canyon and vibrated him.
Sky appeared in his vision. A gray sky, but bright anyway. He glided warily, a hawk searching for his home.
She laughed in the clouds. Her head was a painting, and yet it breathed, expanding out from the canvas. “Max! Let’s get into the bed…I’m too old to stand up,” she joked, her smooth skin wrinkling with laughter.
“I’m sorry,” he tried to say, but he droned like an old turntable; the record moved too slowly under the stylus.
“I love it. Don’t be sorry.” She moved away, a boat separating from the dock and he hung on, desperate, afraid he would fall in the water. She kept laughing. He fell on the bed. It was cool like water, but of course it bounced.
I’m tripping, he thought.
“I have stretch marks,” he said in his own ear.
“I do?” he asked himself.
More laughter. The sun set when she drew the curtains. Dark passed over the room as if a giant’s hand were blessing them. If God existed He could pass His palm over the earth and blacken it like that.
“Don’t you believe in God?” she asked.
Max opened his eyes. The ceiling was low, pressing down. A smoke alarm’s red light warned him: You are tripping and you have your eyes closed and you don’t know the fucking difference.
“Where are you?”
Her answer came from behind. He turned and saw her, mountainous beneath an unreal yellow bedspread. The color was unlike anything in nature. Her young face was scared.
“Max. I didn’t bring my…you know…I didn’t think this was going to happen.”
“You think too much,” he said and stared at the curtains. They were drawn but light glowed from all the edges. He listened to the whooshing noise of the air-conditioning and felt the low ceiling of prefabricated panels close in. It was similar to being in the DC-10. Everything modern was a coffin. He had struggled so hard to use the new materials, cheaper and faster to manufacture and install, and yet you could make nothing but death containers out of them. There was no wood on earth wide enough to make the floors of even the meanest barn of a hundred years ago. Nothing could achieve the simplest beauty of a Shaker table without their purer wood, their purer paint, maybe without even the pure air of a world gone forever. He had only colors that never lived, fabrics fused in laboratories, and walls created out of the letters and numbers of the periodic table. He had turned his back on the past and its impossible abundance and impractical patience; he had embraced the technology of his world, determined to be a man of his time, and it had tried to assassinate him.
“Max, we don’t have to…Max!” Her head was a gargoyle snarling: “You bastard, I just wanted to talk!”
She was lying under the bedspread, covered up to the neck, embarrassed and angry. I’m not being dutiful, Max realized. He moved from the floor (how he got there he didn’t know) to beside her on the bed. His body sloshed as if it were a half-full pail of water. He heard the cheapness of the room: everything creaked and groaned. He pried her hand away from the bedspread. Her fingers seemed to break under his pressure, but she didn’t cry out in pain.
“Oh…” she sighed and shut her eyes as he lifted the covering off and exposed her.
The white slab of flesh shivered and talked to him. He touched the palpitating hollow of her throat with the tip of his tongue and she was animate, rumbling. He trailed down the soft body, tasting salt and flour, and all over him happiness tingled. There was nothing skimpy or flimsy here: this was pure.
He found a nipple and fed. He found folds and more nipples. He fed and fed. There were teats everywhere and heat, terrific heat, a sauna of love. “Take off your clothes,” he told himself, but there was no body to remove them from. He was only a mouth of liquids. He counted the breasts. There were five. He counted arms and there were eight. He counted the lips and there were six.
“Oh my God,”
Sky appeared in his vision. A gray sky, but bright anyway. He glided warily, a hawk searching for his home.
She laughed in the clouds. Her head was a painting, and yet it breathed, expanding out from the canvas. “Max! Let’s get into the bed…I’m too old to stand up,” she joked, her smooth skin wrinkling with laughter.
“I’m sorry,” he tried to say, but he droned like an old turntable; the record moved too slowly under the stylus.
“I love it. Don’t be sorry.” She moved away, a boat separating from the dock and he hung on, desperate, afraid he would fall in the water. She kept laughing. He fell on the bed. It was cool like water, but of course it bounced.
I’m tripping, he thought.
“I have stretch marks,” he said in his own ear.
“I do?” he asked himself.
More laughter. The sun set when she drew the curtains. Dark passed over the room as if a giant’s hand were blessing them. If God existed He could pass His palm over the earth and blacken it like that.
“Don’t you believe in God?” she asked.
Max opened his eyes. The ceiling was low, pressing down. A smoke alarm’s red light warned him: You are tripping and you have your eyes closed and you don’t know the fucking difference.
“Where are you?”
Her answer came from behind. He turned and saw her, mountainous beneath an unreal yellow bedspread. The color was unlike anything in nature. Her young face was scared.
“Max. I didn’t bring my…you know…I didn’t think this was going to happen.”
“You think too much,” he said and stared at the curtains. They were drawn but light glowed from all the edges. He listened to the whooshing noise of the air-conditioning and felt the low ceiling of prefabricated panels close in. It was similar to being in the DC-10. Everything modern was a coffin. He had struggled so hard to use the new materials, cheaper and faster to manufacture and install, and yet you could make nothing but death containers out of them. There was no wood on earth wide enough to make the floors of even the meanest barn of a hundred years ago. Nothing could achieve the simplest beauty of a Shaker table without their purer wood, their purer paint, maybe without even the pure air of a world gone forever. He had only colors that never lived, fabrics fused in laboratories, and walls created out of the letters and numbers of the periodic table. He had turned his back on the past and its impossible abundance and impractical patience; he had embraced the technology of his world, determined to be a man of his time, and it had tried to assassinate him.
“Max, we don’t have to…Max!” Her head was a gargoyle snarling: “You bastard, I just wanted to talk!”
She was lying under the bedspread, covered up to the neck, embarrassed and angry. I’m not being dutiful, Max realized. He moved from the floor (how he got there he didn’t know) to beside her on the bed. His body sloshed as if it were a half-full pail of water. He heard the cheapness of the room: everything creaked and groaned. He pried her hand away from the bedspread. Her fingers seemed to break under his pressure, but she didn’t cry out in pain.
“Oh…” she sighed and shut her eyes as he lifted the covering off and exposed her.
The white slab of flesh shivered and talked to him. He touched the palpitating hollow of her throat with the tip of his tongue and she was animate, rumbling. He trailed down the soft body, tasting salt and flour, and all over him happiness tingled. There was nothing skimpy or flimsy here: this was pure.
He found a nipple and fed. He found folds and more nipples. He fed and fed. There were teats everywhere and heat, terrific heat, a sauna of love. “Take off your clothes,” he told himself, but there was no body to remove them from. He was only a mouth of liquids. He counted the breasts. There were five. He counted arms and there were eight. He counted the lips and there were six.
“Oh my God,”
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