"The fantastic and the pedestrian meet in us--and where else, the world offers no other corners but the self. It's all just a metaphor that's designed for us to live in. Can't you see that?"

"OK Captain but I think you've misunderstand that particular metaphor about being married to the sea."

"..."

"Even if you're right, I won't be the flower girl."

"..."

"Oh, OK, don't have to go shouting 'mutiny!' every time you don't get your way."

"Oh, all any man really wants is to feel your nose split the breeze, to feel the ether glide by, to feel it all pass."

"Fine Captain, but I think you just like the way your voice sounds with your face in the fan like that."

Many complaints can be leveled against me and my mordant, incisive, rapier wit. However, no one can ever say I didn't eat lots of bananas.

If you do possess the auto-cleaning bio-faculties that you claim, why unspool whole rolls of toilet paper at a time? To make such a mess using something the only earthly purpose of which is to clean--but to clean others. Truly your vindictiveness is only matched by your cunning, cats.

"The night before as I tried to sleep there was a light on somewhere in my mind. As hard as I tried I could only find a faded and worn darkness. Today there was perfect blue around me, on me, in me--like that egg of a sun had finally been cracked and beaten into the blue. Could a life be lived like that? When the warm breeze comes along and makes you think that everything is the same such that the thought of the grey seems the skeptic's very pith. I can't be surprised that I was able to see it coming--looking back I've always seen it coming. He ws right when he said that the world was round. We think we're chasing the twilight when we're really just chasing our tails. Well, as the sun sets slowly so I commit my body--the soul's vessel--to the sea with this our faithful boat--a vessel in an unmetaphorical sense--the last great sailor has finally weighed anchor for good. "

"I don't even know what that means Captain. You've got the prickly heat again. OK, you're the last great sailor but that doesn't mean you have to prove it by drinking sea water by the bucket like this. We have that pump and the boat hasn't even taken on that much water. It was just a little spray."

"Sure you're a little green around the gills...that reminds me, can fish smell? If so, do they do such out their gills?"
"It would be in their gills not out."
"What?"
"I don't feel much like talking Captain."
"What was I saying...oh yeah, you think you're down and out now but have you ever had nothing to eat but sand? Sure, but have you ever had nothing to drink but sand? Well, I didn't think so. Between you and me I don't recommend any wild weekends in Juarez--you can never trust a place that's land locked. Take it from me, you just don't feel alive when you can't see the swells and smell the mackerel. You see, now finish peeling those yams."

She was a succubus, a cunning temptress, adroit acrobat, competent ornithologist and celebrated sprinter. She was also the operative that I was tasked with eliminating from the CIA's list of violent femmes and enraged suffragettes--me, a guy who a year ago was deemed unfit for service in the merchant marines after initial testing demonstrated a predisposition and predilection for high stakes games of truth or dare, on the lam now for three years trying to forget that fateful night when all I had to say was "dare" and everything would have remained the same--still living in Dubuque with Basque seperatist wife, Fabiola, and three loving children, Toulouse, The Greek, and Little Chaka, still eating the same old Basque finger sandwiches that Fabiola made, still watching The Greek excell at home economics and civics, still trying to find the time to fix the roof, still wondering how long I had to stay away from rhubarb before the swelling would go down, still a palooka. What happened? Well, I can't tell you that but let's just say that a poster campaign to end women's suffrage I had made in the 12th grade finally caught up with me. I'd approach, ostensibly inquiring about the eating habits of the tufted puftin, and she'd withdraw. She'd approach, lured by the identity I'd assumed which held itself out as an expert in ancient kitchenware, ostensibly to ask about a 8th century fork that she had a line on in Oman, and I'd withdraw. And so we danced--both knowing full well that one of us would win, one would lose, both understanding that the future vindication of our respective world beliefs depended on the other lying dead in a kiddy pool, both slaves to the common blood which surged through us demanding with the pound of every heart beat that we don't ask and just take, that we extinguish the flames of our missions by pressing together our wet bodies like amorous seals, both knowing that love, the only adventure we had left, was something the world would not allow us--at least not until it was too late--a series of events having been set in motion that could only end with the world merging back into a single continent under the publicly intrepid urging, and secret machinations, of a single frenchman who dared to dream--a dream from which no one would ever wake up.

"The present is the only time when we touch, the only time when we smell." thought First Mate Mullochnik regrettfully as he began preparations to leave the head.

"Don't smile at me Mitchey!" bellowed the Captain; he continued "You should just let your hair be naturally wavy. We're not pulling over for relaxant once we're on the river!"

"But captain, I meant no offense--I just don't think you would send your subordinates the right message if you wore a lady's fragrance--even if, as you say, in it you smell every one of the manifold mysteries and incantations of the Mississippi."

Sometimes everything around you slows down to such a light trot--sometimes everything seems so perfectly balanced on its head--to such an extent that we almost don't notice that the oxen have become unyoked and empowered.

Yes, when you smile the whole world smiles with you, but only because you have spinach in your teeth.

What kind of a hootenanny is this? Where are all the folk-singers? Where is that will to overcome which can only be coaxed out by incisive, spoken, political poignancy helped along by gentle acoustic strumming? What do we want? When do we want it? What do you mean any stew with my turkey leg? I thought people were dressed like that as a throwback to that strange psychic bridge between the 60s and Rennaissance times which so fueled our convictions and ignited our determination through tunics and the like. No, I don't want to watch them joust. Charles Reich clearly said "[The revolution] will not require violence to succeed, and it cannot be successfully resisted by violence. This is the revolution of the new generation." . . . Well, if what you say is true this is very aptly titled 'Medieval Times'

Sometimes in life you don't just leave these things to that magic hand of chance--you order extra sauce.

What business is it of theirs if in the inviolable, sacred precincts of my own home i decide to plot the violent overthrow of the management of that Bennigan's?

You've asked me and I'll tell you. My favorite thing to do on days like these--when the sky seems as big as it ever was and riding atop every breeze is the sweet certainty that everything's alright--is to slowly, deliberately fill my cheeks to capacity with air and then slowly, slowly release a stream of this air at the unsuspecting subway passenger next to me until no more remains.

"I heard there are more sheep than people in New Zealand."

"You're thinking of Wales"

"No, sheep."

"There's fish out there. When you've danced with the lady of the sea as much as I have you just know."

"Who's the lady of the sea?"

"See that moon hanging low in that sea of a sky?"

"That's the sun."

"Oh...you know what a white sun means?"

"No"

"The lady's taken her bride."

"She's a lesbian?"

"What did you call that cursed hooch you gave me? I must admit I am under its spell. Either that or everybody is actually trying to steal my food. What an enchanting elixir, it's as if that conviction of every great poet that the world is capable of sudden and complete changes has suddenly been realized exposing only the skeptics and those who demurr as the real drips. In the words of Wallace Stevens 'we purge ourselves in the meantime in what are intended to be saintly exercises.' Before I purge, I ask again dear boy what you call this heady brew."

"Zima, Captain"

"Hell, don't call me captain. I've learned as much from you this strange night as you from me. Call me Lloyd."

"Listen, it's pretty clear that this impulse of yours to always interject with platitudes issues from feelings of intellectual inferiority."

"Prick"

"It's just like someone who's combative to compensate for feeling vulnerable. By the way you do that too. But for now let's focus on your feelings about my advanced coursework."

"Just because you take a karate class at a community college, taught by a 75-year old white guy who insists you call him Master Knuckles, does not make you a doctoral candidate."

"Oh dear, this is more serious than I thought. I'm glad we didn't wait any longer; you're beginning to resent me for the discipline and internal order that Master Knuckles has drummed into me."

"He's brained you with his walker three times now. I get the feeling that he's not a karate expert of any sort, is given to easy agitation, and does not like your company."

"If it's easier for you, we can treat Master Knuckles as the sort of personification of all of the ruin of your life, your aversion to stretching, your angry neglect of the internal energy highways..."

"Will you please just climb down from there. I believe you."

"We're berthing! We're berthing!" cried Mitchey the invalid just as a forboding nimbus appeared over the rubber pile. "That's right, Mitchey. We've berthed. Where are your shoes?" replied Captain McWickle.

You say to me that you think God is in the birds and the trees and the grass and the bees. All I can say to you is: the bees?

The Falconer and the Stone

"Why can't I feel my leg?" cried the Falconer.

"Why can't I feel my leg?" he repeated.

"Did you try rubbing it a little?" inquired Bartlbous the Steward

"That really seems to help." explained the Falconer, relieved.

"What kind of a life is this?"

"What do you mean?"

"This is mad. Running electrical currents into your body will not make you more appealing to her."

"If I thought that you thought that that was why I'm doing this...well I just don't know what I'd do."

"OK, then why are you doing it?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"Well maybe that's true but your hat seems to have caught fire again."

""

"You don't even want to know why I'm doing it?"

"You just said I wouldn't understand."

"Try and guess."

"No."

"Leave me."

"Alright, alright...Is it for science?"

"Yes, but what science?"

"I don't know."

"A curse on you and that little tart of yours."

"OK, alchemy?"

"No, but that'll do. Tell me, if you will, what is it that seperates us from mere stones?"

"Life, consciousness, reason, emotion, volition, movement..."

"I'm not so sure that you have more reason than a stone if that's your best answer."

"Well what then. Night falls even as your brilliant mind begins to light the way."

"I am brilliant."

"Just tell me already."

"Why, so you can continue to pluck what petals my dear step-mother has left?"

"Get on your mule."

"OK, OK...stones want, stones feel, stones roll, they just do it very slowly. Stones know everything that goes on around them. Not in the way that we focus our senses on a single thing at a time and then make broader sense of it later. They know everything that's ever happened and everything that ever will happen. They may not make shows of their freedom but that's only because they feel no disassociation with which to regret on the one hand and then revel in on the other. If they had a similar tragic fall they decided to stay right where they landed."

"So why are you doing this?"

"Promise me you'll leave my step-mother alone."

"Come on."

"Leave me at once!"

"How'd you like it if I brained you with this stone-companion of yours?"

"How'd you like it if I stole your shoes again?

"Just tell me."

"OK. So if we agree that stones enjoy more freedom than humans I'll proceed."

"I didn't agree to that."

"You can't protect your precious chickens when you're asleep. It'd be a shame if any harm befell them."

"We don't have chickens."

"..."

"Where was I? . . . What else could we rightly say enjoys more freedom than humans?"

"If stones do then surely we can say that logs are just behind."

"No, but I admire your answer... It's Falcons!"

"So what?"

"I'll tell you what. The only reason Rorfie the falcon left me was because I wasn't free enough to go along with him. And you know what? He was right. I would've held him back."

"..."

"So surely there's no way to become any more like a falcon. But there's certainly a way that I can become more like a stone--another thing that knows freedom everlasting."

"By laying on this hill with your shirt off?"

"My shirt's off?"

"Yes"

"No, you fool. By giving myself more of what divides us from stones thus making me more free than a stone."

"Electricity?"

"At last. It is by electricty that we think. It's by electricty that we feel. It's by electricity that we act."

"Wouldn't being more electric make you less free if less like a stone?"

"Good question. We now know that many remedies work by ostensibly exacerbating the problem to a point where it simply corrects itself."

"Your step-mother is waiting."

"You leave her alone!"

"I'm your father, you tit!"

"Look" said the Saxon "I told you that that strange intoxicating scent could only mean we were in Old Rangoon." "Get below deck" thundered the captain "you know perfectly well we're on the Missouri River."