Big Blue Beautiful Everything: Coconut Dreams, Enchilada Nightmares -- Draft 2- (started 1/20/03) (finished 9/16/03 - page 331) (rmbr thicken part 3 chp. 1, solve Delilah problem?)

(NOTE: takes place week of Nov 6th in 2000?)

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Another night and another night

"She looks good."

Yeah, but it's a lie.

Prologue:

Move it.

Move it along, there, buddy.

We all move it along there, buddy, and there is no way I'm gonna stop.

Keep it going.

Keep it going and never stop it, there, buddy.

They sat around the fire and watched the man with the wooden mask chant and dance and move his body like an animal, shaking with great anticipation. His amber body and gaunt, wrinkled belly, intensified by fire light of a dry star-filled evening, swayed like a snake, then gracefully glided like a bird, then flickered and waved with the fire itself. All the villagers sat entranced and "oohed" and "ahhed" with his dance, and clicked with their tongues to his movements. They began to clap and they began to shake, and their anticipation intensified. They sat in an imperfect circle that grew inward as he neared and pushed outward as he moved away, like the skin of a jellyfish.

Suddenly he stopped and dug his feet into the ground and lifted his masked face up to the sky. The villagers grew quiet and still as he spoke through the teeth that flickered white in the firelight.

"The sky watches and the ground listens. This old world remembers all, and lends its stories to the fire, sand, and dust. And this fire tells me a story now, do you wish to listen?"

In unison, the circle groaned and nodded. It wished to hear the story, and the excitement, the fire, grew. Every eye fixed on the speaker, every ear directed at each of his words, every thought concentrating entirely on the story, every fear centered on his appearance.

"Then, let it be told, let the story of the sky and earth, of the fire and dust, be told tonight, as it has been done every year since the gods embraced the oceans and created man. Let it be told--

Part One: We're only sleeping

(XXXV) I (Next Friday)

--Collapse

Rebirthfromfire--

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Rebirthfromdust--

--Collapse

He was standing outside, on the sidewalk, staring up at the restaurant. The Big Tostada, flickered its neon against the stone faces of its neighboring building like splashes of rancid wine or blood. The windows sat like three misshapen eyes, warped from shoddy workmanship, reflecting the snowscaped street in three separate directions. Its rusted metal frame wrapped around the windows with skeletal fingers flaking pink and brown bits of paint like rotting skin. It sat in silence, inside dark and empty, outside vile and ugly. Evil.

Horatio could taste dried blood on his lips and felt the burning ache around his left eye, and the anger inside him. His hands were shaking, part from the cold, part from the fury churning in him, and part from fear. This was it. This was the moment, the end of it all. He was going to stop it, and reclaim his life once and for all.

Taking out his key ring, he found the small brass key that fit the lock on the metal and glass door that squeaked like death whenever he opened it. But the lock rejected it, it knew what was on his mind, and it was not going to allow it to happen. So he went around to the side of the building where the broken cement brick used to prop the door open in the summer lay, and picked it up. It was cold and partly frozen with ice and old snow, but it felt good against his broken middle finger on his right hand. And he caressed the brick. It was his salvation.

The building seemed to buckled under the weight of the brick, as if desperately attempting to push it back, reacting to the force like a man reacts to a punch. The building tried to dodge it, the window warping inwards like plastic, the frame creaking around it, being dragged in with it. It rejected the brick, and forced it down against the sidewalk. Horatio failed even to crack it and he cursed and spat at the window. The building grinned back, menacingly, victorious, gloating in its superiority.

He knew it would be difficult. He knew that it was almost an impossible battle, but he had to try. He had to succeed. His life, the control of his destiny of his actions, of everything, depended on his victory.

"But what will you lose?"

If Horatio succeeded, he would win his life. If he gave in, or lost, he would gain everything else. That life, that image that had flashed before his eyes, no, that he had lived. That he had taken a part in. That possible perfect life filled with the happiness everyone looks for: love, a family, wealth, contentment. Lies. Those were false prizes, false dreams and goals. He didn't want that, no. No, he didn't want it the way it was shown to him, the way it would be if he lost. But if he won, what would he get then? How would things turn out? He didn't know and that was what excited him. If he followed his heart, if he fought for the one thing that made him happier than that false future could ever make him feel--he was certain it would be worth giving that other up.

"Doubts. You will lose. You will fail. I am greater than you can ever imagine."

He picked up the brick and tried again, pounding against the window at full force, holding it in his hand like a stone hammer. The window stood firm like metal. The shock sent painful vibrations through his hands and up and down his arm. The glass was too strong, the building was too strong, the evil was too strong.

"Ha ha ha."

But he wouldn't give up. Everything was already twirling around in a typhoon, everything upended in chaos, and there was no going back. He had to find a way in, there must be something, some way of getting into the restaurant. He had to get in. He needed to get in, because it was only from within that he could destroy it. He was going to kill The Big Tostada. A car drove by and he knew what he had to do.

It didn't start at first, he had to try a few times cursing and fogging the window with his breath, as the frozen engine wouldn't turn. But he got the Dodge Neon up and running with a deep, grumbling, stumbling roar. The wheel was stiff and cold like he was holding ice between his battered fingers, and he shifted into reverse and the car skid out of its spot. Horatio couldn't see anything, the windows were so fogged that the car bumped into another directly behind him, but he didn't care. He wiped away a clear spot on the front windshield with his bloodied fingers, leaving a fine trace of red, like finger paint, and pulled out to the street.

Images flashed through his mind as he thought about everything that had happened in the last week. A crazy, surreal week that tore him free from his normal life and tossed him about in a bizarre uncontrolled fury. He thought about Genevieve, how she felt so warm and wonderful in his arms as they talked about all the little embarrassing secret things lovers share. And how her eyes seemed so empty. He thought about Wendy, and her oozing sexuality and surprising perception on truth, and how she smelled of cinnamon and cigarettes. There was mad Isabelle, whose mystery and magic made her eyes burn with anger and fury even in the end.

Then he thought about Kalu, and it was clear what he had to do.

He pulled up the emergency break, stepped down hard on the accelerator, and let the brake down, speeding full into the front of the building. The car buckled and the building buckled and sighed and groaned, and the glass shattered and the metal bent inwards and the car crunched and his body was flung against the seatbelt and back against the seat and a rib went.

He managed to crawl out of the car, coughing up bits of blood, and stumbled over the shattered bits of glass and broken metal and plastic. Horatio felt dizzy and his headache worsened and he almost slipped on the greased surface of the black and white tiles that lined the floor. His goal was the containers of oil in the back.

"This is only the beginning. It's never this easy."

The ground rumbled and he slipped and found himself at the counter, staring at the front window and door. There was no sign of the accident, and it was too dark to see anything outside. He was also wearing his work clothes, but this didn't surprise him. No, he was at the edge, he was there, he had only little to go little to do and he would have control, once again. Just push yourself over.

"You're late. Serve the customers," Bob said, appearing from out of the darkness of the kitchen. "C'mon, c'mon."

Horatio turned back to the front and saw a line of customers in front of the counter. But they were deformed and molded, like fattened mummies, dripping with oil and melted cheese. He tried to keep things together. He had to expect these types of tactics. Desperate tactics against him. It, the restaurant, was desperate, and this gave Horatio hope.

"I want a burrito," one said, in a sickeningly slushy mumble, as if his lungs were filled with paste. "The biggest you guys have."

The man's face was covered in boils and red and brown splotches that resembled burn marks, which bubbled and oozed like a giant melting carved block of cheese. Horatio felt sick, and coughed bits of blood onto his arm. This was his chance, if he could hold his composure and not fall into the fantasy, he would succeed. He simply had to pull it off.

"Sure. One moment."

Horatio limped into the kitchen where Bob was standing at the phone pretending to talk.

"Is there a problem?" he said.

"Yeah. The customer wants a giant burrito, but there aren't any made."

"There should be. Go check again."

"I am going to make some new ones, anyway. Could you take the counter for me?"

Bob stood still for a moment, calculating the question. He was taller than normal, even fatter than normal, and there was a strange mud and clay scent around his body. Bob reluctantly agreed, ending his fake phone call and heading out to the monstrous customers.

Horatio took out a large container of cooking oil from the shelf next to the frier. At The Big Tostada, they conserved their oil by reusing it, so the yellow liquid was full of chunks of brown toasted cheese and meat and dough. It smelled of rotting fat. He opened the top of the container, and walked to the back storage room, which was filled with boxes of napkins and straws and dried goods and more containers of oil. There he poured some of the container's contents on the boxes, and then let a nice stream form as he walked out into the kitchen. He doused the ovens and fryers and griddle with oil, and threw the container at the counter, hitting Bob in the back.

"What are you doing?" Bob said. At first he seemed confused, he was registering the situation. Suddenly he realized what was happening and became angry. "No! You can't do this!"

But Horatio had already lit a napkin on fire with his lighter.

Bob began to grow larger and larger and walked towards him, tearing equipment and counter-space away as he moved. A giant beast on the walk, his skin growing dark and oozing out with mud. Like a giant clay Golem.

Horatio dropped the napkin and watched the fire spread across the floor. Bob reached out and tossed Horatio towards the front of the restaurant, right into a table-- which gave way and fell apart under his back. The pain was great, things started to fade in and out like he was passing out. Horatio couldn't take much more, his chest felt like it was going to collapse into itself. He managed to raise his head and saw monster mud Bob attempt to put the fire out. But the flames leapt onto the tattered remains of his shirt and began to devour the manager. The customers, however, were advancing on Horatio, and he attempted to get off the table and crawl to the door, but he was in too much pain.

Suddenly, Bob, engulfed in flames, burst into a red and orange fireball and sent a wave of fire across the room, knocking over the deformed customers and setting them on fire as well. The whole place was burning, quickly and with great intensity. Horatio pulled up a broken piece of table to block himself from the flame, and it pushed him back further to the windows. The air was filling with smoke, choking him as he forced himself up and to the door. It was locked.

Horatio grabbed a chair and tossed it into the window, it wouldn't break. Outside he could see palm trees rising from mounds of golden sand amidst a calm ocean. The sun was setting into the horizon, like a round knife cutting through the blue. He was feeling faint, and having a hard time breathing. He didn't think he could last much longer. He leaned against the door and watched everything burn. But he felt that joy, he knew he had succeeded.

"Kalu," he said. "We're free."

The window vanished, the restaurant vanished, the ocean vanished, the horizon vanished. There was nothing but stars and floating ghosts.

And then he passed out.

II

We all do a little dance to the sky and touch the ground,

twirl around and turn to dust.

The rains had passed and left a sweet southern wind fresh with the scent of wet leaves and salt and the sky a deep cerulean, bruising around its edges where the sun hung low and swollen. The crushed berries the color of the dying sun felt numb in his fingers and then numb on his face and chest as he rubbed swirls and lines. He was humming as he worked, his deep voice clung to the last husks of youth, his brown eyes closed tight, his body rigid and crimson brown. He was thinking of her-- her long black hair that curled at the tips, that soft round smiling face, the spot between her breasts and navel to which his eyes were drawn as she walked or danced or lay about. She would be there casting shadows from the fire, leading the dance of Kinilu, her body swaying as ocean swells, her hands waving like schools of fish. He put down the gourd that held the crushed berries and shifted his attention to a small tapa pouch that lay by the new fishing net he was weaving. Carefully, he opened it, revealing a perfectly round black pearl that he had found while diving several weeks ago. He held it in his fingers, rubbing the smooth surface. He would give it to her tonight. He had decided.

There was a sound of someone coming towards the hut.

"Kalu." Lakula was there, in the doorway, leaning against the woven thatch that she had helped him with only days before. In the dimming daylight she seemed a soft statue of an austere goddess, the falling shadows masking the roundness of youth. Her hair was braided and intertwined with fragrant pink Ma-tu-nai-lu's which smelled of the sweet upcoming harvest, and around her neck laying gently against her breasts, the coral necklace he had made for her last birthday. She was already dressed in the ceremonial grass skirt that rattled like dry bones in the breeze.

"Lakula," he said, placing the pearl back into its pouch. "Come in."

She had a wide, overflowing smile that overwhelmed him with happiness, making him slightly sad. There was something in her arms.

"I made this for you," she said. In her short arms lay a ceremonial mat she had secretly woven, out of his and her father's sight. It was made from mulberry bark and painted black and red with the colors of the festival. She noticed the pouch in his hand as he took it from her, and her smile widened even further. "What is that?"

He thought about giving it to her, then, so moved he was by her present, but he held on fast. He would present it to her, in front of her father and the village, at the beginning of the festival as was tradition. It was the festival of the marriage of Ano-pa and Kinilu, the sky and the ocean, the parents of Aula, the great goddess of fire and earth. Traditionally, young couples who marry at the beginning of the festival live happy, long, fruitful lives together.

"Oh, you shall find out, later," he said. Her eyes widened at this response and her cheeks flushed.

They had been friends as far as he could remember, but for the last few years since his coming-of-age, their relationship had matured. It was a given among the villagers that the two would marry, though Kalu and Lakula never talked about it openly. There was an unspoken agreement between them as they lay together at the edge of the water looking up at the stars, or fishing for bonito by the banks of the lagoon in his canoe.

Their marriage would be a problem, though, according to custom. Kalu was an orphan of fisherman parents. Lakula was the daughter of the town priest and the descendent of giants. All Kalu had was his old hut and his father's canoe. It was a great canoe, a pride of the village, the main hull was carved from a single great tree his father had felled many years back--a rarity on the island--and the outrigger was so smooth and well balanced, the boat could withstand even thirty-foot waves without tipping.

"Thank you very much for this gift," he said. He put it on over his chest--he felt like a proud warrior from the lost ages of war of the forgotten god. "It fits perfectly--"

"You look very fierce," a new voice said. Alak, Kalu's best friend, had entered the hut. He was already in his mat, a lavishly woven shell and bone-decorated rich work that showcased his status as the son of a rich farmer. The island of Pa-Ula, though the largest in the Aulani atoll, was mostly made of limestone and ancient coral beds which proved poor farmland. The lands around the base of the Aula were very fertile, however, and the great volcano had been quiet for over a hundred years allowing Alak's family to prosper. Because of the lack of land, fruit had a much greater value to the villagers than the fish that the majority of them caught in their communal canoes.

Alak's hair was cut short and died red. Red lines traced around the edges of his long nose and bony cheeks. He limped towards Kalu, and examined the mat with more scrutiny. His right leg was shorter than the left--the result of an accident before his coming-of-age. "Do you make this, Lakula? I can tell from your Ikol-nai. Only your touch could produce something so intricate." Ikol was the devious god of the horizon and evening sky, hated and feared by the Aulani. The Ikol-nai kept him at bay, and covered the majority of Aulani art. "I cannot wait to see you dance tonight, Lakula."

She gave an uncomfortably forced smile. As children, the three of them were very close, but recently as she and Kalu grew closer, she and Alak became more distant. While Kalu was friendly and subdued around her, Alak grew nervous and overly talkative and would constantly scratch his chin.

"Well, I must be going. Kalu," she said, smiling deeply into his eyes, hinting at the prospect of the present. "Alak." Playfully, she danced out of the hut as a child, showing off the dexterity of her amber legs.

"Kalu, she grows more and more beautiful every day," Alak said quietly so that she could not hear from outside the hut, scratching his chin. "How lucky you are."

"I've made up my mind," Kalu said, picking up the gourd of dye and putting the crushed berries into his hair. "Tonight, at the festival. Promise to keep it a secret until then."

Alak was looking at the netting, staring at it.

"Do you remember, Kalu, when we were children, and my father brought us out to the Pu-ol reef to go net fishing? It was just after the harvest. And we caught that reef shark that tore our netting in two and lost our fish?"

"Yes."

"And we were put in charge of fixing the net, and that night we made a promise to be friends for the rest of our lives, and into the mouth of Uke-i and through to P_ and the evermore? Like brothers?"

"Yes," Kalu said. He straightened his mat and double checked the lines on his arms and legs.

"Do you still feel this way?"

Kalu paused and turned to his friend.

"Alak, you and I will be friends until the heavens themselves come crashing down and the gods grow silent. Why are you asking such questions?"

Alak sighed. He was still looking at the netting.

"You look so sad, Alak. Tell me what's on your mind, friend."

"Promise me that things won't change."

"I cannot promise you that things won't change, but we will always be friends. Always."

Alak didn't make eye contact as he turned back to Kalu.

"I'll see you tonight," he said, leaving Kalu perplexed at his friend's behavior.

Of course, Kalu realized. He is jealous of Lakula and I, that we have been very unfair to him. We have been spending too much time together, leaving him out of our lives. I will make sure that this won't happen in the future. I will make him feel welcome in our home.

The last of the sun vanished below the curved horizon, leaving the sky a dark pink above it's grave that merged into a deepening grey all around. Kalu left his hut and walked towards the beach as the full moon took her place as the great light of the night sky.

Kalu lived a short distance from the center of the village. He preferred his solitude, the isolation of living in a nearly abandoned area of the village. His parents had died when the sickness made its way across the island. Pale-white visitors had come, speaking a rough version of their language, talking about some strange god. The village warriors drove them away, but they left the sickness, and many died from it. Since then, he could only find sleep among the spirits of his mother and father and older sister. Kalu was the only survivor of his family, having stayed healthy as everyone around him fell sick and died.

There was another reason why he lived away from the rest of the village-- he preferred the sound of the water to the noise of people. The hut was at the outer southern edge of the village, only a few meters from one of the safe lagoons from where he launched his boat. He found comfort in the ocean, he had learned to fish on his father's canoe before he could walk.

Most of the islanders had already assembled at the beach directly south of the village center, swaying their torches in the air. They had arrived from all over the island--from Pa-Ula village proper, from the smaller sister farming village of Pa-Alak, and from the many small huts and farmsteads scattered about. This was the second most important festival of the year, and marked the beginning of the harvest and the end of a two-day fast to remember the dead. There were two large rings of people placed around two bonfires, one made entirely of men, the other of only women. A third ring of people formed around the other two, made of older men and women and children.

"Back when I was young," the shark masked Iluka said, his voice loud and deep and distinguishable. He was speaking to some young children who were standing around him. "There were enough young men and women to perform this ceremony properly. The rings of Ano-pa and Kinilu would be bursting with those of marrying age who wished to find their own brides and grooms. But, for the last fifteen years we have allowed anyone of age to participate, married or not. Hopefully, one day, we will be able to celebrate once again as the gods had intended."

Light and shadows cast from the first leapt around Iluka's shark mask, exaggerating the deep groves and sharp teeth, transforming Iluka from man to god. The children cried in joy and fear and rushed into the legs of their parents.

"Well, it is time for the festival to begin!" Iluka said, taking a small pouch from his side, opening it carefully and sprinkling some of the fine powder within into the fire, which burst and feasted into the night sky.

Iluka stood still for a moment, then turned, scanning the faces in the crowd until he found who he was looking for, then looked up towards the rising face of the great volcano sleeping to the North. He was sweating heavily, and it glistened in the dancing light.

Kalu walked by the outer edge of the ring and slipped into a long hut that stood tall on piles a few feet from the edge of the beach. As he expected, the old man was sitting laying on a sleeping mat in the back corner of the room smoking from his old pipe in the falling darkness. In the glow of the fire through the windows, Kalu could still distinguish the ancient wrinkles and rough tanned skin of the medicine man, his godfather, Ka-Puna.

"Ah, Kalu," the old man said, his voice withered and stretched like an old cord. "Come to drag me out into the noise and the night? I'm too old for these types of things."

Kalu expected no other response from Ka-Puna, who was cranky and preferred the isolation of his hut to the warmth of company. Others caste him off as an old crazy relic who still treated snake bites with the precision of a top angler, forgiving his godlessness to his great age. Kalu say something else, though, a dark shadow that hung around the old man's eyes and that breathed in the same smoke but kept it in, growing darker and larger and pulling down at his skin. But Ka-Puna was the one who took care of him after his parents died, who made sure that he was well taken care of, and who would spend evenings talking about lost memories of Pa-Ula past which were all but lost from disease as much as the population.

"No, no," Kalu said. "I just wanted you to hear it before I go and announce it to the whole island."

"Ah, tonight is the festival of Aula-nai, the marriage of Ano-pa and Kinilu and the birth of Aula! So, you are going to ask her to marry you, then?"

The old man knew Kalu too well, and the boy blushed and nodded. Ka-Puna took a deep puff from his pipe, and placed it against his chest.

"Iluka isn't going to like this. He may not give permissions, even though his daughter is far past the traditional marriage age, but these are different times when the gods themselves no longer care or listen to even themselves."

"Please, wish me luck, Ka-Puna. That's all I wish from you."

"Of course, Kalu, I hope that Aula herself smiles down upon you and Lakula, and that you both live together for a hundred years and have many children--" but he paused. "But be warned, Kalu, some people care little about happiness and favor tradition, especially in times when so little is left."

Ka-Puna grew silent, and for a moment Kalu thought the man had falled asleep, but suddenly Ka-Puna opened his eyes and stared into Kalu's face. He felt a great discomforting fear crawl from the back of his legs and up his sides and into his face.

"What are you standing there still, boy? Go out there and be married!"

Kalu nodded and rushed out of the hut. There at the sand he was greeted by Bak, a fellow young fisherman and friend, and they stepped into the dancing circles as the festival began.

III Saturday

Love to me is nothing much

Not like that cool steel

That smooth wood

That extension of our inner selves.

It was another slow day, Horatio lay sprawled across the couch and listened to the whir and rush of passing distant cars outside. He didn't feel like doing anything at all but lie there and close his eyes and listen and think. His right arm dangled lazily like a pendulum over the carpeting, his fingertips just caressing the dirt-stained unvacuumed fabric. He was thinking about nothing in general, just images of recent boring events-- class, his professor drolling on and on about management theory, his boring classmates ignoring the lecture, himself trying to stay awake for the two hours of torturous boredom. He thought about how white the walls were except for this one black scuff mark where some student had rubbed his sole, smearing it on the wall. About how there were three broken lights in the ceiling that spoiled the symmetry of their placement. Another car passed and he flipped over onto his stomach. He thought about work and how his legs would get tired from him standing for hours and how the customers always mispronounced items on the menu, it seemed, purposely--they knew how to say burrito or tortilla, knew perfectly well--just to make work that more annoying. He thought about how his sloth of a manager, Bob, big and fat with curly black hair and mutton chops, had burnt the three bean mix and then made Horatio make another batch. Little annoying things of the day spinning dizzily through his head as the cars continued to pass-by outside, like little waves crashing, very soothing. He thought about how he should call his parents, that night, because he hadn't spoken to them in weeks and they always got angry with him when he didn't touch base, because, they said, it wasn't such a trouble that he couldn't touch base once in a while.

He didn't want to call home.

He thought about how the couch was smelling rather terrible in his position, like a mix of molded bread and dust and something even more rotten that he couldn't put his finger on, and how his lips were touching the bare dirty surface of the sofa. So he sat up and faced the wall and the window looking out at the slowly falling snow, in November, slowly falling in clusters and flakes but not sticking to anything because it just wasn't cold enough for snow. It would stick, soon, he thought, and thought about how difficult it would be to drive his crappy purple Dodge Neon around, and how it probably wouldn't start half the time and he would have to find a better way to get to classes. Classes. He thought about her, sitting in class next to him yesterday with a strange look in her eyes when he caught her gazing at him every now and then, as if to say, "Hello, Horatio, I am not sending you mixed signals." Genevieve, her shoulder-length brown hair tied back in a pony tail and those horn-rimmed glasses that made her look so nerdy sitting there next to him in his Anthropology class--the class he's taking this semester for requirements--and whom he was partners for various projects. And with whom he wished to make violent and passionate love. It was a strange lust, he thought, since he hadn't found her that attractive until she opened her mouth and said his name with her smooth and calm voice that tickled something in his leg. And then he saw it, behind those glasses, those large old sweatshirts and jeans, with the hair down and clothing tight. She was very attractive, but she was hiding it, hiding it in that notebook she always kept close to her chest, her schedule.

These thought drifted through his head slowly dragging bits and pieces of remnants of each successive thought into the next, and only seconds were passing. In two hours Genevieve would be arriving for a dinner date, to discuss their upcoming project, and for him to hopefully charm so that she hopelessly falls in love with him so that he could have her. Two hours to prepare to seduce her seductively into his heart like Don Juan with his smooth moves and sweet talking and natural appeal. Two hours before he would, like the last time, stiffen up, speak very little, and prove to her how boring he was adding frustration to discomfort. But it wasn't him, he knew that it wasn't him because he had always been so smooth with other girls in similar situations and got what he wanted in the end, but Genevieve did something to him that made him freeze and fail and look so unappealing. And this perplexing reaction is what drove Horatio to lust after her more and more--the unattainable--and make it more and more difficult to win her over. And yet, despite his failures and his inabilities within her presence, she continued to come, continued to call, continued to give him ample opportunity to win her heart. Maybe he was boring.

He didn't feel like sitting any longer, so he stood up and stretched out his arms and legs and decided that it was best to at least take a shower, because that would be accomplishing something other than sitting and waiting.

Horatio couldn't get the water very hot, his roommate, Prescott, had taken a very long shower only a half hour earlier, and now there wasn't much warm water left, so he was forced to stand in a cool spray of water that rose goose bumps from his skin and caused him to shiver and hold himself for extra warmth. It also meant a quick shower, and all his thoughts diverted from the boring topics of the day to how cold the water was, and how he could maximize his cleaning in the shortest amount of time. The shampoo foam ran down his face and into his eyes and irritated them, forcing him to push his head directly into the cold water, which felt like stinging slaps on his skin.

He got out, shivering, and wiped down with his towel, and his thoughts again shifted back to his date, later that evening. He would be cooking a dinner for her, making spaghetti and tomato sauce because he couldn't remember if she was a vegetarian or a vegan or if she only ate certain types of meats or what. Horatio didn't usually care about the details, because they were never really important, before, since he could just flash his smile and use his charm and get out of a fix. But he needed this dinner to go smoothly, and didn't want to start it off by cooking some steak or a roasted chicken and spending an hour on it, only for her to tell him that she can't eat it because it is against her beliefs or something. He didn't need that. Besides, he really couldn't cook despite how he lied that he could.

The mirror was clear of steam, since the shower was so cold, so he could see himself perfectly without having to clean it off. His face was red from the cold water, and his short light-brown hair looked almost black when wet, and was starting to get too long for his tastes. Didn't she like him, he thought. Wasn't she physically attracted in him, wasn't he an attractive person, did it really require more? He was nice, he was honest when need be, or at least he could come of as being honest when need be. Maybe he was interested in more, this time, than a shallow physical relationship like he had in the past--maybe it was time to bunker down with someone for at least a lot longer than a few lust-filled weeks and get to know someone and actually like them beyond their breasts.

He brushed his teeth.

Maybe he was having so much difficulty with Genevieve because he wanted more from her than what he usually got from others, and this frightened him and made it very difficult to act smoothly. He thought of Prescott who was having something more than a short fling with that Wendy, though it wasn't the best example, since Wendy was more obsessed with sex and sexuality and sexualness than anyone should ever be. And she was so disgusting--that ugly pug face--but had a vivacious and wonderfully proportioned body flowing with curves that was always wrapped in tight slick dresses or pants or low-cut shirts. She was always hanging on someone or something, molesting it, be it Prescott or a piece of furniture, or even Horatio--that time she was very drunk and Prescott was passed out in the other room and she had climbed onto the couch next to Horatio and started rubbing his back and he could smell cinnamon and cigarettes and something else that was stale and pungent but he wasn't sure what.

He put some shaving cream in his hands and then applied it evenly to his face, he felt the foam on his skin like warm clumps, and he stared into the mirror before turning the hot water on. Of course, none would come out, and he dunked his razor into the lukewarm water and began to scrape the hairs off his face. Wendy, that Wendy. Who was this Wendy and her snake-like movements as she slid into room hip and breast first, battling each other for supremacy. And she'd take over conversations and throw herself as the center of it all, and then pound out that sexual energy like she was just going to open up her mouth or her legs or something and swallow you whole into her soft stomach that she made you touch whenever possible. He thought about Prescott and Wendy going into Prescott's room and then the noises that came out like a zoo had suddenly emerged from out of a black hole in Wendy's ass and let lose its animals in the room and they battled and fought and tore each other up and banged against the walls and shrieked. Never sober, these animals were drunk and hungry and in heat and angry. He nicked himself with the razor right at the edge of his chin where it met the base of the cheek and a few drops of blood escaped into the sink.

He finished, and washed his face three times in water which got colder and colder with each splash, until it felt like he was putting a liquified ice against his cut and it burned like frozen fire and he had to back up and swear and tear up bits of toilet paper and hold it against the nick until it coagulated. He didn't mind the cut so much, he thought cuts on his face made him look more rugged and appealing to the ladies and was very proud of the hockey scar that ran down the left side of his chin, where a stick tore his face open and broke some teeth and ended his love of playing hockey at the age of 17. He remembered that he wrote a story about it, but this memory faded very quickly and was so brief--if it even existed at all--and then he realized there was something empty in his stomach, but this too passed before he could spend more time thinking about it.

His room was a mess by the time he tore apart his closet searching for something good to wear that Genevieve hadn't seen yet, but was wonderful and would show her how attractive he was, and he decided on a blue sweater because he realized he shouldn't try too hard to look good. It was a delicate balance, he had to look good but not as if he was egotistical, and this was something he had problems with in the past. Same with the aftershave, he went very lightly with the cologne because he didn't want to smell like a cheap perfumery or a manwhore. His presentation was very important, and dressed in his sweater and a pair or corduroy pants, he sat down in the recliner in the living room and stared at the framed photograph of Bravo, 15,000,000 tons of dynamite vaporizing the Bikini Atoll in one spectacular blast. Dell, his other roommate, had hung it near the corner, as an homage to the unfathomable power man held contained in giant metal canisters. It was magnificent and haunting, spectacularly horrifyingly brilliant. Chillingly beautiful, like staring into the face of hell or God or both at the same time and realizing that this is what man is capable of doing. A jagged jumbled collection of trite understandings.

"Amazing," Dell said closing the front door behind him, stripping off his gloves slowly at the fingertips and pulling the black fabric, pealing it, down his hand and over his fingers like a layer of chicken skin. "Simply amazing." He was grinning as he zipped down his black fleece coat and then pulled out his arms and tossed it into the corner by the door, the coat hitting the wall and then ground, metal zipper scrapping against the wall. "This girl, Hor, you should have seen this girl." His blue eyes sparkled behind his thick horn-rimmed glasses. "She had the greatest set of-- man, her tits just-- perfect, Hor, simply perfect." He collapsed on the couch and placed his arm over his face. "I'm telling you, Horatio, there are all these gorgeous women out there, and if only they knew how good a lover I am, how well I could please them--" he sighed. "They would be throwing themselves on me. I'd make them all so happy." He lay with half his chest elevated by a pillow, and his legs falling off the couch from the hips, his body looked like it would just slip right off and onto the floor. "You smell nice, Horatio," his arm still covering his face so he couldn't see anything. "You smell fresh like a real man. Big date tonight, right? When's she coming?"

"Soon," Horatio said, still staring at the painting on the wall, reds and yellows swirl and that was all he seemed to care.

"Gonna make the move? You gotta, dude. Pull her in, I'll stay out till at least 12, give you plenty of time." He sat up, removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "This one'll haunt me, man. I think I've seen her before. Tobin said he knew her, said she'd be at his party tonight. I'm definitely going now."

"Should be fun," Horatio kind of said, but it came out like a half mumble, but Dell didn't care, he was already lost in his fantasies and started up about the girl again and just went on and on about her and Horatio just didn't listen and he just didn't care. Eventually Dell's voice drifted off, and Horatio was all alone in the apartment again, just staring at the wall and thinking about how he was going to pull himself together and finally win over Genevieve. He'd be strong, he though and leaned back in the recliner. He'd be strong and he'd win her with his strength and perseverance and natural boyish charms and good looks and--

He just wasn't sure, though, and as the sky turned from blue to purple to grey as it bruised for the evening, he just wasn't sure.

She sat arms at side and brown hair back in red shirt and black pants with face painted slightly to accentuate the cheeks pink at the small table across from Horatio. He had trouble making eye-contact even though she was not stunning or overly attractive, and with discomfort in his blue sweater with the slight tear in the right sleeve and brown cords barefoot, he was silent. The dinner was not going well and he was trapped in the same inability to do anything in her presence and his chest was so tight and he couldn't even manage a boyish smile. The plate of spaghetti in front of him sighed with steam as he twirled his fork around. Genevieve, at a mechanical quick pace was twirling, lifting, and shoveling all in one graceful stroke and chewed military-like compared to Horatio's honey-drip pace.

"Yeah," he finally managed to say, forcing the words out through ice and glass around his mouth formed from doubt and odd apprehension. And he finally caught her eyes with his own for one brief wonderfully uncomfortable moment and found them cold and vacant and halted any further attempts at conversation at least for the time, on his part.

So they were two automatons at a table under poor light moving in opposing patterns of quick and indifferent, and Horatio didn't understand why he felt attracted to this girl. Even dressed up and applied with makeup, she looked quite plain with no stand-out feature to obsess over, but she haunted his thoughts so constantly during the day where she intensified into a intensely sexually appetizing bonanza of beauty and wet dreams. Still, they ate in silence until she finished, placed a blue notebook on the table and opening it to an ink-covered chicken-scratched page she proceeded to go over their upcoming schedule for their anthropology project on isolated cultures. She had meticulously ordered and arranged every possible aspect of the project into a time table in a glorious allegro of obsessive compulsion. Yet as orderly and controlled as it was, set in well spaced and defined rows, columns, subheadings, and footnotes, the handwriting itself reflecting her eating habit--a quick, explosive series of lines, dots, violent loops and smudges--frustrated speed.

She took control and Horatio only nodded and replied in short bursts of "yeah," "okay", and "sure" as she named dates, time and places, and before he could do anything to re-attempt a conversation she stood up and excused herself because she needed to pick up her younger sister from the train station and closing her notebook against her chest, she was gone from the kitchen. Horatio followed like a confused jackass to the door where she put on her faux-fur coat, and there was another brief awkward moment as he opened the door for her, and he wanted but couldn't say anything. But she stopped in the doorway, and he finally took his chance--

"We should do this again, soon. Next time, when you aren't so busy, so we can talk," he said, words stumbling and almost drunk in his mouth.

"Yeah, that would be good," she said. "Give me a call."

Then she was gone and he just couldn't believe it.

Life moving so slow and without that beat or blood that we feel inside, that life--empty lifeless life--filled the world as a long drawn out painting or image, but the things, object, colors, moving so slowly that they look permanent and there is a helplessness to it all. An unperceived helplessness, underground or invisible laying in the shadows and ignored by passing eyes. Sometimes you could make something out in the corner of your eyes, but when you turn you only see the daylight and a taste of stale air. The shadow haunts and touches everything, overwhelms everything, without anything or anyone knowing that he or she is overwhelmed. This was Horatio's world that he blindly wandered through as if asleep and nothing more than a puppet or machine of an empty, nonexistent controlling force or sleeping god.

Praline pecan syrup the color of watered down ginger ale or urine, mixed into the more than 35 ml shot of vodka and downed instantaneously like a drink of water on parched dried desert-traveling lips. Tobin had a half-dozen assorted Torani Italian Soda Flavor bottles stolen from his job at the local coffee shop in town, and these are the pride and joy of his bar. Horatio held one of these bottles close to his face and stared intently at the image of the Italian castle or old manor house or some merged Roman and medieval fort surrounded by light green shrubs and a puff-grey cloud on label and he thought about it and it seemed to come alive before his dizzy eyes-- the shadows between the creases of brick, the dull echo of crumbling stone. The world closed around the image of the castle, he could feel it, smell it, taste the mix of drunken and perverted imagination and he wanted to be there, for the first time in a long time, he felt like he wanted to be there, that he belong there, not in the slow dull nothing of everything life around him, but in some imaginary unrestrictive drawing on the front of a bottle of drink flavoring.

"Drink up!" Tobin was shouting into his ear over the music and the noise and Dell stood there impatiently waiting and Horatio wasn't sure how long he had drifted away, there, for that moment but he instinctively took the shot class and swallowed its contents in one massive effortless swallow. The flow of something burning inside down and scratching and fighting to not go down there and then silence and a brief hovering movement as if laying on the edge of a precipice, and then he was over, rushing to his head like helium filling his head expanding and then the world shrunk and he was king.

And all around him the world was awake and streaming out and expanding out like a big parade--colors brighter, sounds cleaner, life more full of life--and he took it all in and stood smiling like a fool. "Lookin happy," Tobin grinned, his face pulled out at the smile--freaked out--and made clear so Horatio could see each hair. "Feelin happy," Horatio said, nodded and walked into the heart of the crowd gathered in the center of the living room and just submerged, totally.

IV

. . . whispering,

They tell me things.

Things I do not wish to hear

For the dread--they bring.

Towards the dawn the green scarred hill rose from the pink waters, but Kalu didn't notice. The tide drew him towards the shore and soon the boat was rocking against a sandbar, but he still wasn't paying attention to the world around him. It had been a dreamless, sleepless night, and the morning brought nothing but another day, and he wasn't sure if that was true. He thought only of her face, that startled, strange expression that formed around her eyes and the raised edges of her lips. The red drawn wild in her cheeks. Had she known? Was she a fully knowing conspirator, deceiving him for so many years just to play treacherous at that one moment.

No, she was not. As the boat held fast to the exposed sandbar in the lowering tide, he knew this. It was her father and Alak. They had conceived it all, tearing him to pieces in the single moment when he was to have reached complete happiness. It had happened when he returned from Ka-Puna's hut, Iluka had already started the ceremony shaking his arms and legs between the two fires. He had held up his Aula-tanni, the staff of Aula, and sang to the goddess her history, then danced around in several circles, shark mask grinning to feast.

"From the day the water touched the sky and the world shook and was born, and from the day the water touched the sky and the world opened its mouth and Aula was born, from this we are here."

The villagers all shouted in joy, giving in to the great bowls of kava that tasted like sweet dirt. Iluka rubbed dirt into his chest, tracing the fine black ancient symbols of his markings. He was the shark demon, the intermediary between Ano-Pa and Kinilu who brought them together. This was the time before men, when the shark demon was still good and loved by the gods.

"Let me tell you the story. There was Ano-Pa, the sky above that in ancient times was red with passion in love for Kinilu, the deep blue ocean who cared little for the wooing of the sky."

He had stopped, and had lifted the Aula-tanni above his head. The fire lit up the sharp edges of the mask, casting deep shadows around the eyes. He was speaking in his shark voice deep and fearsome and hungry. As he told the story of how Ano-Pa asked the demon shark for help and how the shark tricked Kinilu, all in the guise of the shark demon, Kalu stared at Lakula with warmth swirling from his stomach to this chest and up into his head, and back down to his fingertips as he caressed the pearl.

"And from this day, we find great happiness, for Aula gave us the earth, and Aula gave us life, and Aula gave us spirit," Iluka said, finishing the story. The crowd then had cheered and sang.

"Ano-pa! Kinilu! The great old sky and the great old water! The two who hated and then found love. Today is the day when you joined and found joy and love. All those who follow your path will combine their two lives into one, new, perfect and true life. True love and true happiness are born to those who come as one today."

Kalu had been excited. He stood outside the circle, he had felt the pearl through the pouch and prepared for his moment. His sweat had mixed with the paint and the dirt on his body and hair, he had never been so nervous.

"Today is a day of celebrated love. All those young of either body or heart, now is the time before the gods. Announce yourselves now, under the sky and before the water and in the sweet shadow of Aula."

Kalu had stood up, had prepared to walk through the lively circle of excited bodies, bare feet feeling the electricity travel in the earth between his toes. It was said that the first to make announcement would receive the most happiness. But another had beaten him to the moment, had announced first. It was Alak, and he stood, shaking and holding a carved coral pendant that was his mother's. Kalu was surprised at this, and felt something was wrong. Alak hadn't mentioned anything to him about marriage, and Alak had never had any interest in any of the girls in the village. He was the last person Kalu had expected to seek marriage.

"Alak, son of Talak, you are the first to step forward!"

Alak had looked at Kalu for a moment, and then down at his fingers and never again made eye contact with his friend. He was twitching and scratching his chin with great intensity, and in the dulled brightness of firelight and the full moon, Kalu could make out light streams of sweat dripping down his forehead. And then Kalu saw Alak look up at Lakula, and he felt something in his chest burst.

"I am proud to announce," Iluka said, putting an arm around the boy, "that Alak here has already confided in me whom he wishes to marry. And I have given him every blessing for a happy life with my daughter, Lakula."

The villagers cheered, Kalu couldn't breath, Lakula suddenly realized what had happened and stood frozen in her place with a strange smile spread across her browned lips. She was looking at Kalu, and Kalu was looking at her, and both of them died. Iluka did not remove his mask, nor did he look in Kalu's direction.

So Kalu ran away, and never looked back as the wedding commenced and the village broke into song and others stepped forward.

The sky burst into a blue, deep and rich like the calm waters around the coral. He could smell the thick luscious air pouring out from the green jungles that grew in emerald hills around and above the summit of the old, dead volcano. It was the island of Bini, the sister island of Pa-Ula. Little sister. A fine mist rose like cobwebs up towards the morning sun. Kalu could see it rise, like smoke from a dying fire, some rolling out onto the white sands that he now stood on as he pulled the boat onto shore. Sand so fine, it felt like warm caresses against his feet. Like the way Lakula would rub her soft, warm hands on his ankles playfully. Like how he would rub her elbows, blowing soft breezes at the hairs on her arm. He looked back, toward the water. Pa-Ula was at least a half-day's journey from Bini, but he would not return. Its lagoons, rich fruit trees and sweet airs went sour in his memory.

He sat at the shore and watched the tide go out, sitting in the sand with his back to the canoe. He tried to deaden his thoughts of the past, but they poured out through the bark of the canoe, through the pouch at his side and the mat around his neck. But he couldn't bring himself to remove any of it, and saw only the frozen smile of Lakula with eyes open or closed.

"To to tee."

A little yellow and red bird was sitting at the edge of the till, it's head bobbing as it called.

"To to tee."

It was a tototee bird, a native bird of Bini. There were no more tototees on Pa-Ula, all killed for their feathers long ago. Its song was sharp, swift, and haunting, like the sound of hollow bones chiming in the breeze. It startled Kalu and took him from his thoughts calling out to him, as if saying, "you are here, now. At Bini. This is where you are."

"This is where I am."

Kalu dragged the canoe up through the sands and to the tree line, where he secured it to a thick palm trunk.

He was on the north shore of the island, he was sure of this as the sun was still low in the east. He had been to Bini once before, but it was so long ago--

On jagged black rocks by the breaking waters in small caves at the edge of the old mountain they crawled through the dirt and examined small shrimp that grew in the pools that collected from the spray.

'You ever hear of the Itiki?" one of the young boys asked the other, he had a large scratch on his arm and it was slowly starting to swell up with blood.

'No,' the other said.

'They float through the leaves like the wind. They search for other lost souls, letting out their long white hands like woven nets for fish, their fingers trolling and waving like anemone.' He repeated the words his father had told him, when one night they sat out under the stars and talked about the spirits of the world. 'They are lost souls of men and women who went through life unfulfilled.'

'What do they look like, Kalu?'

'They look like men and women, but entirely white, with sad, tired faces. They have no weight and float through the trees, like large white feathers. And they whisper. You know they are coming when you hear them whispering your name.'

'And they only live here?' Alak said, braking a piece of the black volcanic rock off the wall and throwing it into the pool.

'Yeah, but they come out only at night. And they are afraid of water.'

Alak shivered, then he noticed the cut on Kalu's arm.

'You're hurt,' he said, he was worried, and he reached out to help his friend. But Kalu wasn't paying attention. He was only thinking of his father. His father, his mother, and sister, were they all Itiki? Or were they stars in the sky? Or deep below the earth confined to the bowels of P_ sitting among the gods, monsters, and ancients?

--Bini, the forbidden sister, the forgotten island where law still dictated a punishment of death if a Pa-Ulan were to trespass. But Kalu was no longer a Pa-Ulan, and he needed to locate the stream of fresh water that ran down from the green hump and into the ocean. That was, unless he was ready to embrace death. He had already survived so far, racing out into the ocean in the canoe without supplies. Fate had led him to Bini and kept him alive, and because of this Kalu was determined to live the rest of his life as an ascetic on the abandoned island.

The air thickened with the rising sun and Kalu wandered through the underbrush of the forest, heading in a southwesterly direction towards the mountain once called Su-fala-su, but now Ni-maon, the sleeping giant, and he was forced to use the ceremonial knife at his side to cut away some of the vines. The knife was dull so he scrapped it against a rock and the sunlight glistened off the blade. He thought about digging it deep into his chest until the life in his heart bleed onto the ground, but again he heard the call of the tototee. Several of the birds were sitting on a branch to his left, and they seemed to be singing out to him, asking him not to despair.

So he slashed a thick growth of vines and continued on, leaving the birds behind and the thoughts of fresh water ahead. He knew of the stream because it ran through a ravine by the black caves on the western shore, around the base of Ni-maon. He'd rather not have to go all the way to the caves themselves, but it was important for him to find water. The little water he'd get from the thickly settled humidity on leaves--of which he paused now and then to drink from--and hidden in roots would not satisfy. Besides, he remembered the water of the stream was cool as it's source was most likely a spring pouring from the side of the mountain.

It was late morning when he found the stream. Vines thick with purple, pink, and white flowers fed of the sides of a shallow gully packed with moss. He rested by the bank of the water and watched some frogs try to climb a wet sapling, and let everything catch up with him. What was he doing?, he thought. Away from home, all alone, in a land of ghosts and taboo? Lakula's round face appeared in his thoughts and he sat numb. There was nothing left for him, now that she was gone. A bitterness grew in his stomach. Why had he fled? Sadness and despair over the loss of his love was only one reason. Anger and vengeance was the other. If he had staid, he wasn't sure what he was capable of doing, to Alak, to Iluka, to Lakula, to himself. It was for the good of everyone that he had left. It was already past noon when he came too, and he felt hungry. He hadn't eaten in almost a day.

He followed the stream towards the shore. Many fruit-growing trees fed off streams, and if he hit the shore, he was bound to find some coconut palm. It would take too long to return to the boat, set his nets and sharpen his spear. Kalu suddenly had an eerie feeling wash over his back and into his teeth as he came to a grove of breadfruit trees and cultivated gourds growing amid the vines and brush and mangrove. They were old trees, but placed in such a way that he was sure he had stumbled upon the remnant of an old orchard. There were some also now feral yams growing thick green leaves among the grass, having spread out from the plots after years of neglect. This would be the ideal location of a future home, but then he thought of his father's words. The Itiki would get him if was not safely surrounded by water. He would have to find a were guarded lagoon, tie his canoe to shore, and sleep on the water.

The sunset that night was deep and red, the color of the tototee tail feather. The tide came in and slowly tapped the boat, licking it and lifting it gently. Kalu lay curled in the hollow of the canoe, using the mat as a pillow and tried to sleep. With the coming night would come the Itiki, whispering his name.

"Kalu. . . ." they would call silently and sadly. Like a lost lover. He could imagine them. They would sound like Lakula.

He fell into a restless sleep, and the tide started going out.

V Sunday

Things in their places,

Up and down that way I walk daily.

Everything happy and happiness--

Then the coming grey rain clouds.

After a night of no dreams and a morning of a slowly growing all-body ache from the end of his toes to the outermost point of his nose, Horatio sat up and embraced his hangover. Memories of the night before faded and dulled and confused itself in his mind, and he couldn't remember when and how he got home. He was still dressed and in his shoes but at some point in the evening he had removed his coat and was using it as a pillow. He was on the floor, somehow, not noticing his location until that moment when he sat up. His mouth tasted like stale fruit and salt.

At work, at the counter, encased in the powerful odor of burnt tomato-substitute salsa and re-re-refried beans, Horatio greeted the steady crawl of dreary-faced customers with the charm of a brick. They moved like bison or cows or some herd animal in slow identical strides like waves of water white foam drifting in, and all the same face with minor variation that he didn't pay attention to. Another day in the blue buttoned shirt collar and all with his name sewn into the pocket but misspelled "Horato" without the "I" and this strange girl with a sweet laugh slips into the line and orders an enchilada, and slips out he hadn't cared about the mistake because he didn't really care about the job. It was money that he didn't need but wanted to assert some false-sense of self-reliance, as his parents not only paid for his college education, but their wealth provided his rent, school supplied/books, and a weekly grocery allowance that he had, until recently, exclusively used towards beer.

A rather obese woman in a brown dress and brown scarf with large tufts of weed hair growing from the top of her head like cotton candy but lacy and brown with an impatient drawn-out face with faded cheeks and faded cheekbones was tapping the counter and waiting for Horatio's attention.

"I would like three three bean bar-itos and a extra large diet coke. Also, do you sell fries?"

"No, ma'am, we don't sell fries, but we do sell nachos."

"I'd really like some fries."

"I am sorry, but we don't sell them."

Her face deflated and Horatio wanted to go home and back to sleep because the line was only getting longer, so he wandered off into his thoughts, and responded to that customers in a mechanical, automatic way designed from months of work. He wandered through the events of the previous evening: his impotency in regards to Genevieve, the drunken retch of party images that he could recall with Dell, Tobin, various women whose faces now became clear. He had gotten himself very drunk, proceeded to hit on any girl within a five-foot radius of his penis, and finally overwhelmed with the sour margarita taste of Cindy Everts tongue and firm plumpness of her breast in his hand in the bathroom while some poor kid was emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet in a series of controlled two second bursts.

"Excuse me," a rather tall man with a large balding forehead said. "Can I have my food?"

Horatio was just standing and holding a bag of grease and staring into blur of faces sitting on red plastic booth seats and chairs and forgetting to do his job. He handed the man the food, apologized, and then tried, but failed, to push his thoughts aside.

Horatio's room was ten feet long and ten feet wide save one small extended area to the right of the door that pushed out three more feet and bordered the bathroom. He pressed his face into the area of the unmade mess bed below the pillow closing his eyes and pushing his arms as far forward as possible as if he was about to launch himself. He was still in uniform, having worked five hours boring lunch time Sunday and didn't want to move or think or breathe because he was so frustrated about Genevieve. But there was something else he was frustrated with, something far more important than girl problems, far more important than his libido, but he was unaware of it and it ate slowly through his subconscious with a Pac-Man-like appetite. But this something, this unknown conflict--

His thought suddenly took form and he saw that girl, noticed that girl, the girl customer with that sweet laugh that he hadn't paid as much attention to as he know would like to, because he had seen her before. At least, he felt like he had seen her before, but where, why, how he knew her he didn't know, and also how her presence now burst into his mind, he was also unsure of. It was a comforting image and half-memory, and his eyes grew heavy and everything around him seemed to grow soft and quiet and then--

The phone rang its electric birdcall in the other room; it was hazily calling and in a haze from laying face down and half-asleep, Horatio sat up blood rushing from his head sudden movement and he stood up because he was the only one home or awake (Prescott and Wendy lay in their sweat) and had to run into the kitchen. He picked up the receiver as the answering machine clicked on and he attempted to speak over the prerecorded message that Dell had made while drunk a few weeks back.

"Hello," he said.

"Hello, do you love us?" Dell said.

"Hello?" Horatio said.

"Sexy sexy sexy, love us and touch us with your own undeniably sexiness," Dell said.

"Is anyone there," Horatio said.

"Horatio?" Genevieve said.

"Oh, the beep is coming, I can feel it. You can feel it too. Leave us your sexiness," Dell said.

"Genevieve, hold on, let me figure out how to--"

"Beep."

"Horatio?"

Horatio was mashing the buttons on the answering machine, but he was machine-tactless, and helpless and after a few seconds of pressing buttons and pulling wires, he gave up, and realized that Genevieve was still on the line. Their conversation was a brief apology from Genevieve about the abruptness of their dinner, and that she thought it might be nice if they maybe could "hang out" to discuss their project sometime in the later part of the day. Horatio could picture the quotations around the phrase "hang out" as her voice willed it so. He was also expecting some sort of excited response from him, some tingle of interest or happiness that she was calling him to set up a sort-of-date, but there was nothing but a strange soft emptiness in his chest as if he was half-asleep or a half-dream. A walking dream.

Of course he told her he would be happy to do something that evening, perhaps they could catch a movie or--she interrupts him because it isn't a date after all. She wants to grab dinner and then hit the library, so they can begin doing background research for something he didn't really care for. He was taking the class to fulfill a requirement, as he was a business student, he didn't care for anything else, or anything at all at school. He saw college as a necessary resume boost so that he could get a good job and make money and do-- this strange girl with a sweet laugh slips into the line and orders an enchilada, and slips out --what he wanted to be happy though he wasn't sure what that was at the moment, nor cared to.

He stood with the phone in hand rubbing his head around the area above his right eye rubbing hair into head and the image just passed in front of him and it was gone and he told Genevieve he would meet her at seven. The smell of braised cheese and hot sauce wafted up from his shirt because he needed to change his clothes and shower, and so he hung up the phone, stood silent for a moment, and then wandered towards his bedroom.

It was about four o'clock and Horatio was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, staring at the Brittney Spears calender that Dell had gotten in a sort of half-joke half-real, and Horatio stared into her muscle tone until it all turned skin color around him. A trance of sorts he sat in, no real thoughts in his head other than images and sounds of the day and no focused idea and it was growing dark outside with the kitchen light off. A warm soft hand on the back of his neck brought him back into the world, Wendy was awake and dressed in one of Prescott's sweaters and in a pair of his boxer shorts and socks she had shuffled into the room and greeted Horatio the way she greeted everyone, through contact. She had this grin on her face smudged around with makeup and sweat and probably tears so she resembled a clown, slightly, her pug face. And she let her fingers caress the back of Horatio's neck until she was out of range and at the refrigerator almost all swallowed up by the large sweater as Prescott was a big guy and she was a small girl, and yet she still walked in a way to make others notice her sensuality and sexuality so that the boxer shorts were pulled up very tight around her ass which hung right below the bottom of the sweater. It hung and swung and was well shaped and round and her exposed thighs were well sculptured and smooth luscious-like and made Horatio thirsty for fresh fruit.

"Hor, I've slept so late," she said in her little booming voice, though restrained and a bit stretched from an evening of screaming, undoubtably both in fits of passion and anger. Prescott and Wendy had an unhealthy relationship full of fights and sex and more fights over sex and then sex over fights over sex and so on. In the three months since they began to date after a particularly wild party at Reeves C (one of the on-campus apartments that were often run more like mini fraternities), they had broken up and gotten back together on four separate occasions, and each time the fight got progressively worse and the makeup sex exponentially louder, so that they might just kill each other if they ever broke up and made up again. They would probably implode into each other, dragging the house down with them.

"I don't like it when I sleep so late," she said head in the fridge butt extended outward and pulled out the carton of milk. "It makes me feel like I'm walking in a dream world, or a world that's all asleep. Things just don't feel real, you know." She didn't pour the milk into a glass, but opened the spout and drank it from the mouth of the carton. Horatio didn't say anything, though he thought that he might have cared.

"I need to go wash my face," Wendy said, and leaving the milk on the kitchen table, she rubbed Horatio's hair and slunk out of the room, leaving a trail of sex, cinnamon, and something stale.

Sunday evening six o'clock he stood outside the bistro on Caroline Street staring into the sunken window at the tables looking for her but seeing only strangers and cute waitresses. It was an expensive restaurant, but this was what Genevieve chose. When she arrived five minutes later she had a younger blonder version of herself at her side--her sister, Delilah, she introduced, would be staying with her for a few days to experience college life. It was the equivalent of swallowing stones.

"There's been a slight change of plans," Genevieve said. Her voice was so soothing and vibrant and unassumingly dominant. "No library tonight. It's actually closed for some sort of maintenance work." She sounded disappointed and they entered the restaurant.

Droning monotonous tones of people talking where you can't make any individual voice out only tone, they were immersed in this like they were bathing in chatter and Horatio was drowning in discomfort trying to communicate with the two sisters. He found his tongue in his hands. They sat across from him and the first thing he noticed was how attractive Delilah was compared to Genevieve--they were so similar in appearance, but there was a slight roundness to Delilah's cheeks and a fullness to her lips that made her sparkle. However, conversely, Delilah looked so young and out of sorts--confused--she had difficulty making eye contact with anyone, including her sister, making her less attractive and more little-sisterly. Genevieve was in a full-length patterned-red dress with a grey blouse and her hair was let around her face glasses-free and even had a bit of makeup on. Horatio wondered if she had done so because of him, or because of a sort of competition between her and her sister. It was a strange sensation of sitting in a group of three without any conversation besides a few grunts, but they hid behind their menus in a collective solitude.

One of the cute waitresses--they were all similarly cute, as they were all sisters-- interrupted their non-conversation to explain that evening's specials and to order any drinks. To loosen up, Horatio ordered the cheapest beer on tap. Genevieve ordered some wine, and Horatio thought it would be a good idea if they ordered a bottle for the table. The waitress left them for another few minutes of relative silence, and then returned with their drinks. Horatio realized he forget to cancel his beer, but decided to keep it.

"Are you enjoying it, here?" He said. He had taken several large gulps of his Budweiser or Coors, he wasn't exactly sure, and he felt a bit more comfortable. Delilah looked at him, caught his eye for a moment, and then looked down at the table.

"It's okay," she said. Her voice was similar but less striking than Genevieve's. So, while she had a beautiful face, she lacked that magic energy of her sister's voice that wrapped around Horatio's neck like a belt, erotically asphyxiating him. "I've only been her for a day, though, so--"

"She'll have a great time," Genevieve said. "We have a busy few days ahead of us, she's gonna come to classes with me tomorrow, and then help me do some studying in the library, and then I'm going to give her a tour of Tang and the sports center."

Delilah didn't look as enthused as her sister, and she lost interest in the conversation as she played with her fork. Genevieve kept talking and explaining their schedule for the week, and Horatio noticed that not one of the activities was really very social.

"Maybe you should bring her to a party," he said.

Delilah looked up, again, interested, but her sister scowled and said that she was too young, and that a seventeen-year-old shouldn't be involved in such and such behavior. The conversation stood aghast, looked at its creators and then collapsed and died.

At seven-thirty, as they were being served their entrees, a jazz trio arrived and quickly got into their first set in the front area of the dining area where a piano had sat alone in silence. It was slightly out of tune, so the pianist adapted and forced as much wonder he could out of it, however only one or two ears in the audience could even discern. The bassist strummed the four strings of his upright with a plastic smile and a slow gyration of his hips as vibrations marched through the floor. And the saxophonist rubbed his instrument with such vigorous love with eyes closed deep in thought or concentration as he sat between solos that he may as well be in the privacy of his own room or the bathroom with a box of tissues and hand lotion.

Horatio was the type of person who laughed at people's intensities-- watching people play live music and going into game face-- he'd break up and then be surprised that no one else was reacting. Something about someone being lost in a moment, deeply lost in their thing, made Horatio laugh. But it was not a loud laugh, it was more forced uncomfortable sounding laugh rifle bursts. Their faces cringed in agony or pleasure, their bodies tense yet their furthest extensions, their fingers, flowed with polished grace

--Staring at the stage,

Watching the musicians play.

How their song softly goes:

Strum a chord,

Hit a beat,

Keeping time with his toes--

--Genevieve was listless, restless, needing to move do something other then sit there and hold it steady in one place fidgeting making the table wobble--

Horatio was slowly entering a drunk and didn't care about her mood and only listened with his eyes and could taste the pounding beats slide down his throat swallowed chunks-- no chewing, so soft--even wrong keys and missed notes his stomach they went musical digestion mixed with cheep beer and wine. However, when he closed his eyes and listened more deeply, he could only see the awkward O-faces of the players lost in their music, mouths frozen open, heads cocked odd angles, bodies tense and locked in musical rigor mortis.

She tried to speak to him but the music was too loud and her voice was lost in the swallowing chatter, so she tried to motion to him but his eyes were closed as he listened. At one point, the band took a break, and Delilah excused herself to use the restroom. Delilah had managed during dinner to drink three glasses of wine, two more than her sister--who didn't see any problem with her underage sister sharing wine at dinner.

"She's a senior in high school, and still hasn't applied to any colleges. You have to help me convince her that college is fun and great and a natural next step. She's just acts so miserable here."

"Then take her to a party. She seemed to like that idea."

"She's too young. My parents are going to kill her, if she was my daughter I would have already tossed her out of the house or punished her or forced her to send out applications. How can she be so irresponsible?"

"I don't know. Maybe she should take a year off."

"Well, she is going to have to. She can apply for late admissions to some schools, but her grades aren't also too good." Genevieve spoke with increasing rapidity. The words almost blurring into each other. Horatio wasn't really listening, but focused on her sound, on the thing that made him so wild over her. She also was incredibly attractive under the alcohol fog of his beer and two and a half glasses of wine--not full-out goggles, but she only needed a slight nudge not a full artistic air-brush alcohol make over.

Later, back in his bed and staring at the poster of Roger Clemens on his wall with the effects of the buzz worn off, he realized it wasn't such a good idea to have tried to kiss her and that he had probably ruined their relationship. He stared into Roger's intense eyes and was reminded of those musicians and he felt empty. Had he ever had that look in his eyes? He tried to think of a time when something moved him that much to make him care that much about something, and as hard as he tried, he couldn't. But there was something there. He felt the edge of it, and he desperately pulled at it, tried to surface it, but it wouldn't give.

IV

What is the light?

That light on the hill?

What does it mean?

When the light goes out?

Kalu sat in his boat, rocking gently in the afternoon tide. The sun burned, reflecting off the sullen waters. He stared at its reflection, lazily.

The water began to ripple as if blown by a swift breeze. But there was none, the air was stiff and motionless. Maybe a large fish was dancing near the surface, but the ripples were not coming from any set point but some invisible whole. Something was upsetting the water, and th ripples took on a violent intensity. Suddenly the boat lurched into the air. A sandbar had risen from under the surface of the water, displacing it, connecting Kalu's position to the land. All the water drained away from the small bay.

Kalu stepped off the boat and examined the strange sands. They were dry as if there hadn't been five feet of water above it, And barren of the sea-grass and rocks that normally dotted the ocean bed. No anemone, no sea-stars, no urchins. Not even shell remains. The sand was smooth, warm, felt like powder in his fingers.

"Kalu" came the whispers. "Kalu. Why? How could you leave me? I thought you loved me."

Kalu shivered and grasped his arms around his body. Cool breezes drew around his skin, teasing the hairs on his arms. He felt as if he was being watched.

"Kalu. Why have you gone?"

He looked around but saw no one, only the crouching jungle which grew darker as the sun lowered into the sea. Melting into the sea. Dying into the sea, turning it red with its blood. Then came the darkness and the stars burst, tearing into the sky. He could feel the world rolling under his feet.

"Kalu. I still love you," came the soft whispers. They were closer now, coming out of the jungle, the water, the sand. They were oozing out of everything.

The world was acting funny. It was reacting terribly to the whispers. The sand began to swirl, bake away into blackness. Kalu jumped back into his boat as the sand burned, and he found himself trapped in the middle of absolute darkness. Only the jungle remained, but it grew larger and darker and was alive and snarling at him. The whispers came to him, called to him from out of the trees and leaves. Begging him.

He crouched into a ball and shook his head, crying to his parents and to the gods and anyone who would listen for help. "Mercy," he said. "Mercy."

The whispers emanated from the edge of the jungle, where the green met and folded into the absolute black. They were like echoes, empty and distant, bodiless, tired, strained over great distances and beaten against rocks and trees.

Something white moved within the canopy of the jungle. They were coming. Like white reeds, floating in the treetops. Like the delicate shirts of the white men that visited and brought disease. Floating in the evening breeze. Feeding on the darkness of the night and calling to him.

"Kalu. Please."

He was trembling now, and he couldn't move his arms and legs. The emptiness seemed to creep from out of the jungle whispers and echoes and into his heart, eating away at his strength. He was certain he was going to die, or perhaps, he was already dead.

The movement in the canopy increased, more and more white began to mix within the deep greens and blacks. Something, or things, were coming out of the jungle and towards him, whispering and calling his name.

His feat were frozen to the boat, trapped in the darkness and the jungle as the soft, white bodies moved into the darkness between him and the canoe. With their sad faces, graceful flow, their arms dangling like fishing line. Echoing each other, all sounding the same. Searching for someone to catch in their arms. Feast of the souls. The Itiki had arrived.

"Kalu. I love you," they each spoke, their faces motionless, their bodies flowing like smooth waters. Jellyfish in the sky. Long white tails, trailing from their sad, clasped faces. Expressions stuck in time, frozen like a dead fish. All sounding like Lakula. All calling his name. And Kalu was too frightened, too enthralled to do anything but get tangled in their long arms. Even their sad faces were that of his once love. Lakula in despair.

He was drawn up into the sky, higher and higher away from the boat, the jungle, the black, black sea, trapped in an Itiki net. The frozen expression on its face, its haunting call. Fluid body. And they continued up, above the world and into the heavens. Only darkness below, and the stars above, and the whispering wails of the white spirit.

Soon, all was dark.

Then a white light appeared before Kalu. It danced, took on form, stretching and melting its whiteness into color. It became a large, golden fish, with the three faces. On the left was the head of an older and dignified woman, on the right a man, concentrating deeply in his middle ages. And in the middle of these two was the face of a beautiful woman, her eyes full of fire and life and complete wonder and joy. This entity stared at him, at Kalu so high above the world in the grasp of the Itiki.

"What are you searching for," echoed the three voices, no lips moving, the sound not coming from it, but still from it. A steady wave formed from nothing.

Kalu knew not what to, or how to answer.

"What do you expect to find in your life? What is its purpose? To simply live?"

The voice jumped between Kalu's ears. The drumbeat grew louder, closer. Beating with the words, beating in his skin.

The entity melted into the darkness, then reformed. Melted and reformed with the wave of its voice, its eyes never blinking, but perpetually staring. Kalu felt the stare meld with the words, the pulsating wave, the night. The white flowing of the Itiki. It was all like the tide. In and out.

"Why are we all here? On these waters, land and sky?"

Kalu opened his mouth to speak. He wanted to say something, anything, but only the steady wave poured forward. It was his heartbeat, and it was moving with the words, with the stares, with the melting.

"Yes, Kalu," the entity replied to the wave. Replied with the wave. The flows of the Itiki loosened, then tightened again. Everything was moving. "That is the reason to live. This wave, your heart, you perpetual existence depending on it. What comes to you, what comes into your hands, into your body, into your soul."

The Itiki above smiled, and Kalu felt warmth surge through its billowing tentacles. The entity laughed, and melted back into the blackness. It did not reappear.

"Take what comes you. You have too much left ahead of you. Too much to put behind you. Let it come as it comes, my dear Kalu. Things are not always as they seem."

The Itiki carried him further up into the darkness, until even its white flows vanished into the utter chaos.

It was a sad morning. Clouds were moving in from the west, covering the sun and turning the sky a palish pink. Kalu opened his eyes and stared up at the rapidly clouding blue. The mysteries of night were still fresh in his mind, and he couldn't even begin to comprehend his dream. Those faces, the sad empty Itiki.

That wave.

But earthly matters were more important. The canoe could no longer take for a home, he needed to build a permanent shelter, ghosts or no ghosts. So, raising the sail on the canoe, he began to circle the island in a southwesterly direction in search of the caves and the stream.

Bini, like Pa-Ula, was an archipelago with Bini-proper the largest island, but being about half the size of Pa-Ula, it did not take him long to navigate through the reefs and small islands and rocks until he reached the western shore. He reached the caves by mid morning, and was happy to find his memory correct--a palm-covered peninsula jutted out to the north of the caves, while a reef and sand bar formed a lagoon that would be enclosed from three sides during low tide. The stream fed the ocean just south of the lagoon where a ravine cut through a rather flat plateau of palm and brush that was the ideal location for the construction of the hut. Eventually, he thought, he could create a second, semipermanent dwelling deeper inland near the abandoned farmlands and orchards.

As Kalu climbed out of the boat and pulled it up to the shore, he realized that the only tools he had were his fishing spear, hooks, and net, as well as the ritual knife. He needed an adze, or at least a wedge, to cut down saplings and small trees to use as supports for a hut. Then he'd tie plaited thatch sheets as walls and dried palm leaves and ferns as roofing material, all which he would have to make by hand. There was too much work to do, and no time before the rains would come in. So it was only logical to stay in one of the caves--laying a layer of palm leaves and fern as flooring, and cover the entranceway as best he could with thatch or large palm leaves. But first he had to secure the canoe. It was heavy so he was not able to carry it deep inland. He removed the sail, wrapping it carefully with the net, then tied the boat up against two trees with the mooring line and left the anchor in the dirt. He worried that the outboard might get crushed against the trees if the tide rose high enough, but all he could do was tie the boat so that it wouldn't turn, and left the outboard facing the shore. He prayed that the sandbars and coral would do their job and protect the lagoon. And he prayed to La-tu, the boat god, that his canoe would remain safe.

'This canoe will one day be your canoe,' Kalu's father said, his hands broad and large and warm on Kalu's back. His eyes were dark like smoked leaves and his breath smelled of kava root which he chewed as he spoke. 'Learn to take care of it, and it will take care of you.'

They were out in the water, looking for rays who often danced around a particular small round piece of sand that disappeared beneath the water once a month. His father was teaching him how to spearfish and lay nets to catch schools of ?? who's silver skin crackled in your mouth as you ate them toasted over open fire. And he was teaching him how to maneuver the canoe, how to make the boat an extension of your body. Kalu's father was very proud of his canoe, having built it with great skill and care from a large and thick ?? tree he discovered deep within the forest. It was one of the few canoes in Pa-Ula carved from a single tree rather than several smaller pieces of wood, and it made Kalu's father especially proud because it was his, and not a communal boat. His father was the best fisherman and sailor in Pa-Ula, but he had no ambition to catch more than he had to, nor acquire wealth or prestige. Many of the villagers viewed him as a lazy man, who's lack of ambition made him appear a waste of good talent who was selfish by keeping the canoe to himself. But he was a humble man with a humble and beautiful wife who worked hard to raise their two children, and he cared little about the opinions of the other villagers. When the white men came a year later, he was one of the first people to support their stay. He was the first also to die.

'Treat this canoe like she was your wife. Give her love and support, and she will give it back. Do your job and she will do hers.'

Kalu's father sat back and stared at the passing clouds. There was a satisfied look that grew from his smile and climbed around the shark-tooth scar on his cheek, but grew weary and sad around the corners of his eyes.

Kalu climbed through the crumbling porous black rock that surrounded the caves making him worry that the rain would trickle through in little streams, and he examined several of them before deciding on one which had a thick growth of green and earth several feet thick above the roof. Inside, the rock crumbled into black powder under his sandals, and he covered the powder with a healthy layer of leaves and fern until it was soft and comfortable to lay on. Then he made several trips to the canoe to transfer the sail-bundle, spears, and various free-laying items from the boat to the cave.

As he worked he grew hungry, so he knocked a coconut down from a tree and cracked it open against some sharp rocks. It wasn't quite ripe, but he scraped its flesh clean from the husk. The sky grew darker and darker with heavy clouds that blurred the horizon with their rains. He could smell the freshness of the rain mixed in with the salt and the forest and--fire. There was a fire somewhere on the island, the smell of wood burning. He wasn't alone.

The mountain was called Ni-mo'an because its shape was that of a sleeping man from the ocean. The caves sat on a western precipice, or the head, and was only slightly shorter than the larger central hump that was the giant's stomach. Kalu climbed to the top of the head and looked out at the island for a source of the fire. There was a strong breeze that blew wet through his hair, the air was thick with the coming rain and the sea. A blanket of green and brown covered the island, bronzing around the edges where beach touched the water. It was within the larger hump that a thin line of smoke rose into the grey sky.

A small drop of rain landed on his face, rolled down his cheek and dripped into his mouth.

It tasted salty.

VII Monday

Line them up in a row

Ready that pitch

Ready that throw

And you miss

Room 203 sat in a false corner of the building; two large columns of windows lay in the juncture and overlooked the campus green so that no student facing these windows would ever pay attention to class. The room had no desks but four long tables placed in a hollow rectangle. Horatio hesitated momentarily at the entrance to the room, he normally sat next to Genevieve facing the windows (the professor purposely sat with her back to them to gain the attention of the class) and he wasn't sure how she would receive him this day. She was already there, always there five minutes before class started so that she could go over the notes from the previous class and last minute look-overs of her notes from the prior evening. Delilah was also there, looking sullen and uneasy, her seat distanced slightly from her sister and also back a bit so that she was disconnected from the tables. Genevieve wasn't paying her any attention, only fingering through her notes and making sure that everything was in order in front of her. The class was half full of students and the professor was anxiously checking the clock, as class was scheduled to begin in less than a minute. Horatio reluctantly took his seat, Genevieve gave a small grunt of acknowledgment but didn't look away from the neatly-color coated slants, slashes and swirls that was her writing.

Before he had chance to do anything class began and the professor started talking and the people started writing and he thought he should do the same thing even though he didn't care about the class, because it didn't mean anything to him, but he did it anyway. That day's lecture was about small population and cultural groups that survived the imperialistic push of European and American powers in the nineteenth and twentieth century, and each group had to present a report on one later that week. It was a small assignment which had been discussed last week, requiring only light research with results presented to the class that Friday. The professor, Dr. Michaela Payne, was enthusiastic as she spoke providing an energy to the class that Horatio deflected with his sleepy eyes. She sounded distant to his ears, and his thoughts wandered out the window and over the campus green into the blue lightly-clouded sky looking down at the college and the surrounding town sprawling outward into forest and mountain and then--this strange girl with a sweet laugh slips into the line and orders an enchilada, and slips out--there were three sets of eyes staring back at him in the window. The first were his own dreamy greyish blues that suddenly seemed so lifeless in reflection, and a similar pair of browns--one partially hidden from glare off the lenses of horn-rimmed glasses that flickered and moved and danced around like bird eyes, the others seemed just as lost as his own, searching for something out beyond the glass.

Class had ended, but Horatio was still in this dreamy state when Genevieve startled him away.

"Tonight, at seven, at the library. We have to start working on this project."

Her voice was creamy and tangy.

He nodded, and then thought about apologizing her for the night before, but her body language was unchanged from her usual self, busy as she put her books away in her bag and took her sister by the hand as if she was about to cross the street and Delilah a little girl, and started out the door. But she suddenly stopped and turned back to Horatio, who was now slowly putting his own notebook away as students began entering for the next class around them.

"I understand that we all had a bit too much to drink last night," she said. "Let's not let it get in the way, okay?"

Her face was seriously set, emotionless against the words she spoke. Delilah was at her side like a blind kitten and then they were both gone and out into the hallway, leaving Horatio to deal with the cryptic comments.

This was Horatio's only Monday class, and now that it was lunch time, he decided to head back home. It was warm that day in the upper fifties, perhaps low sixties, so sudden a change from the snow the day before, so he parked the car in the lot and walked right into town instead of entering the apartment, hands in his jacket pockets and deep in half-thoughts about Genevieve, who was increasingly taking up more and more of his thoughts, pushing everything else out through his fingertips. His mind was so preoccupied that he took a wrong turn and walked straight through the entrance of Congress Park, not noticing until the soft sound of pavement gave way to the crumbling gravel of the snaking walkway.

They had already shut off the stone fountains along Spring Street and boxed up the stone statues that acted as spigots, so he headed towards the pond so that he could sit down get his mind in order. Because of the nice weather the park was loud with children and lunch-breaks and a group of college-age kids sat on a blanket as one of them played a guitar and the others listened. He followed along the small stone wall-lined stream that ran from a fish pond to a round open well that was divided up by small dykes to maintain the water height. The water was low because the park service had turned it off so only rain and a faint trickle of spring water found its way into the stream which only grew shallower as he neared the well. On top of the final dyke before the well he found a dead duck, and he knew it was male because it's blueish-purple head had a metal sheen to it in the sunlight. It was curled up in a spiral on it's side, it's belly eaten out so that only feathers and grey bones lay sprawled, like archeopteryx.

There was a slight wind that picked up every few minutes into a strong gust before calming to a steady zephyr, and as he turned away from the duck and followed the stream back up to the fish pond, Horatio caught a fresh, earthy and fragrant smell--Spring-like--from his right. It was the girl this strange girl with a sweet laugh slips into the line and orders an enchilada, and slips out from yesterday.

She was sitting lotus style on a bench, wearing a tattered and faded green army jacket that surrounded her upper body like a tent, revealing only the grass-stained jeans on which she had drawn a crescent moon in pen on her left knee. A pair of red children's Mickey Mouse sunglasses sat at the tip of her nose like reading glasses giving her a surreal studious look, and she had a Little Mermaid coloring book opened in her lap in which she was writing or drawing, Horatio wasn't sure from his angle, with a pen. A large purple cloth bag covered in patches sat on the bench next to her, and was spilling over with pieces of clothing and the upper half of a nude mutilated and artificially bald Barbie Doll. He just stood there, about ten feet away from her, said nothing, and stared at the park bench Buddha.

"Yes," she said, her voice was sweet and full of a strange energy that reminded Horatio of Genevieve's, but only more wonderful. It was vastly superior, and he felt the strength of it knock all sense out of him. "Can I help you? Do I know you?" She was smiling, and her whole face seemed to glow in a reflection of the sun off the cover of the coloring book.

"No," he said, trying to build confidence. All thoughts of Genevieve and the disastrous dinner overexposed into black at the sound of this strange girl's voice. "No, but I did, I mean, I think you ordered an enchilada from me, yesterday. I work over at The Big Tostada."

She lifted her glasses as if they had been obstructing her view and gave him a look over. She had green eyes. Her face was delicate, doll-like but dirty around the edges and devoid of makeup, and her Mediterranean-black, almost gypsy-like hair was twisting into dread-locks and tight tangles at the tips. She was quite possibly the most attractive woman he had ever seen, however there was something unsettling about the situation.

"Oh yeah," she said. "It didn't sit very well, though. Luckily I had a place to crash last night, so I could shit it all out." She paused for a moment and they both listened to a child scream in the distance. "Oh well."

"Yeah. That's why we call it the Shit Shack."

"Nice."

She scratched at her head with animal-like intensity, then removed her glasses and began to chew on one of the arms.

"I'm Horatio," he said, thought about extending a hand and then finally did. She examined it like a dog, seemingly sniffing it from two feet away and took it warmly in one of her own, sweaty warm and dirty hands that were caked in ink and dirt.

"Isabelle. People call me Is. What brings you to the park, today, Horatio?"

"It's a nice day."

"Yes. I guess," she was already growing disinterested and placed her glasses on her forehead. "As far as days gonna go."

"There is this dead duck--" he said, then stopped. He felt awkward. "I mean, I hope I'm not bothering you. Just saw you sitting on the bench--"

"That's nice of you, to bother me, I think. Here, look at this!" She handed him her coloring book as her mood shifted from disinterest to enthusiasm. The book was filled with pages of neatly formed letters and words placed into deformed columns and shapes in the bodies of the various characters, each giving a different texture as if they were colors. On closer look, each of the columns and shapes were short two-six line poems, and he read one that sat within a Ariel's eyes: We all do a little dance to the sky and touch the ground,/twirl around and turn to dust.

"This is amazing."

"Only something."

She took the book back and placed it on the bag at her side, and then rubbed her nose with her arm, her eyes staring straight into Horatio's, not letting go, not blinking not moving, fixed completely on his own. Horatio didn't want to be there, anymore, despite the beauty and energy of this girl, but he couldn't move--so powerful Isabelle's stare. Finally, she relented after what seemed a lot more than the five real seconds she had a lock, and her eyes closed and her mouth widened around an immense smile.

"You're kinda cute, there," she said, she placed her hand on his arm--waters lapping against the green shore after the rains had left the brown sands carved into many small layered channels and a bird sang out from the branches of a small tree, the air fresh with salt and sand and wet leaves--but then she wasn't paying attention to him anymore, her eyes closed, her head swayed, she sat there listening to something Horatio couldn't hear and he closed his own eyes and listened, but he only heard a light breeze rustling through the dead fall leaves. She let her hand drop from his arm.

He opened his eyes, she still was sitting there, smiling, eyes closed and listening.

"Well then," he said, "I guess I'll see you around."

"You will," she said without opening her eyes.

He looked back at her a few times stumbling in zombie-like walk as he went back to the entrance of the park, but she remained in the same position and state--a tent of green on a bench, still in the lotus position, eyes still closed, and that smile across her face--that left him very unsettled.

"Horato, is it? Can I please have some french fries?" a woman's voice startled him from his half-thoughts and he was standing at the counter, as usual, waiting on customers in The Big Tostada.

"We don't serve fries here, ma'am," he said. "Would you like some nachos?"

"What are nachos?" It was an older woman in her seventies who often frequented the restaurant and shared this exact same conversation with Horatio again and again, because she just couldn't seem to get it down. It was about four in the afternoon, and the sun had long since sneaked away from the north-facing window front and behind neighboring buildings making it appear later than it really was, even in November.

"They are sort of like french fries, but instead of potatoes they are corn, and instead of being thick like french fries, they are flat and crispy."

"Are you sure you don't have french fires?"

He was working a six-hour shift that he was sort-of forced into by Bob the manager, who had accosted him on the street as he walked by on his way back to the apartment and begged him to come and cover for Lisa who had called in sick. This wasn't an uncommon experience for Horatio, as his coworkers seemed to always be falling ill or handling personal emergencies falling back on him to cover their lazy asses, despite the fact that Horatio wasn't even that great at what he did. But he worked.

"I'm sorry, but we don't."

He thought about the delicate curve of Isabelle's cheek into the corner of her nose, and the small freckle by the corner of her left eye--perhaps it was dirt--and those glasses on the tip of her nose giving her some bastardized look of authority in the way a young child imitates an adult. And her strange and alluring comments that made him so uncomfortable as if he was listening to the rants of a madman who could lash out with a knife or gun at any moment, but her danger wasn't physical. Was she crazy?

"That's too bad. I really like french fries. I think of them as a guilty pleasure."

He wondered if he really would see Isabelle again, standing at the counter looking for her in each person that walked by the window or customer who opened the door, hoping she would sneak in, hoping to talk to her again. In this way he passed the afternoon drudging through the boring work of a fast-food employee, or any service employee, thoughts never focused on the orders of his customers, but on the image of Buddha tent Isabelle.

Sitting on couch watching the turned-off television black screen's reflection of himself in the lamp-light and not really thinking of anything but images of the day and all that was still laying on him mind, hadn't even started homework for the following day's classes. That was when the phone rang and Horatio realized that he was supposed to be at the library doing research with Genevieve, who had slipped his mind since the park. It was seven-thirty, and she was very passionately disappointed with Horatio's lack of punctuality--to which he apologized and blamed on the emergency shift at The Big Tostada, which was true to an extent. Her voice was tense, uncomfortable (though it never seemed to be settled), she gave him ten minutes to get there so that they could get their work done, and she hung up the phone before he could respond.

The phone call was such a shock to his reality that Isabelle, like Genevieve before, vanished from his thoughts, and he raced out into the cooling air of the evening and to the parking lot, pausing just a moment to glare disdainfully at The Big Tostada and its broken neon light that buzzed and fizzled and flickered just the O of the pink and blue OPEN sign, like a big condescending wink. With the descent of the cold, the breeze picked up stronger and one large gust pushed against the side of the car, momentarily overpowering the underpoweredness of the car as it raced down North Broadway and into the utility roads of the college. Another strong gust knocked against Horatio as he ran towards the library and as he recovered he looked up at the night sky which was rapidly overcasting with thick star-snuffing clouds that seemed more voluminous with full-moon reflection. He entered the building as a thick cover barricaded the moon from sight, nearly completing the sky into one thick mesh of rain-cloud covering.

The windows--so many of them pressed against the outside world like invisible shields smudged with oily hand-prints and dead flies--buckled and groaned against the gusts as they sat at a table on the second floor facing open books that sent out fixed swirls of dust towards the flourescent lighting. Delilah quietly stared out at the dark hills through the windows that she couldn't see, but somehow sensed were there--a position she was in when Horatio arrived and stayed within throughout the hour or so he sat with them until he had finally exploded and left her sister visibly stable but mentally and emotionally cracked. She did not look away from the window, but only listened to their discussion; first Genevieve chastised Horatio's lateness and forgetfulness, then as they jointly looked through the books, her tone switched to a controlling and pushy bully-ness that Delilah was all to familiar with. As time carried on, and Horatio appeared to be getting more and more flustered with Genevieve's persistently dominating attitude, something changed within his behavior. Something began to grow in his manner of speech, in the volume of his voice, an agitation that she didn't expect from his earlier soft-spoken-ness, and suddenly something in him burst. But even then, she did not look away from the window, didn't even look at their reflection in the darkness.

What angered him, what finally made him show some sort of backbone against her, despite her criticizing his being late, his inability to focus and lack of seriousness over the project, was, as often was the case with these sorts of things, something small and meaningless. He didn't mind her complaints, he didn't mind her henpecking attitude that evening, more so than he had ever experienced before, but after telling him that all his ideas were bad and lacked a seriousness, she called him stupid.

"You don't care about this project at all. Do you even care about school, do you want to put any effort into anything. Sometimes you're so stupid, Horatio." Her tone was rather emotionless, empty, and said in a matter-of-fact sort of way that came off smug.

This made him very angry, an anger he knew he had against her, and that had been brewing since class earlier in the day which he had sublimated into a stupor and embarrassment of sorts--it was an anger based on her own stupidity. He had kissed her the night before, he had caressed her in his arms for a moment, and she seemed to have given into it and then suddenly pushed him away. Her cheeks were flush, and she had covered them and sipped some water and then said nothing and looked away from him. She said nothing until her sister returned and then acted as if nothing at all had occurred, and continued on that way.

He tried forcefully to control his anger at her comment, but bits of it seeped out through his replies, his gestures, his body language, all to which she seemed completely oblivious to. And this made him even angrier, because she was so oblivious and purposely ignorant towards.

"Why do I bother?!" He finally said loudly, shoving his notebook into his arms and standing up. "Me, stupid!? Fuck, I've never met a more frigid bitch. Do this fucking project on your own."

His main regret, later, driving home through the fat drops of rain that grew colder with every minute, was that he has used such a cliché--frigid bitch--when there were so many better and more original things to say. Other than that, he felt semi-alive and for once, there was something real flowing through him.

VIII

On the first day

There was nothing

Nothing but water.

Then came the sun

And it was like an oven.

From Aula came man and woman, whom we call the Great Mother and the Great Father. And the Great Mother and Great Father had two beautiful daughters, Pa-Ula and Bini, the first children of the world. Pa-Ula was the elder and wiser, Bini the younger and wilder . The two sisters would dance together, make bead necklaces, weave tiaras of flowers, and cook sweet-tasting feasts, together. Working together, loving, together under the watchful eyes of Great Mother, Great Father, and Aula. There was never as great a love as between those two sisters.

But as all children do, the two grew up. Both found love, married, had children, and all lived happily together. There would be great feasts and dances as the families continued to grow and prosper. But families grow, spread, change over time. And differences grow out of these changes, as flowers from the rain. As barnacles from the sea. Soon, the children of Pa-Ula and the children of Bini grew distant as they grew more numerous. Soon they could barely remember each other's faces.

One day, a great-great-great-grandson of Bini proposed a festival be held on the island, and invited the great-great-great-grandchildren of Pa-Ula to attend. The feast was held, and the people of Bini danced in honor of their guests. But the people of Pa-Ula did not like the dance, and they danced their own dance. This upset the people of Bini, and there is a small argument. And like how a drop of rain collects with its brothers in a leaf, the argument grew into a fight. A fight that lasted generation after generation.

Until it was all over.

Until the stronger numbers of the much larger Pa-Ula overwhelm and devour the souls of the Bini. Until the children of Pa-Ula eat the children of Bini, and the sisters are at last one.

Mean.

That was the only thing Kalu could think of the storm. It was mean. It fell against the island like stones, it sliced through the trees like sharp spear tips. Gusts of wind thick with rain punched through the cave's opening, tearing the palm and fern floor, tossing it against Kalu. His makeshift palm leaf barrier had shred under the first strong gusts and now only whistled which each successive blow.

And the rain dropped. It was coming in streams and rivers from the sky. As if the sky was pushing waves of water at the land. It winded through the maze of pours and openings in the volcanic rock and dripped onto Kalu or came out of the walls to wet the ground and transform the upturned mess of leaves into a bog.

Kalu lay in the corner of the cave, wrapped in a large palm leaf with sharp edges that cut his arm and his leg but kept him safe from the constant wind bursts. But he wasn't paying attention to any of it, not the rain, not the wind, not the cuts on his arms and legs. He was lost in thought in the image of Lakula the Itiki, her sad face swollen and pale, sad and empty. He was lost in thought about how much he loved that face, the smiles and childish frowns, the deep world of her eyes.

The wind's whistle echoed in the cave, mixed with the dripping of water and pounding of rain. It took on form--the rain the beating of drums, the wind a flute--and sang throughout the cave, seeping into his thoughts as the water seeped through the porous rock.

"Kalu," it sang. "Kalu."

'Kalu, how big is the ocean?' she asked. They were sitting in his canoe, Pa-Ula a series of lines and bumps in the distance and nothing but rich blue all around. He was looking into her eyes as she looked out at everything.

'Really big,' he said.

'Do you think it really comes to an end? What would we find if we just kept sailing?'

Kalu didn't know, and looking into those eyes he wanted to answer her, but he couldn't. He just shrugged.

'One day, let's sail to the end of the world and see what's there,' she said, suddenly turning to him and looking into his eyes and all he could think of was yes, yes, I would go anywhere with you, do anything for you. Just let us do it together.

'Together,' he said and she smiled and he could have died right there.

"Together," he said, and wished he had. He bowed his head.

Somehow he drifted off to sleep and did not dream.

The rope that helped connect the outrigger to the main body of the canoe had snapped along with the boom it supported. He cursed his luck and lay out the sail and netting to dry in the sands at the shore for the lagoon. The sky showed no sign of storm, but the beach was covered in piles of kelp, leaves, thrown branches, and baking puddles of jellyfish. He collected the branches and let them dry for later use as firewood, then sat down on a rock and spread out his own bones to dry.

A Tototee hopped along the sand picking at dead crabs and jellyfish, then stopped before Kalu and twitched its head. Kalu wondered if this was the same bird as before--he would like to think so.

"To-to-tee," it sang, and hopped backwards. "To-to-tee." It blinked as its head twitched and then it spread its wings and disappeared into the forest. Kalu sat up and let a soft, salty breeze caress his face. It made him realize he was hungry.

The rains had caused the forest to exude a sweet mist which raised up to the canopy and into the sky. He wandered away from the shore of the stream, which had become a deep rushing brown river swollen with rain. The day was getting warmer as noon closed in on Bini. He spent a few hours foraging through the abandoned farmland and surrounding forest, had found some strong vine which he braided into some rope and a sturdy sapling that had a nice arch for a boom, and fixed up his boat using resin as glue. Kalu rubbed a bit of wet sand from his cheek and continued towards the far hill as he now searched for the source of the smoke from the previous day. The jungle got thicker in the valley between the two hills, Ni-mo'an's neck, and his knife grew blunt as he slashed through thick vines and branches. Cutting through dense forest left Kalu hot and winded, and now and then he sipped from a gourd that he had hallowed out and from a clear spring that fed into the stream.

Suddenly the forest thinned out and the accent became muddy. At points the mud would suck his sandals deep into the earth, making the climb very difficult. There was a rockier face further to the west, and with some difficulty, he was able to reach the top of the hill in the tufts of thick grass and softened dirt between the volcanic rocks.

He wiped the sweat off his face and surveyed the scene. There were no trees growing at the false summit, but a blanket of grass covered the ground. He could see all but the eastern part of the island which lay beyond the taller true summit of Ni-mo'an and was reminded of his last trip to Bini with Alak.

'Can you imagine such a giant, Kalu? He would have been so tall that his head would sit in the heavens.'

They were sitting on top of Ni-mo'an's head, staring out at the island. Kalu's arm stung where he had cut it, and drops of blood were falling onto the rock.

'I wonder how he fell asleep, and if there was any way of waking him.'

'He probably just got tired of being so big,' Kalu said. He was picking at his cut, squeezing it and poking it with his fingers.

Alak picked up a rock and tossed it as far as he could into the forest below.

'Do you think there are any more giants, out there, on some island eating people and tearing up mountains with their feet?'

'I don't think so,' Kalu said. 'I think all the giants are gone, if there were any in the first place.'

Alak turned towards Kalu, watched him pick at his cut, then bent down on the ground and smeared Kalu's blood into the stone with his fingertips.

'Don't say such things,' Alak said, drawing a giant in blood. 'You know I don't like it.'

Kalu smiled and dripped more blood onto the ground.

He sat down in the grass and scanned Ni-mo'an's belly. A thin layer of mist was rising out of the forest and up into low hanging rain clouds. There would be afternoon rainstorms in the forest, but nothing like the night's storm. He played with the grass, chewing on some, tearing up clumps in his hands, weaving small pieces of thatch. Buried in one clump was a fine smooth piece of black rock, the perfect size for a squid hook. He placed it in his pouch besides the pearl, and felt a sharp sting run through his chest and around his throat.

He was caught in a small patch of rain as he climbed back down into the valley and took shelter under the broad leaf of a low-lying palm in a shallow gully that was noticeably lacking in ground cover. On closer examination, Kalu noticed that something had been tearing up the ground, had gone after the roots of the plants and not just the leaves, and that the damage was new. He smiled, because he knew exactly what it was--dinner.

Quietly and quickly he carved a spear point at the end of a large branch, then followed the trail of carnage down into the depths of the valley, through rain and mist, until he reached the edge of the stream. The water was still high, and had gnashed and eroded chunks of its normal embankment, which left the water brown and silty. He heard the ruffling of leaves, then the grunts, and he lay low to the ground as not to be seen, covering his skin with mud to coat his smell. A pile of droppings lay near his face. From out of the bushes a few meters to his left came a large sow, sniffing at the ground and tearing at the dirt with her feet. Holding close to her side were two small piglets, darting in and out of her legs and trying not be crushed. She was a large pig, not the biggest he had ever seen, but still large, so he guessed that she was still young and that these were her first children.

He lay still, clutching the spear and waiting for the sow to get a little bit closer. Suddenly the large pig lifted her nose into the air and began to sniff. Kalu held his breath but it was too late, he was discovered. The sow called out in alarm and tried to run off into the forest, but she got herself stuck in some vines and panicked, kicking the piglets so that they cried in pain. Kalu threw the spear, and got her right in the neck--blood trickled out and covered the forest floor, coating the piglets who cried in shock. One of them was crushed by its mother's flailing legs and lay motionless in the upturned dirt. The other ran off squealing in fear into the forest, red with blood like the day it was born.

Finally, the sow gave in, and with one groaning breath lay still. Kalu walked over to collect his prize, when suddenly the sow opened her eye and gave a kick as she died, knocked him off the embankment and into the rushing water.

He felt his ankle break against the force of the rocks as he was swept through the stream's rapids, and felt the tip of another rock tear through his right arm, and the blunt surface of another stone against his head, and then things started going black as he tried to keep above the surface. He managed to hold on to a rock with his left arm, and with the last of his strength, pulled himself out of the water and onto the shore. He lay still in the mud as the rains opened up again and mixed the blood with the mud and he forced himself up with his good arm and limped blindly through the forest.

At one point he passed out for a few hours, waking in the dark his head pounding and his body feeling both heavy and light at the same time. Crawling through the wet underbrush, he blindly limped through the forest, unsure what direction he was heading, only listening to the steady strong rush of water from the stream. He wasn't sure how long he had been walking when he heard the sound of leaves rustling from his left. He turned and saw something white moving through the trees. He reached for his knife.

"Go away!" he shouted. "You can't have me!"

He stumbled and fell to the ground.

"Lakula!"

He felt something warm at his side, and then everything went black.

"Kalu," whispered the sad-faced Itiki. The sad Itiki with its Lakula face. The flowing, the softness of the arms as they dragged him along the night sky. "Kalu."

All around him hovered hundreds of Itiki, all with their sad, white, willowy bodies, flowing in the night sky like jellyfish. The jungle disappeared below, and they drifted higher and higher in the heavens themselves.

Kalu felt at peace, and gave himself to what ever lay ahead.

IX Monday

Pounding, pounding

A heart beats like an oar.

Beating against the water.

Beating the blood to cream.

There was a lot of noise coming from Prescott's room, but it wasn't love-making. It was a fight and Horatio tried not to listen to what they were arguing about, but the walls weren't exactly thick. Prescott had messed around with another girl, common knowledge to all but Wendy, well, now common knowledge to all, and Wendy was threatening to leave him and that they had to be exclusive and that he was a bastard. This wasn't a new fight, but cyclical, the third time in the circle. Wendy would probably storm out, and Prescott would chase after her, and then they would be gone for a few hours, and return all lovey-dovey again, because they seemed to enjoy each other's mutual fuckups and bad habits. A shared self-destructiveness.

It was a good time for Horatio to take a break from his work, anyway--he was writing a two page paper for his macroeconomics class, his least favorite class--and so he wandered into the living room where Dell sat glued to the television. There appeared to be some special exclusive expose on the porn industry on E!, the channel Horatio found least entertaining but Dell called the closest thing to porn on standard cable. So Horatio passed on the tv and sat down at the kitchen table and opened a bottle of beer. Dell had left a copy of 100 Years of Solitude on the counter, he was reading the book for a world literature class, and so Horatio opened it up and began to read as he drank. It was a little past ten-thirty.

At one in the morning, five beers and one hundred and fifty pages later, he was finally interrupted by fingers in his hair. Wendy, face smeared with makeup and tears looked even more clown-like than usual, multiplied and exponentialized by beer and his current dissatisfaction with the events of his life. He wanted to laugh, as he had laughed at the strange faces of the musicians lost in their moment, but he didn't. She sat down next to him, she was dressed in one of Prescott's sweaters--a red and brown mash of yarn stitches with a large hole under the left armpit that revealed only skin underneath--and she sighed.

"What'cha reading?" she said, her voice quiet but strained and hurting, empty of the normal energy and sexual overexuberance it normally conveyed. She didn't wait for a response, but lifted the book and examined its cover. "I love that book." She sat back and closed her eyes and dreamed up some past memory and sighed a nostalgic mix of happiness and sorrow. The moment passed and she opened her eyes and placed her hand on his. Her hands were warm and slightly clammy as if they had tightly closed and strained into a fist for a long period of time, but they were also soft and it was a nice sensation.

"You look like you've had a tough night," she said. "You know what they say about misery."

He nodded, he wanted to say something witty, but didn't think it was necessary despite the clichés. He was then about to offer her a beer, but she picked up a half-finished bottle on the table and chugged it down with her free hand without the slightest bit of difficulty. Just opened her throat and swallowed it all. To Horatio, it looked like she was chugging back her life itself.

"He's out there, somewhere," she said holding the bottle in one hand and caressing it's neck fallaciously with the other, she seemed to be doing subconsciously but Horatio wasn't sure and couldn't help but stare at her hands--they were thin, bony, long fingers tipped with a bright pink polish on the nails that were peeling near the cuticle. "He got really mad and is out there somewhere, probably getting drunk."

She tried to smile but it wasn't natural, and Horatio thought of things to say but didn't think they would be of any help, so he just looked at her with what he considered a look of concern and sympathy, but it was really hard because he didn't like Wendy. She was outwardly nice, but she made him feel so uncomfortable like a tight wet shirt so that her outgoingness was repulsive to him. Yet, he sort of enjoyed her sexual appetite and vivaciousness, how she placed her limbs out like thousands of suction cupped-feelers and how she didn't care what other people thought--but really did. At least in comparison to the "frigid bitch" of his awful insult. Still, he never had a real conversation with her, didn't find her to be a type of person he would want to hang out with or have a meaningful conversation with, and generally didn't like being alone with her. Yet he was drunk, and he didn't feel like moving from the kitchen table because he was enjoying the solitude and strange magic of the book, and he didn't want to get up and sit in the living room which he could hear was no longer being monopolized by Dell. He wanted to stay in that spot and read, but he wanted Wendy to leave, he didn't want to get involved in her and Prescott's relationship, and didn't want to be a willing ear.

"Do you ever get bored with life?" she asked, and then stood up and left the room, not even waiting for a response as if the question wasn't meant for him. And this question bored into him like a burn, his interior began to wage war with his exterior, and it slipped into his guts, into his stomach, then settled. Of course he was bored with life, the answer was simple, and though he had thought about it on many quiet occasions alone in bed, it seemed like a fresh argument under the weight of the beer and his frustrations.

"Sometimes, I wish I could just start all over again, not from the beginning, but from that one insignificant moment in the middle that obsession revolves around, despite its lack of importance to anything," Horatio said.

"Yes, yes," Horatio said.

"That moment when you made one tiny little choice, an interior choice, that decided how everything else would go--but at the time, it was nothing."

"Sure, but the decision has already been made. It's irreversible."

"Live in the bullshit, rub in onto your skin, in your hair, in your eyes and ears and mouth. Feel it between your fingers, this is life."

"Yes," Horatio said, unaware of Horatio's mocking tone. "Yes, life."

"Then eat it until you choke."

Horatio stood up, the room was rocking as on a boat, his legs were hardened Jello, his muscles pulled like guitar strings, he stepped from the kitchen to the living room.

"Yes, I am," he said to Wendy, who was laying face-buried in the dirty beer-infused cushions of the couch, she raised her head at his words and wiped her pug-clown-face in one motion. A large smile.

X

Rollin' my bones--

I can feel you, darling,

Just a rollin' my bones.

Kalu.

Kalu, what is this? Kalu.

Kalu, what are you doing? Why? Kalu.

Kalu.

Tell us, Kalu. Tell us.

It was raining but the rain did not sound familiar. It sounded like dried bones hitting rocks. Like small pebbles against a stone. He did not understand why the rain sounded the way it did. He tried to open his eyes but there was nothing in front of him, and fell back into a dreamless sleep.

It was raining, still raining, and he did not know how long he had been asleep or if the rain of small bones against rock was a different rain or the same. There was something wet against his lips, something cool and wet and this sensation on his lips, or at least on what he believed were his lips, as they were floating in blackness in the strange rain, and it was this wet that woke him up. He felt very soft and warm, and the cool wet created his mouth and then his throat and the muscles around his throat as he swallowed. And the cool wet created his chest and his stomach and he was starting to feel like he did indeed exist and was awake.

The rain continued. There was a film on the world around him, as he listened to steady pebble drops of rain, like looking under water in the middle of a coral bloom. He could feel the skin around his eyes and around his mouth, and running down his neck to his chest. His arms were still missing, he could not feel them, they might never have even existed. As he moved his eyes things merged into the blurry white film, but there was green and grey and black and brown and yellow and more white and red. The world was taking on color, and he perceived that he was smiling.

The rain lessened. The film receded but he could not understand what he saw. There were shapes and colors and things that he thought he should be able to recognize, but for some reason nothing was there. Nothing was real. He didn't know what he was seeing, and he was able to feel his hands and his legs, but he could not move them. They were heavy and bogged down like in mud or restrained with weights, like he was entangled in invisible netting and could not move. It was then that he realized he was not alone, and something white moved in front of him and then there was the wet at his lips and something warm pressed against his face.

"To-to-tee."

The rain was gone. A tototee bird was perched on the edge of a very smooth grey rock with burnt edges. The bird pruned its small colorful feathers and then disappeared into the forest. There was something warm wrapped around his body, but he couldn't raise his head to see what it was. That was when he felt the pain. It ran through his arms and up and down his legs and tore at his chest like a shark and he shouted out suddenly as he closed his eyes and bit back tears.

When he opened them again, he was staring up into the an Itiki. White, pale, floating and sad. Its hair was yellow like the feathers on the tototee and its eyes were the light greyish blue of a humid day. He closed his eyes again, pain ran up and down his body. He wished that the Itiki would take him away, take his soul from his body and leave him a wandering ghost for all eternity.

"Take me, take me, I have nothing left," he said. His voice was nervous and quick, he felt it echo in his head and it hurt. "Hurry, take me."

The Itiki put its finger against his lips. It was warmer than he expected.

"I have no family, I am broken. No one loves me but those who are already dead. The gods curse me, the gods curse my family."

He waited for the flowing embrace of the Itiki's long arms, but it did not come. Only water came, against his lips. Kalu opened his eyes. He saw that it was not an Itiki after all. No. It was far worse than an Itiki.

A white demon.

His father was the first to see it, but he did not say anything to anyone but his wife and children.

"There was an interesting bird in the sky," he said as he chewed on kava root. He said it casually, without excitement or emotion in his usual subdued way, but his family recognized that this was an important announcement: Kalu's father did not describe many things as interesting. "It was very high in the sky and large. It was also shiny, like pearl." That was all he said.

A few days later the first plane landed directly south of the village in the lagoon. The white men had arrived, for the third time in the island's spoken history. They first arrived hundreds of years earlier on large boats looking for fresh water. They came again, hundreds of years later in their first attempt to enlighten the Aulans with their God and beliefs. The island's population was much greater at that time, numbering nearly 10,000, and Bini was a prospering sister culture. By the time the last white man escaped on his boat, only half that many Pa-Ulans remained, and even less Bini.

Mawtot, Pa-Ula's chief, sent his youngest son, Iluka, and several men out in canoes to meet with the visitors, but would not allow them to step onto the island. The white men had a man with them who spoke a strange broken dialect similar to the Aulan language, told Iluka that they brought medicine and food and salvation.

Kalu's father watched them as he sharpened his spear, watched them from the corner of his eyes. Kalu was at his side, and although he was young he understood that his father was uneasy about the strangers even if he didn't show it.

"Kalu, now I will show you how to catch shark." Kalu looked at his father, surprised. He was far too young to learn how to catch shark, how you must tie a line around their tails and use your spear only for protection. But his father was looking at the plane and the white men and Iluka and there was a seriousness in his stare that made Kalu very uncomfortable.

"I don't like it," his father said that evening as they sat outside around the fire. His mother was cooking the salted flesh of the reef shark his father had caught while Kalu sat in the boat and watched in amazement. Without help, his father dove between too tall towers of coral, held fast to some rocks and waited as the reef shark attacked the bait that his father tied off the boat. He then surprised the fish from behind, and placed the rope around its tail before swimming up to the surface. They dragged the fighting shark around for the rest of the afternoon until it tired out and died.

"What don't you like," his mother said. She was so beautiful and young and always on the move from morning to night, caring for two young children, fishing, preparing and cooking food, making sure everything functioned in their small hut. They did not live with any other family, Kalu's father enjoyed privacy and self-reliance. Kalu never knew why. His mother was very intelligent and understood her husband more than anyone else. She didn't need an answer, the arrival of the visitors was big news throughout the island.

His father didn't answer, but helped separate the shark's meat and skin from the cartilage for the poi.

After a few days, the visitors made a deal with Mawtot. They could live on Pa-Ula in exchange for medicine and the goods they had to offer. They would teach the villagers how to wear shirts and pants and for the women not to expose their breasts. They would show them that the villager's gods were false and that the one god of the visitors, whom lived in a book and who was dead was more powerful. They would teach them a clunky new language filled with dozens of new sounds that no islander could pronounce.

Kalu's father would shake his head and laugh and chew his kava root, then bring his son out on successively more dangerous fishing expeditions. He showed him how to spear moray eels and pry pearls from oysters underwater without coming up for breath. He showed him how coat shark's teeth in the poisons of lionfish and puffer-fish, and how to avoid the stonefish and coral snakes. He showed him how to survive on a boat out at sea for days without supplies or fresh water. How to use the stars as guides and birds to find fish.

Within the first year the mission claimed over a thousand converts, and soon after, the first few became sick. It was not until Mawtot, who had embraced the missionaries and eventually their God, took ill that anyone seemed to notice. The missionaries' medicine did not help, and the villagers began dying. Then Mawtot died, and his eldest son, Mawbot, became the chief. Mawbot did not like the missionaries, and warned them to leave the island. They did not.

One night the mission was attacked, the building was burned, its goods were burned, several of the missionaries were killed , and the surviving members fled in the plane and were never seen from again. Ikula, who had initially greeted the missionaries as an ambassador for his father, retook his place as the island's priest after all five members of the priest's council had died as well as over twenty apprentices. The island's population had withered. Only a little over three hundred men, women, and children remained from a starting population of 1,500. Everything collapsed on itself, the entire cultural structure had come undone.

Kalu's mother was the first in his family to become sick, then his baby sister, then, finally, his father. Kalu never understood why he was spared. His mother and father were so strong. His father was so strong. So strong. And he was only five and so weak and angry at himself for so long. Only five and he tried to kill himself. Ka-puna, old even then, took pity on the young orphan as he recovered, and he raised him as a son. Ka-puna who was already haunted with ghosts.

Kalu woke and in a feverous state shouted cursed at the woman who was nursed him and dressed his wounds. He tried to bite her, but his neck was too stiff. He tried to hit her but he could not move one, and found the other tied to his bed. He didn't even dare lift his legs.

She spoke a strange familiar gibberish to him, and he spat and screamed.

"Demon!" he shouted. "Why did you take my mother? My father? I will kill you, you demon."

She took out something that looked sharp and stabbed him in the leg. He spat again, but a warmth spread from around the point and up his legs and into his body and soon he felt warm and soft and happy and fell into a waking sleep.

He was sitting inside his family's hut, looking at the faces of his parents. They were looking at him. They looked emaciated, their eyes sunken deep into their skulls. Like sad skeletons. His father looked so small, his mother so weak.

They were crying.

"Father. Mother. What's wrong?" He asked them.

They opened their mouths, but only the gibberish of the white woman came out.

"Father, please, what's wrong?"

His father sighed, and spoke again. Out came the white woman's gibberish, in her voice. Kalu reached out to touch him. His father's skin felt like the scales of a fish.

"Mother, why is this happening? What can I to do to help you?"

His mother shrugged. Kalu tried to touch her, but her body collapsed under his fingers into a pile of dust. A slight breeze entered the hut and his father crumbled like a pillar of ash.

The dust of his parents began to dance around and around in the breeze. It called to him:

"We all do a little dance to the sky and touch the ground, twirl around and turn to dust."

Part II: There is this blue-shining world out there, awake!

I (XI) Tuesday

The Wendy Event

MORE WORK NEEDS TO BE DONE HERE, JOSH!

Your words are pellets--

I'm so fragile--

I'm so ready for you

To shatter me.

It was four in the morning. They lay wrapped like candy in sweaty flannel sheets. Wendy was smoking something between her lips. Horatio was looking at the ceiling. Her face had rubbed off onto his chest. The sex left her cheeks pink and her face vibrant. It was the first time he found her attractive, but he was still drunk. He was still drunk, but the world was somehow sharper. More angular, full of shape. He could feel it with his eyes. It was hot in the room, but he relaxed. He was good, then. But he would feel dirty later. He knew this, but he didn't admit it.

"Here," she said. Her voice was wise.

"Nah," he said. His voice was awake.

She took it once more, then carefully put it out so it could be used again. He hadn't had any of it. As she stretched she revealed her naked body. Her breasts weren't as large as he expected, but they had been soft in his hands. A long scar ran down the side of her stomach. She smelled of cinnamon, stale tobacco and dried flowers. He was about to say something, but she spoke first.

"What kind of name is Horatio, anyway?"

This was not a question he was expecting.

"Ho-ray-she-oh," she said. "It's such an old name. A unique name, at least for today." She wasn't looking at him. Naked, she had lost a bit of her external self-assuredness. "It's a pirate's name, a swashbuckling hero. A great general. I don't think the name really fits you."

He didn't have long to ponder what that meant. She continued.

"Horatio is an interesting name. You are not interesting."

She was right. He flashed through his life. His childhood. Friends. School. Family moments. He lined them up, listed them off, searched for importance. Searched for that one interesting defining moment that he could be proud of.

"I could be," he said. He wasn't sure of this. "What type of name is Wendy?"

She bent over the side of the bed and grabbed Prescott's sweatshirt, slipped into it. She seemed more comfortable and sat back in the bed. She was only wearing the shirt, everything else lay exposed. But she didn't care.

"I don't like my breasts," she said. She was serious in tone. "One is smaller than the other."

Horatio wasn't listening to her complaints. He was lost in her accusation.

"I am interesting," he said. He was defensive in his slowly sobering drunkenness.

She placed her hand on his chest and rubbed it with her fingers. They were warm. It felt good, but he didn't feel good. He felt not all there, and there was some anger too. "Not interesting" he thought over and over again. He didn't want to believe this.

"How am I not interesting?"

Wendy chuckled and scratched the inside of her right thigh.

"Darling," she said. Her voice was condescending but playful. "You're bland. No color. No passion."

"Explain," he said. He was sitting up. He pulled the sheets up to this stomach as he sat. His drunkenness had entered its penultimate stage. He was depressed and needed answers. Although Wendy didn't know him well, he knew she was right. But he needed her to say it all.

She sighed.

"For one thing," she said. "You don't have any stand-out feature. Prescott, though not a perfect man by far, at least has his interests and secrets. Did you know that he wants to be a comic book artist?"

He didn't even know that Prescott could draw. Prescott was another business major who had no minor but took art classes to fulfill requirements. So he said. Horatio thought that he was at least more interesting than Prescott.

"He's very good at sketching. But don't tell him I told you that. Oh, and be sure not to tell him about our little fuckfest, dear." She stretched out her legs and then sat up. "I don't want to cause any trouble."

"So, how do you know that I don't have any little secrets, or hidden talents, that you just don't know about."

"Horatio," she looked him in the eyes. She wasn't smiling. "Tell me what you are passionate about. What makes you special? Unique?" She stood up and sat down at the wooden chair in front of his desk. "Tell me."

It was too much. He stared back bewildered.

"What do you study, Horatio? What's your major?"

"Business."

"You go to a Liberal Arts college and study business?"

"Yes."

It didn't really make sense. He realized this.

"Why did you choose that major? Do you enjoy it? What do you want to do with your life?"

He thought about it. He thought it about so hard he closed his eyes. He visualized his life, and all he could see was a listless cloud floating in a sea of grey. Words came to him. He spoke, but it wasn't really true.

"To make money."

"What's so important about money?"

"You can be happy with money."

"Really?"

The cloud grew heavy and dark with water. The air smelled like a storm.

"No. Not at all. I don't know, maybe. It just seemed the natural thing to do. But I don't enjoy it. Classes are so boring and--" He realized that life was going to be boring. This was a sudden and terrible conclusion. It made him feel weak and helpless.

"What do you enjoy doing? What isn't boring?"

Life was a routine of routines that gave him order and kept him busy. He didn't look where he was going. Did well in high school, applied to different colleges and attended the one that gave him the best options on paper. So his parents and teachers said. He was supposed to do it this way. They said this. He'd eventually graduate, get a job, get married, have kids, and then happiness would come from all that, they said. Who said? He wasn't entirely sure. Now that he thought carefully about this, he realized it was all a lie. Maybe, for some people, this would be happiness.

Love should bring happiness. But finding love was frustrating and retarded. Why did he feel the way he did about people like Genevieve, who only made him feel bad? The winds picked up, the cloud was being tossed around. And was love the answer for his apparent lack of uniqueness? No. But it would make him happy. But it wouldn't make him unique.

There had to be something that he enjoyed doing. He didn't like working. He didn't like school, or at least his business classes. He didn't like any particular sport, and he couldn't paint or draw. He wasn't musically inclined. Or musically-capable, proof being is inability to connect with the musicians. But there was something. Something buried deep within the thick grey swelling cloud of his life. Something he had always known but ignored. Something he denied.

He opened his eyes.

"I am unique. I am interesting," he said. The block was gone. An old memory evaporated the cloud.

"Oh?" She was leaning on the back of the chair.

"Yes." He stood up. Naked. He walked over to the desk and turned on the computer as she watched. "When I was young, I loved writing."

She smiled.

"I guess we're all full of surprises."

He was twelve years old and sick. It happened one day at school during recess. A sharp pain at his side and then his appendix burst, it was so sudden. The world went white around him. The last thing he remembered was the cold pavement of the playground and the sounds of children playing hopscotch. He went into septic shock. The doctors weren't sure how well he would recover, they could only hope they had saved his colon. He was bedridden, staying in the children's ward of the hospital for almost three weeks. His parents brought him comic books and toys to play with, but mostly he enjoyed the books he read.

One day, when his mother was visiting, he asked her if she could bring him some paper and a pen. He had finished reading Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach the day before, and had begun concocting further adventures of James and his insect friends. He wanted to write them down before he forget them. He thought that they were special, and shouldn't be lost to the blurring effects of time. They weren't great stories, but he was only twelve. He was proud of his creations, and shared them with the other children. They enjoyed them as much as he did.

He kept writing after he recovered, until, somehow, his interest waned. It could have been sports, it could have been videogames, but something new and fun buried those notebooks of stories into lost boxes. Years later, in high school, he once wrote for the school newspaper, as extra curricular for college. But he found that he enjoyed it. There was something to creating something important, something that seemed to matter to others, that made it entertaining. As opposed to writing and essay for a class. However, he couldn't continue, as he found that it took too much time and interfered with hockey practice. Even though he didn't like hockey, but it was expected of him to play. After he cut his face open, he wrote again while recovering. That passed as parties and girls got in the way because no one would ever take it seriously.

Now he sat next to Wendy, sat at his computer, and began to type.

"Here, I'll start with something simple. A poem."

He dug in deep. Searched the depths of his mind and his heart. And he pulled something out. Something recent.

We all do a little dance to the sky and touch the ground,

twirl around and turn to dust.

"Interesting," she said. "Short. I don't really get it."

"Neither do I," he said. He was smiling. He was happy. He didn't tell her that these words weren't his own. But they felt it. He saw Isabelle's face and he felt powerful.

"Write some more," she said.

"I am."

Slowly the emptiness that he had always felt began to fill. He had found purpose. And it kept coming out. He wrote into the morning. He wrote what came to him naturally. It was all so natural. And he used what he knew. What he never realized that he had known. From his anthropology class. From other electives and requirement classes from the past. From his dreams.

"Listen," he said. "I want your opinion on this:

"The rains had passed and left a sweet southern wind fresh with the scent of wet leaves and salt and the sky a deep cerulean, bruising around its edges where the sun hung low and swollen. The crushed berries the color of the dying sun felt numb in his fingers and then numb on his face and chest as he rubbed swirls and lines."

"That's very pretty, Horatio," she said. She had climbed back onto the bed and was playing with her hair. Curls had formed from dried sweat, and they reacted like coils. "What is this story going to be about?"

"I don't know, yet," he said. He was excited. He felt like a little child. "And I'm happy that I don't know. It can be about anything."

"That's wonderful." She yawned.

"All I know is that there will be a love story, because all great stories are love stories. And that there will be action, because great stories have action, too. And I'm completely sure that my main character will be interesting. Because if he isn't interesting, then there is no story."

"What's his name?"

Horatio didn't know. He stopped typing for a moment and bit at the end of his finger. He was thinking of a good name. This story was taking place far away and long ago, and the protagonist needed a name that not only fit the setting, but had some sort of meaning. Then an idea bit him. It was simple and connected with everything. Bravo, the great blast. The time period fit. It didn't necessarily have to be that exact test. He could fictionalize it completely.

"I've decided what will happen to my so far unnamed hero," he said.

"Yeah?"

"He's gonna witness a hydrogen bomb explosion, and think it's God."

She stopped playing with her hair and gave an uncomfortable laugh.

"That's pretty terrible, Horatio," she said.

"It's pretty wonderful," he said.

"Yes. Yes it is. But you still don't have a name."

He started typing anyway. He believed that a name would come. And it did. He didn't know where from, but it came. And it came with great force and strength, and it felt so natural.

"Kalu," he said. "His name is Kalu."

Wendy smiled and lay back into the bed. She didn't say anything more. There was this complacent look on her face, the look of accomplishment.

Horatio didn't pay her any more attention for the rest of the evening. Instead, he wrote and the story flowed from his fingers. The name of other characters burst out from inside like bullets. And he knew he was doing good. He was doing something that he enjoyed, and that would make other people happy. And that would make other people recognize him as something other than just another face. Something interesting.

Wendy left at some point but he didn't pay attention. He was creating a world.

II (XII)

How does the ground feel?

Each time abused by the sky.

Lashings its tears, angers,

Pains on the old earth.

There was a once an assembly of all the gods of the earth and sky and water. They decided it was time to create the world to honor Aula, who after giving birth to the world, was taking a long sleep in the center of the world. The sky gods and goddesses filled the sky with birds and clouds and the wind. The water gods and goddesses filled the ocean with fish and coral and all sorts of creatures. The earth gods and goddesses filled the ground with incests and small animals. Aula woke to find the world filled with vibrant life and beauty, but she felt one thing was missing. She went down the edge of a river, and formed a man from the mud. A fisherman to watch over all that had been created, and carry out the will of the gods.

But, as time went on, the fisherman grew lonely. He called out to the gods, "please, send me some companionship. Someone to help me when I am sick, to make me happy when I am sad, and to console with in times of trouble." All the gods and goddesses heard his cry, and they presented him with fish and turtles, birds and coconuts. But none fulfilled everything he desired.

Ikol, the god of the horizon, a god fond of games and trickery, decided that he would take full responsibility of created a companion for man. First, he carved a dolphin from the sand of the ocean floor and presented it to the fisherman. The dolphin was playful and fun, but after a few days of happiness, the man found that the dolphin could not take care of him when he was sick, or be an open and caring ear to talk to.

So Ikol created a Tototee from the fire. The little bird sang a beautiful song, and cheered up the man. But he, like the dolphin, was not what the fisherman was looking for.

Ikol thought long and hard about the man, and realized that man was looking for something more similar to himself. So, he took the same mud from the same river that the man was made from, and sculpted a pig. But the fisherman killed the pig and ate it, angering Ikol.

The man was growing sadder and lonelier, and he called out again for the gods to help him. Aula, saddened by the man's cries, took pity upon him and created woman. It was woman that the fisherman had been looking for, and it was woman who took care of him when he was sick, made him happy when he was sad, and was there with an open ear to listen to his problems.

Ikol was enraged by the man's decision. He snatched up the woman as she was sleeping, and dragged her far into the horizon. Then, from his hatred and spite, dove down into the depths of the deepest part of the ocean and shaped the dark water into his own version of the woman, and set it at the man's side. But when the man woke, he realized that this was not his wife, but a squid in disguise, and killed it and dumped its body back into the water.

Now it was Aula's turn to be angry, and she snatched the woman back from Ikol, returned her to the fisherman, and then banished the misbehaving god to the furthest reaches of the horizon, to become a pillar to hold the sky above the water. But he pledged that one day he would return and get his vengeance on man.

The man and the woman had two daughters, Pa-Ula and Bini. From these two girls, all man descends.

In the darkness of the evening, lit only by the dull glow of a lantern, her face seemed to float white and pale like an orchid in moonlight.

"Why?" he said. The words were impassioned but weak. He was so tired and weak. But he no longer wished to sleep, as if sleep would only make him weaker, that sleep sucked his will away and left him cold and useless. "Let me die. I wish you would let me die." There was a dull pain and hungry emptiness throughout his body that he wished she would fill with blood and ghosts, and the thoughts and memories that came to him were like shark teeth in his soul.

She placed a wet cloth on his head and she spoke to him in her thick gibberish--words that felt like blows from an axe or a sharp rock against his ears. Kalu tried to raise his arms, but they were too heavy. He tried to sit up, but she kept him down using only the tips of her fingers and the gentlest touch.

He turned his head to the side, giving up without giving up so that he wouldn't have to see her face. The air was thick with the vapored remains of the rain, how many days of it he didn't know, and it was too dark to see anything other than faded shadows. She was still at his side and he didn't know what she wanted from him, or why she would torment him. Her existence only acted as a painful reminder of everything he had tried to put behind, as if the gods were punishing him for his rash judgement and self banishment. He didn't have the energy to waste tears or fight away the feelings of pity and doubt about his life.

"Why?" Kalu said, but no words came out. His mouth hung open but he didn't have the strength to form his breath into words.

His mouth began watering as a pleasant smell of cooking food filled his nostrils. It was a slightly unfamiliar smell, but he recognized it as food, anyway, and his body begged him to seek the source though he refused to move his head. The darkness edged around him, suffocating, a thick humid darkness and the only light was from her, the white painful remainder. Her, this woman, taking care of him, offering him food that he wished so desperately to spit out but couldn't. Him, incapable of escape, denied even death and being saved by the hands of nightmare incarnate. A pure, raw, hatred and revulsion, but he chewed and swallowed and let her poison and pain fill his hungry emptiness. She was spooning the food into his mouth, which had opened blindly and swallowed like a whale, like a separate entity from Kalu. Like his mouth had a spirit of its own--the white demon had possessed it with her strange language.

Filled with food, he felt warm and tired and returned again into a deep, dreamless sleep.

The morning mist crept into the shelter slinking along the ground like fat snakes, tasting the ground with their grey tongues. It slithered over his eyelids, tickling them with light wet licks. And Kalu woke not knowing where he was, or how he had gotten there. He tried to raise himself up into a sitting position, but a sharp pain in his right arm deterred him. Also, he was wrapped in some thick cloth made wet by the air and rotting from urine and sweat. Using his left arm, which felt only slightly sore, he pulled off the cloth and sat up. His surroundings interested him--it was like he was in an elongated smooth cave filled with strange unnatural objects that were similar to chairs and other manmade contraptions. Part of the cave had collapsed, letting odd red, blue and yellow vines hang through the broken branches of a tree. And then, to his left, there was a woman, eyes closed and face pale like moonlight. His body reacted before he mentally registered what it was, his legs shook like a child frightened by strange calls in the night, his chest tensed up, his teeth clenched.

He felt extreme fear--like a claustrophobic, a need to tear his way through the walls and deep into the earth away from her. A patchwork weaving of the last few days formed from dreams and actual events took shape. Instinctively, he attempted to stand, but a great pain rushed up and through his body and the cloth slipped off revealing a makeshift splint wrapped around his left ankle. It was broken, but it wouldn't deter his escape. He dragged himself across the floor, a strangely smooth rock that was difficult to grip with his one good arm. The injured arm lay limp at his side, his injured leg dangling from behind. Crawling on his belly like a serpent trying not to startle her from sleep. The splint scratched the ground and slowed him down, but the urge to escape pushed him on and he neared the opening--a round hole carved out of the wall of the shelter. On closer inspection, he realized that the walls were not made of rock but of some thinner rock-like material. Flattened, pounded, shaped rock. Something completely manmade.

The opening was about two feet off the ground. Kalu pulled his left leg over with the right and sat dangling on the edge. The ground was wet and as he lowered himself down, and he mistakenly put too much pressure on his right arm. Wincing in pain, he fell into the mud and bushes and leaves, and down a small rise of a few feet before spinning out on his back. His left leg felt like a sharped rod had been shoved right through the ankle which was being twisted around and around, flesh and bone and muscle all being turned and pulled. But he was ignoring it, because he could now see the shelter for what it really was.

An airplane. A small airplane torn up and battered within the trees of the jungle. Tied down with thick vines and a layer of mud. Kalu laughed and wept and pounded at the muck around him.

"We are but playthings of the gods," he said, shouting. It was a Pa-Ulan saying, but he elaborated. "These gods are but children, and I'm a wounded bird! Tease me! Taunt me! Throw stones at me! Crush me in your fingers, because I can't do anything to stop you! Cut off my head and watch me run about until my spirit escapes!"

The woman appeared at the plane's doorway, startled and pale and tired. Like a jellyfish washed up on the sand. She was as pale as his mother on that morning when she gave in. Kalu just closed his eyes and cursed the gods with the remainder of his strength. He was intent on dismissing them, as they had forsaken him.

It happened. He had been living with the woman in the plane for about a week when he finally looked at her with a smile. She had fed him every day, had given him fresh water, had tended his wounds, all with him spiting and cursing and shouting and abusing. The sky was blue and he was resting in the doorway, watching her as she broke open coconuts. She was smashing them against a rock, having a hard time splitting the shell in two. He wanted to tell her how to do it properly, or show her. But he was being stubborn, and would not even leave his seat to give her a physical demonstration. He just stared at her with an indifferent pout.

Then, from the corner of his eye, he noticed something small and pink flash between the trunks of several small saplings near the crumpled wing of the plane. He knew what it was without seeing it clearly, and quietly slid out of the doorway and onto the soft ground. There he reached for a stick, that had been broken in such a way to leave a sharp point at one end. She turned her attention off the coconut and watched him limp towards the wing. He was dragging up dirt and leaves with his injured foot, but he was ignoring this. Then she noticed it as well--a small piglet rustling through the dead leaves. He knew it was the surviving piglet, and it was going to be dinner.

She shouted at him, and the piglet took notice and squealed, but it ran the wrong direction and right into the opening towards Kalu. He was caught off guard and tripped over his own leg, falling to the ground as the little pig slipped by and jumped into the open doorway of the airplane. When they found it, it lay shaking in its own waste in the corner of the ruined cockpit. She took pity and held the frightened little animal in her arms like she would a baby. And he smiled.

She stopped and pushed her hair, long and blonde and dirty with sweat and mud, out of her eyes. She had a boney face, he thought, not pretty and full like his lovely Lakula, and she wore the fabrics and odd colors of the missionaries, though dirty and torn. She was older than he was, he was certain, probably in her late twenties or maybe older. But she covered herself in ways that was impossible to determine her exact age.

As he studied her over, she noticed him and his smile, and tickled the piglet's nose. Then she lifted it between its small arms and held it out to Kalu. Presenting it like a child. Kalu laughed and dropped his stick. He took the piglet in his hands and cradled it. It felt warm against his skin. It closed its eyes and the hard steady beat of its heart slowed.

She spoke to him but he didn't understand. She was repeating the same sounds over and over, while pointing to herself.

"SU-ZUN," she said. He understood.

"Kalu," he said.

It was a breakthrough and she closed her eyes and laughed.

"Su-zun," he said.

"Susan," she said. "Susan. Kalu."

The little pig grunted.

III (XIII) Tuesday

It grows like a fire,

It grows fat on lust, on passion,

It grows and grows,

And devours all.

"Do you sell fries?" the customer said. He was a scruffy looking man in his early thirties. He wasn't all right.

"No, sir. We sell nachos. Would you like nachos?"

"I would like some fries." He persisted. Wiped his nose nervously.

"Well, we don't sell fries here."

"Hey, are you a college student? You look like a college student. I once knew a college student."

"Nachos, sir?"

"I believe you are a college student. There are a lot of college students around here. I can smell them." He wiped his nose again. He darted his eyes and motioned for Horatio to come closer. "You know what?"

"What, sir?"

"My sister blew up nine years ago."

Horatio didn't know what to say.

"Can't argue with that!" The man shouted ecstatically. The woman standing behind him was getting impatient. Horatio knew she was impatient cause she was looking at her watch. She looked at her watch again. She was middle-aged, slightly fat, and would probably order something really gross. Horatio honestly didn't care. He decided that he would test this woman's patience by playing along with the neurotic customer.

"Nope," Horatio said. "Nachos, then?"

The man looked perplexed. His eyes rolled as if his brains were forcing their way out of his skull. Through the eye-sockets. "I guess," he said. "Hey, want a phone?"

Before Horatio could respond, the man pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket and thrust it into Horatio's open hand. It was a Nokia, not the top of the line, but a nice phone. Horatio stared at it for a moment.

"Hey, did you see my face?!" The man suddenly questioned. Oddly enough, it was this question that finally made Horatio question the man's sanity. He thought it would be best to remove him from the premises.

"Um, no. If you want fries, try the McDonald's down the street, okay?"

The man looked upset, almost angry. His eyes rolled in condescension. He grabbed the phone from Horatio as violently as he had thrust it in there in the first place.

"You must be a college student, you look like a college student," the man said. Spitting. He looked at Horatio's "Horato" name-tag pin, Suddenly he tore it from Horatio's chest, then dashed out of the restaurant. Horatio sighed deeply. The impatient woman stepped up to the counter.

"Can I help you Mam?"

"Do you sell fries?"

On his way home he stood at the crosswalk right by the Big Tostada. He was waiting for the light to change, thinking about his story. He had not slept at all since the previous night, he had only wrote. His story was already twenty pages in length. It made him excited. A real excitement that ran up and down his spine. Little fires moving. Work was a dull dream that he shook off and forgot like all the others.

Then the world stopped. The earth's rotation halted and everything froze into place. Horatio. The cars on the streets. The air. Each molecule, atom, electron, quark, string. Everything came to a stop.

Then the world began to wave. First in the distant blue sky, then slowly closer and closer. The buildings, the trees, his hands. Everything was rippling like a puddle of water, like heat on pavement. The world was waving, it was melting.

Horatio blinked, and everything went back to normal.

Horatio blinked, and the world pulled itself back together. The Earth continued its rotation.

He stood there, the light changed. But he couldn't move. He stood there. Motionless. His body was useless. He wasn't aware of it. He wasn't aware of anything. Horatio's mind was completely blank. Then the air rushed in-- he felt something wet drip onto his hand. It was blood. His nose was bleeding.

"Hello," a familiar voice said. A sweet and strong voice. "Here, use this."

A hand reached out into Horatio's field of view. There was a napkin in the hand. It was Isabelle.

"Thank you."

"This is going to be something," she said. She was as distant as before, looking up at the sky. She was wearing the red Mickey Mouse sunglasses. "It's getting warmer every day." She sighed and held her coat tightly against her chest.

"Oh?"

She smiled, revealing a large dimple in her left cheek. Then she looked at him. He could see his reflection in her sunglasses. "I'll be seeing you around."

And she was gone.

Horatio didn't go to his class. He didn't feel like it. It didn't matter because he was going to drop it. Or maybe he'd just fail. He hadn't decided yet, and he didn't care. He sat at his computer and wrote without changing from his work clothes. The hole torn into his breast pocket felt freeing. The old worn white shirt underneath breathed. So did his imagination.

A story was forming out from his fingers. He didn't know what was going to happen. He just created and let what would come, come. Horatio knew very little about the art of writing, but his natural instincts flowed. He knew it would just come out and it would be good. He didn't hope this, he knew it. That thing inside that had been empty for so much of his life was finally filling. Filling so quickly that he was going to explode if he didn't let it all out. Words. Bursts of words. Strings of words. Great thick clusters of words dripping with letters and punctuation. A sea of words, a tower of words, a world of words. A master, a creator, a god of his own words.

He didn't know where the story came from beyond the initial inspiring words of Isabelle. All that was important to him was to not write from his own life experiences. Not write about things he knew. To write about something as dramatically different from his own boring life as he could.

About three hours later the phone rang. Then there was a knock at the door, it was Dell. Genevieve was on the phone. Horatio found himself at a small sort of crossroad. To talk or to write. His right hand held firmly to the base of the keyboard. The left grasped the receiver. He had to choose.

"Well, what does she have to say? An apology? No. No, she wouldn't apologize for the way she treated you, would she? No, she would care about the project. Were you supposed to meet? Who cares. She can go to hell, right Horatio? Treating you the way she had. Calling you stupid," Horatio said.

"She had no right," Horatio said.

"She's so full of herself, so lost in her own world that she can't even see that you were right there, trying to win her heart. She ignored you. She threw away your advances, your kisses, everything without a second thought. So cold and calculating,"

"She has no soul," Horatio said. "I don't know what I saw in her."

"But then again, Horatio, you weren't exactly at the top of your game. Were you? No, you were so rigid, so incapable, so pathetic in front of her. You broke down. Why would she respect someone like you. Boring, dull. What have you to offer other than a smile."

"But things are different, now. I have something real about me. Something that makes me feel like I really am."

"Then, what are you waiting for?" Horatio said.

It was decided.

"Hello Genevieve," he said.

"Horatio," she said. Her voice was somewhat different. Somewhat meeker than before. "I'm glad you're home."

"Oh?"

"I--I wanted to apologize for the way I acted yesterday. I wanted to tell you in class, but you weren't there. I--"

"No, I'm the one who should be apologizing," he said. There was strength, solidity, in his words. "You were right. I wasn't taking the project seriously. I shouldn't have lashed out the way I did."

"No, you should have. I haven't been very fair to you," she said. "I'm just under a lot of stress and I have a hard time with people when I'm all stressed out."

There was a long pause, during which Horatio let everything dissipate. The computer monitor went into it's energy saver mode.

"Let's meet," he said. "Let me treat you to dinner. I hate talking over the phone."

Horatio hung up not even realizing that something was different. Fundamentally different.

And it was more than something. It was everything. It was out of his control. A massive reshuffling or transition. Physically it remained the same, but that was all. Metaphysically, it was a whole new logic. The world was a different place than when he had woken the day before.

She rang the bell on time. She was wearing a brown dress over pants. Her hair was down and she was wearing contacts. The light fell on her cheeks in a way that made her resemble the natural beauty of her younger sister. There was a troubled look on her face. An unsure look. It manifested in a semi-forced smile backed with a semi-sincerity. Uncertainty. Again, like her sister. However, instead of the far-off contemplation, the uncertainty was inward facing.

"Hello," she said. The energy and allure of her voice was still present. But it was shaky. The base was crumbling, or at least cracked.

Horatio invited her in, but she declined. They would be late, she said. The reservation was in five minutes. They were going out for sushi. Horatio didn't know much about Japanese food. Dell had recommended the place, as he was a big Japanese-food nut.

"Sushi is a fine art," he had said. "And it's an aphrodisiac with the ladies." He then had winked at Horatio, and rolled his tongue obscenely.

They walked down the street. It was a cold evening. The forecast called for snow, but Horatio didn't want to discuss the weather. It was a boring topic.

"So, where's your sister?" he said.

"Delilah didn't want to come. She's with some friends. I hope they do a better job with her than I did."

She was biting her lip, obviously she was nervous. It was more than nervous. She was upset. Normally, under these circumstance, Horatio would say nothing. The moment would continue in complete silence. But he felt confident for a change. He felt like whatever invisible weapon that Genevieve used to render him helpless was absent.

"Why would you say that?" he said. "What happened."

He was answered in silence. For a moment he wanted to give up. It was like he had sliced himself in half with his words. Suicide. But he couldn't let the silence survive. They crossed the street.

"You can tell me," he said.

She sighed, looked at him with a smile. It wasn't a happy smile, nor was it full of anger or spite. It was as if she was smiling at some distant memory.

"She's not like me," she said. "I've always known that. And it's not just because she's three years younger than me." Her voice was low and self-conscious.

"Yes. Were you expecting her to share the same interests and have the same goals in life as you?" Horatio said. But she didn't hear it.

"But she's so much different from me. She doesn't care about her life. She's never looking forward."

"Yes. But do you ever look where you are?" Horatio said. But she didn't hear it.

"I just want the best for her."

"You're not her mother, you know," Horatio said. She heard this. "You're her sister. Try to act that way."

She was quiet again. She was walking close to him, but she seemed suddenly more distant after his last comment. It was almost too forceful. He didn't mean for it come out like a command.

"Yeah," she said. "I'm her sister." She was looking at the ground.

The sky was black above. There were no stars.

"I don't know what else to say," he said.

He pulled his coat tighter because it was cold. Genevieve shivered. Her jacket was something more presentation than practical.

"Why weren't you in class today?" She said.

"I didn't feel like going."

He took off his coat and put it around her. She let it lay loosely around her shoulders, in a half-rejection.

"I just didn't feel like it."

Mido's: A No Drama

HORATIO:

I am Horatio. I am a business student, though recently I have decided that my interest is nonexistent. I have decided to give up my study for something that I enjoy doing, which is writing. Such as waking from a long dream to the fresh air of an autumn morning! At least, this is my wish. The openness allowed by the society I live in and my young age allow me to change my path without painful repercussions. At least I hope this is true. I am having dinner with Genevieve, whom I have had romantic interests in for some time. However we have never truly been compatible. I hope this dinner of frank discussion will allow us to grow closer, though I no longer truly care if we do.

GENEVIEVE:

We are live tangled in vines. And no matter how much force we apply, or how fast we move, we will be cut by thorns!

I am Genevieve. I am a friend of Horatio's to whom I may or may not have romantic inclinations towards. I have a set future image that I strive towards, and will do anything to achieve these goals. I believe that if one does not plan for the future, than they will never accomplish anything. And then there would be no point in even being alive! Thus I worry about my drifting sister who has no goals and seems destined to float around the world like a directionless lost cloud.

CHORUS:

Two bodies and two hearts

Those old songs sing of such things

But will these sweet melodies

Ring out between these lost birds?

HORATIO:

She makes me feel so weak.

She makes me feel so lost.

She makes me break up--

Like a mountain against the wind.

She is a sweet drop of poison.

GENEVIEVE:

Should I tell him how I feel?

Expel the emotions concentrated in my chest?

(Turns to Horatio)

These are thing I share with no one.

These are the fears I lock away.

CHORUS:

They sit like two silent Buddha--

But there is no truth.

There is only fear and silence.

HORATIO:

This is a pointless existence! There is no reason to remain seated here like two lifeless rocks that only move when kicked!

It is up to me to make a move. It is up to me to make the steps, despite how she seems to clamp on my chest and crush my heart with her voice and her eyes. I am only paralyzed by illusion!

(END)

It was all so unnatural. They had barely spoken since he place his coat around her in the street. The sudden burst of strength he had seemed to vanish with a blast of cold air. They had been in the restaurant for about five minutes. It was going very badly so Horatio finally acted.

In front of them, on the table, sat their chopsticks. Horatio picked up one set and broke the sticks in two. Genevieve looked up from her plate. She looked slightly surprised. He smiled at her, then placed the broken sticks on the table.

"These pieces represent us," he said. She opened her mouth and looked confused.

"Huh?"

"These broken chopsticks represent us. The right one is me, the left you." He reformed the chopsticks on the table as he spoke.

"Ok," she said. Her confusion was growing, but her face reddened because deep down she did understand.

He reached over and grabbed her sticks and held them in his hand. She looked on.

"This is how a chopstick is supposed to work." He showed her. He picked up a packet of sugar. "Do these work?" He was pointing to the broken pieces.

Her face went pale. She sat back.

"What are you trying to say? Horatio."

He placed her chopsticks on the table, then placed his hands over hers. They were resting uncomfortably near her cup.

"I am saying that we are acting like a pair of broken chopsticks. We can't pick anything up until we realize that we are two sticks."

"Two sticks. We are two sticks?"

"I don't mean literally. Oh course, you know I don't mean literally."

She didn't say anything. Her eyes remained wide open and locked on his.

He took a deep sigh. Her eyes were so brown. Deep brown. Was she really this shallow? Was his lust for her simply that, lust? For something that was cold and only inches deep.

"I'm so confused," she said.

"Confusing you? You're confusing me," he said. Their eyes were still locked.

Suddenly she looked away.

"Horatio."

"Genevieve. Do you like me, because I like you."

"Yeah," she said.

"No. Genevieve. I mean, I like you. Do you like me?"

She didn't respond, but she didn't remove his hands either, which he had clasped harder.

"Are we friends, or are we something else? Because we don't act like either. And I can't go on until we figure this out."

"Horatio."

"Please, I need to know. It's--this is so stupid to just not talk. God, what are we?"

She closed her eyes.

It was all too silly. Horatio's lips curled into a large smile. He was moments from laughing. Such an unimportant moment to the world. Such an unimportant moment, and there he was. He felt like he was going to die.

She broke the silence and opened her eyes.

"Fucking--Horatio."

She still kept her hand within his in the center of the table.

The waitress came by and asked if they were ready.

"Are you?" Horatio said, finally letting go of her hands.

"I think so," she said, and rubbed her arm against her nose. "Order for me."

"I would love to, but I don't know what you want."

"Just order for me."

He did. The waitress left. Genevieve suddenly laughed.

"That chopstick analogy was really stupid," she said. And then one of her feet rubbed against Horatio's leg. "Really, really stupid."

"I know," he said.

IV (XIV)

"How do you do?"

"We are all doing fine.

All of us, doing fine.

All of us, afraid to die."

It usually rained at least once a day. The sky would fool you, it would be clear without the smallest fragment of cloud all day, yet still, somehow at some hidden secret time, the rains would fall. It could just lightly coat the leaves with the thinnest layer of water, or it could churn the earth into a thick brown muck around the trunks of dead trees. At least, that is what it seemed to Kalu and Susan. The wreck of the plane sunk deeper and deeper into the mud, and the to-to-ping of rain came every night.

As days passed, the language barrier began breaking down. Kalu found it difficult to pronounce many of her blunt heavy words, while Susan seemed to pick up on his instructions. At the end of their first month together, they were at an understandable level of communication, if not comfortable. The pig grew fatter. They had named it Wee-Ting during their first conversation, when Susan had pointed at the pig and said, "What a wee thing."

The air became a constant thick humid walking bath that paralyzed sweat and dirt to the skin. On these days, all Kalu wished to do was swim in the shallows or fan himself in the shade, but he was trapped on the hillside. The ground was too muddy, making it painfully difficult for Kalu to do any traveling with his leg. And Susan was forced to depend on several boxes filled with the strange food they had been eating. Sometimes she would build a small fire with bits and pieces of wood that she had earlier collected to let dry, but as the air grew more humid, the fires were less often built as the wood expanded with water. Without fire, food was served cold. They ate little, as the air itself would fill their stomachs. The number of insects increased dramatically, swarming around pools of rainwater and attacking the wet soft fabrics in the plane, as well as Susan and Kalu. They found some meshed cloth and hung it over the open door, but it refused to stay up and slumped to the ground engorged with water in the second day of its inception. Wee-Ting tried to eat it.

Susan often woke him up in the middle of the night, screaming or shouting, her face whiter and so pale it was almost translucent. She would shiver and wipe away tears before turning away from him so that he could not see. They both suffered from constant nightmares.

Then one night the rain waters had crept high enough, and the plane had sunk low enough, that tepid waters began streaming through cracks in the plane's fragile frame. There was no way to salvage the plane; it was pressed against the hill in a deepening artificial gully that melted under the weight of the metal. The water would not stop. It seemed that the plane had bumped against a spring that was now redirecting itself right through it.

They pushed unopen crates of food and supplies into the mud in a warm drizzle and watched them begin to sink. It was a slippery track down the side of the hill. They pried open the boxes and took what they needed, filling up satchels and bags of a thick cloth that Kalu was unfamiliar with. Wee-ting crawled in and out of their feet as they walked, crying and grunting as it was tripped on or splashed by water. They were slowed by the stream, which had enlarged and swallowed the jungle around it, forcing them to wade through ankle-deep. Kalu tried to keep as much pressure off his bad leg as possible, but he found it difficult pushing against the strong flow of the water with heavy bags on his back and Wee-Ting in his arms. Susan was carrying a large folded piece of fabric that she called a tarp over her head. This would be the roof of their new home.

It took seven strenuous hours of walking, sliding and climbing to get down to the abandoned farm, where Kalu decided he couldn't go further, and it took another hour in the intensifying rain to tie up the tarp between several trees. It folded over a rope on creating two walls that flapped in the breeze before being secured to two trees. A second tarp was laid across the ground, and Susan sewed some of the light meshing to form the last two walls. She called it a tent, and it kept them relatively dry compared to the constant downpour-trodden ground that surrounded them, but water still seeped in forcing them to line the edges of the floor with palm leaves.

They were cramped closely together, forced in by the rain and the limited space, forced to breath each other's air. They were very aware of one another. Kalu was surprised to find himself not being so repulsed at her close presence. The white demon, as nice as she was, as attractive as she was slowly growing in his eyes, was still a demon.

She felt slightly embarrassed. It had been okay for her to take care of him within the space of the cargo hold, but they had had space between them. Now, everything she did, every sound she made would swarm around him. She became very self-conscious, and held Wee-Ting closely against her chest so that the little pig rubbed its legs against her breasts, making them sore.

They slept back to back, silent, wet.

The next day the rain stopped. It did not rain again for over three weeks. They sat on rocks in the sun and dried their drowned skin as Wee-Ting rolled in the mud. They had dragged the tarp down to the lagoon, and it now lay hanging in the sun, swaying to the light breeze off the water. The canoe, luckily, had lodged itself between three trees sometime over the last month, and the anchor had held it from drifting off when the tide lowered. However, now the smaller boom was cracked, and Kalu would have to search for a replacement.

Speaking in grunts and primitive phrases, Kalu managed to communicate to Susan on how to weave thatch, and with the supplies and items from the plane, they began the construction of a small hut several yards from the beach. They cleared an area of small trees and shrubs, then laid wood piles that Kalu spent hours cutting down and shaping, using Susan's ropes and strange tools. She made several more trips to the sunken plane, bringing as many supplies as she could salvage.

The language barrier eroded like the riverbed. Kalu showed her how to fish, how to dig for yams and other roots, what plants were edible and which were poisonous. They spend hours cutting and drying grass in the hard sunlight, husking coconuts and weaving together thatch for the hut. The white demon faded with the memories of the Itiki, and Susan became Susan. Not the bitter reminder of his old distant life, but a fresh reminder of the new vast frontier open before his eyes.

But he discovered that there was a sadness draped around her like a shroud of dying flowers. A distant, lost look in her eyes of pain-filled memories. The more he got to know her as Susan, the more she seemed to be a living embodiment of the Itiki. When not busy, she moved lethargically like as if underwater, sighed deeply with a teary-eyed self-imposed distance. The closer Kalu got to Susan, the more somber she became. Now that she was no longer the healer, no longer investing all her time taking care of Kalu, all her own personal demons surfaced.

When the hut was completed, the last of the rope and sennit lashings holding the walls in place, Kalu taught her how to weave a sleeping mat. She began adjusting her sleeping patterns around him. If Kalu felt like going to sleep, she would stay up, sitting at the edge of the lagoon on one of the rocks, staring out at the ocean. Or if Kalu felt like staying up and working on his boat, she would head off to sleep early.

On the fifteenth day of no rain, she disappeared for several hours. Kalu's leg had healed enough that he could walk around on it with the help of a crutch she helped him construct out of strong branches and seine a few days earlier, and he wandered around the general area of the hut with Wee-Ting grunting between his legs, but could not find her. She returned around dusk, her eyes full of tears and her chest too blocked up with emotion to talk.

He confronted her, but she would not speak, only lay down on her mat and face the wall. He did not know enough of her language to comfort her, so he sat out, his back against his boat, and continued carving his new boom. Wee-Ting nuzzled up against him.

"We are all haunted by ghosts," he said to the little pig. "Your mother haunts me every step I take."

The pig closed its eyes and went to sleep.

This became a regular occurrence. Every few days she would vanish, leaving him to collect water from the stream, him to cast out his nets into the shallows collecting small fish and crabs, him to collect fruits and roots from around the feral farm so that they could eat. Her supplies had mostly run out, and much of what was left was rotting. Then, finally, she didn't return the following morning. This was the day of the rain's return. The streambed had grown wide as the water inversely grew into a gentle trickle. It collected into stagnant pools of mating insects, forcing Kalu to travel further and further inland to find fresh water. The once black rich mud had caked and dried into blistering patches of powdered yellow, and the small plants shriveled from thirst. At first there was a steady breeze that kept things cool, but this breeze only blew the water away. Eventually it died down and the air was again an immobile wall of heat, this sucking every bit of available moisture from the earth.

Kalu saw the rain coming. The clouds began moving in feathery distant nets, then gradually they thickened and became grey. The wind picked up, and he decided to bring the boat in and tie it up for safety. When he returned to the hut, Susan was gone. However, she had left something on the floor of the hut, buried among the bracken and dried leaves. It was a golden ring. To him, it rivaled only the perfectly round black pearl he kept hidden in its pouch. And he instantly recognized that it carried with it the same heavy meaning, and he knew where she had gone.

The growing wind blew the dried mud into clouds that coated the plane with a golden dust. He did not find her in the plane, though, but to the north of it, on a hill that was the highest point of Ni-mo'an's stomach. An outie bellybutton of sorts. He did not make his presence known, as he watched her sit by three large piles of rocks. She was caressing the rocks of one pile. He noticed that there were many flowers laid around the rocks, most of which were dried and baked from the heat.

He just stood there and watched her, and he understood what the piles of rocks were. The clouds grew darker and more dangerous, but he said nothing until she nodded off to sleep. He walked up to her side and placed the ring in her hand. This woke her, startled her, her eyes red from crying and the dust flying all around.

She looked at the ring for a moment, then placed grasped it tightly within her hand. They walked in silence back to the hut. It was dinner time when they arrived, and the first raindrops had started to fall. Kalu had left Wee-Ting tied up to a post outside the hut, and it was happy to see the two return.

The raindrops fell as if they had never fallen before. And Susan, to her best effort, explained to Kalu that she would not wander off. He did not ask her about the stones, and she said nothing about them.

A few days later and Kalu no longer needed the splint.

The air swelled with humidity and heat, even more intense than before the rain returned. Actually, it seemed as if the rains only made it warmer. Even the breeze sweeping in off the water failed to bring relief, pushing the warm air into the hut. Wee-Ting hid herself in the shadows, as the sun seemed to penetrate through the thickest leaves and cloudiest days, evaporating any mud to cool her warm body. They took to spending great deals of time in the rapidly warming waters of the lagoon, floating on their backs among the coral and fish. Wee-Ting happily joined them, trying her best to keep her small head above the water. Kalu was surprised at how well the pig could swim. The lagoon was usually calm, there was a slight current drifting around a large rock marking the place where the shallow bed suddenly drifted fifty feet down into cooler open waters, but Kalu or Susan could just lay on their backs and float, shading their eyes from the sun with their hands or palm leaves. There were only a few dangers in the lagoon, which Kalu pointed out to Susan: large colonies of fire coral, kalu, grew it thick columns around the outlaying rocks, herds of spiny urchins crawled across the sand, stinging worms and stonefish hid in small crevices, and sometimes a pair of translucent jellyfish would drift in towards shore like small clouds.

Kalu finished the boom and the boat one evening, making the canoe once again sea-worthy. So after one afternoon dip, he invited Susan out for a spin around the island. There had been a remarkable change in Susan since the return of the rains. She loosened, grew warm and friendly, and put a lot of effort into learning as much of his language as she could. But the longing, distant look in her eyes remained.

This look would never disappear, and would haunt Kalu for the rest of his life.

They pushed the boat out of the shallows and into the deeper part of the lagoon before Susan climbed in. She was wearing the tattered remains of a grey shirt and torn blue shorts, though the shirt revealed all when wet. He found it slightly amusing, wondering why she covered her chest in the heat, but he said nothing and only smiled graciously.

Kalu waded at the boat's side, maneuvering around the coral and rocks. Wee-Ting cried out to them from the shore, she had escaped from the small pen Kalu built by the side of the hut. He would have been content leaving her tied to a tree, but Susan pushed for the pen.

"Kalu," Susan said, alarmed. But he told her not to worry, Wee-Ting couldn't go anywhere, and climbed into the boat.

Wee-Ting's cries grew more desperate, and Kalu watched as the pig waded out into the water and swam after them.

"Kalu," Susan said, again motioning to Wee-Ting, but he ignored them both, and pushed out towards the opening in the rocks towards open water. Suddenly Susan gave out a gasp, and Kalu turned to see the Wee-Ting's face vanish beneath the water. Kalu jumped off the boat and swam to the rescue, diving down and pulling up the pig, bringing her to shore. The current had pulled Wee-Ting's belly against the kalu, and now she was suffering from an allergic reaction.

Wee-Ting was having difficulty breathing, and her normally pink skin was turning a dark red around her chest, neck and face. The cure was a crushed root that grew near running fresh water and in low sunlight, so he would have to search along the banks of the stream.

"Kalu," Susan said, she was standing at his side, wet and dripping. The boat was still sitting between the rocks, and he hoped it wouldn't go anywhere.

He lifted Wee-Ting into his arms and ran down to the edge of the stream. Susan followed as he entered the jungle, slicing his feet on rocks and vines, moving as fast as he could. Wee-Ting's breathes grew fainter and fainter, he could feel her heart beats slow against his chest, and he could feel his own heart pounding in his throat.

They ran for several minutes before the banks around the stream rose into two eroded walls of moss-coated rocks and thick clumps of dirt. The stream was running low, so he handed Susan the pig and carefully climbed down so that his ankles sunk into the water. He scoured under rock and dirt ledges, looking for the plant, but the recent rains had flooded the stream so many times that it may have washed any sign of the plants away.

He ran against the weak current as Susan followed from above, the banks grew taller and taller so that Kalu was between two green hills. The water also grew deeper, slowing down his progress, forcing him to wade up to his waist. He grabbed onto some tree roots and started to pull himself back up onto the embankment shaking his head and cursing under his breath, but then he noticed it in a small alcove of eroded rock that had been pounded away into a soil bed. A bluish green plant with four, thin, waxy leaves growing around a thick stalk that had the odor of rotting wood. Grasping the tree roots in one hand, he carefully pulled the plant free from the soil, and then holding it by the stem with his weaker arm, he lowered himself back down into the stream. Taking two rocks, he crushed the root into a paste as Susan made her way down the ravine. She slipped and fell into the water, but appeared okay. Wee-Ting, however, was no longer breathing.

"Kalu," she said, alarmed. He took the pig from her hands, and, ignoring the burning sensation of the crushed root, began rubbing the paste on Wee-Ting's chest, face and neck, then forced a bit of it into her mouth hoping that somehow she'd swallow. But the pig remained unconscious, he could not discern a heartbeat and her chest was not moving.

Susan stood next to him, holding her scrapped and bleeding arm against her chest. Her face was pink around the nose and eyes. It reminded him of her sitting by the piles of stones, and he felt an immediacy in reviving Wee-Ting. It wasn't that he cared about the pig as much as he didn't want Susan to lose her.

Kalu dipped Wee-Ting's face into the stream, trying to shock her awake. Nothing. He rubbed more of the paste onto her chest. Still, nothing. He held the pig up closely to her ear, listening intently for a heart beat or some sign of life, when suddenly Wee-Ting's legs began kicking into the air, and her eyes opened wide and she let out a loud squeal. Susan gasped and wrapped her arms around Kalu, tears beginning to stream down her face.

They climbed back out of the river bed and sat down beneath the trees and relaxed. Susan held Wee-Ting in her lap, and was whispering quietly to the pig like a mother would to a sick baby. Kalu sat with his back against a tree trunk and watched them. He was reminded, suddenly of Lakula, holding her nephew in her arms and singing him to sleep when watching him. Pangs of sadness punched at his chest, and he was forced to look away and close his eyes. He tried thinking of other things, but only images of Lakula's face, concerned with the baby's crying and mixed with a motherly glow, came flashing to him. He didn't realize that he had started to cry until he felt Susan's arm on his shoulder.

He opened his eyes, and she was smiling at him. Not as a ghost, but as a woman. And then he felt her lips against his, and he closed his eyes again.

V (XV) Tuesday

Compared to me, you are shit.

Compared to me, you haven't tried

To be more than, shit.

Her dorm room was very organized. It was so organized that Horatio was tempted to pull a pin out of one of her posters just to create some disorder. It was order in pink. This only surprised him because he never really saw Genevieve as soft. Pink was a soft color. He'd expect something more sterile, like grey or blue. Her bedspread was pink, and neatly made. So tight the bed was suffocating. There were pink pillows. They were placed in a compulsively perfect pattern. The posters on the wall were mostly pink, held up with pink thumb tacks. The walls themselves had a pink tint although they were painted white. There were two white plastic bureaus, one against her bed, another against her desk. Photographs were placed neatly in rows and columns on the sides of both of them. The books on the shelf above the desk were arranged according to size, and the desk was devoid of any materials other than notebooks and a computer. And the notebooks were arranged within plastic placers marked with tabs. He couldn't read what was written on these as they were in her chicken-scratch code. The room was so clear to him.

This he all saw within the twenty seconds between his entry to her room, and the time she wrapped her right arm around him and dragged him down onto her bed.

As he tasted soy sauce from her lips, he closed his eyes. He saw a vision of a beautiful and exotic green mound surrounded by water. There were two people sitting on a golden stretch of sand, but he was too distant to see them clearly. Then he felt the weight of her body press against him. At first she seemed to hold back--an indecisiveness--but slowly she relaxed and let herself fall on him completely. He thought he heard a bird call. A bird he didn't recognize.

Genevieve's kisses reflected her inexperience. Unlike Wendy's skilled movements, Genevieve was a blind child playing spin-the-bottle for the first time. Horatio had to take control. And he was able to, because there was an inner strength burning in his stomach. He held the back of her head, gently, and took the lead. She let him. Like they were dancing.

He pulled back for a moment and opened his eyes. Her eyes were closed, and her cheeks were flush pink. Pink like the bedspread. For a moment she looked like her sister, and for some reason this excited him. Then she opened her eyes and a smile crept around her wet lips.

"What?" she said. It was an innocent question asked honestly.

"You're much more pretty than you think you are," he said.

She looked startled, then her smile brightened and finally she was truly beautiful. For once it wasn't her voice that excited him. But there was still a hint of uncertainty in his thoughts.

"Horatio," she said, and then kissed him again.

"Am I interesting?" he said. They were facing each other on her bed. Her hair was lose and he blew at it gently. This conversation was an echo.

She laughed at his comment. He was serious, though. She looked off to the side for a moment. She had discovered that one of the pins holding up a poster of Florence had fallen out.

"Come on," he said. "Am I interesting."

She looked back into his eyes, and then pressed his nose with her finger. Then she caressed his face.

"Interesting?" she said. "Maybe."

"Seriously," he said. "I'm not that interesting, am I?"

She pouted and then sat up on one arm, still caressing his face.

"I didn't think you were that interesting," she said. "But I think I was wrong."

"Oh?"

She sighed and then let her arm drop. She lay on her back.

"At the library," she said. "I didn't meant to be so bossy. I just can't help it, sometimes. My sister hates me because of it."

There was something strange about this confession. Something unreal. But Horatio didn't notice. He was in a euphoric state.

"I just need to be in control of things, or else I feel so helpless," she said. "Control is very important."

"Not as important as you think," he said.

"It is very important to me."

She looked away from him and then rolled onto her back.

"I don't like feeling helpless. I don't know why, but I just don't. It just terrifies me. I'm not really afraid of anything but being helpless. I felt so helpless when you left me in the library. I couldn't do anything." She closed her eyes.

"You can be in control of your life without being controlling," he said. He wasn't sure if this was true, but it was the right thing to say. "You can't control everything. There is no way of not being at least a tiny bit helpless." Everything he said was so stupid, he thought. But it made her happy. She opened her eyes and there was this look about her that made him kiss her.

He pulled back and she smiled.

"I'm so stupid," she said.

He nodded.

A key entered the lock of the door. It turned and the door opened. They didn't notice it, and were caught off guard. Delilah entered, her cheeks were red from whatever she shouldn't have been doing. She was looking down, so she didn't see them on the bed. Not at first.

They were frozen in their position. Genevieve lay in the bed, her dress removed. Horatio on top, hand still cupped around right breast. It was stuck there, attached there. Their faces were close, they could smell the sourness of each other's breath. There was a light film of her saliva around the outside of his mouth, near dripping back onto her face. The pink bedspread sprawled around them in a ground zero.

"Gen," Delilah said, dropping her purse on the ground and turning as to close the door. "I'm sorry I'm-a bit late. Morgan brought me to this party, I know you're gonna-be-mad, but I'm not that, drunk, and it was pretty fun, I guess." Her back was still to the bed, she took off her black jacket. Then she started to remove her shirt. It was a tight red shirt with short sleeves that attempted to make her look older than she was. It didn't really succeed and only showcased her immaturity. At least to the sober.

Shock and adrenalin returned reason to Horatio's brain. He was in control of his limbs again and released Genevieve's right breast. Her face was pale. He reached over and quietly lifted her crumpled dress off the ground and handed it to her.

"So we went to this party," Delilah said. Her shirt was off and she was only wearing a red bra. "It wasn't that-wild-or-anything, I didn't do anything more than have a little to drink, I swear. What time is it, anyway? Morgan made sure I didn't drink too-much. She's such a nice person, Gen, and she was really nice to me. Everyone was really nice to me. This is a great-school." She was slurring her words and not thinking what she was saying. She was also having a difficult time removing her bra and lost her balance for a moment before regaining it. She turned to ask her sister for help.

"Oh," Delilah said. She spoke as if nothing was strange. "I'm sorry, Gen. I didn't know you had've company."

There had been more than drinking in her evening. Delilah was wearing red lipstick that was smudged around her mouth. Her hair was also messy. She was wobbling, and it was wasn't clear if she could support herself much longer.

Genevieve's dress wasn't on completely. She had only one arm in, but she climbed over Horatio and out of the bed to her sister's side. Delilah slunked down to the ground, yawning, and then laid on her coat and closed her eyes.

Horatio thought that she looked at peace. That far-off longing in her stare was gone. Perhaps killed by more than alcohol. Genevieve placed a hand over her sister's face and sighed.

"Well," he said, standing up. "Do you need any help?"

Genevieve shook her head. There was this thinned smile on her face. A smile of disappointment, but also of complacence rooted in brief happiness.

"Good night," he said. They kissed one more time, and then he left her in the pink room as she dragged the thick pink bedspread and covered her sister's pink body.

Horatio sat in his car. He didn't turn it on but sat in the darkness of the car. He was thinking about the conversation he had with Genevieve. There was something unsettling about the way it had progressed. It was too easy. But soon, this thought vanished into the memory of her warm lips and the softness of her skin. He turned on the car and drove home.

He found Dell sitting on the couch and watching an old episode of the Cosby Show. Dell didn't appear to be paying attention to the show. He also smelled like cigarettes and beer.

"Have a good evening," he said to Horatio as he sat in the chair. "You look relaxed."

"Yeah, it was a good evening."

It was the episode where Theo was being taught a lesson about real life. The Huxtable house had been turned into a boarding house with young Rudy as owner.

"You look like you've had a pretty good night, as well," Horatio said.

Dell nodded, and said nothing. It was very unlike him.

"Well?" Horatio said.

"Well what?" Dell was grinning.

Horatio laughed. Dell wasn't one to hold back any information about any interesting thing that ever happened to him. And he also wasn't the type to not exaggerate.

"You mean besides the fact that I found the world's most perfect woman." He removed his thick square squat glasses and rubbed them on his shirt in a matter-of-fact way. He looked a lot more pleasant and less poser with the glasses off, Horatio realized.

"Always do."

Dell stopped. He feigned offense, and then went on.

"Well, Tobin and I went to this little shindig down at Oak D. And it was really happening when we got there around eleven, and, man, you would have loved it there. The Drake and Martin had set up their turntables and were battling it out, of course they both suck, but the important thing is that the place was crawling with some real hot tits."

"Okay."

"Well, that chick I was talking about the other day was there."

"Oh."

"Found out her name is Morgan. She's really hot, but we didn't really hit it off too well. She seems to have a boyfriend, or at least lied to me about having a boyfriend. I saw her hitting it on with The Drake, later. But, whatever. The important thing is that there is this other girl, and we got along real well."

He stopped talking and closed his eyes and didn't listen to the television.

"Sounds like you had a good time."

"Yeah," he said.

It was past one. Horatio went off to sleep, leaving Dell to bask in the pleasant family-friendly humor of the tv and his recent memories.

That night he had a dream. Genevieve and he were sitting on a boat in the middle of Lake Saratoga. They were looking at the clouds and drinking a bottle of red wine. They were older and happy together. At least that is what it felt like. The dream was more clear than most.

"What do you see?" he said.

"I see a house," she said. "And that one, over there, is a happy little doggie."

The clouds were white. Very white and thick. They floated like inflated plastic pool toys in a current.

"And that one kind of looks like us, sitting in a boat," she said. "We look happier than that little doggie."

He could see all of this. He drank some wine and he felt relaxed. He felt her warmth around him, she was laying in his arms. They were on the bow of a small sailboat, and the boat wasn't moving even though there was a soft breeze.

"What do you see?" she said.

He looked hard at the clouds. At first, one resembled a car, but as it passed near the sun, it completely evaporated. Another one looked like a smiling face, but this too evaporated as it neared the sun.

"Well?" she said. She felt light in arms. Warm and light.

"That one looks like an octopus," he said. One did.

"Are you sure? I don't see it."

There was a small cloud hoovering near the edge of the sun, but not passing through it. It was round on top and had eight smaller strands projecting outward.

"There," he said. He pointed to it.

"That's no octopus, silly," she said. "That looks like a woman. See."

But he was so certain it was an octopus. And it didn't move. The other clouds passed it by and evaporated into the sun, but the small cloud remained. And it seemed to be grinning at him.

Genevieve felt so light. He didn't think he could hold on to her. He grabbed her tight, but she started to slip through his fingers.

"See," she said. "It looks like a woman. It has long hair and breasts and a dress on."

She was floating up into the sky. She was a cloud.

"You have a strange imagination," she said. She floated right towards the sun and evaporated.

KALU VI (XVI)

How do you do?

We are all doing fine.

All of us, doing fine.

All of us, afraid to die.

There was a memory: He was sitting in the dirt, he was dirty, crying, in the dirt and the afternoon was cool. The flies buzzed around his ears and his eyes, but he ignored them and looked only at his dirty toenails. There was this great emptiness, like his chest had been torn open and emptied. He held a rock in his hand, and he squeezed it hard forcing everything he could into it, but he just couldn't do it. He didn't have enough strength, he was helpless and his hand only grew sweaty and sore.

"What are you doing?" She asked him. She had been walking down the path, hold a cluster of flowers in her hand.

He didn't answer her, he didn't look at her. He just squeezed the rock harder and harder until he no longer felt his hand. She stood there, silently, and wove the flowers into a lai. When she finished, she sat down at his side, and placed the lai in his lap.

"I made this for you," she said. She then stretched her arms and rested her head on his shoulder. She kissed his cheek. His hand opened and the rock slipped to the ground. He realized, then, that he loved her.

Susan's face was pink. She looked embarrassed, and backed away, apologizing. They were sitting by the embankment, Wee-Ting lay slowly recovering in the shade. He hadn't expected a kiss. He hadn't even thought of such a thing. They were getting along well, but he had felt perhaps only a minor attraction to her, more of a friendly attraction. And now, she had kissed him. Everything was so green--the swaying leaves, the grass, the thick clumps of moss. She stood up and held herself. She was a woman. But she was one of them--the enemy.

Kalu's thoughts took the shape of Lakula, the times she lay in his arms, hiding in the darkness of his hut, escaping the heat and the sunlight and the others. A wonderful quietness, neither speaking, neither moving, just laying together as one person. His arm wrapped around her, her hand against his leg, the smell of coconuts and sweat on her skin. Her softness and the feeling of her chest rising and falling and the joy it brought him. He would then whisper to her about their future, and she would smile and the world felt whole. It wasn't one particular moment, but a collection, a merging of memories and he no longer felt like breathing.

Susan was pacing, and speaking lowly into her own chest words he could not understand--he wasn't sure if they were directed at him or if she was chastising herself--and she looked like she had been bitten by a snake or stung by a poisonous jellyfish. Her face was practically translucent but two small round fires on her cheeks.

He had not told her about Lakula, or about Pa-Ula, or anything, just as she had not told him anything about her own past. She had tried, once, to get information from him, but he grew sullen and ignored her. He did not wish to go through all the trouble explaining something so painful. Their relationship was based on the present, and only the present. Survival and present happiness. Happiness. He had to ignore who she was, and what had happened in his past life. But she was a woman, and this surprised and upset him. He was amazed. Shocked, dumbfounded. He felt like a fool, not at her, but at himself for his blindness. He was so selfish.

He stood up and lifted Wee-Ting into his arms.

"Let us go home," he said.

Evening. In the darkness of the hut they lay quietly, neither asleep listening to the steady chirp of the tree frogs and jungle insects steadily mixing in with the crash of the surf. They had spoken very little to each other since Wee-Ting's recovery, and interacted little. Kalu retrieved the canoe and then went out fishing by himself in the calm of the late afternoon water. He returned with nothing to eat.

He had been thinking very carefully about what to say to her, finding it very difficult. He did not want to her to continue feeling embarrassed, he wanted her to understand. He realized that she was very lonely, and it seemed only natural for such an event to occur. A man and a woman, alone together, living together--such things as a kiss are bound to happen. He just wanted her to know that it was okay to have such feelings. But what did he feel? Who was Susan to him? Kalu sighed deeply, then he broke the silence and spoke to her. At least, he would have to let her understand who he was.

He tried to explain to her his life, using what language she could understand. He described Pa-Ula, and the villagers. He told her about his parents, about his loving mother and his strong father and how they both died from the diseases that the white missionaries brought. He told her about Alak, and about Lakula, and how he had taken her from him. And he pictured Alak and Lakula together, embracing, and he couldn't speak anymore. It was too painful to speak anymore.

She breathed it all in like a thick smoke.

He stood up and stood at the entrance to the hut, she turned and watched him through the darkness.

"What will you do now?" she said.

"I will live here until I die. I will forget about them all, and I will make Bini my home. They told me that Bini was an island haunted by ghosts. I am a ghost, now."

"I am a ghost, too," she said.

He tried to smile and failed, looking more pained than gratified. Then he drifted out into the night air and slowly walked down to the beach the canoe. He checked the nets, then pushed the boat gently into the water. A hazy mist clouded the night sky so that it was more a grey than a true black emptiness. Only the strongest stars burned through, devoid of color and their full brilliance. All the souls of his ancestors lay in those stars, burning forever brightly in the sky, peering down through the heavens at their sleeping children.

"Kalu," Susan said. She was wading in the water at his side, her hand pressed against his shoulder. Her hand was warm and soft, and his skin rose even in the blanketing humid air. "Show me how to fish."

They climbed into the boat and drifted out over the water. A wake of glowing green followed behind as the plankton played in the surf. He sat at the sail, while she sat with her back to the bow, staring with wonder at the glowing waters. A breeze suddenly blew in from the east, carrying them out of the lagoon and into deeper waters of the reef. He held steady to the sail as they skimmed across the water's surface that shined a dull silver in the hazy moon light. A school of flying fish leaped into the air on their right, and he directed the boat up north searching for swooping birds or the ripples of feeding fish at where he would cast his nets.

The breeze was refreshing, and the boat's swift movement made them smile and laugh as they bounded over surf and cut through small swells.

"I have something to tell you as well," she said. She was facing him, into the breeze so that her eyes began to water.

But he shook his head. He did not want to know.

She looked away, and her shoulders lowered.

"Please," she said. "I want to tell you."

He reached forward and touched her arm. He was growing angry--pain, suffering, ancient rusted memories tearing at his heart like flakes of broken metal or stone. He gripped her arm. Squeezed.

"Please, do not tell me."

Her body began to shake, she was rapidly swallowing air. He pulled her towards him, forcefully, rested her against his body, draped his arms around her chest. His own body tense.

"Please," she said.

They lay against the stern, his hand controlling the sail's direction as they pushed directly into the wind so that the boat slowed to a halt. He felt her chest rise and fall. He felt the smoothness of her back against his chest, and the warmth of her thighs against his legs. She smelled like sweat and the ocean and dirt and a wonderful earthiness. He kissed her gently, first on the top of her head, then, sadly, against her lips.

"U'tai," he said. She did not understand. "Demon."

Kneeling outside the hut over a bowl of water, shaving his face in the morning haze. Susan had been teaching him how to make bowls from clay, which he had collected clay from the riverbed. The lopsided result was his first successful creation to make it out of the fire. The sun lazily grazed the surface of the water, reflecting a wavering image of himself that warped around falling drops of water from his face and reddened with murky clouds of blood. He had cut his chin, his blade wasn't as sharp as he thought it was. Or more likely, his hand wasn't as steady as it should have been. He sighed and fell back onto the dirt, face up into the sky as a small stream of blood dribbled down his chin.

He was thinking about what had happened. His betrayal. That is how he thought it, a betrayal, he couldn't help but think of it as anything else. He had betrayed Lakula, turned his back and had given his love to another woman--unthinkable, to cheat against such pure and true love. It was constantly hanging on him like a wet net.

"But she is gone," he said out loud, but silently to the passing clouds. "You have already been left behind, gored through and forgotten. You could not cheat on anyone, because there is no one that you would be cheating on." But he didn't want to admit it. He still felt attached, he had tried escaping and he still felt so attached. "And I am too much a coward to end my own life." It was a realization. A sudden and terrible realization. Why did he continue living? Why did he only run away and not simply end his life and face P_ or haunt the world as a pathetic ghost. Because he was afraid of death. It was all around him, always, but he could not face it.

Then his thoughts shifted to Susan's sad eyes. Those were eyes like his own, those of one who had lost it all, who had suffered through all pain and torture of the loneliness of death and the dying, but who refused to submit to it. He didn't want her to tell him her story, because he knew what it was. Those piles of stones, the size of the plane, her experience with medicine but not with his language. He was sure there was more, evidence, hints, clues, but he did not want it. Her eyes were enough.

Her eyes met his as she walked over him and asked what had happened. He smiled sat up. Today he was to show her how to sail, he had promised as they lay half-awake the night before, feeling each other's breath.

They had constructed some crude farming implements from stone and bone and wood, and were digging up the feral land around the old farm. The yams were large and sweet and ready for picking, but he wanted to be sure that the crop would be even better the next time around. There were also large ripe grapefruits hanging from the trees. His skills lay in fishing, not farming, and he was making things up as he went, hoping Susan wasn't noticing, keeping up the facade as much as he could. They had been surviving on fish and coconuts, but that grew tiring and left them searching for new sources of food.

Wee-Ting was growing fat with fish and coconuts and the insects she dug up from around her little pen, and she lay sleeping against the side of a mango tree, opening her eyes slightly every now and then when Kalu encountered a nasty rock, or when Susan's adaze broke in two. It was getting near midday, and the heat had increased to a point of near unbearability, so they took a break and wandered off into the shade. The heat rose off the soil like ripples of water, and a memory of something fantastic came to Kalu.

"When I was young, I once came here, to Bini, with my friend," he said. He didn't dare mention Alak's name, but his face still grimaced at the thought. "Come, come, follow me. I want to show you something." They walked southward along the stream for an hour until it eventually widened--and then the land dropped. Below collected a deep pool of water grasped in the hands of green trees and thick clumps of fern and moss, drifting out through fingers of rock into the ocean further south. It was strikingly beautiful pure wet jade green, with the sound of rushing waters lapping against the stone.

They stood close to the edge, but carefully as to not slip in the wet grass and leaves of low-lying bushes soaked with the mists of the falls. Wee-Ting was frightened, hiding between their legs before daring to venture out and sniff the rushing water.

"Beautiful," Susan said, unblinkingly awed by the pool below. She stood with her right hand pressed against her chest, feeling the beats of her heart pump with the roar and crunch of water. Her left hand covered her eyes from the gentle spray that engulfed them like thousands of glass beads. Then she watched as he stepped up to the edge of the cliff. She tensed. It was like everything moved in slow motion. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, spread out his arms and jumped as if he expected hands to emerge from the water and catch him.

The water clawed at his skin like gritty sand or small biting insects. It was a drop of over fifty feet, but the pool was deep from the constant drive of the falling waters that pounded against the sand and rounded it into a basin. He bobbed up and then lay on his back as the water pushed him up close against the smoothed rising finger-like rocks.

"Kalu, watch me!" Alak said, sprinting to the edge of the cliff and flying out into the air and landing several seconds later with a large splash.

Kalu just stood there, overwhelmed by the beauty of the falls and the danger of the jump. It was very unlike him to be apprehensive in this way. He had led their expedition, moving at an unmerciful level that decimated Alak's stamina, but now faced with the jump, he couldn't do anything but stand there. It was the pool below, the five rocks sticking out like fingers. Five rocks carved to look like fingers, like a hand. Like the hand of a god waiting to crush all that fell into its waters.

"Kalu! Come on!"

He edged carefully to the edge and peered down at Alak, unsettled. Alak was hanging onto what would be the middle finger, the tallest of the rocks, and began laughing. It was the same laugh he had used once while watching a small wounded bird crawl with its belly against the ground.

The water around him rippled angrily and Susan emerged at his side, laughing, her cheeks bright red from the bite of the waters. It was a pure exhilarated child-like laughter, but it still reminded him of the memory of Alak's contorted face and Kalu instinctively clenched his fists as anger built. But she wrapped her arms around him, and he relaxed. It was enough, he thought. Enough of it all, the past was the past. Alak was the past. Lakula was the past.

Susan was at his side and they were looking up at the falls, at face carved into the rock that glared out back at them. A man's face, a god's face. The face of Ni-moan. He didn't know what the name of the god was, or what he represented, but its eyes showed hatred, anger, and a strong self-righteous arrogance.

"This is our home," Kalu said. "This is our god. This is our life."

He had been thinking about it for days now. They had been together, close together, for several weeks, and he knew that nothing was going to change. He still carried it with him, in the small shark-skin pouch at his side, tied against his waist as part of his own flesh. It was a reminder, but now it would be a symbol of new beginning. So as they sat drying on the rock-faced shore of the pool, Wee-Ting grunting sadly from above, he removed the black pearl from the pouch and placed it on Susan's stomach. She stared at it, didn't touch it, but stared at it. He looked into her eyes, still seeming lost and full of an impregnable sadness. But a glisten appeared, a life sparked into the blue sky of her eyes.

"What is this?" she said.

"This is a Mo'tai," he said. "It means we will be together, even after death."

She didn't say anything but stared into the blackness of the pearl.

The moon said it was time for the festival of the full-tide which commemorated the gods and goddesses of the ocean and fish, but Kalu ignored it. He prayed very little since falling into the stream, and would not answer Susan's questions about his beliefs. He had thought about setting up an altar to his parents, but he could not bring himself to do so.

"I believe in us," he would say. "That is all that we need to believe. In us, in now. Everything that has happened is the past, and no longer matters."

Susan sometimes looked sadly towards the hillside, and spoke softly to herself, but he never asked about her beliefs, or if she prayed to some god, or was a missionary. It didn't matter. But looking up at the moon, he felt the back of his throat grow dry. This was his mother and father's favorite festival. His father would bring two giant yellowfins which his mother filleted and stuffed with coconut milk and salt. Then she would dance with the other women, and his father would join in with the men, and he would sit with his sister at his side clapping and singing until the moon set in the sky and the last of the fires burnt out.

Instead, he sulked in bed as Susan playfully teased him like a scolding mother. But he turned his back and went to sleep.

In a dream he was sitting at the edge of the waterfall, his legs dangling in the water, staring down at the pool below. The giant three-faced golden fish was looking back up, surrounded by the five fingers of stone.

"Kalu," it said, three voices in chorus. "Don't forget."

He didn't say anything but slid off the edge and fell.

They bathed in the lagoon. Susan's hair was long and knotty, tangled in natural braids grown golden from the sun. Her browned body covered in the red welts biting bugs still was a white cloud ghost image in Kalu's eyes. He still called her demon, but in a playful manner. He never explained its meaning to her.

"U'tai," he said to her. "Don't swim so far today." A storm was passing near-by, and the surf and currents were stronger than usual. Waves crashed against the rocks and coral wall that protected the lagoon. It was a mild day, quite cool with sporadic billowing clouds blocking the sun every now and then. Wee-ting was sleeping in the shade. He was carving the figure of a man and a woman surrounded by the protecting symbols of the Ikol-nai into the handle of his spear, humming softly to himself. He was interrupted by the call of a Tototee bird, which landed in the sand around his feet and called to him.

"Hello," he said. "What a pretty song."

The bird cocked its head and sang once more before flying back into the jungle. Kalu laughed at such behavior, then returned to his carving. It was impossible. He had carved Lakula, her soft, round and happy face, her delicately plump arms. He stood up and snapped the spear over his knee, and tossed the pieces into the sand, next to the drying remains of a jellyfish. It wasn't a normal jellyfish. It was smaller, almost translucent. And there were several more laying around it. They must have been blown into shore from the strong tide.

Susan let out a faint cry. He turned to the water and then watched with horror as she struggled and submerged. He had been so careless, so irresponsible. He should have checked the water. He had let time slip out of his thoughts, out of his plans, out of his common sense. But how should he have known, since this was Bini, not Pa-Ula? The jellyfish usually came right after the festival of the full-tide, the poisonous, deadly clear jellyfish threw themselves against the shore. He rushed into the water and he was surrounded, felt a sting at his arm a slight burn at his leg, he had to turn back but he didn't. He kept going, another burn at his side and now on his back, and he was swimming as hard and fast as he could--

A deep blood-red blotch spread across her neck and wrapped around her skin like choking fingermarks. Her body lay motionless on the beach, her face bright red her lips swollen, eyes closed and blue. He felt numb all over his body inside and out. The poison was working its way through his blood and dangerously towards his heart, but she looked peaceful, content, lost in a restful sleep. He didn't want to disturb her, he couldn't disturb her, he just felt so heavy and empty and--

He was in the arms of the Itiki, floating above the moon. He looked up and into the Itiki's face, but it was no longer Lakula's round smile, but Susan and her lost eyes. Sad, sad Susan. The body of a jellyfish, long tendrils dangling in the night air, wrapping around him.

"U'tai," he said to the Itiki, and it looked at him with sad eyes. She looked at him with sad eyes. Susan looked at him, and he knew that she was gone. "I love you, Susan. Goodbye."

And slowly the arms of the Itiki let go, and he drifted through the night sky, becoming a shooting star falling back to the earth.

The ocean was calm, and the canoe sailed north, away from Bini, away from Pa-Ula. Wee-ting sat in her own special basket, woven by Susan only a few days before. Kalu watched as Bini slowly vanished into the horizon. He could almost make out the smoke rising from the burning hut, and see the fresh rock pile on Ni'moan with the others. Wee-ting grunted, Kalu coughed, and the morning wind blew gently.

He still felt numb but it was not the jellyfish sting. He held the black pearl in his hand tightly, impressing it deeply into his palm. Anger, sadness, confusion, all were building slowly behind the numbing wall. He was running away, again, not caring if he started over again or drowned off at the ends of the world. It was all ending, everything.

Everything was dust.

"We all do a little dance to the sky and touch the ground, twirl around and turn to dust,"

said his father. Said his mother. Said Lakula. Said Alak.

Said Susan.

VII (XVII) Wednesday

She's this smile--

Thoughtfully cold

A-matter-of-fact suggesting

In-coming in-climate weather

Horatio woke up and felt hung-over, yet he was not drunk the night before. He was woken by his alarm, which he didn't remember setting. There was a pain buried into the back of his eyes. A pulsating throb. He stumbled out of bed and fell into the shower. It was Wednesday, so that meant his business class: Management Theory, which met twice a week on Wednesday and Friday. He also had to go to his anthropology class, especially since he skipped the lab the day before. Then there was a fitness class he was taking for credit that met much later at five. But that was a long way off. It was nine-thirty and he got dressed.

Zombie Horatio ate a banana that was half-rotten. The brown rotten section was sweet and he washed his mouth out. He thought about drinking some milk. Instead, he popped some advil, grabbed some random books, and put on his coat.

It was cold out. November had returned some point in the evening as he slept. It was about thirty degrees and he could see his breath. Small light clouds of white. They were shapeless. He felt shapeless but full of pain. The cold gave the air a taste. It tasted like ice.

His car was cold. It took a few turns of the key to get it going. The radio decided that it didn't want to work, and neither did the heater. Horatio assumed that they had eloped together into the engine which stalled on him at the stop light of Caroline and Broadway. Another turn of the key and it started again. A little gas and it relaxed. The car smoothed out.

He was only a minute late when he arrived at the lecture hall. This was better than his usual five or ten minutes. The professor was Dr. Payne. He usually only went over what they discussed in the previous class during the first fifteen minutes. For the rest off the class, he drolled in monotone. Although all his students were supposed to read, his lectures so thoroughly covered the reading, that no one did it. Rarely he tossed in a boring anecdote or uninteresting piece of side information. The pain throbbing behind Horatio's eyes did not calm at first. He sat with his eyes closed and rubbed his temples. He didn't hear anything the professor had to say. He only was thinking of a way of removing the pain. Eventually the advil kicked in, but he did not pay attention to the lecture. He opened his notebook and was sprawling notes out on the page. But they were not course-related. Instead, he was creating an outline. It was an organized mass of blurbs and ideas that he could use in his story. And he was doing it as if controlled by natural instincts. He hadn't thought about writing since yesterday's date, but now that was all he could think of. Kalu was coming to life within the cold and lifeless pages of his Management Theory class.

The name excited him. Kalu. What would it mean? Where did he get it from? Was the name important? Does a name make a person? He knew that it was not in his case, as Wendy had so bluntly pointed out. The name clicked off his tongue, Ka, and then rolled seductively, lu. Kalu. When he first had created the poem, it hadn't come to him. But by the first full sentence, it was there. He gave birth and became a mother. Kalu. With his fingers he gave life. With the first sentences he had created a world for Kalu to live in. Pa-Ula, a collection of letters and sounds that he felt were right. Pa-Ula, a collection of people, land, water, trees, birds, animals, that he felt were just right for Kalu. A world. A person. A life. He gave Kalu a purpose, love. He took that purpose away and created conflict. Kalu was passionate, he knew this. So he allowed Kalu, not make, but allowed Kalu to react with passion. To flee from into the wilderness. To renounce his life and greet the unexpected. He was letting Kalu do things that Horatio could never do because Kalu was not Horatio.

The class meandered on around him. Other students lazily copied Dr. Payne's drone. Others faded in and out of consciousness at their seats. Perhaps wanting to fade in and out of existence. Horatio's pen moved furiously with ideas. On the computer, he could generate sentences and paragraphs of story. But on paper, he could create ideas. He could flesh out everything around the story. If the characters were the skeleton, the descriptions the fat, the story the skin, these notes were the food and drink that fed the body. Nourished it.

"You were really into the lecture, today," Tobin said. The class was over and they were leaving the lecture hall. Normally they sat next to each other and just shat the time away.

"Oh," Horatio said. He was still going over ideas in his head. He was bothered by something which didn't occur to him until he began outlining the Pa-Ula culture. Should he do actual research, or should he just make everything up.

"You seem a little out of it."

"Yeah. I'm just trying to figure something out, that's all."

Tobin was square jawed and had a big thick beer-inspired gut. He topped it all off nicely with a square-edged buzz cut like some early 60s football star. He didn't take many things seriously, but was a congenial guy. He just liked to drink a little too much. He was also Horatio's freshman-year roommate.

"I hear through some reliable sources that you've finally gotten the take on Genevieve," Tobin said, his face a frozen constant smirk. His face was clean shaven and red from razor burn.

The mentioning of the name Genevieve, and all thoughts of Kalu seemed to fade.

Horatio smiled.

"You dog, you. I'm proud of you, my boy. We've been wondering when someone would give her a ride. Morgan wants me to give you a big kiss."

Tobin was dating Morgan, one of Genevieve's good friends. Morgan had a twin sister who happened to be the ex-lover of Wendy's roommate. The world that Horatio lived in was incestuously small.

"She's a nice girl," Horatio said.

"I'm sure she is."

Tobin put one of his giant hands on Horatio's shoulder and gave him a squeeze. Horatio wasn't that small a guy, himself, but he seemed so small compared to Tobin. Then they departed to their next classes.

Horatio arrived at his Anthropology class early. Genevieve entered late. Not only did she arrive late, she was different. She was wearing her faux-fur jacket with a white, long-sleeve low-cut shirt and loose-hanging jeans. She also had make-up on. A little red blush around the upper part of her cheeks, lip-liner and eye shadow. These highlighted her hidden natural beauty. Her hair hand delicately around her face in carefully placed waves. If not for the glasses and the hint of the general shape of her face, she looked almost completely different. So beautiful. Horatio was aware that everyone was watching her. It was a fashionably-late entrance. She took her seat next to Horatio, then placed her hand on his thigh and gave it a squeeze.

There was no Delilah.

Her change could be best described as like in a dream where a familiar person transforms into something wholly different, yet still completely familiar. A friend, who, in the real world, has short blonde hair, has long black curls in a dream. The voice may be different, the body-type may be different, but there is this knowing. This understanding. This preconceived knowledge that despite all things physically skewed, that person is not someone different. Genevieve, sitting at his side, looked ravishingly beautiful. Horatio wanted to ravish her. All men in that room, and some women, wished to ravish her. But Genevieve was never this beautiful.

Her demeanor was also remarkably different. She had her usual blue-bound schedule and notebook, but she seemed much calmer in her interaction with it. Much more relaxed. There was a gracefulness in her movements. She was not fluttering around like small birds. She was not insulating herself to a world of lecture and note taking. There was an awareness of others and a need to display this awareness. A smoothness to her note taking.

However, her handwriting was still indecipherably small and compactly messy. However, she still hung intently on each word the professor spoke. However, there was still a hint of her normal insecurity in the way she chewed at the corners of her fingers.

But now, because she was physically (though perhaps artificially) more attractive, these little habits of hers became cute perks. It was a world of double standards and Horatio was guilty of giving into them. He just couldn't wait for class to end so that they could talk or go off into some dark corner and--

"We need to go to the library," she said. Her voice. Her appearance. He nodded and would have drooled if she hadn't placed her arm around his. So warm against him. He was a bag of chemicals like a 14-year-old boy. "We only have two more days to work on this report."

"You look so, wonderful," he said. It took him quite a lot of effort and breath to speak. She still rushed, but her walk was different. Confident and sexual opposed to have-no-time-get-out-of-way head's down.

"Oh," she said in a oh-how-sweet sort of way, though a taint of embedded haughtiness was present. It was enrapturing, Horatio was in her control. She led him like a blind dog.

"I've never seen you this way," he said.

She laughed. It was a shrug-off laugh.

"Really," he said. "I really like it."

"Horatio," she said. "I always look this way. Don't be so silly."

She pulled him in close and rested her face against his shoulder. She smelled different too, like lavender and honey. But these scents only hid something deeper. Something familiar. Something he smelled almost every day. A smell he immensely disliked. Refried beans.

Like coming up for air while swimming in a warm pool, when fluid world gives way to the sensation of air on skin, he regained his composure. It was like a slap to his face. Still, she felt so warm against his shoulder and he felt so nice with her at his side. She made him feel complete, even though he understood that it may not yet be real. But he was aware, no longer in danger of drooling. He looked over at her face, and her profile was perfect.

The day had warmed since the cool morning. The promised snow clouds evaporated filling the sky with a dense blue. They followed the walkway outside along the windowed-encased side of the library. There were many students sitting out on the green to their left. Trying to absorb the last bit of nice weather before the long upstate winter began. Horatio saw his reflection in the tall windows of the library. He saw Genevieve at his side, still holding tightly to his arm. He looked more closely. Reflected back was not the green grass and barren branches of small bushes. Instead was a vast ocean of pure clear blue. They were not walking on a cement pathway, but a golden stretch of sand. And Genevieve's make-over vanished. She was plain Genevieve.

He stopped for a moment. He stopped and he rubbed his eyes and looked back at the glass. It was just him and Genevieve, reflected back, standing on the walkway around the side of the Library.

"What's wrong," Genevieve said. She was stunning and looked up at him from her place on his shoulder.

"Just something in my eye."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I think it's out, now." But he wasn't entirely sure if it was entirely out. He kept looking at their reflection in the window. They passed around and under the walkway, and the reflection vanished into the shadows. But he still looked.

The smell of the refried beans and the strange reflection haunted him as they entered. The inside of the library was darker than the sunshined outdoors. Shadows crept around the edges of bookshelves and desks. There was a sinisterness pervading everything touched by the dim lights. Students turned and looked at Horatio and Genevieve as they walked by. They seemed to be paying close attention and watching their every move. Like spies.

He needed to wash his face, or drink some water. He felt overwhelmed and dizzy. There was almost too much going on for his brain to process, and it weighed on him. Like he was carrying Genevieve on his back or in his mind. He managed to walk with her into the study room, but Horatio had to excuse himself to use the bathroom. Genevieve pouted her lips like she was sad. She said that she would look for some books and to meet her in the stacks.

The shadows seemed to creep and grow around him as he walked down the hallway. He felt lightheaded, it was almost a struggle to take a step. He had to breathe. Then take a step. Breathe and step. The shadows seemed to thicken the air. He was walking through a dark invisible mist. People were looking at him. He could feel their eyes digging into his skin. Tearing away at his body, boring into his insides. Poisoning him with sharp daggers. There was a fine dust coating the shelves and carpeting and walls. It was acrid and rotting. He stumbled into the door and fell into the bright white light of the men's restroom. He fell towards the sink, but managed to glance at himself in the mirror. He was standing not in a bathroom but on a small hill surrounded by a red-glowing horizon. Horatio closed his eyes and splashed his face with cold water.

Normalcy returned. A splash and the heaviness and thick air vanished. More than vanished-- never existed at all. He looked at himself. There were big blue bags under his eyes. Overtired, he thought. He washed his face one more time, then fixed his hair and left the bathroom.

It was bright in the library under the constant buzzing of fluorescent lights and sunshine pouring through the windows. It smelled of old books and recirculated air. He found Genevieve searching through books in the clean, sterile, stacks. She was sitting with her glasses in her mouth, and her brown hair tied up in a tight bun. She was wearing a dark-blue sweatshirt and old jeans.

"I've found some interesting stuff," she said. "Some isolated cultures in the South Pacific, just like I thought. There are a lot in Micronesia that even survived Japanese occupation in relative isolation. Take a look."

He ran his hands through his hair, then walked over to her side. She had already piled up a nice tower of books, and was rapidly pulling new ones out of the shelf in front of her. He read some of their title, (FIND REAL BOOK TITLES, JOSH, OR AT LEAST REAL CULTURES, MORE ON THESE?).

"The next few shelves over have more," she said.

He blinked rapidly. His eyes were watering. They felt like he had just woken up. He was wondering if he had.

"Hurry," she said. But the urgency didn't seemed malevolent, rather playfully teasing. She reached out and rubbed his leg. "Please." She was looking into his eyes like a lover. He nodded, raised a smile, and started searching.

He walked past more books on Micronesia and came to isolated outlying Pacific Islands. One particularly thick, old, book stood out with shiny gold lettering against dark blue. It was written by a Dr. Grayson Moffett, and was called The Effects of Modernism on Isolated Cultures: A Brief History of the Polynesian Prophet--

--A blur and everything went bright white and then slowly into yellow crushed dandelion petals covering the world and then, it was a soft-out-of-body-like feeling like in water or the warmth of sleep and there was a sharpness in the blur. Taste of metal coiled around the tongue and gently dripping down the throat because a simple sharpness is moving through the yellow and coming closer and even sharper until it was almost right in his face. It was a face. It was a sad, brown face of something greater than Someone and then--

The fire alarm went off and woke him from a daydream. He swallowed his spit and helped Genevieve stand.

After leaving the building, they sat outside on the green. And hour passed in a rapidly descending cold. Horatio lay back and stared up at the clouds. The fire trucks were still stationed on the grass at the side of the building. The clouds were grey and growing more numerous. The weather had remembered.

"Can't escape the weather," he said. Even in his coat, he felt cold, and Genevieve was shivering. They had gotten some tea from the student center while they were waiting, but the warmth was wearing off. She didn't have a coat on.

"I'm a bit hungry," she said, her face appearing over his. His view obscured. "Let's go get something to eat."

Who was this Genevieve, he wondered? Was she the spastic pragmatist, or the sultry transformed beauty? He reached up and caressed her ear. She smiled, and in her smile she was a combination of the both. Or maybe he was only seeing something that wasn't really there. It bothered him as he looked into her brown eyes. He couldn't see himself staring back. There wasn't enough light. It made her eyes seem endlessly brown and vacant. He suddenly thought of her sister.

"So, where is Delilah? She's always hanging off you like a dead limb."

She didn't understand his joke. It was better that way, he decided. It wasn't very nice.

"She's still recovering."

Genevieve stood up and stretched.

"I just wish we could get our stuff out of the library," she said. She was looking at the fire engines and rubbing her arms to stay warm. "My jacket's in there."

Horatio took off his coat and draped it around her shoulders. At first she seemed to reject it out of some sort of natural reaction. Let it lay limply around her shoulders like the previous night. But something was different. Though they had not been completely intimate, their closely shared moment resonated. Now the jacket meant something different to her. She pulled it tightly, rubbing its collar against her neck. She seemed proud wearing his jacket.

Now he was cold. They decided to go back to her place, and have a late lunch. It was about two o'clock.

Delilah was laying on the couch in the living room. Genevieve lived on the second floor of the student apartment. She shared the living and kitchen areas with two other girls: Morgan and Sandra. The television was on, but she wasn't watching it. She was looking at the glass window in the back door. She didn't even notice Horatio and Genevieve's arrival.

"I knew this would happen," Genevieve said as they entered the living room. "Let her hang out with Morgan, and she'd be hung over for a day."

Horatio wasn't in on the social construct of the house, so he said nothing. Genevieve was still wearing his coat. She didn't seem to want to take it off. Delilah looked at her for a moment, and then turned back to the window.

"Sorry, Li," Genevieve said. "I shouldn't be acting like your mother."

Delilah sighed and then closed her eyes. She was thinking of something and started to smile. But she remained quiet.

Outside, snow was falling. Light, small flakes. Over time, the flakes piled up and covered the ground.

VIII (XVIII)

From chaos came life,

From life came chaos.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

A boat in the middle of the empty sea, rocking waves and passing clouds. A boat given to the currents, to the winds, to unknown forces to decide direction and fate. All around nothing but water lapping against the round horizon, the moving distance that sat separate from the world, gods peering back with angry eyes. He said nothing, only letting air and spit pass between his lips, though the words were gathering an army beneath his tongue. He tried not to think, but images of lost faces and bloated eyes haunted him within the sadness pushing against his chest.

Then the wind died down, and the surf calmed into a flat sheet of turquoise and when he lay with his eyes half-closed, the whole world looked like one constant blue but the sun. Wee-Ting did not leave her basket, and spent most of the day sleeping. There was no food and very little water, and even the pig seemed to give up on all hope at happiness. When Kalu looked upon the basket, all he could think was how cruel it was for him to have dragged the pig along. He no longer cared if even death took their souls into the bowels of P_ for a torturous afterlife of continual misery.

The boat continued to drift, and in the afternoon of some day he no longer knew when, in the distance he saw a flat rise of green. A new land, a new home, a new life. Again he was spared, that was, if he could make it there. Why was he allowed to continue to live? Why didn't he just kill himself and end his life damned as a wandering spirit? Why did he continue to go on despite all the terrible things that life and the gods had thrown at him. Yes, those gods, he thought. Those terrible gods who dragged him around by the legs, rubbing his head into the dirt and slicing his flesh into carrion for the birds. Was this punishment for his lack of faith, his lack of belief? They had taken away his family, his love, and Susan, so why should he give them thanks in return? He had only previously prayed out of habit if nothing else, as he could only care as much for the gods as they cared for him.

The gods were vindictive and selfish. They raped and murdered each other in a never-ending cycle of death and renewal where humans were tossed against rocks as rotten fruit. Humans always blamed the gods for their misfortunes and themselves for prosperity. The wealthiest of Pa-Ulans, Alak's family, cared very little about their spiritual beliefs, but only gave to the priesthood in a facade of piety. While the poorest, such as his friend Bak, gave what best he could to the gods, and prayed to them every night with every drop of his blood, never wavering from his beliefs despite the lack of deital recompense.

Yet despite all this, Kalu felt comfort when balancing their names on the back of his tongue. Uttering Aula or La-tu or Makuna often filled him with a refreshing spirit, even if he was not exactly invoking them for prayer; cursing Ikol and the unspeakable Su-fala-su or Uke-i and the sea demon Ta-fetu relaxed him in tense situations. Removing the blame or the cause from the self seemed to him like slicing a dead appendage from the body.

It would be so easy to blame a god, such as Ikol, for all the problems that cut away at his soul. There were plenty of stories of possessed or cursed humans and animals controlled by Ikol, only saved by exorcism or death. And there were tales of Ikol's treachery mixed in with legends of his escaping from his prison on the horizon to torment humanity before being chased back by Aula or some other kindly god. Ikol, once a playful, happy god of the sky who gradually grew angrier and more corrupted by his hatred and jealousy of humanity.

There was a popular story often told around the fires of evening festivals. It was the final prophecy of Aula before she returned deep into the center of the world to sleep. Almost two hundred years ago she spoke to Iluka the Farseeing (the current Iluka's namesake) in a dream, appearing to him as a pillar of fire. She warned him that one day Ikol would return to full power and attempt to destroy all of humanity in one swift act. But she promised that she would intervene, and in one final gesture towards her children, destroy Ikol and herself, freeing humanity from the bounds of the gods. "I will come like a great bird of fire, and the whole world will shake at my fury."

But this prophecy never came to light, and the numbers of Pa-Ula dwindled and suffered. Ka-puna once told Kalu all about a great Cult of Aula that had formed during the inter-island war between Pa-Ula and Bini, before all of Bini vanished into the green of the jungle. Pa-Ula had won the war, but there was no proof that the prophecy came to pass. Ka-puna once admitted to him that terrible things were done in the name of Aula, but never went into any detail--

--there was a buzz from the sky, a giant bug at the ear-like buzz but coming from everywhere--and above he saw a silver bird streak across the horizon, seemingly above the small strip of green--and the reflection of the sun, now starting to set into the distance, turned the silver bird a bright fiery red--and Kalu felt his heart race, he stood up--and Wee-ting left her basket to see what the commotion was--the horizon melted away in a bright flash--the entire world vanished in a flash of light. Ikol sighed in defeat.

Kalu collapsed.

In the darkness floated three, the light, the body, the mind, dancing through the chaos. The body was confused, feeling only the raw emotional intensity of the light. It was disconnected from the mind, which was overwhelmed with thought, but no way to express it. And then the light pulsated, growing and shrinking, expanding and retracting. As it expanded, it pushed the darkness outward, and as it contracted, it engulfed. The light was shrinking and engulfing at the same time, expanding and exploding moments later. And then from this mad dance, came silence, then nothing.

Then a voice.

"Kalu," it was the voice of Susan. It was the voice of Lakula. It was the voice of his mother and father. And it was something else. It was everyone he knew and everything else, all flowing into one. "Kalu, Kalu."

And the light continued to pulse, and the mind and body continued to waver in its strange glow. It was the body of Kalu. It was the mind of Kalu. It was the light of Kalu.

"Kalu, I am you, and you are everything," it smothered over all. "I am the world and everything, and you are the world and everything. Everyone is the world and everything."

And the voice, waving, hovering in the strange ether grew brighter than the light. And then it was the light, and the body, and the mind. And all were merged, and Kalu was all.

"The world is you, you are the world. Life, you, the fish of the oceans, the rich, fruit-bearing trees, are all the same. All does the same under the sun, living. All of us, we all do a little dance to the sky and touch the ground, twirl around and turn to dust. Dust to dust, all combining into the sands of the beaches, the silt in the streams, the grains of the Earth. When we live, we are the Earth. When we die, we are the Earth. And not even the fire can destroy us, as all it can do is turn us to glass. And in glass, you are pure. In fire you are pure. As dust, you are pure. As life you are pure. As Kalu, you are pure."

And Kalu knew what was right. And Kalu knew absolute peace. And Kalu knew that everything was dust, and dust was everything. Fire, glass, dust, life, all one. And the Voice, it was Kalu, and it was not. The Voice, it was the world, and it was not. The Voice, it was life, and it was not. The Voice, it was Aula, and it was not. The Voice. It was.

Aula was now everything, and everything was now Aula. Kalu was everything, and everything was now Kalu. Complete freedom.

The sea rocked angrily as the surf throbbed under the force of the distant blast. Wee-ting squealed in fear, doing small circles on the shallow floor of the boat as waves continued to lift and drop the small vessel. Kalu sat dazed, staring at the distance, at the now strangely-shaped grey cloud that rose from afar, blinking, trying to regain his sight. To see where Aula had ended Ikol's life, once and for all, saving humanity from everlasting torment by destroying the horizon.

But he couldn't see anything, and he couldn't hear anything, and he was trapped in his own void, listening to the Voice. Then a large wave lifted the boat, and tipped it onto its side, tossing its contents into the choppy depths. Kalu floated in the water, leaving the currents to drag his body where they sought fit. He was limp, every muscle at absolute rest, save for his open, rapidly blinking eyes that saw nothing.

Wee-ting surfaced and desperately attempted to mount the overturned boat. Her three-toes, slippery from the water, vainly thrashed the wooden bow. It attempted to squeal, but the waves pounded the salty brine into its throat. Wee-ting wasn't doing so well, and was slowly drowning.

"Kalu, you are pure. You are pure because you are. No matter what you do, or what happens to you, you are pure, because you are. You are, and that all that matters. Even if you die, you still are. Even if you melt away to nothingness, not even dust, you still are, because you are. Kalu, you are. And this is true for everyone and everything, everywhere. Gods and humans, the clouds and rocks."

Sensations returned to his limbs and he woke into the world, driving upwards to air in the warm waters, lifting his head and gasping his first breath. And then, with Wee-ting in his arms, he forced the boat over and climbed in. He was to return to Pa-Ula. He was to return home, and listen to the Voice. He had no need to run from anything, because he was and so where they. All free. All capable of obtaining happiness because there was no longer a difference between anyone. And that was all that mattered. And he was happy, happy knowing that even with loss, things retained a continuance. Susan had died, but she still was. His parents died, but he still was. Lakula had married Alak, but they still were. And he was happy. And he would return home, and he would tell them all that Aula had shared with him in her final grand gesture. He would share his first encounter with true life.

IX (XIX) Thursday

The knife turns,

And one splits to two

And the problem gets deeper

Because it is only just beginning.

"I need you," Bob said. Horatio was half asleep but he had answered the phone. "Greg called in sick."

"Always," Horatio said.

"I know I can count on you, Horatio. One of these days, you're gonna make assistant manager."

He was sitting in his boxers at the desk, phone in hand. He didn't even get a chance to refuse before Bob hung up. He was always getting pulled into these things. It was seven in the morning and he didn't have any classes. He had come home around one, but he hadn't even gotten into bed until six. He had been inspired to write.

It had been after lunch with Genevieve. They had returned to the library, trekking through the snow. They were allowed back in to get their stuff, but the building itself was closed until later in the evening. They sat out on the terrace outside of the student center and looked over the books that she had already had. But none of it had interested Horatio. He had felt the need to actually study a culture similar to the one he had created. To see how much his imagination was actually based in fact, coincidentally or subconsciously.

The line was long and things were moving so slowly. Horatio wasn't paying attention to the customer. He was thinking about what Genevieve had said to him. They had gone through her notes and books. Neither was satisfied.

"They're all pretty interesting," she had said. "We have only two days to get this done."

"Yeah, but I haven't really--I don't know how to explain--felt anything. None of them called out to me."

Genevieve laughed. "What does that matter? You've said it yourself, this is a small little presentation. We don't even need any visuals."

This comment was somehow unlike Genevieve. She wasn't the type to say that even a small assignment was unimportant. She valued almost everything related to grades, equally.

"I can't explain it," he said. This need had to do with his story. Looking through the books, seeing the images of thatched huts buried in jungle, naked children playing in clear ocean, excited him. Reminded him. He was thinking of Kalu. He wanted to visit Kalu.

"I sometimes forget about how early it snows up here," she said. She stood up and walked out from under the patio cover and held her hands out to catch the snow. It fell into her red cloth gloves, which she had put on with a heavier jacket.

"Sir? Sir?" An impatient customer was trying to get his attention. He was lost in thought. He stood like a wax statue. The customer had a little child at her side. He was picking his nose and staring at Horatio's likeness.

"Horatio? Horatio?" Lost in thought in Kalu, yesterday, Genevieve had started to grow impatient. "What are you daydreaming about?"

She did not know about his book, or his intentions to drop Business as a major. He hadn't told her. He had kept it to himself. So, in reply to her question, he had only smiled to her and said it was nothing at all.

However, his behavior had made her think otherwise. She wanted his attention focused only on her and the project.

"Come on," she had said. "Let's just choose something and get to work." She squeezed his leg under the table. Then she left her hand there. But Kalu did not fade. Not completely.

"I'm sorry," he said, addressing the customer. "Can I help you?"

She started talking but his attention was suddenly drawn elsewhere. Past the small line of customers and to the windows. Isabelle was standing across the street, staring at him. "I'd like a breakfast burrito." She looked angry and disappointed. She was not wearing her Mickey Mouse sunglasses, but was bundled up in her big green coat. "I guess that's it." It was still snowing, and a light dust of white covered her shoulders and head.

"Yes, yes," he said to the customer. He was trying hard not to look at Isabelle. He could feel her stare. "One moment."

He pulled one of the pre-cooked burritos out from under the heat-lamp and wrapped it in wax paper. Then he placed this in a small paper bag. The grease from the burrito was already leaking through the wax paper. The bottom of the bag was slowly becoming transparent.

"Have a nice day," he said, taking the customer's money. The child was still staring at him. He wasn't any cuter than an average boy. There was some dirt around his lower lip that curled around his chin like a scar. He must have been three or four years old. The stare had a combination of vacancy and wonder--the emptiness of inexperience. They were light blue eyes, the color of humid skies. The little boy finally looked away, and wandered away with his mother.

Isabelle was gone.

He wondered why she had been there, and why she had looked so angry. Perhaps he was only seeing things, he thought. Too little sleep.

"We need some more oil," Bob said. There were only three people working because it was early and snowing out. Horatio manned the register as Bob and Henry worked the kitchen. "I need you to go get some from back. I'll cover up here."

This wasn't that strange a request. Once every week or so, the reused oil from the frier got even too dirty, by Big Tostada standards, to use again. Bob was incredibly lazy, especially about lifting heavy things. The oil weighed about thirty to forty pounds, and you didn't have to carry it far, but that was too heavy for Bob. Behind the counter lay the kitchen, and behind the kitchen sat the office and storage room. It was only a matter of feet between both, the restaurant was rather small.

When Horatio returned to the counter, Bob was sweating. And he was oddly reluctant about returning to the kitchen. And the reason why seemed to be the next customer. It was Isabelle. Bob's face was pale and he had a hard time keeping eye contact with her.

She still looked angry.

"Hello," Horatio said.

"I know I don't like this food, but I wanted to see you again, because I was thinking about you, yesterday." She looked very tired. "I was hoping I'd run into you again, but I didn't."

She didn't speak as if she was angry, but she looked it.

"Oh."

"I don't like this place," she said. "It doesn't smell very good."

Bob cleared his throat. He was looking at them both, coldly.

"I thought you could use this." She handed him a feather. It was small and red. It smelled of fresh rain. "You need this."

"Thanks," he said. He placed the small feather in his pocket and then rested his hands on the counter. She placed her own hands on his. They were surprisingly warm for her having been standing out in the cold. They were also very dirty.

"Come see me," she said. "You'll know where to find me." She gave his hands a squeeze, gave Bob one last dirty look, and then walked out.

"Hmmph," Bob said. "Don't let her back in here, again," he said. There was a darkness emanating from him. No, it wasn't from him, it was around him. In the shadows and the dirt and molded grease in the corners and between the cracks in the floor. Coiling around him like snakes. Eating into his chest and coming out his eyes. "You remember." A bitter darkness, a soiled and rotten darkness.

Horatio could feel it touch his skin, rub against it like the tongue of a snake. Tickle the hairs and the pours. Tasting him. Smelling him. Infecting him. An overwhelming fear and anger focused on Isabelle. How dare she come in here and not order anything. How dare she come in and disrupt everything. How dare she interfere. What with? It did not matter. How dare she. He reached into his pocket to remove the feather, but as he touched it, he relaxed.

Bob left Horatio at the counter and returned to the kitchen. The darkness dissipated back into the dirt and grit between the tiles on the floor. Horatio caught his breath and swallowed. He didn't understand what had happened, or why it had happened. Isabelle was gone, vanished around the corner of the building. A new, small line of three customers were waiting.

Horatio left the counter and raced to the front door. As he opened it, the snow picked up and a strong, cold wind blew the door back shut. He pushed it open again, and this time threw himself out into the street, where the snow shower had suddenly raged into a storm.

With much difficulty, shivering in the snow, he stumbled into the park. She was sitting on her bench, her coat like a tent. Wearing her Mickey Mouse glasses, covered in snow.

"I don't understand," he said. "What is going on? Why did I come out here to find you?"

"In Japan, animals can contain mystical powers," she said. She was looking through him. He had his arms wrapped around his arms, close, for warmth. "Like the fox. The fox is crafty, and can take the shape of whatever it wants in order to trick its prey or humans trying to hunt it. There is a story about a fox who outwitted a hunter by turning into a beautiful woman. Do you know what happened? The hunter fell in love with the fox, and the fox fell in love with the hunter."

She adjusted her sunglasses. Her hair was curly and wet with snow. Her face looked gaunt and tired and dirty. But she was still stunningly beautiful.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Horatio asked. He was exasperated. Frustrated. Blinded by the thickly falling snow.

"I'd love a bowl of soup," she said. "Can we get a bowl of soup?"

They walked back to his apartment through the snow. She was wearing torn sandals with dirty toes exposed. It didn't bother her. She took her time through the cold. Taking a sunny afternoon walk.

Isabelle took off her thick green coat and sat it on the floor by the front door. She had only a tattered old sleeveless sweater on and a pair of faded jeans. The sweater fell above her waist, which barely existed at all. She was even dirtier than he thought, yet she smelled like honey. She exuded electricity the same way Wendy sex. But Horatio noticed something. He didn't feel aroused, though she was so beautiful and seemed to embody all would turn him on. He was excited, as a child was excited over a new toy or a puppy. A genuine excitement. And this excitement made him want to help her.

"This may sound presumptuous, but if you want, you can use our shower," he said.

She took off the sunglass and placed them in her bag. Then she placed the bag on the floor next to her coat.

"Oh," she said. Her voice sweet and strong and intense. The whole situation was intense.

"Perhaps. But soup. Soup!"

He showed her the kitchen, and she chose a can of lentil soup from the shelf. Then she sat down at the table, curling her legs up under her. He opened the can and dumped its contents into a pot.

Horatio was wondering why he had invited her back to his apartment. And why he had chased after her from the restaurant. And why she had given him that strange feather. And everything else. In thought, his excitement mellowed and he found himself very unsettled. He felt the exact same way he did when he had looked into the window of the library and realized he had momentarily existed in some false reality. No, more than that. That something had been leading him on. Something had been choosing his emotions, his thoughts, his actions.

"Yum, yum," Isabelle said. She pounded the table like a child. Her face had the innocence of a child. "Food, food!"

He wanted to ask her questions, but every time he opened his mouth, she pounded at the table and called out for her soup.

"No time for chat," she said. "Time only to eat." She had a smile pursed in anticipation. "Food and then talk. Courtesy."

She was a child, he thought. Perhaps she looked like a woman, but her behavior was definitely that of a child. Yet the mystery remained--why? Or more accurately, who? Who was this girl that Bob disliked so greatly, who behaved like a child, who lived in the park, who was now anxiously awaiting her soup. And where did she get that feather. He pulled it out and looked at it. Small and red, soft and light. It was so familiar.

"Stop playing and keep cooking!" she said.

The soup was boiling, and he stirred it twice before ladling it into a bowl. He placed it in front of her, steam rising. She grabbed the spoon and began shoveling. She ate like she hadn't had anything to eat in days.

He sat across from her, watched her small hands feed her small mouth. Around her mouth lay a layer of brown, old food or dirt rubbed into the skin. Soup dripped onto the dirt and darkened it. He offered her a napkin, but she shook her head and pointed to her food. This meal was uninterruptible. She was performing an opera with her spoon.

It didn't take long for her to finish, at which she pushed the bowl away and belched loudly.

"Good," she said.

"Would you like more?" he said.

"No."

She rubbed her exposed nearly nonexistent belly, which had bulged out slightly filled with soup. She picked her teeth and smiled at him. The smile brilliant genuine. Briefly, he forgot why she was there, in his apartment, in his kitchen. He only wanted her to stay longer. To hide her away for himself. She made him feel very happy that he was able to satisfy her in some way. With her dirty face and tired bright eyes.

She started to bounce around in her seat, and laughed.

"Thank you very much, sir."

He couldn't help but smile. She didn't turn her green eyes away from his. Green, shiny and sparkling. Full of so much potential energy. Finally, she broke the stare. She closed her eyes and sat back, letting her feet slide from under her.

"There are numerous paths, don't you see?" She said. "New ones emerge constantly whether you move down one or sit and wait. So, you have a simple choice. You either choose one path, ignore everything else flashing and flaunting around you, or you wander like a glutton at a feast who starves because he can't decide what to eat first."

Her eyes were still closed. Horatio didn't know how to reply. He didn't understand.

"Then there are those who regret which path they take, but are trapped in futility, because the path is the path. You cannot stray from the path."

She opened her eyes. She smiled.

"But that's all bullshit," she said. "Mother fucking cock-sucking bullshit."

She cleared her throat and licked her lips.

"Don't let them make you think otherwise. You'll end up like a zombie and that's nothing anyone wants to be. But it's really hard." She looked down and suddenly looked sad. "It's so hard when all you can be is yourself."

"Who are you?" he asked. These were the only words he could say.

"I'm Isabelle, silly. Now, about that shower?"

He sat on the couch and rubbed the feather in his fingers. It was about nine o'clock. The phone rang while Isabelle was in the shower. He didn't want to wake up his roommates, so he hung it up and then left the phone off the hook. Anyway, it was most likely Bob on the other end. She came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel. Her hair lay wet against her neck. She let the water drip off her body and onto the hardwood floor in the hallway.

"Horatio, can I borrow some clothes?'

He lent her a t-shirt and a pair of pajama pants, which even after tying as tightly as possible, still required a makeshift belt. She looked like a clown.

"I'm sorry," she said. She was sitting on the couch next to him. "All my stuff is so dirty. Once I'm dirty, it doesn't matter, but I just got clean, so I don't like to put dirty stuff on."

He was playing with the feather again.

"Why did you give this to me?" he said.

"I don't know," she said and scratched her head. Her face was still pink from the shower. She had tied her hair straight up into the air so that part of it fell over on the side. His t-shirt was too big for her body, and lay against her wet skin like a poncho. "I found it in the park, and it just seemed like it belonged to you."

"Oh."

"There aren't any little red birds in the park at this time of the year, if ever. It reminded me of you. A lost little feather. You look so lost."

She had brought one of her coloring books with her to the couch. It was sitting closed on her leg, but now she opened it. It was a book of birds.

"Let's see if we can find this bird," she said, turning through pages of black-outlined birds filled with multi-colored inked poems. He had forgotten how incredible it actually was. And he had forgotten that this was his inspiration. "I doubt we'll be able to tell, though, because you only have a feather."

"I want to show you something!" he said. "Something that I've been doing recently. Something that you're partially responsible for, I guess."

He led her into his bedroom. She was still engrossed with her book. They walked over to his computer, and he opened up his story. But something was wrong. Something was strange. He remembered being on page twenty-four earlier in the morning, but now it was much longer. It was almost fifty pages long.

"This could be it," she said. She pointed to a bird. It was a small bird, he could tell because it seemed so small on the branch it sat. It was a familiar bird. Too familiar. It sat under the heading, "Extinct Pacific Birds." It was called a Tototee--

--A warm yellow glow--

"I have to go to the library," he said.

"Okay!" she said.

"Please, you can feel free to stay here for a while. You can watch some TV, or take a nap. We'll clean your clothes when I get back."

"Okay!" she said.

Sitting in his car, he was thinking about what had just happened. It was just like at the library. The image of yellowness. The taste of metal. The face. They had all appeared again when he saw the little bird.

"Damn it," Horatio said.

"Oh, oh, oh," Horatio said.

"Get a hold of yourself."

"Cry like a child, my friend, my friend. Frightened from waking nightmares and dreams are we? Odd coincidences? Chance?"

"Why do I feel like I have no more control of anything? Not these hands, not this car, not even the thoughts in my head!"

"Is it so strange? Delusions, most likely. God is controlling you, perhaps? No, my dear Horatio, we know what this is, don't we? A breakdown of the mind. A melting of the brain. A fuckover of that wad of grey fat between your eyes. You're crazy. You're looney. You're not one to be trusted!"

"That bird. It was the bird from my story. I made that bird up. How can it actually exist? Too much chance. Too much."

"Maybe it wasn't really there. Maybe you made it be there, in your head. You need to be committed. You need to be wrapped up in chains and belts and tossed into the river and drowned for your own safety and the safety of those around you."

"How can I do anything if I can't trust what I see. How can I believe in anything if none of it is true!"

"Ha ha ha. You're such an idiot, Horatio. What matters if it's true? What matters if it's just your imagination? As long as that's what's there, in front of you, does it make any difference. Does it make a difference if mud tastes like chocolate? It's like saying: the grass is green, but to everyone else in the world, green is actually the color you see as red! Everything is relative!"

"No. There is a difference. Reality and fantasy are two, completely different things. And I don't like getting tossed around and controlled like a fucking marionette."

"How do you not know that the world you've always lived in was false, and that what you think is your imagination is actually the real thing?"

"Because, then, there would be no reason to live. If I can't make my own decisions, and then live through the natural real repercussions of those decisions, then I may as well be a slave or a pile of rotting dirt."

"Don't ask for something you're not gonna like."

"Well, I need to take control," Horatio said. He turned the key and started the car. It hummed like a tiger with pneumonia. The snow was falling. It fell heavier as he drove. It clogged the road and made the car slide. It took delicate control and steering to simply drive straight. He passed an accident right near the entrance to the school.

The wind blew harder as he stepped out of the car. He bundled up his jacket and pressed onward. Everything was working against him. The only thing that he had left was his will. And even that was wavering under the storm and it all. It grew dark as he climbed up the stairs to the walkway leading to the library. The clouds grew thick, the snow fell thick, the wind blew the thick snow. A thickness. A wall he had to push against.

The door swung open. The library was open, but there were few people around. The air smelled of stale books and dust. The darkness of the storm made the building darker so that even the bright fluorescent lights barely illuminated anything. Or else it was a darkness around his eyes.

The books seemed to stare at him. They cast shadows. The spines groaned and whispered for him to turn back. He could feel their anger pushing against his skin. It grew more intense as he neared the row of books he was searching for. It was a struggle just to walk across until he came to what he wanted. He pulled at the blue book with its gold lettering. It took up the weight of all the other books. He closed his eyes and pulled with all the strength and might he had left.

It slipped from the shelf and onto the ground, sprawled pages downward like a collapsed building. He could make out the complete title: The Effects of Modernism on Isolated Cultures: A Brief History of the Polynesian Prophet of the Aulaian Archipelago. He sat on the ground, placed the book in his lap and started to read from the first random page:

It was without a doubt that the most interesting fact about the man, Kalu, was that he honestly believed that his god had chosen him to spread the word of faith amongst his people, and that this proof came from what I have discovered was the chance viewing of hydrogen bomb testing. This is almost understandable, as the shock and sheer force and power of the explosion would make any man believe that he was seeing the hand of god at work and not a force ever possibly created by man, especially one of no worldly education or understanding of modernity.

In my conversations with Kalu, I found him to be a charming, intelligent fellow who, unlike many of his fellow islanders, gave a more pleasant reception to foreigners, and surprisingly knew a bit of English as well. He told me that his god, a female fire-deity named Aula, relieved him of his problems and the sufferings of all humans by vanquishing another god named Ikol at the cost of her own existence. Ikol, he explained, was a jealous god who wished to torture mankind, and with his destruction, a new era of peace and tranquility could begin. It was Kalu's job to tell his people of his vision, and to make them to believe that the prophesied "golden age" of their culture had begun in which past cultural beliefs and casts were to be discarded for a more humanized, enlightened view of existence.

In my judgement, he showed classic signs of a man suffering from delusions of grandeur, and perhaps mild schizophrenia. But his attitude, behavior, and style of speak was convincing enough to convert his entire tribe into disciples.

Through my many conversations with the man, I came to learn more and more about his tragic past, a past filled with more twists and turns than a Homeric epic. He had lost so much before finally finding peace in his position as prophet, it was hard to look at him without sympathetic eyes. But perhaps the most endearing quality of the man was his friendship with an old sow he said was named We-ting, and whom was a mutual friend of a love lost from a dreadful reaction to jellyfish stings on the neighboring Bini. . ."

Horatio felt ill. The book slipped from his hands and fell onto the ground. A cloud of dust rose softly into the air, slowly reaching up towards the ceiling, searching for the hidden sky above. The world vanished and he was bodiless and lost in an overwhelming and complete white.

X (XX)

The first thing we see

When we rise in the morning

Are the final moments

Of a waking dream.

Kalu returned to Pa-Ula--a ghost arriving on a canoe with tattered sails, dying from thirst dried lips peeling away the last bits of old self. His boat drifted into Pa-Ula's harbor one afternoon, a party of fishermen sailed out to retrieve him and bring what was left of his weakened body to Ka-puna for treatment. The ghost was dazed, speaking to the sky, talking about freedom and how it had finally happened, ignored rantings from excessive sun and no fresh water. In the cooling shadows of Ka-puna's long house, laying on the soft straw of the sleeping mat, he continued speaking while asleep, speaking to the wall and spiders, and anything else that would listen. To the dirt that filled the spaces between the floorboards. Dry air passing between dry dying skin directionless but desperately seeking a single ear to grasp and implore.

He had a waking dream, Susan was sitting at his side her eyes so blue like the clearest of days and her voice wind sweet, she was holding his hand and nodding as he spoke to her. Told her about what he had seen, how all his hope had returned and that the life once empty and meaningless had gained so much purpose. "U'tai, together we can open the hearts of everyone, free them from their doubts and self-pity. We can change everything. We do not have to stay true to outdated and unfair customs that the gods imposed upon us. No one has to suffer again." She was nodding, but her lips were tense and she asked the question that he hadn't thought:

"But what is a world without gods?"

He couldn't answer her. He couldn't answer this part of him, this old fear that had always been present hiding in the back of his throat or around the joints. He may have stopped praying, but he never stopped believing that they were there, listening, caring, patiently watching. The loss of Aula was just another loss.

He saw the land grow from the shadows of the hut, sand rising from dirt, trees sprouting from the wood, thick bushes and grass and the song of tree frogs, the star-filled black above. He, surrounded in the grass, a child lost in the wilderness. Wanting to be lost, wanting to be hidden from those who searched for him, who called out his name and clawed through the dark out to pull him back. A green mound rose from the grass, higher and higher, and he was walking and climbing up to the peak, until it reached the edge of the ocean and dropped grey cliffs down.

His face was wet, eyes reddened, throat sore, and the night air made it all worse because he was aware he was alive and not just some pile of walking mud. He didn't want to be alive, he wanted to jump, to fall into the waves that tore the rock to nothing. Standing against the edge, toes hanging, ready for the end. But he couldn't, only falling to knees and looking up at the stars, those dead souls staring back reminders. He pushed his palms against the ground, pushing the grass as hard as he could, forcing everything he had into his palms and into the earth. "I hate you so much," he said. "So much for taking them away."

The wind sighed, but the earth did not groan.

"Why did this have to happen? Aren't you supposed to protect us? I hate you so much because you let this happen. You don't care. I don't care for you. You are nothing to me, Aula. Nothing."

But the words didn't come from his mouth, they streamed through his blood and rolled around his body surging through his arms and legs. He pushed harder. He wanted it to come out, he wanted something to rip so that it all could just come out.

The hill lowered, the sea drew back, the sky glazed over into dried grass and the air grew stale save a single twisting strand of breeze. He was staring at two familiar eyes.

"You are awake?" the voice rusted and familiar. "You have slept long enough, no?'

Where Susan had sat was the wrinkled bronze face of Ka-puna. He was kneeling on the floor, nodding with the breeze that seeped in through the open doorway, a streak of moonlight slicing across his face. Smoke seeped from his nose in two tendrils that crept in the air and vanished into the darkness. He lifted his pipe back to his mouth and sucked in deeply.

"A ghost returns," he said. "The dead drift in from the sea now? I have only seen them rise from the dirt. I would have expected your bones to be lost in the stomachs of sharks." He smiled his yellow five-toothed smile and closed his eyes. "You are redder on the outside then inside, Kalu. It should hurt just to open your eyes."

Kalu couldn't feel anything on the outside.

"You should be lucky that I'm still around," Ka-puna said. "Or else you'd die simply from the pain. But maybe you'd like that. Always running around and doing stupid things. But that's what being young does to a person, no? Anyway, you shouldn't thank me for treating you, I told them to toss you back into the ocean. Too small, I said."

Kalu tried to speak but found that there was not enough air in his chest to form words.

"You will have plenty of time to explain yourself, though I really don't care too much for it. I don't mind what you say in your sleep, my boy. We all say strange things from time to time, especially when we are going mad. But you are just another patient, that's all you are to me. Treat me like a stranger and I will treat you that way back. Running off without saying goodbye. I may be old but I am not dead yet."

Kalu sighed and rolled over onto his back. Ka-puna was always grumpy, but he didn't mean any harm by it. It was the way he was. But if he was truly angry, he would not say these things. He was a private, sarcastic man, viewed as senile and too easily irritable by most of the villagers. But his eye was still keen, his fingers quick, and his knowledge of medicine vast.

"In the morning you should be able to talk, you dumb fool. I'll leave you to sleep, now. Progress is good, though you shouldn't be able to move about much for at least a week. And I don't want to hear anything about what you've been up to, remember. If you couldn't come and say goodbye, I don't want to hear what you did."

Ka-puna creaked as he stood, leaning against a walking stick, looked Kalu over quickly with his good eye, and then limped out the door.

"Oh," Ka-puna said. "Don't worry about your pig. I'm taking good care of the little thing."

Kalu listened to the dull tap of Ka-puna's stick until it was swallowed by the tree frogs. And he realized that he was back in Pa-Ula, and this realization hit him hard. He would have to explain himself to a lot of people, and he would have to win back their trust. He had a lot to share. He didn't even know how he could possible start.

The next morning the pain made itself known, the feeling of skin rubbing hard against bone. A soreness that went deep into the flesh and muscle forcing him to sit because it hurt too much to lay, the ground was like sharp stones. He fell in and out of sleep during the day from the nights full of fever and aches. The old doctor cared for him the best he could, applying ointments to the skin that numbed everything, and making the boy drink lots of water. And Ka-puna constantly berated him, in a carefree, underhanded and guilt-enhancing way.

"It would be nice if you told someone, something. Leaving us for so many months, so suddenly. I'm not the only one who was worried. Ungratefully quiet."

"I will tell you, but I'm not sure you'll approve."

"We can't change anything that's already happened, my boy. It is the gods' will."

"I've been living on Bini."

Ka-puna's eyes grew narrow, his face deflated into a heap of wrinkles, and his body loosened as if punched hard in the back.

"Kalu," a voice said from the doorway.

A gaunt, eyes-blue ringed Bak stood right outside the hut. He had been busily turtle fishing during the jellyfish bloom, and hadn't had much time to or rest or eat anything besides bait. The two talked as Ka-puna sat outside smoking intensely under his favorite coconut tree.

"We had a near record catch," Bak said. "We had more turtles than room in the boats. We're going to have a big feast tonight to celebrate." He described one particularly large and angry green turtle that had the long scar of a shark attack. "I had to let him go," he said quietly, as if ashamed. "He had survived so much, and deserved to live freely."

Kalu found it odd to be back, speaking with his old friend, as if nothing had happened more than a slight injury. Bak did not ask him where he had been, or what had happened, but only wished to know how he presently felt, and what he was going to do when he got better. But Kalu wasn't sure how to answer even that.

"Will you come to the festival?" Bak said before going.

"Perhaps he can," Ka-puna said. He was leaning in the shadows. "That is if he gets enough rest and I feel like letting him."

Bak was afraid of the old doctor's age and black eyes, cowering awkwardly within his overwhelming height. He could not make eye contact, an embarrassment of youth and low class. Here was Kalu, an orphan of poor parents who had been raised by one of the most renowned and respected men on the whole island. Kalu, whose father was the most fantastic fisherman anyone had seen. Kalu, who had courted the daughter of the island's chief priest. Kalu may been from the same class as him, but Kalu was something more. And he was simply Bak, the poor fisherman who relied on others for work and his own wits for food, living in a communal long house with his mother and two younger brothers. He was tall and strong, with a delicate handsomeness around his nose that, when filled in with age, would give him a distinguished gaze. But poor, unmarried, low classed, and incapable of looking into the eyes of Ka-puna.

"I would like to," Kalu said.

"I'll see you later," Bak said, still awkward, his cheeks red, he gave a polite bow to Ka-puna and departed.

"That boy needs to stand straight, or his bones will end up round like a fish," Ka-puna said, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He gave Kalu a long stare, and then sat down on an empty mat. "I need to sit. I need to sit and I need you to tell my what happened on Bini."

"A whole life happened on Bini. But that's over."

It grew dark, clouds passed over the sun and the little light that entered the hut seemed to be snuffed out in an eerie reflection of Ka-puna's changed mood.

"Bini is a place of lost, forgotten lives," he said. He did brought his pipe to his mouth, but it was not lit. His hands were shaking. "You shouldn't have gone there."

"Maybe I shouldn't talk about this."

"No," Ka-puna said. "Tell me. Tell me everything. And I will tell you something, Kalu. Something that I have been wanting to speak about for so long, so long that it has been building up and cutting away at my soul."

Kalu was standing in the shade of a palm tree, leaning against the trunk. He couldn't find words or thoughts or emotions to fully express how he felt. But he knew one thing for certain, that he would have to tell everyone about Aula. It was the only way to save all the damned souls of Pa-Ula. It was the only way to resolve the terrible acts of the previous generation.

He started walking down to the beach, a secluded cove behind the hospital long hut, his skin pealing in flakes of red on his cheeks and shoulders. Chunks of his old self scattering into the dirt. There was no one around the water, but a small group of Tototee birds picking at flies and some crabs swaying their claws in the sea breeze.

"No one speaks of why Bini is haunted, these days."

The words had been sad drops coming from his eyes more than his mouth. Kalu had told him about the Itiki, Susan and the jellyfish. Ka-puna had then responded with his own tale. A story much more tragic and horrible than Kalu could have ever imagined.

"When I was a young man, only a few years older than you, Kalu, the island of Bini was filled with hundreds of people. But we Pa-Ulans were at constant war with them, and there were more of us then them. I was a warrior, a class that exists no longer. There was one final battle, and the Bini were defeated on their own land. But we did not stop there, no no no. Our chief at the time, Mawbot's father, was ruthless and angry with the Bini. We were all angry with them. It wasn't just him. Yes."

Kalu crouched, grabbing his ankles and swayed with the wind.

"So once we defeated their warriors, we continued. We killed their wives. We killed their parents, their children, their babies. But we didn't stop there."

Kalu couldn't think without hurting all over.

"We did something that no Aulaian had done for hundreds of years, Kalu. We devoured them. We devoured the flesh and souls of the people of Bini, until not one person remained. We feed them to our children and our sick, to the old and young. It was a great feast celebrating the destruction of Bini. It was terrible. It was wonderful. And Bini and Pa-Ula became one."

The air around him seemed to cool, it wavered a bit like water.

"Only Iluka, Mawbot, myself, and several of the elders remain from that time. Do not look at me like that. I wish I could go back and undo what was done, we were so foolish. Every night I share in their dreams. I hear their cries and their laughter in my blood."

"No," Kalu had said, and that was all he could say.

"Yes."

On an area of sand in front of him, colors seemed to warp, bending and folding and blurring out into nothing. The ocean stopped moving, the birds froze into place, and Kalu found that only he could move. But he stood staring at the blur in the sand, held down with the weight of Ka-puna's story. He couldn't comprehend what was going on, too many things were happening at once. And then--

(There is no chapter number)

f r e e t o f e e l

t ha t w h i c h w e

t r y n o t t o s e e

b u t k n o w i s t h e r e

Whiteness, a pure whiteness shapeless whiteness and nothing else whiteness and the soothing nothing but whiteness and all shape distorted and loosened and lost and freefloatingwhiteness. Then--

The color is a floating blob of blue world growing and shrinking pumping like a heart but with globs of other things moving like blood but with no real direction because there are no hands and legs to feed. There is a sensation of reality somewhere down by the edges but this is so blurred that it can only be perceived and not really seen, beyond the eyes and ears and all physical sense. Shadowless with thick bright bursts through the brown and the blue and green and there, form and function at work, a small speck of gold and green and it takes a true, real, shape. Fast through a bitter cold that takes sensation and then, a feeling of movement at great speeds and towards the gold and green in the middle of a vast area of blue. The cold grows warmer as the speed increases and things begin to taste and smell like they really are there. A realization, and understanding of something being there takes the form of you. You really are there. You, the self. You, traveling through an emptiness, growing closer to a gold and green and you, the self, Horatio, recognizes what this is. Sensations and understandings, the self, the world recognized.

Standing on an island. Air smells of salt and fresh green growth and old rains long since forgotten, waves crush against rock and pound it into sand and pound against sand and crush it into glass, birds call like sad old women and frightened children. Feeling weight in his legs, weight in his arms, weight in his body and mind, knowing he was standing there on the sands of some island. All around was a clear blue sky and deep blue ocean and the sands touching the edge of a green forest and all of this was a reality and not some warped fabric dream or hallucination. Looking at the edge of a forest at two legs, golden, browned, near maroon skin wrapped in a muscular elegance, slice of ancient white scar dripping line below the knee. A real pair of legs, a real scar, a real connection between the legs and the body, stomach and chest firm in animal-like fitness, necessities of life fitness, fitness of a body under constant stress between life and death, but wrinkled and tanned like hardened leather from constant sun. An old face of a man, an old look of fear and anger and sadness and experiences wished forgotten buried within the deep brownness (so brown that it is envied by black) in and around the eyes. There was something more, something coming from the beads of sweat formed around the temples and the short cropped white hair cut by knife, black tattoos from shoulder to neck, lines and curves of a geometric animalism. Something coming from the rise and fall of the chest, the feel of the heartbeat traveling in the air in short bursting waves. A recognition.

It was Kalu. Kalu standing, flesh and blood, skin and bones, muscle and life right there in front of him. Kalu, he was sure, but older. Much older. An old man with white hair and wrinkles and a strange smile of recognition while sweat dripped from fear--no, dripping from an understanding. A smile curves around the lips like a wave cresting.

"You return," Kalu said, his voice strained energy. "I've been waiting. Please, please, come with me."

"Kalu?" Horatio said, the word first forming, sharp back of throat dagger, sliding around his tongue, melting water dribbling out with the "oo".

"Yes, yes. Come now. If you are hungry, I have some food waiting. If you are thirsty, there is plenty to drink. It has been so long."

Horatio's legs moved, though he was unsure of the actually movement other than the bobbing movement of the world through his eyes. He followed the old Kalu up through a path in the forest to a clearing with a small hut. There were some grilled fish laying on a rock, and a bunch of small bright red birds called to the fish from a perch on the roof of the hut.

"To-to-tee," the birds said.

"We used to call these birds Tototee, because that is the sound they make. But they are know known as Ini, which means "voice", because that is their purpose. They are the voice of reason, reminding us that we are not the only ones who exist in this world. There are also birds and fish and pigs and turtles, and we, humans, are not alone."

Horatio nodded in response. He couldn't do much else. He was so stunned staring at the world that only haunted his mind, that he only pictured as words were typed up into the screen of his computer. This was now living, breathing, real world, and not a pattern of black and white shapes, not symbols but the real thing. He also felt the heat licking at his skin in its great heavy humidity, and listened to the sound of flies buzzing in his ears.

"Are you hungry? I don't know why, but I had a feeling you would come today," Kalu said. He crouched down by the fish and inspected them. They were small and silver, their skin charred from fire. "I haven't the strength to pull in anything larger, anymore. But, of course you'd know that."

"Would I?"

Kalu sighed and looked down at the ground. The shadows playing ancient bronze and stone statues with his skin.

"I am not angry," Kalu said. "I gave up being angry a long time ago. After everyone died, after I was all alone, after years of living in isolated solitude. Thinking so much, talking to myself, to gods that no longer exist and never did. I've come to understand the futility of my life, and I can happily and honestly say that I am not angry with you."

"Angry with me?"

"And I've kept quiet through it all, as I promised. Never shared anything with anyone about you, and what you said to me. I don't know why, but I stayed quiet."

Horatio didn't respond. He didn't understand.

Kalu paused.

"The ocean shapes the sand, building up sandbars and then pulling them back down. Why? Because it is the ocean, that is why," he said. Then he stood up, his smile returning, a real smile, an honest smile full teeth exposure and beaming. "I understand that I am sand. And perhaps, now that I see you again, I understand that even the wind directs the ocean."

"You said you are alone? Where is everyone?"

"Dead. Mostly my fault. All your fault, but I am sure that you had good intentions. Or maybe not, but it doesn't matter. That is the way things go."

"My fault?"

"Are you not this world's creator?"

Horatio forgot to take a breath, and then it was all making sense. The riddles and the sadness, the desperation in Kalu's eyes and the words--the words were making sense.

"I am this world's creator," Horatio repeated.

"I want to know one thing. Just one thing and I ask nothing else."

"Yes?"

"Will you let me die happy?"

Horatio wanted to respond. He wanted to say yes, but the world began to fade, color drained from the trees and the sky and ground, from Kalu's skin and his eyes. Everything was becoming white again. Seeping into the cracks and outlines until everything was smudged white.

Part 3: However we go, we will get there, or Strange Faces: Clashing

I (XXI)

Two are sitting together

Sharing a lovely day

Like old lovers reminiscing.

But one isn't sure anymore.

Two years later, they are living together in New Haven. They are engaged. Horatio is working for his father, Genevieve is starting on a PhD program at Yale. They live in a small but lively apartment with yellow walls and old linoleum in the kitchen. It's comfy, they say to their friends and family, a comfy fit. They have little money, and what they do have goes to the bills and books and new suits for work. They hang posters on the walls, the relics from their college days, and buy used furniture from yard sales and flea markets. This is how all young couples begin.

One day he comes home early from the office, Genevieve is still at her classes, so he decides to surprise her with a home cooked dinner. But he is a lousy cook, and when she walks in, he has burnt the potatoes and undercooked the chicken on their small electric stove.

"Oh," she says, surprised and amused by his attempt to please her. "How cute."

They go out for Chinese, leaving the dishes to soak in the sink. They go to a small restaurant near the green, enjoying a relaxing stroll through the park on the way. This is where she tells him that she is late, and that there is a big possibility that he will soon be a father.

"Not to worry," he says, he is sure of this "We can borrow money if we have to."

He borrows money from his father, but the money is borrowed, not loaned. He is lucky to have such a giving father, who also offers him a raise and a promotion. Horatio isn't the hardest worker, but he does well.

The wedding is pushed up so that the bride is not visibly pregnant, because that would be an embarrassment to everyone involved. Her mother cries tears of joy, because her eldest daughter had found a perfect man with a good job and family. Her younger sister is jealous of her older sister's happiness. Delilah is now in college, she is a good student and a hard worker, just like her sister. It just took her some time to realize that it was important to do what she was doing, and that of course, like everyone thought, it would make her happy. She looked happy, and that was the most important thing.

Money is always important to them. It lets them stay happy. They can do things with money, buy nice things for their apartment, go on pleasant trips together on the weekends. He buys her nice jewelry and flowers. It is a wonderful relationship, and there is no reason for them to believe that they are otherwise in love.

The baby arrives and they are in the hospital. He cannot believe how small and wonderful the baby is, and how it makes his heart feel so full and happy. This is their second child, now, and he has made Junior Vice President in his father's company. His father hands him a cigar, and they go outside for a smoke and a heart-to-heart discussion about the joys of parenthood, business, and life.

Their first house is large, because Horatio is making good money. They have a pool and a three car garage, and a greenhouse because Genevieve loves flowers. She never did complete her PhD, but she is happily busy raising three beautiful children. He brings in more than enough money to support the family. They will soon be wealthy.

One day he is sitting on the deck, drinking ice-tea. The wind is light, it is nearly autumn and the trees will soon turn a Connecticut yellow and brown and red. The wind touches his face. It is his 46^th birthday today, and his children have gotten him a new tie which is sitting on the table in front of him. His father will be retiring in a few weeks, and he will be the new president of the company. He is respected by many, but more and more he's been finding that his heart wasn't in it. And perhaps, it never was.

He lifts the tie and looks at it, it makes him feel happy, but also, it radiates some strange emptiness. For the first time in a long time, he realizes that something is wrong. Something in him is very wrong, and it may just be a mid-life crisis, or maybe something strange is in the air, but part of him feels empty. The ice-tea isn't doing it for him, so he adds a little bit of brandy when no one is looking. This dulls the emptiness, hides it momentarily--he tries to ignore it.

Genevieve sits next to him.

"I once was a writer," he says, though he isn't sure why he says it, because he isn't even thinking of this.

"Yes," she says. "And I once was going to get a PhD in sociology and save the world."

The laugh and hold hands.

On their 35^th wedding anniversary they go to Paris. All three children are married with families of their own, all future successes in their own lives. They are happy together, it seems. He's been a moderately successful president, never truly distinguishing himself from those serving before and around him. But it was good enough for the board and the shareholders. The company is much larger than it was under his father's term, and it would only grow more before his own eldest daughter, now serving as a junior vice president, would eventually inherit.

He sighs and sits down on the bed and removes his socks. He stares at his thickened caves and his hands. He looks at his wife, at her plumpness and the grey hairs on her head. They will have a lovely time in Paris, he is sure, she is sure. They will see the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triumph and walk along the Seine. They would eat good food and look at beautiful art and shop at the wonderful high end stores.

"Honey," he says, and is surprised at the longing in his voice. "Are you happy?"

At first she says nothing. Then she pours him a glass of wine, he drinks it and then pours himself another.

"Of course I am happy," she says. The strength withered from her voice child raising years ago.

The next evening they return to their room, she is tired and has gone for a bath. He feels restless, has felt restless for some time, and after having two glasses of wine, goes out for a walk. It is a Thursday evening on the streets of Paris, trees are draped in white lights, the street smells of car exhaust and stale cigarettes and flowers. The two glasses of wine have done nothing, he enters a bar and orders some bourbon in broken French. It burns his throat and feels really good.

A beautiful young woman is sitting next to him. He smiles at her, she smiles at him. He wonders if he is attractive anymore. Money is attractive, he thinks. She is attractive. She is also very familiar. Her hair is dark, long, and curly. Her face is smooth and catlike, olive skin, green eyes. So familiar.

He tries to speak to her, asks her for her name, if she is having a good evening. He is speaking in English and she only smiles back, nodding, her teeth are white but not perfectly straight.

He asks her the same questions, this time in awful French.

"Oui," she says. It is all he can understand.

The next day they go to the Louvre, because it is something they must do while in Paris. There is an exhibition going on, photography, images of France in the world. Genevieve holds his right hand tightly. She pulls him away.

"I don't want to see it," she says.

She sounds desperate. He lets go of her hand briefly, and they head in to the permanent collection. He can't imagine why she wouldn't want to see the exhibit. It seems a very irrational response, a type of response he would never expect from her, she was so steady and head sure, through all the years. Perhaps, he thought, she was just keeping to her schedule, to her rush and compulsive need to plan things out. Perhaps there was no time for the exhibit. But her response was more than that. Her eyes were so stern and also frightened. Her voice so unfamiliar. Like it wasn't her at all.

They sit in the veranda and are having sandwiches.

"Can we see the new exhibition, now?" he says.

She grabs his hand and says no. She is smiling, a forced unfriendly smile that he had never seen across her face.

That night they try to make love but cannot. When he gives up she turns on her side and faces away from him.

"You don't love me anymore," she says.

"That is not it," he says.

She pulls the covers over her body. He wants to comfort her, but he is bothered. It is growing more and more apparent that he is very unhappy.

The next morning they are to go to Versailles, but he is in a bad mood.

"I can't go," he says. "I don't feel well." But he wants her to still go. He still wants her to have a good time, despite his miserableness.

"I want to take care of you," she says. But she understands that she needs to give him some space. She doesn't want to leave him, but she gets on the train and goes to Versailles. He sees her to the station, kisses her on the cheek.

"What will you do?" she says.

He isn't sure, but says he will go back to the hotel and look over some papers. Work never stops, not even on vacation, he says.

He goes back to the Louvre, and he goes into the exhibition. There are large photographs hanging on the walls of various cities and countries and places in the world. There are images of Africa and Quebec, of Asian ports and Mediterranean islands. And then there is one picture in particular that catches his eyes. A series of gold mounds with spotted green forests surrounded by water so clear and blue that it looks like the sky.

"It is French Polynesia," says a familiar voice. He looks to his right, and there is standing the beautiful woman from the day before. And he recognizes who she is.

"Isabelle," he says.

But she is thirty-seven years younger. She looks no older than the list time he had seen her, and he had forgotten her all this time. The museum fades to black all around them and the photograph in front, on which one of the golden stretches of beach and jade forest rises and spreads into the island of Pa-Ula. He reaches out to touch it, and notices his hands are young and strong and firm again. Blotchless, wrinkleless, youthful.

"Don't believe what you see," she says.

"What is going on? Is this a dream?" he says. The photograph fades and there are only the two of them, center stage, spotlight.

"Not the type of dream you are used to," she says.

"What is happening?" he says.

"Something that all gods must face as their creations push the limits of their abilities."

"What? I don't understand."

"When we have the gift of creation, we must be very careful what we create."

He does not understand. Her body fades, only the outlines of her face remain.

"Who are you? What are you? How do you know these things?" he says.

But she cannot answer because there are only her eyes, and then nothing but blackness.

He feels something hard pressing against his back and the back of his head. Something leaning hard against him. But it is so dark that he cannot see what it is. And then he realizes why it is so dark, his eyes are closed. He opens them and finds himself laying on the floor of the library. The heavy object on his back was the floor. A book is sprawled open on the floor.

"Are you okay?" a girl asks from his right. He doesn't know her.

"I'm just tired," he says. He wonders how long he had been laying there.

He picks up the book and closes it in his arms, tightly in his arms, and then stands up.

"I've had a long day," he says.

II (XXII)

And we two hold hands,

We two movements sway.

The water is full of ghosts,

The water is so full of ghosts.

It was a man, a white man, a young white man standing at the sea's edge--a frozen sea, waves lost in swells and crashes, droplets of water suspended and reflecting frozen shimmers of sunlight--

A white man who spoke and he didn't understand what the man was talking about, the words scattering like sand against his ears.

"I am your god," the man said. "I am your creator. I make you do what you do."

Kalu didn't believe the man, because Aula was not a man and Aula was gone. A great battle, a great destructive end of all of everything but the words from that moment telling him he was free.

"I am you god," the man repeated. I am your god, and if you do not believe me, than I will predict your future, and one day, you shall believe me."

The man said terrible things were to happen, and that he was sorry that they would. It was very complicated, the man said. But he said that one day Kalu would understand. It would take time but Kalu would understand. Through war, fire, death, and loneliness, Kalu would understand.

Finally, Kalu found some words of his own.

"If you are my god, why make such terrible things happen," Kalu had said. He did not believe the man, and did not believe that a creator could treat his children so terribly. Give so much pain just because that was what he wanted to do. "If you are my god, why not make good things happen? Why not make everyone happy? Bring back the dead, make everyone prosperous and rich? End disease and hunger and sadness and death? Bring back my mother. My father. My sister. The lost souls of Bini. Susan."

"Because," the man had said, "because it doesn't make a good story. Tragedy is a good story, happiness is not."

Then the man vanished, fading back into the air and sand. The sea unfroze, the birds sang out loudly and the leaves trembled against the ocean breeze. Kalu collapsed to his knees, his dried burnt skin rubbing against the sand. Flies buzzing around his ears, his nose, his chest, trying to find a steady place to hold against the wind.

He did not go to the festival that evening. When Bak came by to convince him otherwise, Kalu was already asleep. He dreamt of a great beach that wrapped around the face of the earth, never coming to water, never coming to jungle, just one vast stretch of sand. Everywhere were footprints--his own--heading in infinite directions, and he was desperately searching for a fresh new, not yet trampled path that would lead him to somewhere. But there was only more and more sand.

She came. It was late, the moon was lowering in the horizon, dipping below the surface of the water. The ocean was calm, the winds had died down, the air was dry and empty. She came, quietly creeping into the long house, careful not to wake Ka-puna who lay curled in the corner on a pile of dried leaves. This was where he often slept when angry or frustrated or out of penitence when he smoked or chewed too much. It was nearly impossible to wake him from such a state, and once he had slept for two whole days before finally rising. All he had said that time, as the villagers stared with eager anticipated interest, was that he was in the mood for poi.

She crept along the dirt, her small round toes scented with coconut milk and flower essence. Her face was wet, it almost always was the last few months, but this time out of extreme joy instead of the aching sadness that dripped from her heart like sap out of a wounded tree, sticking to everything in her chest, making her feel like dying. Making her dream about dying. Making her attempt to die. But he was back. He was laying there, on the mat, she recognized his breathing, recognized his smell, recognized the outline of his body in the darkness. She wanted to lay next to him, to curl herself up into a ball and wedge her body against his, merge with his body, feel his warmth and the beating of his heart through his blood against his skin against her own skin. Like how it used to be. But she couldn't.

She cursed herself, why was she there, why did she dare slip out from her husband's side as he lay in a thick drunken slumber--worn out from dancing and eating--dare sneak across the island, braving the dangers of the jungle darkness, sneak into the village and look at the only person she had ever loved with her entirety. The person who she thought was dead, who she thought she was responsible for killing.

"I wanted to be a ghost, like Kalu," she said after being rescued from the currents by the western cliffs. "I wanted to see him again, to be by his side. But I couldn't even die." She lay in bed for days, Alak could barely feed her anything. She only ate to avoid the madness of starvation, drank to renew her tears. She dressed in funerary colors, left flowers in a makeshift altar meant for Kalu's spirit, did not speak to anyone, did not leave the hut, would not touch Alak.

Then, one morning, before anyone else was awake, she wandered out of the hut and down through the mango groves and pineapples and the ripe ready orange trees, and down through the fields of yams and taro, past the cluster of houses of farmers and indentured servants of Alak's father down to the mangrove roots and the black waters of the swamp. There was an old story about the black swamp waters, about a princess who drowned herself over the loss of her love, and who grants wishes to those who understand and share in her grief. The waters were supposedly the tears of Aula and were haunted with lost spirits.

"I just want a sign," she said, dropping flower petals into the tepid water. "Is he dead? If so, should I join him? If not, will he return? Gods, please just tell me what I should do?"

It was then that a Tototee bird caught her attention. The little red bird was sitting on a tall root at the edge of the water, bobbing its head curiously, and then singing out his sweet call--as though calling to her, telling her to remember that she was alive. As if reprimanding her for her behavior, for being such a silly human. It was the first time she had ever seen the bird. But they were returning. After many years, the Tototee were returning to Pa-Ula.

She resolved then to return to Alak, be a faithful wife, and keep Kalu only close in her memories. And then he returned. The news spread quickly through the island. Nak'aulan and Kulinai's son had returned, his body burnt and nearly lifeless in his father's canoe. Rumors of ghosts and demons, monsters from Bini chewing him up and spiting him back out, being swallowed by a whale. Kalu instantly became the center of all discussion.

And she had almost given up all hope, had placed his memories deep into the darkness of her soul, had given in, became a dutiful wife, secretly expecting.

He was sleeping deeply, soundly--this she could all tell from his breathing--dreaming, and she desperately wanted to know what, wishing to be a part of whatever it was. She was so tempted to lay by his side, but she knew she couldn't. She crouched for a moment, reached her fingers out dangled close to the outline of his face, but she stopped and pulled her hand back. Sighing quietly, she removed two flowers from her braids and placed them by his face, caressed them tenderly. Then, standing with one last look at his body against the darkness of the hut, she returned to the jungle paths, hoping to make it home before the sun rose.

In the morning sunlight spreading across the swept dirt floor of the house, crawling along fresh footprints, teasingly lapping against his forehead through the open window--fresh air driving up through the trees--it finally came to rest on his eyelids, prying them open like bronzed mussels. Revealed in a world of pink and purple, the flowers had drifted up against his face with the breeze, and the smell was as familiar as his own.

His body still ached from the burns, but not enough to keep him locked up in the long house. He was ready to return to his own hut and leave the sad old man to his own nightmares. Ka-puna was already awake, but nowhere to be seen. Taking the two flowers in his right hand, Kalu stood up and walked out into the morning, filling his lungs with fresh air, exhaling the staleness of old death and the sick. Ka-puna was sitting against a log, smoking, eyes closed, skin leathery and taunt around his ancient bones.

"Time to leave, then," he said. His voice was the result of years of nightmares and sleepless nights. "I can't blame you, boy. Leave this old man and his ghosts before they swallow you up."

He paused and put down his pipe to cough. Then, with one eye opened, looked Kalu over carefully, like one would inspect a fish.

"You look better. You'll live," he said. "Just take it easy. That boy, Bak, is taking care of your pig. Feeds it better than he feeds himself, I suppose."

He closed his eye and then turned away. He looked blind and dead, a shriveled mummy roasted in the sun. Kalu felt like he should say something, that he should thank his godfather, but he didn't know how to go about doing it. There was just so much revulsion in the pit of his stomach, so much confusion and sadness and anger. And he didn't really know why. Yes, Ka-puna had done something awful, but it was so long ago and he was so young at the time. But it made the old man so inhuman. A monster.

"I can't sleep," Ka-puna said. "When I do, it isn't me who's dreaming. It's them. Their dreams haunt me in my sleep. Their lives, their history, their future, all dance around in my head when I close my eyes. They're all still here, in my head, in my body. They cry to me, they scream at me, they laugh and go mad inside of my head and I can't do anything about it but wait until I die where they will probably haunt me across the world and torment me until the end of it all."

He opened his eyes, they were red and bloodshot.

"When I eat, everything tastes spoiled, everything tastes dead. Everything smells like rotting flesh. I see them, hiding in the shadows, hollow faces and shallow bodies, pale and white like hot fire, faces of children, of women, old and young men, all sad, all in anguish, their eyes empty and mouths open, long boney fingers pointing at me, accusing me, cursing me, damning me, watching and waiting for me."

"Itiki," Kalu said.

Ka-puna sighed and a sad smile crept along his lips.

"I am sorry to do this to you," he said. "I needed to tell you because we are all dying, some faster than others, and only the young can make up for the mistakes of past generations. I've always seen something in you. People like you, you are a good boy, a strong boy, a smart boy, a passionate boy. They also fear you. Strong people are feared. Watch your back."

"I hate them all," Kalu said.

Ka-puna laughed and coughed and shook his head.

"Just don't fear them."

The jungle had already opened its mouth to swallow the old hut in vines and weeds and cover it in green. It was a shame, he thought. The wood was so strong, so sturdy and old. His father had built it, and built it with the same care and quality as his canoe, but the roof was caving in, dragging the walls down with it. His father's bones rested in the dirt, next to his mother and his sister. The hut was the marker of their grave--he could not return to it. He could not live within there, live through the memories of his childhood, and later, the memories of his young adulthood. Initially, when his parents had died, he went to live with Ka-puna in the long house. But every few days he would return to make sure the family hut was kept in good order, that the altar to his parent's memories were kept clean, that the walls stood strong and the roof kept out the rain. Then, when he was old enough, he had moved back in. He had felt so calm under that roof, his parents watched over him and took care of him and it was where he and Lakula could hide in the hot afternoon and lay in combined solitude.

Inside, the air was thick and musty and abandoned. It was more like a neglected tomb than a home. Not only was the roof caving in, but it had torn, and a hole revealed the green leaves of the encroaching jungle. Ma-tu-nai-lu vines hung with their fragrant flowers outspread to the exposed air. The sleeping mat was molded over from rain water, objects lay in ruin, melting into the dirt or consumed by insects. The shrine was covered in spider webs and flakes of dead leaves and thatch, but he could not bring himself to wipe it clean. He had dishonored their spirits by fleeing, leaving their bones behind to rot in the dirt. And it seemed that thieves had taken several important objects--namely his father's spear and his mother's coral necklace. These discoveries were the most painful. There was nothing there for him but a messy hut that wasn't worth saving. The shame he had brought to his parent's spirits.

So, after removing a few necessary items, he carefully folded the swollen wet walls in on themselves, the roof crashing down and spreading a fine layer of dust in the air. It took a few false starts, but he lit the heap on fire and watched it smolder. He knew that it was all too damp to burst out in reds and yellows and hot ghost whites, but it would cook slowly, and all turn to ash. He desperately wanted it to burn wildly, consume the entire island in a cleansing blaze, leaving nothing behind but sand. He collapsed onto his knees and held the flowers in his hands, rubbed them between his fingers.

"To to tee," the little bird said. It was sitting on a branch, looking at the fire, and then looking at Kalu. "To to tee."

He thought about his first memory in the hut. He was such a young child, and he remember sitting on the ground, grasping on to his mother's leg as she braided grass into a basket. It was raining out, raining very hard, and he could hear and smell the rain, and see it crash against the dirt outside.

"Mother," he had said. "Will not the water come in?"

"It will not," she said.

He couldn't remember where his father had been, nor his exact age at the time, but he remembered the way his mother smelled, and how beautiful she was. And he also remember the song she softly sang to him as he grew frightened from the lightning and thunder outside. How the thunder always chased lightning, never catching her, always missing her, but always loving her.

"Tilu-tilu, your voice is so strong. Call out your love. Chase after your love. She does not love you back, and only flees. Taira forever flees from your call. The ground may shake and the children may cry. But you will never catch her."

"What has happened?" Bak said, waking Kalu from his thoughts. He was running up the path towards the hut. "Your home, Kalu! How did this happen?"

Kalu did not look up, but looked at the few bits of red and orange flame that ate along the dried edges of the thatch.

"There was nothing left here," he said. "There isn't a point, anymore. It was all gone long ago. I cannot live here anymore."

"Come with me," Bak said.

So Kalu stood up and together they left the hut smoldering against the jungle. The song still danced through Kalu's head, his mother's words were so soft and sweet.

"The ground may shake and the children may cry," Kalu said. "But you will never catch her."

III (XXIII) Thursday

This isn't what we thought it would be,

Dear,

This isn't what I ever even imagined,

Love,

But the water beats on.

Isabelle at apartment sitting at Horatio's computer, Genevieve at home with Delilah, Wendy and Prescott patching things up, Dell heading out for classes. Horatio worries at checkout counter in library. Big Tostada dreary and bleak giving off rancid meat fumes, Bob paces.

One thousand steps, book in arms, no look, no read, just one thousand steps in snow drifts--powder steps with. Flakes drag iron flake-like, wind is the magnet, flakes iron flak-like because you can make out each one, not white crystals but white iron flakes. Drag at his feet.

The blue Neon, paint peeling around the eyes, dripping skin of blue paint, one thousand steps exactly from library door to door of car. He counts each one through gnashed teeth---stay warm, stay warm---because the wind is strong and cold and angry. It is only a little past ten, but the clouds swirl sunlight into murky grey. There is a howl in the wind, a bansheed moan, trees barren branches creek and slices wind to voice, pushes against him against car, he slips and gets up and opens door, slips in. The howl cups the car and presses against it.

"Horatio," the howl says. "Horatio," long slow drawn out drags, not exhalations, drags, a breathing-in howl.

He places the book in the passenger seat and doesn't look at it, even though it opens and glimmers on a shiny photospread. He's breathing heavily like lifting something heavy, stiffly presses the accelerator but he hasn't even put the key into the ignition, presses the break, the accelerator and then sits and stares out the front windshield. The howl rubs against the glass like wet fingers.

"I'm going mad," he says to the cold air strangling the interior of the car. "Going mad."

"Horatio," the howl says. A sad and melodious cry, lost castrati singing inward odes at the peeling blue paint.

"Clearly, clearly going mad."

"Yes, you stand on shattered glass and revel in the blood at your feet," Horatio says.

"No, no," Horatio says.

"Tipping over like porcelain canisters of spoiled milk, substance released on contact. Your mind is melting like spoiled milk, I can smell it, it smells like spoiled milk."

"I'm just sick. That's all. I've fallen sick. I have a fever, I must. From the cold and snow, the only possibility. I am sane, perfectly fine, and everything is from a walking pneumonia or some strange flu that I've gotten without knowing."

"Maybe you're going mad from syphilis from Wendy or some other harlot you've happen to stick your dick in. Going mad like Van Gogh or Nietzsche, your mind turning into a puddle of frothing saliva."

"Horatio," the howl says. "Horatio."

Horatio shakes his head, and mechanics takes over, the key turns and the car comes to life. The headlights flash through the spiraling white, and he drives down the road, the world is so dark like it is evening when it is actually only midmorning. The book bounces up and down in the passengers seat as the tires ride over humps of clumped snow and into gullies of torn pavement. It slides off the seat and crashes below the glove compartment, flails helplessly against the passenger-side matting as he comes to a stop at the stop sign. The tires stop but the car continues to slide. He glances, he tries not to, but he glances at the book, the muscles around his eyes strain to stop him, his interior monologue begging him no, but he looks.

There is an image of a sad man standing at the edge of the water, bending over with hands into the surf, not looking at the camera but looking behind it at the distance. Black and white, but Horatio can see the bronze skin and the dark hair and can make out the details of the tattoo across Kalu's chest. He is not as old as he was face to face, and not as young as he is on the electronic squiggles in his room.

"Come, Horatio," the howl says. "Come."

He is standing on the beach, holding a book closed against his side. He is wearing a white broad-rimmed hat droops in the sun like withered flower. A floral design sprawls across his chest and arms and back on loose-fitting cotton and it sways against his sweating skin in the surf's breeze, like flower petals tattooed to his body. He removes his sandals and lets the sand crawl and curl between his toes, lets his toes taste the sand. It had taken five hours from Tahiti on a small bi-plane floating quietly now in the calm lagoon waters.

"There is nothing here," Genevieve says. She's wearing a white dress with her hair pushed back into the body of her straw hat, she is wiping sweat off her forehead and looking around with a look of exasperation on her face. She didn't want to take make the trip to this island, but rather would have remained in their hotel in Tahiti.

"All this way, dear, and there is nothing here."

He is walking towards the edge of the jungle, the island seems much smaller than he had imagined it in his head, but then again he is facing the jungle and the treetops hide the rising mountain in the distance.

"There has to be something," he says. He stops at the edge of the beach where the sand blends into the dark volcanic soil. "Something in there."

"But we circled around the island five times," she says. "We didn't see anything."

He pulls the blue book with golden lettering out from under his harms. He opens it carefully, the pages are warped and yellowed, underlined and highlighted with a combination of delicate and malicious vigilance. A page falls out and flails around in the breeze like wounded bird, he snatches it and places it back in the book.

"It should be right here," he says. "On the southwestern shore of the island, in this lagoon. At least something should remain."

She sits down on a rock and fans herself with her hat. The young bronzed pilot is eating a sandwich in the plane, talking on his radio and not paying any attention to the two. They're just two rich American tourists renting planes to explore abandoned outlying islands, and he doesn't care about anything but the money for the plane and for his young wife.

Horatio rubs his hand across the soil, trying to remember that waking dream from all those years ago that was so much more than a dream. It was real, he was so sure of this, that it was real, but it was impossible for it to be real. Fifteen years ago he had finally told Genevieve about it, after five years of marriage, that what was haunting his dreams and waking him in the middle of the night smelling coconuts and the sea was the remnants of a real event. She laughed it off as fantasy, but time only forced his obsession to grow until it consumed all his passions and beliefs. He had made a religion out of it, and now his religion was crumbling in his fingers, like finding God to be just an old blind man who's shit brought life. It was a disappointment still numbed so he didn't feel it, just the soil in his fingers.

But still, he thought, still, it could have happened. He could have been here, years ago. Why would there be any evidence, there was no time and he didn't have the skills to build monuments out of rock? And even so, the forest could have buried everything in a greened tomb, that no man will ever see even after this island is returned into the depths of the ocean.

"I want to go in there," he says. "We have to go in there, to make sure."

Genevieve doesn't stop fanning herself. She is in her forties and doesn't care for such reckless adventuring. She doesn't respond to him, either. She has already made her opinion on the endeavor known, and lacked the vicissitude to be pushed further than her sitting on the rock on the island five hours flying in a cramped seaplane.

So he steps through the sparse underbrush without her, the grasses slicing against his ankles and leaving small scraps that soon drip with blood. He hears her call out to him, but he ignores it. The air grows dense, trapped within the leaves and branches and the soft grounds around the palm trees that give in to tall bushes and delicate trees that he cannot recognize and identify--even though he is sure he has read about them, studied them intensely, but does not register. The air makes it hard to think, makes him feel dizzy, tranced, and he is stumbling now towards a growing darkness of overgrown vine and leaf.

"Where are you?" he says. He is calling for the little red birds. He is calling for the wild pigs that scruff up the underbrush and the remains of palm-thatched huts or stone-carved obelisks. He finds none of this, just the call of strange birds he can't recognize and the sound of a stream trickling in the distance. So he heads for this water, searching for some sort of path or route perhaps used by animals or surviving years of abandonment. People live everywhere, he thinks. Why wouldn't they live here, even if not the people from the book or his story, there must have been people here, once.

But the island wasn't charted. It shouldn't exist, but the pilot said that there were many small, uncharted islands. Or perhaps it was charted and just forgotten. Horatio would rather never be charted than to be forgotten, and he felt sorry if this was true. This was his island, he still felt like its creator, but it was becoming increasingly difficult living up to these assertions with the heat and density of the air, and the bugs biting at the drops of blood on his legs. He cuts away at the green with a machete borrowed from the pilot, and stops after a few minutes to take a drink of water from his canteen lying around his neck. The book feels heavy and soggy in his hands as a clump of wet leaves. But this island is larger than the others, he continues to think, and it must exist on some map besides the old faded one in the book that he stole from his college library so many years ago.

He arrives at the edge of a small stream that runs muddy and wild through a rough embankment. Recent rains have eaten away at the land, eroding it to a greenish-brown split-pea mush. He has yet to see anything remarkable, yet to see anything that felt right, felt like it belonged there. Maybe he should have looked for Bini. It was smaller, but more heavily forested. Or maybe he should have started at the northern end of the island, near the old volcano. There is supposedly a stone temple built on a rock overlooking the mountain. But would even that have survived the wildness of the jungle, the heavy rains and the destruction the mountain raged against the island all those years ago?

He is feeling lost, and does not remember which direction he has come from. He crouches to his knees at the edge of the stream and opens the book, looking for the map of the island. He realizes that the map is no longer correct, as a volcanic blast fifty years earlier had redirected rivers and changed the coastline dramatically, while submerging the entire northern part of the island. As they flew around it, he saw the damage. But what he didn't know was that Pa-Ula was not on the maps because that was not the island's name. Not anymore.

Heat and humidity are making it hard for him to hear, drops of sweat drip into his ears, and this makes him very dizzy. He gets up and starts back into the jungle again, this time not searching for anything but the way back, because he has finally grasped the futility of this search. But he can't find where he is going, the jungle has seemingly swallowed up his path and the sun dances around the sky drunken. The calls of the birds drift into human voices, and they begin to call his name.

"Horatio," they say. They are the voices of women. "Horatio." They mellow, become singular and daring. "Horatio."

"What?" he says, he speaks back to them, he stumbles. "What do you want? Where are you hiding? What are you hiding?"

"Horatio," the voice says, it is now a man's voice, a deep and bitterly happy man's voice. "This is what you get," it says. "This is what you get for following vague and false dreams, this is not your reality, Horatio, and you will die here in this fantasy of yours."

The voice no longer comes from the birds, but from his own mouth, as he feels loose and puppet-like, dragged along by strings from the canopy.

"You could have been happy with what I gave you, Horatio," he says. "But you couldn't give it up. You had to be stubborn, you had to ignore what I gave you and what I showed you and what I wanted you to have. You would have been so happy, and you wouldn't be dying alone in a deserted jungle with your wife sitting on a rock. You could have been in her arms."

Horatio tries to respond, but his own voice won't come, only the sound of birds.

"You want to live, right? You want to be home and happy, right? Then give this up, Horatio. It is all a bunch of lies, it is all here just to confuse you and make you miserable. Give it up."

He wants to give it up, he tries to say he will give it up. He pleads as he falls into the dirt, grass slicing his face. He could go back home, live happily with his wife and children, run his business, be a good person to the extent that he can.

"I can give you all these things back, and you can be happy. Because," he says, "that is all I really want to do. Is to make you happy."

Horatio nods.

The car sits in the middle of the road, has barely missed hitting a green Taurus. Horatio is in a daze, he lets the wheel go and the car doesn't move. The book is still sprawled out on the ground, opened to the image of Kalu standing at the water's edge.

"Kalu," he says. "I'm sorry." He feels something between his toes, and then something drip down the side of his nose. It drips down his face and onto his coat, forming three dark spots within the dyed blue surface, a maroon triplet smudge. He touches his face and finds a cut above his eye. He's hit his head against the steering wheel, but doesn't remember it at all. He can still hear the echoes of the other voice, can still feel the words rubbing the edge of his lips, but no ghost remnant of heavy hard thud of the plastic wheel against his forehead.

There is a rapping at the door, a light knocking. All he sees is a thick layer of smoky condensation all around him, the drips of blood come down his face as he presses his fingers against the cut. Shadows moving behind the smoke, drifting thin shadows playing out like figures of people or maybe puppets, and the blood tastes metallic and old on his tongue. He is looking at the shadow at the window, looks to it and smiles a broad, true smile that acts as an answer to the knock, but he doesn't move to open the window or the door or respond verbally or physically other than the broad smile.

"Hello," the shadow says. A slow drawl like not from anywhere around he was used to. "Are you alright? Hello?"

He stares away from the window and looks at the windshield and notices other things are not what they should be. The front of the car is crushed in cynical heap of pressed plastic, like crushed watermelon rind, blue watermelon rind. Oh, he think, this is something alright, something alright indeed.

"Make you happy," the ghost voice whispers in his memories. This isn't happiness. Yes, no pain here, not from the slit along his forehead that the blood pours out thick paint down the skin, dying it red like the color of what's on the inside hiding from the air which is rapidly become colder and colder from the lack of the heat. The car is off. He removes the key without realizing it and places it in the passenger seat, as if ready to buckle it in, next.

"Hello?" the voice says, the knock comes again, then a face appears in front of him. The door may be open, but he isn't completely sure if it is or isn't, because a haze drifts over him, like he is covered in the grey condensed water on the window, the thickness of the wet perspiration of the temperatural difference, or maybe indifference. There is a young man looking at him, a fellow student, he sort of recognizes the face but not the voice, and the voice seems to be disembodied from the face and for some reason he wants to care but can't seem to find a way to do so.

"You don't look so good," the student says, like a doctor tells a dead patient.

"He's just trying to make me happy," Horatio says, the voice is his own, he feels it rise from the pits of the stomach and through the millions of brachial branches to the trachea and the back of throat where it speeds up and bounces off the uvula to tear across the tongue and finally streak from his mouth and gorge at the man's face ravenous from the journey, desperate for an ear and a soul to infest.

"We need to get an ambulance," the man says.

A registry activates within the center of Horatio's head, a virtual check-in center composed of thousands of small electrical sparks and chemical concentration differentiations, a crackle of activity small bombs bursting in carbonation. Out of there, the registry demands, out of there fast, flee from this situation, no more true than the sand now between your toes. But the registry was more like a mirror than the actual truth--the mirror shows us the what is, but in a backwards reverse. Looks so true without being so. The sand was real, the feeling of it between his toes was as real as the blood now dripping onto his blue coat, and the tiredness that he was beginning to feel grow around his eyes and head.

"I'm going to get some help."

But as soon as the man was gone, Horatio swings the door closed and takes the keys in his hand. They feel warm like they've absorbed all the heat from the engine and the combustion and are searing a silhouette into his hand. He thrusts them into the ignition and starts the car up, which does with a groan, and he is gone down the road in the thick falling fat flakes of iron flake-like snow, blood dripping slowly like a clotted stream. He was going home, going home because that was where the answers lie. Isabelle was there, and she was going to explain why he has been promised so much happiness, but has yet to feel or see it in anything he's ever experienced.

"I am not happy," he says out loud to the image of himself in rearview mirror. "I am not happy, and everything in this world is a pile of festering bullshit that only rots away in the sun until it either dries into dust or rusts away into a tepid stream of filth."

In this way Horatio begins to fight back.

IV (XXIV)

We dance to the fire

We dance to the sun

We dance until morning

We never ask why.

Bak lived in one of the larger communal long houses near the village center, built alongside the banks of the fresh water stream, NAME, that fed the village. He was an orphan, like Kalu, but lacked the benefit of a godfather such as Ka-puna, who could care and raise him and be someone to depend on. Bak's only family was a crazed ancient grandmother who long ago went blind and forgot her name, who wandered in her sleep and was often found crying over the forgotten dead faces of her past. Bak did not even know if she was his mother's or father's parent, or if she was even his great-grandmother, but he took care of her--feeding and washing and making sure she did not get hurt--and had taken care of her before he could even take care of himself. He was a good fisherman, a friendly rival of Kalu's, who would often accompany him out into the waters to fish for reef shark or fat tuna along the open trenches that grew so dark it was like they were floating over P. That was were the giant rays and monstrous whales roamed the water, and where if one was not too careful, they could lose sense of direction and never find the current home. If Kalu was the best fisherman among his peers, Bak was the best navigator. He had such an excellent sense of direction, always knew which way was home, and seemed to be able to predict the weather even better than Iluka. It was as if his spirt was completely aligned with the wind and the currents and the stars in the sky.

Bak idolized Kalu. He was his hero--a fellow orphan and member of the low caste, a fisherman and the son of fishermen--capable of rising above the weights life had placed around his legs, refusing to drown in custom and cultural perception. Kalu could be in love with the daughter of the priest. Kalu could live in his own hut, have his own boat. He could be best friends with the son of the wealthiest family, he could be happy and carefree and strong.

When all that was taken away from Kalu, Bak was crushed. He watched his hero crumble and vanish into the sea. It was very difficult for him. He lost all faith in a possible future where he too could be happy and defy the standards of his place in society. He just drudged along, as a net slowly dragging across the bottom of the dirt he walked, just doing what he did without thinking or caring only breathing. Hope lost, interest lost, a soullessness, an indifference to anything around him. Only eat, only fish to supply food for himself and his grandmother, only to sit in his place and not do anything other than what was expected. Rotting youth leading to rotting adulthood to rotting old age and eventually death. Maybe he would meet a woman and get married, but there were so few to choose from, and there were far better choices than himself. A hopelessness of himself.

And then Kalu returned. Like coming out of the water. Like waking from a long and painful sleep, finding everything back where it was in a true reality and those last few months never really existed. Like sprouting green from out of burnt embers, flowering bright red and yellow in a field of browned black death. Salvation of his empty soul, sparking a new fire. Burning once again. Living once again. And he wanted to make sure that Kalu never left again.

"You can stay with me," Bak said. "You can share my bed, I will sleep on the dirt, I do not mind. I can sleep with my grandmother. It gets hot and crowded and at night the snores will keep you awake, but it is a home. A roof keeps out the rain, the walls keep in the heat on cold nights. Please, stay."

Kalu said nothing. He was looking at the faces of two older men who sat outside the hut around a small fire. Their faces were burned from the sun, their black tattoos fading into the bronze of their skin, their lips frozen into sour expressions from years of frowning. They looked sad, lost in memories of their youths, knowing that these things are forever gone. They lacked the dignity that Ka-puna displayed, even with nightmares buried beneath. These were the faces of those forever damned to live as they always have, forever fisherman together in a communal long house, poor strong bodies with nothing to do but sit and remember the careless times when they were young men with dreams and desires. Everything was worn away from time and self-pity.

Bak's grandmother emerged from the house at that moment. She was a tiny woman, ancient swollen creases along her skin, two shriveled dried fruits hanging at her bosom, full of powder, her skirt dirtied and soiled from incontinence and forgetfulness. But there was a smile at her lips and her eyes danced with life and sparkled with the glimmer of the stars on the ocean. She was happy, lost in her madness and her old age, she was happy with what she saw, for each day was new and alive and a rebirth from the day before. Names mattered little, faces were forgotten, place and time were as unimportant. And her words were cryptic and full of a profundity only madness creates. She walked up to Bak and started to speak.

"The sun is so small, I tried to catch it and hide it, but it was too slippery for my fingers," she said. Her voice, joyous and strong, loud and boisterous. "But it did tell me that someone was coming. Are you this someone?"

"Grandmother, it is me, Bak. Do you remember Kalu? I've brought him to stay with us."

"Kalu burns but is not as hot as the sun," she said. "It is also much easier to catch, for it does not run away when you chase it."

"She is a good woman, Kalu," Bak said. "She means well."

"She is very charming," Kalu said. He bowed politely to the old woman. "I will be very happy staying here."

"Good, good. Now, as for your pig," Bak said. "She is in the back, I had to tie her up to a tree, but she seems quite happy."

"Pigs, people, birds, gods, we all have to shit, sometimes," Bak's grandmother said. Then she wandered back to the house, humming to herself, and stopping every now and then to test the dirt with her finger.

Wee-ting was sleeping in the shade of a broad palm, but smelled Kalu's approach instantly waking and grunting and crying happily. She seemed to have recovered from dehydration and the sun much faster than he had, thanks part to the shade he had from her basket on the boat. Kalu stared at the pig for a moment, it desperately tried to escape from the rope and leap into his arms, but he did not move closer.

"She is very important to me," Kalu said. "I've already lost everything else. My family, my home, my love, my wife, my soul."

"Come now," Bak said, and placed his arm on Kalu's shoulder. "There is no reason to lose anything else. And you have so much to gain." He didn't want Kalu feeling despondent. He didn't want to lose him, and was already afraid that Kalu was too far gone, that he could never truly return.

Kalu stepped forward, and bending down, lifted Wee-ting into his arms. The pig was so happy that it urinated all over Kalu's arms.

"And you didn't lose everything," Bak said. "I have to show you something."

They were sitting on Kalu's canoe, drifting out into the water. The bow slicing through the water like a sharpened blade. The wind filling the sails, pushing them further away from shore. Kalu was examining his father's squid hooks, delicately carved from a fine piece of smooth black rock his father had found while diving off the western cliffs near the base of Aula as a child. They were his father's pride and joy. Kalu carefully tied them onto the nets, using great care and precision as to not tear the rope. Then he rested against the hull and stared out into the water. Bak had hidden them--had hidden all of Kalu's family's precious possessions. His father's hooks, spears, the ceremonial masks and his mother's trunk, her necklaces and bracelets, and the rusted old revolver that no one but Kalu knew about that his father had found in a wrecked ship in the shoals. Bak was afraid someone would steal them in Kalu's absence, and so buried them, secretly, to the north of Kalu's hut in a small clearing in the forest.

"Why?" Kalu had said.

Bak misunderstood the question.

"These are important to you, and when you returned, I wanted them to still be here, and not in the hands of thieves."

No, Kalu had thought, why do you care?

"I want to tell you about Bini," Kalu said, still looking out into the ocean. "You have been so good to me, and it is the least I can do. I want to tell you about what happened there, about Susan and Wee-ting, and then about why I have returned."

He had been thinking carefully about it all over the last few days. Susan's face would haunt his dreams, she would be smiling at him, speaking to him in her language, words all jumbled and thick with heavy sounds he couldn't understand--as it had been in the beginning. But he understood what she meant. "You have to tell them," she would whisper, her voice caressing his face, fondling the hair on his head. "You have to tell them about what you saw, about how it's all over, about how everyone can be redeemed."

But he would say back, "There are those who should not be forgiven."

And she would sadly shake her head. "No. Everyone. The past is just that, the past."

He often woke, sweating and nervous and unsure of what he should do, how he should start and if he even could.

When they drifted back into shore--they had not fished at all--they dragged the boat into shore in complete silence. In silence they folded up the nets and the sails and tied the boat to anchor. In silence they walked away from the beach and down the path towards the village center. Then Bak finally spoke.

"Everyone needs to know. We need to tell them."

"I don't know," Kalu said. "People are afraid of me, I can see it in their eyes when I walk past them. They whisper about me, behind my back, and I can feel it under my skin. They distrust me. People I once thought friends ignore me."

"But," Bak said, his voice trembling from excitement. "But they have to know."

They walked past the path towards Ka-puna's hut, and Kalu stopped. He looked up the hill, followed the dirt with his eyes. It seemed darker up there, black and full of grey shadows waiting to swallow with mouths of snakes and sharks.

"I don't know if I can do it," Kalu said. "I don't think I have it in me. I don't know if I can forgive."

That evening, Kalu was sitting outside, his back against a rock and sitting alone in the dirt away from the fire and the old men who muttered to each other in incomplete sentences and tired nods waiting to die. Bak had accepted it all, the sad haunted Bini, the great fire in the horizon, the vision of the three-faced fish, the meaning of it all. Bak did not question, did not doubt, accepting his words like water to dry lips.

Kalu stretched out his legs, pointing the tips of his toes towards the village. He could see the dull lights of fires and torches from behind the trees and glowing around the edges of the grassy hill that separated this hut from the village circle. He was startled by a voice.

"A little bird flew into the house today."

Bak's grandmother had wandered out of the hut and was standing behind Kalu. She waddled out and stood at his side, a bright and cheerful smile across her face.

"It was a bird I haven't seen for so long, and it frightened me at first. But then I was so happy, because it sang so sweetly and I remembered it from when I was a little girl. A messenger had come, it sang. To to tee, so pretty, to to tee. It told me that things were changing, that old ways would disappear, and the ancients would stir and cry and in the end there would be either sadness or supreme joy."

Her smile still did not fade as she turned and walked towards the hill, taking such slow steps that it seemed that it would take until morning to cover even a short distance of ground. But soon Bak was at her side, turning her gently back towards the hut. The old men watched without curiosity, scratching their old skin and coughing every now to make sure, sadly, that they were still alive.

"Wait," Kalu said, standing and walking over to help Bak. "Did the bird say anything else? Did it say what these messenger had to say?"

Bak looked at him, a mix of desperation and annoyance, as if pleading for Kalu not to encourage madness from the old woman.

"You already know," she said, laughing, cackling like bursts of fire were coming from her chest. "Why ask such simple questions?"

When he told the other fisherman down at the beach the next day they laughed at him.

"Kalu, what has happened to you?" They said. "Have you gone mad?"

"But it is true, I saw it," he said. "We are no longer bound by the old ways and customs. We no longer have to resign ourselves to some preconceived fate!"

"You must have drank from the ocean, seeing such visions," they said. "Why would they gods reveal their plans to a poor and starving fishermen? Iluka has said nothing of this. He is the medium, he is the only one who can speak to and understand the will of the gods."

"But listen, friends. This message was meant for everyone, not just for Iluka. You remember the old stories, how Aula promised to free us all from the bonds the gods set us in--"

Long ago, Kings ruled the world. Strong and wise and brave, these great men were the descendants of gods and giants and demons alike. They ruled justly and fairly, and the land flourished and the sea boiled over with fish, and everyone was healthy and prosperous. This was a time when the gods still walked upon the earth, battling each other for power and supremacy.

Within the great kingdom, all men were equal and were free from caste and bondage--free to marry whom they wished to marry, free to be farmers and fisherman, to be priests and weavers, warriors or storytellers. This was known as the great golden age of the world and no one died from old age or disease or hunger, but died when they were good and ready to travel onward to P. This was also a time where men and god did as they liked, without much regard for each other.

One day, Su-fala-su (whom now forever sleeps), grew weary in his place in the heavens, and came down to the kingdom and asked the King for entertainment. The King rounded up all the greatest dancers, the greatest singers, and the greatest musicians, and they performed their finest melodies and danced their finest dancers, but Su-fala-su (whom now forever sleeps) yawned and grew bored.

"You test my patience," he said.

So the King gathered all his greatest warriors, and had them perform feats of courage and daring. They dove down to the bottom of the ocean and fought sharks demons for their treasures, climbed to the highest peaks and fought the lords of the birds for their great eggs, and then had them present these great gifts to Su-fala-su (whom now forever sleeps). But he tossed them all aside.

"This pleases me little," he said.

The King's patience had grown thin. He sent in his finest storytellers, his greatest weavers, his most expert craftsman, and had them all try to satiate Su-fala-su's (whom now forever sleeps) boredom. But they all failed.

"What is it that you wish for," the King said. He was exasperated. "I have done everything that I can to make you happy. I have shown you everything my people have to offer. Even the oldest and most ill-tempered of men would have smiled or delighted in what I have shown you today. There is no pleasing of you, is there? Why should I even bother, I am the King, and cannot waste any time further entertaining the stubborn fancies of the gods."

This angered the god, and he looked upon the King with such rage.

"How dare you speak to me in such a way," Su-fala-su (whom now forever sleeps) said. "Do you dare equate yourself on the level of the gods? I have punished many for much less than what you have done."

The god rose up to the heavens, and unleashed thunder and lightning and great rains to flood the land. And the people were afraid and cried out to their king for help, but he could do nothing. And then he was struck down by lightning, and the people were afraid because death had entered the land. So they cried out to the gods, and Aula answered their call, and she convinced the king of the heavens to put aside his furor. The storms died down and the land was again calm.

"But," Su-fala-su (whom now forever sleeps) said, "In recompense for your King's foolishness, you are now at the will of the gods. In exchange for peace, you must follow our bidding. And everything you do from now on is delegated by the gods. This is our compact."

And so he appointed a chief to rule the men, and he assigned castes to those left living, and the priests were now the only men allowed to speak directly with the gods.

"--and that we would again live as we once did," Kalu said.

"What you speak of is blasphemy," they said. "What you're doing is punishable by death, or worse."

"But I speak the truth."

But the fishermen mostly laughed, and left him on the shore. However, a few did remain behind. And they were interested, and wished to learn more.

So he told them again, of the fireball, of Aula's message, of how they were free to do what they wanted. If they no longer wished to fish, they did not have to. Their children could marry whom they were in love with, not whom they were equals with. That they could attend all festivals if they wished, that they could hold on to the best fish and sell their goods at different rates from each other. How they could wear ceremonial dress, get any tattoos that they wished, leave the communal huts for their own homes and raise crops and be happy.

And those that listened, those that believed what he said, those that stayed behind, their eyes sparkled with life for the first time since they were children.

The news of Kalu's message quickly spread throughout the island, but most passed it off as madness. The boy had gone through a lot, and was allowed a bit of leeway.

"There is nothing to worry about," Iluka said to his brother and the elders. "He's just a boy. I am sure this will soon pass."

"But if it does not?" Mawbot said.

"Then we will do what we have to. It would be a shame, though. I feel partially responsible for the boy."

"As you should. Why you ever let Lakula near him, I will never understand. But just make sure that he doesn't cause a lot of trouble. Especially if he is anything like his father."

Why had he let Lakula and Kalu grow so close? At first, it was out of respect to the boy's father, and to the boy's godfather. He always felt responsible for not standing up against his brother when the white men had come. And he had always felt great respect and fear for the doctor. But it was more than that, he realized. He had liked Kalu. He was a good boy, a strong kid and the son of a great man who defied everything that Iluka had stood for, but whom was still great and earned his respect. And then there was the sadness and extreme anger in Kalu's eyes that made him feel so guilty and empty and hateful of his own past actions. But when Kalu was with Lakula, that look was gone. He seemed so happy. Free from the burden of all that loss weighing him down like boulders. Yet it was Iluka's own self-interests that got in the way. Kalu had become friends with Alak as a child. Alak was always sick and in Ka-puna's care--it was only natural for two boys of the same age to become friends when in constant company. And he wasn't really sure of Alak, at first. That boy seemed to be a little too interested in Kalu, but when he suddenly wished to have Lakula as his wife, Ikula couldn't pass up such an excellent offer.

But the guilt returned, and had been haunting him since Kalu vanished. It haunted him even more since Kalu's return. He wanted to give the boy some slack, he had already done more than enough damage to the boy's life.

"I'll keep a close eye on him," Iluka said. "I won't let things go too far."

Free from the powers that be to preach to the masses, but not free from harassment and mocking from those who did not believe, Kalu spoke his message. Often times with Bak at his side, or Wee-ting crawling around his feet, he spoke to the old men and women around the evening fires, or the poor farmers indentured to Talak's land, and to the young children who suckled their mother's breasts as they prepared dinner for the evening. And slowly, more and more people listened, and more and more people found hope in Kalu's words. But the more people listened and believed, the more people listened and grew angered at his words. By the time that the great festival of the marriage of Ano-pa and Kinilu came around, one year since Kalu fled, there was much rumbling within the hearts and souls of the people of Pa-Ula. The patience of all were slowly waning as the moon grew full and fat.

V (XXV) Thursday

What is it, darling.

Why wake with eyes so open

Eyes so white, eyes so full

Of the nothingness that awaits us?

She is sitting on the couch eyes closed and distant from the world around her with the fantastic beauty that he sees. She is sitting with her eyes closed in his clothing that does not fit her properly, the collar of the shirt dipping low enough for him to see the tips of her breasts, which are not very large but with nipples like small olives on olive skin. However this image wanders beyond sexual and into the realm of pure esoteric beauty, like a nude painting or sculpture of captured pure essence of what humanity collectively and subconsciously recognizes as absolute beauty. Beauty so spectacular that it overwhelms and dulls sense to something else--to appreciation and wonderment. A moment of sexual fantasy and perverted lusting over something like with such perfect beauty of those breasts de-objectifies it all into true meta-beauty, transforming any attraction into a recognition of true absolute beauty that the mind can no longer register as sexual. She opens her right green-irised eye, jade lost in ivory, and looks at his reddened cheeks and reddened blood that has caked around his forehead. But her words ignore this, and mystify him further.

"Oh," she says. Ecstatic energy forcing wonderful chemical pleasures. "I guess it's time for some sex."

A day later, when he sees her lying lifeless and spread out like feathers of a bird in the frozen-over well in the park--like the dead duck--he remembers the combination of childlike innocent playfulness, and a lustful honesty of her statement. He never felt as excited as at that moment when the most beautiful creature in the word propositioned him for sex, and when he at first, remarkably and honorably declined. There was something impure and corrupting about making love to something like Isabelle.

"No," she says, "I insist. I need it, right now. This isn't something you can object to."

And in that way the argument is settled, and the two go into his room and closed the door to the quietness of the empty apartment and did what she had wished to be done. And all that he could think off through the entire spectacular act was that this was making him really happy, happier than he could ever be again. But he felt that the invading voice that had hijacked his air and his mouth was not responsible for this, but he himself was still like a passive observer. There was a relation--it was like he was in control of himself as they made love, not an empty shell filled with foreign life, but that there was no physical feeling, just immense overwhelming happiness. And laying in bed with her perfect body sprawled out on his sheets, was like laying next to Venus or Helen or some great phantasmal beauty that he knew he had conquered, but did not feel it. It was a completely different experience than what it should have been, it was like they had not performed the act in his bed in his apartment on this Earth, but in some nonexistent other-bed in some other-world that his Earthness was not a part of. A meta-Horatio making love to Isabelle--she was beyond the corporeal and he felt like a used condom lying in the garbage. But a happy one.

"Thanks," she says. She sits up and puts back on his shirt. "I really needed that."

He doesn't know what to say, because he is still unsure that it had happened, and can't imagine that she could possibly be satisfied. Yes, he is happy, he had felt happy the entire time, but it is an empty happiness. A false happiness, a pretender to happiness. Not true happiness. And he oddly doesn't remember how her skin felt, or how her lips tasted, or even what her body smelt like. Only know does the sense of smell return, a mixed smell of soap and sweat and blood. Then there is a pain from his forehead, and he remembers the accident.

"What happened?" he says.

She is sitting at the edge of the bed, naked under the large shirt.

"Is that meant to be a compliment," she says. She is grinning wide like she's in on some joke. "Anyway, I really should be going."

"Wait," he says. He quickly slides out of bed and puts on some pants. She stands and watches him, the shirt falling to the top of her thighs. "I have some questions, you need to answer them for me."

"Oh?" she says, pursing her thick, flowing lips and leaving them that way. "I don't see how I can answer anyone's questions."

His mind struggles to put the questions together: the feather, the images and flash-forwards and why she was in them, the way he felt as they had sex. Everything collides into everything else, tripping over the throbbing pain dipping deeper and deeper into his thoughts, tripping them like extended legs. Something sifts out of the muck like a lonely flake of gold.

"Why doesn't Bob like you?" he says.

"Because he's just like me," she says, walking to the door. "I think my stuff is dry. Thanks for the soup and the sex."

"What do you mean?" The pain makes him feel dizzy.

"Now, Horatio, where would the fun be in that."

He tries to argue further, but can no longer stand up. He sits on the bed and then falls face first into the sheets as his knees buckle. He looks up at her, and she smiles to him like a guilty thief. He can't understand why his legs feel so weak, why his body is buckling under its own weight. He wants to tell her that something is wrong, he feels lightheaded and empty like all his energy is escaping from his pores and hair follicles. The color begins to fade and the world grows silent and still around him as he passes out.

There is blackness, a still blackness and cold wraps around his body like the snow outside, like he is buried beneath black snow compressing against his skin and against his chest and eyes and filling in his ears. He is trapped within his thoughts surrounded by the cold, discomfort, his blood freezes and his skin cracks chunks off in layers. There is an urgency to his thoughts. One thought in particular, and it blasts through the darkness slicing into it and giving it substance. Frantic blasts. Frantic substance.

"You are crazy," he says.

"No, I am not," he says.

"Out of your fucking mind crazy."

"I can't be. I can't be crazy."

"Then explain it."

"I can't."

"I can," a third says. A third who is not Horatio, coming not from within but from the darkness. A familiar voice, a calming and soothing voice. "The real world is a lot more real," he says, but isn't given enough time--

Horatio's eyes open and she's gone. He can't even remember her in his arms.

It's the early evening, and Dell is standing in the open doorway, staring at him behind his glasses that sit as shadows around his eyes.

"Dell," Horatio says, he's drooling on the sheets, encrusting them further. Mix of sex and sweat and saliva.

"Horatio, are you okay?" Dell says, his voice is low and serious. There is an nervousness to it as well. A guiltiness. But this has nothing to do with Horatio. "Your car is a mess, I saw it in the lot. The whole front looks like someone's gone at it with a sledge hammer. What happened?"

"I think I got into an accident," he says. "I also think I didn't report it to the police or exchange insurance or anything."

"That's great."

"I think I hit my head, too. Maybe I should go to the hospital or something. I don't want to, though."

Dell doesn't move from the doorway, he just looks into the darkness of Horatio's room, the light falling on the dirty polyurethane hardwood floor in an askew polygon of brighter dirty yellow. A blob of shadow attached to Dell's feet. Horatio cannot determine Dell's facial expression, only can make out glasses on the face.

"Do you want me to bring you to the hospital?"

"No. I need you to tell me if she is still here?"

"Who?"

"Is there a girl in the other room?"

Dell scratches his face and looks down the hallways into the living room.

"What's going on?" Dell says.

"Dell, I need a cup of coffee."

The coffee shop sits on Broadway, the flow of listless teenagers dressed as punks and goths with their makeup and hair and smoking cigarettes along the sidewalk with nothing better to do don't pay any attention to them as they walk. The brick and wood buildings line up like a model set of a town, not the real thing, there is a false reality to downtown in the way that a deli lodged between two wine art galleries selling a seven dollar pastrami sandwich can only make it feel.

The snow gives way to a clear cool night, warmer than the afternoon enough to melt most of what stuck to the ground into a thick brown sludge of city dirt and transportation commission sand. A gritty slurry coats sneakers and boats and tracks across welcome mats and wood floor. Tobin is there behind the coffee bar arranging cups like it is important and needs to be done, chatting with another employee, a young college-age girl with long or short hair in braids or shaven off with spunky flirtatiousness and an overly active left-wing imagination, or drunk. Horatio isn't paying attention to who it is, doesn't even look at Tobin though he will get his coffee for free, he just needs to think and the caffeine will do him more good than a hospital.

"You look like shit," Tobin says anyway.

"Thanks," Horatio says. "Give me some coffee, and maybe I'll turn into a princess."

"If you want, I'll give you something that'll turn you into a queen," Tobin says, jokingly. Horatio doesn't appreciate it, he isn't in a mood to appreciate this type of thing.

"Yeah," he says. He says it like he doesn't care and he doesn't. Tobin's smile fades and he pours him a cup of coffee from a hot-pot.

"Morgan is pretty excited about you and Gen," Tobin says as he hands Horatio his coffee. But he stops short of placing the cup in Horatio's hand. He has noticed the cut on Horatio's head.

"Good for Morgan," Horatio says.

Horatio and Dell walk to a table near the back, an acrid pyramid of coffee bean bags line the wall. Horatio thinks about laying on them, but sits in the chair, Dell starts sipping at his mocha.

"Something is wrong," Dell says.

"I think I'm going crazy," Horatio says.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Horatio smells his coffee but does not drink it. He places the cup back down, and speaks quietly. He thinks about their friendship, they lived on the same floor in the same dorm their freshman year, they went to the same parties and traveled in the same group of friends. They started hanging out near the end of the year, along with Tobin and later Prescott, and Horatio always enjoyed Dell's company. Dell is funny and lively and strange and different then himself. That is what Horatio like the most. Dell is on the immature side, makes bizarre off-hand comments about things and has an unhealthy love of porn, but is always there and up for some drinking or video games or whatnot.

"Things haven't been all right," he says. "This week. Fuck, this week has been completely fucked."

Dell sighs, smiles, and takes a sip of his drink.

"Does this have something to do with Genevieve. She called, by the way. Oh, so did your mom. And Bob. There were a whole bunch of calls for you this morning--"

"No--yes. I don't know, it has something to do with Genevieve, but not really. Man, I can't explain it without really seeming crazy. That's why I have to be crazy. Like, sometimes, when I with Genevieve, she's not Genevieve, but someone like Genevieve--like someone I've always pictured being with. Beautiful, wonderful, smart, loving, you know."

"People can get more attractive the longer you know them."

"But it isn't the real Genevieve."

"Okay."

"No, you don't understand. It isn't really Genevieve. It is the Genevieve that I would love to have, as if she was remade to what I think is best in a woman."

"I don't understand."

"She's like a dream Genevieve, at times. You know, when you are sleeping and there is someone in your dream who you know but they don't really look like that person, but you know it is that person. That was what it was like."

"I'm worrying here."

"And this Genevieve is in both futures that I've been in but then there was Isabelle that was still young--so those must have been dreams."

Dell sits and says nothing. He just stares at Horatio with his drink in his hand and his mouth tilted slightly.

"And then there was Kalu, who I actually saw and talked to and was sitting there on the beach with him, and the book. The book! And Isabelle."

"Let's take you to the hospital," Dell says. His face pales. "That cut doesn't look too good, anyway. It's turning green."

"Isabelle-- you didn't see her leave, did you? Did you see her? She knows what's going on."

"I don't know any Isabelle. Come on, let me take you to the hospital."

"No, we have to go to the park, Dell. We have to find her. We need to talk to her. She can tell me what's going on. She knows." He gets up, leaving Dell and the coffee at the table. "Come on! Let's go, fucking let's go."

Dell, holding on to his mocha, reluctantly follows, slipping between the line of people forming at the coffee bar, waves to Tobin, giving an apologetic shrug before heading out the door and onto Broadway. Horatio is already a half-block down the road. Dell jogs over to his side.

"Slow down, Hor," he says. "We should really get you some help."

People bundled in coats trudge in his way. They turn heads.

"No, we gotta get there. We have to catch her."

"Her?"

"Isabelle," Horatio says. He says it like Dell should know better. Says it like Dell is an idiot for asking.

"Who is this Isabelle? Have I met her before?"

"She sometimes lives in the park. She's blonde and wears a big green coat."

Dell attempts a new approach:

"Is she hot? That's the important thing, Horatio. She's not some old crazy bag lady living off beer bottles and coke cans and sleeping in the park to support her crack addiction, is she?" Dell says. Horatio doesn't care if he is trying to liven up the situation or is being simply serious. He just needs Dell to be there, to be the start of some sort of foundation. If Dell meets Isabelle, and Dell sees what Isabelle is, then that means Horatio isn't crazy.

"No. She's young, beautiful, perfect, and absolutely nuts."

"Sounds like my type of girl," Dell says

"And she has the answers. She just won't tell me them."

"That's great," Dell says as they approach the park's entrance. The Broadway entrance is a large stone and metal gate, a paved road runs up towards the Casino in the center of the park. The path is clear of melting snow, but the grass itself is still coated with a light frosting. There is a pavilion near the entranceway, a white wall-less building housing one of the spring fountains that taste like sulfur and calcite--like water from hell.

There is a glow around the park, the lights pushing through the rising steamed humidity of the melting snow like soft fat fireflies. The park is empty--the snow and the cold air have driven away potential evening strollers. Horatio directs them towards the koi pond, but there is only two huddled ducks hiding under a bench. The Italian Gardens is empty, the ponds abandoned and barren of human activity. They are the only two people in the park.

"She has to be here," Horatio says, they stop in front of the spring, the water is bubbling out of the tap and filling the air with its sulfuric odor. "She's gotta."

"Horatio," Dell says. "Come on, I don't know how to deal with this. Let's go to the hospital." He places his hand on Horatio's shoulder. Horatio pushes it off and heads back to the park's entrance.

"Fine," he says. "Let's go."

"Excuse me?" the customer says. He's more confused than offended. "I said I would like the three bean salad."

"Three bean," Horatio says, realizing where he is. The smell of putrid fermenting bean flesh and burnt enchilada and the vision of the dirty front window and all the tables and impatient customers between. "Three bean salad."

"Thanks."

Horatio stares at the customer--a plump man with white hair and a beard and sweat forming around his forehead--as the customer stares back at Horatio.

"You're making me feel uncomfortable," the customer says.

"You don't say," Horatio says.

VI (XXVI)

Like the sway of air

Like the sway of hips

Like the sway of the ocean

Like the sway of men's hearts

It was the day before the festival, the villagers were readying the great feast, the fisherman had spent the entire night before bringing in a great number of bonita and shark as was custom. The women tied together great strands of Ma-tu-nai-lu around the village, coating the trees in the center with the fragrant flowers. They painting great swirling Ikol-nai on the huts, and on great banners that hung from the trees and roofs. Rows of Ma-tu-nai-lu led down to the beach south of the center, where the festivities were to take place. A great bonfire pit had been dug out, and a fat wild boar was already slowly cooking in the glowing embers, and would continue to cook all day until the sun set and the festival began. The people hummed the festival songs as they worked, they sang them to each other with great smiles and moved lively and with more energy because this was a great and important day. They were all hungry from fasting, and the singing and the readying of the island. They smelled of ash and funerary incense, for they had been praying to their dead, leaving fresh idols on the altars, covering them with flowers and crying in songs of remembrance.

Kalu did not participate. He fasted, out of respect to his parents and his sister, and he covered the remains of his old hut with rocks that he had carefully collected from all over the island, marking their burial place and creating a new and great altar for their memories. But the altar was not just for them, but for Susan, and those that she lost that he refused to know. And it was for all those lost from the disease the white men had brought. And it was for all the lives and souls lost on Bini, devoured and trapped forever within the bodies of those still living. Bak helped him place the rocks, and helped him cover it in flowers. But others also helped. Kalu would return to the altar only to find the entire area blanketed in Ma-tu-nai-lu, and other, smaller towers of rock assembled in the clearing. A few years later, a great monument of rock would be erected in the spot as a reminder to all the dead who gave their lives to the pursuit of the Free Path. It would serve as the ritual point for festivals, and where the surviving islanders all were eventually buried. It became a holy place, the spiritual center of the entire island.

It was called the Free Path. That is what Kalu called it, the path of life free from the bonds and desires of the gods. People would come listen to him talk about the future, about how they could all change their lives, create a new society where all men and women lived in respected happiness.

"We must put all these false masks of society behind us," he said at a secret meeting on the beach one dark evening. There were almost thirty villagers in attendance. "For example, the upcoming festival of Ano-pa and Kinilu is great, because we can all come together and express our happiness and our devotion to Pa-Ula and everything that makes her what she is. But while all this is good, there are those aspects of the festival that are not. The marriage ritual is arcane and detrimental to everything that is the Free Path. One only has to announce their intentions, and the priest, through "divine mediation," is the only other deciding factor. That means only one person has to consent."

He could speak no more, for his emotions were raging, his ears were red and stinging with the reminder of Alak's betrayal, of his great loss. He let them discuss this among themselves, listened to them debate the issue, listen to them question everything that previously they were not allowed to. And he grew relaxed, and he grew happy, and grew confident that this was the right thing.

Yet, while he lay in bed, thinking about everything that was happening, everything that he was saying and the things people were beginning to believe, he questioned himself. Was this truly the right thing to do? Did he really feel this way, or was he pushed by his hatred on some personal vendetta against those that hurt him. He hoped that he was right, he hoped that what he said was what he truly believed, but the doubts still stung in his chest like urchins.

Iluka, meanwhile, grew weary with Kalu's path, and while he once felt sorry and responsible for the boy's actions, he quickly became unsettled and irritated with the positive reaction Kalu received. The secret murmurings of cultural rebellion left him uneasy, and this anxiety was turning into anger. But it was time for the second greatest festival of the calender, the marriage of Ano-pa and Kinilu, the birth of Aula and the beginning of the harvest. This was the most important thing, and he rubbed fresh dye and paint to his mask, and cleaned his Aula-tanni with the care one would dote on a newborn baby. The anger settled into the pit of his stomach, taking the place of the food he denied his body. As he performed the rituals of the dead and consulted the bones and the bladders of turtles for divinital signs, he grew more restless and impatient. He would have to do something, he decided, before it got too late and he lost control of the situation. And he would do it at the festival, where everyone from both villages would be assembled to hear and head his words.

But there were other things to attend to. Earlier that morning the animals had acted odd, birds were strangely quiet one moment, than squawking and chirping and screeching loudly the next. Fish were seen jumping out of the water and onto the land, before being washed back into the ocean. Something was about to happen. Something big, and Iluka could not find any explanation but that the Gods were as unsettled as he was.

Ka-puna was sick. He knew he was dying, that he had the death that ate away at his body until there was nothing left by bone and blackened mush, like a rotten coconut. It was in his chest, and he coughed up blood and spent the evenings sweating from the pain. He had been sick for quite some time, but it had finally gotten bad enough that he spent most of the day incapacitated in the darkness of the hut. His body began giving in after he admitted the events of Bini to Kalu, as if he soul was released from torturous self-imposed shackles, and he no longer feared death because someone else knew. He had an assistant, a young boy a year younger than Kalu named Tul'uk, who was apprenticing, but the boy was lazy and afraid of Ka-puna, and did not learn as well as he should. And this was why he sent for Kalu on the day of the festival. And he sent an important message that he knew Kalu could not ignore, even if the boy no longer wished to see his godfather. He would come, Ka-puna was sure.

And it's in the way that all these things build up at once, like how the wind and the rain and the darkness gather into a typhoon. A powerful storm had formed around Kalu, and it was about to hit land, tear down trees and huts and shift the sands, and nothing would be the same after it finally wanders off shore and things become eerily calm. The Free Way and Iluka, Ka-puna's last minutes and the strange behaviors of the animals. And Lakula, on her way to bring something to Kalu, something he left on the island one year before. Something she found laying in the sand, within the depression of the canoe's hull. Alak watched her sneak away from the hut and vanish into the forest, and he followed her with his sullen limp. He knew where she was going, knew because at night her soft snores would suddenly fade and she'd start talking in her sleep.

"She is your wife," Talak had said to his son. "You must keep tight control over her. She is yours, and yours alone. Your property and she must obey your commands."

"But," Alak said, they were sitting outside his father's hut, Talak was sitting in a stone basin, and servants were pouring water over his head and washing his back Talak's.

"But? This is how things are. She must do what you say, and that's all. She is not Kalu's wife, she is your's. That is all"

But Alak could do nothing, because as much as he loved Lakula, he could not force his will upon her anymore than he already had. He let her morn after Kalu vanished, against the advice of his father. And he didn't know what to do now that he was back, even with Lakula pregnant.

So he followed her.

Kalu was returning from his family's altar when Tul'uk greeted him. The apprentice was chewing on the petals of a Ma-tu-nai-lu, not swallowing, but chewing and spitting out the remains of the petals. It was a strange habit of his, and one of the reasons why Kalu did not like him. His breath smelled of flowers.

"Ka-puna wants to see you," Tul'uk said. "He says he's going to die today, and he needs to give you something." He spoke as if the message was unimportant, clearly not caring about his job or his master. He then put more petals in his mouth and walked away back down the path, heading nowhere in particular.

Kalu found Ka-puna sitting outside the hut, coughing up blood into the dirt. He had dragged himself away from his bed and was sitting in his favorite spot against the tree trunk.

"I knew you would come," he said, his skin paled almost to green. He wiped his forehead and then tried to smile.

"You should be inside, laying down," Kalu said. "You shouldn't be moving around like this."

"Oh, leave this old man alone. I'd rather die out here than in that place. It smells of death in there, Kalu." He paused to cough, and spat more blood into the dirt. "It's always smelled of death, and I never liked it. Don't treat me like a child, I've been around long enough to know what is right and what is wrong. And you know how I've learned these things? Through experience, Kalu. I've done stupid things that I regret. We all have."

Kalu said nothing.

"But I wanted to ask you something. I wanted to offer you something, because you've seen that Tul'uk, he's lazy and untrustworthy, and the worst apprentice I have ever had. He's not cut out for it, Kalu. But you are. You've lived with me long enough to learn how to care for people, you know the remedies and the maladies and you are the best one suited for this job. Custom be damned, I'm not letting that Tul'uk kill those of us left who don't need to die."

"You're asking a lot from me," Kalu said. "There are already enough people around here who hate and mistrust me. Make me the village doctor and they'll burn me alive."

"Please, you must do this. I don't care if they cut you open and tie your intestines around a tree, you are the only one who can do what I have done for the last fifty years."

Ka-puna closed his eyes for a moment, and pressed his hand against his chest.

"I wasn't originally a healer, Kalu. I was a warrior. I did such terrible things, things I dare not repeat again. But I became a doctor to make penance to the souls who suffered and were lost and who haunt me constantly. By helping others, I hope that these souls were forgive me for what I have done. And that I would forgive myself. Helping people, Kalu, saving lives, this is what I have done for so long."

He opened his eyes, they were filled with tears.

"Please. You have a good heart, you've suffered enough loss to know what other people must feel when one that they love becomes sick or injured. If Tul'uk was left in charge, I couldn't imagine what terrible things would happen."

"Let me get you some water," Kalu said. But Ka-puna shook his head.

"Nak'aulan was such a good boy," Ka-puna said, tears streaming down his face. "So were you. Both became such strong, good men, even with so much suffering around you, so much working against you."

Bak found Kalu sitting outside the communal hut, biting his lip and rubbing his arms. Kalu told Bak that Ka-puna was dead, that his body lay within the medical hut and that he had told no one else. It was so sudden, he said, and everyone was so busy getting ready for the festival that they didn't even notice. He told Bak that he hated Pa-Ula so much, and that things were going to change, real soon. And that he was the new doctor, and would leaving Bak's hut to start work after the festival. He invited Bak and his mother to stay with him, if they wished.

When one died, it was standard to inform the priest so that he may begin the ritual to send the departed soul into P. The flesh must be removed from the bone, and the bones must be buried in the same earth they were born from. The priest would then call upon the souls of the departed's ancestors, who would help guide the dead into the gate of P. Without the priest's guidance, the soul would leave the body and search out for the entrance itself. It would almost impossible for it to find it, because the soul becomes blind and forgetful, easily getting lost within the realm of the living. The longer the soul wanders the land, the more it forgets until it becomes a ghost, a floating Itiki, and then it is too late for that soul to rest.

Kalu had to tell Iluka, but he was unsure if he could. But Ka-puna's sad soul had to be put to rest, as did all the souls that his body contained. He wondered if they were all free, or if they would forever remain within Ka-puna's bones, trapped for eternity. Bak tried to comfort his friend as much as he could, but was unable to offer more than the same tired advice all receive when friends or family die. So he gave Kalu some space, and bathed his grandmother in preparation of the festival.

It was nearing dusk when Lakula walked up the path to Bak's long house. She was apprehensive about what she was about todo, she had known that Kalu moved there for some time, but had not seen or attempted to see him since that night when she left the flowers at his side. She held the ceremonial mat closely against her, like she would her baby. She thought about the baby, she could feel it inside of her, feel it grow and move and kick. She was starting to show it, her belly was round and smooth, but there was still some time before it was ready. She thought about the baby, and she looked at the mat, and she felt guilty. But, she thought, what is there to feel guilty about? She was just returning something to an old friend.

Lakula saw Kalu sitting out, alone, taking the seat where the old fishermen usually sat. His head in his hands and his legs folded up. He looked like a baby, a sad and forgotten baby. He looked up at her, his eyes wet and lonely and it was too much. She dropped the mat to the ground, and ran up to him, flinging her arms around him and crying into his shoulder.

"I don't want to live anymore," she said. "I tried to kill myself, but I couldn't. You were gone, and I wanted to go with you, and you came back. And I just don't know what I am supposed to do anymore. I love you, and always will love you. I brought your mat, the one I made for you. You left it behind when you left, and I brought it for you. I love you."

And Kalu put his arms around her, and they sat against the logs outside the long house as the sun set behind the trees and the gold and red and browns of the early evening draped them.

"Lakula," he said. He said nothing else. He smelled her hair, and felt the warmth of her skin, and closed his eyes and tried to remember how it used to be. Her, being there in his arms, everything else vanished. Then he tasted her against his lips--

Alak watched this from a distance, digging fingernails into hands in tight fists. He wasn't shocked, he wasn't sad--he was angry. Angry that Lakula loved Kalu. Angry that he could never please her, never get her to love him. Angry that the only way he held on to her was by force. And angry, deep down inside, deep beneath flesh and muscle, that Kalu was there. He had tried to replace Kalu with himself, and he could not. He was filled with a blind jealousy that he did not understand, nor could understand. Turning, he stormed off to the village center, to inform all he would meet of what he had seen. If he could not have Lakula, no one would. There were still penalties to infidelity in the island, though no one was aware that it was not always this way.

All set up, a membrane of bodies, a wall of bronze flashing fire against skin, tattoos black and rich spun circular Ikol-nai curved Aula-pai, the fire tall and feeding and growing in the night air. Stars hanging and shimmering and hidden by thick grey clouds that blued in the darkness of the early evening. In the center stood the shark. In the shark's hand stood the Aula-anni, the great carved stick of the ancients, rubbed soft and smooth by dozens of the hands before back into unknown forgotten times that only linger as dreams and songs.

"From the day the water touched the sky and the world shook and was born, and from the day the water touched the sky and the world opened its mouth and Aula was born, from this we are here."

Every year, every full moon before the greatest of harvests, the villagers all shouted in joy, giving in to the great bowls of kava that tasted like sweet dirt. Performing actions dictated by the fiery lips of the gods, commands that poured forth like heavy rains, like streams of boiling lava, like when the lava touches the ocean and caresses it and becomes black and hard and steam. Iluka rubbed dirt into his chest, tracing the fine black ancient symbols of his markings. As he had done countless times before--he was the shark demon, the intermediary between Ano-Pa and Kinilu who brought them together. Behind him stood the shadows of demons past, faded shadows wavering between the firelight and the sand. Phantom shadows imprinted on the new, silently following, silently moving as one.

"Let me tell you the story. There was Ano-Pa, the sky above that in ancient times was red with passion in love for Kinilu, the deep blue ocean who cared little for the wooing of the sky."

Two hundred sets of eyes follow him, more are on their way, he can feel them searching through the jungle paths and dark hut interiors. They search him out because he is what they have come for, he is the real fire.

Mawbot and the elders sit and watch, sit on special ornate mats woven by the fine fingers of old women who no longer see with their eyes. Sit away from the circles of dancing bodies. Dignified and revered, proud and ignorant like idols carved from wood. They neither smile nor frown, nor pay any true attention to Iluka's movements, they have seen it all before. They are there because they must be there, not because they want to.

Still, Iluka performs, his taunt skin pulls against his bones, sweat drips down his chest, falling from his face hidden under the mask, the heat of the fire and the heat of the mask rubbing against his skin and the warmth of the night air and the weight in his chest wrap around him like a snake and squeeze. He had trouble remembering the words, he had trouble remembering what to do next, and he finds that his legs have become wobbly and weak like wet strands of straw, wishing to sit above everything else, wishing to take a sip of water and to rest and sit. But he is the center of everything, and he cannot falter. He cannot. The moving bodies rotate around him like the stars roll around the Earth, perfect revolutions. Young men and women, two circles moving, older and younger behind sitting in the third.

Iluka no longer hears the words that come from his mouth, there is no sound but the buzzing of exhaustion. He sees the world in patches and blinks. Young faces flash by, and he continues talking, he has done it so many times that his body takes over for his mind. He sees Alak's face standing out from the circle. He sees it come through the circle. He sees it walk up to him, sees it floating, bodiless, floating like a jellyfish bobbing slowly in the air. It is a violation of tradition, one cannot break the circle, cannot stop the story. But there was Alak, anyway, at his side, speaking to him. But nothing seems to come from his lips but air.

Then everything stops. Mawbot is standing and speaking loudly, Alak speaks back to him, Iluka watches, shaking his Aula-anni, about to speak the next words, about to continue the story. But one word comes through, and then sounds barrel through the silence in one big crashing wave.

"Kalu."

VII (XXVII) Thursday evening

Her smile rhythmically wraps around my leg

Like a dying snake or poisoned ants

And the more I try to push it away

The tighter that smile gets.

"Well, Mom, I got into an accident. No, I'm okay. Just had to get five stitches, and they want to make sure I didn't suffer brain trauma. Car accident. Slipped across the ice. Yeah, it's been snowing up here. The car's a bit damaged. I hit another car. Yeah, he's okay. Scratched his bumper, that's all. Yeah, nothing else. No. No. Yeah, that's kinda an issue, since I kinda drove off before-- yeah. Well, I freaked out. Yeah, I talked to the cops at the hospital, and we've settled it all. As long as I give the insurance--yeah, they're not going to press any charges. Yeah-- yeah. As long as things go-- Yes. Since I was hurt and all. I freaked out--that's all. No, you don't have to come up and make sure things are okay. No--Dad doesn't have to--Mom, calm down. Really, Mom, please. Yeah, it'll be okay. Yes, I'm still working at the--why? I don't know, Mom. I like being able to spend my own money, I guess. We've talked about this before--please. It isn't affecting my studies. No--my grades are fine. I'm doing fine--Mom, I haven't failed anything, yet. Please. There is a girl--I don't want to talk about this now. Yes, I'm sure. I'm tired, Mom. Can we talk this over later? I gotta do some work, I have a presentation tomorrow. Yeah, I love you, Mom. Tell Dad I love him too. Yes. I'll send grandma a card. Okay? Alright. I love you. Bye."

The doorbell rings. Genevieve is at the door. It rings again--an unwanted vagrant noise soliciting dry ears. Horatio is sitting on the couch in a state of perfect nothingness from the painkillers that he asked for from the doctor, the painkillers he popped after the end of talk with mother. Mom. The television is off and he is staring at the blank set at the reflection of the lights of the torch lamp of the his right, and the reflection of the top part of his short currently untidy hair. The disheveled. Dell is across sitting in the chair holding an almost full bottle of beer balancing act on the right knee then the left. They say nothing as the bell rings again, a dinging that registers like a noise under water and Dell looks curiously at Horatio. But Horatio isn't paying attention to anything but the sad reflection of the top of his head. Everything else is slowly growing dense and soft and indifferent.

It is about nine o'clock, and on the next ring Horatio gets up--the hour itself calls to him and not the dual-tone in the hallway. He isn't sure what to expect to find, what version of Genevieve it will be, what attitude and body positioning, hair-style and makeup use. Whether it will be nervous, intense, stunning, flighty, or some unknown third apparition. The drugs make his body feel like he's lived four days in one, heavy sluggish movement through rug up to his chin. Makes the doorknob an intense brass idol, untouchable beauty of shine. A relic attached to some powerful gateway--the walls wobble around the doorway, afraid of it, afraid of where it leads to, what it is, what it represents, everything about it, alive, aware--Horatio stops right there. He holds his breath, touches it, the walls around him groan and pull back, they shudder. She is there, standing in the cold evening with a big blue jacket wrapped tightly around her like a bulletproof vest.

"Cold?" he says. It comes out of his without his permission.

"Actually, this coat is a bit too heavy," she says. And he realizes who this is. "Are you okay? Your head okay? Everything okay?" Her voice like a harp or a sweet violin string drawn long and delicately. She steps into the apartment, unzips her coat and hands it to him. "Now, let's get to work. I hope you can hold up, Horatio. This project is very important. Very, very important for both of us." She is holding her schedule book close to her chest, he is not sure where it came from, materialization is a possibility. "You look tired."

"I'm doped," he says. "Please forgive me."

"He is a dope," Dells says as he heads for the stairwell. "I'm going to my room. You two can use the living room."

"Oh, you live on the second floor," Horatio says. This doesn't feel right. "I didn't know he had a second floor."

"There is no second floor. He's off today," Dell says. "Knock him back on track. And make sure he drinks a lot of liquids."

"Mom?" Horatio says. "Get off my back, mom."

Horatio feels very warm, the air--the heat--is pressed against his forehead around bandage and around his chest and his arms and feet. He rides a wave into the living room, the carpet is his board, the hardwood floor is a puddle of brown liquid sloshing against the careening walls. The ocean is inside the boat.

"I probably shouldn't have washed that down with beer," he says to the couch, which flopping around the room like a puppy.

"Oh god," Genevieve says. "Horatio, are you going to be okay? Can you focus at all?"

"I'll try. But I need to lay down."

What had happened was this: they had returned from the hospital around eight o'clock, and Horatio was supposed to take the meds only if the pain was bad enough that it warranted it. And although it stung around the stitching as the anesthetic wore off, the pain was nothing worse than that of a bump. But then he decided to call home--opening a different type of pain that he quickly rushed to fill with stupidity. He loved his parents, he really did, he loved them to death. They were giving and caring and wonderful people to him, but for some odd reason, talking to them invoked all sorts of emotional cataclysms within him. His mother was like the Whore of Babylon shaking the foundation of Rome and sending it careening into a violent corrupted hellfire of a seven-headed dragon with big vicious fangs--his father. Oh, he loved them so much, they gave him the world, but when they talked to him about his life, it was like they were crushing it in their fingers, smothering him in its jobs and responsibilities and grades and girlfriends. It wasn't their fault, not at all. They just seem to love discussing the things that set him off the most, the things that identify himself as what he was, and what he was most unsure and disappointed with. Because, subconsciously, he was disappointed, a disappointment that was become more and more self-aware. He is self-aware. And for the first time, as he placed the pill on his tongue and the bottle to his lips, tasting the sour fermenting yeast excrement, he realized this. It was the culmination of so many things: the evening with Wendy, his story, the plasticity of Genevieve, visions, Isabelle, work. And it was overload. And he drank three beers. And now he was unsure if the television was on or off, and what exactly was addressing him.

"I did some of my own research, since you didn't show up at the library," the voice says. It could be Big Bird for all he knows. It could be the loose change in the couch that he fingers in the crease. "I found some good books, took some notes--I made some copies for you. It's a tribe of indigenous Guineans, okay? There was a lot of information about them, hunter-gathers who live in--are you listening?"

"Guinnessians from the island of Guinness who are strong from the strength they are given. Yeah, yeah."

"And I've started writing up the presentation. I even found some good photos that I've photocopied and pasted onto some boards. God, Horatio, what are you doing?"

He is trying to do a headstand into the center of the couch. He is balancing on his head, but his legs are curled up. He can't get them to extend. On his head, the world becomes right-side up. Things make sense.

"But what do I do? I feel so abandoned and left out of this all. What do I say about the Guinnessians?"

He feels a cool hand on his exposed back, a cool hand sending coolness down the strands of nerves in his spine, down to the base of his brain, down into the center of his brain, into the hypothalamus, to the central bundle of nerves and synapses that controls the chemical release of his body. She is in control of his hormones, this coolness from her hands directs them, produces more aldosterone, more dopamine, more progesterone. The balancing act becomes unhinged and he melts into the fabric of the couch, in between the stitches of cotton and nylon down into the foam underneath, discoloring it a pale Horatio. His organs have loosened, the cells displaced, their contents spilling outward, a puddle of molecules. And it's dark and smells like stale potato chips and ass.

"I am so disassociated with everything," the molecules that once made up his mouth say from various positions in the foam. "It is so very biblical. A blind sheep, you lead me, my dear shepherd. You lead me, the blind sheep."

The molecules grow unsteady in their composition, her control is absolute--electrons bounce away, releasing bursts of energy as they continue their strange fading in and out of reality, their dance of probability, seemingly random movement. The nuclei are disemboweled, neutrons and protons spill out like warm offal.

"What is there left for me to do? Did you even leave me bones? Even with the marrow sucked dry?"

Her power is infinitesimal, it probes the atomic parts, they swell and burst into quarks and liptons--no further, greater, deeper--neutrinos, strings, multidimensional supersubatomic spinning and vibrating and phasing in and out between matter and anti-matter and--

"Please, you're going to hurt yourself," she says. The surgeon says, the shepherd, the rabbi, the administrator, the care-giver, the worrier, the girlfriend. "It isn't completely written yet. We just didn't have the time to waste looking anymore. Please, sit up."

These words like super glue pulling it all back together again, a shattered fluid jigsaw puzzle hardening into mold from the heat and bonding strength of her words. And he sees her, a clarity bulges around her face, the glasses, the hair pulled back in two braids, the striking plainness. A rightness returns, and he sits up straight on the couch, and asks to see her notes. He quietly asks for her apology--he took medication, it was making him very loopy. He says he will try his best, try to focus, try to get as much work as he possibly can, done. But as they work he notices something strange about her. Something strange that he could possibly attribute to the medication, but something inside him said it was not that at all. She had no shadow.

Dell is in his room, he is talking on the phone to someone. They are planning to meet. This has been going on for several days, blossoming more and more with each conversation, each secret meeting, each touch and caress and physical contact. Something that is breathing life into Dell's hollowness. A hollowness he has felt for years and didn't realize was there, because he was never truly sure about himself. And like Horatio, he never realized that this lack of sureness even existed in the first place. But while Horatio's writing and gradual reassessment of himself through--for lack of better explanation on his part--madness were coaxing along his development, Dell required something less intimidating. One simple relationship with someone who seemed, at each further meeting, to be the keeper of series of keys opening him further and deeper. But he was sure this was love. However, in reality, it was all a rouse. On both of them. Blinders.

The girl is Delilah, who is supposed to be packing, since her visit ends on Friday. They will meet at the coffee shop. They will discuss their plans, what stupid things they may be willing to do in the name of what they both thought was love. A week and it's love to them.

When Dell discovered who she actually was the day after the party, he was shocked. He wanted to tell Horatio, but couldn't. He had seen her walking with her sister, and the resemblance was too obvious. However, it wasn't until a few days later that he approached her. She was with Morgan at a party he was at with Tobin, and they were formally introduced. She acted as if he didn't remember him, but she did. Later on, she approached him and the two snuck away without anyone noticing. They would meet several more time over the next two days in secret. They were slowly becoming Dell and Del, though neither wanted Horatio or Genevieve to find out. They are stupid and believe that both are filling their emptiness.

But this evening will be a big mistake, because It has grown much more powerful, and is taking many more chances than It should be. It grows more and more daring with each successful movement, and it almost time to pull the snare, even though Dell and Delilah would get in the way. It has to, because Horatio is becoming stronger--he is fighting It, and winning for the most part. A big move is about to be made that would shift everything in Its favor. And Horatio will give in and crumble--It is sure, It has never been more sure.

Once Horatio crumbles, It will be free. And It will become Him.

He can feel the blood on his lips, can taste it with the tip of his tongue, can feel it on his fingers, can feel the last beats of its energy pulsating through his hands, beating against his own blood. He can feel it in his body, rising to his chest, his neck, his face. Can feel it raging against his muscles, feeding like gasoline. The clash of stone against stone, wood against wood, rattling through his bones, his joints, aching his skeleton--vibrations of victory, of strength and power. He can see the flesh tear on their faces, reddened slices and slashes across the abdomen, leaking the insides--they can see their own insides, hold them against them, try to push them back in. Their skulls crush, their bones break, their bodies bend and twist and crumble under the swings of his arms. The rock is heavy. It's like sex. It feels so real, so alive, so wonderful, his heart rockets in blood bursts. Their faces frozen in taught agony, mouths open surprises. Their eyes tremble, look for escape, fear the death that he is. He grins in delight and they fall before him. He grins in ecstatic pleasure as they lay limp in bloodied piles. He grins as overwhelming numbness consumes everything but the need for more blood and more death, and more--

A child's head severs cleanly from the body, her sad eyes mixed with tears and blood look up at him from the ground. He is breathing heavily, he is sweating, he is tired and her eyes make him feel the aches for the first time. He finds he can't hold the adaze any longer, the handle slips from his fingers, and he is sitting on his knees, hands on his thighs, trying to catch his breath. Trying to regain the feeling in his body, the feeling in his mind, clear the fog, clear the madness, wipe the blood from his eyes, wipe the bits of death from his skin from his soul from the black world around him. It is evening, smoke fills the sky, blocks the stars, blocks them all from looking down upon him--upon all of them. There are noises--shouts, screams, crying, death--coming from everywhere, coming from the darkness of the jungle, the brightness of the fires, from inside his head, pressing against his skull, trying to get out.

"This is what it is like to live, my boy," someone says. He feels a warm, wet hand on his shoulder. It is his father's hand. "This is what it is like to gain power, to defeat the enemy, to stare victory and truth and embrace it. Death is life. You will understand, Ka-puna."

His father leaves his side and continues the hunt. There are not many left, and soon their bodies will be sliced and splayed and devoured by the brave and powerful warriors of Pa-Ula. Soon the souls of Bini will be consumed, and the warriors will gain even greater strength and vitality. Ka-puna sits, the girl's head stares at him. She is only slightly younger then he, her eyes wide open and still wet with life.

"This is what life is all about," she says. "To defeat the enemy, to kill them, to destroy them, to take their souls and punish them to a haunted eternity--life is about strength. Life is about power. Life is about the mighty."

He just stares at her.

"And there is nothing we can do, we are so helpless. We are only large insects, easily crushed. And just as easily we rise from the mud and shit and dead remains of others fresh and ready to die again. To dry up into thick piles of dust and join the wind."

He can't stop staring. She calls from the darkness and the fire. She calls and her voice is not hers. It is the voice of the gods, of the ancients and the mysteries.

"Life is all about death. And you humans are so helpless. The pleasures we get from your suffering--if only you knew. If only."

"Who are you?" Ka-puna says, his voice is so weak, it whimpers like dead wind.

"Who do you think I am?" the head says. "I am the forsaken, the hated, the distrusted, the mistrusted, the untrustworthy. I am the player of games, the player of minds, the games are souls and the minds are empty reminders of my hatred. And I will not rest until I fulfill my promise, and I will not rest until I get my vengeance, and I will not rest until every last man feels their own blood on their hands."

The dream is so vivid, he wakes in a warm sweat, and thinks that it is blood. Horatio is laying in his bed, the clock says almost a quarter past two. He has only been asleep for less than an hour, when by that time the medicine was a dull confusion and Genevieve's offer of staying the night was delicately declined. It was because she didn't have a shadow. It was because her glasses mysteriously vanished over the course of the night. It was because of only a slight, perceivable difference in her mannerisms--he did not want to see what would happen if given more time. He didn't want that. He needs a base, he needs some sort of reality, some unchanging thing that he can hold on to and be sure of.

He sits up. He cannot go back to sleep, not after such a dream. He gets out of bed and walks over to the computer. It is on, and he moves the mouse to wake it up. On the chair is the book, he had forgotten all about it, the thick dusty blue with golden letters. He holds it for a moment, and then sits down to type, unsure if to open it, if to read and see if Ka-puna existed as well as Kalu. If that dream of his was some sort of subconscious remembrance of a lecture or some show he'd seen on the Discovery Channel or PBS.

He looks up at the monitor. The story is on page 102. This fact is impossible, he has not written this much. He reads over the last few lines, pressing the book into his leg. These are not his lines, he did not make these things happen to Kalu. There was only one possibility that he could think of--Isabelle. She must have written all of this, but how could she have written so much in so little time. And then he reads this:

Kalu crouched, grabbing his ankles and swayed with the wind.

"So once we defeated their warriors, we continued. We killed their wives. We killed their parents, their children, their babies. But we didn't stop there."

Kalu couldn't think without hurting all over.

His dream, the words, how was it possible. Did she plant these ideas in his mind? No, did he write all this in some sort of daze that he can't remember? It was possible. He didn't remember writing the words, they did not seem like his words, but they were what he would have written. It was a mix of detachment and recognition.

"No," he says. He closes the file, he shuts off the computer, he stands up walks back to his bed, the book is still in his hands. He is tempted, he sits on the bed and stares at the book. Stares at the blue cover, feels the texture of the cloth cover, feels the bumps of the stitching. And then he opens it, turns to page one, and reads.

"We all do a little dance to the sky and touch the ground, twirl around and turn to dust," the words are his words, no, Isabelle's words. They mark the beginning of the book, and below it is not an anthropological entreaty on Pa-Ula, but his novel. He frantically turns back to the title page, almost tearing the paper from its binding.

Kalu, or How the God's Died, by Horatio A. Kurt.

His chest grows heavy, he finds it hard to breath, he pushes it off the bed and it slams down onto the floor, lays sprawled out. He can see the title in gold letters against the blue. He sees his own name pressed in gold, it impresses on his eyes, into his head, against his very thoughts.

"What is this?" he says. "What the fuck is this?"

"Oh shut up," says. "Just shut up, please. You're like a stupid fish caught in a net."

This is not a familiar. This is a something else.

"I can't believe that someone like you--it is outrageous."

"Why am I going crazy?" Horatio says.

"Because it's so easy," says. "So easy to make you suffer. I just can't help it."

Horatio doesn't understand. He thinks the voice is coming from inside his mind, but then again, he still refuses to believe this.

"Relax. Calm down, this isn't real."

"Perhaps," says. "Perhaps it isn't. But I'm tired of your whining, and I'm tired of your inability to take even the most straightforward and confrontational of hints. Just stop writing, give up on this. Your writing is what makes you made. Don't do it anymore, destroy what you've written, and just go back to what you were, before."

Horatio sits.

"Or it'll just get worse," says.

"Who are you?"

"Don't you already know?"

Horatio doesn't.

"You're no fun," says. This voice is deep and old and hiding an anger. It tries to sound playful, but it comes off as condescending. "The more you struggle, the more you question, the more you'll suffer. Just accept it all as it is, Horatio. Accept it, or go mad."

There is the smell of greasy Mexican food, and Horatio is standing at the counter, facing a growing line of irritated customers. Bob is standing, cross-armed, in the corner with a scowl branded across his face. Sweat dripping from his temples and cheeks puffed and red, his face seems coated in grease. He is larger than usual, or else Horatio is smaller. Everything is larger--he is so small and the counter is so tall, and the customer lumber around like impatient giants.

"Come on, Horatio," Bob says. His voice is thick like his throat is coated in melted cheese, his breath smells like melted cheese. "Help the customer, Horatio. Work."

Horatio tries to step away from the counter, but as he turns he faces the counter, as he steps back the counter steps with him. He closes his eyes and the counter is in his thoughts. The customers are in his thoughts. They are fat and angry and greedy and disfigured like walking meat. He can't do anything but serve the customers trapped in Shit Shack hell.

Outside the front windows is not the normal cluster of stone and wood buildings, but a clear blue sky, a golden stretch of sand, and the vast, calmly churning ocean. The glass ripples with a steady invisible breeze.

"Accept it or go mad," says.

VIII (XXVIII)

There once was one single stream,

There once was one single ocean.

There once was one single breath of air,

Then it all divided.

Iluka led a small group of warriors up the path towards the communal long house where Kalu stood with Lakula in his arms pressed against each other as lovers. Still sweating and panting and disoriented from the festival circle, he stumbled around like he had drunk too much sun. But he hesitated for a moment, he stepped back and leaned against a tree for support. He rubbed his face--the mask now hanging around his neck and heavily cutting its sharp corners into his chest--rubbed the dirt and the ash and the sweat off his cheeks and from above his eyes, swatting it away like flies. The others stop and stare at him, not moving, not speaking, eyes wide open and watching and waiting for a command or an order, because he looks like one possessed by a demon. Skin pale where dirt rubbed and removed.

"Go," Iluka said. "Go and bring them to me. I will go back, I will go back and rest."

They still don't move. Spears in hand, the moon broke through the clouds for a moment, illuminate the path in weak light and then fade back to shadow.

"I will go back to the fire. I will rest and wait. The gods make this so," he said. He babbled, he made up weak excuses for his condition. He didn't understand what is going on, he's dizzy and nervous and he couldn't put thoughts together to understand why.

"Go," he said. Ordered. They shrug and move on to the hut, leaving him in the dark path against the tree where he closed his eyes and waited until they were gone before exhaling. Trying to find a soft center, somewhere to relax into, find calm and peace. But his legs shake and he wobbled away from the tree, back towards the noise of the festival fire, where most of the island villagers wait and wonder what could be so great to disrupt time-honored tradition.

He tried to think carefully. He fell to his knees and closed his eyes and pressed his hand against his chest, attempting to concentrate. But he only saw the face of Alak, angry and demonic against the fire light. "Kalu and Lakula," he heard rumble through his head. It rumbled so greatly, traveling through his body and into his hands as they pressed against the dirt, made the ground shake and the birds wake from their sleep. If this was true, he thought--no, no, it could not--if it was true then Kalu would not be the only one to be punished. Infidelity had a stiff price, so the gods dictated long ago to his predecessors. The gods decided who married who, and to defy the marriage defied the gods.

He pressed against his knees, lifted himself back up and, shaking with the ground, shaking with his heart, returned to the festival.

They were found inside the hut, buried within each other in the far corner, in hidden darkness shadowed by shadows. They were dragged outside with strong heavy hands, forced down the path, pushed and pulled forward. Treated like guilty criminals, but feeling like free spirits. No guilt, snickering smiles across wet lips, hot bodies nearly steaming, eyes locked even when closed. Iluka was still standing by the tree, and when the group came down along the path, he shook his head and looked sadly at Lakula and said nothing.

When they get to the festival grounds in the groomed sands of the beach, everyone grew quite, music ceased, dancing halted, all eyes turned to the two escorted marching proudly. They didn't want to hide anything, because it was all beyond secrets now. Kalu nearly beamed with satisfaction, for despite everything--the upcoming consequences, the fearful whisperings, the distrust from those in the greatest positions of power--he was happy. The moment was happy. He had regained what was lost, discovered it was never truly lost, and damned those who thought otherwise.

They pushed them into the center of the circles, which broke to allow the elders and Mawbot access to the accused. The festival, the ritual of marriage and happiness and harvest transformed into a trial. The escorting warriors stood around the two as guards.

"Outrageous," one elder said.

"Egregious, terrible," another said.

"How could we have let this go so far," a third said.

"Enough," Mawbot said. He stood up and pointed at Kalu. "I've had enough of all of this. Countless numbers of laws have been broken, both mortal and those directed by the gods themselves." He looked at Iluka, who was standing in the circle, several step behind Kalu and Lakula, still trying to catch his breath. "Alak, son of Talak, tell me what you saw."

Alak had been sitting with his father next to the elders. He stood up, trembling, and found he could not make eye contact with Kalu or Lakula, so he spoke to their feet.

"Kalu was with my legal wife, Lakula. They were embracing, and kissing, and--"

He attempted again to make eye contact, and saw only the deep brown endlessness in Kalu's eyes. Kalu was staring back. Alak's anger and jealousy faded to guilt and shame.

"This is true," one of the guards said. "We found them in the hut, being intimate."

The crowd gasped. It was more a dramatic response, for adultery was very prevalent, though never discussed. However, it was known to all that it was a far worse crime for a man of low status to have an affair with a woman of high caste. And it was usually this exception that was ever punished.

Alak again looked away. He was deeply troubled and desperately wanted to disappear, hide away from all the eyes know looking at him. Not because he was a cuckold, but because of the guilt he had, for the way he tried to punish Kalu.

"The crime of adultery is punishable by death," Mawbot said.

"Ha," Kalu said. He laughed, he fell over on himself laughing so hard.

"I demand justice," Talak said, for he was now standing at his son's side. "My son's reputation and standing has been soiled by this whore of a wife and this criminal." Alak said nothing, didn't even acknowledge his father's words.

"You dare to further injury yourself by disgracing me and the counsel. You are so foolish and childish."

"Foolish? How have I been foolish? You're all foolish, your stupid laws and your stupid festivals," Kalu said. He stopped laughing, his eyes burned with passion, he felt everything inside him rising like lava. The islanders hissed under their breath.

"The gods dictate it so," Mawbot said. "But you are one to defy them."

"Stupid customs and stupid castes," Kalu said. Ignoring Mawbot's comments. "Why? To make everyone miserable, to banish the poor and meek into worthless sleeping lives? Look at yourselves, born to those of higher standing, living with such great benefits only because of who your parents are. Never having to sleep starving at night, or wondering if you can feed your children. Never even having to care about those that do. Making laws that favor yourselves over others, deciding the fates of others."

The hissing stopped. Ears opened wider than ever thought imagined by those who had long believed lost he ability to do so.

"There are so few of us left," Lakula said. Her words were not as strong as Kalu's, for she feared fate and the gods. But these were the thoughts that haunted her sleep and the quiet hours she spent alone in her hut, weaving and staring.

"Yes," Kalu said. "So few of us. So few of us to care and worry about stupid old laws that shouldn't even apply anymore. It's time for a change. And if it is the gods you worry so much about, it is them that have already brought it."

Mawbot's eyes opened wide, his face scrunched up, lips pushed outward like a fish, his cheeks fiery red and his hands trembling.

"Enough of this," Mawbot said. "You defy the laws, you taboo. You speak out of place, act out of place, just like your father. We were lucky that he died--"

Kalu spat at the ground, towards Mawbot's feet. One of the guards thrust the wood end of the spear into Kalu's side. The crowd gasped, and Kalu bent over for a moment before standing up. Bak stood up, and so did several other villagers--all disciples.

"Don't you dare," Kalu said. He gasped for breath and faced Mawbot. "Don't say such things about my father. He was a good man, a great man, greater than you. You, Mawbot, you've done far worse, haven't you? Far worse than me. What I've done is nothing compared to the atrocities that you have committed."

Mawbot grew pale, anger to fear. No, he thought, no this boy couldn't know. If he did, he couldn't let him tell. He started to speak, started to give out the sentence, death by stoning for both, but his words stammered out of his mouth.

"I've been to Bini, Mawbot," Kalu said, a wicked smile crept along the side of his face. "I've lived there. And I know what happened there. And I'm going to tell everyone."

Suddenly he was pushed to the ground. He turned to find Iluka standing, his face also pale, having great difficulty breathing, coughing into his hands, wiping sweat from his head, foot raised to kick.

"No," Iluka said. "No."

"That is enough," Mawbot said, barely managing the words out clearly.

Alak slunk away from the crowd, vanishing into the dark pathways deep towards the jungle.

"Tell us," someone said from among the villagers. Other joined in.

Kalu told them. He told them that the warriors of Pa-Ula raided the villages of Bini, killing men, women, and children, cutting into their flesh and tearing out their hearts. The greatest of taboos, consuming human flesh, and that Mawbot and Iluka were there. The elders. That the souls of the people of Bini were trapped forever within the bodies and souls of the invading warriors.

"NO!" Iluka said, shaking, he stepped forward to kick Kalu, but at that moment Bak and Kalu's supporters came to his aid, holding back the guards and Iluka.

"They haunt your sleep, don't they?" Kalu said, slowly standing and wiping the dirt of his legs. "They torture you. Punish every moment of your lives with their moans and cries. You see their faces, distorted and sad and angry and lost and no matter if you close your eyes or hide in the darkness, they are always there, calling your name, searching for some way out."

Iluka shook his head, the Aula-anni slipped from his hands and fell into the sand.

"These are the sins our leaders have committed," Kalu said, addressing the over three-hundred assembled villagers, who all sat quietly with mouths wide open and cheeks stinging from the terrible truth. "But we are now free of them."

"Stop," Mawbot said. "Enough." The chief sat back down, his head in his hands, his voice so weak and old.

"Aula has made good on her promise. She had destroyed Ikol, she has freed us from the bounds of the gods as she promised long ago. We no longer serve them. We honor and respect them, but we are not their slaves. Believe me if you want, but I will no longer live my life according to the will of these men who's souls are corrupted and black."

An energy flowed through the villagers, the spectacle they had just seen burned into their eyes and their hearts and minds with the hot embers of the fire flickering behind all that transpired. A collapse of a system by the hands of the young and the poor and those still driven by passion, the pillars of the community foundering under the weight of all their secrets and nightmares, crumbling like mounds of sand, eroded by a swift fresh current. Mawbot, the chief, incapable of forming sentences. Iluka, the priest, shaking and crying like a sick child, crouching low in the sand. Both looking old like dolls made of straw. The elders, mouths and eyes shut like they sit dead.

"Why?" Iluka said. "Why have you done this to me, to us?"

"Priest," Kalu said, coldly, not even looking at him. "Ka-puna is dead. See to his body. I am the new doctor. If anyone feel sick or is injured, come see me."

Lakula held on to his arm.

"What about you?" Iluka said, addressing his daughter.

She couldn't look her father in the face, and stared at the Aula-anni, which lay partially buried in the sand: the intricate and fire carvings dyed red and black, Aula's face at the end of the staff, rubbed soft and featureless from years of use. She was numbed by the accusations, calmed by their truth, she could not see her father in her thoughts, nor wished to. If she had ever loved him, now was not the time to feel such things, now was the time to stare at Aula's worn vanishing face, her strong chin and full cheeks, and her crown of burning feathers.

Iluka pulled the shark mask off his chest and tossed it into the sand next to the staff. He sighed deeply, his eyes stinging from sweat and tears and the soot and smoke of the fire.

"Am I not your father?" he said. "I love you so much, my Lakula. Do you not love and respect me?"

"You are the priest," she said.

"I am your father."

The festival ended, Kalu left the circle with his followers in tow, their numbers increased greatly to a large swell, a hump of dirty souls with eyes open waiting, many searching for what comes next, disillusioned with their leaders. It was a steady movement of bodies away from the fire which alone seemed unaffected. No one stopped them, no one barred their exit, guards with spears held low and unsure what to do or where to go. It wasn't so much the truth that had affected the islanders, for as terrible the crimes were, they were so old and ancient and hidden under clumps of dust and dirt. It was how Mawbot reacted, how Iluka grew week and incapable. Powerful men who moved among them like giants, so high above and mighty and infallible and absolute wasted away to what they really were, sad old men holding nervously on to what little they had left. Old ideas, old customs, old dogma that seemed stale and rotten like spoiled fruit, they were like dirty flies buzzing loudly to make themselves seem larger than they were. And there was Kalu, a young boy who spoke from his heart and seemed to engulf air like a living flame. They were drawn to him, drawn to the light and heat wavering around his body. Some saw his father in him, others saw the innocent wonder and truth of youth, and others hungered for the sparks that danced around his feet as he walked.

They crammed into and around the communal long house Kalu had called a home, sitting and laying where there was room, fisherman and farmer, young and old, they clustered close and simply listened to what Kalu had to say. He told them about the great ball of fire and smoke, the flash and the voice, and the True Path, and they smiled or frowned, laughed or scowled, and they asked questions, and he did the best he could to answer them. And then, when he grew tired of answering questions, Kalu went to sleep, Lakula in his arms. He woke once--it was still too dark to be true morning, bodies piled along the floor like sand, snores soft and loud and oddly harmoniously dissonant. Lakula was awake, crying, face pressed against his arm. He did not move, did not change his breathing, but sat there and listened to her cry as the rising sun weakly penetrated the thick grey clouds that would bring rain that day. It would also be the day that decided the island's fate.

Kalu knew what was coming, he knew what was going to happen, and all he could do was listen to Lakula cry. It was all coming to pass as he was told. She eventually quieted and fell asleep as a breeze ran through the house and over the bodies of the sleeping islanders. Kalu could not fall back to sleep, and, carefully, he rested Lakula's head on the mat and crept out of the hut. More men and women lay sleeping outside, wrapping around each other for warmth, laying close to the embers of an old fire where the old men usually sat. He wandered away from them, and down through an overgrown path towards the ocean.

"Look what I have," Bak's grandmother said. She was standing at the end of the path where the brown soil grew gritty and golden. She was watching Kalu, her smile still beaming as it always was. She opened her clasped hands and there was a little tototee inside. It flew up into a tree, relieved to have escaped. Bak's grandmother admired the bird for a moment, and then turned back to Kalu.

"They've come back," she said.

"Yes."

Bak's grandmother walked down to the water's edge, raindrops began falling.

"When the rain comes, it cuts channels in the sand," she said. "And the channels carry everything away into the ocean. Shells and bits of coral and dirt. It all goes into the sea. It doesn't matter which path it takes."

"But it does."

IX (XXIX) Friday

Looking into the mirror

We see not ourselves

But only the reflection

Of shattered glass.

He is walking in the darkness. He doesn't remember when he left, or how he finally got out, but he is walking down the street, heading home from work. The apartment is very close. He does not look behind him, but he can feel it, feel the source of the darkness coming from the building. He was more certain than ever before that the building shouldn't exist, and for the first time he wondered when it was built in the first place. He wasn't sure if it was even in town when he first going to school, and he was not longer sure of when he first started working there. It felt like he had always worked there. He feels broken, something had been pushing so hard against him, pressing at his mind, beating it and kicking his body. And in his ears echo distant laughter--an inhuman and angry laughter. Laughter of a mad child.

He's so tired, doesn't even know how long he has been working--it could have been hours, it could have been days. The customers kept coming, kept marching in flailing like puppets covered in mud. They didn't seem real, they didn't act real, they seemed to have been created just to torment him. And Bob like a stone sentinel, a fat and pompous king glazing over his kingdom of oil and grease fires.

He feels like he's wearing a heavy robe over his body, a robe of defeatism, a robe so overwhelming heavy and thick that all he can do is bend down low and take small steps forward so that he doesn't fall over. An invisible heavy robe of all the things that have been going on in the last week and everything was yet to come, all so great and heavy and terrible and confusing--madness and anxiety and depressed apprehension--all forcing him lower and lower into the ground. It was all that hid in the shadows, all the dark corners and cracks flowing out onto him all at once, the evils and corruptions becoming an invisible robe. And it is filled with fleas, small invisible fleas that bite into his skin and feed on his blood and tear away at his body forming welts and bumps and bruises and weakening him. Draining him. Fleas born from the robe, living in the robe, breeding and dying and shitting in the robe and he just can't get it off. It's a part of him now, merging into him, as impossible to remove as his skin.

And then, in the cold, standing on the sidewalk, something clicks in Horatio's mind. Something that was both simple and mad. He turns around and looks back up the street. Sees the metal outline of the restaurant, ugliness glorified in the orange streetlight. No, he thinks. It can't be. The impossibility of it--

The Big Tostada was something more than a restaurant, this was certain. It was a magnet, a vortex. More than the book, more than then Isabelle and Genevieve, Kalu and Wendy, the Big Tostada was a true corruptive force. And what did all of it have to do with each other, how did everything connect, because it all connected. But why, why would--no, how could The Big Tostada be doing such things? Isabelle seemed like the obvious candidate for everything, she said she knew what was going on, could explain it but didn't feel like it. But she isn't malicious--the vision of future had shown her as a point of clarity. She had saved him from that fate.

What evil is the Big Tostada? He has to ask Isabelle, he has to find her and get the answers. And he must be strong, he must find her and not allow anything to control him, force him back into the grueling punishment of serving the unreal, confusing him with visions, transforming people around him.

"No," says. It has returned. The evil mad-child voice haunting his mind. "No, do not go anywhere. It'll only become worse if you search for answers."

"Fuck you," Horatio says. "Fuck you."

He turns down Henry street and goes towards the park.

"Fuck me?" the voice says, surprised but trying to not sound so. "We'll see. You've only brought this upon yourself."

"No, you can't do anything," Horatio says. His voice echos off the buildings, the brick and the street. There are a few people out, walking towards the bars. They pretend to ignore him.

But nothing happens. The air is still cold, the clouds spread further apart and grow thinner and thinner so that the stars gleam downward. He is still walking on the street, he is still a junior in college, still a business major (though not for long) and still heading towards the park. He feels strong--being able to stand up to threats. Nothing has happened, and nothing can happen. He is taking back his life.

And then he finds her. In the well that feeds into the small stream that runs into the koi pond. The little water remaining within it has frozen over into a disk of ice. Her hair is exposed and open like a fan, her jacket spread like feathers. She still smells like soap, and her skin, though frozen, is soft like snow and grey from cold. The Mickey Mouse glasses sit on her nose, but her eyes are wide open and green emeralds against the blue ice. His muse was dead, and he sat back against the stone wall of the well, in the bottom of the well, catching his breath and wondering what to do next. And if this was all his fault.

He notices she is holding on to one of her coloring books with her hands, pressing it against her chest, protecting it even in death. He crawls over to her body and pulls the book from her grasp, it gives way easily, as if she was handing it to him. She is so beautiful, so peaceful. Her closes her eyes and with the book in hand, climbs out of the well.

Wendy is sitting on the couch when Horatio comes in. Prescott is in the bathroom, shaving for their upcoming evening out. They are going to the bars for a drink or two, despite the unseasonable weather. She is already drunk, Horatio can smell her breath despite the saturated burrito scent of his uniform. Wendy's bulldog clown-face is puffy and impatient. She complains that Prescott is taking far to long. But Horatio doesn't care. He needs to call the police and tell them about Isabelle. He needs to sit in his bedroom and put these pieces together before someone else got hurt. He had to figure out what the restaurant was, or if his hunch about it was even correct. There was a deep, burning feeling in his stomach that everything was made up, and that he could have even possibly killed Isabelle--that he was going mad.

"Oh love," she says, "what can take that boy so long?" She motions for him to sit next to her, patting the couch cushion with her fingers. She's desperate for something to grab, something to touch.

He tells her he can't sit, he just needs some water. He's too tired and needs to go to sleep, he says. He needs to get away, into the kitchen, to the phone.

"Just a bit, dear," she says. Her cheeks are red with blush and booze, and her blue eyelids flutter like an epileptic. "We need to talk."

He tries to walk by, but the couch is too close to the kitchen's entrance, and she grabs him with her warm, clammy hands, dragging him into the back of the couch.

"I just want to tell you," she says, "that although you love me so much, and I love you so much, it could never work out, dear. We have to give up on each other. We have to move on and get on with our lives. Our love was too pure, you see," she says. Her voice is tense. It shakes. "Our love was, is, too pure to exist in this world. So we have to just pretend it never happened in the first place, and try to mend our hearts as best as we can. We have to put these things behind us, stand tall and strong, and move on with our lives. There are always are dreams, love, always our dreams to remind us of what once was."

She releases his hand and watches him sadly, her nose suddenly reddens and her eyes begin to water. A tear streams down her right cheek and she looks away.

"No," she whispers quietly. "I'm not that easy."

"No," she says to him. "Don't listen. Don't listen to me. I hate really bad Mexican food.

He goes into the kitchen and picks up the phone, but he isn't sure what to tell them. They'd track his number if he tried to remain anonymous, and if he told them that he found her that way, he'd be a suspect. He places the coloring book on the counter and takes a deep breath, but then stops, chokes on his air for a moment. The coloring book is the one on birds. The one with the Tototee in it. He opens the book and quickly skims through it until he finds what he is looking for. She has recently inscribed a poem over the little bird's body.

Life is someone else's dream.

Creation in dream.

We but dull gods walking

Blind surrounded by

What we build not with fingers--

But with thoughts.

Isabelle. The bird. The poem. Was this her last message to him? But he sees she has written something on the bird's little legs in tiny, delicate letters. Beautiful and perfect in shape. On the right leg, "Aula." And on the left leg, "Ikol." And underneath them the bird holds a flower in its claws. And then it was clear.

"How?" he says, addressing the empty room. "I created you. How can you exist?"

"So smart, finally," Ikol says. "She kept that from me, she did."

"Why did you kill Isabelle? How?"

"How can I kill something that doesn't exist," Ikol says. He sounds very happy, this time there is nothing hiding behind the words.

"What?"

"Horatio, you are so much fun. I am really enjoying this. And don't worry, I have a lot more planned for you, for us. And it'll only be a matter of time, Horatio, before you either give in and accept it, or I break you. Either way. And we can't have any more of her interfering, can we?"

"I don't understand? I made you up, I created you in my story, you aren't a real god."

"Then you're mad, aren't you," Ikol says. He is delighted, his voice flows with revelry and exhilaration. "Think for a moment, Horatio. Think about creation. Think about the delicate act of making something that is unique and your own, from your own thoughts, through your own fingers. What difference is there between a god and an artist--one creates life in the real, living world, while one creates life on paper? Both create life within the confines of their own universes, own laws and own rules. It is all how you see things, Horatio. Your blindness is what makes everything so wonderful, so easy, for me to repay your kind act of creation. I just want to make you happy."

"I doubt that," Horatio says. His legs are shaking.

"Who're you talking to?" Prescott says. He is standing in the doorway, hair slicked back, wearing a black button-down shirt and brown pants. Smelling breath of alcohol and skin of aftershave. "You look tense, Hor, get yourself a beer and call up your woman."

He walks over to Horatio and pats him on the head.

"Tobin says you've been acting really strange. I think you should take a few days off from work, buddy. Relax. Hang out with Genevieve, have some drinks, have some sex. Go to the movies, do something."

Prescott notices the coloring book on the counter and walks over to it. Horatio closes it and pulls it away.

"Hey," Prescott says. "What's that? Why're you trying to hide it?"

"It's something I'm working on. A surprise," Horatio says. "I'll show it to you when it's finished."

Prescott stumbles as he walks like his feet are covered in cement. Horatio notices small nicks all over his face.

"Shaving when drunk isn't a good idea," he says, trying to change the subject.

"Oh, fuck it, it hurts a lot," Prescott says, smiling. "But you have to pay the price to look so nice."

"I'm sending you some more fun, Horatio," Ikol says. Tobin does not hear. "I had to get her out of the way, and it would be too terrible for everyone involved if I had her completely removed--"

The doorbell rings.

"Ah, here we go," Ikol says. "We'll talk later. I think you'll see it my way, because there is no other."

"Why don't you go and get that," Prescott says. He's leaning against the counter, his eyes closed and staring into a beer he has just removed from the fridge. He hasn't removed its top, and caresses its neck tenderly. "I don't think I can find the door."

Horatio stumbles out of the kitchen and into the living room, the air is humid and lazy and feels heavy in his mouth. Wendy is sprawled out on the couch, crying into the arm. She doesn't look up as he passes. Her black coat is spread wildly, creasing over her body, reminding him of Isabelle's coat. Both defeated, crushed birds.

The doorbell rings again, this time the ring is constant, whoever is at the other end doesn't let up. It's an urgent ring, a crying ring, a desperate ring. He opens the door and there is Genevieve in full model-beauty glory, tears running down her checks, mascara streams. She looks so beautiful, so fragile, she continues to push at the bell even with the door open.

"Oh, Horatio," she says. "It's Delilah. She's run off, I don't know where. I went to take a shower and when I came out she was nowhere, and Morgan and Sandra don't know where she is, and her bags were missing and I just don't know what to do, Horatio, she was my responsibility and she's supposed to go home tomorrow and my parents are going to kill me. She's been acting so strange the last few days, and I thought it was just because she was finally realizing she had to go to college or--I don't know, I should have noticed. I'm so stupid and now she's gone and I didn't know where to go, and no one was answering the phone over here and--"

Horatio tries to calm her down, he pulls her into his chest, lets her cry and she wraps her arms around him and squeezes tightly. She's so warm, he thinks. So warm and comforting and delicately wonderful. He feels strong, he feels sane and strong and full of life and energy just because she is right there pressing against him--right there and everything is so right with her right there and that's how it should always be.

"We'll work together," he says. His voice is strong, he is so strong and he will take care of her. He will make her happy, will stop her tears and bring only smiles for the rest of her life because that was what he had to do. That was what would make everything in the world worth living.

"Yes, yes, she's in your arms. She feels so good," Horatio says.

"So soft and warm life a stuffed animal or a safety blanket. Love her," Horatio says.

"Never let her go, never let her out of your arms."

"There would be no point to anything is she wasn't here."

"Yes, yes, this is so, so right. So, so perfect. Everything before this moment was dead, everything from now on will be alive, if only we'd remain together like this."

"Two rotting corpses. Two perfect puppets, empty bodies wrapped around each other with lose and empty limbs. Thoughtless, soulless, conjoined in bliss. Real bliss, blind and tied and buried in a hole away from everything else."

"No, two wonderful lovers, bury us and we'll sprout roses. Blind us and we'll see with our hearts."

"Nothing is more true than true forced love."

"This is true love," Ikol says.

"This is true love," Horatio says.

"This love is as true as its creator," Horatio says. "As true as the woman you see before you."

"As true as Genevieve," Horatio says.

"Unchanging and constant, true and pure. Untouched. Holy."

He releases her and stands back, looks with revulsion. This isn't Genevieve, not the Genevieve that he'd lusted after for months. No, he doesn't want this ideal, he wants the truth, the mess, the jumpy and spastic, the busy and the unaware of her beauty. Beauty didn't matter, that wasn't it. Mannerisms didn't matter, that was all an illusion. But why did he want her. What did she offer him that was so enticing that it left him unable to act himself in her presence for the first time since kissing parties in the sixth grade. It was because she weakened him so, debilitated him so, weakened him so, made him feel insignificant and rubbed all over, stomped to the ground under her schedule, drowning in her wake. Suffocating under her control.

It was because she emasculated him.

--He smiles at this thought--emasculates him, the man, the jock, the player, the joyfully horny drunk oozing machismo and leaking testosterone from his pours brutish masculinity. And here she is, crying, lowering herself to a level of helpless maiden, dragon swallowed her sister, save me save me for I need a strong man, and the attraction just wasn't there. She was just another girl, that great interesting quality was gone--she was no longer the tamer, and he was no longer opening his mouth for her, for scraps of meat.

"What are you," he says. "This isn't the Genevieve I know."

Her perfect face and tears dripping is a dream image that is only acting to diminish with waking eyes. The skin too perfect even with blotchy redness around the nose, the delicate distinguishable eyelash movie glow around those eyes. There is no look of confusion on this face, and with a blink the tears and the puffy skin from sadness vanishes and replaces with a blank slate stare.

"Is this the best you can do?"

"Am I not to your liking?" she says. She says it like a robot or a marionette.

"I don't understand," he says. "I don't understand why you are doing this?"

There is a pause, a pause in the world around him, the floor shifts and he is sitting in a booth at The Big Tostada, the red torn plastic picked-at covering against his back. Familiar smells, but an emptiness, an isolation. There are no customers, no staff, even Bob is absent. And darkness presses against the windows--real darkness of absolute, not the black of night but the black of nothing. The frame of the building--the metal, the bolts, the visible and hidden I-beams--groan and sway with a non-existent breeze. He cannot move from his seat.

"Understand, Horatio?" the building says. Groans. "Understand?"

"Why make her look so beautiful?" Horatio says. "Aren't you trying to torture me?"

The creaking and groaning of the metal seems to laugh.

"Like I said, your happiness is my happiness," it says. "But if you don't become happy on your own, I'll make you happy. It may hurt a bit, at first. But in the end, how happy you will be. A perfect woman, a perfect love, a perfect marriage and family. No interruptions, no others interfering anymore."

Horatio thought of Wendy's strange comments. Of Delilah's disappearance--those sad eyes of hers that haunt his dreams, or did before things became so strange. He thought of Isabelle's body, laying frozen in the well. Her skin so clean and blue.

"Stop," it says. "Stop thinking of these things. Why are you resisting? Why can't I just make you happy? I gave you a perfectly good life and you denied it. I tried again, and instant rejection. Why can't I make you happy? Just tell me why. I can give you anything you want, Horatio. I give you your heart's desire! What every heart desires! Love, beauty, money, status."

"But what if I don't want these things," Horatio says.

"Of course you want these things. You have always wanted these things because they are what everyone wants. Can't you see it? In their eyes, in their hearts, all of them out there? These are things they dream about, things they talk about as soon as they find their voices, things they die regretting not having."

"Then you don't know me," Horatio says. "Because that isn't what I want."

"No, you're wrong. You are completely wrong." Ikol gets agitated. The groaning and creaking is louder than before.

"What makes you think you're right, then? What makes you think that you know me better than I know myself!"

"You're just blind to your own desires," Ikol says.

"Just because you're some sort of god, it doesn't mean you should decide what I want. You didn't make me. I made you."

"Oh," Ikol says, very loudly. The groans and creaks are intense, they hurt Horatio's ears. "Is that so? We are both creators, are we? We are both gods. I think the answer lies there, Horatio."

Horatio can't respond. The volume of the creaking is making it hard for him to think.

"You are a creator, Horatio. As you create people's lives, do you give them what is best for them, or what is best for yourself? So what if they suffer if it brings you joy. So what if everything they love dies and rots and vanishes before them if it is for the pursuit of fancy. So what if you destroy them, tear them to pieces and swallow them, laughing. Your happiness, as creator, is good enough. You made me, Horatio. You made me. I just want you, my creator, to share in the happiness that you created."

Horatio can't concentrate. He can't keep his eyes open, he can't stop covering his ears, he can't stop feeling the vibrations in his bones, in his blood, jostling his brain. He can't fight away the words. And in this state, he understands Kalu's comments.

"Oh, do you wish to speak to your precious Kalu? I can do that for you. See if it makes you happier."

Whiteness, a pure whiteness shapeless whiteness and nothing else whiteness and the soothing nothing but whiteness and all shape distorted and loosened and lost and freefloatingwhiteness. Then--

X (XXX) KALU

I'm going to cut you

Cut you so very hard

Cut you so very deep

I don't even care why.

Brooding in the darkness next to the body of his childhood friend, still and cold in the early morning, Iluka sighed. His old friend, Ka-puna, the man whom he had looked up to as a child, whom he wished to be like as a young man, and whom he eventually shunned as fate and maturation led him back to his current path.

"Can you imagine, now, friend, that I am the one who the young look upon and hate and dislike and fear to become?"

A few drops of rain began falling on the thatch roof.

"When I put it all aside, shunned my father, my family, the path they set for me--for a woman, oh they all hated me so. But not you."

They were alone, a steady breeze coming through the cracks and the entranceway, keeping the air fresh despite the growing repugnantly sweet odor. Iluka had his head in his hands, running his fingers through the strands of shortly cropped hair, dyed red for the festival from its wizened grey.

"And when she died, and I was only left with a young daughter, I was so afraid. I caved in. I had to. That was the last time we really spoke. You followed your path, I followed my own. That's how it always happens. You had Nak'aulan and your Kulinai, and when they died, you took care of that Kalu. He doesn't know, does he? Kalu doesn't know that you were more than a godfather. Oh, but does it really matter?"

He looked at Ka-puna's purple face and wondered if he would look so old when he died. If he was already this old.

"It never got any easier. The nightmares never went away, no matter how much time passed, how much we tried to do to make up for it, to satiate their cries. No, never. You are a lucky man, Ka-puna. Now that the whole island knows of our misdeeds, they only grow louder and angrier and hungrier. They are there when I close my eyes, moving around in the shadows, hiding behind my back, waiting. I will rest your soul, Ka-puna. Your bones will sleep in final peace, but will anyone do the same for me?"

Iluka bent down slowly and placed his hand on Ka-puna's clammy forehead, the resting place of the soul. He thought he felt the ground shake slightly, but he wasn't sure if it was his own knees giving out from exhaustion.

"You will at least get a proper funeral. The gods refuse to share with me my fate."

"You will rot in the earth, your skin will feed the worms and your soul will walk the ground chased by vengeful ghosts."

"And what of you, brother?"

"I will become food for the sharks, my blood will mingle with the coral and my soul captured like a pearl within the shell of a giant clam," Mawbot said. He stood at the entrance to the hut, attendants around him. "Come now, we have much to discuss."

Alak woke from dreamless sleep under Kalu's altar. He had wandered through the paths, trying to find some place to hide, some place to crawl up and die. Instinctually he went to Kalu's hut where he fell to his knees at its remains. His head full of strange conflicting thoughts--self-hating and loathing, self-destructive images, sad realizations of why he had done what he did. It wore him out, and he fell asleep, his head resting against the base of the stone pile. The raindrops woke him. His crippled leg ached from hard ground, exaggerating his limp as he stood up and walked down the paths and towards home.

He limped down the path, until he reached the Pa-Ula village center where he could catch the path to Pa-Alak, but hesitated, for there was a large group of men standing outside Mawbot's hut. He recognized one of his father's servants, and so went to see what was going on. He heard men talking loudly within the hut, and was able to slide in to see everything for himself.

"Will fifty men be enough?" an elder said.

"How many of them do you think there are?" another said.

"I can send all my men," Talak said. "That's another twenty. They might not be skilled fighters, but they are strong."

"But would they be able to?"

"What do you think, Iluka?" Mawbot said.

"We needn't have to harm or kill them all," Iluka said. "I don't know. I don't like this."

"So we let them continue? Everything is falling apart," Talak said.

"Maybe it's for the best," Iluka said. "I don't know, maybe he's right."

"Madness," Talak said. "Listen to yourself."

"But he spoke the truth."

"So what. That was long ago. You just let yourself be weak."

"We were caught off guard, that's all," Mawbot said. "We must make this swift and final. I am sorry, but the boy has to go."

"Yes," Iluka said. He sounded defeated. There was a long pause. "But let me do it."

"What?" the elders said. "You want to put yourself in harms way? Why?"

"I have to," Iluka said. "This is all my fault. I should resolve it. I already have enough blood on my hands, what would a little more do? Plus, I can do it in a way that no one else is hurt."

"Yes, yes, that would be for the best," Mawbot said. "They are just confused, that's all. Only Kalu is to be blamed for this, not those that defend him. These are hard times."

"Oh," Talak said, laughing. "They're all guilty. Anyone who goes against the rules and laws is guilty. But do what you will. I doubt they will all sit by if Kalu, alone, dies. Did you see their faces? They were angry, they wanted blood. I will give you my men. You will see that I am right. And I always said that Kalu would be trouble. His father was trouble. A bloodline of dirt. I should never have let my son--"

It was then that he noticed Alak, and watched as Alak backed out of the hut and vanished into the rain.

Kalu walked Bak's grandmother back to the long house to bring her out of the rain. Those who had been sleeping outside were now inside. There were so many eyes and faces staring at him as he walked by, he felt exposed.

"Ah," Bak's grandmother said. "Hold my hand. I'm afraid."

"Don't be," he said. "I will take good care of you. I will take good care of everyone." He looked over the tired faces, all anticipating something from him. So he spoke. He wasn't thinking of all the people in the hut, he wasn't thinking of Lakula who was standing and waiting for him, wondering where he had gone and why he had left her side. He wasn't thinking of Bak, who stood proudly and happily at his friend and master's return. And he wasn't thinking of those who plotting against him. He knew they would come, soon enough they would come. He wasn't afraid of death, he wasn't afraid of war, he wasn't afraid of losing all those around him. But he was afraid that there was nothing he could do about any of it. ""We've already decided our destiny. You have all come because you believe what I told you. You believe that Aula has fulfilled her promise, and that we are free to make our own laws and live our own lives and follow what I have called the True Way."

He was afraid because he knew that what he said to them was both true and wrong at the same time. It made him frustrated and angry. It made him more passionate. It made him want to believe that there was reason for it all, that this fight was all worth it, if what he said was true or not. It made it all feel true. And it made him want to fight against what was supposed to happen. Make him defy destiny, save the lives of those around him. Really be free.

"They will come and try to stop us," he said. "I am sorry, but blood will be spilt, but we will not be the first to draw it to the ground. You have all come because you believe in something, and in believing you have found strength to find happiness and truth in your lives. You must question yourself, now, question if it is worth your lives to stand by me. This is a question about life or death. Those who do not wish to die should leave and pretend that nothing had ever happened."

"What? And starve because I have to give up most of my fish just because I don't own my own boat?" a fisherman said. "No!"

"And should I be forced to work someone else's land, raising their fruit and vegetables because that is what I am supposed to do? I would rather farm my own land, or better yet, become an artisan." a farmer said.

"For fifty years I have lived, and for fifty years I have never dreamed. Not until last night," one of the old fisherman who shared the communal hut said. "I dreamt that I was chief of the island, that I was married and had ten sons and three daughters. I want to keep dreaming. If I cannot, I would rather die."

Kalu felt trapped. He stood and listened as each man and woman spoke about their dreams, about their needs and wishes. An idol carver wished to be a farmer. A farmer wished to develop a plot of land that was sinking into the swamp, but was not because of his societal status. And then a young man, the apprentice of Iluka, spoke.

"I do not wish to be a priest. I want to tell stories," he said. "Iluka did not want to be a priest either, and all I see in him is a sad old man."

"Then you have all resigned to accept whatever fate comes your way?" Kalu said.

"Yes, we have. And we will do it all, together," Lakula said, grabbing his arm. "Because we believe in you."

"Because you're right," Bak said. "Because we have to believe in what you say, because life would be too miserable if you weren't correct. We've always felt this way, Kalu. We were just too scared to admit it. Scared of the elders, and Iluka, and Mawbot."

"As you should be," Alak said, pushing his way into the hut. "And my father. They're all coming here. Coming to kill you, Kalu."

"What are you doing here?" Bak said. Several of the younger men grabbed him. "Haven't you already caused enough trouble?"

Alak looked to Kalu, looked into his eyes, found something long since thought lost. Felt it in his chest. It felt good. He felt alive.

"Kill me if you want," he said. "I deserve it."

"Let him go," Kalu said.

"But he is the enemy," Bak said. "Last night--"

"That was last night."

"They're coming, right now," Alak said. "Iluka is leading, and he is coming to kill you."

Kalu took a deep breath. He didn't think all of this would happen so fast. He knew that they would come for him, and he knew he would survive. But he knew that, eventually, no one else would. There still must be a way, though, a way to make things end happily, no bloodshed, no war, no death. There had to be a way that all these people could live happily, together. He couldn't run away from his fate, but he could try to change it.

"Then we will greet them. We will make them change their minds," Kalu said. "We will show that we mean no harm, that we want to coexist. We want peace. We do not threaten them."

And as the all marched out of the hut, chanting and singing and building up courage, Lakula pulled him to the side.

"My father, Kalu," she said. "How could he?"

Kalu looked at her sadly. "Because, he has to."

When Iluka and his entourage, including Talak, arrived at the crowded hut, they found everyone assembled outside, formed in a ring around Kalu. Lakula and Bak stood at his side. Alak was sitting at the edge of the ring, rubbing his toes into the dirt. He stood up when he saw his father. Their eyes met briefly, he was angry and dismissive, his face showed not love or recognition of his son, but contempt. Iluka, eyes bloodshot, face dirty, tired, old, stepped forward from the armed guards, strong men holding spears and axes. He looked to Kalu's youthful eyes, to his daughter's, finding it difficult to keep contact, he lowered them to his hands. He wondered when they had gotten so dirty. His spear felt so cold and rotten.

"Kalu, you know why we are here," he said. "Either come with us, be punished properly by the council, or we can end it all, here."

"I was hoping this could be worked out peacefully. From the way things look, I was probably wrong," Kalu said.

"I'm afraid you're right, Kalu. The council has already decided that you've caused too much trouble," Talak said, grinning, scratching the side of his face as if these matters were unimportant.

"Please, Talak," Iluka said. "I'm sorry Kalu, but you have violated the law. We have rules, we have laws and rules to follow, to keep order both earthly and spiritually."

Kalu shook his head. He laughed.

"Why are you all so miserable, then?" he said. "Everyone is so miserable. I just want to make everyone happy."

"Father," Lakula said.

Iluka squeezed his fist, his arm shook at the sound of his daughter's voice. Seeing her next to Kalu, pregnant with another man's baby--her husband's child--defying him and the rules that bound her to Alak. It made him so angry. He found himself overcome with fury. He did not expect this to happen.

"Do not address me that way," he said, spitting between his teeth. Everyone got very tense, they could see his anger. "No child of mine would regard me with as much disrespect and betrayal."

Suddenly Alak started to laugh, he laughed hard and loud, standing and walking right up to Iluka.

"Betrayal? Disrespect?" He said, putting his hands on his knees, laughing even harder. "Her, Lakula? Whom did she betray? Whom did she disrespect? No, no, more like, whom was the one doing the betrayal? Do you remember, Iluka? Do you remember the night before the festival of Ano-pa and Kilanu? When I came to you? We plotted, didn't we? You and I, and my father. We three plotted the betrayal. Take the girl, get priest blood into our family line, our child could be future chief, I could be an elder."

Iluka's shoulders went gaunt, he seemed to collapse into his skin, the words stinging his insides, driving the anger and fury into profound self-loathing.

"Quiet!" Talak said, grabbing Alak by the arm. Instead of becoming shocked or angry by his father's behavior, Alak laughed even harder.

"My best friend, father. We plotted against my best friend. My only friend. I loved him, father, more than I loved you, and we plotted against him."

Talak raised his free hand and slapped Alak across the face. He slapped him again, blood began to trickle from his nose. Kalu stepped forward.

"No, Kalu. Just stay there. Look at my father. Everyone admire him. Look how strong and powerful he his, beating around his son, deciding his son's fate, making sure everything is in his son's best interests. Look how happy I am, because I have such a good father."

Talak let go of his son, his red cheeks growing pale. He looked to Kalu, the blood returned, the anger returned.

"All I want is for this to end," Kalu said. "For everyone to be happy. For everyone to get along. Can't you see? Look how much we hurt."

"I can't do this," Iluka said. He leaned against his spear. "I can't."

Talak grabbed Iluka's spear and rushed towards Kalu. Iluka fell to the ground, confused and dizzy. He thought the ground was shaking under his feet again. It was.

"You bastard," he said, directing the point at Kalu's chest. "Bastard."

The spear point stopped, entered the flesh, cracked through bone and came to rest in Alak's heart. Seconds later, an axe wedged itself into Talak's head, and he fell dead next to his son. The earth was shaking around them violently, no one seemed to be able to keep their footing. Most of the guards sent by the council dropped their weapons and ran in fear. Those that stayed vainly attempted to fight, but their numbers were too low, and the earthquakes made it difficult to attack.

Iluka just sat on the ground as Aula woke and began tearing the island apart.

"I've angered her," Iluka said, looking up to the mountain peak, smoke began drifting from its crater. "Was I wrong? Was the boy right?"

Kalu sat next to Alak. Lakula sat down on the other side, she was crying.

"He had a good soul," Kalu said. "Just, he didn't know how to use it."

She looked at Alak's face for a moment, and then grabbed at the spear to pull it out, but it was stuck. She grasped the blade, while Kalu pulled at the wood staff. They pulled it out, but she had cut her hand. She bent down and gave Alak one final kiss.

Lava was pouring out of the side of Aula, racing down the mountainside and towards Pa-Alak, sending the northern part of the island into flames as it consumed the thick spread jungle at the base.

Iluka looked away from the volcano, away from his god, and to Kalu for guidance.

"I don't know anymore," he said, crawling along the ground as the final aftershocks of the earthquake subsided. "I don't know."

"There will be a war, now," Kalu said. "Not many people will survive. And there was nothing I was able to do to stop it."

"I'm sorry," Iluka said. "I never wanted to be a priest. Never. I wanted to be a fisherman, raise my family and be happy. I'm sorry, Lakula, Kalu, Alak. This was all my fault."

"No," Kalu said. "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't any of our faults."

The rumbling stopped. Everyone began to pick themselves off the ground. The remaining guards leapt at Kalu's followers. They fought. Kalu watched, as if watching a dream, not something happening in front of him. As if they were all dancers, performing some ritual, following set preset path. Bak was racing through them, cutting like a great warrior. Kalu wondered if he would live or die, what fate was set for him. He looked at Lakula, she looked pale, overwhelmed with the events of the last day. So much had happened so fast, like when one lives a life in a dream two minutes long. She had stopped crying. She grew whiter and whiter, the bronze and red disappearing like the end of a sunrise. She leaned against him, then fell to her knees.

"What's wrong?" Kalu said, sitting down next to her. Shaking her, trying to get some life back into her face.

"I don't know. I can't breathe too well," she said.

Iluka looked at his daughter, he saw the cut on her hand, so the spear laying next to Alak. His spear. He felt his chest tense up.

"Did you cut your hand," he said. "On my spear? No, please say no."

"She did," Kalu said. "Why?"

The spear was coated in poison collected from the scorpion fish. Enough to kill five men, to make sure that even if he didn't get Kalu's heart, the boy would have still died. Now his daughter was dying. He looked at her, then grabbed her cut and swollen hands. There was nothing he could do. There was no time for an antidote.

"Who are the gods punishing?" Iluka said to Kalu. "I thought you said they didn't care."

"I'm a hypocrite," Kalu said. "The gods aren't gone, there's just only one. And he does whatever he wants, for the good of the story.

"Kalu," Lakula said, and then became unconscious, and then died. Kalu held her, looked at her swollen face, felt her belly against his chest. He wondered if the child was still alive, but he knew it wasn't. Iluka lay on the ground, lay on his back and his breathing became shallower and shallower. Around them, men and women died, lava poured and burned and scared the island.

"So, let's give him a good story," Kalu said.

Part 4: When the final wind blows

XXXI

When I first met you

I thought it was love.

When we met again--

Only two passing faces.

Standing on the sand, the same beach, frozen ocean rubbing against shore, same smell of ocean, smell of fresh jungle and thick air. Same eyes, brown and reflective, deep, confused and sad--but the face was different. It was younger, much younger, about his own age (how old did he make Kalu anyways? No, Kalu's youth was the universal youth of early adulthood. It superceded actual age), skin still bronzed and reddened from sun, but smooth, muscular, intense. This was how he pictured Kalu when he closed his eyes.

Horatio didn't know what Ikol was up to, why he would send him here, what it was supposed to prove. But Ikol was purposely unpredictable, savagely impulsive, it was his nature--like a selfish, self-centered child. This was how Horatio created him. This was the same Ikol who failed to provide the fisherman with a wife. A god with all this power but so prideful, blinded like the fox, or Odysseus. Proud and boastful, always with an answer that always correct, and that everything must be done his way or else. Even so, what was Ikol trying to do, Horatio wondered, what was the rational behind his actions? Horatio knew that this meeting was going to occur, old Kalu had told him that it would, but he had never expected Ikol to be the cause of this meeting.

He thought of words to say to Kalu. He tried to remember their first meeting, how strange it was for him to be face to face with his own character. It had been so odd at that time, but that was before everything really went to hell. Now he was trapped trusting and mistrusting everything around him at the same time, accepting the impossible while also understanding that it may or may not be happening. It jumbled up his brain if he tried to think about it too much, but now he had to concentrate on what to say. What does a god say to his creation?

"Hello, Kalu," he said. "Do you know who I am?"

Kalu did not respond, he was breathing like a frightened mouse, like a small animal caught in a box facing unknown disaster, heart beating so fast it's gonna explode.

"Relax," Horatio said. "I'm not going to hurt you. It's okay."

Kalu couldn't even blink, nor did he open his mouth to breathe. It all went in and out of his nose it quick successive sniffs.

"My name is Horatio. I am your god. I am your creator. I make you do what you do."

Kalu still did not speak, but he looked angry, upset, confused. His burnt face turned redder. Horatio had to convince him, he thought. The future Kalu understood, he knew that Horatio was his creator. This conversation was supposed to happen, Kalu was supposed to learn the truth.

"I am you god," Horatio said. "I am your god, and if you do not believe me, than I will predict your future, and one day, you shall believe me."

He thought carefully. Where in the story were they? Did he even write the moments leading up to this point, or if this had already occurred. And this all brought back his frustrations, the mystery over the length of his story. There was far too much written for him to have been it's author. He had invested too little time, so far, into the writing. But suddenly, he realized that the story was always within him, it was all there, every word, sentence, letter, moment. All there in his head, if he had physically written it or not, it all came from him. He knew everything that had happened, and everything that will happen. He could see it all--the ghosts of words already written, the images of words waiting for their moments of creation, the final picture of the work--floating around in his head. He knew what was coming next, and it saddened him to say these things, but he had to.

"I am sorry, Kalu, but terrible things are on their way," Horatio said. "Death, sadness, loss, war, fire, everything. You will try to change everything, fight against society, against those in power, and they will fear you. Try to destroy you, and it will tear the island apart, creating civil-war. And you will lead the survivors. And in the end you will understand. It's so very complicated, Kalu. But I know that one day you will understand."

Kalu listened, his fists began to shake and he shook his head angrily.

"If you are my god, why make such terrible things happen," he said. "If you are my god, why not make good things happen? Why not make everyone happy? Bring back the dead, make everyone prosperous and rich? End disease and hunger and sadness and death? Bring back my mother. My father. My sister. The lost souls of Bini. Susan."

Why, Horatio thought. Why couldn't he make Kalu's life happy, bring back his loved ones, make everything perfect for him. Why must he make Kalu suffer so? He could have made the story a comedy, all comedies have their tragic moments, but they end with weddings. He could have Susan rise from the dead, or her spirit could enter Lakula's body, and they could combine into one perfect loving being. Kalu's parents could return as well, and the island could prosper, all the corruption gone, the violent history erased, society revamped into a peaceful utopia.

No, Horatio thought. He couldn't do that. He couldn't do that at all.

"Because," Horatio said, "because it doesn't make a good story. Tragedy is a good story, happiness is not."

And in these words he understood what was happening to him. What Ikol was trying to do. We just all want to be happy, he thought. That's all humans ever really want. But each of our ideals of what happiness is is so different. There is no universal happiness. For some people, happiness is the suffering of others. Kalu would suffer to make himself, Horatio, happy. Ikol made Horatio suffer to make itself happy, even if Ikol actually believed he was doing what was best for Horatio.

Horatio smiled bitterly, and everything turned to white and vanished.

Kalu:

XXXII

What was once grey sky,

Becomes so blue and quiet.

One single bird flies.

He was sitting on the giant rock fingers, dipping his toes into the cool waters of the falls. He was watching them swim in the pool, looking down on them like a father looks down on his children, with loving admiration and pride. No, he looked at them with love deeper and more impassioned than simple admiration. They smiled back, splashed him, begged him to come and join them.

"I can't," he said.

They pretended to be upset, swam up to the edge of the rock--the tall finger protruding from the water, almost phallic. They begged again, their voices so soothing and wonderful, aural contentment.

"Why not," they said. "Why will you not join us."

"Because," he said. "Because you are dead. Because you do not exist."

Susan and Lakula laughed and dove into under the water. Their children dove under the water. All of them disappeared into the clear water, until that was all that was left.

Two young boy saw it while playing in the black lava tracks at the edge of Aula. They were not supposed to be there, so when they informed their father, they did lied about where they had been. It was something they had never seen before, but their father had. And it scared him, so he went straight to the chief. This was an important matter, too important to sit on.

"Yes," Kalu said to Bak, he was sitting meditatively in the quiet of the medical hut. Several of the beds were occupied by the sick children of the island, sleeping away the afternoon. Kalu stood up, stretched his legs and left the hut as to not wake up the sick.

"A large metal bird, Kalu. Alak and Ka-puna saw it. It was flying around the island."

"We better inform everyone," Kalu said.

The plane landed in the shallow waters to the south of the lagoon a few days later. Kalu and Bak boarded Kalu's canoe and rowed out to greet the visitors with two other canoes filled with men as protection.

The plane was filled with three white men. The one with the thick bushy brown beard greeted the islanders with broken Aulaian. He introduced himself as Dr. Grayson Moffett, and he offered them a gift of a cleaned and polished conch shell, some metal bracelets, some shirts and a bar of chocolate. Kalu looked at these things and laughed.

"What do we need these things for?" he said. "What do you want from us? We've had your kind here before. And they either brought unneeded gods or disease. Or both."

"We wish to study you," Dr. Moffett said. "We're interested in learning about your people."

"Nothing else?" Kalu said, suspiciously.

"Nothing else."

Against the advice of Bak and the other islanders, Kalu brought the white men to shore. It was the memory of Susan that persuaded him to take such risky action. None of the others had witnessed her compassion, leaving Kalu as the only one to recognize the white visitors as more than monsters.

"What do you expect from us?" Kalu said, as the canoe touched the shore. "There aren't many of us left. We are not as rich and prosperous as we once were. We are just people, trying to live each day at a time."

"I don't know what to expect," Dr. Moffett said. "And that's one of the reasons why I am here. This is a mysterious place, sir. Not much is known about it. There aren't that many places left in the world like this one."

"Well, I hope we don't bore you too much. And do not expect a warm reception. We are not too found of strangers."

Over the next few weeks, the visitors kept mostly to their tent off to the side of the village, viewing islander life from a far with their strange equipment. The children were curious, they would challenged each other to see who could get closest to the strange camp. They made a game out of sneaking about without getting caught. The visitors would offer them food and try to speak with them, but they would run away out of fear.

On a particularly calm day, as the sick were resting--the first had still yet to die--Kalu decided to pay the men a visit. The sunset was beautiful, and Kalu's eyes were drawn to the smoke rising from the fires of the white men's camp. He felt that he had ignored them enough. Bak joined him, insisting that he act as a guard in case the men tried to attack him. He carried a broken spear at his side. Kalu agreed, though he felt no danger, and brought some fish as a gift. He thought it was the polite thing to do.

"Tell me about the island," Dr. Moffett said, as they sat outside around a fire. They roasted the fish and talked. The white men offered Kalu some of their own food. It reminded him of what Susan had fed him those first weeks together. They also offered him a drink that made Kalu feel the same way as if he drunk fermented coconut milk. "You said once that it was much greater than it is today."

Kalu smiled and thought back through his life. So much had changed that it felt like they were living in a completely different world. Images of his youth, of the greatness of Pa-Ula in that time before his parents died, the pain of how little of anything was left.

"When I was a child," Kalu said. "There were so many of us. The island was full of huts and families and we were strong and proud. I remember how great the festivals were, hundreds of men and women dancing and singing. There were four villages on this island when I was a child."

He paused and sighed.

"What happened?" Dr. Moffett said.

"They all died," Bak said. "White men came, and everyone just died."

"Not everyone," Kalu said.

"Enough, though," Bak said.

Kalu told them about the plague, how the surviving islanders pushed the missionaries out, and how much they struggled since then.

"Then, about fifteen year ago, the volcano erupted, destroyed the northern part of the island, and a war left us at what we are today."

"We are strong," Bak said. "Kalu is a great leader. Many of our friends died protecting him. I lost my eye, and would gladly give the other to save his life."

Kalu put his arm on his friend's shoulder.

"A war?" Dr. Moffett said. "What do yo mean, a war?"

"The old chief didn't like Kalu's ideas, so he tried to kill him. We fought back, and we won, we, the Kalu-nai." Bak said. He was very drunk. "Mawbot the stupid, the close minded, the cursed. He threw himself into the stream of lava. It was more like a sea of lava, so much. It covered all the swamps, the caves, the orchards, all those trees and crops under a great sea of lava. Steaming and red and turning everything to fire. Now it is a sea of black rock. He is buried under that rock, his soul is trapped in it."

"Bak, I think it is time for us to return," Kalu said. He helped Bak to stand.

"Please, I'd love to hear more," Dr. Moffett said.

Kalu did not answer, but walked Bak away from the camp and towards the dull fires of Pa-Ula village.

Dr. Moffett found Kalu a few days later down at the edge of the lagoon. Kalu was checking over his nets, sitting on the outboard of his canoe and relaxing as he worked. Dr. Moffett was carrying some sort of strange contraption with him, speaking into it as he walked. A large and fat pig was sleeping in the shade of a lean-to.

"Not many chiefs are active fishermen," he said to Kalu. The device was connected to a strap that hung around his neck. "At least of the islands that I have visited. Even the young chiefs."

"I am also the doctor and the priest," Kalu said, still absorbed in his work. "Bak, who you met, is a fisherman and a farmer and a priest and a father. We all do what we can. There are less than a hundred of us on this entire island."

"I wanted to thank you for the other night. I understand that you'd be very apprehensive about speaking to someone like me. Given the history."

Kalu stopped for a moment and looked up at Dr. Moffett. The white man was wearing clothes very similar to Susan.

"They all are," Kalu said. "I don't mind. I just have very little time. Things have not been well around here. I'll admit to you that most of our children are sick, maybe even all of them, and I spend most of the day taking care of them."

"I'm sorry."

"They'll soon die. This island is dying."

"I'm sorry."

"Of course you are," Kalu said. He rolled up the net and placed it into the boat. "We all are. But that won't do us any good. All we can do is wait until it's all over. Pa-Ula has no future."

Dr. Moffett wiped sweat off his face, the pulled a canteen off his belt and took a long sip of water.

"They don't know this," Kalu said. "I can't tell them this. I tell them that the children will get better, that in a few generations the island will be great and strong and full of life, once again. But I know it won't. We'll end up like Bini, abandoned, haunted, lonely."

"Bini?"

"Our sister island to the west. There is no one there, not anymore. I lived there for several months, years ago. There were only two of us living there. Only two people living on an entire island. Well, three if count Wee-ting," Kalu said, pointing to the sleeping pig. "I don't know why I am telling you this. I have not shared this story with many people."

He told Dr. Moffett that everyone knew he had been on the island, and they all knew the story of what happened after he left, but barely anyone knew of his life as he lived there.

"You just remind me of her," Kalu said. He stood up and looked at Dr. Moffett. "Come, help me push the boat into the water. I'll show you how we fish."

So the two of them rowed out of the lagoon and into the reef.

"Kalu," Dr. Moffett said, looking down into the water and at the coral below. "What did your friend, Bak, mean when he said that the old chief didn't like your ideas. You seem like a generous person.

Kalu smiled, and then scanned the water for fish.

"Oh," he said. "We once lived under the whim and laws of the gods, whom dictated their needs and commands through the priest. We were a structured society of different social classes, there was the upper class of the chief and elders, priests and their family. Then there were the rich landowners and the doctors, then craftsmen, and farmers and fishermen. Those of different classes were not supposed to marry or intermingle socially. Of course, this became very hard to maintain with so few people. These were ancient laws designed for thousands of men and women, not a few hundred."

Kalu explained about Aula, and Ikol, and Su-fala-su, and the prophecy of Ikol's destruction and man's freedom. He explained what he saw, the massive explosion on the horizon, the vision, and the voice. He explained the fundamentals of the True Way, and how it had scared the chief and the elders.

"So, you are a prophet, then," Dr. Moffett said.

Kalu did not respond. He turned back to the water.

"Shall we have shark for dinner," Kalu said. He followed the reef shark as it swam between two tall towers of coral, the sunlight lazily illuminating the tip of the shark's dorsal fin. "You can have it's teeth if you help me bring it in."

***

After the fishing expedition, and the shark dinner that followed, Kalu allowed for the white visitors to move among the villagers. He told everyone to treat them as honored guests, as good friends.

A few days later, Dr. Moffett found Kalu and the villagers praying at the altar that was built over the old hut. It was a rather impressive structure carved from stone and covered in shells, bone, and feathers, as the islanders had spent much time and effort building it. There were no red Ini feathers, as the bird was now sacred. The bones of the dead were now all buried around the altar.

That evening they held a somber festival in honor of the dead. They covered the village and the altar with flowers. Kalu made offerings to his parents, his sister, Ka-puna, Lakula, Alak, and Susan. Then they sat around a big fire, ate, drank, and sang old songs.

"Her name was Susan," Kalu said to Dr. Moffett late in the evening. He had just checked in on the sick children, and found the anthropologist sitting alone to the side of the fire on his return. "The person you reminded me of was named Susan." He enjoyed hearing her name cross his lips. He listened for her voice in the wind, tried to catch her scent, see her face. "She was a white woman who I met on Bini. But she died."

Dr. Moffett was smoking from strange device that he called a pipe.

"Oh," he said. Taken by surprise.

"I haven't said that name for many years. Never told anyone, really, about her. She was a wonderful woman. I loved her, that Susan," Kalu said. "I loved Lakula as well. I don't know which I would have chosen if I had to chose between the two. But they're both dead. I never had a chance to choose."

"Love," Dr. Moffett said, partially to himself.

Kalu could tell that the man was thinking of something, something about his own life, something personal. He could tell by looking at Dr. Moffett's eyes. He could see the sadness, the loneliness of loss.

"What was her name?" Kalu said.

"Caroline," Dr. Moffett said. "My wife. She died five years ago. She got sick one day, and there was nothing anyone could do for her."

"Today, we remember her, too. And I am sure she is in P, happy and free from pain and suffering, just waiting for you to join her when you are ready."

Dr. Moffett took a long puff from his pipe, and blew the smoke out into the air. He was thinking, unsure if he should do what he was about to do. If it was ethical to interfere.

"Kalu," he said. "I have something I should tell you. It's about the children, and why they are sick. And it has to do with--"

He paused for a moment, balanced on the thought, and then tipped over.

"Do with the fire you saw. The great explosion. That wasn't a god fighting another god. It was a weapon--" He tried to think of the words to describe it to Kalu in Aulaian, but could not. "It was a weapon, made by man, not gods. The gods never spoke to you, Kalu. I shouldn't tell you this, this violates everything, but you need to know why those children are sick. That great explosion made them sick. It left something, some special dust that makes people sick. It gets into the water, the food, fruit and plants. And it makes children, and people who are weak, very sick."

Kalu sighed. He knew that what he had seen wasn't really what he saw. He knew that there was no Aula, no Ikol, no gods. There was only Horatio, Horatio who tortured him and his people, made them all suffer and hurt, made them sick and die. And Kalu hated him so much for it.

"It makes children sick, especially," Dr. Moffett said. "I just want you to know that, because I might be able to help you. We have places that may help them get better. I'm not surprised that they didn't evacuate Pa-Ula. Probably never even knew that this place even existed."

Of course, thought Kalu. Of course. The explosion was no vision of peace and prosperity, it was a message of death and disease and destruction. This world was too awful, he thought. Too awful to even allow children to share in some bits of happiness.

"I am sorry," Dr. Moffett said, "but give me a few weeks and I can get them all some help. I shouldn't interfere in this way, I am just an observer. But the children."

Kalu smiled. There was no happiness in the smile. There was no hint of joy. It was a dark and angry smile. An inward and upward looking smile. A smile of recognition. He was being mocked. His people, his world, all being mocked by its creator. A careless, thoughtless creator, selfish and stupid.

"This is so," Kalu said. "We have always suffered. We will always suffer. Even the innocent suffer. This place is cursed. Cursed by its creator, cursed by its inhabitants, cursed by me."

"Kalu. I can help."

"I will let them go free," Kalu said. "Free to escape this hell. Save them, Dr. Moffett. Save them from this place."

So it was decided. In total, after weeks of arriving and departing planes full of sick children and their families, only six islanders remained. Even Bak left to be with his children, Alak having recently shown signs of illness. He promised to return, but Kalu knew he wouldn't. It was Kalu and five fishermen who were too old and tired to care to leave.

Eventually they, too, died. And Kalu was alone with Wee-ting, who one day died choking on a fish bone.

XXXIII (Friday)

Night descends in fire and smoke,

And in a moment of delirious haze--

As flame churns solid to boil--

You can see the stars clearly above.

He woke up, his neck hurt. He was sitting at the computer, the monitor in front glowed with white and black letters.

Years passed.

The hut was full of objects now.

Faint echoes passed through his field of view, of his conversation with Ikol, of his meeting with Kalu. But had one thing to do, one thing that was apparent and clear. He had already damned Kalu, made him suffer for the good of his own creativity. But he would not let Ikol damn him. He could fight back. Ikol was his creation, trapped within rules and boundaries that he, himself, had created. He could destroy Ikol. If he was a true creator, he had the ability to defeat his creations.

But was this reality, he wondered. Could this really be happening? Could his own creation really be alive and active in his world, bending the rules of his reality, enforcing a fabricated will of a true world? Or, as he had speculated long before, was this all occurring around him, and him alone. That he was caught in some strange pocket of pseudo-reality, that if he could stop Ikol, he would wake from this waking dream and everything would be back to what it was. This is what he hoped, though he also feared that he was trapped in a nightmare, trapped like Kalu. Incapable of setting his own destiny, escaping the restrictions placed upon him by others, whether he created them or not. That damned Ikol. It made him hate himself, for being so weak and cruel.

But, he thought, he could make Kalu happy. In the end, he could make him happy. And in that way, he wouldn't be punishing Kalu, would he? Happiness, even at such costs and losses, is worth it, right?

He rubbed his head and stood up, stepping away from the desk and the computer and his words, if they were his words. He was dressed in Big Tostada uniform, missing patch, smelling like dried vomit and oil. Sticking his hands into his pockets, he walked towards the door, tripping over the open book that law sprawled on the ground. It was the book from the library, the strange mystery book by a Dr. Moffett, the one that had transformed into his own work. Now it was blank, the pages yellowed and old but wordless. There was no title, no etched cover, no authorship, publisher, record of creation. It was an empty book.

"Hello, Horatio," someone said. A woman said. A young woman, suspiciously similar to Genevieve but not Genevieve said. Delilah said. She was standing in the doorway. She was wearing attractive lingerie. She was rosy-cheeked, wide-eyed, smelling like perfume and flowers. Her breasts were small but visible through her sheer white bra. Her nipples were hard and erect, her skin soft and seductive. "I've been looking for you. I know you want me. I want you."

He tried to keep calm. Held his ground, did not step forward, did not breathe. He attempted to look at her coldly. What was this random wrench, he thought. What was Ikol up to. Maybe he had some attraction to her, but he hadn't even talked to her in days. He hadn't even really thought about her in days. Why this?

"Let me make you happy. I'm a lot dirtier than my sister. A lot wilder. I need a big strong man to fulfill my desires."

He shook his head. He still did not move. He would not move. This wasn't real, he thought. She wasn't really there. She was somewhere else, at home, at Genevieve's. Maybe really missing.

"Horatio, come here," Genevieve said. She was sitting on the bed, naked. Her arms reaching out towards him. She was perfect Genevieve, dream Genevieve. Her voice was hypnotic, he felt drawn to her, her Siren's call drawing him over to her side. He sat at the edge of the bed, looking her over. What should he do. He felt so overcome with desire.

No, he struggled. He could not give in to temptation. Ikol was mad, he thought. He can only through these loose shells at him, these candy coatings. He had no capacity to understand what Horatio really wanted. Ikol was incapable of fully grasping true emotion, true feeling, true thought. He was shallow, Horatio realized. That was why he did what he did. Ikol was shallow and thought he could win Horatio over with sensual pleasure.

"I'm sorry, love," Horatio said, pushed Genevieve's arms away. "There's something I must do."

He stepped out of the bedroom and into a dark hallway. It wasn't the hallway of his apartment, but long and windy and dark, no end in sight, walls lined with doors. He couldn't tell where he had come out from.

So he opened a random door, finding Wendy inside, sitting at a table inside the coffee shop. She was wearing a pink dress, her face empty of circus paint, looking like a tired bulldog. She looked up at him, and he realized he was sitting across from her.

"I'm pregnant," she said. "I think it's your baby."

"Couldn't be," Horatio said. "It must be Prescott's."

She shook her head.

"I know it's yours. I know it is."

The way she said it was so convincing. He felt drained, lost and unsure.

"What should we do?" he said.

"I won't give it up," she said. "I won't have an abortion, I won't put it up for adoption. We're going to have to raise it. Raise our baby. Our child."

She smiled, a forced and tight smile, and grabbed his hands. Her own hands were warm and damp and shaking. She was afraid of something. Like there was a gun against her head. She squeezed his hand, she looked him in the eyes, and he could see she was desperate. She needed help. And he understood, waking momentarily from a daze.

"This isn't real," he said. "You couldn't be pregnant."

"You bastard," she said. "I am!"

"You bastard," Prescott said.

And Horatio felt himself being lifted and pushed against a wall. Then he felt a fist drive into his stomach, and he couldn't breathe, and things turned grey.

"You son of a bitch, fucking my girlfriend," Prescott said. "I'm going to kill you."

Prescott grabbed Horatio by the shoulders and drove him against the wall. But it wasn't a wall, it was a door, and they were back into the hallway, briefly, before traveling through another door and into the living room of their apartment.

"You asshole," Prescott said, and he punched Horatio right into his left eye, the world flashed violently, and he fell to the floor. "Stop fighting it," he said, but his voice was different. Wobbly and skewed, at an odd pitch. "I'll make you hurt until you accept it. You'll suffer if you keep fighting." Then it was normal again. "She's pregnant. You made her pregnant. You asshole."

Horatio tried to block an incoming kick, but it scuffed his lip and he tasted blood. He quickly backed up and dodged another blow. He stood up, his face and chest hurt and faced Prescott. But Prescott wasn't Prescott. He was bigger, he was stronger, fiery-eyed and red-faced. Steam rose from his nostrils. Horatio dodged another punch and then ran for the door, throwing himself against it, knocking it over and landing on the ground outside the Casino in Congress Park. The ground was covered with snow.

"There you are," Isabelle said. She was standing nearby, dressed in a large black coat instead of her usual green tent. "We're going to be late."

"Late for what?" Horatio asked, standing up. Behind him, the doorway led into the entrance hall of the Casino, with its fancy red carpeting and gilded walls and ceilings. There was no sign of Prescott, human or otherwise.

"For the funeral," she said.

"Who's died?" he asked.

"Genevieve," she said. She answered very plaintively, matter-of-factly. As if everyone in the world knew but Horatio. She took him by the arm, and they walked towards the center of the park. The snow vanished, and they were standing in a field of brown grass. In the center of the field stood a coffin surrounded by people dressed in black. He recognized Delilah, and Dell, and Wendy, Prescott, Morgan, Tobin, and others from school.

"Why did she die?" He said, and realized he too was now dressed in black.

Isabelle said nothing, but nudged him forward to the coffin. A light rain began to fall as he stepped through the circle of mourners. And there, in the black coffin, was Genevieve. She was resting quietly, as if sleeping. From one angle she looked like the perfect, beautiful Genevieve with the wild exotic beauty he had dreamed of. And from another angle she was the plain and everyday Genevieve. The one that had interested him, for reasons he still was not certain. Nor could he ever be truly certain. Love isn't logical, isn't something easily defined.

He reached in and touched Genevieve's changing face. There was not really that much of a difference. They were clearly the same person, but viewed as if one was under natural light, the other under florescent. Strange subtle differences.

She opened her eyes and looked at him.

"Choose me," she said. She sounded desperate. "Choose me, so I can live."

Isabelle came up to his side and Genevieve's eyes closed shut.

"You have to choose. Either her or me," Isabelle said, sadly. Her green eyes endlessly searching his own. "One or the other. We can't both exist. Please. These are the last two options he will give you. I'm sorry."

She pointed him towards a wall standing to the side of the field. There was a door built into the wall, but it didn't seem to lead anywhere.

"In there," Isabelle said. "That's where you have to decide."

Horatio walked away from the coffin and the mourners and Isabelle. He walked towards the door. His destiny waited within. A destiny that he was being forced into, even if he was given options to decide from, they were not his options. He had to find a way to end this. Ikol was crafty, but he was too full of himself not to leave some sort of weakness exposed.

He opened the door, looked back at the mourners one last time, then stepped through. He was back in the hallway, however there were only two doors. There were no walls, just endless darkness.

One of the doors was marked with a large and exquisitely carved golden G. The other was white and bejeweled with an emerald I. He made up his mind, and slowly stepped into the darkness between the two doors.

"I don't choose either," he shouted. "Fuck you!"

He was standing outside, on the sidewalk, staring up at the restaurant.

XXXIV

"The time has come for all to end."

The flower said to the bee.

"For I grow dry and my petals die--

There'll be nothing left of me."

Years passed.

The hut was full of all sorts of objects, now. Necklaces made out of sharks teeth and fish bones, pearls piles into small stacks, the old revolver rusting in the corner, pieces of metal and cloth and three cans of food he had salvaged from the airplane on Bini when he visited it for the second time several years earlier. There were carved stone objects and spear tips, woven mats and baskets. Piles of grass skirts and coral beads and shells, carvings of Ikol-nai and Aula-nai, and Kalu-nai. There was barely any room to sleep. He looked at these objects, looked at them like they were his family. They were his memories, his life, cluttering the rotting hut.

It had been so quiet on the island, no one was around to talk to, no one was around to cause trouble or fight. No one to share moments of life with, to have feasts and sing and dance with. No one to lay next to as the sun rose, having spent the night talking about life and the way the ocean seemed to go on and on.

At first it was painful, time dredged on slowly and Kalu found himself not eating for days a time. Or he'd catch so much fish that it would rot in the sun, feeding only the flies. There were powerful storms that tore down remaining huts and threw trees all over the island. There were weeks of stagnant heat, where even shade baked the skin. Now and then he would see metal birds flying through the sky, but none ever landed, none ever visited. None of the islanders ever returned.

It was unseasonably cool. Kalu sat in the sun to get some extra warmth into his old bones. He was now waiting, patiently, waiting for the final sun to set and the wind to fall silent. For the ocean to sleep and the stars to fade into the darkness. He fell asleep, and the final dream came:

He was sitting in his canoe, gliding not through the ocean but down a gentle stream filled with flowers floating along the surface. At first they were red and purple and yellow, but then they were only white, and not flowers at all but bones and teeth. There were sad white faces floating around him, calling out his name without voices. Itiki floating along the river like disjointed tree roots squirming like snakes, bulbous jellyfish heads and willowy arms dragging against brown decaying earth. The stream dried up, leaving the canoe in a bed of dust and bone. The faces, familiar faces--Lakula, Alak, Iluka, Ka-puna, Mawbot, Bak--buried themselves into the dust. Then one rose, it wore the shark mask, it spoke to him,

"Kalu, I wronged you. I wronged myself. Forgive me," Iluka said.

It dipped back down into the dust. Another rose and took its place, painted in bright red dye wet and dripping like blood.

"Kalu, I had a jealous heart, a heart that denied itself. Save me," Alak said.

Then this face vanished back into the dried graveyard of sand and bone, only to be replaced by one buried in wrinkles and sadness.

"Kalu, no matter how many lives I saved, I could not forget my sins. Free me." Ka-puna said.

"I followed you and your dream, but I could not save my children. Help me," Bak said.

"You loved me, but so much was buried under stones. Don't forget me," Susan said.

"I loved you, even if I was too weak to stand strong. Love me," Lakula said.

"Remember our strength. Do not let us go, never ever let go. Remember what we taught you," his family said.

And then he saw his own face rise from out of the dust and bone and up into the sky that grew black and sparkled with stars. He found that he was no longer in the boat, but was that face, was rising higher and higher away from the brown dead world below and into the heavens as swirling streams of white Itiki danced below.

"Even if I was never in control of my destiny, I did the best I could. I gave hope to those who needed it, redemption for those who sought it. Be happy, Kalu. You've done well," Kalu said. And then he woke.

It was getting late into the afternoon, and Kalu was getting hungry. He would have to fish, so he dug through piles of dried flowers and rotting coconuts and pieces of wrecked canoes to find his favorite spear. But as he dug deeper and deeper, he felt a strange wind blow, and he knew it was time.

He wandered down the lone remaining worn path to the beach, and stopped because he was no longer alone.

"You return," Kalu said. "I've been waiting. Please, please, come with me."

Postscript:

So it was all a dream.

A waking dream,

A sleeping dream--

The hidden wonder of creation.

And as Horatio finished reading the final lines he wondered, was it right for him to have treated Kalu that way, racing through the story, pushing so much on him , all those clumps of words. Did he even give Kalu a real chance to exist as a true entity, free-will, free-thought, creative? Did he let Kalu have a chance to be a real human, or was Kalu just an aggregation of letters and nothing else? And was it all Horatio's creation? What if this was all someone else's big dream, someone else tossing words and images around shaking him up in some big box, mistreating him like he mistreated Kalu, forcing things on him for the sake of the story, making him react the way he had for the sake of story--and even so, was it interesting, or just a big waste?

He turned off the computer and sat quietly in his chair. And what of himself? What of the author?

He had put himself into his own story--whether he did it consciously or not, he was there--so conceited and cocky, like he, Horatio, actually mattered so much and the story was so great and epic and important that it included it's own creator, it's own god, as a character. Himself, the author, not some literary representation. He had been there, though this belief was fading fast, he had stood there facing Kalu, twice, spoken twice to his own character. Even if this really only had occurred in his mind, in the end, even if he didn't remember the actual act of writing, he was the author, these were his words. The story wasn't great, but it was his--that's why. It was a piece of him, the words his blood, the story his vision. That story was him, a piece of him, so why not include himself in it. Just like everything around him, in the real world, creations of himself--perhaps that is what they were--the awakening of the imagination, the finding of the true inner Horatio bubbling to the surface, overwhelming thought and reason and even vision. From the recognition of unhappiness and being miserable, an explosion of creativity, a search for the true self. An internal battle manifested in an obscene fantasy. Dreaming while awake. All of it fading away, even the smells of burnt cheese vanishing into the obscurity of dream. And what was he left with?

A Creation.

It was a mess, he thought, sitting in the darkness of his room. A big old mess. But it was his mess, and this gave him the happiness that he had always wanted. So he stood up, said goodbye to his creation, and went to sleep.

Epilogue:

The fire grew wild with one last great growl, and then withered away into the remaining coals of burnt wood. The storyteller went quiet. He stood still, listened to the faint remnants of his words. The crowd was quiet as well suckling on the final images of the story before opening their eyes and taking one, large, communal breath of air.

"Thus this story returns from the dust to the heavens, where it feeds the stars and makes them grow bright," he said. The audience was still silent. Reflective.

He removed his mask and holds it out for all to see.

"This is the mask of life, it binds its wearer to the earth and gives its wearer strength to tell the truth from the earth's roots."

The crowd "ooohed" and "ahhhed" and claped in appreciation.

"And the mask now sleeps, as the gods now sleep, as this story now will forever sleep."

The storyteller then walked to the village chief and gave him the mask.

"Bury this mask, so that it may return to where it came. So that there will be more stories to tell, and more tales to share."

The chief smiled broadly, and held the mask in his hands, felt the energy flowing from it. The life, the story.

"It will be done," he said and stood and lifted it up so all could see. He raised the mask to the sky, and the audience cheered. "And now, let us begin the festivities."

The villagers began dancing and singing and playing their drums as a new fire was lit. They performed the dance of the fire, and the dance of the story, and the dance the ancestors. As they danced and sang and sang and danced, the storyteller surreptitiously disengaged from the audience. He wandered away from the festivities, and quietly loaded his canoe.

A young villager followed the storyteller, first he hid in the darkness and watched, but then he approached the man.

"That was a good story," the little boy said. "When will you tell us another?"

The storyteller turned and faced the boy.

"I will be back, in a year's time. But," the storyteller said, kneeling down and facing the small boy. "We each have our own stories, inside ourselves. Share them, as the ocean shares its fish. As the breadfruit tree shares its fruit. Share them."

The young boy watched as the storyteller pushed his canoe out into the water, and paddle away to the next island under the twinkle of the stars.

Notes: Isabelle is the girl Dell originally saw that was beautiful

Need to infuse Dell more into story before

Need dream with Delilah, and a small obsession and desire bit over Delilah. Have Horatio sleep with her as well?