middle-aged in her profession. In her first two years, she made over seventy films. It didn’t take long to film movies such as these, try as men might to prolong each scene. And Montana was in high demand, for in addition to being lovely, she could act. Had she known this skill had other outlets, she would have skipped her early career altogether and made a different sort of film, the kind with plot and wardrobe. But that would come after, and the least of the little a young person knows is what they’re capable of. It takes a Tralfamadorian to see all of time and know that life won’t always be so dim. Nor so good. Seen all at once, the way a Tralfamadorian sees time, life makes perfect sense. Which would be an odd way to live one.
Waking up naked inside a glass dome does strange things to Montana’s brain. There was a blue California sky and a burning sun overhead one moment, and now the sound of her own screaming voice. She can still smell the baby oil on her skin. A man is there, also naked. Tall and skinny and unattractive, with a leer that makes him look like a Hollywood director. And beyond the glass, hundreds of fleshy beings that look like plungers with hands for heads and eyes where the palms should be clap by making fists. This is how Tralfamadorians show that they are happy. This is how they know the world is right by them. They make fists.
If I try hard enough—which is to say by not trying at all—I can see in the fourth dimension the way a Tralfamadorian does. There I am, sitting in a college classroom. It is the summer of 2011, and I’m studying a book that jumps around and makes me feel angry and hollow inside. It’s also summertime ten years earlier in New York, and I’m working on a windlass in the stern of a fancy yacht. It is the summer of 2013, and I’m lying in a bed in Florida, typing. My dog is having a dream. On Tralfamadore, time is seen all at once, which makes it difficult at times to see how things are tied together. I’m reading a book about bombs being dropped on Dresden. Twenty-five thousand people are dying. There’s a plane banking over Manhattan right now. I can read the jumble of numbers and letters on the tail of that plane. I am screaming in my head for the pilot to pull up. On Tralfamadore, they communicate telepathically. They do not do this on Earth. No one will ever hear me. There is orange and black against a bright blue sky, and I think I can feel the heat of a movie effect against my face, but maybe it’s just fear and my imagination. My friend Kelly yells down at me from the neighboring yacht: “Did you see that?” Kelly’s brain is doing odd things. Montana Wildhack is screaming. All of us are. Twelve years later, I’m lying beside my dog in an otherwise empty house. She dreams and I cry. Thousands are dying all over again. So it goes.
Montana Wildhack learned at a young age that she would only be loved for her flesh. Her uncle taught her this, and no one ever thought to teach her any differently. The Serenity Prayer is engraved on the locket around her neck. Listen:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
She has read it enough to be able to read it upside down, just as it lies. The trickiest part is the last line. This is where mortals who live in three dimensions have too much expected of them. All of human misery lies here. Hubris and cowardice, too. If only it were as simple as a prayer that can fit on a locket. If only wisdom were so cheap. But men wrestle with the things they cannot change, and they ignore those that might bend to some economy of effort. Winning at wrestling is about picking your partner. Most people prefer the unconquerable brute they already know. Or maybe, if you look around, we’re addicted to a challenge. And so things go unchanged and unaccepted, and our arms and hearts grow weary.
On Tralfamadore, the applause of fists
Waking up naked inside a glass dome does strange things to Montana’s brain. There was a blue California sky and a burning sun overhead one moment, and now the sound of her own screaming voice. She can still smell the baby oil on her skin. A man is there, also naked. Tall and skinny and unattractive, with a leer that makes him look like a Hollywood director. And beyond the glass, hundreds of fleshy beings that look like plungers with hands for heads and eyes where the palms should be clap by making fists. This is how Tralfamadorians show that they are happy. This is how they know the world is right by them. They make fists.
If I try hard enough—which is to say by not trying at all—I can see in the fourth dimension the way a Tralfamadorian does. There I am, sitting in a college classroom. It is the summer of 2011, and I’m studying a book that jumps around and makes me feel angry and hollow inside. It’s also summertime ten years earlier in New York, and I’m working on a windlass in the stern of a fancy yacht. It is the summer of 2013, and I’m lying in a bed in Florida, typing. My dog is having a dream. On Tralfamadore, time is seen all at once, which makes it difficult at times to see how things are tied together. I’m reading a book about bombs being dropped on Dresden. Twenty-five thousand people are dying. There’s a plane banking over Manhattan right now. I can read the jumble of numbers and letters on the tail of that plane. I am screaming in my head for the pilot to pull up. On Tralfamadore, they communicate telepathically. They do not do this on Earth. No one will ever hear me. There is orange and black against a bright blue sky, and I think I can feel the heat of a movie effect against my face, but maybe it’s just fear and my imagination. My friend Kelly yells down at me from the neighboring yacht: “Did you see that?” Kelly’s brain is doing odd things. Montana Wildhack is screaming. All of us are. Twelve years later, I’m lying beside my dog in an otherwise empty house. She dreams and I cry. Thousands are dying all over again. So it goes.
Montana Wildhack learned at a young age that she would only be loved for her flesh. Her uncle taught her this, and no one ever thought to teach her any differently. The Serenity Prayer is engraved on the locket around her neck. Listen:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
She has read it enough to be able to read it upside down, just as it lies. The trickiest part is the last line. This is where mortals who live in three dimensions have too much expected of them. All of human misery lies here. Hubris and cowardice, too. If only it were as simple as a prayer that can fit on a locket. If only wisdom were so cheap. But men wrestle with the things they cannot change, and they ignore those that might bend to some economy of effort. Winning at wrestling is about picking your partner. Most people prefer the unconquerable brute they already know. Or maybe, if you look around, we’re addicted to a challenge. And so things go unchanged and unaccepted, and our arms and hearts grow weary.
On Tralfamadore, the applause of fists
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