At the water park there was a huge line for the biggest slide and I willed it to go away and it did. It still took a long time to climb to the top, and when I got there it was dark out. I walked away, preoccupied.
The whole busload of them were going to Dairy Queen but I missed it, they left without me. I was pissed. When they got back, Zach came running to find me, "Where were you?" He hadn't eaten anything, out of solidarity. I said we were going back, I'd drive. The people we were walking past heard us and asked if they could grab a ride, I said yes, Zach couldn't stop laughing.
tying a straw in a knot for the cat
In the historic house where whatshisname was born, some civil war guy, there were bins for food and book donations in the massive white marble lobby.
The bushy-browed, slightly scary guy at the other table in the cafe leaned toward us and asked if we were using our computer. Pete said no and tried to had it to him but it was not detachable from the table. We said it was fine for him to come sit at our table and work, but he declined - it was Abby who needed it, and she was too shy to sit with strangers.
In the tunnels the packed-dirt walkways on the edges were crumbling and we were moving slow. I asked Pete who that was, what he was singing. He told me everything - who wrote it, who recorded it first, all the other people who recorded it over the years, and who sang the only version I would have heard.
A vision into the wall of the cave, where a girl was tunneling.
When I got to the end of the driveway I saw a couple coming home from church with their four kids, all girls with wonderful curly hair. They were all dressed in black. Not dressed up, just black tshirts and jeans. I stopped the car and got out to talk to the mother. She tried to convert me almost immediately, and I tried to convert her.
The man who ran away from the haywagon coming down the hill got away just fine.
As Scully, I was of course very brave. A man's face was burned on all one side, red and horrible. I took it from him, asked to receive his disfiguration. It was a horrible dizzy rush when it happened. I did it for the wrong reasons. I was angry at God. I went where I was not supposed to go, where no one could go. I found Buddha. I walked toward his impossible light and dared me to let me into his kingdom and he would not.