brainsick girl and her dead mother. Youâve had worse.
As usual, this tape will self-destruct in five secondsâ¦
§
Joy the enemy. Joy the culprit.
It happened in a moment of wild dancing. A burst of savage euphoria that just had to share itself.
And did.
By next afternoon the apartment half cleaned out, their presences amputated cleanly, the stump disinfected with a note. I donât blame you, but what you are is too dangerous to be close to. I wish you well. Please donât try to contact us.
I have to run very fast to stay ahead of it. Slowing or stopping, softness of any kind, brings it a step nearer. Images start to crowd me, splicings of memory and nightmare. Things that must have happened, could never have happened.
Shrivelled screaming instants.
§
The views. From the balcony, the good brick wall and dark flashing of the Latimer. The blinking, giantâs playnib beside the lake, flicking neon at the clouds. From the window, fire station 135, the bus shelter, EMS. Lights on, doors closed. Good, but not the best. Best is knowing beyond doubt that people are on the job. That theyâve got your back, even without knowing who you are, and stand ready to make adjustments. And, flipside, the worst: the comatose Sunday mornings, Christmas, Easter, and all Civic Holidaysâall those artificial lulls when the city lies on the couch like someone pretending to sleep while keeping one eye open. Thatâs when green tea longs for its departed betters of tequila shots and acid tabs and I stare until my eyes ache at the red doors of the fire station, praying for them to fly open, men in helmets scrambling, praying for the deliverance of a siren and the grill of the big truck in motion.
The discipline. To work in six-to-eight-week windows of gathering rage and speed, followed by a wordless crash. To know the personnel and the conditions of the job site.
Stone: Learn your windows.
Mixed states my specialty. Acute, jittery alertness combined with steadily darkening mood. Turbid, seething energies: a rage recipe. A car chase on black ice, which ends, as it must, in a crash.
In the aftermath of hyper-black, standard protocol mandates a return to base. That is when Iâm most in need of a prolonged debriefing with Stone. And get one, always. The man reliably strange, strangely reliable.
Ah, Stone. Healer, taskmaster, known enemy, surprising friend. His place of work a confessional crossed with a torture chamber. Hospice fronting a leper colony. I dread my unavoidable visits to him as a man with twisted limbs dreads his visit to the surgeon who must break each bone in order to reset it.
And if the assignment arrives five weeks into the window? Maybe six. Inconvenientâvery. A timing problem. Maybe serious.
But a problem. Not a dilemma.
Youâre on the adjustment.
§
On the couch under a blanket. Close my eyes, then open them and watch the gleams from headlights and streetlights flutter up by the glass. The bed a mockery once insomnia sets in to stay. Better odds at surprising sleep out here.
Grind-thoughts of a girl. How old now? With a half-melted face, standing at the edge of a classroom or recess yardâ no, age her dammit âseminar room, employee lounge. Or girlâ woman! âwith a graft-smoothed face, talking and laughing in a group, knowing that underneath the work of a dozen surgeries she is still half-melted, will always be half-melted.
And Lois. Really, forgiveness in her heart? Is there? Could there be?
Stirred in with thoughts of the city.
Something wrong, the streets unnaturally still.
Canât sleep.
And then, the first light spooling into dark, I hear the sirens and I can.
5
âWhat kind of funds are we talking about?â
âNine hundred dollars will do it, I think.â
A tiny pause. âSame as last time, then,â Ken says. Less gets by him than he pretends. Anything over a thousand, make me itemize it. What I insisted on at the
As usual, this tape will self-destruct in five secondsâ¦
§
Joy the enemy. Joy the culprit.
It happened in a moment of wild dancing. A burst of savage euphoria that just had to share itself.
And did.
By next afternoon the apartment half cleaned out, their presences amputated cleanly, the stump disinfected with a note. I donât blame you, but what you are is too dangerous to be close to. I wish you well. Please donât try to contact us.
I have to run very fast to stay ahead of it. Slowing or stopping, softness of any kind, brings it a step nearer. Images start to crowd me, splicings of memory and nightmare. Things that must have happened, could never have happened.
Shrivelled screaming instants.
§
The views. From the balcony, the good brick wall and dark flashing of the Latimer. The blinking, giantâs playnib beside the lake, flicking neon at the clouds. From the window, fire station 135, the bus shelter, EMS. Lights on, doors closed. Good, but not the best. Best is knowing beyond doubt that people are on the job. That theyâve got your back, even without knowing who you are, and stand ready to make adjustments. And, flipside, the worst: the comatose Sunday mornings, Christmas, Easter, and all Civic Holidaysâall those artificial lulls when the city lies on the couch like someone pretending to sleep while keeping one eye open. Thatâs when green tea longs for its departed betters of tequila shots and acid tabs and I stare until my eyes ache at the red doors of the fire station, praying for them to fly open, men in helmets scrambling, praying for the deliverance of a siren and the grill of the big truck in motion.
The discipline. To work in six-to-eight-week windows of gathering rage and speed, followed by a wordless crash. To know the personnel and the conditions of the job site.
Stone: Learn your windows.
Mixed states my specialty. Acute, jittery alertness combined with steadily darkening mood. Turbid, seething energies: a rage recipe. A car chase on black ice, which ends, as it must, in a crash.
In the aftermath of hyper-black, standard protocol mandates a return to base. That is when Iâm most in need of a prolonged debriefing with Stone. And get one, always. The man reliably strange, strangely reliable.
Ah, Stone. Healer, taskmaster, known enemy, surprising friend. His place of work a confessional crossed with a torture chamber. Hospice fronting a leper colony. I dread my unavoidable visits to him as a man with twisted limbs dreads his visit to the surgeon who must break each bone in order to reset it.
And if the assignment arrives five weeks into the window? Maybe six. Inconvenientâvery. A timing problem. Maybe serious.
But a problem. Not a dilemma.
Youâre on the adjustment.
§
On the couch under a blanket. Close my eyes, then open them and watch the gleams from headlights and streetlights flutter up by the glass. The bed a mockery once insomnia sets in to stay. Better odds at surprising sleep out here.
Grind-thoughts of a girl. How old now? With a half-melted face, standing at the edge of a classroom or recess yardâ no, age her dammit âseminar room, employee lounge. Or girlâ woman! âwith a graft-smoothed face, talking and laughing in a group, knowing that underneath the work of a dozen surgeries she is still half-melted, will always be half-melted.
And Lois. Really, forgiveness in her heart? Is there? Could there be?
Stirred in with thoughts of the city.
Something wrong, the streets unnaturally still.
Canât sleep.
And then, the first light spooling into dark, I hear the sirens and I can.
5
âWhat kind of funds are we talking about?â
âNine hundred dollars will do it, I think.â
A tiny pause. âSame as last time, then,â Ken says. Less gets by him than he pretends. Anything over a thousand, make me itemize it. What I insisted on at the
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