didnât know, who spent so much time so close to him, with whose voices he felt so intimate.
The second thing would be to have another look at Vivienne.
A mockingbird sang like a tortured stoolie.
He couldnât see anything. A play of light. His eyelids were stuck together. His lips were rubbery and crusty, like two severed bits of the gore-encrusted hose used to torture the stoolie, and they were stuck together, too. It was a chore to separate them, but once accomplished, there was the matter of his breath, which stank with a penetrating reek, like a solvent. He heard the bird, but it took time to know it as birdness. Consciousness cascaded through his brain in silent slow motion, like a submarine avalanche, a molten density all silted up. Hindered and malfunctional. These and other troubles, less defined, the more sinister for being the more ambiguous, blinked here and there on the dashboard computer. A total reset might help. A fresh start. This meant he had to get out of the vehicle, raise the hood, and blow the breathalizer tube attached to the little alcohol computer capable of shorting the ignition. A lot of trouble. Thatâs why they put it there, to keep you from driving when you feel like this. So you just curl up on the front seat. Get fetal. Go to sleep again.
Somewhere a power saw ripped a bevel through in a long board. Someone else used a hammer to drive big spikes. Manic birds, frenzied, as if a snake had coiled among their eggs. The mockingbird again. Perhaps a radio. Automobiles. A two-stroke scooter. Closer, perhaps so close it was somewhere inside him, he heard a rattle of cutlery, and tasted rotten steam, as if someone were sorting large amounts of silverware out of a restaurant dishwasher. Far away, never too far away, there was a car alarm, of the type that oscillated through eight or nine samples of the audio concept of âalarmâ. A quartet of beeps, a quartet of whistles, a quartet of croaks, a quartet of buzzes. Why was it called an alarm? It should be called an annoy. It was far enough away that only three or four of its annoyances were really discernible. But they hung collectively in his mind like a bat from the lid of his coffin, about an inch from his nose, a permanent annoyance. It would be nice, he thought, if they invented a car-annoy that only car owners could hear, like a dog whistle.
Strange someone would be operating a power saw so late at night. Its chattering metallic scream cut through his hangover as efficiently as it must be cutting through the board until, finally, it had cut through both of them. The two halves of the board crashed to a plywood deck, the two halves of his hangover crashed into his skull, and he opened his eyes.
A breeze pushed through boughs hanging protectively, closely over him. Many strange little fruit, teal and wrinkled, hung from the boughs. Each fruit had an eye that may have been interested in watching him.
Paranoia is just heightened self-awareness, Don Quixote. SÃ, Sancho. Ten thousand extra eyes could only help. Ojos de DÃos â Eyes of God. Ojos del Diablo â Eyes of the Devil. Son igual â They are equal. SÃ, Sancho.
He closed his own eyes and turned his head. He knew cypress when he smelled it. Or was it juniper? He didnât remember its fruit, just the gin they flavor with it. He smelled something else.
He opened his eyes. Fifteen or sixteen inches from his face stood a middling pile of excrement. Two-and-a-half units. Not dog.
He closed his eyes. Not his apartment. Not⦠her apartment?
So he hadnât been awake. Try it again.
Wait. No sense in going for the same effect twice. Roll away.
He was deprived, however, of his freedom of movement. Something restrained him. Claustrophobia suffused his senses, and he kicked. His foot traveled but an inch before it was arrested, and a very sharp pain shot through his lower back. The pain took his breath away, and yanked open his eyes. He saw the trunk
The second thing would be to have another look at Vivienne.
A mockingbird sang like a tortured stoolie.
He couldnât see anything. A play of light. His eyelids were stuck together. His lips were rubbery and crusty, like two severed bits of the gore-encrusted hose used to torture the stoolie, and they were stuck together, too. It was a chore to separate them, but once accomplished, there was the matter of his breath, which stank with a penetrating reek, like a solvent. He heard the bird, but it took time to know it as birdness. Consciousness cascaded through his brain in silent slow motion, like a submarine avalanche, a molten density all silted up. Hindered and malfunctional. These and other troubles, less defined, the more sinister for being the more ambiguous, blinked here and there on the dashboard computer. A total reset might help. A fresh start. This meant he had to get out of the vehicle, raise the hood, and blow the breathalizer tube attached to the little alcohol computer capable of shorting the ignition. A lot of trouble. Thatâs why they put it there, to keep you from driving when you feel like this. So you just curl up on the front seat. Get fetal. Go to sleep again.
Somewhere a power saw ripped a bevel through in a long board. Someone else used a hammer to drive big spikes. Manic birds, frenzied, as if a snake had coiled among their eggs. The mockingbird again. Perhaps a radio. Automobiles. A two-stroke scooter. Closer, perhaps so close it was somewhere inside him, he heard a rattle of cutlery, and tasted rotten steam, as if someone were sorting large amounts of silverware out of a restaurant dishwasher. Far away, never too far away, there was a car alarm, of the type that oscillated through eight or nine samples of the audio concept of âalarmâ. A quartet of beeps, a quartet of whistles, a quartet of croaks, a quartet of buzzes. Why was it called an alarm? It should be called an annoy. It was far enough away that only three or four of its annoyances were really discernible. But they hung collectively in his mind like a bat from the lid of his coffin, about an inch from his nose, a permanent annoyance. It would be nice, he thought, if they invented a car-annoy that only car owners could hear, like a dog whistle.
Strange someone would be operating a power saw so late at night. Its chattering metallic scream cut through his hangover as efficiently as it must be cutting through the board until, finally, it had cut through both of them. The two halves of the board crashed to a plywood deck, the two halves of his hangover crashed into his skull, and he opened his eyes.
A breeze pushed through boughs hanging protectively, closely over him. Many strange little fruit, teal and wrinkled, hung from the boughs. Each fruit had an eye that may have been interested in watching him.
Paranoia is just heightened self-awareness, Don Quixote. SÃ, Sancho. Ten thousand extra eyes could only help. Ojos de DÃos â Eyes of God. Ojos del Diablo â Eyes of the Devil. Son igual â They are equal. SÃ, Sancho.
He closed his own eyes and turned his head. He knew cypress when he smelled it. Or was it juniper? He didnât remember its fruit, just the gin they flavor with it. He smelled something else.
He opened his eyes. Fifteen or sixteen inches from his face stood a middling pile of excrement. Two-and-a-half units. Not dog.
He closed his eyes. Not his apartment. Not⦠her apartment?
So he hadnât been awake. Try it again.
Wait. No sense in going for the same effect twice. Roll away.
He was deprived, however, of his freedom of movement. Something restrained him. Claustrophobia suffused his senses, and he kicked. His foot traveled but an inch before it was arrested, and a very sharp pain shot through his lower back. The pain took his breath away, and yanked open his eyes. He saw the trunk
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