Dan and Jay slept on the fold-out while Bob retired to his bedroom. Jay said nothing of his visions outside. He couldn’t even decide whether Faith had been real or not. In the morning, Bob woke them for breakfast.

“Dan,” Jay asked over cereal, “have you thought about your thesis?”

“My what?”

“Your thesis. We came to Wyoming to research the Sheridanian Virgils for your Religious-Studies thesis.”

“Oh, right.” Dan pushed flakes across milk with his spoon. “Maybe the college will inspire me.”

After breakfast they walked to Bob’s truck. Jay dialed his phone. “I’ll let Ms. Lyn know we’re coming.”

“Who?” asked Bob. Dan sat in the back.

“The college’s event-coordinator. I called her at the bar to arrange our meeting.” Jay sat shotgun. Bob revved the engine and pulled out. “Hello, Ms. Lyn? Sure, I’ll hold.” Jay dated a fresh page in his notepad. Bob steered his truck toward the mountains. “Ms. Lyn? It’s Jay Diaz-Jackson.” He nodded. “Just wanted to let you know I’d arrive soon.” Jay nodded again but knotted his brow. He lowered his phone then returned it to his ear. “Could you repeat that?” Jay nodded uneasily. “Thanks. I’ll see you soon.”

“What’d she say?” asked Dan.

Jay shook his head before he hung up. “She said they’ve arrived ahead of us.”

“Who has?” asked Dan.

“She didn’t say.”

Bob drove the winding mountain roads so quickly Dan clutched himself and chewed his gloves in terror. Jay watched clouds peek over peaks like boiling cream. “Almost there!” Bob pointed to buildings dotting the mountainside. “See that lecture-hall? That’s where Virgil Blue said all the nothing!”

Bob parked with such enthusiasm Dan’s body rocked forward. As the three stepped from the truck, a woman in high-heels waved. “Mr. Jackson?”

“Diaz-Jackson, but please, call me Jay.” Jay shook her hand. “You’re Ms. Lyn?”

“Yep. Follow me.”

Ms. Lyn led Dan, Jay, and Bob onto campus. “Hey, wait,” said Bob, “this ain’t the way to the lecture-hall!”

“I couldn’t reserve the lecture-hall,” said Ms. Lyn. “I booked you a private room usually reserved for one-on-one counseling.”

Dan finally recovered from the drive. “But we’re supposed to see where Virgil Blue sat.”

“I’m sorry?” asked Ms. Lyn.

Jay explained while Ms. Lyn ushered them into an administration-building. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I wanted to meet you, Ms. Lyn. I wanted to discuss the Virgils of Sheridan.”

“Oh.” Ms. Lyn put her hands on her hips. “But they said they wanted to meet you.”

“The Virgils of Sheridan want to meet me?”

“They called two days ago, just minutes before you did,” said Ms. Lyn. “I thought you wanted me to arrange your meeting.”

They rounded a corner. Virgil Jango Skyy sat in a school-chair attached to a tiny desk. Jay gasped and hustled to him. “Jango!” he said. “Virgil Skyy!”

Jango opened his good eye and smiled at Dan, Jay, Bob, and Lyn. He stood, took his cane, and bowed his head. “Oran dora.”

“Hey, that’s one of the guys!” Bob gestured for Dan to follow. “You gotta get a selfie with this dude for your thesis!”

Jay struggled for words. “Why are you here?”

“You’re here, aren’t you?” said Jango. “There are no coincidences.”

Ms. Lyn folded her arms. “The Virgils arrived by bus half an hour ago.”

“Me and Blue. Green is busy as always.” Jango brushed wrinkles from his robes. “Jay, I hope our abrupt arrival has not caught you off-guard.”

“It’s an honor to meet you again,” said Jay, “but why?”

Jango took air through his teeth. His good eye squinted. “There’s a story,” he began, after judging the audience worthy of hearing it, “of a sage who knew how the world would end. Men climbed to the sage’s cave to ask about the apocalypse, but the sage never answered.

“One day,” continued Jango, “someone climbed to the cave and asked, ‘how will the world end?’ The sage, as usual, said nothing. They just sat facing the darkness.

“The climber repeated, ‘how will the world end?’ and again, the sage said nothing.

“The climber repeated, ‘how will the world end?’

“And the sage said, ‘the world ends when the Chain and the Wheel are one, and no souls remain to salvage. Then the eternities are over.’

“The climber was thrilled, but had to ask, ‘why answer me but no one else?’

“And the sage said, ‘because you asked three times.’ ”

Jango beamed. Dan and Jay just looked at each other. Bob cocked his head like a dog.

“Twenty years ago,” said Jango, “Faith met me as a fox on the main island of Sheridan. Ten years ago, Faith met me here at Sheridan Cliff-Side College. A week ago, Faith met me a third time.” From his sleeve, Jango produced the holiday-card which Faith had sent with Jay. He showed them the fox which Faith had drawn and signed inside. “I cannot ignore someone who meets me three times, even if the third time is only pictorially. There are no coincidences. I knew if I made the barest effort I’d find the visitors I expected. So!” He clapped his hands. “Where is Faith Featherway?”

Dan, Jay, and Bob shared a glance. “Um.” Jay put a hand over his heart. “I’m afraid Faith died days ago. She was struck by lightning.”

Jango deflated. He looked down the hall as if Faith would appear around the corner. “Impossible.”

“I’m afraid so,” said Bob. Dan wiped his eyes. “Sorry.”

Jango Skyy covered his mouth. “But the Mountain arranged this meeting.”

“I arranged this meeting,” muttered Ms. Lyn.

“The Mountain and Ms. Lyn did their best,” offered Jay. “We’re Faith’s friends and family. You’re here to hear of her death directly from us in person.”

“I suppose.” Jango rapped his cane on the floor. “Thank you.”

“Geez,” said Bob, “I’d hate to send you home empty-handed. Can I buy you a bagel?”

“Wait,” Jay interjected. “You said Virgil Blue is here? Now?”

“Yes.” Jango pointed to a nearby door. “Waiting for Faith.”

“May we interview them?”

Jango raised the eyebrow over his clear eye while squinting his cataract. “The Blue Virgil is rarely in a speaking mood.”

“Then I’ll just take pictures and Dan can take notes.” Jay shook his camera. “You can supervise us if you’d like, so we don’t disrespect the honorable Virgil.”

Jango sighed. “Nah, go on in.” He walked beside Bob. “I’ll take you up on that bagel while we wait.”

“Me too,” said Dan. They left the door to Jay.

Next Section
Commentary

Faith rode wind back to the red mountain. If nothing else, Anihilato had convinced her to distrust Bug-Bird. Her mentor was awfully tight-beaked.

She landed on the mountain and scratched the dust until Bug-Bird opened a cave and crawled out. “Did you deal with our visitor?”

“That was some errand,” said Faith. “Anihilato almost nabbed me!”

“Anihilato is out of my control,” said the Heart of the Mountain. “I’m sorry it was unpleasant. I would do the job myself if it wasn’t…” They shifted weight and leaned like a tree in the wind.

“Dangerous?” asked Faith.

“Dangerous for me, but not for you.”

“What, am I expendable?”

The Heart sighed. “If Anihilato consumed you, it would be acceptable for reasons I can’t explain.”

“There’s an awful lot you can’t explain.” Faith peered into the yawning cave. “What’re you hiding?”

Faith leapt for the cave. “Wait!” The Heart blocked her with a blue wing. “I know you’re confused. I’ll find someone to communicate on your level.” The Heart rolled out the white wing to cover the cave walls. Faith followed them into the red mountain.

The white wing propelled them through the green haze. Faith regarded the Heart stiffly. “You collect worms, right? Why don’t you collect Anihilato? Keeping a monster like that has gotta be an OSHA violation.”

“Anihilato is separate from me just like you are,” said the Heart. “Anihilato couldn’t service me if I consumed it. When I find worms I dare not swallow, I know Anihilato will eat them. It may even try to eat me.”

“Hmpf.” Faith’s tail flitted. “Where are we going? And when?”

“It’s not an exact science.” The Heart directed Faith to stand in the center of the white wing. “Guide the wing with your whim. Quest for your questions. Sight what you seek.”

Faith didn’t know what that meant, but she knew how to guide the wing. She weaved it left and right. “I just want to understand what’s happening to me.”

“That’s a lot to ask,” said the Heart. “Would you settle for accepting your situation whether you understood it or not? That’s more than most manage.”

Faith reflected.

She let the wing whisk her where it wanted.

The wingtip burst through the green surface of reality. Faith watched razor-glaciers glide by.

The Heart produced a blue feather. Faith took the feather in her teeth and dipped it in reality’s surface. The feather’s wake shimmered sky-blue.

“Don’t take too long,” said the Heart, “but take your time.”

Faith leapt into the wake.

“And now I’m here!” Faith’s hind legs thumped the grass in appreciation of Jay’s scratching. “So JayJay, what have you been up to while I’m gone?”

“My story’s not as important as yours.” Jay extinguished the cockroach-butt in snow. “I’m glad you’re alright, Faith, and doubly glad to see you again.”

“How’s Dainty?”

Jay leaned on Bob’s porch. “He’s in mourning, let’s say.”

Faith whimpered. “Are you sure I can’t pop in and meet him?”

“I’m not even sure he could see you,” said Jay. “You might be my personal hallucination. After all, your story is suspiciously like an anime I just watched while totally bug-eyed. You’re a figment of my imagination.”

“I promise I’m not!” swore Faith. “I just want to tell Dainty everything’s okay. He hides it, but he’s a nervous wreck without me.”

“I know it well as you do.” Jay wagged a finger at her. “But you’ll have to return to the red mountain eventually. Would you make Dan lose you twice?”

Faith opened her mouth to protest, but saw Jay’s point and just pouted. “Take care of him for me, then.”

“I’m trying.” Jay stood and brushed dust off his suit-pants. “I’m taking him to the Islands of Sheridan. I’m taking him to the Virgils.”

“You think the Virgils can help Dainty cope?”

“I promise.” Jay crossed his heart. “And if Anihilato is right—if you’re really dead—then you’ll see Dan someday. You’ll meet him in the Mountain.”

“Hmpf.” Faith pawed the dirt. “I don’t think that mountain is right for Dainty. I don’t trust Bug-Bird anymore.”

“Me neither,” said Jay, “but they’ve taught you a valuable lesson.” Faith’s ears perked. “When the Heart sent you to discard the tooth-monster’s worms, it was because they couldn’t risk touching the teeth themselves, and wanted to stay away from Anihilato. In the same way, don’t worry about Dan. Let me worry about Dan. Trust me to treat Dan’s interests as my own.”

Faith smiled. She turned with Jay to watch the moon. “Okay.”

Her tail steamed. Her body was buoyed back above the horizon.

Next Chapter
Commentary

Faith lost count of how many times she wrapped the white wing across reality’s green circle. It took ages to make the trek, but the wing was so fluffy and sweet-smelling that Faith didn’t mind the time. She flew so easily she wasn’t sure if she dragged the wing along or if the wing propelled her and she merely directed it.

Each time she surfaced, she admired her handiwork. Her arcing wrapped the white wing near the circle’s center, but not too near, because the Heart warned it might tempt her. Still, she couldn’t imagine anything more ensnaring than the sweet scent of the white wing.

The Heart warned Faith the wing might speak. Faith never heard it speak, but it was an excellent listener. When she whispered secrets into it, warmth washed over her.

“You smell familiar,” Faith said through her teeth as she gripped the wing again. “What’s the name of your perfume?”

The wing didn’t respond, but Faith pretended it did.

“I’m sure I’m hallucinating,” said Faith. “I bet you’re a real person sitting with me wherever I’m tripping. Thanks for the company!” The wing cradled Faith as they wrapped the Wheel together. Faith kept wrapping until the Heart of the Mountain appeared so swiftly her jaw dropped the wingtip. “Bug-Bird! What’s up? Is the Wheel still wobbly?”

“The Wheel is sturdy, thanks to you.” The Heart took the wing from Faith with ten human hands. Faith floated in the green haze. “I have another favor to ask.”

“Anything, Bug-Bird!”

“I met a visitor on the Mountain in an awful state. I dare not grant them Zephyrhood in their current condition. Please take them to Anihilato.”

“Anihilato?”

The Heart swaddled Faith in the white wing as if tucking her into bed. “Take them into the desert. Leave them in a deep valley. Don’t dawdle too long.” The wing coiled like a carpet and spun Faith until she lost consciousness.

Faith woke on the red mountain when she felt sun on her fur. She stretched and yawned and opened her eyes.

The visitor was a ball of shuddering teeth whose cracking crowns caused such cacophony Faith cowered behind rocks, eyes closed and paws over her ears.

When the cracking stopped, she peeked around the rocks. In place of the teeth, ten thousand worms tussled in a puddle. Faith wouldn’t tackle teeth, but she’d fought worms and won. She skulked behind them.

Just before the worms escaped off the ledge, Faith nabbed them in her teeth. “Nice try!”

Faith turned into a cloud and carried the worms far from the red mountain. Being a cloud was almost fun as being a fox, but she was on business, so she didn’t dally with fanciful flights. She whisked the worms over the desert and chose a valley between two dunes.

Rather than drop the worms from altitude, she decided to descend and set them on the sand—but when she looked down, she froze in fear of the height and fell like a hailstone. When she hit the sand, she burst into snow. The worms scattered across the valley.

Faith’s collected herself and shook out limbs. “You wormies doing alright?”

The valley collapsed into an antlion’s conical deathtrap. She kicked and shouted at the monster emerging from the center. It whipped arms from underneath the sand to grab Faith by her hind legs. “Hey! Leggo!”

“I’ve got you! You’re mine!”

“No! Stop!” said Faith. Anihilato used ten hands to smush her into shapeless snow. It used the other ten hands to eat worms off the sand. “Ew, gross!”

“Gross?” Anihilato licked worm-guts from its lipless mouth. “My hunger knows no disgust. I eat my own eggs just because the yolks are warm.”

“I eat worms too, but at least I’m not one myself!” Faith’s snow morphed around Anihilato’s fingers. Anihilato oppressed her with palms while it ate the last worms. “Uugh! Hey!” Faith steamed through Anihilato’s grasp. The more Anihilato swiped at the steam, the more Faith aerosolized. She formed a cloudy fox above the monster. “You’re Anihilato, right? I figured you were awful.”

“Awe-inspiring, you mean!”

“You inspire something in me, for sure.” She hovered just above Anihilato’s grasp. “You got your worms, so I’m leaving.”

“No!” Anihilato reached higher than Faith thought possible. Its muscular back held it upright like a snake charmed from a pot. She still steamed through its fingers. “You belong to me! I own you!”

Faith climbed water-vapor like a spiral staircase. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Your Eternity-Card is in my box of souls!”

“Huh?” Faith floated well out of reach. “Bug-Bird didn’t mention anything like that.”

“Mentioned or unmentioned, you’ve died, and your soul is rightfully mine. Descend so I might obliterate you.”

Faith laughed. “I’m not dead. I’m hallucinating!”

“Oh really? Is that what the Mountain told you?”

Faith said nothing.

“You wouldn’t mind descending to your obliteration if this was hallucinatory.”

“Hm.” Faith sat on her haunches mid-air. “…I guess that’s right?”

“So come.”

Faith considered Anihilato’s offer. Anihilato blinked its six eyes. “No,” said Faith. “If I’m hallucinating, I’ll go where I choose, and I’d never choose to be down there with you ever again!”

“Where do you choose to be, then?”

Faith considered the dunes. “Mars, apparently. Interning for Olympus Mons.”

“You fool.” Anihilato scowled. “You—you frigid rat! You’re mine!”

“Keep talking.” Faith ascended. “I see why Bug-Bird keeps you way out here.”

Next Section
Commentary

While the Heart climbed into the red mountain, Faith considered the job-offer. It might be nice to be a Will-o-Wisp, and Zephyrhood sounded like too much responsibility. After all, she was hallucinating! When she sobered up, would she even remember her interview with a giant bird?

The mountain rumbled as the Heart exhumed itself head-first by undulating its robed body. When the hem of its robe passed the lip of the cave, Faith gasped: the Heart’s lower half was a blue tentacle long and thick as its body. Its suckers dragged a white wing from the depths. The Heart withdrew the tentacle and became a sky-blue cloth cone with a sapphire head.

“Maybe I’ll be your Will-o-Wisp,” said Faith, “but first I need to know more about you, Heart-Bird-Mountain-thing!”

“Ask what you want.” The Heart unsleeved ten blue human arms and spiraled the white wing to cover the cave-interior. “This wing will insulate you from the Mountain.”

Faith followed the Heart onto the wing and into the cave. Her weight didn’t bend feathers beneath her. “First, what do I call you? Heart of the Mountain’s a mouthful. Would Bug-Bird be okay?”

“Call me what you want,” said the Heart of the Mountain.

Behind Faith, the wingtip curled up and blocked the sunlight. She heard the cave’s mouth close. “Okay, but do you have, like, pronouns? He, she, they?” Faith smelled tentacle-brine. “It?”

The Heart pondered pronouns. “Let me think.” They thought. “They. Sometimes she, but nowadays mostly they.”

“Gotcha, Bug-Bird. They, them, theirs.” Faith’s surreal situation didn’t concern her. In fact, she grew bored walking in the dark. “Are we there yet?”

“Listen.”

Faith heard noise like flocks of birds. “What’s that?”

The white wing rolled her up like a coiling carpet. She and the Heart spun deep into the mountain faster than they could’ve fallen. The down swaddled Faith so comfortably and smelled so sweet that she fell asleep.

When she woke, green haze replaced the darkness. She sat on a slender white peak. She felt heavy, and realized the peak was accelerating upward beneath her. Beside her, the Heart glared at the green haze with inscrutable intent. “Where’s that white wing?” asked Faith.

“We’re on its tip.”

“Where are we?”

“I just said, on the white wing’s tip.”

“I mean, what’s all that green?”

“It’s not green. One side is blue and the other side is yellow. See?” They shook a sleeve at the green haze. “I’m not sure I can explain.”

“Try, at least. Isn’t this a tour?”

“We’re in the Mountain, but all of reality is in the Mountain, so that doesn’t narrow it down.” The Heart pointed their longest feather like an index-finger. “Do you see how the blue chases the yellow and the yellow chases the blue?”

“Sure,” lied Faith.

“That’s the Wheel. The Wheel’s turning makes the future into the present, the present into the past, and the past into the future. But the Wheel is wobbling.”

“Wobbling?”

“Hold on.”

Faith held the white wing.

In the next instant she saw yellow and blue above her. She wasn’t sure which she saw first or last before she passed through that ceiling into darkness. The wing thrust them an immeasurable distance outside reality.

The Heart of the Mountain showed her the green circle below, but Faith gawked at the black sky. “Gosh, there aren’t even stars out here!”

“Of course not. Reality is beneath us.” Faith noticed the green circle wasn’t smooth: razor-thin triangular glaciers streaked from the bright center to the rim. Some glaciers were millimeters tall. Some were tall as trees. The Heart pointed to a green bulge on the horizon which warped the flow of the razor-glaciers. “That’s the wobble in the Wheel.”

“I don’t know how to fix something like that.”

“I understand.” The Heart sat cross-legged (if there were even legs under the robes). “I can’t communicate my predicament to you. I must send you to an acquaintance.”

“A Zephyr?”

“A Virgil.” The Heart commanded the white wing to sink near the green circle’s surface.

“Virgil Skyy or Virgil Blue?” asked Faith. “I’ve met both!”

“Have you now?”

“Uh-huh! In Wyoming!”

The Heart dipped a blue feather in the green circle. In the feather’s wake, the circle shimmered yellow. “Well, do you have an offering to exchange for a lesson from the Virgils?”

“I’ve got cockroaches.” Faith bat her ear with a hind leg and knocked a roach to the feathery floor. “But I don’t think they’d like `em.”

“What would they prefer, pray tell?”

“Crickets!” said Faith. “I’m sure they’d like a bug-stick.”

“Goodness.” The Heart covered their beak with their free wing. “I’ve left humanity with bad habits. So be it. Give me the roach.” They swept the roach under their robes. They returned the roach as a massive, elaborately-wrapped cricket.

“Wow!” Faith tucked the bug-stick behind her ear. “Now what?”

“Hop in.” The Heart gestured to the yellow region of reality in the feather’s wake. “I’ve prepared your arrival on their island.”

“Oh geez.” Faith stepped to the edge of the wing. “Are you sure, Bug-Bird?”

“Absolutely.”

Faith leapt.

“Virgil Skyy told me about your meeting,” said Jay.

“Okay,” said Faith, “I’ll skip that part.”

Faith steamed from the green circle and snowed back onto the white wing. The Heart of the Mountain helped her sculpt herself into a fox. “Did the Virgils explain my predicament?”

“Not really. We talked about space-robots more than anything else.”

“Perhaps you weren’t prepared for the highest revelations.” The Heart walked along the white wing. “In any case, you can see the Wheel’s wobble represents a cosmic imbalance. If the Chain were pulled, the Wheel would warp so wildly the Mountain melts.”

“Ohhh. Why didn’t you say so?” Faith followed at the Heart’s right hand. “I can imagine a mountain melting.”

“So can I.” The Heart’s eyes tilted with worry. “So come.” They extended ten human hands and folded the white wingtip. They showed the narrowed tip to Faith. “This Zephyr has remarkable properties. The wings stretch to any length and seem indestructible. If we reinforce the Wheel with the wing, it will spin quickly as the Chain demands with nary a wobble. Take this wingtip in your teeth.”

Faith did. The wingtip was smooth and thin as a rabbit’s felted ear.

“Jump back into reality and wrap the wing across its breadth, then pop out the other side,” said the Heart, “again and again and again, adding feathery spokes to the Wheel.”

“Seems easy enough,” Faith mumbled through feathers.

“Stay away from the Wheel’s center. It might tempt you, but touching it will scatter your consciousness across the cosmos.” The Heart turned to leave and Faith prepared to leap into the green circle. “And,” remembered the Heart, “if the wingtip speaks, ignore it. It’s new here.”

Next Section
Commentary

Faith remembered blinding light, and then she remembered a rust-colored desert with an empty yellow sky.

She climbed a dune on four paws. Near the crest, she noticed tiny holes in the sand. She couldn’t resist clawing at the holes until she uncovered a wriggling worm. She slurped it from its hole like spaghetti. As she chewed, she realized it was totally gross. Why had she done this? Was it worse to spit, or finish the job?

She glimpsed her tail. She noticed the black nose on her white snout. “I’m a fox!” she said. “I must be hallucinating.” Foxes can eat worms, so she swallowed.

Atop the dune, she surveyed the desert. Dunes wrinkled from horizon to horizon. A red mountain sloped like the Pyramids of Giza. Faith leapt and let warm wind carry her into a valley with three giddy glides.

In the valley, Faith sniffed a new scent. She sleuthed for the source and found dry grass. The grass snapped at the slightest touch, and the roots reacted by wriggling. Faith bit the roots and pulled them to the surface.

“Huh.” She’d unearthed two cockroaches whose spindly legs were roots and whose antennae were stalks of grass. “People actually smoke these things? Yuck.” She rolled them with her paw. Roaches were thicker than crickets, but stubby. They came wrapped in their own wings right out of the dirt. They smelled like burnt spices. “I don’t even have a lighter. Sheesh.” She tucked a roach behind each ear for later.

She found a hole as big around as her paw. Was it left by a worm just as wide? She salivated and dug until she found its pink nub. She bit it and pulled. The worm squirmed and its pink nub slipped under the sand. “Shucks.” Faith resumed digging.

A thunderclap made her pause. The Heart of the Mountain, the Biggest Bird, flew over the valley on a forty-foot wingspan and a sonic boom. It landed without legs, without claws, just robes-to-sand. The bird stashed its wings in its sleeves. “Let me show you how it’s done.” It bent over the hole and examined the worm-nub.

“You’re scaring it,” said Faith. “It’s digging away!”

A blue tentacle slithered out one sleeve. The tentacle was too thick to probe the hole, but pulsated to narrow its tip. The slim tentacle-tip extracted the worm from its hole with surgical precision.

“Wow!” Faith tried to clap her paws. “You’re really something, aren’t you!”

“Indeed.” The Mountain’s Heart ate the worm with its stout yellow beak. Then it examined Faith with its compound emerald eyes. Thousands of crystalline lenses focused on the white fox. “We’ve met. Your name is Faith.”

“Uh-huh! And you’re the Heart of the Mountain.” Faith sat. “I met you during my first centipede-trip!”

“Do you know why you’re here?”

“I’m hallucinating!”

“Under whose supervision?”

“Um.” Faith tried to remember. “Probably my friend Dan.”

“I see.” The Heart sprouted wings from its sleeves and splayed feathers on the sand. “Climb me.”

“Sure!” Faith walked up one wing. “Where are we going?”

“To the Mountain.”

“Gee.” Faith sat on the Heart’s head. “Is the Wheel spinning?”

Facets of the compound eyes slid around the Heart’s head to peer at Faith. “Why do you ask?”

“Aaugh!” Faith reared away from the sliding eyes. “Last time we met, you wanted to stuff me in a mountain because the Wheel was spinning. Is it spinning now? Am I a Zephyr?”

“We’re all Zephyrs, at the end.” The Heart collected its eyeballs and steam poured from its robes. Faith clung to the Heart’s head and they zoomed above the dunes. “As it happens, the Wheel is in danger. My duty is collecting worms to make Zephyrs.”

Faith was flattened on the bird’s back as they blasted through the sky. “Why does the Wheel need worm-Zephyrs?”

“One worm means little, but every ounce counts.”

“Okay, this is confusing,” said Faith. “Did you know there’s an old Japanese cartoon with giant space-robots called Zephyrs, too? What do you mean by Zephyr?”

“I use the term broadly,” said the Heart. “I know those robot-Zephyrs, and when I say Zephyr, I mean them as well. Every conceivable concept will be in my Mountain at the end of the eternities.”

Faith marveled at the red mountain’s approach. “How many Zephyrs are there?”

“Uncountably many,” said the Heart.

“How many is that?”

“Quintillions of quintillions.”

Faith smiled. “That sounds plenty countable. How many Zephyrs are there?”

“It depends on how you count them. Zephyrs overlap.” The Heart tilted feathers like airplane-flaps. “One might say there are just a few thousand.”

“How many?”

The Heart sighed. “The most efficient Zephyrs contain many of their companions, so with the right outlook—”

“C’mon!”

“Thirty-three.”

“But how many Zephyrs are there?”

“Just two, myself and the other.”

“But how many are there, really?”

“Only one.”

Faith giggled. “But honestly, how many Zephyrs are there?”

“I’m done playing this game.” The Heart blasted fog to slowly land on the red mountain. “Please disembark.”

Faith leapt onto the mountain. “Are you gonna shove me in a hole? Am I gonna be a Zephyr?”

“Not yet.” The Heart stomped. A dark cave opened. “I need an assistant. You have remarkable physical capability compared to the worms I generally find.”

Faith looked into the cave. She couldn’t see how deep its darkness ran. “Is this a job-offer?”

“You would attend to the Wheel while I collect worms. You would not be a Zephyr—you would be the wisp of my will.”

“I’m interested.” Faith lolled her head. “But I don’t know enough to take you up on it.”

“Then let me give you a tour,” said the Heart. “I’ll get the place ready for you.”

Next Section
Commentary

The Galaxy Zephyr flew a safe distance from the Enemy Hurricane. Lucille surveyed the warped Wheel in her monitors. Where the lightning had struck, a great green bulge blemished the Wheel’s perfect surface. Near the bulge, the Wheel had no saw-teeth. “Charlie, Daisuke, can you fix it manually?”

Charlie pressed with the Galaxy Zephyr’s right hand, but the bulge inverted to protrude from the left. Daisuke pressed with the Galaxy Zephyr’s left hand, but the bulge inverted to protrude from the right. “No dice,” said Charlie. If anything, the bulge was bigger now. The whole Wheel wobbled each revolution.

Lucille crossed her arms. “Bird-thing!”

“Hai!” The bird-pilot of ZAP saluted with a wing.

“You’re wirelessly connected to the professor, aren’t you? How’s the Wheel look on her end?”

“Not any better,” said the bird-pilot. “If you pulled the Chain, centripetal forces would shred the Wheel to pieces.”

“Well figure out how to fix it!” said Lucille. The Enemy Hurricane seemed to know the Wheel was busted, as it swiped tentacles with impunity. Eisu and Fumiko evaded with the Galaxy Zephyr’s nimble wings. “Any time now!”

“Wait, I’ve got it!” said the bird-pilot, “give me a wing!”

Lucille pulled a monitor displaying the Galaxy Zephyr’s schematics. “Charlie, Daisuke, Eisu, Fumiko. One of your teams will control three wings instead of four.”

“I volunteer,” said Fumiko.

“Our teams can balance our thrust,” said Eisu.

“Jya.” Lucille tapped the touchscreen. “Bird-thing, it’s yours!”

One wing recoiled into the Galaxy Zephyr’s back. It snaked out the left pectoral into the Wheel. “This will take time,” said the bird-pilot.

“We can’t keep this up forever,” said Daisuke. The Galaxy Zephyr barrel-rolled to avoid ten tentacles converging. “How do we survive without the Wheel?”

“Brass balls,” said Lucille. “Leave it to me.” She sat up in her commander’s chair. “Oi! You!” The Galaxy Zephyr’s Hurricane Armor translated her shouts into eye-signals for the Enemy Hurricane to see. “Did you know my mother, Princess Lucia? Did you know my father, Commander Bunjiro?”

The Enemy Hurricane made a wide palm to smash them while signaling with its own countless eyes. “I might’ve!”

“Not during your pilots’ mortal lives,” said Lucille as Eisu and Fumiko dodged the cosmic slap. The white wing wrapped the Wheel to dress the bulge like a bandage. “My parents were born decades after you fled Earth. You’d know them only as pilots of Zephyr-Blue, robot protector of the Milky Way!”

The Enemy Hurricane grew legs to kick at the Galaxy Zephyr. “That robot destroyed thousands of my planets!”

“Your planets were homogeneous and identical!” The Galaxy Zephyr deftly dodged each kick. “Did destroying them even matter?”

“Of course! My planet-sized cells were humanity’s best! Your parents murdered humanity thousands of times! I only destroyed the Earth after saving everyone worth saving!”

“Sou, sou!” The Wheel had three white wing-spokes. “Were my parents worthy? Are they trapped in your disgusting consciousness?”

The Enemy Hurricane smiled disingenuously with a thousand mouths. “They are!”

Daisuke pressed a button to speak to Lucille privately. “It’s lying. Your parents died before they could be assimilated.”

Charlie joined the channel. “Bunjiro self-detonated to protect Lucia, who died soon after on the moon. You know that.”

Lucille ignored them and spoke to the Enemy Hurricane. “Hontou? If you claimed my father, he must have survived his self-detonation. My mother—well, how’d you nab her?”

The Enemy Hurricane thought. “She was given a space-burial, ejected outside the galaxy. I resurrected and assimilated her. Inside me, your parents beg for your surrender!”

“Impossible,” ZAP’s bird-pilot told Lucille. “If the Hurricane could resurrect people, I would know!”

Even the Galaxy Zephyr’s Hurricane Armor chimed in. “I’ve Danced with the Spheres a hundred times. If your parents were in our enemy, they’d be in me as well, and I’ll tell you they are not!”

“How horrifying,” said Lucille to the Enemy Hurricane. She faked a sob while grinning ear to ear. “If you’d relinquish them, I’d do anything. I’d even surrender!”

The Enemy Hurricane condensed into a blob which smiled almost broadly as Lucille. “Really?”

“You have my word.” Lucille covered her heart with her right hand and bent her left arm up at a right angle. “Eject them for me to inspect. They must be ordinary, breathing humans, and they must not be represented in your consciousness afterward.”

“Commander!” said Fumiko.

“You can’t surrender on our behalf!” said Eisu.

“I accept your conditions.” The Enemy Hurricane spat two human bodies from its slobbery maw. “Inspect them at your leisure.”

“Those are forgeries,” said ZAP’s bird-pilot. “Our allied Hurricane taught the enemy this trick when it let them bicker over a false copy of my body.”

Lucille flipped switches to disengage Zephyr-Alpha-Blue from the Galaxy Zephyr. When she stomped her pedals, ZAB refused to budge. “This is obviously a trap,” said ZAB.

“I command you to move!” ZAB reluctantly propelled itself through the Hurricane Armor into the vacuum of space, leaving the Galaxy Zephyr behind. Lucille saw through her windows that the Wheel had six white wing-spokes bandaging the bulge. “Halt.”

ZAB stopped a hundred yards from the bodies ejected by the Enemy Hurricane. “Can you see, now, these are only crude facsimiles of your parents?”

“Scan them. Do they have a pulse?”

“They’re pretending to have one, at least.”

Lucille removed the metal grill above her life-support systems to retrieve an oxygen-mask. “My bodysuit is vacuum-proof, isn’t it? How long could I survive in space?”

“At most two minutes.”

“Collect me in sixty seconds.” She donned the mask. “Pop the hatch.”

The hatch atop ZAB opened. Explosive decompression launched Lucille toward the free-floating bodies. In the distance the Enemy Hurricane chuckled, but Lucille didn’t know the language of its eye-signals, and didn’t care.

Lucille had seen photos of Bunjiro and Lucia in history books. The Enemy Hurricane had reconstructed them well, though their faces were obscured by oxygen-masks. They wore their red and blue bodysuits. Bunjiro even had sunglasses. They both seemed unconscious.

Lucille held her breath, tore off her oxygen-mask, and ripped Bunjiro’s throat out with her teeth.

Bunjiro’s body convulsed. His arms and legs turned into tentacles which grappled Lucille, but she kicked off his chest. As she drifted toward Lucia, her supposed mother peeked and saw Bunjiro choking on his own blood. Lucia panicked and her limbs turned into tentacles. Too late: Lucille bit her neck and tore her throat open. Both supposed parents went limp.

Lucille wiped blood from her jaw—though her bodysuit was still splattered with it—and again donned her oxygen-mask. ZAB caught her in its open hatch and she fell back into the cockpit. They zoomed back to the Galaxy Zephyr. “You’ve done it now,” said ZAB. “The Enemy Hurricane looks angrier than ever.”

“Like I give a shit.” Lucille removed her oxygen-mask and spat more blood. They reentered the Galaxy Zephyr and assumed their rightful place in the head.

Their Hurricane Armor translated the Enemy Hurricane’s violent eye-signals. “You ungrateful bitch! You just murdered two of my copies, two whole copies of humanity’s best!”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” said Lucille. “Even if those were really my parents, I’d tear their throats out ten thousand times just to spite you!” The white wing totally enveloped the Wheel, compressing the bulge and restoring their weapon to perfection.

“You’ve annoyed me for the last time! I wanted to assimilate you, but now I just want you dead!” The Enemy Hurricane launched ten blood-red projectiles each larger than the Galaxy Zephyr. These projectiles shot faster than the Galaxy Zephyr could fly. As the Galaxy Zephyr moved, the projectiles followed.

Charlie contacted Lucille. “I hope your mom tasted nice. I don’t know how we’ll dodge these missiles.”

Daisuke agreed. “Unless you learned something from Bunjiro’s blood, we’re not long for this world.”

“Bird-thing,” said Lucille, “is the Wheel ready for us to pull the Chain?”

“Mada da!” said the bird-pilot. “Use the Wheel, but don’t pull the Chain! We need more time! Just have faith!”

Next Section
Commentary

“Geez. That’s really the last episode released?” Jay wiped his eyes. “This show’s more emotional than I remembered.”

“Eh.” Dan shrugged. “We’ve already seen Lucille’s parents die. I can’t get worked up over it twice.”

“But now Lucille condemns them herself,” said Jay. “Even though they’re just copies, the pain is redoubled through Lucille’s perspective.”

“I think the viewer takes Charlie’s and Daisuke’s perspective,” said Dan. “We know for sure Bunjiro and Lucia are dead and gone, but we’re worried Lucille doesn’t believe us. Then we’re relieved because she’s two steps ahead in accepting impermanence.” Jay nodded doubtfully. “What do you think, Bob? Was your first episode emotionally resonant?”

Bob blinked. “What?” Both eyes were bloodshot.

“Is that cricket treating you alright, Bob?” Jay pat his shoulder. “You wanna finish your chicken-nuggets?”

Bob had forgotten his food. He grinned with new hunger. He stuffed his apple-pie in his mouth. He spoke as he chewed: “That show looked cool.”

“It has campy charm,” agreed Jay.

Bob munched chicken-nuggets as he watched the credits. His eyes lingered on each still image. “I’m so bug-eyed—I can’t see that as anything but a drawing,” he said. “That’s not a giant robot, it’s a drawing of a giant robot. That’s not a space-laser, that’s a drawing of a space-laser. That’s not the moon, it’s—”

“When I get bug-eyed,” Dan interrupted, “people look like awkward monkeys. Our cheek-bones seem simian. We walk like upright apes. Our language is like primates alerting each other to hawks and snakes.”

“What do you see, Jay?” Bob ate cheese-puffs from Jay’s bag. “Are you having centipede-flashbacks, like Dan said?”

Jay rubbed his eyes at Bob and Dan. It was like seeing faces for the first time. “I could use some air.”

“Try the back-porch,” said Bob. “The view’s beautiful!”

“Bob, how’s your internet out here?” Dan sat up. “I bet I can find you the first episodes of LuLu’s dubbed online.”

Jay stepped out on Bob’s back-porch, a concrete step overlooking grass. In the distance, a forest crawled up the Bighorn Mountains. Stars flocked around a full moon.

Jay counted his fingers. “One, two, three, four, five,” he counted on his left hand. “Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,” he counted on his right. “I’m awake.”

Still, his hands were flat and matte one moment, then shimmered with fingerprints the next. He accepted his altered state and tried to relax.

When he lowered his hands, he found a cloud on the horizon. It morphed faster than any ordinary cloud. He thought it looked like a white fox. The fox stepped over the forest onto the grass with the misunderstanding of a Magritte. “JayJay! Are you hallucinating too?”

Jay rubbed his eyes and ears. The white fox remained. He sat on the step and covered his mouth. “Faith?”

“Yeah! I haven’t seen you in—” She couldn’t complete the thought, so she shook her head. “Ages, I guess.”

“You were struck by lightning.”

Faith’s smile faltered. “I was, huh.”

“Did it hurt? Are you okay?”

“It didn’t. I’m fine, I think.” She sat on her haunches at Jay’s feet. “I don’t know what’s real anymore.”

“I hope I’m real,” said Jay.

“You and me both,” she sighed. “Wanna smoke?” Before Jay could refuse, Faith pawed behind her ear for a bug she’d tucked there. It was a cockroach.

“I guess I could smoke. Where’d you get that?”

“Mars, I think. Roaches are the only smokes I can dig up near the Mountain. Got a lighter?”

Jay lit the roach with an orange lighter as Faith held the butt in her muzzle. “Faith, I don’t think you’re on Mars.”

Faith had obviously practiced smoking as a fox. She tongued the roach over each canine to make space to blow smoke. She let Jay take the roach. “What do you mean, JayJay?”

“I think you’re dead.” Jay puffed. He’d seen cockroaches before—mostly in Eastern Asia—but he’d never smoked one. It was spicy and harsh. “No offense.”

“None taken. That makes sense.” Faith bonked her head on Jay’s knee. “I miss you guys.”

“We all miss you.” Jay gave her the roach. As a child, Jay scratched his cat Django just before the ears, and now he scratched Faith the same way. She smiled and closed her eyes. “Dan and your uncle Bob are inside, but it might be inappropriate to bring you in.”

“Hmpf,” puffed Faith. “I understand.”

“They just started watching the first episode of LuLu’s. We shouldn’t interrupt.”

“Ha. Yeah. That’s why.” Faith leaned her head into Jay’s hand to guide his scratching. “I’ll have to go back soon. Back to the Mountain.”

“Are you a Zephyr, whatever that means?”

“I wish.” She puffed again and let Jay take the roach. “I’m a Will-o-Wisp.”

“Is Beatrice there?”

Faith lowered her muzzle in melancholy. Jay hugged her and she slung a paw over his shoulder. “Let me tell you what I remember.”

Next Chapter
Commentary

Dan stirred from his drunken slumber only after the train crossed into Wyoming. He blinked in sunlight doubled by mountains of white snow. The sky was wide and blue. “Jay?”

Jay gave him a bottle of water. “We’re almost in Sheridan, Dan. Just like you wanted.”

Dan drank the water and pulled his shirt over his face. “We’re on a train.”

“Yep.”

“You can’t get to islands on a train.”

“Nope.” Jay made room for Bob as he returned from the restroom. “Before we visit the Islands of Sheridan, we’re taking preliminary notes in Sheridan, Wyoming. Bob Featherway says we can sleep on his couch.”

“It’s a fold-out,” added Bob.

“I was staggering drunk when I agreed to go.”

“Too drunk even to stagger,” agreed Jay. “I couldn’t just leave you in the bar, could I?”

Dan sighed and tried to sleep. “Wake me when we get there.”

When Dan next woke, he was sitting across the back seats of Bob’s truck. Jay sat shotgun while Bob drove. The tinfoil under Bob’s fedora reflected the orange sunset. The stars were out when they arrived at Bob’s house near the forest. “My place is a little small,” said Bob, “but the view from the back-porch is phenomenal. You can see trees creeping up the mountains to the college.” Dan and Jay followed Bob inside. Bob pointed at the couch. “There’s the couch,” said Bob. “It’s a fold-out.”

“Thank you for your hospitality.” Jay hadn’t changed from his funeral-attire. He hung his jacket and loosened his dark purple tie. “Can I buy you dinner? What’s your favorite restaurant near here?”

“We’re pretty far from town,” said Bob. “I don’t wanna drive those icy roads in the dark. But there’s a burger-place near the gas-station around the corner, past the chicken-farm.”

Dan sat on the couch and stared through Bob’s television. “I could eat some fries.”

“Lemme write down my order for you, Jay, it’ll be too long to remember.”

“I’ll visit the gas-station, too,” said Jay. “I left my toothbrush in California. I’ll bet I can buy one there.”

“If you’re going to the gas-station, buy me a frozen-slush-drink-thingie.” Bob wrote it below his burger order.

“What flavor frozen-slush-drink-thingie?”

“Blue if they’ve got it. Orange if they’re out.”

Jay was so famished after the train-ride that he ate his hamburger on the walk back. It reminded him of the goat-meat pastry he ate on the Islands of Sheridan. Every place has its meat-pie.

A chicken crossed the road. Thinking of Sheridanian big-birds, Jay bowed his head in respect, then realized how ridiculous he looked. Thankfully only the chicken had seen him bow. At any rate, the chicken bobbed its head back, so the respect was mutual.

Jay looked where the chicken had come from and saw the poultry-farm. Jay wondered how just one solitary chicken had managed to escape. The poultry-farm had a billboard advertising fertilized eggs so intrepid individuals could hatch their own chicks. Jay wondered if that was bad for business in the long run.

When Jay returned to Bob’s, Dan was wrapping a cricket for smoking while Bob explained cargo-cults. Jay gave Bob two cheeseburgers with everything, a chili-dog topped with fries, a box of chicken-nuggets, an apple-pie, and a blue-flavored frozen-slush-drink-thingie. “Where’d you get the bug-stick?” Jay asked Dan.

“Faith taught me to grow them.” Dan braided the wings. Jay put a box of fries and some packets of ketchup on the coffee-table for him. Dan nodded without looking from the cricket.

Jay sat left of Bob on the couch. “Have you smoked bug-sticks before?”

“Yeah, when I was younger,” said Bob. “Sometimes kids smoke in the woods nearby. Their bug-sticks don’t look nearly as nice.”

Jay opened a pack of cheese-puffs from the gas-station. “Good thing I brought extra munchies.”

“Nice.” Bob started on his cheeseburgers. Dan finished wrapping the cricket and produced a white lighter from his pocket. He offered the lighter and bug-stick to Bob, who declined the first puffs. “Wanna watch TV while we get bug-eyed?”

“Sure,” said Dan.

“What’s on?” asked Jay.

“Service is a little sub-par ’cause I cover my satellite-dish in tinfoil, but it’s worth it to filter out subliminal messages.”

Neither Dan nor Jay recognized the channels Bob flipped through. Most were in a foreign language or English so distorted it sounded like a foreign language. Dan lit the cricket’s eyes and puffed. He passed the bug-stick to Bob, who puffed, coughed, and passed the cricket to Jay.

“Hey Jay,” warned Dan, “have you had a bug-stick since you smoked centipede-powder?”

“Nope. I didn’t actually smoke at all on the islands.”

“If you’ve ever smoked centipede, crickets can give you flashbacks.”

“Really?”

“You might see patterns or hear whispers,” said Dan. “It freaked me out the first time. It’s harmless, but I wanted to make sure you knew.”

Bob smiled like he was meeting celebrities. “Wow. You’ve both smoked centipede? What’s it like?”

Jay distracted Bob by blowing smoke-rings and passed him back the bug-stick. “Look, Dan, they’re playing LuLu’s.” On the TV, multicolored robots bounded through space.

Bob puffed again and coughed again and passed the bug-stick to Dan. “What’s this show? I like the spaceships.”

“LuLu’s Space-Time Acceleration,” said Dan before he puffed. “It’s an anime about giant robots.” The show began with a recap of prior episodes. “I think this is the last episode they ever animated.”

“It’s in Japanese,” said Bob. He passed the bug-stick from Dan to Jay.

“Probably for the best.” Jay finished off the cricket. “The dubs were awful.”

Next Section
Commentary

Uncle Featherway sat beside Dan’s unconscious body slumped across the bar. “Is your friend okay?”

“He could use some sleep.” Jay pat Dan’s shoulder. “Mister Featherway, are you ready for our interview?”

“Sure, sure. I’ve got time ’til my train comes in.” Uncle Featherway ordered a beer and straightened his tinfoil fedora. “You wanted to hear about Virgil Blue?”

“Yes, please. I recently met the Virgils on the Islands of Sheridan, but Virgil Blue never spoke to me.” Jay prepared his pen and notepad. “I wondered if you could add anything to the stoic silence.”

“Only more silence,” said Uncle Featherway. “The monks came to Wyoming the same weekend Faith and I visited Sheridan Cliff-Side College. The monks carried Virgil Blue onto a lectern where they sat for half an hour.”

“Were all the monks silent?”

“Well, one in sky-blue said a few words.” Uncle Featherway sipped his beer. “But Virgil Blue’s inflection made their silence sound important.”

“Important? How?”

“Like…” Uncle Featherway put down his beer to wave a hand. “Like they were revealing secrets of the universe.”

“Learn anything?”

“Nothing I didn’t already know.” Uncle Feather puffed his chest and sipped more beer. “Hearing it from Virgil Blue just confirmed it.”

Jay spun his pen. “Hearing nothing from Virgil Blue confirmed… what, exactly?”

“You know cargo-cults?”

“I’ve heard of them, yes.”

“All religions are cargo-cults. When aliens created us, we didn’t understand what we were seeing. Over generations, our explanations became religions.”

Jay sensed the conversation had drifted off topic. “What was Virgil Blue wearing?”

“A hooded navy robe and a silver face-mask which looked like an alien.”

“An alien? Could you draw the mask you saw?” Jay passed the notepad and pen over Dan. Uncle Featherway put the notepad on Dan’s back so Jay could watch him draw.

“See, it had big criss-crossed bug-eyes. It had a bulbous snout with a straight mouth. And it had two long antennae to receive cosmic waves.”

“Huh.” Jay took the pen and drew his own rendition of the Blue Virgil’s mask. “I saw the same mask, but I thought it was a bird. What you called antennae, I saw as long feathers.”

“Could be. Feathers are sensitive to cosmic waves, too.”

“And I thought the bulbous snout was a round beak.”

“Aliens can have beaks. Like an octopus, or a squid.” Uncle Featherway finished his beer. “What about the criss-crossed bug-eyes?”

“I dunno,” said Jay. “I saw a bird-statue with the same eyes. I figured it was a stylistic choice.”

“Sometimes you see what you wanna see.” Uncle Featherway returned the notepad to Jay. “Anyway, the Sheridanians seemed closer to the original aliens than any other religion.”

“At the funeral, you said there were different kinds of aliens,” said Jay. “What kinds are there?”

“Oh, all kinds. You’ve got your gold-miners, your mind-readers…” Uncle Featherway ate complementary mixed nuts. “But they’re all aliens. They all come from the same place.” He pointed up.

“Hm.”

“They made humans using DNA from outer space,” he said, “so we’re all aliens, in the end.”

“How insightful.”

“Yeah, it’s too bad Faith didn’t enjoy the lecture.” Uncle Featherway almost removed his fedora out of respect for the dead, but only tipped it to keep the protective tinfoil on his head. “She left halfway through.”

“How many people were present?”

“The lecture-hall was almost empty. The audience was mostly monks.”

“Did you know anyone there? Any friends I could talk to?”

“Nope.”

Jay rest his head on one hand and spun his pen with the other in contemplation. “Someone at the college must have arranged the monks’ lecture. Maybe I could contact them.”

“Sorry I wasn’t more helpful.”

“You were very helpful. Thanks for taking time to talk.” Jay pocketed his notepad and pen and pulled out his phone. He looked up Sheridan Cliff-Side College’s contact-page. “I’ll call their event-coordinator.”

“Why not come to Wyoming? You could interview them in person and check out the lecture-hall yourself.”

“Not a bad idea, but I’ll still call ahead.”

“Wanna come with me? You can sleep on my couch.”

Jay bit his lower lip. “Would I be a bother?”

“Any friend of Faith is a friend of mine!” He shook Jay’s hand. “Call me Bob. Bob Featherway!”

“Jay Diaz-Jackson. When does your train leave?”

“Four hours from now.”

Jay bought himself a ticket on his phone. “Four hours is short notice to travel cross-country, but my life fits in a suitcase. Hey, Bob, does your couch have room for two?”

“Oh, sure. It’s a fold-out.” Bob looked from Jay to Dan. “What, you mean him? Shouldn’t you wake him up and ask if he wants to come?”

“He told me to take him to Sheridan just before you walked in. The mountain air will do him good.”

Next Section
Commentary

“Then what?” asked Jay.

“Inside the red mountain it buzzed like hornets and locusts. Everything was green.” Dan struggled to hold his head off the bar. “The white wing became a path to the green distance. I tried to walk that path, but the green sky flickered. The noise was so loud I covered my ears—my elbows felt wind, pushing back on my left and forward on my right.

“The wind was spinning me. I walked against the wind and the the green sky separated into yellow and blue, like videotape of a propeller syncing with the frame-rate. The desert’s yellow sky was above me and Earth’s blue sky was below me.”

Jay thought. “So maybe the wing was spinning, and you counteracted the spin by walking at an angle?”

“Or maybe the skies were spinning,” Dan murmured. “I don’t want to think about it.

“On the green horizon between yellow and blue, I saw a white light like the sun. As I approached it, the buzzing died down. But the path veered away! I left the sun behind and the buzzing returned.

“Another white path stuck out of mine like this.” Dan shook a hand diagonally. “Next thing I knew, I was walking up that new path directly toward the sun. The buzzing died down again.

“Objects orbited the sun. Their periodic shadows made it look like the sun had a heartbeat. I couldn’t tell how big the objects were, or how far away, so I was surprised when one smashed on my forehead. It was an egg. There was a blue fledgling inside. The fledgling’s head had a beady eye on one side and a hundred human teeth on the other. I couldn’t bring myself to look away from its gaze, or even wipe yolk from my face.

“The yolk slid off my skin. The white shell, scattered in three dimensions, scattered back around the bird. The egg kept orbiting like nothing happened. I kept walking to the sun.

“Just before I stepped into the fire, I heard a voice. The big blue bird stood behind me and restrained me in its wings.

“The bird told me that inside the red mountain, you see all of reality at once. The sun in the center is the origin of all things—the `indefatigable meristem,’ they called it—and if I’d touched it, my sentience would’ve scattered across the cosmos. Somehow I understood reality’s shape is an infinite-dimensional torus, circles swept in circles swept in circles and so on.

“When I turned to see the bird, I woke drooling on my couch. My throat felt painful and raw, so I drank six glasses of orange-juice and puked. I cleaned the bong for an hour. It wasn’t dirty,” Dan slurred, “I just felt dirty inside.” He slumped over the bar conclusively.

Jay capped his pen and closed his notepad. “Dan, that’s fascinating. When Faith and I smoked centipede, we had a similar experience—and that experience is an awful lot like parts of that anime, LuLu’s.”

“Naturally. The mechanisms of cognition are fundamentally similar from person to person.” The sentence was almost incomprehensible through Dan’s drunken slur. “We have different personalities, but underneath, everyone is alone in a desert. Maybe the person who wrote the anime was a bug-head who got the idea tripping. I don’t care. I haven’t smoked centipede since, and I never will again.”

Jay pat him on the back. “You don’t have to. I won’t even ask you to visit Sheridan if you don’t want to.”

“Take me to Sheridan, Jay. Please.”

“Okay.”

“But… tell me… honestly… When you and Faith came to my apartment to smoke centipede, was Beatrice actually on-call at the hospital? Or did you three conspire to give her that excuse in case I made her uncomfortable?” Jay didn’t answer. “That’s what I thought.” Dan clenched his eyes shut. “I’m hopeless. Hopeless!”

“You’re not hopeless, Dan.”

“Did you know I’m a virgin?”

Jay shrugged. “So am I, but I don’t mind.”

“That’s different. You’re trans.”

Jay pursed his lips. He’d respond, but Dan was now snoring.

Uncle Featherway entered from Faith’s funeral. Jay waved him to a stool.

Next Chapter
Commentary