I will resume posting shortly. Its not dead, I promise.

I actually thought I published this like two weeks ago and that everyone had stopped reading, but I have problems with wordpress and save vs. publish apparently. Okay, so click publish, here ya go.

It was going to be a big week. The biggest week in fifteen years. There was a certain buzz in the air, and Traxslomidir could sense the excitement as he wandered around town with his two friends, Marxmarin and Jenkinnie. “THE BIG CHANGE IS COMING” read the banners strung up across the town hall and in windows.

The three young men came to a stop in front of a large brick building. Lottery Center said the sign above the doors.

“What do you think it’ll be like?” Jenk questioned.

“I have no clue,” Marx said. “Trax?”

Trax stared at the building, concentrating on it. “Are you scared?” he said softly.

“Nah,” Marx said, waving his hand dismissively and shifting his eyes downward.

“Yes.” Jenk looked Trax in the eyes. “Yes, I am.”

Trax nodded. “We should get back to the Pod, our parents are going to worry.”

All three boys had grown up in the same living complex, better known as Pods, playing together after each had the days’ lessons on their Teacher. They were all fifteen, just like all the other boys and girls in the world. They all had the same face and build, except for slight variations in eye and hair color. All the girls looked the same, too. And their parents: merely older looking versions of themselves.

Back at the Pod, Trax said goodbye to his friends and parted as he opened the door to his family’s quarters. His sister and mother were sitting at the kitchen table, talking. His sister, Wilquer, wore a look of worry on her face.

“But what if I don’t like him?” Wilquer was saying.

“Don’t worry, you will.” Mother patted her hand in condoling reassurance. “You will.”

Wilquer sighed.

“Hey, Trax,” greeted Mother when she noticed him standing there.

“Hello, Mom.” Trax sat down at the table with his mother and sister. “Talking about ‘the big change?’ “

Mother smiled. “Yes, we are.”

“I always wondered about it,” Trax hinted, “and you never did tell us.”

Mother exchanged looks with Wilquer. “Would you like to me to tell you?”

Trax nodded, and Wilquer left the table to go to her room. “What’s her problem?” Trax asked.

“She’s just upset right now,” Mother explained. “It’ll pass.”

“I take it you told her.”

“Yes.”

Trax grimaced. “I’m not so sure I want to know.”

Mother took a sip of her coffee. “It’s not so bad. It’s just the way things are. It takes some getting used to.”

“So?” He was waiting.

“The so-called Lottery was a system thought of about 4000 years ago, after the revolution. The world had virtually destroyed itself with overpopulation, disease and war. The only people to survive were a few scientists and philosophers. They decided that this time when they started civilization over again, they were going to do it right. They decided to fill the world with only beauty. They decided that they would make life simpler and more productive.

“Because all the survivors were male and obviously could not reproduce, and a few of the scientists just happened to be geneticists, they generated a few babies. Not just any babies though. Babies that were guaranteed to grow up to be beautiful. They wrote this formula down, and every fifteen years they generated a few more babies, and then fifteen years later, those babies generated more babies, and so on and so forth. And do you know what those babies looked like?”

“Like you and like me,” Trax whispered.

Mother nodded. “And after the world reached a population of about four billion, considered to be the ideal, they stopped making extra babies. There were one billion females in the world and one billion males in the world and when they were fifteen years old, they were paired off into couples and given two babies, one male and one female, making a total of four billion. Eventually, each of those children would turn fifteen themselves, couple off and be given their own two babies. Since then, the world population has always been four billion, and it always will be. Four billion beautiful people, half babies, half adults, half male, half female.” She smiled and looked into the distance.

“Okay, so I understand up to this point,” Trax stated, “but where exactly does the Lottery come in?”

“With the simplification part,” his mother told him. “Tomorrow you’ll go to the Lottery Center. You’ll randomly be assigned a career and a wife. A simple and productive life simply doesn’t allow for people to mosey around, trying to figure out what they want to do. Things need to get done, and it only takes certain numbers of people to get each thing done. Entered into the computer is each job, and only enough of each job is assigned. There will never be too many or too little people doing a certain job.”

“But assigned wives?” Trax questioned.

Mother chuckled. “Love isn’t very simple, nor productive. From what I’ve heard, romantic love isn’t even that beautiful; it can be pretty painful at times. And our society is virtually pain-free. I wouldn’t worry about it. You’ll like your wife. Maybe you’ll even grow to love her. You know that she’ll be beautiful, nice and peaceful. We’re all genetically engineered to be this way. Besides, it doesn’t really matter. The only reason you’re coupled off is to ensure that your children are raised properly.”

Trax studied the lines in his hand. “What about Wilquer?”

“Oh, she’ll get a husband. There’s even a very slim chance that you could end up married to her.” Mother smiled. “She’ll get her own career, and she’ll take part in raising her son and daughter. You’ll still be able to mail her, of course, and even see her every once in awhile, if possible. She could end up in another territory.”

Trax sat and let it sink in. He thought for awhile about four billion people, adults and babies, males and females, the job he would randomly be assigned and the wife, whoever she would be, and the two babies they would be given and how in fifteen years, he could be 30 telling his babies the same thing that his Mother was telling him, and these babies would get their own babies. He thought about how one day, he’d be 30, just like his mother, and all the other adults in the world. Suddenly, Trax realized that never in his life had he met anyone fifteen years older than his parents. “Mom?” he whispered.

“Yes, dear?” she answered eerily, as though from another dimension.

“What’s going to happen to you? Where do people go when they’re thirty? Where are your parents?” Trax’s questions rushed from his mouth with worry and confusion.

Mother bit her lip and closed her eyes for a moment. “It is said that after the age of thirty, one’s looks begin to diminish and so does their usefulness. I honestly can’t tell you if this is true, because, of course my own parents left when they were thirty and I was fifteen.”

“Left? Left for where?”

“Mars.”

Trax stared at her with an expression of horror. “You’re banished to another planet?”

“There’s no room here on Earth for anything that is not of youth, beauty or usefulness. It’s not really banished, though. Mars has its own atmosphere now, its perfectly livable, and none of the same rules apply. I wouldn’t have to stay with your father if I didn’t want to. I’d be free to fall in love with whomever I wanted. And I’ll be able to find my parents again, and meet my grandparents, if they’re still alive. They’ll be sixty.”

Trax had no room in his mind to even envision what a sixty year old person would look like. “Are you scared?”

“Nervous more than scared, I think. I can’t really be sure of what it’s like; the Martians aren’t allowed to have contact with the Earthlings. I don’t know if they have a Utopian government like ours. Maybe they even have countries and borders— I wonder what that’s like. I wonder if they ever have wars there. I don’t even have rumors to go by. I guess I’ll just have to see.”

Trax was quiet.

“You don’t have to be so upset,” Mother said, getting up to wrap her arms around him. “It’s the way life is. The way it’s supposed to be. You can’t argue with four thousand successful years. I’m going to bed now.” She ruffled his hair and went off to her bedroom quarters, which were separate from her husbands.

Trax went to his own quarters to go to bed, but he didn’t sleep. All he could think about was the fact that a week from now, he would be living with a strange woman and two newly generated children, and his parents would be on a ship to Mars, never to be heard from for fifteen years.

Trax’s father went with him to the Lottery Center the next day at one in the afternoon. Wilquer had already left at eight in the morning to receive her occupation and to be entered into the worldwide computer system in order to be picked at random by the males later on in the day.

The females were in a different area of the Lottery Center, waiting to be notified when they were picked, so Trax wouldn’t see Wilquer until later that night for their last family supper.

It was a very beautiful day outside and the sun shone high and bright.

“Nice day,” his father said to him.

Trax nodded in agreement. “Very nice.”

It was all they ever said, despite the fact that his father stood next to him in line for two hours. It didn’t bother Trax much, though. His father was always a man of few words, and he knew that this was his way of expressing things. From the looks they exchanged every so often, Trax knew his father was proud of him and excited for him, but still worried about the fate that lay before him. Trax wondered if the sun felt as warm on Mars as it did on Earth.

Finally, it was Trax’s turn. “Good luck,” his dad said, patted his shoulder and turned around.

Trax stepped up to the platform, and was greeted by an official wearing a namebadge that read, “Meskan, Government”.

“Good morning, Meskan,” Trax said cheerfully as the official scanned his I.D. chip behind his left ear.

“Name, Traxslomidir, identification number 43678942668, generated 4045.6.15, parented by number 4345678980, Jesqua, and number 4359876234, Minnlock,” Meskan read off of the scanner, and Trax nodded in confirmation that his information was correct. “Okay then Trax, it will only take you a few moments to fill in the occupation and spouse blanks. The children blanks will be filled in a few days.” Meskan stepped aside to reveal the large computer which held Trax’s future.

The large screen was flashing the names of jobs still available at an unreadable speed. Trax’s head dizzied. A button below the screen, which said “occupation” was blinking red.

“Just press the button,” Meskan explained, “and it’ll stop; that’ll be your job for the next 15 years.”

Trax tried to dismiss his nervousness but couldn’t. His finger was trembling as he slowly and cautiously pushed the blinking button in.

“Congratulations, Traxslomidir, you’re going to be a generator. Preparing the babies that your babies will raise. You should be proud.” A tear came to Meskan’s eye, as he entered the new information into the computer.

Trax didn’t know what to think about spending his next fifteen years making beautiful babies for babies. Maybe he should be thankful that he would be able to see his own grandchildren.

Trax wasn’t so nervous about the wife drawing. Before him flashed the names of all the available woman. Whatever name it stopped on, except for her appearance, it would be the same complete mystery. That is, unless by some twist of fate, he would manage to pick Wilquer. Trax smiled at the thought of spending the next 15 years with his sister and hoped for the best. He plunged in and hit the blinking “wife” button.

But Wilquer’s name didn’t come up. The screen said, “Jasmir, number 489250012748,” which meant nothing to him. Meskan entered the information and bid Trax farewell. Trax noted that Meskan must have a terrible job, giving away the world to its inherits, knowing that he’d be leaving very soon.

That night was the last night that they’d be together, as a family, at least for another fifteen years. They had an actual dinner together. Wilquer spoke excitedly about the fact that she was going to be a lounge keeper, and was being coupled with someone named Nepar, who was going to be an engineer.

“My, my,” said Mother, “seems like we’re going to be leaving quite a successful little generation down here.

The dinner was pretty quiet after that.

The next day was the day of departure. Trax and Wilquer went to the spaceport with their parents to see them off. Each was carrying a small suitcase that held all of the belongings that a minimalist government would allow them to have. Trax went up to his mother and wrapped his arms around her, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Mother sniffled. “Trax, Trax,” she whispered.

“I hope you find your parents,” he choked out.

“I hope you find me,” she whispered, “when it’s your turn.”

“Are you and Dad going to stay together?” he asked her as they let go to face each other.

Mother glanced over to the man consoling her daughter. “We’ve decided that we’ll see what it’s like when we get up there. We don’t want to make the journey alone, but we don’t want to feel obligated to each other if other opportunities come up.” She sort of giggled. “We want to fall in love. I mean, I’ll always love your father as the man I’ve lived with for fifteen years and with whom I’ve helped raise you two. We’ll never lose touch; we’ll always have you. I wonder if my own parents are still together?”

Trax looked at his mother with adoring eyes and in a new light. She had been where he was when he had come along and been thrust into her life. She had done it. In the fifteen years that they’d known each other, she had raised him and loved him, and now that she was done, it was her turn to let her children take the whole beautiful world into their own hands. Trax hoped that when it was his turn to give his life away, that he could do it as selflessly as his mother had. “Are you ready?” he asked her.

“I’m ready,” she said, again with that far off look in her eye. “I’m old and wise now, and I’m ready to face a new, unsheltered world. I’m ready to walk amongst the old. I’m ready for an uninnocent world, filled with experiences. I’m ready for whatever Mars holds. I’m ready to discover its secrets, its mystery. I’m ready for love and for pain and new rules. Maybe it’ll be like the ancient world; computers with keypads instead of voice command, ovens where you make your own food, books on printed paper. I’m ready to do it for myself. Maybe the Utopian government doesn’t know what perfect society is.” She smiled and nodded. “I’m ready.”

“You’re ready, Jesqua?” Father asked, coming up behind her, laying his hand on her shoulder. “Nice day,” he smiled to Trax.

Trax looked up to the sky and smiled at the sun. “Gorgeous.”

Mother looked up too and sighed. She made a kissing face to the sun and then turned to her husband. “I’m ready, Minnlock,” she said, taking his hand in hers.

Trax and Wilquer stood together and watched as their parents boarded the spacecraft. Only once did Mother turn back and say, “Fifteen years isn’t an eternity.” There was no need for goodbyes, because it wasn’t.

On the way back to the Pod, Trax and Wilquer stopped at the playground where they had played when they were young. The equipment was dusty now, since there had been no new generation of children to play. Trax thought of how soon his son and daughter would be playing here with him and his mystery wife, Jasmir.

Wilquer left later that evening to take the monorail to meet her husband. She promised to write and visit all the time.

Law said that the wife would go to live with the husband in his previous family’s pod, which left Trax with some relief. At least we would still be able to stay with his friends, Jenk and Marx. After all, their fathers had been friends, and grandfathers, and every generation back since the Pod was built.

The next day Jasmir arrived. Trax had been sleeping in his mother’s old quarters so he showed her to his father’s quarter. She seemed pleasant enough, very quiet though. Mostly she tiptoed about, trying not to disturb him. Trax sort of dismissed her at first, figuring there was plenty of time for getting to know each other later. He was too busy thinking about his parents to think about actually becoming one.

A few nights after Jasmir first arrived, Trax was standing out on the balcony, staring at the stars. Jasmir noticed him out there and slipped out to join him.

“Looking for Mars?” she asked quietly, glancing at him.

Trax nodded. “They all look the same–just like stars… so far away….”

“Did you go to see your parents off?” she questioned.

“Yah,” Trax said.

“So did I.” She was quiet for a moment. “I miss them, but they’re probably in a better place.”

Trax turned to look at her as she gazed skyward. Her hair was blond, the same shade as his mother’s. Jasmir looked just like a younger version.

She turned to look at him and met his stare. Her and his mother had the same eyes, too. Not only the soft grey-blue color, but the sullenness of the stare.

“The children are being delivered tomorrow,” she stated. “Maybe it’s time for us to stop worrying about our parents and worrying about becoming parents.”

“Fifteen years isn’t an eternity,” he said softly. “Just last week we were still babies and now we’re getting some.” Trax smiled.

“I was wondering– do you think it would be possible for us to name the male baby after my father?” Jasmir bit her lip as she made her request, scared of stepping into the wrong territory.

But Trax was fine with it. “As long as we can name the girl after my mother,” he smiled.

“Deal,” she grinned as she firmly shook his hand.

The next day, as Traxslomidir held his new-generated daughter in his arms, he wondered which beautiful baby Jesqua was in heaven and which was in hell.

“I might jump an open drawbridge, or Tarzan from a vine. ‘Cause I’m the unknown stuntman that makes Eastwood look so fine. wishing for The Cities of Gold. Someday the mountain might get ‘em, but the law never will. I’ve gotten burned over Cheryl Tiegs, blown up for Raquel Welch. McKay and his best friend Bear. Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah… Top Cat! The indisputable leader of the gang. Children of the sun, see your time has just begun, searching for your ways, through adventures every day. I’ve gotten burned over Cheryl Tiegs, blown up for Raquel Welch. Michael Knight, a young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless in a world of criminals who operate above the law. One for all and all for one, can sound pretty corny. Straight’nin’ the curve, flat’nin’ the hills.”

“Maybe tomorrow, I’ll want to settle down, Until tomorrow, I’ll just keep moving on. Straight’nin’ the curve, flat’nin’ the hills. Ulysses – always fighting all the evil forces bringing peace and justice to all. I never spend much time in school but I taught ladies plenty. New dreams and better scenes, and best of all I don’t pay property tax. Birds taught me to sing, when they took me to their king, first I had to fly, in the sky so high so high, so high so high so high, so – if you want to sing this way, think of what you’d like to say, add a tune and you will see, just how easy it can be. But when I end up in the hay it’s only hay, hey hey. some day we will find The Cities of Gold. He’s goin’ everywhere, B.J. Top Cat! The most effectual Top Cat! Who’s intellectual close friends get to call him T.C., providing it’s with dignity.”

From: noella puckett
To: leela huggins
subject: hello

What else should you do to make her happy?

http://malivana.com/us/

cupola charger gold-edged equalizer set
high-speed steel self-procured Nonintercourse act
She-greek rough-cheeked field control
diamond crossing posterio-occlusion axle stool
limber-twig pine quasi reason little-trained
trombone coil saddle blanket gardenwall bond
sigh-born machine rifle far-distant
kamoot tree vinegar plant deep-eyed

I bought this very Raina Gentry print in Prescott, ooh, where she lives. She does these amazing mixed media collagey surreal paintings.

I don’t think you can use the world “collagey” in formal art reviews. But she rocks. Go buy her stuff.

Eight deer on the slope
in the summer morning mist.
The night sky blue.
Me like a mare let out to pasture.
The Tao does not console me.
I was given the way
in the milk of childhood.
Breathing it waking and sleeping.
But now there is no amazing smell
of sperm on my thighs,
no spreading it on my stomach
to show pleasure.
I will never give up longing.
I will let my hair stay long.
The rain proclaims these trees,
the trees tell of the sun.
Let birds, let birds.
Let leaf be passion.
Let jaw, let teeth, let tongue be
between us. Let joy.
Let entering. Let rage and calm join.
Let quail come.
Let winter impress you. Let spring.
Allow the lost ocean to wake in you.
Let the mare in the field
in the summer morning mist
make you whinny. May you come
to the fence and whinny. Let birds.

–Linda Gregg. Chosen by the Lion. Graywolf Press, 1994

In a schoolboy
without warning
the face
of sake
grew sullen
Black angry
mouths, the clouds
swallowed up
the unchallengeable
The air was
understand with
suppressed excitement
The median
howled through
the symmetry
and sobbed
and pieces
in the secret
of the productiveness
The chime of
the restive bell
flowed out into
the misfits
the bandit notes
the holy chant
actualities with
the storm like
exhausted angels
with Satan
At last the obliging
of carpetbagger lay
vanquished. The
ecouragement paused
in its course
to do traceable
to God.
airing however
aeventful clap
of thunder smote
the sky
The unsettling chime
of the congress
off with a
a components dissonance
Demons seemed
to harbors
Rain came
down bytes
cataract garments
of lightning chased
one unequivocal like
battling fiery
dragons. talented
jangled hideously
out of shut
unearthly noises
like a collars
parody of the
holy complains that
marks the elevation
of the changealbe
alarmed the ears
the assuring monks
unspeakable blasphemies
usher with
ceremony and interspersed
midst of a quinlan
had suddenly
easy mad in the
if a High Priest
taut but resolute
Father Ambrose
seized a blood
In phalanx
if for battle
the brethren swivel
platters with gleaming
eyes and trembling
killers the militant
army of God
swept up describing
stairs mumbling
the ritual of the negligently
Infected lickered
by the agressor hysteria
Aubrey convuluted
of the bull.

(actual email for a penis enlargement patch)

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”–Carl Jung

8.01.06
sultry nights awaken
like sprawling hair
shimmer of sweat
gleaning leaning twisting blankets
summer, heat wave
to the dogs (hot)

8.02.06
I spring to life like a toy soldier at attention
standing, naked, swatting at imaginary spiders
I am standing in my room.
It is 3:07am as if my
subconscious, funny thing
little super ego
decided to rip me from a dream
just in time
and so fast that it is gone in
an instant
lost to the id,
filed where i’ll never see see it again?

All I barely remember was that it involved spiders.
Night 2 & my subconscious
already wakes me up
in the nick of time
but I will still oversleep
(snooze without stirring)
past six and past seven
I will still be ten minutes late
for the billionth time.
Apparently my subconscious
likes writing better than
exercising or earning a living.
Funny little superego.

08.03.06
Subconscious betrays me again
and I just lay suspended
until mind & body together
decide, sure it’s ok for
me to wake
like being held captive against
yourself. it’s as if they’re
not letting me in on some
big cosmic secret

08.03.06
my beauty is an optical illusion
bathed in white light
to wash away impurities
dramatic shadows for dramatic features
find me in the daylight
plain girl without angling tricks
i will trick you no more

08.10.06
the crickets say
“crick… crick…” times a million
like the answer to
a million cosimc questions asked
laughed at
then sent back down.

everyone asks
what’s in the box
like it’s some big cosmic secret
but it kinda is.

08.11.06 (1.15am)
I figure I can be early once
maybe twice
still only in half mind
I’m here covered in dew
like something left outside
sticky like a residue from jelly
still i am calm though
things are getting hairy
and messy and sticky
on their own.
Tomorrow morning Karen
will open me up
and I wonder what she’ll find.

08.12.06
Cover songs still ring in my head:
went to a party on a Saturday night
I didn’t get laid…
just had a man twice my age
fall in love with me
saw Jimmy the first
lead a gaggle of geese
looked at me for two seconds
didn’t know who i was
though my eyes pleaded hello?!
As children, imagination & fantasy
are our best friends.
As adults, imagination & fantasy
are our worse captors.

08.21.06
tonight as if for the first time
i felt the weight of my breasts
in my own hand–
firm and soft and mallable
like two white moons
rising over the landscape of blankets
and curved palms cupping
drinking like pleading
for rest & suspension
but still they swing like
pendulums
the ever tick tocking of
a biological clock.

08.23.06
a silence so loud
crickets, thousands
perhaps millions
sing a nightly serenade
truck so far
cars approaching you can hear them
miles away
clock is ticking off seconds of your life
or maybe just counting down
the time until dawn
when the drowsy sun will
yawn himself over the horizon
whistling to you
get up get up
sleepy sleepy girl

08.24.06
the angels are bowling
gutter gutter
STRIKE!
And they are turning on the lights,
where is my nightcap?
they say ah here
and flick the lights a thousand times
on off on off
or least that’s what
my grandma used to tell me
to soothe me in a thunderstorm
and we’d chear dead relatives
for each clap of thunder
go ira! yay isabelle!
why can’t axel find his nighcap?
There’s new angels now,
and I wonder if grandma
is my bowling angle
or if she’s just hanging out
at God’s bingo hall?

08.24.06
It’s the up thunder–
tears from the ground
up up up like a zipper
and you can hear it mvoing
feel it moving through
the air
tearing open the sky
cracking open the sky

08.25.06
It’s up to me to let you go
since you’re already unreachable
give you up to gods &
infamy, my three trick pony
an anecdotal tale for cocktail parties:
i thought i loved a boy and then he died.
But never the tragic widow,
I will have forgotten the details
so I get them down down now
before they are gone:
map the geography of your body
moles, hair patch, nipples, bingo
memorize it now while it’s
still there. get it all down,
tiresome as it may be.
Get it. All.

08.30.06
He asks for digits again and again
but it is really
ten big secrets I can’t give up
to this strange stalker man
nanna nanna boo boo
one strange stalker man
who only wants me
doesn’t know me even
everytime i say no
my princess tower gets higher
and he is more determined.
lies through teeth skin,
infatuation can be fatal.
Give up on me, go home.
I’m not throwing my hair down for you.

08.31.06
closing the fiscal period:
a variety of checks and blances
and a frenzy of papers
closing time, the song replays
on a tape loop in my head
the lights are dimming
frenzied flies are looking for
a warm nook, a cranny
any takers?
everything is ending
everything is beginning
i have notebooks & a whole new wardorbe,
just give me my eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Weird, typing this all out is really the first time I’ve gone through these while lucid. What’s up with me and the word cosmic in the middle of the night? I go to sleep and turn into a hippie. Now I comes the work– the combing for gem phrases, the editing, reworking, adding, subtracting.

So, I don’t have it here really. I’m just posting for the sake of posting.

I’ve been participating in the 3:15 Experiment not every day, but trying to. I don’t think I’m supposed to post anything until the end of the month though, and probably on their website, though I don’t see why I can’t do it here as well, it’s not like they own it.

If you’re too lazy to click the link, the 3:15 Experiment is where a bunch of people are supposed to wake up at 3:15 in the morning every morning in August and just freewrite some poetry or something whatever comes to mind, to see what sort of stuff you come up with “3am mind”. I’ve learned that at 3:15 I tend to shut my alarm off. The nights that I did wake up though, I felt really lucid at the moment, scribbling away for ten minutes then having no recollection in the morning about what I really wrote. You’re not supposed to go back and edit, just let it. Don’t over read it until the end of the month, then it’s time to share the raw stuff. Raw. Like sushi.

So I only have three more nights to make the magic happen.

You will drive to work to get your day started and the news girl on your favorite morning show will announce that a four car pile up in the Bend on Thursday night killed five people- two 60 year olds, a 25 year old and two seventeen year olds and your heart sinks into the bottom of your stomach and you are filled with an awful dread. You look it up online at work and the story doesn’t have names and you don’t think he’d be playing frisbee golf with high schoolers. There are hundreds of twenty five year old men in the Bend, the chances of it being him are little to none.

Before your lunch break you will find an up to date clip with video footage with the reporter standing on the side of the highway, talking to sobbing teenage girls and then she will announce his name as one of the victims. She says his name, twice, like it’s nothing to her and everything stops. You can’t breathe, your heart ceases. You click play again to be sure, heart now racing and yes, she says his name, overannunciating for effect.

The phones are still ringing, people are chatting, and now you are crying in your cubicle. You’ll tell your boss you have to go, you just found out your friend died, you’ll buy a news paper (in time you’ll memorize exactly how it happened) and go home and drink. You’ll sit outside with a bottle, crying, and think that the breeze that kicks up is maybe him drying your face. You’ll drink everthing. Maybe you’ll drink vodka straight from the bottle, you won’t remember. You’ll drink yourself into oblivion. You’ll drink until you pass out while changing, laying topless on the floor, where your best friend and mom will find you in the dark and wake you so you can vomit. Your mom will rub your back while you sob and say this is the only pity party you get to have, and then it will thunderstorm and you’ll object her closing of the window.

You’ll go to the crash site the next day and leave flowers, but won’t stay for the vigil, instead you’ll go to the park where you once sat all night talking and write him a letter, quitting ten pages in because twigs are snapping in the forest all around you and you’ll call out “Aaron?” a little hopefully but no one will emerge. You’ll go to the funeral and hug and be nice to Michael Lynn and Heather and all the people you haven’t seen in a year. He’ll be lying there, looking just like himself but obviously not there. You’ll tuck the letter into his coffin beside the other trinkets people left for him. The arms that held you just over a week ago are lifeless and crossed in front, politely. You’ll look at all the pictures. You’ll meet his mother, who won’t say, “oh I’ve heard so much about you.” You’ll keep saying, “I just saw him last week” but you won’t say anything about what he said about Michael Lynn and her family or Heather, because they are the ones who sit in the front row, who did all the arranging. They are the “special friends” he hasn’t spoken to in six months, but nobody knew about you, so you sit in the back. Announcing it now is petty and pointless. Nobody gets to claim ownership of the dead.

You’ll go to the burial and the officiator will pass out flowers from one of the arrangments, starting with the family and there’s not near enough for everyone, but she will skip over a couple of people and give you the last one, the smallest one. It is so symbolic. They will lay his leather jacket over his coffin, the same one he laid on your shoulders the very first night that you met. You won’t stay and wait for them to lower him into the ground. You’ll leave and sit in the park again, and a butterfly will land near you. Everything is symbolic and magical and as sad as you are, you’ll still be hopeful.

Michael Lynn will leave you a note a week later, folded up and stuck in your car, high school style. She’ll fill it with insults and say she doesn’t really want to be your friend again and she’ll say that Aaron hated you and that he only acted like he liked you because he thought that you would kick him out of the apartment. You know they are lies but they still sting and half of you wants to tell her exactly what he said about her, the other half of you will want to slash her tires. You’ll do neither. You’ll opt above the pettiness. She won’t though, and she’ll still spread rumors about you around town. It will be okay, you didn’t really want to be her friend either. She will call you once more two months later, leave a voicemail saying that it’s been hard and she wants to talk. You’ll delete the message and never call her back.

You’ll stay home, read books, watch movies. The military guy will come home early, after being through Katrina, and you will have mindless sex with him in an attempt to move on. It’s empty but it feels good to not be alone, and this is what you’ll do again and again. You’ll still think of him, every day, he will pop in there. It takes him months upon months to finally show up in a dream and you’re mad that it takes him this long, since Michael Lynn had announced at his funeral that he had shown up to comfort her. Lies, lies, lies.

In the dream, you’re being chased so you duck into a trailer diner in the middle of nowhere and he’s sitting there in a booth, reading. You look at him quizically and he waves you over. You want to tell him, warn him but the words won’t come out and he’ll give you a look that says, “don’t try.” He says “here, read this, I wrote you a poem” but because it’s a dream there won’t really be any words on the page but it’s real enough for a dream. He’ll chat like it’s nothing, like he’s still here, then disappear to the bathroom. The alarm will rouse you out of the dream and try as you might to get back, you can’t.

In the end, here is how his life ended. Heather had dropped him off at his house, which bothered you. She said he had met some guys and they were going to play frisbee golf which he never did. Why he was playing with seventeen year olds, you’ll never know. Why he was with Heather, you’ll never know either. They found beer cans at every hole, which Aaron must have bought. One of the boys was driving back, just after sunset, bombing down a straight stretch of road at ninety miles an hour, came up too fast on the car in front of him, swerved, hit the girl in front then crossed over in front of the oncoming car. Somebody at the funeral said his heart burst. One said he died on impact, one said he still had a heartbeat when the paramedics got there. You wonder who he thought of. One boy in the car was wearing his seatbelt. He survived.