1.31.2006

Cast as the Cowardly Lion in a Sondheim musical. Later, I gain the trust of a hotelkeeper through a series of fabricated confessions. Still he will not tell me his real name, and he will not give me good directions.

1.30.2006

Slog. A friend has decided to use the history of intellectual property law as the basis for her next pulp romance. She wants me to look over the thick, thick manuscript for spelling mistakes before she sends it off the the copyright office. Meekly, I accept the task.

1.29.2006

Gorgeous. I am stranded in a small cabin in the mountains with my mother's side of the family. My cousin suddenly goes down with a wound to the chest, and everyone but me resigns to losing her; I call 911 on my cell phone then decide to hike out for help. On my way I meet a beautiful stranger and forget my mission. We sneak into a high mountain bakery and she offers me a fresh bagel, stolen and still hot from the oven. I hesitate, then bite into it, muttering, "Gorgeous."

1.18.2006

Powder. Turning to my boss with a document, I notice that his arm is covered with a white powder over which a thin layer of blood is spreading. "Are you bleeding?" I ask. "I bleed all the time," he says. "Give me that."
Arturo. Driving through a valley near the coast, I pass through large areas of light and shade as the road winds. I stop at the Centro Contra'arte, an underground cement compound that has been overtaken by vines and bushes. It appears that I am getting back to work from an extended lunch, as is the woman standing next to me. The freight elevator is broken so we have to tap on a window. We are admitted by a colleague who chides me for the length of my lunch hour. "Look at Arturo," he says, gesturing to a Mexican teenager in the corner who has been mouthing the words to whatever is blasting on his headphones. "At least he's been here."

1.09.2006

Horseplay. I am playing hide and seek in a carpet-lined compound where all rooms are connected to other rooms by way of steep ladders. In a moment of carelessness I knock two playmates off their own ladders onto a small landing. One of them can't stop laughing about the fall. The other brushes herself off with a hesitant look. At first it seems that her face has been deeply scarred, with blood welling up from five parallel gashes that run the length of her cheek and jaw. As her look turns to one of disgust, I notice that the darkness under her skin is not blood. It is the surface of a mask fitted beneath her flesh and skin, a smooth red mask wrapped tightly around her skull.

1.07.2006

Lunacy. In the attic of the house in which I was born, I peer up through a skylight to see the moon. After turning to tell my sister that the moon is full, I glance back to find it grown several times larger and superbly well-defined. The moon now seems to be churning according to its own laws of symmetry, with craters and mists and shadows each appearing, then swelling into fullness, then subsiding very quickly and with an astonishing degree of continuity. I look down and the ground begins to shake, then heave. Seeking shelter on the street, I stumble between falling telephone poles as the house collapses. Minutes then hours pass, and the earthquake does not subside, though it does not get stronger either. After staggering through the night I take refuge in someone's basement until the ground stops moving. He does not want to speak to me but does not ask me to leave. I glance through a high window to see the sun coming up.

1.05.2006

Guilt. I am left alone in a room with a brother and sister, each no older than ten. I accidentally kill one of them and am forced to kill the other to maintain silence. No one else is aware of my crime and I wander against the crowds as a fugitive. A young man offers to help me flee, and while I do not trust him I decide to accept his offer. Two whores hear us arguing loudly in the backroom of a bar about what to do next, so we are forced to pull them into the fold too. Every time another stranger becomes aware of our growing band of outcasts, we are faced with a choice: kill or trust. For a long time our little society does nothing but grow. But many of us know that sooner or later we will have no choice but to start shrinking.