The Ascetic:
Starts thus -
Next, at about 4 AM, he takes the covers off the bed.
He goes to the pantry and sorts what is stale and infested from what's all right. The stale and infested he keeps. The rest he throws away.

fictive:

he is tenty three, the ferry captain
... he smiles at her, she sees only cow brown eyes and shyness.
in the sunset, looking like modas had touched him.
she closes her eyes and sees paddocks that thunder with laughter, feels the gold brush of wheat under her palms, Elysian.
tickle. brush tickle.

he lay around on his bed anorexiating, wishing the day would pass over him, but the day only seemed to get longer. he couldn't believe how slowly the time was passing - like it was stalling in front of him just to shit him, so he trod up on the back of its slow ankles, and in the meantime he could only lie there thinking how does anyone do anything? how does anyone get anything done with all this time around, swamping?

i know some of the meanings of some things
but i do not know the meaning of everything
and in any case, some things change their meaning.

i have changed in this respect.
there were stories in my eyes once that are no longer there,
and other stories have replaced them.
sounds, too.

and sometimes i have wondered if there is a deeper meaning
to beaks, and claws and talons.

in summer, even in these suburbs full of thieves, people leave their front doors open wide.

swelter. the humid medium. microbial community we breathe each other in aour hated neighbours even. part of us wants this community.
the shared disease of being human and suburban.

however, my parents do not leave their doors open.

they put on what they called the christmas video. the videotape of a logfire. their tv set was set in an alcove where a fireplace used to be.

it turned out they were not really american.