Songs of the Dead by Derrick Jensen Page A

plain going crazy.
    I go inside, sit at the computer, pretend to work.
    A little later I hear Allison’s car. I’m kind of scared to go outside. I don’t know what will happen, and don’t really want to find out.
    I hear her car door open, then shut. Then I don’t hear anything for a while, and when I do, it’s Allison opening the front door. I hear her footfalls through the entry, then I hear her putting down her pack. She walks to the door of the room where I’m sitting, and says, “Hey, lover, thank you for feeding the dogs.”
    I sit a moment, staring at her, or more precisely staring through her at the wall behind. I start to understand something, lose the understanding, and gain it again. I start to stand up, sit back down, then start up again. I do this one more time.
    Allison smiles tentatively. I can tell she wants to laugh, but daren’t for fear I’m having another of my spells.
    I stand up. “No, it’s okay,” I say. “I got it now.”
    â€œNo,” she says. “You already did.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe dog food. I thanked you.”
    â€œNo, the spells.”
    â€œI’m sorry?”
    â€œThe spells. Getting firewood, seeing the forest. Then a few days ago at Hangman Creek.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œI understand.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œTime.”
    â€œI don’t. . . .”
    â€œI’m falling through time. I know what you did before you came in here. You got out of your car, walked into the barn, looked at the dog dish, said to yourself, ‘He already fed them,’ and came in.
    Right?
    â€œHow. . . .”
    â€œI saw you. I was standing right there.”
    â€œI didn’t see you.”
    â€œThat’s because I wasn’t there.”
    â€œWhere were you? At the window?”
    â€œIn the driveway. You walked right past me.”
    She stops a moment, thinks. That’s something else I love about Allison. I’ve known lots of people—women and men alike— who at this point would have made a joke or taken offense, anything to discharge the energy of the conversation. These are people who are incapable of sitting with any sort of discomfort. This is true of physical discomfort, it’s true of emotional discomfort, and it’s especially true of cognitive dissonance. It takes a sort of faith to sit with any of these, a faith that your body or heart will heal, a faith that dissonance will synthesize into something comprehensible. Or maybe not. Finally she says, “Tell me.”
    â€œWhen I saw the logging trucks that you didn’t see, and when I saw the forest where you saw a clearcut, I was seeing the past. It’s the same the other day. I slipped into a time before dams and logging and agriculture killed the salmon. I saw it. Now, this time was the same, except it was the future.”
    She looks at me, almost getting it.
    â€œThose were in the past. You seeing me in the driveway was in the future.”
    I move my hands in small circles each around the other, as the Indian elder had done when she’d told me about time.
    â€œBut I couldn’t see you.”
    â€œNeither could the animals in the forest. Do you remember? They were unafraid.”
    She thinks, then smiles with her whole face. She gets it, grabs me by the shoulders. “Do you think you could go back in time and stop the dams from being built? Or maybe we should move to the East Coast, and you can go back and tell the Indians to kill every white person they see, tell them what will happen to them and to their land if they don’t.”
    I catch her enthusiasm. “I could—”
    We both say, “No.”
    She says, “They wouldn’t be able to see you.”
    â€œThey wouldn’t be able to hear me, either. I was talking to you outside, and you ignored me. I thought you had some sort of a problem.”
    She thinks, asks, “What do you think triggers