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Description
We all sit around a black table, its wooden surface scarred by time, stained by oily smoke and sweaty palms. The table is in the middle of the street and it’s begun to rain, but we have sat there through worse. Miles sits on my right as always, staring at his cards as though with concentration enough he could change them. Maybe he can, we’re not sure, we’ve taken bets on this. Miles is familiar. I think he might be an actor or a politician: he has that sharpness down the bridge of his nose, as though he’s held his breath too long, leaking lies.

The rain is blue, but it doesn’t stain my cards, just rolls down them in long drops. My cards are blank; I push the chips in front of me forward. All in. The others look up at me in surprise. I’m never brave about things like this. I’m not a gambler, not even here.

Only Jaunt is unperturbed by my uncharacteristic behavior. She sits directly across from me, slouched down in the big red rocking chair, a football helmet hiding her face. She holds an entire deck of cards, thumbing through them slowly, finding the ones that she wants. I think she’s a child, maybe a boy. But I don’t know. You don’t ask Jaunt things.

Marcos on my left kicks me under the table. His eyes are green tonight, and his white hair is blue from rain. I look at him, pissed off. My shin hurts from the steel toe of his boot.

“You’ll be late,” he says, I think in Spanish. He rolls all the r’s that aren’t there.

I put the cards down, and Jaunt takes my chips. They’re all solid gold, sparkling on the black table. I push my chair back. The traffic is backed up on all sides, and I see we’re at an intersection of six streets. The headlights shine patiently, illuminating the table and each of our hands.

“Whose deal?” Marcos asks. Miles raises his hand. He cuts each card in half with a pair of pink safety scissors.

No one is going to go with me. I have to go alone. I walk past the row of cars, looking though the blue-striped glass at the faces inside, blank with waiting. On the sidewalk I see a tall woman walking six Rottweilers the size of kittens on delicate leashes made of braided spaghetti noodles. I admire the craftsmanship as I walk by, and she sees me looking.

“For sale,” she says, I think in Arabic. “Yes, Arabic,” she confirms. People who speak Arabic can sometimes read minds. She hands me another dog out of her pocket. It bites me; I drop it, she laughs.

I go on, sucking on the heel of my hand, which has two pricks in it like a snake bite. My blood is as sweet as sugar, but I don’t let myself drink too much. I need what there is, thin in my veins, black and hot with disease.

There will be buildings soon, I suppose, but it’s getting dark as I leave behind the cars and their light. Overhead, the plastic ceiling lets down its rain, bleeding blue onto the cracked concrete path I walk. Am I going the wrong way? I look for signage or maybe bread crumbs. While I’m distracted I nearly fall off the end of the sidewalk, which drops abruptly into a void, crumbling under the impact of my shoe.

I stare down, frowning. Luckily Jaunt shows up then, shedding her helmet. She has beautiful hair, black and dense and curly. I’m staring at it and she sees and smiles.

“I came to help you,” she says, putting the helmet down and lifting her arms. Ropes fall down into each of her hands. She hands them to me. I look up their trembling lengths, searching for what they’re suspended from. They disappear into darkness; I can’t know.

“They’ll hold me?” I ask.

“Of course not,” she says, rolling her eyes.

Relieved, I grasp them each and jump. Sure enough, I fall fast, unimpeded by my grip on the rope. Faster, faster, plummeting through blackness. I land on my feet in a carpeted hallway, in front of an elevator with chrome buttons beside its doors.

“Up or down?”

“Up, please,” I say politely. Elevators are generous beings that deserve the utmost respect. My mother taught me that carefully.

The elevator chimes and opens, illuminating the button with the upward pointing arrow. Beyond the doors is a sunny park filled with men and women walking their lions. I thank the elevator and walk through.

“This is a lion walking park,” a man reminds me as I move past him on the walk.

“I’m just passing through,” I say. His lion wears a pink studded collar with a leather leash. It turns its head to gnaw calmly on his leg, snarling possessively. I take a backward step obligingly and then pass on.

Past the park gates my destination is in sight. I nod politely to two enormous lizards in business suits, one talking importantly into a toaster oven. We happen to be walking the same way. The second lizard strikes up casual conversation right away.

“Are you nervous?”

“Nervous?” I am startled.

“About pressing eject,” he clarifies. He nods at my chest and I look down, surprised to find a cardboard sign around my neck that reads: I’m going to press eject.

“Oh, no, not really,” I say, understanding at once. Still, the sign makes me uneasy. I take it off and toss it into a trash bin as we walk.

“You shouldn’t be nervous,” the lizard says soothingly. “It happens to all of us.”

The other lizard ends his call. “Would you like a bagel?”

“No, thank you,” I say. The hallway forks and we are going in separate directions. My staircase is ahead. I start up it wearily. I am so tired. I have so far to go.

“Do you want to turn back?” Jaunt asks. We are climbing a rope ladder through the clouds. “Don’t look down,” she warns.

“I don’t want to turn back,” I say, gritting my teeth. My arms ache. I feel the tearing of the muscles, then I remember that I don’t have muscles, just folded sheets of paper dyed black by my blood, pumped furiously from my origami heart.

Jaunt takes my hand and carries me the rest of the way. We are on the roof of a giant silver building, sitting on the edge, watching the motionless world below us and the churning of the clouds.

“It’s time to go,” she says, and leaps from her perch down toward the street, making a perfect hole in a cloud as she passes through it.

I check my watch. I’m almost late. Standing up carefully, I dust off my jeans and walk on. The snow is coming, bluer even than the rain. I see three men skinning snakes on a street corner. I stop and give them each five dollars.

“Thank you for taking care of the snake problem,” I say. They nod solemnly.

“Good luck,” one says. I smile uncertainly.

“With what?”

“Pressing eject,” says the other. He tips a battered cowboy hat and me.

I realize then that it must be tattooed on my forehead, my task. I lift my fingertips to the skin above my eyebrows and sure enough feel the weal and pucker of a fresh tattoo. In fact, I remember being in the parlor, laying back on the shapeless, narrow mattress with the artist leaning over my face. A cigarette dangled from his lips as he bent over his work, its scattered ashes singing my chin and cheeks.

I walk toward the clock tower, watching its second hand spin, the minutes and hours ticking backward and forward again, so that no time really passes. I really am nearly late. I quicken my step, avoiding broken glass in the gutter with my bare feet. At the glass storefront I stop, watching images race across a thousand screens. I have vague memories to coincide with each tableau. There is my smiling mother, here is a man whose smile I don’t remember, there is the place in the ground we buried a baby with no name.

“Right this way,” says someone dressed in a long red robe. Her hair is in curlers. She smiles sympathetically at me, holding open the door to the building. I go through and a bell chimes, but no one comes to help me, alert to my entrance. I know the way without ever having been here before. I walk across the tile to the largest screen, one engulfing an entire wall.

I am too close to see what the actual images are; I see only pixels of shifting, vibrant color. A small VCR held together with Scotch tape is in front of me. I remember pulling off one of its panels when I was five years old, searching for the eject button. Now I know exactly where it is. I flip down the cover gently. My finger hovers a moment over the worn button. I give the screen a final, searching look. If the picture would come clear, I think, I could turn around. I could go back to the table and the card game, I could bet all my chips again.

“I’m right here with you,” Jaunt says, putting her hand on my shoulder. I look at her, startled, but she clearly survived her fall. There is a beautiful trail of fresh blood streaming from beneath a band-aid on her forehead. Her hand moves over mine; we press the button together.

Description
We all sit around a black table, its wooden surface scarred by time, stained by oily smoke and sweaty palms. The table is in the middle of the street and it’s begun to rain, but we have sat there through worse. Miles sits on my right as always, staring at his cards as though with concentration enough he could change them. Maybe he can, we’re not sure, we’ve taken bets on this. Miles is familiar. I think he might be an actor or a politician: he has that sharpness down the bridge of his nose, as though he’s held his breath too long, leaking lies.

The rain is blue, but it doesn’t stain my cards, just rolls down them in long drops. My cards are blank; I push the chips in front of me forward. All in. The others look up at me in surprise. I’m never brave about things like this. I’m not a gambler, not even here.

Only Jaunt is unperturbed by my uncharacteristic behavior. She sits directly across from me, slouched down in the big red rocking chair, a football helmet hiding her face. She holds an entire deck of cards, thumbing through them slowly, finding the ones that she wants. I think she’s a child, maybe a boy. But I don’t know. You don’t ask Jaunt things.

Marcos on my left kicks me under the table. His eyes are green tonight, and his white hair is blue from rain. I look at him, pissed off. My shin hurts from the steel toe of his boot.

“You’ll be late,” he says, I think in Spanish. He rolls all the r’s that aren’t there.

I put the cards down, and Jaunt takes my chips. They’re all solid gold, sparkling on the black table. I push my chair back. The traffic is backed up on all sides, and I see we’re at an intersection of six streets. The headlights shine patiently, illuminating the table and each of our hands.

“Whose deal?” Marcos asks. Miles raises his hand. He cuts each card in half with a pair of pink safety scissors.

No one is going to go with me. I have to go alone. I walk past the row of cars, looking though the blue-striped glass at the faces inside, blank with waiting. On the sidewalk I see a tall woman walking six Rottweilers the size of kittens on delicate leashes made of braided spaghetti noodles. I admire the craftsmanship as I walk by, and she sees me looking.

“For sale,” she says, I think in Arabic. “Yes, Arabic,” she confirms. People who speak Arabic can sometimes read minds. She hands me another dog out of her pocket. It bites me; I drop it, she laughs.

I go on, sucking on the heel of my hand, which has two pricks in it like a snake bite. My blood is as sweet as sugar, but I don’t let myself drink too much. I need what there is, thin in my veins, black and hot with disease.

There will be buildings soon, I suppose, but it’s getting dark as I leave behind the cars and their light. Overhead, the plastic ceiling lets down its rain, bleeding blue onto the cracked concrete path I walk. Am I going the wrong way? I look for signage or maybe bread crumbs. While I’m distracted I nearly fall off the end of the sidewalk, which drops abruptly into a void, crumbling under the impact of my shoe.

I stare down, frowning. Luckily Jaunt shows up then, shedding her helmet. She has beautiful hair, black and dense and curly. I’m staring at it and she sees and smiles.

“I came to help you,” she says, putting the helmet down and lifting her arms. Ropes fall down into each of her hands. She hands them to me. I look up their trembling lengths, searching for what they’re suspended from. They disappear into darkness; I can’t know.

“They’ll hold me?” I ask.

“Of course not,” she says, rolling her eyes.

Relieved, I grasp them each and jump. Sure enough, I fall fast, unimpeded by my grip on the rope. Faster, faster, plummeting through blackness. I land on my feet in a carpeted hallway, in front of an elevator with chrome buttons beside its doors.

“Up or down?”

“Up, please,” I say politely. Elevators are generous beings that deserve the utmost respect. My mother taught me that carefully.

The elevator chimes and opens, illuminating the button with the upward pointing arrow. Beyond the doors is a sunny park filled with men and women walking their lions. I thank the elevator and walk through.

“This is a lion walking park,” a man reminds me as I move past him on the walk.

“I’m just passing through,” I say. His lion wears a pink studded collar with a leather leash. It turns its head to gnaw calmly on his leg, snarling possessively. I take a backward step obligingly and then pass on.

Past the park gates my destination is in sight. I nod politely to two enormous lizards in business suits, one talking importantly into a toaster oven. We happen to be walking the same way. The second lizard strikes up casual conversation right away.

“Are you nervous?”

“Nervous?” I am startled.

“About pressing eject,” he clarifies. He nods at my chest and I look down, surprised to find a cardboard sign around my neck that reads: I’m going to press eject.

“Oh, no, not really,” I say, understanding at once. Still, the sign makes me uneasy. I take it off and toss it into a trash bin as we walk.

“You shouldn’t be nervous,” the lizard says soothingly. “It happens to all of us.”

The other lizard ends his call. “Would you like a bagel?”

“No, thank you,” I say. The hallway forks and we are going in separate directions. My staircase is ahead. I start up it wearily. I am so tired. I have so far to go.

“Do you want to turn back?” Jaunt asks. We are climbing a rope ladder through the clouds. “Don’t look down,” she warns.

“I don’t want to turn back,” I say, gritting my teeth. My arms ache. I feel the tearing of the muscles, then I remember that I don’t have muscles, just folded sheets of paper dyed black by my blood, pumped furiously from my origami heart.

Jaunt takes my hand and carries me the rest of the way. We are on the roof of a giant silver building, sitting on the edge, watching the motionless world below us and the churning of the clouds.

“It’s time to go,” she says, and leaps from her perch down toward the street, making a perfect hole in a cloud as she passes through it.

I check my watch. I’m almost late. Standing up carefully, I dust off my jeans and walk on. The snow is coming, bluer even than the rain. I see three men skinning snakes on a street corner. I stop and give them each five dollars.

“Thank you for taking care of the snake problem,” I say. They nod solemnly.

“Good luck,” one says. I smile uncertainly.

“With what?”

“Pressing eject,” says the other. He tips a battered cowboy hat and me.

I realize then that it must be tattooed on my forehead, my task. I lift my fingertips to the skin above my eyebrows and sure enough feel the weal and pucker of a fresh tattoo. In fact, I remember being in the parlor, laying back on the shapeless, narrow mattress with the artist leaning over my face. A cigarette dangled from his lips as he bent over his work, its scattered ashes singing my chin and cheeks.

I walk toward the clock tower, watching its second hand spin, the minutes and hours ticking backward and forward again, so that no time really passes. I really am nearly late. I quicken my step, avoiding broken glass in the gutter with my bare feet. At the glass storefront I stop, watching images race across a thousand screens. I have vague memories to coincide with each tableau. There is my smiling mother, here is a man whose smile I don’t remember, there is the place in the ground we buried a baby with no name.

“Right this way,” says someone dressed in a long red robe. Her hair is in curlers. She smiles sympathetically at me, holding open the door to the building. I go through and a bell chimes, but no one comes to help me, alert to my entrance. I know the way without ever having been here before. I walk across the tile to the largest screen, one engulfing an entire wall.

I am too close to see what the actual images are; I see only pixels of shifting, vibrant color. A small VCR held together with Scotch tape is in front of me. I remember pulling off one of its panels when I was five years old, searching for the eject button. Now I know exactly where it is. I flip down the cover gently. My finger hovers a moment over the worn button. I give the screen a final, searching look. If the picture would come clear, I think, I could turn around. I could go back to the table and the card game, I could bet all my chips again.

“I’m right here with you,” Jaunt says, putting her hand on my shoulder. I look at her, startled, but she clearly survived her fall. There is a beautiful trail of fresh blood streaming from beneath a band-aid on her forehead. Her hand moves over mine; we press the button together.