impression something had a grip on him, but he wouldn't open up to me," Blaub-Forye said.

As to exactly what befell Kersoff last night, speculation runs rampant. It is still unknown if Kersoff's fate was the act of a single individual, or was gang-related.

"I won't tell you Nick didn't have a sexual history," said Living. "Everyone knows he did. He was very honest about that. In recent years, he cut down a lot, I can attest to that. But I'll tell you this. What happened to him last night... he didn’t do that to himself. Someone was behind it. Or in front. Or beneath."

When asked what he will do now, Living said, "Get on with our lives. That's what Nick would want." Shaking his head, he then drove the beaming Kersoff off to work.

sidelong in the wind

the taste of hazelnut coffee is
__the ribbon wrapped around the rain
__the autumn echoes
____its first footsteps peel the leaves

softly it settles upon her shoulders
__a Persian cat curled 'round her soul
the cup gives her the taste,
__she returns lipstick
____plum red on alabaster
______porcelain and skin

and she is waiting
__thinking hard on something
__cup clutched in her hands like
____a bird that might fly
____or fall like leaves that
____rain and gravity might fell,
death their only voyage in life,
____sidelong in the wind
__fly or fall,
____she is waiting

Trees, part 2

The forest with its tiny trees and unimaginable cold closed off, falling away from experience like death closing in. She'd practiced it a dozen times but it still frightened her. She was in the grey murk between worlds... that's how it felt to her. In reality, she understood it was only the thinnest sliver of time as her consciousness disengaged from the interface and shifted over. But every time she hit it, it was like walking into a wall of some sap, reduced to its essence, slowing her down, dragging her limbs, filling her throat. She felt as though she had to wade through it, mentally, back to reality. Somewhere, the words of their dead kind flowed past her, still momentarily her own, confirming her orders, closing it off.

Her eyes opened, and she was in the chair. That soft, warm chair made for giants. Bennek was there. "Help me up," she murmured.

"Don't be alarmed, Kk'Alooka. It's okay," he said. "Someone tripped a perimeter sensor, but they didn't come this way. I'm sorry I called you back, but I figured better safe than sorry."

"It's alright," she said. "Thank you." She ground her black-skinned palm into the soft felt of her forehead. "How long was I in there?"

"Just a couple of quarter-spans. Are you okay?"

She grabbed his wrist. "I talked to him this time. Bennek, he talked back. We really communicated."

Bennek sat on the end of the seat, a definite liberty. "You really talked this time?"

"We did. And this time... I used the conduct command."

"Wow," Bennek breathed. "Did it work?"

"I think so."

Bennek snaked his tail in the air behind himself in excitement. "So you think, if he's ever revived, he'll remember it too?"

"If we've understood it correctly," she said.

"I'd love to interact with one of them," he said.

"Remember our agreement," she warned him.

"I know, I know. But it just sounds so exciting. I mean... all my life I've heard about them, seen them, their records. But you... you're going to get to know one. For real."

"I don't know how real it is," she said. "I might have recorded what just happened to his brain, too, but it's all being simulated by the computer here. And we don't even know how that works."

Bennek smoothed his hand over the massive helmet. "I love how alien they are, and how familiar all at the same time. It's like they're a different version of us."

"In a way, they are. It's exactly what they are," she said, watching him.

He said, "I'm terrified of letting them out. But imagine what it would be like."

"Things would be very different."

He was quiet for a moment. Contemplative. "When I'm in there," he said, "I can read. I can read their words. It makes me think."

"That's something you definitely need to keep to yourself," she warned him. She shifted, easing herself off the chair, her downhands pressing onto the cold, smooth lunar basalt. She moved her uphand over a panel at shoulder height, and the seat retracted smoothly in to the wall, tucked away behind its access panel, Bennek stepping down as it did so.

"Next time I get to go in," he said, "I want to talk to one."

"Bennek..."

"Not one of the ones we know is in the Chambre," he said. "Anyone. Synthetic. I don't mind. I just want to know what it's like. Walking around an environment pretending I'm one of them is one thing. Really meeting one... let me have that."

Alooka folder her arms. She didn't like bargaining with him. She didn't like having to count on a male, letting him have some kind of power over her, hold on her. But he was essential now. And he knew it. "I want to think it over," she said.

"Thank you, Kk'Alooka," he said.

She turned, smoothing her tunic front down, snaking her tail dismissively at him. He persisted. "May I ask you something?" he ventured.

"Yes, of course."

"I was wondering why you've chosen a male as a resource."

"I need your assistance to ensure security and to assist in formulating impressions and observations, of course."

"Well, I meant him. The human. Mwok'son," he said, forming his mouth around the impossibly foreign name Mark Wilson.

"Most of their hierarchy is male-dominated," she said. "That's something we have to accept. The researchers who come at it with traditional ideas are the ones who don't get anywhere."

Bennek nodded, tail low and swinging acceptingly just above the floor. The gesture was not entirely convincing, but she had no cause to point it out and he no business to press beyond her reply. And yet she indulged him, if only slightly. "I'm curious about them. That's my job." She moved over to the adapted chair that better served a waisluk-sized user in an human-scaled environment and accessed the ancient computer. "Can you tell me who it was who tripped the perimeter sensor?"

"R'kk'Sandannek," he replied. "But she went on to Main Research."

Alooka scratched her ear, impatient and anxious. "She's back around. She'll be looking for that cultural instance report. I'd really better finish that up." Again, she flicked her tail dismissively.

"Is there anything I can help you with?" he asked.

She turned to face him, perplexed. She wondered if she were giving off the Scent; she didn't feel flushed or desirous. "No. I hardly think so," she told him, quietly.

He dipped his head obediently, and began to leave her. Even so, he lingered at the door.

"What?" she said.

He paused. "You're different when you emerge, Kk'," he told her. "Just for a few moments. You're almost like a mother."

"It's disorienting coming back," she reminded him.

"I suppose. Yes, Kk'," he agreed. He left, and the door closed behind him, leaving her alone. She felt slightly humiliated having to indulge his masculine foolishness, and yet, somehow, disturbed to have caused him confusion. She brooded on it for a moment, leaning back. She sighed, and reaching up with her downhands, entered the code that retrieved the cultural instance her mistress's family had been researching for seventeen years: a murky, violent, thematically ambiguous tale that styled itself Casablanca.