I love thee blood-red eyes, thee ‘tardly parted lips.

I love thee fragile scar that adorns thee finely bloated neck.

I love thee blindly, naively, like a man with cataracts, or a concussion of some kind.

Yea, I love thee deeply, inwardly, with all the contents of my stomach. I love thee even more than I love charcoal-filtered gin.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee poshly powdered pocks, thee sweetly scented scabs.

I love thee crimson veins that gleam in thee whiskey-ravaged schnoz.

I love thee fiercely, fervently, like a stray dog happening upon the carcass of a cow.

Yea, I love thee stiffly, rigidly, with all the severity of a shot. I couldn’t love you more, not even if you were soaked in schnapps.

  You are a malodorous molar in the mandible of humanity. You

are a cantankerous coil in the crapper of conformity. You are a

26-year-old “Sales Associate” with no wealth, knowledge, or

social aspirations to call your own. You have but one hobby in

life: hole up in your coffin-sized apartment and renounce the

outside world. Pretty soon, if you do not change your ways, you

will go wholly, totally, irrevocably deranged.

  “Egads!” you say. “Not deranged! Anything but deranged! I’d sooner eat a falafel sandwich filled with my own putrid droppings than go deranged! For the love of Dog, tell me, how did this happen, where did I go wrong?!”

  Who knows? Maybe you swallowed a fluke worm. Or maybe that dusky waif you insulted at Burning Man ten years ago was telling the truth, maybe he really was a witch, maybe he saddled you with a dusky, waify curse. As of this moment, the particulars of your downfall are somewhat elusive. However, that being said, one thing is certain: the dint of your troubles began last year, right around the time you immigrated to Oregon.

  Last year, compelled by boredom and the overwhelming urge to lie among lumber, you said “goodbye” to the dirt flats of Albuquerque and “hello” to the pine glades of Portland.

  Initially, the transition proved rewarding. Then, after about a week or so, the novelty wore off, and you found yourself slipping further and further into a bog of self-seclusion.

  Once, prior to your relocation, you enjoyed a sizable network of magnanimous friends. After, your only associate was your brain. But that was okay. Or, rather, it was okay for a while, up until last week. Last week was when your brain adopted the personality of a displaced conspiracy theorist harangued by delusions of global persecution. Yesterday, while you were scouring the Internet for pictures of Howard Hughes in drag, he highjacked your Amazon.com account and purchased a six-hundred-page diatribe entitled, “Cold-Blooded Conquerors: The Reptoids Among Us,” which purported to expose a group of shape-shifting aliens who had immigrated to Earth some thirty thousand years ago with the express purpose of drinking our blood while simultaneously robbing the planet of diamonds and gold.

  Needless to say, your association with your brain suffered after that.

  But fear not, fate has thrown you a bone! This morning you received an email from your old pal Sanjay. Like you, Sanjay is an immigrant from The Land Of Enchantment. Unlike you, he has assimilated to the change. While you have slipped further and further into a bog of self-seclusion, he has obtained a sizable network of magnanimous friends. The evidence of which is inherent in his letter. In it, he has requested your presence at a giant three-story music venue on the south-side of town. According to the letter, the venue is called Hump Slappers and it’s located somewhere on the corner of Mississippi and 23^rd. Other than that, he has provided very little information; only that he and his band, The Pachyderms, have agreed to headline a show at this establishment, and thereby provide the management with an ample supply of booze-hungry friends.

  Bewildered, you re-read the letter in an attempt to glean insight from the underlying text. You absorb all of three lines before you are interrupted by an announcement from your brain.

  “Holy jeeze!” he screams. “It’s so obvious, so apparent – Sanjay is a fucking space alien! My god! Why didn’t I see it before? The lusterless eyes. The grotesque, spindly limbs . . . Undoubtedly, this Hump Slappers place is a headquarters for his terrestrial operations. I can see it clearly: the moment we pass through the door, he’ll attack our jugular vein and alleviate our body of all its vital essences. We’ll spend the remainder of the night sprawled across the floorboards, gasping for life like some freshly gutted trout.”

  “And yet, if we stay here, we’ll go insane,” you say.

  “Not necessarily,” he says. “We may just have a nervous breakdown and spend the rest of our life conversing with flies in the state-operated looney bin.”

  “Wonderful!” you say. “Great! We’re screwed either way!”

  Undoubtedly, it’s a delicate situation, one which requires several hours of thoughtful deliberation. Unfortunately for you, you don’t have several hours at your disposal. Sanjay’s show starts in less than ninety minutes.

  You must make a decision and make it quick.

  Do you A) leave your house and possibly forfeit your vital essences? Or B) stay home and listen to your brain recount stories of a ridiculous nature, such as the time Walt Disney tried to install Ponchito Pistoles into the Office of the Peruvian Presidency?

  If A) is your choice, turn to the page 8. If B), continue to page 5.

I think of Dad, and the games we used to play.

Seems like yesterday, Mother screamed,

“Damn you, that dog is not your father!”

And still I dream.

I dream of pines and rivers and long drives to tempered mountains rising dormant in the sky. I dream of you and the girls huddled fast against windows, watching the world turn gold to green, as I mash the accelerator and we ascend weightless through shelves of rock and time.

And then I wonder, what good are dreams if no one’s there to hear them?

So I ask you, Julie, can you still divine my thoughts? Is our connection still as strong as the day we came to marry? I hope so. I hope, right now, you’re upstairs, bundled in blankets, absorbing every word. But more than anything, I hope the house is safe, the bed is warm, and the kids are doing well. This I hope as I hurtle toward the Earth.

Outside the scenery has changed. The darkness has given way to strands of pallid light. There are colors there, in the strands, shades of blue and green. Do you see them? There and there. Undulating. Unfurling. They are swells of sodden life. See how they blend, how they blur, how water becomes plant, becomes fish, becomes sky? See how all life’s spectrum lies wholly in between? It’s all there, Julie. I swear to you. It’s there.

And now it’s gone.

Mere seconds and the porthole has changed. The glass has become brighter, tumultuous; the blue-green has given way to squalls of violent red. Mere seconds and I have traveled an unfathomable distance — a distance far greater than any you and I have ever shared. But it’s not about the distance, Julie. It never was.

And again the porthole has changed.

Outside, the red has subsided. A pale blue has emerged to take its place. This blue is warmer than the other; it is the blue of oceans, of summer skies, of family photos long forgotten. It is the blue that once stalked me through the house, demanding knowledge, attention; it is the blue of evenings, of weekends. It is the blue of endless adoration.

And now it’s gone.

And a second color has emerged to fill the glass. It’s a familiar color. The like of which I’ve not seen in weeks. It belongs to a trio of listless clouds; each one frail, and smooth, and remarkably cylindrical. They are the archetypes of the silken chutes packed in talc above my head. There are three of those as well, three parachutes. Two small. One big.

Have I mentioned the parachutes before? I must have. All those restless nights, counting down the hours, the minutes until launch. All those endless days. I must have conveyed every detail, assuaged every fear. Every detail except one, that is. One tiny element I failed to relate. It’s nothing bad, mind you. Just embarrassing. So much so, I was reluctant to mention it. But I’m not embarrassed anymore. So here it is . . .

I’ve named the chutes, the parachutes, I mean. I’ve given them names. It’s silly, I know. Like naming a teddy bear, or a bicycle, or something. But as soon as the idea crossed my mind, I had to see it through. The smaller ones, the safety chutes, I named Kara and Amber. And the big one, the main chute, I named Julie.

I know—it’s ridiculous, naming a piece of cloth. But without them, Julie, I would plummet through the atmosphere and shatter the waves. Without them, I’m wreckage, a hostage to the sea.

“Self deprecation is the sincerest form of flattery: Charlton Heston, 1820.”

“Interesting,” she said. The song ended and the DJ began. “You want a dance, or what?”

I glanced at her lap, which was at eye level and hard to miss. She had on platform boots and a denim skirt whittled into a kind of frazzled garter belt. Her hair was black, metallic, and there were giant holes in her stockings — all artificial, of course.

“No,” I said. “Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Want a dance.”

She thought for a second, then squinted. “You want to give me a dance?”

“Sure,” I said. “At least, I’d like to take a shot, that is.”

“Fine,” she shrugged. “Ten Bucks.”

I paid and we silently exchanged places. As we waited for the next song I saw her hair was blue, not black.

The song, it turned out, was a familiar one…an anthem from sixth grade. Sixth grade was monumental for me, a mile marker on the road to adulthood. Sixth grade was pot. Sixth grade was Hamms. Sixth grade was divorce and crying in the shower a lot. Sixth grade was saying no to corduroy and haircuts and yes to Guns N’ Roses and getting drunk in parking lots a lot.

So naturally I shat when ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ blew through the speakers and shook the shit off the walls. It was beautiful, phantasma-fucking-goric. But apparently I was the only one who thought so. As I mounted, she snapped her legs together and received me with a cool, contemptuous sigh. Oh please, her eyes said, this song sucks.

I was rusty at first — dry, mechanical. But then instinct kicked in and my hips began pumping and sloshing in a burst of salacious, liquid grace — like Axl in that video where he’s wearing a bandana on his head. It was a total transformation. I swaggered. I swayed. My spine became rubber. My joints disjointed. I slithered, man. I bewitched.

Slowly, helplessly, her knees fell apart and her body turned all gooey against my jeans. I wiggled to her ear and purred like a snake. There were moans of joy…definitely some heavy breathing. The room vibrated. Behind us, people cheered. A strobe light glanced in our direction, then froze. All the while, Axl mewled, she moaned, and I worked her body like a microphone stand.

When the song finished, she stood and said I was pretty good for a guy wearing sandals. I nodded, then flashed a smile that could melt an entire bullet train full of Japanese swords. “Every dog has a bidet,” I said. “Walt Disney, 95 AD.”

She nodded back. “I’m up after this next one,” she said. “But if you want, when I’m done, I could come back and return the favor.” She paused, then smiled. “Free of charge,” she said.

I started to answer, then the music started and a ballad by one of those Canadian hair bands pissed through the speakers, and the thought of talking made me sick.

“Well,” she said, “maybe I’ll see you by the stage.”

I pretended like I was deaf, then watched as she sulked toward a large black curtain across the room. She was half way there, when I had a change of heart and decided to validate her daily decision to not die. “Just remember…” I shouted to the back of her black/blue head.

She turned, adjusted her top, and cocked her head. “What’s that?” she said.

I lit up a cigarette, took a drag. “All the pole’s a stage,” I said.

Just then the music died and the DJ came to life. “Let’s hear it for Madame Curry,” he said. “Up next, The Duchess of Pork. After that, Miss Quoted. Miss Quoted to the dressing room, please.”

She glanced at the DJ, then back at me. Neither of us spoke. Neither of us blinked. The strobe flashed across our eyes. But we just stared at one another–frozen.

An entire minute passed before she pulled at her skirt and broke the spell. “William Shatner,” she said, “1599,” then turned and disappeared behind the stage.

I remember water, of course, as well as sunlight and sand. But I also remember clouds: a great fleet of ethereal ships anchored a mile above shore. I remember their masts, stoic in the sunlight, and I remember birds, thousands of them, trapped in the confines of those sails. I remember the pitch of their bodies and the peal of their screams as they fought against confinement. And I remember other birds as well: a flock of silhouettes trapped in the canvas of your skin. I remember how they strove toward your collar bone. And I remember forming some correlation between the birds trapped in the sky and the ones trapped in your skin. And I remember loosing this correlation because of ants — thousands of tiny invaders, all marching over hot sand and jagged rock for the chance to touch your skin. And I remember you screamed and you were on your feet, hurling grit and curses in their direction. And I remember, for a moment, all those birds came together, and I lost the boundary between sand, and sky, and skin.

It’s mid July now and the weather is unbearable again. Outside, ants have taken over the city. For several months they’ve invaded homes and businesses, scavenging cracks and crevices for tiny bits of food. I’m holed up in my office, watching them crawl across the floor. I say office, only it’s not an office. It’s a bedroom with an area cleared for a desk and chair. Both of which are heavy and made of steel, like the ones teachers used when we were young. Do you remember how I always talked about going back to school and becoming a teacher, just so I could own a sturdy desk and chair? Maybe you don’t. Maybe you’ve forgotten. Regardless, I never became a teacher. But I did acquire a teacher’s desk, purchased from a second-hand store not far from where I work. That was two years ago, come August. Which makes it three years since our trip to the Atlantic shore.

It’s frightening how much can change in a year, much less three. Here I am, living on the other coast, sitting at the desk I’ve always wanted, writing you a letter I’ll never send. I should be revising the piece for next week’s circulation. I should be writing something with an intended audience in mind. Which reminds me: I’m a writer now…sort of. I have a small column in a modest weekly paper, which involves my experiences working over-night at a copy center across town. It pays little, and offers even less by way of recognition. But I don’t mind. The pieces write themselves and the extra pay keeps me in caffeine and cigarettes. You were right, by the way — I’ll never bring myself to quit.

It’s funny, these ants. Nowadays I allow them free reign of my life and everything which that entails. Even now, as I write, a procession is scaling the gray cliffs of my desk and marching, unmolested, across the breadth of its pale yellow surface. One by one, they ascend the underbelly of the computer tower and disappear into the wires and circuits inside. That’s where live: in the hardware. Inviolable. Invulnerable. Exonerated by me, and safe from the outside world. But it didn’t used to be this way. I wasn’t always so amiable when it came to ants.

For a long time I felt compelled to kill them on sight. I was a dedicated exterminator of each and every one–using whatever means necessary to accomplish the task. I suppose that sounds morbid, like I stalked them with binoculars and a tiny flame thrower. And I guess, for a while, I wasn’t far off. But at first I just flicked them away, hoping they’d get the hint and leave me alone. But they didn’t; they wouldn’t leave me alone. So I began crushing them with my thumb. For weeks I tracked and pulverized every ant, grinding guts and limbs into the floor. I must’ve killed hundreds. But it wasn’t enough. There were always more; always others to take their place. And that’s when I decided they should suffer–that’s when I decided chemicals were the only way. For months I implemented every poison I could find – powder, aerosol, liquid, spray. But it was no good. No chemical would kill them. Not really. Not for good. And then one day, while I was sitting at my desk, I watched a solitary ant drag food across my desk and realized I’d been wrong. Ants were an integral. Important. Necessary. Ants mend cracks; tend crevices. Ants validate a world I can not see.

Since then I’ve been spending more time away from my desk. Some days I’ll sit on the porch and watch birds dip and flutter through leaves until their silhouettes fade with the setting sun. And some times I’ll walk around the neighborhood, stopping at a wooded park not far from where I live. There are always ants there, but never many. Often I’ll sit beneath a tree and watched them scale the trunk. Sometimes they make it to the leaves, where they mock my pact with gravity.

Yesterday, while lying in the park, I was struck by the notion of an afternoon outside the city. I don’t know where I’d go exactly. West maybe. Maybe to the coast. I could stop at a convenient store and buy a map. And then keep driving. Just follow the highway. Past bluffs and rivers. Drive until the air turned thick with salt and seagulls. And then I could stop. Abandon the car. Follow the seagull’s screams. Just keep walking. My eyes and ears pitched to the sky. Walk past restaurants, shops, parlors. Walk until I reach the sand and rock and water of the north Pacific shore.

I could find a secluded spot. Remove my shirt. Let the sun warm my neck and shoulders. I could loose myself in the surf, the seagulls, the laughing children. I could stay all afternoon…or even longer. I could while away the hours till sunset, timing my breath to breaking waves, thinking nothing, doing nothing; just being me, as I wait for the wind to die, the clouds to fade, and the ants to crawl my way.

James arrived at my motel a few minutes ahead of schedule and insisted on carrying my bags to the car while I finished getting ready. Five minutes later I rushed outside—hair damp, teeth smeared with toothpaste—and bounded to the parking lot below.

James smiled and opened the passenger door. Thanking him, I climbed inside and reached for the seatbelt. As I fastened the buckle, I spotted two safety seats in the back seat. Both were empty—pale blue and littered with cracker crumbs. After high school, I moved to California, while James stayed behind and got a degree in fire science. Soon after, he took a position with the Fire Department, landing one of the older stations near our childhood home. A few years later he met a nice girl, married, and fathered two adorable girls. I met them both for the first time during this trip. And as I stared into the back seat I imagined their smooth, anxious faces smiling back at me—smaller, younger versions of the face now seated to my left.

Traffic was light, so we arrived at the airport with plenty of time to kill. After checking my bags, we took a table at a small cafe and ordered something cold to drink. I had iced coffee. James had water. Having recently become an EMT with the fire department, James adopted a more health conscious attitude toward what did, and did not, enter into his body. Which meant no caffeine, no hard alcohol, and nothing too sweet to drink

As we sipped our drinks I asked James about the details of his job. And he said he mostly sits around the station, waiting for calls while he watches nature shows on TV. Of those calls, he said, most involve drunks and elderly mishaps. But every once in a while, there’s a suicide.

Like most humans I possess a degree of morbid curiosity, and perked right up at the word suicide. “What kind of suicides?” I said, speaking into the lid of my coffee cup.

“All kinds,” he said, then proceeded to relay the more gruesome—and therefore note worthy—ones in the bunch.

He began with the worst. It involved a man who had attempted to poison himself with extra-strength, liquid Drain-O. He said the man siphoned the Drain-O into thirty gelcaps, then swallowed them in succession. After, just to be safe, the man took a handful of sleeping pills and opened the veins in both wrists. Once all this was accomplished, the man positioned himself on his sofa-bed and waited for death to take hold. Lying on his back, eyes closed, he passed from consciousness and proceeded to vomit periodic geysers of blood and stomach bile. These came ever thirty minutes, just long enough for one to dry and another to wash over; creating a thick, red mask over the man’s face and throat. This went on for several hours, James said. But the man did not die.

Eventually the man regained consciousness. And with it, the will to live. James said the man’s neighbor discovered the man staggering around the parking lot of their apartment complex and immediately dialed 911. James’s unit was dispatched. James said he had no trouble finding the man, as his face, chest, and arms were laden with multiple layers of sticky, black blood. James approached the man. The man tried to speak, but his tongue was too swollen, too corroded, to function properly. James said the man died three days later—three long, painful, horrific days later.

James said lots of people mistake household cleansers for lethal, fast-acting poison. They think bleach and antifreeze are no different than arsenic and cyanide. James said it takes several weeks to die from antifreeze. In most cases, he said, the person’s kidneys will give out and they will spend the rest of their life on dialysis.

James said the best way to commit suicide is a shotgun beneath the chin. He said it’s the quickest and most effective method for ending one’s life. And he would know, I guess—having witnessed seven self-inflicted shotgun wounds in the past year alone. In fact, two weeks before I came to visit, he responded to a gruesome suicide involving an older woman and a double barrel Remington. James said he was the first person on the scene—other than the neighbor, of course. (It’s always the neighbor, he said) When James arrived, he found the neighbor slumped against the open door of the victim’s aparment. She was crying and clutching her mouth and it took James several minutes to calm her down. Eventually she directed him to the bathroom, where he located the woman’s body inside the shower stall. It was one of those modest, stand-up showers, he said; no bath tub—just a linen closet lined in white tile. James said the woman put the barrel beneath her chin and pulled the trigger with her toe. He said her face was completely gone, scooped out with a melon-baller and flung against the wall.

I told James I couldn’t believe a person could do that to their friends and family, couldn’t believe they’d leave a ghastly, horrid mess for loved ones to discover. James said most often—in cases of shotgun suicide—the person is too distraught, too heart broken, to recognize feelings other than their own. They care only about visually expressing their pain and anguish to the person who broke their heart. This single desire, he said, supersedes all else.

By now I had finished my coffee and chewed up most of the lid. A voice came over the intercom, reminding passengers not to leave their baggage and personal belongings unattended inside the terminal.

Suddenly I remembered I was one of those passengers. “What time is it?” I asked.

“Fifteen till four,” he said.

“Crap! I better get moving,”

I scrambled to my feet, collected my satchel and slipped it over my shoulder. Calmly, my brother rose from the table and pushed his chair into place. I thanked him for the ride and promised to return the favor one day. He nodded and said it was no problem. Anytime, he said.

It was then I told my brother I loved him. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d told him so. Years, probably. Probably sometime prior to high school. But at that moment, standing beneath the lights of the airport terminal, the words fell effortlessly from my lips. As though I said them every day.

Smiling, James took my hand, shook it, and said he loved me too. And rather than bask in the sentiment, I asked if he still had the double barrel our father had given him on his sixteenth birthday. His smile dissolved. He said he did, that it was at home, hidden beneath the bed. Without thinking, I asked if he’d ever thought of using it on himself. And as soon as the question left my lips, I felt my ears grow hot and a wave of regret wash over my entire body. I tried to suck the words back in, but it was too late. They’d already swelled and filled the space between us.

James said nothing for a long time. He just stood there, staring at my heart, touching his tongue to the corner of his lips. Several moments passed. Then, leveling his eyes, he sighed and flushed the words from his throat. “Once,” he said. “But it was a long time ago.”

I nodded. Another announcement flooded the terminal. I tried to make out the words, but the voice was mumbled, unclear. I glanced at the small table. My brother’s cup was still brimming. The ice cubes all but melted away.

“Was it because of me?” I said. “Because of what I did in high school?”

He didn’t answer. He just smiled, then wished me a pleasant flight. And before I could respond, he turned and made for the outside world. I followed halfway, watching from the mezzanine between floors as he descended the last escalator and plunged into a carousel of large revolving doors. Once outside, I lost him in a wash of bright afternoon light. But still I stood, watching, eyes fixed on the whirling panes. Another announcement rained down. I ignored it—my attention locked on the glass, desperate for the image of my younger brother to present itself.

Time passed. Hours. Minutes. But the image never came.

There is one, looming on the corner, which grabs me in particular. A towering apparition, it is a perfect likeness of the Virgin Mary. She is an incandescent giant, a colossal interloper, with mouths in place of eyes. And she is patient. Above all, she is patient. All night she will wait with outsretched arms for unwitting travelers to traipse into her midst. And when they do, she will descend upon them—rapacious in her haste. She will eat their skin, their hands, their eyes. But not their minds. Never their minds. Those she will leave to darkness. Those she will leave to wander in the brume.

Well not me! I will not be taken! I will never leave this house! I will never leave this room!

And then…and then all is quiet. All unmoving. All except my heart, my eyes, my breath. All three drift beneath the glass. All three flee in measured plumes.

So I said,  “I don’t believe in you! Get out of my television!”

That joke is ridiculous