By Andrew Sharp

Benjamin Bailey’s supper fled away down the mountain in stiff-legged springs, heading rapidly out of range of his rifle. He watched the small herd of mule deer hungrily, but he did not shoot. He knew his bullet would likely just land on sagebrush and he was running low on shells.

He was running low on everything — food, water, energy and hope, along with ammunition.
Of those, the last one he wanted to run out of was ammunition. He needed at least one shell.

He had come to Nevada with plenty of energy and hope, and had picked up the other supplies after arrival, including a lightly used Winchester .44-40, Model 1873, the cowboy’s gun that had captured Eastern imaginations. He wouldn’t have been able to hit a bison if it had dropped in for coffee, while the real western veterans could, or liked to say they could, shoot fleas off a dog from across town. Still, the gun did give him a sense of comfort, a feeling that he might be able to augment the short arm of the law, or that people might mistake him for someone who could.

Despite his nervousness about the do-it-yourself style of law and order, that was part of what lured him to Nevada. Ben was no gunslinger or mountain man, no one-man kingdom enforcing his rules at gunpoint. But back in Philadelphia, he was glued in place in the social mosaic. All the property and resources were claimed and their allocation monitored by rules and regulations piled up over the generations. Merchants, traders and laborers struggled to make a meager profit, working their whole lives and then dying and passing their allotted opportunity on to their children, while the wealthy sent their children to Harvard to learn to rule. There was no unclaimed gold in Philadelphia.

In the west, though, the nuggets were lying around, waiting for someone to find them. Everyone knew the about the one found in Nevada that had been worth $5,000, or was it $20,000? It was just lying in a sandbar, according to the story, or in some versions in the bottom of a creek, and a man out for a Sunday stroll had picked it up, a $20,000 profit in an afternoon. With a week’s work, Ben was happy to make a few dollars.

Ben was a simple man, not a starry-eyed dreamer looking to make it rich and then throw it away on women and drink. He did not need $20,000 nuggets, at least not right away. Small $1,000 nuggets would be fine with him. He’d find a good claim, work it for a couple of years and get a few thousand out of it, and then build a ranch with a nice Western-sounding name like the Aspen Range or the Ponderosa. He wanted hard work with real payoff and no lawyers and government officials looking over his shoulder all the time.

Once he decided to leave, he was almost feverish to start. He imagined other, undeserving miners, probably with no careful plans of their own, bumbling into his claim through blind luck. The greedy hordes were spreading out over the land taking everything, in his mind. Later he would feel silly about this; raised in the city, he had no inkling of the vastness of the West, the long miles of empty land that swallowed up the handful of men willing to risk everything and start over on a chance.

In Philadelphia, he had been almost secretive, buying up supplies and making arrangements quietly, as if when the city found out that he, Benjamin Bailey, was going to Nevada, the dam would break and the entire city would flow west. “What, him? Well, if he’s going, I’m going too.”

But the few friends he did tell showed no sign of rushing off to sell all they had and buy train tickets. Instead, they made unkind insinuations about “gold fever” and warned him about the perils of greed. “You’re wasting everything I spent my life building,” his father had argued with him. “Not one in a hundred is going to do any good out there. You may as well sell the store and take it all to the racetrack.” Cynics and pessimists, Ben called them. He had a dream for a good life. He feared missing his chance. Was that greed?

When he stepped off the stagecoach in Ely, Nevada, the first thing he noticed was the color. For all the talk of gold, what Nevada seemed to have in abundance was items in the brown and gray variety, from the dark gray bare rock of the mountain slag, down to the lighter gray sagebrush on the dusty valley flatlands. Wherever people moved, the dirt was puffed up into clouds of brown dust like cocoa powder that blew, settled down on hats and coats and store counters, and gritted on teeth. Rarely was there any rain to knock it down again.

Color here was like water — a treasure, savored when found; the vivid red of the Indian paintbrush nestled in the gray sagebrush, or the brief brilliant yellow of the aspen display in the fall higher up in the mountains, set off by the sober dark color of the evergreens. Most of the vegetation hung on, grim and determined, simply existing and not needing to make a display out of it. It had been there before the miners and was ready to survive there long after they had carried away all the metal that had brought them.

The land seemed as if it were designed to showcase the sky, to not distract from its displays of breathtaking color, the clouds blazing red and pink and orange at sunset, towering piles of white clouds high above the dust, racing through the vivid blue afternoon sky, the black and green of the fierce thunderstorms cut through with sharp lightning bolts. At night, the stars were so thick and close it seemed you could reach up with a stick and stir them into whirling galaxies.
Back east, the balance had been better. Ben did not remember much about the sunsets or the sky. What he did remember now were the creeks, the waterfalls, the almost criminal waste of water that poured in the millions of gallons out to the sea, the constant spring rains that fed the abundant green weeds, wildlfowers, and crops of summer.

Osceola, a little growing settlement of about 1,000 people, was in the general area where gold was to be found in the region. Accordingly that was where Ben made his headquarters, in a ramshackle cabin a little way up a ravine called Dry Gulch. The town was in the middle of a mountain range that ran roughly north and south. Sagebrush barrens stretched to the east and west on either side, dotted with cattle loosely organized into ranches and lonely Basque shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night.
Ben’s cabin was not the worst in town, but when you had said that, there was little more to add by way of praise. There were respectable gaps in the walls that did little to discourage the winter wind and nothing to discourage the vermin, and the chimney was apathetic about its task of discharging the smoke outdoors. The floors were dirt.

It was fairly typical in the town, which had been hastily thrown together to shelter incoming floods of men come together to compete for wealth. The more wealthy residents could boast of their simple wood frame buildings, with virtually no major holes in the walls. There were a couple of saloons, and a house or two where one could obtain feminine company. Many people lived in shanties that were more piles of material, incorporating rock and logs and tarpaper and tin and whatever else was handy.
Ben searched for a mining claim for several months without any luck, and then, with not much better luck, worked an unproductive claim for another year, eating his life savings and spending it on supplies. Doom seemed to hang in the smoke cloud in the chilly evenings in his shack, as he waved smoke out of his face and scratched out optimistic letters home. The savagery of the place pressed down on him. He saw men worn down and used up by the cold winters and brutal summers that killed their horses and cattle.

For every successful store, hotel, ranch or mining claim in the Osceola region, there were a hundred men who died without reaching their dreams, or who were killed in mining disputes or robberies, whose cattle perished or disappeared. Hard work needed some luck to go with it and the dice didn’t favor most.
The dice did not seem to be rolling for Ben. His first claim had yielded only a few dollars in gold flakes, enough to buy a little food, but nothing to build on. So he agreed immediately when an old miner told him he had found a decent location but wanted a partner so he could claim more ground and have an extra hand.

The miner’s name was James T. Randolph, Ben found out when they signed their papers. Until that time Ben had known him as Bullfrog, a name the miner had earned with his habit of singing loudly and out of tune to himself when he was in a good mood.

He was in a good mood a lot, and so the neighborhood was often serenaded with his booming tones.
Bullfrog was known as a good miner and above reproach by miners’ moral standards, which meant he put in long days of work, didn’t cheat at cards and limited himself to moderate drinking, never more than 12 drinks in a sitting. He was welcome at every table in every saloon, and Ben considered himself very lucky to have landed a partnership with him.

Bullfrog was patient with Ben’s mistakes and taught him how to find any gold, if it was there. The old miner had been right about the claim. It was a solid one, and Ben’s hope, which had been running low with his savings, picked up again. They made more than enough money for their supplies and bills, and began saving extra.

“You know what we oughtta do?” Bullfrog told him one day. “We’re getting enough we could put our pot together and buy a ranch or something, or a hotel, something that will make us money when this runs out. Can’t do this forever anyway. We’re not getting any younger.”

This fell in exactly with Ben’s plans, so the only discord was over which option to pick. Bullfrog was enamored with the idea of a saloon and hotel called Bullfrog ‘N Ben’s, but the Ben half of the enterprise thought that was a silly name and also preferred to live in the country, out in the invigorating air herding cattle.

“We’re too old to ranch,” Bullfrog argued.

“You’re too old,” Ben said. “I can do most of the work. You can just help out as you’re able.” Bullfrog did not seem to accept this in the generous spirit it was offered, and they let the topic drop.

Despite these divergent goals, they fell into a happy routine of hard work, beginning the days with Bullfrog’s supreme flapjacks (Ben had to wash the dishes) and ending with a quiet drink (or several) over the campfire, the air seasoned with the rich smoke of Bullfrog’s pipe and filled with his stories from a life of western roaming. Even if they weren’t true, Ben felt they were some of the best he had heard.

The question of future plans became more urgent one day in the early summer, when Ben uncovered some large gravel that seemed at first like gold nuggets. As he examined them, they looked more like gold nuggets. He was suspicious, trying to hold back his excitement, because he knew that only a greenhorn would expect to find nuggets this big or plentiful.

“Come look at this,” he called to Bullfrog, who wandered over and took the rocks in his hand. He turned them over a few times in silence without showing any emotion, and Ben felt the disappointment begin, even though he had known all along it was not really gold.

Then Bullfrog’s face cracked into a huge smile. “We’ve struck it, Ben!”

Ben felt as if he were going to lose his balance. The pressure he had been carrying suddenly lifted off his shoulders, and he realized it had been heavier than he thought. Its absence, and the fact he was newly wealthy, left him feeling light and giddy. What would they say in Philadelphia now? He might be covered in mud and dressed in rags like a hobo, but he could ride back East in a new suit and buy a house with running hot and cold water. He could have his old store back, and a dozen like it, if he wanted, which he most certainly did not want.

Bullfrog was shouting and jumping around, grabbing him by the shoulders, and Ben joined in, and they leaped around in circles like square dancers without a fiddle.

They worked that claim urgently for the rest of the summer, scarcely stopping to eat, and found a good deal of gold. Finally, by the autumn, they started finding less, not more. They had to take turns sleeping at night to guard their stockpiled treasure, which they kept in a chest at their campsite on the claim. Bullfrog wouldn’t trust it to a bank.

“Damned if I let some bandit come in there waving a pistol and walk off with my hard-earned gold,” he said.

Ben pointed out that the bandit could do the same thing in their camp, and that bank robberies were fairly rare, but Bullfrog put his foot down on this point.

They were already wealthy men, and the gold was waiting to be spent. Mining had lost its expectant savor. If they couldn’t find nuggets, it seemed like too much work. They decided to sell the claim and invest their money.

Where to invest that money was what still divided them. The day they sold the claim, they booked a room in a hotel in town and then talked long into the night. They built sprawling ranches and hotel empires, railroad stock fortunes and trading fleets. Ben kept coming back to buying a ranch in the area. He had come to like it here, and now that it was not likely to ruin him he could enjoy it properly.
Bullfrog still held out for his business, a saloon or a hotel, city life and commerce. He had been a bumpkin his whole life, he said, and now he meant to get a suit and become the mayor, and maybe a senator eventually. A modest man, he thought he would decline to run for president.

They eventually had to turn in for the night without resolving the issue.

When Ben rolled over and sat up the next morning, he was alone in the room, and the chest where they kept their gold was empty. He yanked on some clothes and rushed out into the hotel’s bar to find Bullfrog and tell him the terrible news. Bullfrog wasn’t there, and the innkeeper hadn’t seen him. Ben hurried outside, where the street was empty in the quiet gray of the early morning. A few lamps were on in windows, and an old miner was sitting on a porch across the street chewing tobacco. He told Ben around his chaw that Bullfrog had in fact come out not long before, and headed out of town.

“Looked like he was in a hurry, too,” he said. “Any trouble? Say, are you feeling all right?”

Ben kicked the empty wooden chest into shards of cedar, and then hobbled around cursing and throwing together a bedroll, some basic food, and his gun. The loss of the gold was hard to take, but the deeper hurt was that he had trusted Bullfrog completely. He had trusted Bullfrog’s friendship, but Eastern greenhorn that he was, had been made a fool of.

He didn’t have much of a plan. The old miner had pointed south, into the mountains, when asked which way Bullfrog had gone. Ben wondered why Bullfrog hadn’t just gone to Ely and caught the stage, but realized that he was smart enough to know he couldn’t outrun telegraph messages, which Ben certainly would have used to beat him to the next stop. By disappearing into the mountains, he could avoid the law, put some distance between any pursuers and come out anywhere. Ben figured, though, that Bullfrog might stick to the mountains for some time, to make tracking harder and to avoid being seen.

There would only be one pursuer, as Ben figured a smaller committee would streamline the justice process. He knew he faced long odds. The mountains were big, and Bullfrog could cut out into the valleys at any time, or double back, or head south until he got to Mexico. He could be anywhere, and certainly had the money to buy what he needed. Ben, by contrast, had nothing except a little leftover food and even had to sneak out of the hotel to avoid the bill he now could not afford.

Ben forced his horse as fast as it could go around the heaps of gray slag, over rocky ridges and through groves of stubby pines. Sometimes he would hit a stream, where there would be meadows of wildflowers and grass. The air was getting crisp with fall, and he rode through groves of golden aspen.

After a couple of days of streaming sweat, maneuvering over and around and back, starting and stopping, cursing and crying, he was saddle sore, dead tired, running out of ammunition and hungry. He had eaten the food he brought and now had to rely on his marksmanship to bring down game, which was why he was so hungry. A big target like a deer, not moving, was well within his skill, but he had to see one first. So far, all he had done was burn up a number of shells on a hopping jackrabbit.

He puzzled over what he was going to do on the slim chance he stumbled across Bullfrog. The man was not likely to stay around for a chat without some blunt encouragement. In some of Ben’s more gratifying scenarios, he confronted Bullfrog, but Bullfrog tried to ride away and he shot him off the horse. In calmer moments he would hold his gun on Bullfrog until the old traitor was forced to put down the bag of gold, and then order him in a tough voice, “Now you get out of here! And I don’t want to ever see you again!” If he were feeling particularly generous, they would split the gold, but that scenario did not have quite the ring of justice to it that Ben was looking for.

He also wondered what he would do if he couldn’t find Bullfrog. Part of the reason he kept riding blindly was that to go back was to give up, to trust to luck that he could scratch out another claim. He knew that was a stretch. He wouldn’t get lucky again, and he may as well try his luck out here as back in town. The company mine was already crowding out independent miners, buying up land, bringing in hundreds of laborers. He would end up as a laborer, maintaining the canal, working for a meager wage, supervising a team of Chinese or Indians or worse, working with them. Or he could sign on as a cowhand at a ranch, or as a shepherd, and die poor out here. Or, he could go back East and admit defeat, and pick up where he had left off, except poorer, starting over again, having wasted years, and die poor there. Going back was the end of the dream, but out here it was still out there ahead of him, riding away.

As he watched the mule deer herd flee, delicious roasts of venison leaping down into the valley, Ben lowered his gun and rested his head on his hand. A breeze whipped down off the mountain and tugged at his shirt, bearing the advance traces of coming winter. He stood up and stretched. Time to ride on.
Then he froze. In the distance, back toward the way he had come, came a faint gunshot. Could he have passed Bullfrog? Or maybe it was just some rancher on a fall hunt. Ben pulled off his hat and rubbed his forehead, and looked around the rough terrain. Yes, he would go back. Any hint was better than riding blindly ahead.

Late the next morning, Ben sat on a rocky outcrop with his back against a scrubby juniper, looking off down the ridge and wishing for mouthful of some other food besides the remnants of the unwary marmot he was chewing. He had found no trace of anyone when he rode back in the direction he had heard the shot. After hours of meandering he had gotten desperate, riding in widening circles for miles. It was utter folly to keep going now, low on food and ammo, and he knew it. He was done.

Several hundred yards away downhill, Bullfrog walked out from behind a rock, leading his horse. Ben could see the lumpy brown pack they had stored the gold in, lashed to the horse’s back. Ben watched him, a marmot bone still sticking out of his mouth.

Then Ben eased up his rifle, working to steady the sights on his former partner and friend. His finger trembled against the smooth curve of the trigger.

Bullfrog glanced his way, stared for a moment, then leaped for his horse. Ben followed him with the gun sights and squeezed the trigger. He knew that the gun had gone off but it seemed to have made little noise or recoil, as if it were far away, a background noise that had little to do with what was going on. Bullfrog stumbled and fell, but then scrambled to his feet and clawed his way onto the horse. Ben worked the lever and fired again, then again. Bullfrog whipped the horses into a gallop. Ben aimed very carefully at Bullfrog’s bouncing back and squeezed the trigger again.

The gun clicked. He was out of shells.

Cursing, he reached into his pack and felt around for more. There were no more.
He sat panting, staring down at his now useless gun.
Then he propped the rifle against the juniper tree, walked back to his horse, and rode away toward town.

“Archaeologists conducting surveys in Nevada’s Great Basin National Park came upon a gun frozen in time: a .44-40 Winchester rifle manufactured in 1882. It was propped up against a juniper tree.”
The Washington Post
Jan. 14, 2015

By Juan Ersatzman

“If someone wrote about us — back in the day, I mean — do you think they’d call it post-apocalyptic?” asked Marie. She was reclining against a slouchy pile of their backpacks, boots stretched out toward the fire. Jelly, deeper inside the rooftop shack, using his boots as a makeshift seat, looked up from his plate and raised an eyebrow, sufficiently surprised by the thought that he stopped licking his plate clean.
Marie ran a hand through her hair, spreading her fingers to clear the tangles. “I mean, you remember how they used to write books, and make movies about the end of civilization, climate change, nuclear holocaust … the whole thing.”

Jelly nodded, and went back to licking his plate, still listening.
“And here we are now, and it doesn’t feel like those stories did, you know? The dread, the terror, the … the — you know — that feeling.”

“Wouldn’t’ve thought of it,” Jelly said, setting down the plate, and settling his steady gaze on her.
The long fingers of firelight played across Marie’s face, rolling on the gentle curves of her forehead, cheeks and chin, resolving to bright lines on the fine edges of her lips, and shining in her curious eyes. Her hair was cast in silhouette, black against the sunset. Neither one said anything for a moment. Then Jelly, setting down his plate, asked, “Offhand, what made you think of it?”

Marie shrugged. “I don’t know, it just occurred to me today.”

Jelly said nothing. He picked up his plate, and finished cleaning it, then sat, running his knuckles rhythmically across his jaw.

“Nothing in particular made you think that?”
“I guess,” said Marie, “I guess maybe it was this afternoon. I was out on the far side of the roof, collecting water from the rain-bin, and checking the corn, and I was thinking about how…” she hesitated, collecting her thoughts, “… about the water. You know, it used to be easy — just turn the tap — and …”

Her voice caught on a splinter, and trailed into silence. Jelly closed his eyes and bent his head. His hand became manic, rubbing at his beard in a mechanical frenzy, the only easy outlet for his thoughts. The fire crackled languorously in a slow descent to embers.

“Hey. Jelly, Come on, now,” said Marie. “Quit that. You’ll scratch your face off.”

Jelly looked up. Marie was leaning forward from her seat on the packs and smiling at him, though pools glistened in her eyes.

“Like I said, I remembered how life used to be — and what we thought back then of what life would be like, if things ever got the way they’ve gotten, now. And — here’s what hit me — it doesn’t really feel different. It isn’t like we thought it would be, at all.”

She slipped off the packs, and knelt down beside her husband, nestling up against him, under his arm.
“We work hard now, but we worked hard, then. I mean, I don’t pretty women up in a salon, and you can’t work for the state agriculture board. Those things aren’t really options, now, but … it’s not like rooftop urban farming was really an option, then.”

Jelly chuckled,

“Not too sure about that. It might’ve been,” he said. “Never really looked into it.”

He tucked his arm around her back, and rubbed his chin into her hair.

“You know what I mean,” Marie said, and rolled her eyes. “We didn’t use to camp out on a roof, barricade the stairs and hide our fires at night, but we used to lock our doors, and worry about crime stats. People didn’t use to use knives and bats a lot, but it just seemed like everybody owned a gun. Everybody took those classes so they could walk around with little cannons under their coats … Life was hard, and life was dangerous. That’s no different. You know?”

After a moment, Jelly said, “Used to have doctors, and nurses and hospitals, though.”

Marie looked up at him. Jelly was staring into the fire, but his arm resumed its restless rhythm, up and down her spine, his fingers distractedly exploring the contours of her back. Marie followed his gaze into the glow of the embers, the final flames dancing for what little life remained to them, and her mind was mired there, revolving the myriad elements of her world with the motion of the fire, in inadvertent meditation. Finally, she spoke again,

“I know. I know, but what I mean is … it just … I guess getting the water made me think. You know how we think it’s the water, or it’s the radiation from the bombs, or it’s the food, or the stress, or … whatever.”
She paused. Her words were tumbling out too quickly, sharp edges untrimmed.

“And there’s no doctor to tell us one way or the other,” she went on. “That’s true. But maybe it’s not those things. Maybe the world changed, but the plan didn’t. Maybe it’s just like life isn’t that different. Maybe we were never going to … to have a baby, in any world.”

She stopped. Jelly’s arm had stiffened around her back. His jaw clenched, and unclenched.

“Maybe,” he said, and breathed hard, and deep, three times, and each time, his torso heaved against Marie, and his granite muscles trembled. He turned his eyes down to her, but slowly, as though by force against a great reluctance. Orange light dimly reflected off the downturned corners of his lips.

“Does it help?”

Marie nodded.

“A little,” she said. “As much as anything can.”

Jelly resumed his silence, now staring over the dying fire into the gathering darkness of their shack, his arm still climbing and descending Marie’s back like an automaton. Outside, the city was quiet as sunset became twilight, and twilight sank into gloaming. No birds, no cars; just the wind, rustling through the verdant darkness of Jelly’s small patches of corn and beans and vegetables.

“Speaking of hiding our fires …” said Marie.

Jelly nodded. She slipped out from his arm, and climbed to her feet. Jelly rose stiffly, wincing at the gravely rattle of cartilage in his knees.

“We closed up the barricade when you came home, didn’t we?” she asked as they crossed out of the open wall. Jelly, padding along barefoot, glanced down at the spot on the floor, where he made a charcoal mark each day when they closed the barricade, and rubbed it out each morning when they opened it. There was a mark. He nodded.

He used his foot to shove their backpacks into the shelter. Marie pulled the tarp out from its spot next to one of the two shelves positioned along the far wall. One side of the tarp was still a faded electric blue, but they had smudged the other side black with charcoal. They stretched it across the open wall that faced east. Both walls at the sides of the opening had metal eyelets protruding from them at the floor, the roof, and two points between. Some of the eyelets, Marie had scavenged from the ruins of a hardware store, some Jelly had fashioned from wire. A short length of shoelace was looped through each eyelet. On their separate ends of the tarp, Jelly and Marie threaded the shoelaces through the grommets on the tarp, pulled them tight, and made a knot.

When they finished, the hut was utterly dark, but for the faint glow of the embers. Marie reached up and ran her hand along the roof until she came to one of the three small exhaust vents they had made for the fire. She pushed the flap of shingle all the way open, until she felt the cooler air on her hand.
Her eyes were still adjusting to the darkness, but she could hear Jelly unrolling their pad, and the sleeping bag they laid unzipped across their pad for a blanket. They undressed in the dark, and in silence. The tarp stirred and rustled, compelled by the breeze.

Jelly, as he always did, climbed into their hard little bed first, and, as always, took the side toward the wall, away from the warmth of the embers. Marie piled her clothes on top of the packs, now stacked between the head of the bed and the tarp, and crawled in beside him. She reached out, found him in the dark, and curled up against him.

“Hey,” said Jelly, wrapping his hands around her waist and pulling her tighter, “you might be right. Things might not be that different than they were, back in the day.”

“But I’ll say this,” he went on, letting go of her waist, and tracing her shoulder with his fingertips in the darkness. “You’ve got a bunch more knots in your back than you used to.”
Marie giggled in the dark.

“’Cause I’ve been married to you for a whole lot longer than I used to be,” she said, shoving him in the dark. “Don’t go blaming the apocalypse for something that’s your own damn fault.”

They both laughed, and settled deeper into the bed. After a moment, the only sound was regular, uninterrupted breathing. They slept, surrounded by the silence of the ruined city.

By Tamara Shoemaker

The dust of 60-plus years coated his bronzed face as he stared down at the town from his perch. The rest of his skin had grayed with time, but his lips had never cracked a smile.

His feet rested on a pedestal at the edge of a used car lot, and he glared across the river at the school beyond. They’d named the mascot after him — the Chiefs, until a court case banned the term and replaced it with the innocuous Eagles.

He’d become a landmark in this town. Tourists hugged a brown leg while they posed for a camera; tired Main Street meanderers paused for a break in his shadow. Gangs graffitied spray-painted tattoos on one bare calf; girls kissed interested boys behind the pedestal.

I worked in his shadow, operating my store where I could see the rigid profile. The eyes faded more each day, and rumors swirled that the city might give the old guy his final rest.

On a drizzly day, I nestled a set of books more snugly on a shelf, pulling the window closed to bar the rain from my merchandise. I traced the rivulets on the glass.

“Will that make you happy?” I whispered.

His cheeks dripped moisture below his empty, empty eyes.

Wandering Reflections at the Symphony

Complete text by Sergei Prokofiev in bold

By Ben Herr

Early one morning Peter opened the gate and went out on a big green meadow, after checking to make sure his grandfather had not seen him go. It was a highly dangerous woods, you see, dangerous to the point that it need not be considered unbelievably rare should a fierce, reclusive predator such as a wolf suddenly show up near a human residence. Grandfather, you see, had warned Peter many times to say within the gated yard.

On the branch of a big tree sat a little bird, Peter’s friend. “All is quiet,” chirped the bird gaily, unaware that the human creature in front of it did not understand bird song. If Peter had, he would have replied by chirping back the question, “Doesn’t a quiet forest usually mean trouble is approaching?”

But as it was, the bird and the boy felt happy and safe in the meadow, enjoying watching each other. Since very few humans with children would live in such a dangerous part of the woods, this was the closest thing Peter had to a friend.

Soon a duck came waddling around. She was glad that Peter had not closed the gate, and decided to take a nice swim in the deep pond in the meadow.

“Humph!” Peter said with a sigh of exasperation. How would he catch the duck in the middle of the pond? If he didn’t get it back, grandpa would know he had opened the gate and gone to the meadow. “I must figure out a way to catch the duck or I will get in trouble for sure. Maybe if I had a rope …”

Seeing the duck, the little bird flew down upon the grass, settled next to the duck and shrugged her shoulders.

“What kind of bird are you, if you can’t fly!” said she. To this the duck replied: “What kind of bird are you, if you can’t swim!” and dived into the pond. You see, the duck had swum to the shore to make that reply, then jumped right back into the water to continue the argument, mostly for dramatic effect.

They argued and argued — the duck swimming in the pond, the little bird hopping along the shore.

“Actually, there are only 17 species of birds that can swim, but cannot fly … all of which are penguins,” said the bird. “So the real burden of proof lies with you, when it comes to the task of disproving a claim of one’s own abilities being more birdlike.”

“Back off, flight supremacist!” quacked the duck. “Ducks get our wings clipped so we can’t fly out of the yard. Don’t hold your flight privilege over me!”

“Don’t hate on me just cause I was born with the ability to fly and sing beautifully!” chirped back the bird in agitation. “Skillful flight takes HARD WORK! You don’t just pop out of the egg and start flying. You have to put in a lot of hours training your wings, and staying in flying shape. Not to mention you have to eat right. An herb-based diet is important, yet everyone wants to be able to fly while eating minimum sage.”

“Wow, you’re out of touch, my friend. What’s that saying about walking a mile in another bird’s webbed feet? It’s not easy! These feet are built for water! Trust me, I’d love to be able to put in the work required to fly, I just don’t have that opportunity!”

Suddenly something caught Peter’s attention. It didn’t take much, because the chirps and quacks of the strange interaction got old pretty quickly. He noticed a cat crawling through the grass.

The cat thought: “The bird is busy arguing. I’ll just grab her.” Stealthily she crept toward her on her velvet paws.

“All I’m saying,” the bird continued, with a wide gesture of its wings, “is that maybe if you ventured out here into the wild and stopped relying on handouts from Grandpapa, you’d realize how much more you could accomplish!”

“You really think that would work?” quacked the duck angrily. “Every time we —”

“Look out!” shouted Peter, and the bird immediately flew up into the tree. From the middle of the pond … the duck quacked angrily at the cat.

“Oh, come on! We were just getting to the point!” said the duck angrily. “Couldn’t you wait a bit to break us up?”

“See?” piped in the bird. “You can swim in the water. Water. The very thing cats hate. You have some advantages too! See, we can both be a little ethnocentric, blaming problems on the other guy.”

“Yeah. But still. I’m stuck in a pond.” The duck kept swimming in circles.

The cat crawled around the tree and thought: “Is it worth climbing up so high? By the time I get there, the bird will have flown away. Also, I’ll get stuck, and I don’t think this place is fire truck accessible, so how else will anyone manage rescue me? Also, why was I even pondering the first question. Of course the bird will fly away.”

Grandfather came out. He was angry because Peter had gone to the meadow. “It is a dangerous place. If a wolf should come out of the forest, then what would you do?” he said in a tone that was totally not in any way ominous foreshadowing.

Peter paid no attention to Grandfather’s words, ensuring that by having the protagonist disobey an authority figure in a children’s story, a lesson will be learned later. Also because he had taken the story of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” a little too much to heart and just couldn’t take Grandfather’s warnings very seriously.

Besides, boys, as he, are not afraid of wolves. But Grandfather took Peter by the hand, led him home and locked the gate. Peter now obeyed and went without a fuss, because boys, as he, are very afraid of spankings.

No sooner had Peter gone, than a big gray wolf came out of the forest. The gray wolf surveyed the meadow.

“I’ve been hunting down a pack elk of three days and have almost caught up,” it thought, “but I guess I can put that most urgent quest on hold to go after a little duck, or a cat, or perhaps a canary.”

In a twinkling, the cat climbed up the tree, because in the Rock, Paper, Scissors of things cats are afraid of, “Wolf” beats “Stuck in a Tree.” Which beats “The Fifth Second of Getting Rubbed on the Belly.”

The duck quacked, “OK, that’s it, I’m outta here! Wait … they locked the gate? Are you serious? How could they just leave me out here?!?” and in her excitement jumped out of the pond. The wolf chuckled and gave pursuit.

But no matter how hard the duck tried to run, she couldn’t escape the wolf. He was getting nearer … “Um … help?” quacked the duck. … nearer … “For real, someone help me! I’m about to get eaten by a wolf over here! Peter? Grandpa?” … catching up with her … “Oh, come on, I bet if that bird were getting chased they’d come out and help it.” … and then he got her, and with one gulp swallowed her.

And now, to avoid the pesky task of actually writing a piece of story so complicated that it only contains a wolf walking from a pond to a tree, this is how things stood: the cat was sitting on one branch, trying to figure out how to safely rub the wolf’s belly for 5 seconds or more, the bird on another, not too close to the cat, because in order to be unified against this new enemy, they needed to be in the same tree, yet not so close as to tempt the cat into forgetting about defeating the wolf first … and the wolf walked around and around the tree looking at them with greedy eyes. Of course, from the wolf’s point of view, trying to catch three whole elk would have been greedy. Wanting more than just a little waddling duck seemed very reasonable.

In the meantime, Peter, without the slightest fear, stood behind the closed gate watching all that was going on. Having grown up in such isolation, being raised by only a cranky grandfather, he had no one in his life to tell him that having courage did NOT mean standing behind a wall in safety as your animal friends get hunted and eaten by a ravenous wolf. But since he cared a lot more about the bird than the duck, he ran home, took a strong rope and climbed up the high stone wall. One of the branches of the tree around which the wolf was walking, stretched out over the wall. A smarter boy would have beckoned to the cat to walk across the branch and into the safety of his home, and for the bird to fly over. But since his limited life experience made him a bit of a novice at heroic problem solving, he decided the best course of action was to play God and join Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fire, except in a version of the story where Abednego was already dead, because everyone knows he was the annoying one in that group of friends. Grabbing hold of the branch, Peter lightly climbed over on to the tree. As they sat there making a plan, Peter wondered why grandfather was so upset. He had been in the meadow, but no farther away from the gate than the width of a tree. He could have run back inside in no time.

Peter said to the bird: “Fly down and circle around the wolf’s head, only take care that he doesn’t catch you.”

“And see if you can scratch its belly, too!” added the cat. A sudden and uncharacteristic sense of altruism and compassion came across the bird, and it followed Peter’s initiative, putting its life in great danger without having a clue why.

The bird almost touched the wolf’s head with her wings while the wolf snapped angrily at her from this side and that. How the bird did worry the wolf in the same way as a policeman is worried by a doughnut rolling down a hill away from him! How he wanted to catch her just like that gingerbread man! But the bird was cleverer, or “quicker” as a storyteller with less bias against the wolf might say, and the wolf simply couldn’t do anything about it.

Meanwhile, in no great rush in spite of his bird friend being in great danger, Peter made a lasso and carefully let it down. He had never used a lasso before, but he gave it his best shot, aimed for the wolf’s head and neck, and caught the wolf by the tail. A bit surprised, Peter decided to make do with the snare he had managed and pulled with all his might.

Feeling himself caught, the wolf began to jump wildly trying to get loose. “What did you manage to get yourself into?” wondered the wolf. “Especially considering this was supposed to be just a quick side snack.”

But Peter tied the other end of the rope to the tree, and the wolf’s jumping only made the rope around his tail tighter. The wolf was now very frustrated. He wasn’t caught, his tail was simply stuck tightly. He could have reached back and bitten the rope in two, freeing himself, but he worried that if he wasn’t able to the noose off of his tail, it would cut off circulation and he would lose his tail. He turned to Peter, and in a resolute and determined manner, delivered a speech that would sadly fall ununderstood by the human boy.

“I am Gray Wolf. Cousin of asphyxiated Big Bad Wolf. Second cousin of lumberjack- murdered other Big Bad Wolf. You ruined my hunt. You saved the lives of my snacks. You tricked me by giving me the bird. And now you caught my tail.

“I’m not leaving without that tail!”

Just then the hunters came out of the woods, following the wolf’s trail and shooting as they went. It has long since been a point of debate as to whether they were the world’s worst, noisiest animal trackers, or if one of them was a PETA member in disguise, tricking them into shooting at shadows, to ensure that they did not have a successful hunt. Skeptics of the reliability of the account given by Peter and the hunters point out that Peter, the wolf, the cat, or the bird would surely have heard the hunters coming long before they emerged from the forest, due to said gunfire.

When the hunters saw the wolf, they took aim, but Peter, sitting in the tree, cried: “Don’t shoot! Birdie and I have already caught the wolf! Now help us take him to the zoo.”

Perhaps it was because they realized they had wasted all of their bullets with their senseless shooting and were out of ammunition. Perhaps it was because they were embarrassed for having been unwittingly hunting and shooting so close to a residence where a young boy was playing outside. Perhaps it was because they respected the boy for doing with a rope what they had not been able to do with guns. Perhaps it was because they had a change of heart and decided that such a powerful and majestic creature should not be hunted, but should be admired by the masses while slouching around behind bars. But more likely, it was because they were so shocked and worried about the judgment and safety of a boy who thought he had corralled a powerful wolf by merely tying a rope around its tail, that they abandoned their hunt and agreed to escort the boy to the zoo.

The wolf, suddenly finding himself on the wrong end of several rifle barrels, lowered his head, amazed at his rotten luck.

And there, imagine the triumphant procession: Peter at the head, smiling broadly, and feeling rather proud of his antics and achievements, in the end, not having learned that lesson about heeding an authority figure’s warning … after him the hunters leading the wolf, who walked with his head low, mourning his fulfilled destiny of being a powerful, cunning fairy tale wolf who got captured by a far inferior and mostly inept foe thanks to some remarkably convenient occurrences … and winding up the procession, grandfather and the cat, who smiled, having achieved its ultimate goal of receiving a portion of the group’s glory, yet never having to lift so much as a paw or contribute anything.

Grandfather tossed his head, discontentedly, trying to instill the importance of what didn’t, but likely could have happened, with a vigor matched only by a parent whose child won big the first time they gambled: “Well, and if Peter hadn’t caught the wolf? What then?”

Above them flew Birdie chirping merrily: “My, what fine ones we are, Peter and I! Look, what we have caught!” Fortunately for Birdie, the rather tense hunters, who were still guarding the wolf, could not understand bird song, or they may have shot the little birdie for taking credit for what was, in reality, the hunter’s achievement.

And if one would listen very carefully, he could hear the duck quacking in the wolf’s belly, because the wolf in his hurry had swallowed her alive. Since an ending like that is just daring the world to come up with a worse ending: Peter took out a packed lunch of onion rings. Birdie started fluttering down to eat with Peter, but was having difficulty landing on his shoulder. One of the hunters took off his hunting coat, revealing a “Members Only” jacket and started acting fidgety. Then Peter heard a twig snap, he looked up and —

PETER AND THE WOLF
By Sergei Prokofiev
© 1937 by G. Schirmer Inc. (ASCAP)

Translation by W. Blok, 1961

By Juan Ersatzman

An Open Letter,
To Whom It May Concern,

I write to you to share my unique perspective on the events of February 11, 2015, and the dark days that followed. As I, personally, have become the target for a great deal of speculation, misinformation, and extremely hurtful language, I should like to take the opportunity to clear the air, and my name.
First of all, of course, I wish to offer my condolences to those who lost family members, pets, income, money, property, and so on during the uprising. I deeply feel your loss; I, too, felt as though some part of me was lost forever during those violent days. Also, for those who are left with lifelong emotional scars, be assured that I, too, am unable to sleep at night. Or during the day, most days. In general, I am haggard, sleepless, and exhausted.

Second, I wish to clarify the purpose of this letter: I write to explain, not to apologize. Of course, I’m sorry for what happened, but an apology is an acknowledgement that I did something wrong, and I didn’t. Moreover, I believe that after the public learns the truth about my actions and intentions during the PFHDDGZ uprising, they will agree that I have done no wrong.

The Prunitidian Uprising, as some call it, began in earnest at about 4:20 p.m. on February 11, 2015. At about 4:15 p.m., I was ambling from one of the employee parking garages of Imperium Holdings LLC (where I was then employed as junior vice president of monitoring for the Ombudsmanship Division, a job I have subsequently lost), to the firm’s main offices, when I encountered a homeless man of particularly shabby appearance, panhandling under the fountain that serves as a soothing centerpiece for the Fauxite Tower plaza.

As it happened, I’d been obliged earlier in the day to pay for an hour’s parking in the garage at the corner of 23rd and Short, and, as I’d left my wallet at home, all the money I had with me was the $20 bill my wife keeps rolled up in the cigarette lighter in our car for emergencies. My forgetfulness is a constant source of money-based emergencies. So, I took and used the 20 in an automated pay machine in the parking garage, because it makes paying and leaving much easier. I had forgotten that those infernal machines can accept all denominations of bill, but return change only in the form of quarters and dollar coins. This practice strikes me as poor planning, poor engineering, and poor form, overall. As a result of my run-in with this blighted waste of technology, I had $15, entirely in coins, bouncing and rattling in my pocket when I saw the homeless man.

Also, it was nearly Valentine’s Day, and my wife had been dropping hints and reminders for several weeks, on account of my having forgotten all about Valentine’s Day the previous year. Consequently, as I walked back to work, love was on my mind. I was watching the people around me, wondering if there was love in their lives, and if so, whether the people they loved left post-it notes on the steering wheel, with “Feb. 14” written in red ink inside of a heart.

So when I saw the homeless man huddled beneath the overhang of Fauxite’s ornamental fountain, I felt a deep sense of empathy and compassion. One glance was enough to know that he didn’t have much love in his life. He was a gaunt figure, miserably compressed into a heap of rags and bones, with his elbows and knees sticking out like the flying buttresses of a collapsed cathedral. His sleeves were too short, and his exposed forearms were bony and pale. His skin had a faint greenish hue, as though he was seasick. His face was long, and very thin, and twisted up in an expression of such bitterness that I was a little startled. He was holding a dented coffee can, and I could see that it was empty. Here, if anywhere, was a person who needed love. I took two brass coins out of my pocket, and dropped them into his empty Folger’s can. I stress that I did this out of a desire to show some love, to redeem the man’s humanity, and because the coins were extremely heavy, and I was afraid they would rip my pants.

It definitely was not my desire to bring about the End of Civilization, nor to unleash the extraterrestrial entity who had been styling himself as a divine being to the members of the Prunitidian Followers of His Demonic Divinity the Ghastly Zorgod, nor was it even my desire to provide myself with the position of relative security I occupied during the grim days of the PFHDDGZ uprising.

Naturally — and if you will examine the salvaged footage from the CCTV cameras in the plaza, you will see that this is the case — I was stupendously surprised when the figure I had taken to be a tragically dissipated beggar began to contort and inflate like the nightmare edition of a car dealership’s dancing balloons. I was so utterly taken aback that to this day, things that grow suddenly — such as birthday party balloons, dancing balloons at car dealerships, time-lapse photos of the life-cycle of plants and zoom effects in blockbuster action films — frequently trigger psychological episodes.

Even in that fateful moment, as the members of the PFHDDGZ, clad in their pitchy heathen vestments gathered around me, waving their war-cudgels and chanting their grim chant, I did not guess the truth. It was really only after Zorgod started summoning fireballs and inflicting irreparable destruction on the business district that it crossed my mind that something might be genuinely wrong. Even then, I was inclined to understand the whole affair as an elaborate practical joke in exceedingly poor taste. I assure the public, and the authorities that I considered, and still consider the chant, “Death to your god, all hail Zorgod!” disgusting, disrespectful, and completely unacceptable for a modern, pluralistic society, even as a joke. Of course, the PFHDDGZ was not joking. They were sincerely embarking on a violent revolution founded on savagery, the worship of an alien, and two brass dollars.

Footage will confirm that just before the PFHDDGZ stormed the Fauxite building, and destroyed the cameras, I joined in the chant. This was purely in the interest of my own safety, as the PFHDDGZ had begun to lay into onlookers and bystanders with their war cudgels.

At no point neither in the available footage, nor thereafter, did I summon any fireballs. It is true that I took up a cudgel and began to flail it about, but I did my utmost to avoid really plastering anyone. When I absolutely couldn’t help hitting someone, I tried very hard to just tap them softly. Either way, it should be clear from my testimony, and the video that these were the actions of an alarmed citizen, acting in self-preservation, not those of a religious fanatic greedily ravaging the financial district.

In the aftermath of that first wild attack, the PFHDDGZ uprising spread through the city, and beyond. Throughout the country, the disenfranchised, the excited investors, and the ghoulish maniacs came flocked from the shadows to trade their jumpsuits, business suits, and highly personal fashion statements for black robes and knobby cudgels. In some cases, knobby cudgels were not enough, and were augmented with auxiliary weapons such as guns, cannons, and bombs.

It is true that during this time of terror, I was installed as the Dishonorably Exalted Liberator of His Dread Divinity. This was the product of a misunderstanding. It seems that the dropping of two dollar coins into the jar was a pre-arranged signal between Zorgod and the PFHDDGZ. They didn’t take into account that someone else might have two dollar coins, and might give them to Zorgod. I came gradually to understand that the rest of the PFHDDGZ believed me to be a fringe member who had brought about a coup, of sorts, by slinking in ahead of the man in line to become the Dishonorably Exalted Liberator of His Dread Divinity. I was held in great esteem for this bit of Machiavellian charity.

It must be noted, though, that mine was primarily an honorary title, and I was neither included in, nor had any power to change any of the decisions made by Zorgod and his closest advisors in the days that followed. Much as I would have loved to publicly condemn and halt the nightly cudgel rampages, I was powerless to do so.

I would also note, for the benefit of my many critics, that these were days in which law was forgotten, the future of humanity hung in the balance, and every man and woman did whatever they thought was necessary for survival and for the protection of their loved ones. Many of those involved in lootings, shootings and other felonious escapades that took place during that time have been allowed to roam free on account of the extenuating circumstance of the PFHDDGZ uprising. It seems bizarre that I should be condemned simply for omitting to point out to cudgel-wielding zealots who both thought an extraterrestrial entity was a demon, and also worshiped him because of it, that they had it wrong, and I wasn’t in ideological communion with their delusional creed.

Naturally, however, I became a witness to the terrible deeds of the PFHDDGZ, and more specifically, the atrocities committed by Zorgod, that pitiless destroyer. I came to see in his gruesome activities the true face of evil. One evening, as we returned from an unsettlingly gory outing to the opera, I resolved, at the possible expense of my life, to take action.

First, I petitioned Zorgod to allow my wife to travel to visit her mother in Huckstable, Iowa, a pleasant rural farming community, ostensibly to win her mother to the true Prunitidian faith. When permission was granted, I asked my wife to find a way to covertly send me a firearm, with which I hoped to restore my own reputation, and end the hellish reign of Zorgod. She managed to do so by concealing different parts of the gun inside three rounds of genuine Huckstable Swiss cheese, a local specialty. Having received the gun and eaten the cheese, I made my plans, prepared myself to die, and waited for a chance.

In planning my assassination attempt, I was unable to make contact with the CIA, the FBI, MI6, the Mossad, or any other government agency, due to the restrictions on my movements as the Dishonorably Exalted Liberator of His Dread Divinity. Consequently, I was not aware of the CIA’s plans to send an operative to assassinate Zorgod by serving him chocolate laced with high levels of gluten, to which he was deathly allergic, due in part to its not being found at all on his home planet.

Because of this ignorance (through no fault of my own) I did not realize that the servant approaching Zorgod with a food tray was an agent of the United States government. All I saw was Zorgod heaving his gruesome body from the throne, and gliding toward the food with his back turned to me.

I stepped trembling from my own modest throne. With a shaking hand, I removed the pistol from the dark folds of my PFHDDGZ robe, took aim at the midpoint in Zorgod’s back, and fired.

I did not realize, and don’t see how I can be blamed for not realizing, that Zorgod’s species of extraterrestrials’ abdomens are composed of a hitherto-unknown biological form of gaseous matter. It never occurred to me, couldn’t have occurred to me, that my bullet would pass straight through Zorgod’s vaporous body without harming him. I could certainly never have planned that the bullet would pass through Zorgod and strike the courageous assassin in the forehead, killing her, and cutting short what I am assured, and fully believe was an extremely promising career in extraterrestrial assassination.

Once again, against my will, I was proclaimed a hero of the movement and elevated to the status of Gruesome Preserver of His Horribility (sic). But I was also reprimanded, flogged for possession of a firearm, and dispossessed of the weapon. Thereafter, my communications were more closely guarded, and I was more completely unable to carry on correspondence of any kind with outside groups.

Additionally, I was bedridden for two weeks, recovering from the wounds I received in the flogging.
Thus I was not aware that other heroic assassins had stepped into the void left by their fallen comrade. Nor, even in the drama of the attempted assassination and unintended slaughter of the assassin, was I made aware that the sticky, elastic nature of gluten products makes them glob onto semi-gaseous beings of Zorgod’s race, just as gluten itself overwhelms and poisons their biological systems.

Naturally, then, when in the afternoon of May 15, 2015, as I crossed the rubble-strewn courtyard of the downtown Regal Suites Luxury Hotel (a place hitherto frequented by my wife and I for anniversary celebrations, but from which I have been permanently barred, and can no longer think of without weeping, anyway), following in the ceremonial train of Zorgod’s entourage, I was not anticipating the onslaught of the final, glorious, and — most importantly — successful attack on his gruesome preeminence.

It was a complete surprise to me when those heroes of freedom, those tireless laborers in the cause of liberty, the CIA spooks who were crouched just outside, commenced to fling turgid tubes of lukewarm whole-wheat crescent rolls at us, in over the brick walls. All at once, my blue sky was filled with wasted pastry. As I spun in confusion, moist pops echoed off the bricks like mildewy gunshots, and sticky globs of dough flopped and squelched all around me. Is it any wonder, then, that I put my hands over my head, and shouted “What the hell? Stop it, stop it, stop it!”? Is it not a monstrous work of misinterpretation to assume that I had some malevolent purpose? Who among us, assaulted by crescent rolls, without being explicitly told that the crescent rolls were necessary for overthrowing an extraterrestrial maniac, would not object?

As the assault continued, the beglutened lumps of doomed baked goods adhered to Zorgod’s misty bottom, and he contorted, twisting in knots around the dough. More tubes rained down, splitting, splatting, splotching and accreting to him. As they beheld his floundering, the PFHDDGZ stood astounded, cudgels hanging limply. Several members started to chant, but they were all different words, and it became a wan burble and died away. From the bubbling, hissing wound on Zorgod’s ephemeral abdomen emanated a curious smell of baking, and a steamy cloud of vapor that curled and distorted in the sunshine. As I stood transfixed, staring, I felt a hard blow to the back of my head. I stumbled and fell to my knees. Melting trails of dough oozed down my neck. Zorgod was thrashing, spasmodically shredding the air with his ruinous talons. Despite his cries, and the popping of the dough, I could hear the upraised voices of brave men and women outside the walls, chanting “USA! USA! USA!” Hope rose within me.

Another tube caught me in the neck and knocked me flat.

I rolled over, staring up. I saw Zorgod, flailing as the CIA’s righteous band of clandestine killers began to clamber over the wall, advancing past the nerveless PFHDDGZ. They were no longer throwing crescent rolls. They were squirting beer out of toy guns, soaking Zorgod’s horrible frame in gluten-y liquid.
It was the end. Zorgod jerked, shrieked, summoned an oily, hiccupping fireball, and was gone. The fireball shot straight up in the air, hissed, spat, and dissipated overhead with a sizzle.

In the aftermath, as I lay prone in the courtyard, I raised my arms to the heavens, and tried to give a great cry of joy, but all that came out was a broken, teary burble. This burble has been misinterpreted by several commentators as a sign of agitation and sorrow at the passing of Zorgod, a charge I thoroughly reject. Unfortunately, the first group to misinterpret my emotion was the CIA. I cannot blame them for their actions, but they took me into custody, along with the bedraggled remnant of the PFHDDGZ.
Since that time, I have become a hot commodity for those who make their living by commenting on the lives of others. My present confinement is, admittedly, not very different from my time in the regime of Zorgod, but I’m permitted a few more media materials. This is a wonderful change, but when I read what is being said in these materials, I’m disheartened.

I’m disheartened by accusations that I was somehow in league with Zorgod and intentionally facilitated his escape. This is ridiculous, and very few people openly assert it. However, I’m also disheartened by those who don’t question my intentions, but loudly criticize my actions. They assert that I ought to have seen the greenish hue of Zorgod’s skin where he slumped in the guise of a beggar. I ought to have noticed the abnormal concentration of people in baggy clothing (concealing robes), I never ought to have interfered with the CIA assassin, or tried to assassinate Zorgod myself, trusting the job to the professionals, rather than bungling it myself, and on and on and on. I ought, in short, they say, to have acted like everything that happened was a likely thing to happen.

These conclusions are invalid, and worse than that; they are the pompous product of commentators stretching a threadbare curtain of intellectualism across the disgusting reality of their pettiness and fear. Their criticisms are based on information I didn’t know, and couldn’t have known. They lean from the windows of their wobbling ivory towers, thrown together with no foundation, and point me out with trembling fingers of baseless judgment. Behind every “You should have done this,” and “You shouldn’t have done that,” and every accusation of “Mind-boggling stupidity” and “well-intentioned imbecility,” all their shrillness boils down to this: “How dare you not know, and act upon information that you could not have known?”

This is a question I can’t answer, and one I don’t intend to. To live in fear of what I can’t know, and of receiving blame for unforeseeable disaster seems to me to be capitulation to paralysis. I was out of my depth, flung into a moment with no precedent for action, and I did the best I could — I did what seemed most right. Am I sorry for the way things turned out? Do I wish I would’ve known what I know now? Of course I am. Of course I do. Do I regret my actions, do I think I ought to have done differently?

Not in the least.

Yours respectfully,
Gerry Urskine Jr.