I never sleep, so I don't think this is a dream. I lie in my bed in the plains, and toilets start flushing up and down the hall as if they have a mind of their own. It's driving me crazy.

There's an eye above the sky that imagines itself to be the child of that woman who drowned herself long before she could conceive a single word of explanation that would explain why the dishes haven't been done.

There's a chink in the sword of the onion. There's something missing that otherwise would be running down the road with a chicken under its left arm--and the whole time I'm left without a penny for the pickles.

Saturday the roosters picked up and road. They hadn't said a thing about wanting to hang flyers, but there they were, all over the mist and the dogsleds. I thought they had gone over the edge, but it was just an excess of genetic mutation. Who can say why these things happen? If the police came, they would probably start marching around with bayonets in their mouths, but oh no, they've got better things to do: the babies need their diapers changed.

When I finally open my ears, I hear robins playing hiding peaks in the open meadows. They don't speak of magnets, but I know what they're saying. How could I not? When the time comes, Marianne will have her way.

I scream, but it does no good. I go to the doctor, but he just says I have to take the garbage out. The ministers are coming today, and there will be monkeys living in the tenements of every city on this block. Hanging by their chairs. Living in the substance that oozes from their cranes. It's impossible not to notice.

I try to imagine if there's a single line of reasoning that won't take me over the meadow and through the words every damn time. It's sickening. The water's been wasted. The bananas are gone. All I'm left with is this crazy pink lamp shining in the forest.