The Impossibly (10 page)

This incident was not the previously mentioned singular incident, which prevented me from drawing another card, forced me to lie flat on my back in a warm puddle for some minutes, and obliged me to help the bartender carry an individual out to the trunk of a car. This was a second singular incident, one that took place a short while later, after I had left the store where I acquire my job-related supplies. For this job, according to the instructions I had received over the telephone, those supplies included red duct tape and a standard wooden-handle feather duster. The red duct tape was very pleasant to work with. It was both excellently adhesive and relatively easy to remove. I still have a small stretch of it. One acquires considerable amounts of leftover product upon the termination of this variety of job—much of the work has about it a certain performative aspect, thus placing a premium on the quality of the realia put into use. Realia, the organization’s literature on the subject states, is most essential, serving, as it does, to “anchor the event.” Most evocative, for me, of the leftover product I have accumulated, is a heavy power transformer, which was used to run a branding iron, which was used to heat a certain element, which was used in conjunction with several liquids, each of them very expensive and hard to come by. I have other things in my possession which are capable of inspiring in me certain associations. One I carry with me at all times. I have shown it to very few people, as it has elicited mixed reactions. One party said, okay, nutcase. Another said, oh that’s very interesting. Another, quite some time ago now, called it exquisite. I am still not entirely sure how I can describe it. I could not believe that it hadn’t crossed my mind, that morning, to show it to her, although it struck me as altogether possible that she would not remember having given it to me, various things about her seeming, as they had, to have changed. But to return to the second singular incident. There was nothing to do but encourage the horse to right itself. It was an old horse lying on a patch of grass next to a vegetable stand, and I had no idea how and what it had come to be doing there. An old woman figured in the incident, insofar as the horse was sort of lying on her. The old woman, though she was eager to talk, seemed incapable of answering questions or rather of providing answers that seemed in some way to correspond with questions. I had been in this situation before. I knew what to do—when to say yes and when to nod. When I was young my father used to tie linoleum strips around my ankles so that the snakes wouldn’t bite me when we were berry picking, the old woman said. I nodded, I held her hand. She described the handles of a tea set she had once owned. Also she had been a teacher. In her cardigan pocket was a list of the subjects she had taught. I have a list in every pocket, she said. She then told me, pulling out one of said lists as evidence, about her mother’s onion tarts. Here I listened very carefully. It was apparently all in the consistency of the cooked onion. An emergency team arrived, the horse was lifted, shot, and carted away. I went to a computer shop. There I was supposed, also according to my instructions, to acquire a computer, a very small one. The salesperson assured me she had just the thing and demonstrated how neatly her product could fit into, for example, one’s breast pocket. She was very proud of her product and succeeded in imparting a fair measure of that pride in me, the new provisional owner of the very small computer with the illuminable screen. Later that screen was to come in handy, as was the built-in calculator, and one or two other functions. Alas, that item was not one I was permitted to keep. It was held as evidence and played a role at my trial in exonerating me. Then, for the second time, I thought I saw her again. I was leaving the store, small computer in breast pocket, red duct tape and feather duster in a plastic bag. The feather duster was nice, too, in its own understated way. The tips of the feathers had been touched with green paint and one could imagine how nice they would look gliding across oak or cherry or teak. She was sitting in the window of a restaurant across the street talking to someone—someone I couldn’t quite see, someone wearing a hat and sunglasses. It certainly did look like her, albeit with one or two of the somewhat important differences I mentioned previously. Sun was flooding the street. It occurred to me that it was perhaps the presence of so much sunlight that made her appear to have changed a little. There had of course been sun, even bright sun, during those other days, but it had not been warm, or only rarely. Most of the time there had been rain. I tried to imagine I was looking at her through the rain. I squinted a little. It helped. Still squinting, I crossed the street and stood outside the window. It was her all right, I thought. As for her interlocutor, I couldn’t be certain, but it seemed to me that she was speaking with some difficulty, as if, even, she was stuttering, and it also looked a little like she was holding a gun. Such impressions often prove erroneous, however. In fact, the last time I had seen a person who spoke with a stutter and who seemed to be holding a gun, I was wrong, about the gun part. This was following the conclusion of the task I had undertaken at the outset of my recuperation, some weeks previously. I had performed the task and the lights had come on and all present had nodded and we had all shaken hands and just as they were beginning to clean up the blood someone had said, follow me. We went along dark streets for a while then into a building and up six flights of stairs. I don’t mind this, this is great, I said, huffing a bit. Will you please keep your fucking mouth shut, the person I was following said. Then we were at the top and I kind of leaned over and the person told me to kind of stand up and I said hold on just a second and the person gave me a smack. I stood up very straight and we went into an apartment and then into a room and in the room there was a swimming pool lit with golden lights. At the far end of the swimming pool stood the individual with the stutter and the presumptive gun. It’s good to see you again, I said. Jump into the pool but don’t drown, the person I had been following and who was now standing beside me said. I jumped and did not drown. I am actually a very good underwater swimmer, especially in indoor swimming pools. This has been true since my childhood. During that portion of my life, I was often to be seen in the swimming pool at the local hotel. I excelled at all games that involved retrieving coins from deep water. Others would gather around the edges of the pool to watch me swim from coin to coin, often emptying their own pockets to create what looked to my submerged eyes like a glittering rain. At any rate, as I say, I did not drown, although for a time I did sink. The pool was strangely deep, in fact it was considerably deeper than it was wide, and I was fully clothed. Nevertheless, once I had adjusted, it was nice underwater. It is lovely to see a lit pool from under its surface, lovely to lie on your back near the bottom. Then they fished me out. For a while, I lay on the tiles beside the pool. From where I lay, I could quite clearly see that what I had thought was a gun had not been one. In this case I was not as certain. The bright sun was falling across the table onto both of them and it certainly looked like a gun. I tried mouthing the word, gun, but I am not very adroit at mouthing, so that when she looked up and saw me doing so she raised one eyebrow, frowned, and looked elsewhere. Then I was taken away by two large individuals. They did not speak to me, they just silently invited me into the back of a truck parked some distance down the street then handed me an ice bag and silently invited me to get out. When I returned, she was gone, although the woman who had been holding the gun, or what looked like a gun, was still there. Then I had to go to work. Work, in this reference to it, did not involve the phone call I had received earlier. One of the many interesting aspects of the organization, and I believe I may have touched on this elsewhere, is that there are very few, if any, organic assets who serve the organization full time. As the work is part time and not always very well paid, one finds oneself obliged between assignments to seek gainful employment elsewhere. This had not been the case for me when I had arrived those months, or perhaps years, previously, but now it was. In my previous employment, with another organization, a transactions firm, I had managed to put a certain amount of my compensation aside and, for a time after I had been obliged to leave and had come to this city, had been able to live quite comfortably; i.e., many of my days were spent lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling, listening to the river, or to the rain, or to the falling leaves. That afternoon at work I sold thirty-six cakes and earned compliments from the senior cakeseller, compliments I was only too glad to accept, as my luck with the cakes had not always been excellent. In fact, early in my period of disaffirmation, and up until my recuperation, it was not uncommon for me to sell a mere six or seven cakes over the course of an afternoon. This is not many cakes. Especially since they are attractive cakes. With thick glazing and the scent of fresh lemon and cream. I was not at all astonished then, given the excellence of the cakes and the fine location of the cake stall, as well as the comprehensive nature of my training, that the senior cakeseller expressed a certain amount of disappointment, in the early going, at my poor luck. In that light, it was fortunate that, as far as cakes were concerned, my luck underwent a change. Regarding other aspects of my life I can report that I have registered no such change. For a brief time during the period prior to the events I am now relating, I was under the impression that it had changed, but it had not. I am not very lucky, I told her later that day, when I saw her again, which is to say that I did see and speak to her again, whether or not it was her. We were sitting in a dark room on a couch and had been discussing science fiction movies, a topic I had proposed. Certain events were to begin shortly, and until they began we were obliged, according to instructions, to wait together in the dark. She had refused to gloss her presence in the room, except to say that it was job related, and she hadn’t asked me why I was there, so I told her about a movie I had seen recently in which the rocket a man is riding in loses an engine, forcing him to crash-land on a planet populated by citizens dressed in iridescent robes, who enjoy going to the arena, where often there are gladiators fighting wild pigs. The pigs in the film were very large, I explained to her, much larger than the average pig and they could fly. Actually it would not be quite fair to say the pigs could fly. What they could do was hover. This was described as a form of instinctual levitation. As a young man, subsequent to my coin-diving period, I knew pigs, our pigs—often I was given the job of filling up their trough. It was quite a deep trough and the pigs were frequently hungry and, as I remember it, I used to hold this against them. Made aware of this, a friend suggested we hit them with two-by-fours. It was unclear to us whether or not they noticed. One day having worked with the pigs, I went to school without changing my shoes. Normally in such instances, the teacher would strike us with a textbook. That day, however, he instructed me to remove one of my shoes and, holding it carefully, used it. Basically, the spaceman was lacking both the tools and the materials to repair his rocket. There were many shots of the stranded rocket—a glistening, elongated cone with elegant blue fins. It was pleasant to hear the people in their iridescent robes who came daily to offer advice to the spaceman say, titanium.

That’s a nice word, isn’t it? I said. Yes it is, she said, in fact, right this second it wouldn’t be a bad thing to be encased in it. Encouraged, I told her about another movie, this one involving an android whose eyelid function wasn’t working, causing it great discomfort. Then I stopped talking because suddenly she was holding my hand. That had not occurred for some time. For quite some time. That her hand seemed larger than it had previously and that her arm against mine seemed slightly longer than previously did not matter in the face of this pleasantness. Do not, under any circumstances, yeah right, I thought, squeezing her hand and sort of humming a little. It is definitely a nice word, she said. Yes it is, I said. Then our period of waiting was over and there were others in the dark room with us. Two of them sat down on the couch. I felt to make sure that the roll of red duct tape was still in my pocket—it was. A moment later, however, it wasn’t, and she was no longer holding my hand. After I had finished selling cakes, I went to a small restaurant I know. The restaurant is lit, principally, by yellow bulbs behind yellow shades around which, in the right season, insects circle lazily. The proprietor is a kindly person, and the waiter is neither too quick in his service nor too slow. I ordered, on this occasion, what was described in the menu as “a large piece of meat,” and as I waited for it I sipped a pleasant beverage and looked at the other diners. They had all, it seemed, chosen the large portion of meat, and it was agreeable to watch them lift their heavily laden forks and wipe at the corners of their mouths with their napkins. By and by the waiter came to me with my own plate. It is a lovely thing, during those occasional intervals when nothing is all that is required and more, to eat a nice piece of meat in a warm, dimly lit room, one with adequate ventilation, and I was very sad when it was finished. May I take your plate? said the waiter. May I keep it a moment longer? I said. He nodded. There were others in the room sitting over plates glistening with that lovely sheen of residual sauce. And as we sat thus aimless and sated, some of us even dozing in our despondency, the door to the restaurant opened and in walked the woman with the sunglasses and the hat and the stutter, only she was wearing neither hat nor sunglasses, and she did not stutter when she called out to the waiter to bring her a piece of meat, a cup of soup, and a wedge of bread. It was only later, when her meal was finished and she reached into her bag and retrieved those two articles, that she began to stutter. This is one of those instances in which subsequent circumstances stain previous ones. I say this because in thinking about her and the remarkable luminosity of her eyes and the elegant timbre of her voice and the excellent quality of her hair, I remember most clearly sunglasses and stutter and hat. This was due in large part to the fact that once these things were in play she came over to my table and sat down, and the entire restaurant, lovely plates notwithstanding, cleared out, so that it was just the two of us, or perhaps I should say the three of us, because in her hand, and there was no mistaking it this time, was a gun. I do not know if you have been involved in an interaction like the one I then found myself involved in—it was curious. She began to say something, but was unable to say that thing so left off and we sat there. We sat there for quite some time and the only sounds I could make out were the sounds that one hears in one’s own body when one is forced to sit so still for so long after such a fine and copious supper, to sit, I might add, in the presence of reflective sunglasses, in which one can see oneself, one’s barely palatable self, and in the presence of a large semiautomatic handgun. I sat without moving, of course, and she sat mostly without moving and every few minutes she would attempt to speak. It was something beginning with a sound that involves simultaneously expanding the base of one’s throat and contracting it. I know this because I have tried it since, in my free time. I have quite a bit of free time lately. I can tell you that it is pleasant to be aware of having a good deal of free time on one’s hands and to just, perhaps humming, sit there. One sits and hums and looks out the small window. Stop humming, someone said. I stopped. We continued to sit there. Occasionally her head would move. I mean apart from when she would make an attempt to speak. We would just sort of be sitting there and her head would turn. Then my head would turn. When hers would, I mean. That began to happen after a time. It was just a slight turn. I could see the motion in her glasses. At some point the waiter came out, very quietly, and brought us each a portion of sorbet. It was a green tea sorbet, quite delicious. We ate it off of very tiny spoons. It was interesting and even pleasant to observe her sucking the sorbet off the spoon while holding the large gun. It really was quite a large gun. Clearly, many a caliber could be propelled through it. I wondered, if the gun went into action, if it would strike me in the breast. No doubt it was wondering this that put me in mind of the hero, who, his invulnerability having been called into question, was able to maintain the illusion of it by the fact that when presently he was fired upon, the projectile that struck him lodged in the address book he was carrying in his breast pocket. I understand that, relatively speaking, it can be quite elegant to be struck by a projectile in the breast. I am told that, unlike the head or the groin or the stomach, the chest bleeds quite beautifully, that sometimes the escaping lines of blood make marvelous patterns. She began to say something. She stopped. It was all quite intricate. Then she lifted her hand and someone came up behind me and said, don’t fuck it up tonight, we’ll be watching you, now get out. Back on the street it was evening and for a while I just walked around. Any city on a warm evening is probably just as lovely as this one. Not true. I have been in more than one city on a warm evening that was unlovely. This one wasn’t. I walked for a time. I lost myself. It is a very pleasant city, and, in that regard, holds on the crowded boulevards, deep within a variety of circumstances, the evening walkers, myriad undulations, under the fountains, once or twice crestfallen, as we speak. Obligatory pitfalls often mitigated, though always not, etc., or not always. I was told once in a big bed in the countryside by the woman I loved that what made it always so difficult, all of it, was being an interior in a world of exteriors. The skin embraces while the bones, stripped of their flesh and fat, long to click and knock against each other. It is only when the skin is gone and the flesh, a function of decay, releases its water that they finally heap the bones together, she supposed, but this is too late. Just as, as I slowly, in a manner of speaking, returned to myself, it occurred to me that everything was too late, but I kept walking. This is likely, I said to myself, reverting to my earlier line of thought on the city’s loveliness, due to a variety of factors, a few of which involve the city’s physical attributes, that is to say its tendency, generally, to undulate. I have always supported, in a city, a well-balanced street-to-structure ratio, and this one certainly enjoys that. Also, here there are many spaces that are empty, or only partially filled, and the people can enter them. Or, if these spaces are in some way partitioned off, at the very least the people can approach and, at leisure, allow their eyes to explore them. For many it is preferable, of course, to be able to physically enter, or, with the very real possibility of doing so, to think of entering, to stroll, for example, without strolling, across deliciously clear spaces or among trees. I am of those who find it unbearably lonely to actually enter such places. This is true most days. It is not lonely, however, on the mornings when the colorful stalls have been set up in part of a given space and the wares have been displayed, and the men and women call out words and numbers to you as you walk. And occasionally, then, of course, you purchase something, and the person you have purchased that thing from, while perhaps not ecstatic, is pleased, and you are pleased and occasionally ecstatic, even if you happen to be alone. I do not count circus tents as structures either and once, in the middle of a very large space, upon the conclusion of a certain piece of business, I went to one. Also, of course, there are movies to go to, and that brings up the aspect, added to space, of mediated light and dark, and in this city there is plenty of that. There are plenty of movie theaters where you sit alone or in company and watch rocket ships and androids and points of light and, that world, of movie theaters, is both light and dark and dark and light, as it is on the streets in the evening in this city, with the dark, quiet crowds, and the undulations, and the lights coming on. The lights were coming on. Suddenly I realized I had forgotten my hat. I retraced my steps and reentered the restaurant, which, now crowded again, was bright with the sound of forks falling and rising and of mouths being filled. The woman who was the woman with the sunglasses and the handgun had been replaced by the woman who at any time might become that woman, but currently was not. I forgot my hat, I said. I know, she said. She waved to the waiter who disappeared then reappeared with a hat, but it was not my hat, and I told them so. This sequence repeated itself. I’m sorry, I said. What kind of hat was it? she asked. I explained that it was quite similar to the variety of hat that she occasionally wore. And you are sure you left it here? I nodded. Because I don’t think he has it, she said, lifting her chin and pointing with it at the waiter. The waiter, very politely, shrugged. Have a seat, she said. Do you have any aspirin? I said. She produced a small bottle. The waiter brought me a glass of water. I sat. She seemed to be wearing some sort of scent, and after a moment I made mention of this. She thanked me. I ordered a coffee. When it came, I inserted a certain amount of sugar. So much sugar, she observed. I explained to her that I had lately become quite devoted to it. We then discussed sugar for a while. It is quite a thrilling substance, I said. A world without fructose, maltose, sucrose, or even glucose, she mused. The thought, we both agreed, was profoundly distressing. I confessed to her that I often dreamed about sugar, most frequently, although I had not yet determined why, of raffinose. Ah raffinose, she said. We then spoke of eggs for a time. She was a partisan of whites, I of yolks. I asked her what she did. She told me she worked part time as the coach of a swim team. We discussed swimming. I told her how much I liked to swim underwater in indoor pools and she asked me what stroke I used. I told her that I hadn’t thought of there being strokes for underwater swimming. She assured me that there were. I suggested that at some point she could give me some instruction, and she said she would be delighted and that as a matter of fact she was free right then. I thanked her for her generous offer, but told her that I was feeling a touch out of sorts, as I had had quite a shock that morning, and in fact again that afternoon. What kind of a shock? she asked. I saw someone, I said. That can be a shock, she agreed. We then spoke for a few minutes on the subject of the shocking quality of, as we saw it, the larger part of interactions. It really gets to be a problem, I said. One finds oneself becoming hesitant to relinquish the horizontal position each morning, she said. I asked her if she had a boyfriend. She didn’t answer. I used to have a girlfriend, I said. And was she lovely? Yes, she was. It’s nice when they are lovely—often they aren’t. How did you meet her? It had to do with a stapler. Is she who you saw again today? I think so. Incidentally, she then asked me, how do you feel about justice? About what? Justice. I prefer other subjects. So you don’t care to discuss whether or not those who have committed errors should be judged. Oh, well, that, sure, I’m all for that, I said. And do you think it is a process that should be interfered with / impeded / obstructed / disturbed? Either, I mean, in cases affecting your own person or in cases affecting others. I believe in 100 percent compliance, I said. And have you always? I’ve learned from my mistakes. That’s a good answer. What are you going to do to her? To whom? To my sweetheart. I don’t know who you are talking about. I think you do. I think, she said, reaching out her hand and placing it, for a moment, on my forearm, that your line of commentary is becoming inappropriate. She then asked if I would like some more sugar. I told her I would. As the bowl had become empty, she waved to the waiter and very graciously made my desire known to him and then very graciously said she must be going and that, if I wished, I could accompany her. She had a small errand to run, a little business to attend to, and then we could continue our conversation, or could do as we desired, do whatever it was that we wanted, perhaps swimming and even swimming underwater, she knew a nice pool, one that was beautifully lit and deep. I thanked her for the offer, which, I said, was very kind, but confessed that my discomfiture seemed suddenly to have accelerated and that unfortunately I did not feel at all like swimming. I’m sorry to hear that, she said. But I do think that the aspirin has done the trick, I said. Well that’s something, anyway. We shook hands. I watched her leave. When I got out on the street I went over to a pay phone and made a quick call. Then I threw up. A gentleman passing by asked me if I was all right. I said I was not. He asked if I required assistance. I told him I did not. I must insist, he said. Oh, I said. It was the guy from that morning in my apartment. He was wearing the same hat and shorts only now he had added an elegant lightweight hunting cape, because the evening air, as he put it, had become a touch fresh. For my part, I do not become much concerned by minor shifts in the weather and am quite comfortable in my shorts in a wide range of temperatures. I have shorts in a variety of lengths, some quite long, some quite short, although lately, concomitant with the general expansion of my proportions, I have found myself less likely to opt for short shorts. It has become, quite simply, unbecoming. I know this for a fact, because one day when I was sitting on the terrace of an establishment enjoying a beverage and hard-boiled egg a passerby told me so. That, quite frankly sir, is
unbecoming, the passerby said. Have you finished throwing up? the gentleman said. I told him that I could not be certain, but that I thought so. Splendid, he said. I told him that I did not think that anything, right at that moment, could be called splendid. At this he launched into a rather lengthy disquisition on the subject of a raise that he had just that day received. Oh yeah? I said, sort of leaning against a wall. Oh yes, he said. By the way, shouldn’t you be putting on your sunglasses? This was true. I had, officially, gone on the clock when I had made the phone call. I reached into my pocket, but they were gone too. I don’t have them, I said. Don’t you carry a spare? I do not. But this is relatively terrible. It was—one was required by recent directive to wear sunglasses when carrying out official duties. Hats, while recommended, were optional—sunglasses were not. Perhaps I could borrow yours, I said. Perhaps you certainly could not. Well then what about your spares? I’m sorry, but if I gave you my spares then I wouldn’t have them in the event that I misplaced my own. He had a point. The only thing to do was to buy a new pair. Why I was unable to do so is a long story, one that does not, suffice it to say, recommend itself to retelling, except to mention that a display case got broken and a lot of stairs were climbed. Well that was a complete fucking waste of time, I said to him an hour later. It certainly the fuck was, let’s go have a snack, he said. We found a small shop that sold fried potatoes, of the variety that one dips into a white sauce or into a red-and-white sauce onto which one sprinkles bits of chopped raw onion. I like that variety of fried potato and so did my companion. Well, I said. Yes, he said. We had both, during the search for a suitable pair of sunglasses, become rather tense, and eating the generous portions of thick warm potatoes soothed us. During the search, I had twice dropped the roll of red duct tape and had slightly damaged the feather duster and had also suddenly grown worried about the durability of the small computer, and he had spoken at great length about very little. I would be the first to admit to a tendency to speak too much during tense situations, but in this regard my companion far surpassed me. He was also, in my estimation, fatter than I was, his earlier remarks about me notwithstanding, and to be honest I did not think all that much of his hunting cape. Well, I said. Yes, he said. I ate a couple more potatoes then, still savoring the warm salts and oils, being aware of their residue on my lips, I asked him to what I owed the great pleasure of his company this time. I have a message for you. Can I have it? Not without sunglasses on. Well can you tell me what it’s about? No, I cannot. Not even a hint? He shook his head. For a couple more minutes we just sat there eating potatoes. Then I had an idea. Hey, Sport, I said. I told him what I was thinking. Okay, that might work, he said. We shook hands then approached each other and he took out his spare sunglasses and, without letting go of them, slipped them onto my face. This procedure obliged us to sit in extreme proximity and allowed me to see more than I would have liked to of his mouth. Have you ever watched a mouth talk from about seven inches away? A mouth that does not belong to a loved or even tolerated one? One that has just been eating fried potatoes with sauce? I was glad I had the sunglasses on to kind of dim things up. But it was a good message, better than average, very interesting. It was a little confusing, there were a couple of spots I’d clearly have to chew on, to make better sense of, but all in all it was surprisingly clear. I had received messages before that were not at all clear, and had suffered the consequences. E.g., not very long before these events I had received a message and proceeded to purchase, instead of a player, a recorder, a very nice one with a black body and turquoise buttons, one that was absolutely incapable of playing. I had arrived near the beginning of things rather than, as I was supposed to have been told or to have understood, at the middle, so that what was supposed to have been played near the end of things, wasn’t played at all. It wasn’t played at all because I didn’t have a player, not because of when I arrived—I realize that. I kept the recorder. I also kept what I recorded. It is not what you would call easy listening. It is remarkable the subtlety of the sounds that recording device was able to register. A friend for whom I played the tape commented on this and referred to the range of sounds as texture. This has texture, she said. I asked him to repeat the message. He did so then started to take off the glasses, but I pulled them back on. Who gave you the message? I said. I can’t tell you, he said. Did she give it to you? Is she in trouble? Who do you mean by she? She, I said. I can’t tell you. Won’t tell or don’t know? I have delivered my message. Tell me. At this point I had him in a choke hold. It was by no means an impressive choke hold, but it had some effect on him, because after not very many seconds of being choked he said, okay I’ll tell you. I loosened up a little. When I did, he leaned back and rubbed at his throat. I am, on occasion, capable of surprising myself. I enjoy such occasions. Though that should not be taken to imply that I enjoy surprise in general. I do not. I did not, for example, enjoy the surprise I experienced later that evening, if you could call it that, I’m not sure you could. He exhaled. I ate a potato. Then he answered my questions. Who gave you the message? The central office. The Stutter? The Stutter. So it wasn’t her. I don’t know who you mean. Is it a setup of any kind? I don’t know, probably. What’s my part? I haven’t been told. And is she involved? I don’t know. Who is it I am supposed to sit next to on the couch? A fellow participant. And who is the subject? I was not informed. I paused a moment to take this in. Nothing, or very little, seemed to enter. Excuse me a moment, I said, suddenly yanking the sunglasses out of his hands, I have to use the facility. May I have my second pair of sunglasses back before you do? I’ll only be a moment. He said nothing and when I got back he was gone. Hah! I said. But then he jumped me when I got outside the fried potato establishment. He moved very well for a larger individual, placing his knuckles where they were sure not to damage his glasses. Nice, I thought. Very nice. Then he knocked me out. When I came to I was somewhat disoriented and for a moment was under the impression that a woman was standing over me, a lovely woman in possession of nimbly locking joints and great general fluidity of aspect and intent, in fact, great everything, but I was wrong. There was a woman standing over me, but she was very tall and very skinny and short on fluidity and she was waving a deck of cards. Pick a card, I’ll get it right this time, she said. You were right about the horse, I said. What horse? she said. She was no longer the same woman. This woman was quite interesting. I had had several dealings with her, often of the pleasant variety. Usually we had frequented her quarters, which were well-situated and comfortable and had a wonderful bed. It was large and firm and much, if one had the inclination, could be done on it. My own bed, incidentally, is some distance from what one might consider comfortable. Which is not to say that I dislike my bed. Often during my recuperation, I would lie on it and listen to the river that flows near my apartment. I would sigh and the phone would ring and I would never answer it. Food would appear at the kitchen table, very simple dishes, quite easy to chew and digest, which, in the evenings, I would leave my bed to eat. Then I might take a soothing bath with large sponges and fragrant salts, and one day when I went into the bathroom this woman was there, already in the tub, and she had with her the aforementioned green plastic duck. Good lord, I said. Unusually nice, huh? she said. I immediately sat down on the edge of the tub and we talked. I asked her how business was and she said business had not been good lately, not enough coins and no bills were being left in her hat, although her repertoire had expanded and she had made certain innovations that had positively affected both her voice and her playing. Well that’s encouraging anyway, I said. Then she pulled me into the water and, when I was further recovered, I went to spend time in her bed. You need to get up now, she said. What? I said, opening my eyes. Beside my head, faintly pressed into the concrete, was the imprint of a hand. Not a large hand. Perhaps a child’s. Or not quite a child’s. It was somewhat larger, the digits thicker. There was water in the little finger. Had it rained? I remembered something. Another city. Many years before. Being dead. It is almost time, said the woman. I looked at my watch. I was no longer wearing a watch. But then I remembered that the small computer I had acquired was capable of giving the time in several zones. Which zone are we in? I asked her as I stood and extricated the small computer, which, in its protective case, seemed to be undamaged. Put that away and follow me, she said. But I don’t have any sunglasses, I said. She did not appear to hear me and set off walking, so I set off walking after her and I could not, in following her, help remarking the fine articulation of the muscles in her calves and the near proportionate slimness of her ankles, which put me in mind, as we walked along the deserted street, of another pair of calves and ankles and of other things, which, so thinking, reminded me of a film I had seen recently in which a robot follows another robot through the desert. It was a fine movie with great dark cities and burned plains set against the backdrop of galactic empires and frightening weather patterns, and this aging robot, or rather this robot who thinks he / she / it is aging and cannot stop thinking of days gone by. It is never made quite clear what has set this robot, after 7,000 years of service, to, as he / she / it puts it, dwelling. I cannot stop dwelling he / she / it says at one point to a companion robot. This must be your fatal error, the companion robot says, not without a touch of awe. They speak, of course, without lips and with lights flashing and have large, boxy heads, but their voices betray much feeling. In conversation recently I was told that my own voice betrayed much feeling, that my interlocutor could detect in it a distinct trembling. It is trembling because I am afraid, I told my interlocutor. Afraid of me? Yes. It is this companion robot who does not know what his / her / its own fatal error is or will be, who precedes our hero out into the desert at film’s end. The two robots walk slowly out into the sandy wastes, and our hero, watching the small, blinking, turquoise lights on the backs of the other robot’s knees, thinks of other small blinking lights that he / she / it has seen over the course of his / her / its 7,000 years, and perhaps later dreamed of, for these robots dream occasionally—they refer to it as being “on in off mode.” They even have nightmares. This they refer to as being “on off in off mode.” I have nightmares. I think I have addressed this elsewhere. Once, recently, however, I was on off in off mode and saw electric horses fighting slowly in a forest. It was, I think, the remembered slowness of their battle that most troubled me upon waking, and the fact that when they noticed I was there they tore me, slowly, to pieces. This was not very long ago. Also not very long ago, it occurred to me that perhaps what I was most lacking, even more than a sturdy cerebellum, were solid grounds for my argument, that in fact my argument, such as it was, was utterly groundless—where did it come from? relative to what did it exist? I say to myself: I have a hand, I know that this is my hand, but can only mean very little by it. At one point during the movie, a robot of a different variety asks our hero—who is wanted by the authorities for not having debatteritized another robot, that is, for not having terminated it, our hero is a “central matrix assassin”—what it is like to be on in off mode, could it be viewed as analogous to being off in on mode. No, he / she / it responds, adding that the phenomenon only ever merits discussion when, in instances of being on off in off mode, it is troubling. My matrix has never been troubled, the robot of a different variety says. Then you do not understand, our hero says. At this point the conversation is terminated because the authorities have arrived. There is a terrific robot fight involving serrated pincers and curious threats and our hero escapes. It is at this juncture that the robot with the turquoise lights comes into the story and that their adventures in common begin. All in all it was one of the best films of the science fiction genre in the style of some years ago that I have seen, and I had hoped to discuss part of it with her, in addition to the other films I mentioned above, as we sat on the couch together, not too many minutes after I looked at those ankles and calves and thought of her ankles and calves, or at any rate of ankles and calves that I had loved fiercely as a subset of an individual I had been in love with, fiercely, once upon a time. Incidentally, it is fall again—here, now. The streets are quiet and the people begin to move more quickly. The glass in my windows is cold. Leaves drop from the trees. I hunt for warm pastries in the bakeries. I steal cakes at work. There are always crumbs caught in the sugary oil around my mouth. None of this is true, of course. I mean in the sense that it is actually the case, that it occurs, or that it can be confirmed. But that is saying and making too much of too little. She refused to answer any of my questions about what she was doing there, then we sat down on the couch together, is the way it went. The couch was structured so as to elevate one each of our buttocks, in my case the left, in hers the right. There were many other couches in the room and chairs set close to each other and many discreet alcoves and from them, as we settled ourselves, we began to hear a faint murmuring. I’ve missed you, I said. And I you, she said. Would you like me to sing for you? Yes I would. I sang. She was silent. Why did you come back? I never left. I thought you were dead or that you had betrayed me. I was, she said, I did. I then suggested that we make love. The conversation sort of fell off for a time after this, so I started regaling her with film-related anecdotes and descriptions, which I think she found quite entertaining. My interpolations, however, were cut short when it became apparent that we were no longer alone in the