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It began when my mother's goldfish died on the dining-room table. I was about to tell her how I lived; my girlfriend and I were about to see the Wauwatosa Thunderdivers. [We were dancing on the beach;$one]<foot| we were singing songs no one knew they had.
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|83]]
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Sophomore year of high school. I stuck with my friends' jokes: "You only wear that bra," they'd say, stoned. My girlfriend did most of her talking in cursive. Occasionally, I would say something, like, "Have you smoked a tulip?" Or, "It's a dark, dreamlike world, [rife with lies and deceit.$one]<foot|" At night, toadstools slowly pecked at my bed, glinting in the light.
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|14]]
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(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one Those first years spent doing reconnaissance. We were told we should bring plenty of provisions. We were told to get a feel for the food the local cook made with only the barest of vegetables.]]
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Massacre", "There were only three good fishing destinations", "I'd hopscotch the giant branches of a tree", "Me, neither magician nor songbird", "I had a camera and an umbrella", "I dreamt about my grandmother marrying an old car dealer", "The clouds of coal singing soft jazz", "It was a good thing, kid, that our mothers gave us peanuts", "You were popular, your grades excellent, your parents proud", "Every cigarette costs an ashtray", "The knot of a hummingbird", "If astrology was real", "It is possible for anyone to make and sell electric fences", "Finally it is time for bed", "I did not respond to questions about titles, chapters, and photographs", "The ashtray is gray as a drive-thru, lifeless as a mirror", "The stars are shag carpet", "I like your blue-ribboned exterior", "You're not a dope-toothed salad of nerves", "Every old axe is disgraced as a corpse", "The mournful saxophones shall be yonder echoes", "For starters, the sky is dying of ice", "The king of all of us is losing his cool", "There is a weather system resembling Disneyland", "I'm more worried about the mercury than the city itself", "You count the days when I didn't hear from you", "If my boots seemed so likely, maybe my shoes will too", "And now you, my skeptic, you claim evidence", "The photographs you've taken of the pyramids", "Then there was the spider eating your heart", "Her pet name is Enchantress", "You at least gave me the thumbs-up", "My friends, get out of my way", "I write love words that people will remember", "I drink champagne and don't put anything on sale", "A rat is a terrible angel", "This is what I wanted to learn in elementary school", "When I was ten, my father smoked a cigarette and my mother didn't laugh", "The staples are like crystal balls", "Occasional ladies dropping by to offer their bouquets of booze","Let us play dirty","The rulers of this universe are ridiculous","Give me Portugese for an alphabet","Let me make chess pieces out of random pieces of wood","Everyone 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by convincing salt to bloom its shells", "Sing along, comrades", "Her specter was everything to me", "You have a heart and a car", "I'm a man with a plan B", "I sold my tinfoil hat and ventured into the outdoors", "Some lousy satellite dish", "The dragon larvae were everywhere", "Soon my hungry crows were watching your every move", "I spent the summer dreaming about the conga line", "She'd just completed her skywalk", "The surrealists dreaming of bananas", "The jewelers rigging old numbers into fancy plans", "Something more than the somewhat obligatory ballerina", "The checkout girl at the thrift store doles out delicate jobs", "At the opera, you sit at the head of the merry-go-round", "I can assure you it is an ode to the earth and its creatures", "The traffic lights in the city were cracked and cluttered", "We were making a dent in the clouds", "Eventually, the path became a cemetery", "I built a shack on the banks of the river", "This swamp has everything", "Dutifully, the bulldozers rustle like reindeer", "Finally, after three solid months of being astonished", "You know where they put the fishing poles", "A brain is worth an eggshell, not a feather", "We will send you to a planet that doesn't require you", "The moon does not tremble when I hear your name", "We were a small farm", "We will take care of the mechanic when he comes", "It was winter, and my grandmother was dying", "A woman in a black dress with a bag of roses in her hair", "I was calling from across the river in this church-gray suit", "The world was dark and beautiful late at night", "The television series about foxes is getting awfully old", "My Miranda rights are being used against me", "By the end of the month, the thunder had worn thin", "Something to the effect of Europe", "I like the way the earth spins", "The Pac-Man players have named their game the Homecoming Massacre", "There were only three good fishing destinations", "I'd hopscotch the giant branches of a tree", "Me, neither magician nor songbird", "I had a camera and an umbrella", "I dreamt about my grandmother marrying an old car dealer", "The clouds of coal singing soft jazz", "It was a good thing, kid, that our mothers gave us peanuts", "You were popular, your grades excellent, your parents proud", "Every cigarette costs an ashtray", "The knot of a hummingbird", "If astrology was real", "It is possible for anyone to make and sell electric fences", "Finally it is time for bed", "I did not respond to questions about titles, chapters, and photographs", "The ashtray is gray as a drive-thru, lifeless as a mirror", "The stars are shag carpet", "I like your blue-ribboned exterior", "You're not a dope-toothed salad of nerves", "Every old axe is disgraced as a corpse", "The mournful saxophones shall be yonder echoes", "For starters, the sky is dying of ice", "The king of all of us is losing his cool", "There is a weather system resembling Disneyland", "I'm more worried about the mercury than the city itself", "You count the days when I didn't hear from you", "If my boots seemed so likely, maybe my shoes will too", "And now you, my skeptic, you claim evidence", "The photographs you've taken of the pyramids", "Then there was the spider eating your heart", "Her pet name is Enchantress", "You at least gave me the thumbs-up", "My friends, get out of my way", "I write love words that people will remember", "I drink champagne and don't put anything on sale", "A rat is a terrible angel", "This is what I wanted to learn in elementary school", "When I was ten, my father smoked a cigarette and my mother didn't laugh", "The staples are like crystal balls", "Occasional ladies dropping by to offer their bouquets of booze","Let us play dirty","The rulers of this universe are ridiculous","Give me Portugese for an alphabet","Let me make chess pieces out of random pieces of wood","Everyone except Wikipedia is shocked","They think cornbread is everything they’d promised","What do you get if you cross a 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<!-- 233 titles -->**(print: $titles's ($count))**
And that was 1997 on Earth. The year the International Space Station rolled around like an unstoppable force, the dormitories of ten- and twelve-year-olds shrieking like bewitched birds in a field. We were declared staples of the high school announcements, and the commercials sang [lullabies about the size of pizzas$one.]<foot|
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|53]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "78")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one Except pizza had been around for decades. When robots and electrical engineering were the most fashionable things going, pizza certainly shouldn't have been pushed down the list as if it was the epitome of all that was expected of a high schooler's faith in science.]]
###(css: "font-variant: small-caps")[**You Will Thank Me as Fast as You Thank a Werewolf**]
(css: "font-variant: small-caps")[[Begin]<begin|
[[About]]
[[Credits]]]
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[We had already seen movies$one]<foot| like *This Is the Limit*, so why not try something else? Coke is such a corrosive drink, my friend. When will this dream stop offering an excrement-strewn corridor and a dashboard camera? The lamp is on, I assure you. The tapes are all we need to record our dreams in dimmed light.
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "78")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one The movie comes from the raw and cruel parts of us, in search of mysterious complaints to the family doctor.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
I wanted to live life like a moth living its forgotten scars. I wanted to live by the logic of rap music. [Even the bass was shaking.$one]<foot| So I set off, tinkering with the computer. Soon enough, my girlfriend and I broke up [like blood coming out a rubber glove.$two]<foot2| I wanted to suckle like rabbits. I wanted to be the boy who meets the werewolf, and gets married, and has a home and a wife.
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "122")]
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(if: $percent < 8)[(set: $percent to 8)]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one You said, "People are generally disgusted with people who chant like monks." I promise you—it's entertaining, if anachronistic and noxious.]]
(click: ?foot2)[$foot[$two Like a third-grader who is playing basketball in my absence.]]
This work is a collaboration with GPT-2, a neural network model designed to predict the next word in a block of given text based on its study of eight million web pages. In this application, I input a text file of my own prose from the past twenty years into GPT-2. It then generated new writing in a similar style. I selected, arranged, and lightly edited the resulting output.
(css: "font-variant: small-caps")[[[Begin]<begin|]
[[Credits]]
[[Title|Welcome]]]
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(if: $isPlaying is true)[(goto: "Epigraph")]]<a href="https://openai.com/blog/better-language-models/">GPT-2</a> was created by Alec Radford, Jeffrey Wu, Rewon Child, David Luan, Dario Amodei, and Ilya Sutskever. The code and instructions for running it are currently available on <a href="https://github.com/openai/gpt-2">GitHub</a>.
*Werewolf* was created with <a href="http://twinery.org">Twine</a> using the Harlowe format. Visually, it looks very similar to the <a href="https://klembot.github.io/chapbook/">Chapbook</a> format.
<a href="http://joel.matthysmusic.com/">Joel Matthys</a> created the music for this story, and it is used with permission.
Some sections of *Werewolf* were previously published in *<a href="https://www.jukejointmag.com/b-j-best">Juke Joint<a>* and *<a href="http://five2onemagazine.com/poetry-from-you-will-thank-me-as-fast-as-you-thank-a-werewolf-by-bj-best/">Five:2:One</a>*.
The cover image was created using the pbaylies fork of <a href="https://github.com/NVlabs/stylegan2">StyleGAN2</a> on <a href="https://runwayml.com/">RunwayML</a>. This fork is credited to NVIDIA, Peter Baylies, Gene Kogan, David Stap, Skyflynil, Shawn Presser, and Göran Sandström.
Many thanks to Peter Hoppe, Mathbrush, Joel Matthys, and Wesley Werner for beta testing.
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[[About]]
[[Title|Welcome]]]
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*The sky was ablaze with nebulae, smoke, and lightning. You were a riot of neon.*
(align: "==>")[—Harvey W. Hammer
"The Satellites Catch the Night Sky"]
(set: $percent to 1)
(css: "font-variant: small-caps")[And so:]
(align: "<=")[[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|178]]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
It’s still not official yet, but it’s pretty obvious what’s going on. When the tornado swirled around Buffalo in 2001, [my brother was sixteen and working for a magazine.$one]<foot| The bullet had been ricocheting around his desk from the previous day. So he got out and looked around. Lots of people were talking about knives and guns. About parents and children and work. [And he saw you$two]<foot2|: a young, blonde, silver-tipped woman with a tattoo of a bullfrog on her ankle.
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "194")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "1001")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one But my brother wasn't an alchemist. People at McDonald's were like, "You look like a total goof." And he said, "Whatever. I’m my own person."]]
(click: ?foot2)[$foot[$two You were eighteen years of age, wearing a sportcoat and sandals. During the summer, you and many of your friends flocked to your house for a picnic: potatoes, beans, ribbons, sequined hair. But now afternoons are too lonely to have children.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
The following spring, after years of living in clouds, we were sent to be made humans. [Anonymous clouds. Anonymous sounds.$one]<foot| A band of shadowy aliens. Our heads bobbed rhythmically in the darkness.
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|130]]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one Details appear no different from a grandmother stopping to feed a 1996 Land Rover. Why hadn't we slept the past?]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
[I began to write the descriptions of my wishes.$one]<foot| Letters with descriptions of things I wanted to happen, wishes that were already in the cards. An ambulance for a sick child. A dog for its owner. A car so nice it needs a full-sized garage. My first kiss. Your first kiss with me.
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 3)(goto: "194")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one The wishes, the letters, the sky, always lingered. My hands slid into yours, and they—like most things—gripped along. Where I stood, a mirror painted its mirror face orange on Main Street. [[The TV watched us from the balconies.$two|1002]] You wondered if it was something to do with the moon. It was.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
There were billboards for breaking into cars and throwing them crashing into mountains. There were vultures that drove all around the yard, searching for thunderclap. The sky was fake snow and birds were mere baubles. And there you were. [Your dust and my air.$one]<foot|
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|139]]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one How can there be more to life than that? You came to me. And your wings. ]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
I was the best cheerleading man in high school, and you were the best kisser in college. But you never kissed me glumly, always raising your hand majestically, like a majestically colored bikini. [You kissed me so high that my boots creased the carpet beneath you.$one]<foot|
(if: $percent < 16)[(set: $percent to 16)]
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|82]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "103")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one You kissed me so softly that my boots came off in the middle of a kiss. I wanted to die on your hips because you pulled the top off of my head.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
That July, pigeons flew from Mississippi to make their homes in NASCAR tires. I stood behind the barn with a tire mounted to my back, watching the clouds twinge red as the race cars invented new ones. I had my camera; I had a canvas titled *NASCAR STARLINK.* You could paint your voice anyplace you liked, [any bird or no bird at all.$one]<foot|
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "108")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "99")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one Afterward, I did some research to see what people were saying about the birds in the race. I found that they used a lot of words to describe the pigeons. Most said they were beautiful. Bird lovers also use the word *stealing.*]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
You are in a warehouse full of equations. There are [iron and chlorine and zirconium and everything in between.$one]<foot| You have pretty hair. Everything else is orderly: your hands make an elegant clasp, like a cardinal rule; your hand finds my lapel. You appreciate my doubting, suspicious look; I appreciate your offer of soap and ... well, it’s pretty much impossible to tell without enough math.
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|108]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "99")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one I think about how nice it would be to have you in a chair, right next to me, with your back to the wall and your head touching mine. That's a pretty nice feeling, considering you’ll be working all day and all night with a metal detector, looking for things like these.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
[The birds are singing:$one]<foot| a blue note soothes the wind, a July night when the sun is just beginning its twilight march. In the distance, it is incredible what can happen.
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|80]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "210")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one After a few moments of trying and failing, the bird's partner eventually realizes why this song was created.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
I was the senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute. I was worried about communism, the infiltration of the West, their plan to make a permanent imprint on the earth. I was teaching biology to sixth graders. I was explaining that no one ever asks to see a Bible, ever. But one day, as I lay on the couch, I was thinking about a bruised-and-blemished memory: [one about tornadoes,$one]<foot| papyrus, a trinity of cigarettes, a box of peanuts, a photograph of you and my brother.
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "80")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "210")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one After the tornado, I was looking at everything. I went to a movie and saw a man fall off a building. I drove past a man on an airplane that was about to sink. I went to a store and bought a pack of cigarettes. I went to a church and had an epiphany. Later, I had been a professor of zoology for fifteen years and thought about the world. I was about to give a talk on the science of animal husbandry, and I decided there was no place for the scientific method in this discussion.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
Well, [it’s good to be known by the small things.$one]<foot| Like falling snow.
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "163")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one It's a good thing that nobody really wants a world where we're alone.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
They’re not convinced. A team of scientists is studying the chemical reactions responsible for the sudden appearance of the dinosaurs in some of the more populated areas of the Midwest. The topography of the earth could easily lend itself to such a thing. On a day when the weather is just right, though, [the clouds seem to be cooing.$one]<foot|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "163")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one What made the clouds so important to the dinosaurs? And what about the giant meteor that slammed into Earth? Well, I've got an answer just in time for spring! And for your next meteor shower!]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
I have been hired as a food coloring artist by [the beauty department at the beach.$one]<foot| And when she asks if you have roots, I say yeah. You probably never asked to be voted one of the most beautiful women in the room, [even though you are.$two]<foot2|
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|221]]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one When you're ready to leave, go up to the door, tell her, "Hi, I'm a food coloring artist and you are going to be my face," and run out the back door into the sand.]]
(click: ?foot2)[$foot[$two A woman in a floral dress wearing a red dress sure is attractive.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
For fun, [we have our own tattoo parlor.$one]<foot| We make friends by their blood types; we give them water, electricity, lessons, cigarettes, drugs, and grenades.
(if: $percent < 24)[(set: $percent to 24)]
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|184]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "153")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one We also have our own parrot, which is our mascot. Our parrot is named Gee, We'd Better Get a Place Where We Can Have a Good Time. The parrot says: "I am a parrot, and I love you."]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
I tell my boss all the time: shave your head like a clam. I tell my clients: You have to sacrifice everything, man, to know the body of water you left behind. [You have to sacrifice ghosts.$one]<foot| I once saw a ghost bear down on a funeral pyre filled with clairvoyant visions of past pyramids. Come, let us sit by our children’s futures. Let us sing.
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "73")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "169")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize how much I really want the ghostly, the mystical, the spiritual. Let us mourn that we will live longer.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
I never wanted to be a dad, but now that I do, I’m [so ready to catch elk$one]<foot| that will forever be my blood.
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|6]]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one An elk is like a dog, but more. It has a lot more to offer life than a dog. Not only is it the most delicious animal, but an elk is an amazing survivor.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
By the end of the night, the insane asylum patients seemed to agree. The doctor’s contention was that we should be fiercely monogamous, so long as we didn’t devour each other’s selves. We did, of course, have a child; the resident Giovanni was impudently cruel to his goats in the field. The insane man [gave us our firstborn$one]<foot| in accordance with popular belief.
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|184]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "41")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one He gave us a new name and new clothes. We had to walk around in the moonlight to keep from attracting the attention of anyone.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
Here, I have lived my childhood. The stars aligned, my memories brief. The merchant marine laughs every morning as I sit on [the ocean's edge,$one]<foot| my blonde beard fluttering like a sigh of death. My world is a framed photograph. Do you remember the first time you saw the moon? It was from a different angle, hovering, immense.
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|73]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "169")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one Do you remember your first kiss? It was on a sunny day, I was standing outside the hotel bar in my college town, the ocean sparkling in my hair.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
This town doesn’t cook delicious, but it does let you eat whatever the fuck you want. Your ovaries are like television, only they are hooked on the news. You can’t even spell rhyme or reason correctly. [The stagehands send out the correct notes.$one]<foot| The comedian sets the tone; the crowd gets funnier. It’s all a matter of perspective.
[(print: $titles's ($count+1))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 0)(goto: "152")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one When you are out there in the world, you need to be a little jaded, a little cynical, and a little cynical. But, when you are in a bar or on the stage, there is no need to be all three at the same time.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
More recently, I found myself encyclopedic in the field, butchering [whatever remained of insects.$one]<foot| After all, these are the kinds of things that fate will remember forever.
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "152")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one I took my first insect course at the University of California at Davis. My professor was an entomologist. I remember him telling me that insects are just a kind of fly, but not a particularly fascinating one.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
You count the days until Christmas. I count the days when [we didn’t know each other’s last names.$one]<foot|
(if: $percent < 32)[(set: $percent to 32)]
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|181]]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one I sat down on the couch. You said, "So, who are you and how did you end up on [[the other end of the phone?$two|1000]]"]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
It would be easy to handpick the people I hurt. Perhaps you are a friend of mine. I am a vagrant in an office. Perhaps you are married to one of the burglars we shot. We would like to raise you as a patron of the empire. [We would like to take over the world.$one]<foot|
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|45]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "161")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one We would like to conquer your planet for our own. We would like to take you as an apprentice. No one deserves to lose you. I will take you into the inner sanctum. Do not disappoint.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
“Someone needs to tell the president,” you said. We were reliving a season in which [we were expected to be self-reliant and do what was right.$one]<foot| We wore sport coats and bulldozers. We dealt in sub-par flashes.
[(print: $titles's ($count+4))]<fourth|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "47")]
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "161")]
(click: ?fourth)[(set: $count to it + 3)(goto: "88")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one And we weren't asked to do it because of, you know, political correctness. We spent a few summers in Russia. We had to see things that we never thought we would.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
The mayor didn’t laugh, and I didn’t ask him to be mayor. He knew by then the odds were stacked against him: my henchmen were going to storm the house, and [he’d have to slit their wrists to get out.$one]<foot2| That night, in the thick of it, [I worked for hours flipping through my files,$two]<foot| trying to convince you I was right.
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|50]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "47")]
(click: ?foot2)[$foot[<hr>$one I’m a hardass, a rebel who’s going to do whatever it takes to get by. I play the banjo and swing chords in a row, alternating cleanliness and damage control.]]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[$two In the end, you needed two more hours to think it over, and then two more to trust me. Your name was on the ballot, and I promised you that you would be the choice of the city.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
This is human: hunger, boredom, despair. We joke about that. Our bed is ragged with crevices all over it. The staples are like crystal balls. [The president$one]<foot| once said, “You can’t win if you don’t hit them.”
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+4))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 3)(goto: "88")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "47")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one The president had meant it, and the president had meant it. All those who had sat in the audience had meant it also. That was the point.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
[And then the tornado.$one]<foot| You had a key, a ring around you, and the exhausted, panicky woman in the green dress tried to talk you out of it. But you could not get out. The red plastic bag you were holding made it difficult for you to get out. The rescue helicopter dropped a tube of bile into the mouth of a gully. It was high-pressure helium that was melting, and now the campfire was smoking itself into a pulp.
(if: $percent < 42)[(set: $percent to 42)]
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "51")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one The thing that makes chaos so terrifying is the chaos it creates.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
And then the second tornado. You could not get out. The first exploded from behind a campfire, killing all those inside. Then two meteorites slammed into each other, [killing all those inside.$one]<foot| The campfire was as useless as a parka on the beach, or a casino where everyone is casino-accustomed.
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|56]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "155")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one For a while, you sat in your room, staring at the blackness beyond the moonless blue sky of the outside world. Every night, your mind drifted around your father. When the storm had passed, you sat with your arms crossed over your chest, just listening to him talk to you, listening to his voice, his voice of love and hope and peace and love and peace.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
In the morning, the hawks by their wings seemed to be sleeping, and we saw them try to jazz up their voices. But the wind was churning through them, rattling cages, ripping off remaining skin. [They were shrieking like lovers.$one]<foot|
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "50")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one But they stopped. I saw how small they really were under their wings. They had tiny talons that could only pry holes in bark or leaves, and one of them was just a foot long but that was the only way that I could tell that it was a bird.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
We’d try to talk the bastard around, but his fists and face were like torches smoking in a boy’s attic. Trying to make eye contact with him was like trying to convince a vulture from another world that [America is its real love.$one]<foot| He pushed the envelope all the way down our throats, around our eyeballs. We blinked, tried to think cleverly, but he held an accusing hand up our spines. We cut him off. [“Here,” he said,$two]<foot2| and we sat there, crossed out, our tragicomic faces suddenly life-threatening.
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "155")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "199")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one "Beware, you blind socialist," he said, "even though you have a heart of gold and cocaine."]]
(click: ?foot2)[$foot[$two I took a deep breath. “Why don't you guys go over there,” I said, pointing to the second floor, “and I hope you find something interesting.” I said this as I reached into my bag and pulled out a large glass bottle.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
The hand on my shoulder said something about minimizing injury. I didn't particularly care. Then I said I was going to jail. I said it well, through clenched teeth. I had a three-day trial where I would stand at the pump and say funny things, usually about the mechanic. But most of my jokes were so pathetic they looked like they were stealing a sermon from a local high school. The third day, [I stood outside in the dark,$one]<foot| listening to the faint whistling of the wind. Just like in a movie.
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|94]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "199")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one I kept staring at the pump for a few moments, until the wind started to blow. The pump whirred to life. It was like a mechanical bird, but louder and stronger. It was like a mechanical bee, but more powerful. I laughed like crazy.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
The principal asked if I could pass as Elsa. I said I could. [He explained how our hands should intertwine$one]<foot| to make a magician’s trick ring. He also explained that if you do not change clothes, everything will be perfect. Once he was done, he led me through the bedroom, past flowers, past dampness and freshness. There was a dress, a crown, jewels. There was a skirt. There was a sound that sounded like constellations amid frothy water. “Was this your first love?” I asked. After eight years of living at sea, we ended up at the hospital, but we were too drunk to know why. It was too soon to tell our names. Lilly is still in the Navy. William is dead. And I am passing as Elsa.
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|159]]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one I sat on the floor in the corner, listening. The sounds of the sea drowned me, and my fingers were sweaty under my skirt as I fingered the hem of my white dress.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
It’s a crime world of metaphors. In prison, I say, "すゃありがとう?" There are breaths and ways to count them, yet a wingbeat contains infinite sighs. All hail the invincibility monster. I don’t understand sarcasm. I don’t understand how to play the bass guitar. [Neither can you.$one]<foot|
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "199")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "159")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one And one last thing. If a game or a comic tells us in a few lines that it was based on something, and we don't get the rest of the story at the end, we are missing a story. [We've missed the main idea$two]<foot2|, and we have lost something important.]]
(click: ?foot2)[$foot[$two Pretty soon all you hear is eveyone talking about lightning and how everything tastes the same.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
So I went to law school. I became familiar with the principles of tenth grade science. I began to follow the school district policies regarding nudity. Soon, out of the blue, I became accompanied by a batallion. The gym class. [The plastic surgeon’s appointment.$one]<foot| Then I got very dizzy. I could feel the whiskers coming off my face.
(if: $percent < 50)[(set: $percent to 50)]
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|25]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "52")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one I said, "Are you all right?" You said, "Yeah." I said, "Do you need a doctor?" You said no. I said, "I'll drive to St. Louis if you need anything." And then I drove to St. Louis.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
The food was deteriorating, [the humidity ridiculous$one]<foot|—how else are you going to feed the hungry when your skin is rusted and your hands are exhausted from throwing insects away?—and you were concerned that some of your vitamins might be getting in the way of your normal activities.
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "145")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "193")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one This was after the day of sunburn and sweating, and the first time I ever saw a bug-sized moth at my office.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
Does [your cardiologist$one]<foot| know how to crush a bear’s whistle? He’s been doing this for fifteen years, and he’s seen it all: young women with abortions, jealous lovers drifting off to sleep. He can hear your breathing. He thinks you're thinking swimmingly, as if you've been dancing for a long, lonely night.
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "164")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "149")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one His office is in the basement of the Massachusetts General Hospital, where a twenty-four-hour emergency room is the only place you can get a doctor without a license. He has a heart murmur; after a few years, it will be a full-fledged, serious heart murmur. You'll go for a routine check-up. ]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
What struck me as odd about her state was the absence of shame. She is smiling, earnest and respectful of the doubting public. The auditorium was husky as hell, her hands full of smear after smear of dust. The others stared blankly at her as they gossiped through their coats. She did not acknowledge them. She stood straight, hands thick and wet with saliva. Then she turned to me, widened, and said, “[Let’s talk about this jacket.$one]<foot| It is something we are all about to need.”
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|193]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "145")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one I had been looking at the jacket in the mirror for a while, and the thought of it was a little bit disturbing. But I was trying to keep my voice down, my eyebrows in order. I did not want to sound judgmental or insensitive to one of the most beautiful women I know.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
“Summer monsoons,” sighs writer-director Alejandro González Iñárritu, [interrupting our set.$one]<foot| He was talking about El Niño. It’s not a storm, it’s a storminess; it’s not a suntan, it's suntanning; it’s an ocean that is dying off. He was talking about the way the chemical components of water become increasingly toxic. That was already known to us: already known carcinogens, already known bacteria, already known absence. So I went in and did what most people do: I exhaled and tried to take as much as I could before you started dying.
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "149")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "164")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one I said to myself: This is it. You've had four months, four long, long months of this. This is why we were there. I got up the nerve to say, "We are going to do the movie." To my surprise, I got the go-ahead. In the film, the whole world is affected by this ocean of death that is beginning to destroy everything in it, and we have this opportunity to see that—and it is a real opportunity.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
All afternoon, nothing but darkness. The only sign that something is being done is your dull, choppy night. Know that everything is trying to kill you, every particle of clay is being pulverized, coalitions form from skeletons, and ribbons form as badges of honor. Know that [even the ice is shot into the distance.$one]<foot|
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "230")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one The fireflies go away. The only signs of life are the dead.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
Whenever you think about it, aspirin is the only thing that comes to mind. Now just take one more pill, keep taking them, the count goes up. Once you have the necessary ingredients, [you can take any drug you please.$one]<foot|
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "149")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "230")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one The drug companies are very aware of this. That is why they are paying you to come to us and [make false statistics.$two]<foot2| Now you take your pills. Now just take them.]]
(click: ?foot2)[$foot[$two For many years I worked as a mixing engineer at a drugstore. As such, I was assigned to targeting the bad guys. Eventually, I would be responsible for convincing the drugstore owner (he was a fixture on the right) that storied Iraqi shrines were worth keeping, and that the heroes’ pilgrimage to Hell was just the beginning.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
The doctor comes in, carrying a bag of sawdust and a scalpel. It’s easy to forget this last year, a year of glitz, of catfishing, of fancy new shoes. But there’s [a wall of photographs$one]<foot| of you and my brother, plucking grapes from the air with the same tired sigh. [I can’t do anything but be dazzled.$two]<foot2|
(if: $percent < 58)[(set: $percent to 58)]
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|30]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "63")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one But there are too many antique lenses, too many frames, too many antique flashes, and the photographs merely fill in the gaps. The sky is a puff pastry and the moon is an like an egg on a plaid shirt.]]
(click: ?foot2)[$foot[$two The doctor moves in closer, his face inches from my face as he’s careful not to touch. "Your heart is working," he says. "I’ll get it checked out later. I’ll be okay." I take a deep breath and try to keep my voice calm.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
The [plastic surgeon is not available$one]<foot| at the hospital; the client has already gone to the grocery store. There are staples and bows in the right places, and then there are the pseudo-sacred pastimes of the patient. The plastic surgeon will extricate the patient from the pleasures of traditional Chinese healing practices, then draw a scalpel across the patient’s neck until it feels like she’s bleeding out of her lungs. The plastic surgeon will remove the clot and you will have a body much like the patient found in the grocery store: completely intact, but witless and unsightly as ever.
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "68")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "65")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one Some surgeons use lasers to treat tumors. If you have been told that cancer is caused by light, and that cancer cells must be removed using lasers, you are not in the right place.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
But there are bewitching lights in that hospital, and the surgeons are all right. They’ve got the needles run through cotton, and are [ready to shoot x-rays out of Hell$one]<foot| when they’re called back home.
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|68]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "65")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one And they're going to do everything they can to stop that bullet from making it to the patient before she’s done with her life. Although, everyone knows the story ends.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
At that time, everyone else was busy sewing and cooking. And now you are sleeping in a cuffed bed, the color of your bikini top hanging from your bangs. My heart aches. I have to talk to my doctors. [I have to find a solution$one]<foot| that doesn’t break your privacy.
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "146")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "76")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one In the meantime, you should continue your workouts. Don’t stop doing your yoga, either. And don’t stop drinking.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
We would like to go swimming in deep things. The dead are everywhere: boats with dead dolphins, swimmers in pools of blood, clothes scorched with heat generation. In the dark, we can make out. There was a time when things were only you and me, not the fish in the whirlpool, not [the hills which block the road to paradise.$one]<foot|
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "76")]
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "146")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one And that is when we had to make ourselves a new world. The dead were no longer the ones who built the buildings. You and I did not even live on the planet on which we had grown up.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
It’s not the hospital itself, of course, as almost all morose news is devoted to. But the constant stream of glances from doctor to patient, from resident to patient. From nurse to patient. [From hospital to hospital,$one]<foot| the patients always ask the same question: *[How is your cancer?$two]<foot2|* And from hospital to hospital in white lettering: *Who cooks for you?* And from hospital to hospital in blue floral patterns, all wrapped in a similar feel: *This is the hospital, am I a hero? Or is my cancer the only problem I have?*
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|98]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "116")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one They have it all: big old white hallways, fancy floors with gaudy pictures of the stars, and giant, well-kept geriatric wards full of patients.]]
(click: ?foot2)[$foot[$two There are no plans to cure cancer. There are no plans to end illiteracy. We should never be afraid to say: *Anchorman, please.*]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
It hurts to be called blasphemers, but you were just calling from the right place. Before I can even think about what to make of this news, I have to make a disgusted squawk. It’s the fourth time in as many days that I’m going to have a bowel movement. [I’m going to have a hard time seeing through doors.$one]<foot| I’m doubly pissed. I’m about to explode when I hear the name of Jesus.
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "98")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "116")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one I’m going to keep digging my eyes into the darkness, but the truth is on my side.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
Maybe I’ll make a raindrop a year until there are no clouds. Maybe I’ll grow breasts to match her naked body. Maybe someday I will be able to cry alone; for now, [rain is always on her shoulders.$one]<foot|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "166")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one [[Rain falls on her$two|1003]] like I am carrying her.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
We would get money for taking the pain out of your scars. We would get money for not taking the pain out of your wishes. Many a time, [I have been promised a better tomorrow.$one]<foot| But most of my wishes are never delivered.
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|98]]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one Even on a beautiful day, I hear that our beautiful country has been left naked and alone.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
In a box, there is a photograph of you and [Calvin Coolidge,$one]<foot| that one-eyed, dog-eat-dog motherfucker. The caption is: *What children do when they grow up is beyond me.* But there are words for things that are unseen, and there are songs and poems and books and after-school specials similar to fairy tales but without dragons in them. And there are questions of what is and isn't good and what is and isn't. And there is faith. And when will God stop asking the impossible questions?
(if: $percent < 66)[(set: $percent to 66)]
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|85]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "168")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one So God is there in the box, just a little bit less than perfect. See "Calvin Coolidge: American God," Wikipedia.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
So I went back to the old typewriter, waiting for the snow to clear. And I did what I had to do: type in the city, then type in a museum. At first it was amazing just how much writing I’d use, the light coming off like a flick of a torch. But the longer I waited for the monster to recede, [the more terrified I became$one]<foot|—this is what it must feel like. Finally, I closed the lid. The monster electrocuted his hands like burning paper lanterns, and I was the only bird burning beside you.
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "20")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "31")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one And yet I felt so safe, so secure, that there were no windows to peek around the corner of the street, and I could hear the wind whistling through trees and the crashing of buildings. All around me are things that I would want to go back to, but there's nothing else left.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
Here are [some additional questions:$one]<foot| In what ways is your body fire? What birds did you mother while I was away? Will you give me back water or death?
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|20]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "85")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one Also: Do you mind if I sit here and drink water? Can you use a knife to cut the grass? I wish to be cremated and am going on a vacation; what should I do?]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
You do not need to be an idiot to love [the places you love me;$one]<foot| just look at the way I tattooed all those crossings on my arms. "Where did you even get those scissors?" you said. Everyone should have a picket fence. Everyone should have a picket sign. We need your help! We need your prayers! We need your goddamn money!
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "31")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one You know that beautiful place in the middle of the park? That place where you just kind of sit and look at the flowers when you go to church? Yeah. That.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
The resident scientist in the [town's only animal clinic$one]<foot| was stoned to death. And what about the patient who you were always scanning for signs of life, a bear with scythe-sharp fangs, a bear with scythe-sharp jaw? The doctors were experts, intervening frequently in splinters and splints, confirmations and rejections. Many a patient has died from multiple causes alone.
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "97")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one The town's only hospital was so crowded that it had to be built. It was a mess. Even the doctors and administrators needed something to do—often so that the townsfolk could relax on the sidelines and talk, gossip, or smoke.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
[I have lived in the Rapture long enough.$one]<foot| The rivers are hollow and disgusting. The dead are everywhere, but have recently surfaced on the land. You’ve seen the way they dance on the rocks, melding mud and disease. You’ve seen the way they laugh—and how they cry—from cliff to cliff to boredom. Our children are coming, and soon we will have a state where [the grocery store$two]<foot2| is littered with empty pill capsules.
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|151]]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one My time in the Rapture was, in retrospect, like the rest of my life.]]
(click: ?foot2)[$foot[$two One night, seriously disfigured by a lightning bolt, I realized I had left out the part about rats in the food supply.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
Your cancer island is getting bigger and better. The spring when you will be dead is readying itself for the fall. Everything I say in this hospital is likely to become public knowledge, [just like everything you said thirty years ago.$one]<foot| It is impossible to predict what will come next.
(if: $percent < 74)[(set: $percent to 74)]
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|188]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "228")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one “You have heard the legends of the war. You know the story of Astaroth. But no one's ever spoken of what happens next,” you say. The doctor pauses. "All right," he says. "We'll talk about that in ten minutes. Right now we have to save your life."]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
And now people are talking about [whether or not they are Christians.$one]<foot| Does Jesus really have to be such a bastard, a bastard who sucks in the sea? I’m just saying this to get my bearings.
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "206")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "111")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one I was raised a Mormon. I never knew.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
You caught a nearby flowering tomato and brought it to my attention. “This is it.” A pause so still it knits together. “Let’s talk about this lunch. Let’s eat pizza. Let’s talk about arsenic. [I’m in love with your hair.$one]<foot| I don’t care if you do. I’m sorry I ever said anything.”
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "209")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "100")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one You were staring at me like I was an insect. But I didn't care about that.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
This sex ed system does not work. "Love," I will say, "is everything to us." [I will not suppress my urge to explode,$one]<foot| my cigarette ash choking the air.
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|206]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "111")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one One woman told me, "It makes me want to go into a car wreck."]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
[Marlboro Joe must be so pissed.$one]<foot| He must be about to shit. He’s wearing a beard and trampolining his way through the law. We will not be intimidated by the size of his bong. All those metal bands with their songs about representation. I’m so pumped to get out. I’m reading this newspaper. I’m eating a mushroom shell for breakfast. Jesus, my cigarette is gonna burn this tomb.
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "111")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "209")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one The next day, after driving to a friend in Florida, where she lives with her parents, Marlboro Joe was arrested. He was released the next day from the Miami City Jail in a plastic prison cell. He has since been in and out of jail more than two dozen times, including a stint in the Miami City Jail for a misdemeanor marijuana charge.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
If the armchair scientists in my alma mater were right, Hypothesis X might work better. Even if it just explained [why Hypothesis X failed.$one]<foot| I was breathing like a man in a sharkskin suit, blue as the Lake Michigan sky.
[(print: $titles's ($count+1))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 0)(goto: "40")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one Hypothesis Y is that people exist. Hypothesis Y is true. [[Hypothesis Y is very, very stupid.$two|1004]]]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
Beneath the ice swims a flooded highway. And beneath your mercy, a drowned man’s cries echo [like seas of gasoline.$one]<foot|
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "209")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one This has become the story of a tourist destination.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
As I stand on the beach, my breath is sterile, nothing but a float of air in my mouth. That said, I have a question for you. You live in a hospital, and I am here: writing, eating dinner, raising our child. Can I play the funeral? Can I take the dirty work home and turn it into a garden? Day and night, do you miss him? [What is life when you cannot die?$one]<foot|
(if: $percent < 82)[(set: $percent to 82)]
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|135]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "174")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one I'm not trying to get you to cry and tell me how sorry you are. I'm just asking.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
Those of us who have ever been astronauts should know this, of course: [the stars are not hospitable hosts.$one]<foot|
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "191a")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "177")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one The question of whether we are the source of our own radiation is one that I have spent a considerable amount of time on over the last few years.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
I’ve given this to a third party to try out. I’ve given you a one-star rating because [you are clearly the one making these decisions.$one]<foot| But please don’t call them stars. Because for every star, there’s something called Skeptical Science or someone who thinks nuclear war is an evil idea. Because we can’t all be stars. We can’t even all be redheads.
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|191a]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "177")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one You can take this up with your local library. I'm sure they'll be happy to give you your reward.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
I have two more things to tell you. First: [I love you so, so very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very.$one]<foot| Second: [my cell phone service is not what you would expect from a two-star accommodation.$two]<foot2|
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|191b]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "191a")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one Isn't that the way of love, always dripping sweet poison?]]
(click: ?foot2)[$foot[$two For that reason, I'd appreciate if you could wait and call me in the morning. I feel like I've just gotten off of the interstate.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
*Me:* I am really dry right now, but [I love you.$one]<foot| I really do. Will you be back in a little while? Maybe a month? Maybe a year? Two years? I don’t know how to take pity on you; I just hope you are okay.
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "191c")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one I will put up signs that say that I love you. I will do this every day that is not a vacation.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
*Me:* I am really wet right now, but I love you. I want to take you into the shower and beat my head against the door and pray you will stop sobbing. [Let me wash your hands$one]<foot| and help you get dressed.
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "191c")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "191a")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one Don't forget to make sure you're clean. I'm not good at doing that.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
*You:* I was always so wet, always. My knees seemed to throb just like my breasts now. [My fingers are so weak they can’t use my hands.$one]<foot|
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "118")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one You’ve tried so hard to reach out and touch your own soul.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
This morning, the owls sleep in hollow domes of the ground below them, unmoving. Eventually, I’ll awake muttering something about birdsong and snow. Eventually, I’ll drive my rickety car—an antique silver one, I suppose—to [the ambulance service$one]<foot| who’ll tell me they are shutting you down.
(if: $percent < 90)[(set: $percent to 90)]
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|189]]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one I wish I could give you an autograph or a kiss. [The ambulance service$two]<foot2| has been a good friend to me.]]
(click: ?foot2)[$foot[$two It is owned by a man who pretty much keeps to himself when he's not performing miracles.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
[I need a goodie bag, some ether, and some salt.$one]<foot| Listen: I’ve got an impressive arsenal of blows. You can ram them through the back of a hospital and save the world, but you wouldn’t change the fact that you loved me just before your death.
(if: $percent > 98)[(set: $percent to 98)]
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|214]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "140")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one I don't have a place to sleep, so I’ll sleep like this for a while. I’ll be back in a few days with a suitcase full of bread.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
The dragons are dead. [This place is a husk,$one]<foot| a barely recognizable smoky furnace. The tanning place sells torches and smoke bombs, and [it won’t do anything but burn.$two]<foot2|
(if: $percent > 98)[(set: $percent to 98)]
[(print: $titles's ($count+4))]<fourth|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "195")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "1005")]
(click: ?fourth)[(set: $count to it + 3)(goto: "67")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one The inn is abandoned and the innkeepers are all gone, just like their customers. I can only imagine, if I was in the inn, I could smell the sweat and the blood everywhere and it would stink to the point of unbearable.]]
(click: ?foot2)[$foot[$two The clouds were inconspicuous and sifting through rubble. The sky anviled them with twilight.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
You kissed me so I buried you, [in the deep smoky woods of my memory,$one]<foot| a hundred times over. I did not sleep that night, and awoke one day cursing the earth. Months pass. Eventually, I do not return. But I will mouse my way back into the past.
(if: $percent > 98)[(set: $percent to 98)]
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|195]]
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "67")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one But I am not alone. I can hear the music of the forest, and hear the voice of a child.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
I’m the only one I care about. [The city will be forever shaped by me,$one]<foot| nothing but rubble, and I will be nothing but a reaper, a ghost waiting to devour my expiring contract.
(if: $percent > 99)[(set: $percent to 99)]
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|241]]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one The city now is just a graveyard. One with a few crumbling buildings lining the streets, a few scattered flowers scattered throughout.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
Is there anything left that’s not a palm print, a familiar glance, a photograph of your arms? There are billboards in the city for the sale of wings. [There are firecrackers in the thrift store$one]<foot| for every pet name I’ve forgotten.
(if: $percent > 99)[(set: $percent to 99)]
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "241")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one Even at the mall, where one can see the world from the other side of the glass, I am surrounded by shadows that reach up to the ceiling.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
I was prepared for when I left for work that first night. My Social Security number was only used for business purposes, not for personal use. I turned to look at you, your casual dress and rounded neck. [I would like to be told from the first minutes that we were human.$one]<foot|
(set: $percent to 100)
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one (css: "font-variant: small-caps")[[The End.$two]<foot2|]]]
(click: ?foot2)[$foot[$two (You always thanked me as fast as you thanked a werewolf.)]]
**The TV watched us from the balconies**
There were bands that played gigs on the moon. The lights wanted to hear our music, and made us feel [like we were acknowledging some kind of divine end.$one]<foot| The lights wanted to know what we were most looking for: an end to the silence, a start to something. Things were mostly right where they were meant to be.
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "194")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one But something was off with the calendar. The stars were rotating in circles. The bands were avoiding the music, but were becoming aware of how they were dancing.]]
**The other end of the phone**
The second half of the cigarette is over and it seems everyone is talking about how size matters. Everybody is talking about diet and how to lose weight. People are talking about ways to lose fat and plants and getting pregnant. People are talking about getting a brain. [I want to be king of the coalitions.$one]<foot| I want to be the one-stop shop for the far off.
[[(print: $titles's ($count+1))|181]]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one The upshot was that I became a martyr for Christmas tree lights. When I got a phone call from the tower, I didn’t know how to act. I just kept on ringing.]]
**Rain falls on her**
“You’re drunk,” you say, punching holes in the sky, kicking down streets bored with cars. You say I’m drinking and driving. The clouds pulverize the air, [the punchlines splitting free.$one]<foot|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "166")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one “Someone is stealing these paintings,” I’d joke in a bar, assuming everyone was tuned in. It’s all part of the job description. You’ve seen the way I wear these shoes, how they thread between my legs, how slow I galloped when I was a child.]]
**Hypothesis Y is very, very stupid**
The imagined news of my impending demise had already been surfacing on newsstands across the country. Excuse me, I’m late for work. [Excuse me, can I refresh your memory? Did I just romanticize death? Do you citizens all have a heart of gold? It’s all in the past, remember?$one]<foot| You are all future Presidents. I will defend you all, and your memories will be invincible.
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "40")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one Of course there are the sun and moon, just like there is someone else who wants to know the answer to those silly questions.]]
**(print: $titles's ($count))**
Everyone remembers the final days of Harley-Davidson. Once we had our heroes smash into buildings and then befriend the stray biker gang. Those final days in the wreck, I imagine, are over. There was a time when [motorcycles seemed the order of the day.$one]<foot| But now it seems the old losers sing only from their cars.
(if: $percent > 98)[(set: $percent to 98)]
[(print: $titles's ($count+3))]<third|
[(print: $titles's ($count+2))]<second|
(click: ?second)[(set: $count to it + 1)(goto: "195")]
(click: ?third)[(set: $count to it + 2)(goto: "67")]
(click: ?foot)[$foot[<hr>$one I wondered: could we get away from the current by cycling among the fast-moving freighters of today? At what cruise ship were they arresting women and children? Did I ram a skiff into a truck and sink like a cheap mistake?]]
[[209]]
(set: $one to "¹")
(set: $two to "²")
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(set: $titles to (shuffled: "I stand straight, poised, poised, poised, poised, poised, ever so gently", "Better to root for the circus man, the monkey bastard, the stick boy", "My favorite stories are ones about crazy things coming to be", "Other stories: a shepherd in his fields, a bear cub in a cubicle, the harmonies in the air, water not coming out when it's raining", "What a smoke and I have fallen in love", "The lamp still on its bristled-out battery", "The numbers don't care what you tell them", "Let[']s build something awe-inspiring", "A city of tourists after dark", "There are traps in store for us in the town of twilight", "They leave footprints like billboards, only larger and more famous", "I've worked with many survivalists", "The clouds are feathery men with sidelong glances", "Wrong woman, wrong circumstance", "Beneath your tender embrace, a broken parasol supports itself", "A strident purring", "A midnight marigold with talons traced all over its body", "You can repay us by convincing salt to bloom its shells", "Sing along, comrades", "Her specter was everything to me", "You have a heart and a car", "I'm a man with a plan B", "I sold my tinfoil hat and ventured into the outdoors", "Some lousy satellite dish", "The dragon larvae were everywhere", "Soon my hungry crows were watching your every move", "I spent the summer dreaming about the conga line", "She'd just completed her skywalk", "The surrealists dreaming of bananas", "The jewelers rigging old numbers into fancy plans", "Something more than the somewhat obligatory ballerina", "The checkout girl at the thrift store doles out delicate jobs", "At the opera, you sit at the head of the merry-go-round", "I can assure you it is an ode to the earth and its creatures", "The traffic lights in the city were cracked and cluttered", "We were making a dent in the clouds", "Eventually, the path became a cemetery", "I built a shack on the banks of the river", "This swamp has everything", "Dutifully, the bulldozers rustle like reindeer", "Finally, after three solid months of being astonished", "You know where they put the fishing poles", "A brain is worth an eggshell, not a feather", "We will send you to a planet that doesn't require you", "The moon does not tremble when I hear your name", "We were a small farm", "We will take care of the mechanic when he comes", "It was winter, and my grandmother was dying", "A woman in a black dress with a bag of roses in her hair", "I was calling from across the river in this church-gray suit", "The world was dark and beautiful late at night", "The television series about foxes is getting awfully old", "My Miranda rights are being used against me", "By the end of the month, the thunder had worn thin", "Something to the effect of Europe", "I like the way the earth spins", "The Pac-Man players have named their game the Homecoming Massacre", "There were only three good fishing destinations", "I'd hopscotch the giant branches of a tree", "Me, neither magician nor songbird", "I had a camera and an umbrella", "I dreamt about my grandmother marrying an old car dealer", "The clouds of coal singing soft jazz", "It was a good thing, kid, that our mothers gave us peanuts", "You were popular, your grades excellent, your parents proud", "Every cigarette costs an ashtray", "The knot of a hummingbird", "If astrology was real", "It is possible for anyone to make and sell electric fences", "Finally it is time for bed", "I did not respond to questions about titles, chapters, and photographs", "The ashtray is gray as a drive-thru, lifeless as a mirror", "The stars are shag carpet", "I like your blue-ribboned exterior", "You're not a dope-toothed salad of nerves", "Every old axe is disgraced as a corpse", "The mournful saxophones shall be yonder echoes", "For starters, the sky is dying of ice", "The king of all of us is losing his cool", "There is a weather system resembling Disneyland", "I'm more worried about the mercury than the city itself", "You count the days when I didn't hear from you", "If my boots seemed so likely, maybe my shoes will too", "And now you, my skeptic, you claim evidence", "The photographs you've taken of the pyramids", "Then there was the spider eating your heart", "Her pet name is Enchantress", "You at least gave me the thumbs-up", "My friends, get out of my way", "I write love words that people will remember", "I drink champagne and don't put anything on sale", "A rat is a terrible angel", "This is what I wanted to learn in elementary school", "When I was ten, my father smoked a cigarette and my mother didn't laugh", "The staples are like crystal balls", "Occasional ladies dropping by to offer their bouquets of booze","Let us play dirty","The rulers of this universe are ridiculous","Give me Portugese for an alphabet","Let me make chess pieces out of random pieces of wood","Everyone except Wikipedia is shocked","They think cornbread is everything they’d promised","What do you get if you cross a river?","I want to say dark, silent things","I can only make sure my forecast for the next several days is accurate","The nightmare of lights flashing together like mushrooms","Making tiny arcs in the sky","If I became a wizard, could I beat the hell out of a dragon? ","Just a fancy way of saying *free beer*","Regarding normal people","The keys were rickety and useless","One of those gift-giving promotions that only the rich could attend","I did not read the terms of the deal","I like to think of myself after sunset","The TV is playing the right songs","It was the season of reheating soup in the microwave","Adam and Eve wouldn’t be so sure","There was a sign: DO NOT OVERQUIT","The rain sifting through the blue mists of the sky","Like a croquet ballerina","For every change of hair","A dollar was donated to the Museum of Color","I needed to wear that nunnery uniform","Now those turbines","I think about the fourth time I said something ridiculous","My poetry is pitifully average","The trees creaking in the midday moon","You drove an old pickup truck","Some household items: war, entropy, desperation, and rainfall","Excuses for horses to die","Shadowy figures appear, wearing dirty rainbows","The management firm hired me to design small, comfortable furniture","I’m only playing the piano and nothing will make me happy","We gave lengthy explanations to the fish bureau","Luminaries like Hans Zimmer and Stevie Nicks appeared in the aquariums","Shyness threatening to bloom","The scroll was a pocketful of ink","The invaders burned through the city, trying to kill sparrows","Forget the neon signs","No paintings, no inscriptions","We laughed in the shower, drunk on the romantic glow of halftime","The moon is a juggler","We could’t afford to lunch at the bar","The crows of the earth need our forgiveness","Lullabies from an old typewriter","A pasture of sea cucumbers","Night is when things get wild","I’m sorry about President Garfield","Let’s shove a lightning strike","A dynamite launcher","The astronomers are astonished","A man who smokes can expect to make $75,000 a year","Like the wind in Cedar Lake City","Does getting catty nearly make you a leopard? ","Edison wanted to turn his light-emitting dongles into steam","I am not a doctor of dreams","I think about the sunset in your hair","We made up parables","My tongue, dirty as a clam","Like teaching young people how to love their mothers","Clearly, the box was filled with rubber fish","You were hella nice","I made a living as a foreclosed housekeeper","Let me turn on the fan for a minute","Not to mention the cardboard cutout of some kind of car","With the right adapter the TV will play all the radio dramas","The weather in Des Moines is sludge","Imagine if you could reassemble the orchestra of a movie set","The stars will all glow for a moment, then they will sing","You will sing along, my love","The snow plumbers do their maintenance on the back fields of town","It’s all a crime in this sleepy, postapocalyptic land","The farmers in Wisconsin seem to agree","I’d been searching the shelves for something so fruity and earthy","The inclined trees dipping their wares into the water","Skittering along at warp speed","And then the fun began","The treehouse parties","What are the odds of blooming? ","I know that once a man got off his surfboard","I'll just as soon wash up in a lake of my self-inflicted bitterness","The Wizard of Oz never gave us the terrible weather we’re enduring","I can’t make the lake look too beautiful for a sunset","I can’t tell the town about our broken water faucets","Hell, even the garbage trucks look beautiful","A name engraved on everything we own","A man in a suit being chased by a woman in a bikini","A house with its fair share of stoners","A crude diagram of a bench","People are hurling sensible, useful questions","I hope our saddest dreams come true","Some of those gorgeous, sky-blue water slides","Let’s see what the magazines have to say","We smell a bargain","The book clips seemed so small","I am conducting this investigation on my own free will","Snow is the color we all learn","You are the test tube, my friend","Your name on the wish list of mental health groups","Soon enough, the screaming and the gesticulation will fail to amaze me","The tobacco companies said: We’re concerned that the public is confused about the burning of crows","It is not music, then, that we learn the hard way","The crumbs nestled in chocolate bars","This vast field of peanuts","Tonight, I will show you how to play the banjo","We tried to keep the clothes we were wearing","My breath thin as a washcloth","I have learned a thing or two from my parents","The bartender was gone, the waitresses were pregnant","Food that tastes like rain","This afternoon is seething with reverb","I have learned a lot about breathing over music","You like to think of the stars as little birds","Whenever I open my mouth, you can’t even begin to explain the corona of my lips","Tonight, I’m spongy as a feather","The acoustics are ridiculous in this bed","The story of how I invented the simple yet effective jab","I grew up in a house with a rolling sky","The furniture tinkered with the dirt","For breakfast, I ordered the following","All those women in drag are working men","The factory where we make bombs and then put them in the fridge","The lights stick to traffic, the radio to the moon","People who have cars and banks and marriages and taxes and tears","A method of knowing when to roll with the trapeze and when to stop screaming","You made a promise to me never to keep that vow","The wind living in our hair","What a clever name for a volcano","The scientists who study storms learn best by heart","What a crash course in healing","A female apothecary whose scissors were like fire","A seagull whose hair was simply a sliver of fur","Do you think the moon is an idiot?"))
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<h1>(align: "=><=")[$computer]</h1>(align: "=><=")[(css: "font-size: 11px")[(Use a computer for the best interaction)]]
<h1>(align: "=><=")[$phones]</h1>(align: "=><=")[(css: "font-size: 11px;")[(Use headphones for the best audio experience)]]
(css: "font-variant: small-caps")[[[Okay|Epigraph]]]
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