Ingenuity. I am at a plain wooden bench staring at a non-circulating copy of the Complete Works of Richard Pryor. It is a set of tapes and there is no VCR in sight. A black teenager walks up to me and flicks my temple with his finger. He waits for a response and does it again. Later at the movies, I am watching a gothic tale in which Men have made a Spectacle of Death. They have thrown a Sumptuous Ball in the Palace, which is also a Cathedral. Death is played by a Tall man with a Head that has been Rotting. He is Chained to a Coat Rack that Moves about on Wheels, but he Breaks Free to Spread a Mortal Terror in the Hearts of Men by Thrusting his Face in Theirs and Looking All Huge and Decayed. He does it well, but it gets tedious.

Storm. It rains indoors, not out, and it rains all night. The cloudbursts are sporadic, relentless, and highly local. I am up all night trying to dodge the water but by dawn I am drenched many times over. At work the next day a woman offers me two buckets, each containing a different lard-like substance with which she suggests I waterproof myself. I accept them knowing I will not be able to use them.

Ice age. During a natural catastrophe that appears to be permanent, I take refuge in my midtown office building. Many of my coworkers decide to do the same. Over many weeks and months of confinement, a small society develops with its own customs, division of labor, and taboos. We use the bathroom as a health clinic and the shelving to grow vegetables and herbs. Several years later the catastrophe subsides and we are given the opportunity to live elsewhere, but few of us leave the building. I have a child. Years later I die, content in the knowledge that my offspring will never venture outside the building as I once did. That given the opportunity they will invent a society even smaller than the one I had devised, and they will keep to it.

Salt. Trying to explain death to my grandmother. It's something you need that will never be there again, I say. Like salt water. I refer to my best friend who died two months ago, just two months after he had lost his own best friend. That's death, I say. She interrupts me with a nonsequitur. She understands. Later at the airport, I insist on mating with the furniture.

Beans. Lying across the width of my love seat with the Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch open to a poem called "Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams" on my lap, I drift off to sleep repeatedly. And as I do, I have variations on a dream in which my roommate has sorted a large packet of Goya 16-Bean Soup Mix into small piles of dried beans. The number, size, and color of the piles varies slightly from dream to dream.

Prep. A genial tea service in the canalfront palace of the youngest son of the Emir. I soon recognize him to be none other than the fastidious and laconic drummer of my high school rock band. He tells me that he will stage a small but brutal coup against the Protestant gentry. I hear him out but politely decline to participate.

Wolf. I am on a very short road trip with my brother, my best friend, and his brother. We are climbing a muddy hill and very close to home when we spot a fox on the road, and then a wolf. The two seem to be headed for a deathmatch, but the wolf is distracted by our presence and begins to stalk the car. We lock the doors as quickly as possible but still we are are chilled by fear. Safety glass is not enough.

Gore. I have taken my lover on a family vacation. We are lounging about idly but something feels wrong. I excuse myself and drive home to take a shit. Later, I meet the family and fiancee for a private screening of a new film. We lie on a plastic floor and watch a square screen on which is projected the story of a boy who has taken his lover on a family vacation. Some of his friends are in a scooter gang and are cruel to an old Chinese vendor. In the climax of the film, we look back from the finacee's vehicle at the vendor's Chinese family, who ride together in the cab of a large pickup truck. They throw the old vendor sidelong into the road in the path of the scooter gang, who they know will attempt to run him over. As I turn my head from the screen, I see the rapt face of my beloved as it is spattered in blood. Spattered first by the the blood of the Chinese vendor as he is split in two by an oncoming scooter. Then the blood of the leader of the scooter gang as he is spun out. And finally the darker blood of the boy, looked on by his beloved as his body is blown to vapor by the pavement.

Overtime. A steady succesion of tedious errands at work. One after the other, each one brief and specific, the whole chain of tasks stetching out to infinity.