The third island of Sheridan was barely big enough to hold an airstrip. Only a handful of people stepped off the plane, and half of them just wandered gift-shops as the plane refueled. Only five others joined Jay waiting to pass through customs.

In the same corridor was a security-checkpoint for departures. Armed personnel led dogs on taut leashes around luggage leaving the islands. Jay knew the dogs were sniffing for crickets and centipedes because a sign said so in ten languages. For the illiterate, a cricket-and-centipede icon was crossed out in a red circle.

In comparison, customs would be a breeze. Jay bookmarked the photo in his passport with his completed declaration-card. The man from the plane in dark sunglasses and red Hawaiian shirt allowed his wife to organize his family’s passports as he sat on Jay’s right.

On Jay’s left, a middle-aged Chinese couple had prepared their documentation and now huddled over a well-worn Atlas. They spoke in a dialect Jay didn’t recognize. He decided to introduce himself in Mandarin. “[Hello. My name is Jay. I come from the United States.]”

The couple was struck mute, then laughed at each other. “[I am Zhang.]” The man shook Jay’s hand. “[This is my wife Li Ying. We come from Southern China.]”

Jay appreciated Zhang dumbing down his dialect. “[I admire your map. You have many pen-marks in places I have none.]”

“[This is nothing,]” said Li Ying. “[Look at this.]” She unfolded the Atlas’ largest map of China. Jay fawned over decades of notes written along routes and rivers. There was scarcely an acre the couple hadn’t visited. “[We’ve been to every country and Antarctica. Now we’re visiting every island.]”

Jay’s response was interrupted by the man in sunglasses. “What’re you talking about?”

Zhang showed him the Atlas. “We have—uh, a map,” he said, reaching for English words. “It shows where we go for many years.”

The man blankly evaluated the Chinese script. Jay knew Chinese and could barely read the handwriting, so he doubted the man understood a single character. He pointed his hairy forearm at the Atlas. “What’s that?”

Jay sucked air through his teeth. If the man recognized any character, it’d be the swastika. “It’s, uh…” Li Ying read nearby notes. “A temple called Jokhang.”

“No, the spinny thing.” The man tapped the swastika. Jay thought the man’s sunglasses and poker-face did little to hide the disingenuousness of his ignorance. “What is it?”

Zhang sensed a cultural divide and muttered in his wife’s ear. “This shape,” he said to the man, “is used for temples on maps. It means…” He looked at his wife.

“Well-being?” she suggested.

“Luck?”

“Auspiciousness?” she guessed, struggling with the central syllables.

“To cross your arms?” tried Zhang, folding his arms over his chest. “There are many meanings. It’s popular in many areas.”

The more swastikas the man found on the map, the wider his grin became. He turned to his wife. “You hear that, Eva? It’s popular in many areas.” She continued reading her daughter a picture-book. “Hey, Eva, you hear that? They said it’s popular—”

Jay excused himself from the conversation as soon as a customs-official appeared. Jay relinquished his passport. “Thanks.”

The customs-official compared Jay’s passport-photo to the real deal. Since last renewing his passport, Jay had gained twenty muscular pounds, and he had forty hours of five o’ clock shadow. The customs official didn’t seem to mind. While waiting, Jay noticed the airport’s workers had all varieties of skin-colors. Many were bald.

“Oran dora. Welcome to Sheridan.” The customs-official stamped Jay’s passport and returned it. “Enjoy your stay.”

As Jay walked to the lobby, he watched departing tourists comply with stringent security. They removed their shoes and sent their bags through X-ray machines. When a dog took interest in their luggage, security searched it for crickets and centipedes.

One dog was distracted by Jay. Its leader tugged its leash, but the dog wouldn’t look away. Its leader called another security-guard and pointed at Jay. Jay meekly smiled at them. The two security-guards brought the dog near. “Would you remove your backpack?”

Jay did. The dog sniffed the zippers and put a paw on the outermost pocket. “Would you open it, sir?”

Jay did. Before the security-guards could inspect the contents, the dog bit the corner of a white envelope and dragged it out. “Woof,” it said proudly.

One guard took the envelope. “What’s in here?”

“A friend’s holiday-card.”

“Is that all?”

“I’ll open it for you,” said Jay. The guard returned the envelope and Jay tore it open. Inside was a holiday-card featuring a snow-white fox traipsing through a winter wood, and a bug-stick. It was an exquisite specimen hand-grown by Faith with wings hand-wrapped by Dan. Jay was sorry to give it up. “I apologize. I had no idea.”

The security guards hee-hawed and slapped their knees. “Keep it,” said one. “You’re the first person to ever smuggle a cricket into Sheridan. It confused our dog.”

The other guard scratched the dog behind the ears. “Good girl,” he said. “You caught him.”

Jay stashed the bug-stick in the envelope. “Do you get lots of smugglers?”

While one guard led the dog away, the other considered the question. “Crickets are only legal in Sheridan and Amsterdam, but they grow in most conditions. There’s no need to smuggle—people grow their own. But some people forget bug-sticks in their luggage, so we confiscate them to avoid international incident. Centipedes are illegal everywhere, and they only grow near the peak of the main island of Sheridan. Anyone with a centipede in their luggage is a smuggler, and a devoted one. We catch at least one a month, but we worry some slip through.”

The lobby contained a kiosk with a map of Sheridan’s three islands. The man in the kiosk was about thirty years old and rail-thin, but his face was littered with laugh-lines. His skin was copper-colored and his oily black hair was shoulder-length. His eager grin invited Jay’s approach. “Hi. I reserved a spot on the bird-watching tour taking off today, under Diaz-Jackson?”

“Jadie Jackson! Oran dora! The Biggest Bird shakes hands with you!” The man leaned over the desk to hold Jay’s hands as if consoling him on the loss of a loved one. “My name is Michael. I’ll be your guide.”

“Jadie?” Jay let Michael shake his hands. “Maybe you just heard my initials, like J. D. Jackson?”

“Take this.” Michael gave him a phrasebook. “Most islanders outside the airport speak little English. Impress them by speaking Sheridanian.” From customs, the Chinese couple and the family of three joined Jay at the kiosk. Michael grinned and greeted each of them with a phrasebook. “Bird-watching tour? Bird-watching tour? Ah, you’re all here!” Michael vaulted the desk and led the six tourists to the exit. “Let’s lunch in my family’s restaurant. Then we ferry to the second island of Sheridan!”

Next Chapter
Commentary

Jay just sat. His mind was like the empty yellow sky. Then he stood and looked down either side of his rust-red dune. Clouds brushed daunting slopes below him. He was miles high.

Rather than descend either side of the dune, Jay ran along its crest. Each step cracked a vertebrae in the dune’s back. Sand collapsed in hot, coarse rivers. His feet sank until the current swept him away.

He fell through a cottony cloud. The sand sloped to roll him along the desert floor. He shot up an opposing dune and sailed like a skeeball.

As he spun, he counted his fingers. “One, two, three, four, five,” he counted on his left hand. “Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen—” He was asleep. He was dreaming. He could fly like the Heart of the Mountain, that steam-powered bird.

The dunes grew into great sand-walls but he blasted above them. Below, the sky melted into golden honey and poured around the red mountain like heavenly syrup. Jay smeared the sunset thin like a masseuse oiling a back. Soon the dunes were dark with night.

Jay opened his eyes. His head rest on the window of an airplane bound for New Zealand. Outside, the sky was black and starry; most of the passengers slept. Jay shook his limbs awake as best he could in his cramped seat. It would be morning when he arrived in Sheridan.

“Couldn’t sleep, huh? Me neither.”

Jay tried to smile at the man on his right. He wore a loud red Hawaiian shirt frumpishly buttoned all the way to his neck, which was equally red. He wore dark sunglasses even at night on an airplane.

“Yeah, it’s hard sleeping on a plane,” the man went on. “Way too noisy, am I right?”

“I was actually asleep for a while.” Jay counted his fingers. “Now I’m awake.” He unzipped his backpack and opened a bag of chips from Chile. “Breakfast?”

The man ate a fistful of chips. “Going to New Zealand?”

“I’m hopping off when we refuel.” Jay ate one chip at a time. “Sheridan.”

“Ah. Me too. The ol’ ball-and-chain Eva drags me and her kid back every year to look at birds.” He jerked his thumb at his wife and her daughter across the aisle. “Chicks, am I right?” He sighed. “How about you? What’re you here for?”

“I’m not a bird-watcher,” said Jay. “I’m a people-watcher. I hope to photograph religious activities on the islands.”

“Religious, huh?” He pronounced the word with a smug smile. “I see how it is.”

“I’m not religious per se,” said Jay. “I’m curious how Sheridanian religion interacts with psychoactive bugs.”

“Yeah?” The man leaned close. “Now you sound like my kinda guy.”

Jay turned to the window and crossed his arms.

“Hey, it’s okay. Don’t tell me anything I shouldn’t know!” The man laughed. “Guys like us gotta stick together, am I right?”

Jay didn’t ask what he meant. “Do you like anime?”

“Huh?”

Each seat’s headrest held a screen for canned TV including a surprising selection of anime. “I’m impressed. They’ve got LuLu’s Space-Time Acceleration.” Before the man could interject, Jay donned headphones and hummed the opening theme.

---

“It’s a big one,” thought Nakayama to the Galaxy Zephyr’s Hurricane Armor. She sailed through the yellow desert sky on a column of steam toward the Zephyr summoned by the Chain. The Zephyr drifted with a hundred clumsy wings. Nakayama’s blue tentacles ensnared it and slung it through the sky toward the red mountain.

The mountain’s summit crumbled into a caldera which caught the Zephyr and dragged it into the deep.

ZAP’s bird-pilot saluted with its right wing. “Commander Lucille, the new Zephyr is entering our armor!”

“About time!” Lucille glared defiantly at the Enemy Hurricane enclosing them all like a bubble. “Will our controls be more responsive, having another pilot?”

“Many more pilots, depending on how you count them. To be fair, much of the data in our new Zephyr represents bacteria, arthropods, and reptiles, but I estimate 54% of humanity’s variation can be expressed as linear-combinations of the minds merged with our Hurricane Armor. In this sense, our armor has billions of pilots.”

“They’d better be self-starters, ’cause I’m not gonna micromanage them!” Lucille watched white light flow from the green Wheel into the Galaxy Zephyr’s purple flesh. “Is that them?”

“Hai.” As the light flooded the Galaxy Zephyr, Lucille’s ten thousand pilots gasped. Lucille didn’t know why they gasped until the white light reached her in ZAB: it carried warmth which bathed her like a hot-spring. The purple flesh relaxed to subdued silvery blue.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” said Lucille. “We’re still in trouble.” The Enemy Hurricane’s bubble contracted. As their prison shrank, its walls thickened. “Charlie, Daisuke, Eisu, Fumiko, report!”

When Daisuke pressed buttons, the Galaxy Zephyr’s left hand twitched almost instantly. “Significant improvement to extremity responsiveness,” said Daisuke. The twins concurred, wiggling the Galaxy Zephyr’s toes.

Charlie blinked his eye in the harsh white light. Sweat soaked his eye-patch. “The new guy’s a little bright. It’s a sauna in here! Can we turn them down a tad?” Thousands of Lucille’s pilots signaled agreement with Charlie on their touchscreen monitors.

“Jya, bird-thing,” said Lucille, “does our new Zephyr have a thermostat?”

The bird-pilot typed on ZAP’s control-panel. “I have just the idea.”

White light collected on either side of the Galaxy Zephyr’s spine. With a blare of Gnostic archons’ trumpets, sixteen white wings erupted, each longer than the Galaxy Zephyr was tall. Every feather was a jet-engine. The warmth subsided.

Lucille snickered. “Not a bad look.” She flipped her hair back and the Galaxy Zephyr grew a silvery blue ponytail like that of her late mother, Princess Lucia. “Charlie, Daisuke, Eisu, Fumiko, each of your teams will take the four nearest wings. Learn your controls.”

Eisu directed the flapping of wings from right glute to mid-back. “How will this help us, exactly?”

Daisuke bade the wings from mid-back to left shoulder to bend in sequence. “We’re still not large enough to cut out of this bubble.”

“We don’t need to be large,” said Lucille. “We’ve got sixteen wings made entirely of jet-turbines. We’re surely fast enough to slice right through!”

“I hope you’re right,” said Charlie. The Enemy Hurricane closed in around them. Its red surface taunted them with jeering eyes and mouths and tentacles. “On your order, Commander!”

“Go! No turning back!”

The Galaxy Zephyr fired all cylinders. The new wings swiftly accelerated them. They raised the Wheel and flew for the ceiling of their confinement.

Tentacles had no time to react before the Wheel sliced them and dug into the Enemy Hurricane’s flesh. The Galaxy Zephyr dove into the wound to cut deeper and deeper.

The wound bled giant teeth all around them. “What the hell!” shouted Charlie. The teeth crunched each other into sharp shards which shanked the Galaxy Zephyr’s Hurricane Armor. “Aaaugh, that noise!” He piloted with his pedals, freeing his hands to cover his ears. “These teeth!”

In his wheelchair, Daisuke couldn’t pilot with his pedals. Instead he committed his four wings to shielding the Galaxy Zephyr from teeth, and the noise abated. “Eisu, Fumiko, daijoubu?”

“No teeth down here!” said Fumiko. She redirected spare power from Daisuke’s wings to her own. Eisu did the same as Charlie moved his wings into protective position. “Maximum thrust!”

“Ora!” Lucille ignored the teeth cracking all around. “We’ve almost bust out!”

“I doubt it,” ZAB said to Lucille on a private audio-channel. “There’s no telling how thick—”

“Ora ora!” Lucille ignored her robotic partner. “Just a little more!”

The Enemy Hurricane squealed and shrieked at the penetrating pain. When it grasped with tentacles, the Galaxy Zephyr’s legs were free to kick them away because the wings took the role of propulsion.

After inexpressible duration, the Galaxy Zephyr burst through the bubble. “Oraaaugh!” They pulled tooth-shards from their armor and let the wounds flood with gold.

Behind them, the Enemy Hurricane’s bubble deflated. The fistula they’d burst through flooded with teeth and shouted like an awful maw, audible through space-vacuum because of steam from the Galaxy Zephyr’s wings. “Look at the anguish you’re causing me! Can’t you see that I’m human, as much or moreso than you are?”

“Pfa!” Lucille beamed so broadly that Daisuke worried blood would drip from the corners of her smile. “Don’t fish for sympathy! The only human who could possibly pity you was my mother, Earth’s shining princess, but she died protecting us from you!” At the mention of Princess Lucia, all ten thousand pilots of the Galaxy Zephyr regained their grit from the grueling task of burrowing through the bubble. “You discarded your chance for salvation!”

“Aaaugh!” The Enemy Hurricane contracted into a blob. “Then I’ll dash your hopes as well!”

Thunderbolts cracked from the Enemy Hurricane. The Galaxy Zephyr was too close to dodge them. Lightning struck the Wheel, which warped.

Next Section
Commentary

After the ordeal with centipede, Jay felt compelled to visit home. He sat at the dinner-table of his parents’ Los Angeles abode. His mother Camilla stirred two mugs of tea. “How is Faith feeling nowadays?”

“Remember when our cat Django died? Faith bawled like a baby,” said Jay. “But since Beatrice’s death, she’s just been quiet. I don’t think she even leaves the house anymore.”

“Oh, poor thing.” Camilla pat Jay’s hand. “Is someone looking after her?”

“Dan brings her groceries. I’m glad they’re sticking together. Beatrice’s death hit them both pretty hard.” Jay had been affected too, of course, but his mother looked sad enough already. Jay sipped his tea. “Have I told you I want to go to Sheridan?”

“Sheridan? The bug-islands?”

“Yep, the bug-islands. I want to take photos of monks,” said Jay. “Has Dad ever been to Sheridan?”

“Not if he could help it,” said Camilla. “Ethen had a bad experience with centipede when he was about your age.”

“Really?” Jay pulled a notepad and pen from his pocket and flipped to the first fresh page. “Do you know what happened, exactly?”

“No, but maybe he’ll tell you when he calls tonight.”

The phone rang. Jay laughed. “That sounds like him.”

“Gosh, he’s calling early.” Camilla took the phone from the hook. “Ethen, Dear, how’s New Delhi?” Jay heard his father’s boisterous voice. Camilla smiled and coiled the landline around her fingers. “Your son is home, would you like to speak to him?” She passed the phone to Jay.

“Dad! Mom says you’re calling early. Did you forget India has half-hour time-zones?”

Ethen chuckled. “I guess I did. Jay, how are you?”

“I’m considering a trip to the Islands of Sheridan. Have you ever been?”

The phone was silent for a moment. “I have, once. It was a refueling-stop on a discount flight from Chile to New Zealand. I didn’t get off the plane.”

“Could you help me find a flight like that? I want to photo-catalog Sheridanian religious-practices.”

“Oh.” Ethen licked his teeth. “You know, those are the islands where crickets and centipedes come from.”

“I know, Dad.”

“You smoke bug-sticks, and that’s alright. I got bug-eyed at your age. But don’t mess with centipedes, okay?”

Jay prepared his pen. “Mom said you’ve had a bad experience with centipede. Could you tell me about it?”

“Hmmm.” Ethan moved the phone to his other ear. “Well, in my late twenties, I attended a conference in Thailand. At a night-market some colleagues bought centipede-powder, which was even rarer then than it is now. I’d never heard of the stuff, but my colleagues said it was like cricket, so I tried it. It felt like… Well… It felt like searing knives slicing every inch of my skin.”

“Wow.”

“I felt buried alive, and I had to dig deeper so the knives would stop hurting me,” he said. “The deeper I dug, the less I remembered. Just before I slipped away, I woke up alone in a Bangkok alleyway with no wallet, watch, or passport.”

Jay penned the quote as quickly as his father spoke. “Gotcha. I’ll stick to bug-sticks.”

---

Reviewing his plane-tickets, Jay knew he’d be sitting for most of the next two days. He’d fly from LA to a layover in Chile, then disembark a plane bound for New Zealand as it refueled in Sheridan. He’d take a bird-watching tour of the islands, then catch a plane refueling in Sheridan for its return to Chile. After another layover, he’d fly back to LA.

The morning was cold, so he blew fog to warm his hands. He’d woken at 4 AM to wait outside his apartment for Dan. Dan’s sleep schedule had inverted since Beatrice’s death, and he seemed eager for excuses to leave his apartment, so Jay had decided asking for a 4:30 ride to the airport was a kindness.

Jay mentally reviewed the contents of his backpack. Clothes, traveling toiletries, and medications. His passport, ID, and a book for the plane. Camera, notepad, and pens. Portable chargers, fully charged. A healthy supply of American currency. He nodded and sighed fog.

His phone vibrated. A text from Dan: ‘I’m not coming. Faith should be there soon.’

Jay typed with his thumb. ‘Everything alright?’

‘Faith wanted to say bye before you left,’ texted Dan. ‘I sent her in my car.’

Sure enough, an orange VW-bug rolled around the corner. Faith parked next to Jay and gave him a tired smile under dark eyes. Jay texted Dan as he sat shotgun: ‘Thank you.’

“JayJay! How have you been?”

“It’s good to see you, Faith.” Jay buckled up and Faith pulled away from the curb.

“Are you excited for Sheridan?”

“Absolutely,” said Jay. “I’ll show you the photos I take. It’s supposed to be beautiful.”

“Gonna get more centipede?”

“Eeeugh. No thanks.” Jay laughed. “Hey, when we were hallucinating, did it seem at all like that anime we watched once? LuLu’s? For some reason it reminded me of that.”

“You’re such a dweeb,” laughed Faith. She ramped onto the highway. Come rush-hour, the traffic would weave into a thick jam, but now the streets were empty. “How long is the flight?”

“Forty hours both ways. A direct flight would barely be twelve.”

“Bummer.”

Jay opened his backpack to check if anything had escaped. “So… how’s Dan holding up, do you think?”

“He’s… Well, he’s inconsolable, but so was I, for a while.” Faith rubbed her eyes. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“We’re making great time,” said Jay. “Thanks for the ride.”

“No prob, JayJay.” Faith gently curved along the highway. “Hey, do you need… um… hygiene products? I’ve got extras in my purse.”

“Ha.” Jay smiled. “Not since I started taking testosterone.”

“Oh, okay.” She smiled with him. “Just trying to help.” The morning sun beamed through an airport parking-structure. Faith took the next exit. “You know, stuck inside all day, I’ve had a lot of practice painting.”

“Yeah?”

“A company wants to print holiday-cards with my foxes on them.”

“Faith! That’s great!” Jay zipped up his backpack and unbuckled his seat-belt as she parked. “I’d better get one for Christmas.”

“Why wait?” Faith popped the glove-box and fished for a white envelope. She handed it to Jay. “I sketched on the inside. Now you’ve got a Featherway original!”

“Thank you, Faith! This means a lot to me. I’ll open it on the plane, okay?”

Faith bit her lip. “Wait until after customs.”

Next Section
Commentary

Three islands are the sole inhabitants of the area known as Nemo. Stranded between New Zealand, Chile, and Antarctica, the Islands of Sheridan are at least a thousand miles from foreign shore in every direction.

The Biggest Bird made the Islands of Sheridan as her paradise on Earth. She taught the first man, Nemo, what to eat, and what not to eat, and bore him sons and daughters from an egg. She declared Nemo the first Virgil Blue, leader of the Sheridanian congregation, and ever since, the title has passed from generation to generation. Lesser Virgils guide students’ understanding of the Blue Virgil’s sacred truth.

After leaving her islands, the Biggest Bird erected the rest of the Earth. Thusly, the Bird’s influence is seen in philosophies the world over. Virgil Blue’s monastery on the main island houses a library of texts from every earthly area and every time-period, annotated to outline featherprints from the Biggest Bird’s act of creation. Her wisdom is found in fiction and nonfiction. In physics and magic. In sand and sky. There are no coincidences.

Doesn’t that sound familiar, Jay?

---

Jay squinted at the text.

---

Today the Biggest Bird resides on her Mountain in the next eternity. It is therefore speculated that elevation marked her seal of approval when she made the Earth. Foothills grew beneath her flight-path and mountains sprouted where she deigned to land. This brands Sheridan as the holiest area on Earth: the main island extends from the seafloor to a permanent cap of clouds. Including its height beneath the ocean, it is the tallest mountain on Earth.

The Islands of Sheridan bear a population of sparse thousands, mostly ancestors of the egg-born. More than half devote years of their lives to monasticism. Virgil Blue’s monastery is home to hundreds of students and a circle of lesser Virgils. Satellite-groups exhibit unique and varied practices like masked dancing festivals, deity-visualization exercises, and religious agriculture. Only three commandments assert themselves across all islanders:

Never consume centipede except when prepared by Virgil Blue.

Never harm or photograph birds.

Never climb above the permanent cloud-cover. Sheridan’s peak is always obscured. It must remain so.

Jay Diaz-Jackson, remember these rules when you journey to Sheridan. We expect you shortly.

---

Jay closed the pamphlet and examined the fist-sized fledglings on its front. They looked somehow familiar. He covered half a fledgling’s face with his thumb. More familiar by the moment. “Dan, have you seen birds like this before?”

He’d forgotten Dan had gone. He was still in the bathroom, quietly sobbing for some reason.

Jay turned to the next page. On the left side, hand-drawn crickets budded from soil just like in Faith’s cardboard-box. On the right side, the largest of three islands was crowned with clouds. He read:

---

Tourists to the islands generally belong to one of two categories: those interested in bird-watching (but not bird-photography, we emphasize) and those whose international flights require refueling on our runway and who decide to stretch their legs in our airport. Both categories are impressed by the bounty of the Biggest Bird, including fresh air, breathtaking vistas, and tasteful gift-shops. We encourage you to visit our islands and discover your connection to the Mountain in the next eternity.

That means you, Jay. You must find the Mountain within you.

---

“Within you, within you.” Jay swore the crickets in Faith’s cardboard-box were chirping like chimes in the wind as their wings rubbed together. “Within you, within you.”

“Faith?” Jay shook her shoulder. “Faith, can you read this?”

Faith released the couch-cushion and stared blankly at the pamphlet. “Read what, JayJay?”

He pointed to a line accosting him by name. “This right here?”

“Of course I can’t.” Faith cuddled the cushion again and rolled into the couch’s corner. “I can’t read Chinese.”

“No, not the Chinese, the—” Jay tried rereading the offending statement. Symbols flickered between languages. “Oh my God. I’ve got to go to Sheridan.”

“What?” Faith rose from her stupor to pin Jay against the opposite armrest. She wrestled the pamphlet from him. “JayJay, you can’t go to Sheridan!”

“Look, it says right here that there are no coincidences! If it’s commanding me to go to Sheridan, it’s commanding me to go to Sheridan! If it’s not, I misread it as a command to go to Sheridan! It can’t be a coincidence! It says so!”

Faith tried to unwrap his logic as she twisted to restrict Jay’s movement. “But JayJay, it’s so far away!”

“I’ll take a boat, or a plane!”

“But you’ll be gone so long!”

“Come with me!”

“I can’t!” Faith released Jay from her grapple. “BeatBax would never let me go to the Cricket-Centipede Islands! Just stay in LA and smoke with us!”

“No! I’ve got to find the Mountain within me!” Jay now struggled to find his name in the text. “Listen to your box of crickets, they’re singing it!”

The sound of their conversation drew Dan from the bathroom. His gaunt stride silenced them. They made room on the couch for Dan to faint between them, red-faced and wet-cheeked. His mouth opened as if to speak but he produced no words. Finally he shook his head and asked, “Can you read?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Jay. “I must go to Sheridan.”

“Okay, you’re still bug-eyed,” said Dan. “Faith?”

“Gorgeous,” she cooed to the fledglings on the pamphlet’s front. “Look at these beautiful birds!”

“Just about back to normal,” said Dan. “Both of you should eat. That’ll help you come down.” He slowly stood and carried the cupcake from the coffee-table to the kitchenette to cut. “Happy birthday, Jay.”

“Happy birthday, Dan.”

“Dainty! Cut it into fourths,” said Faith. “Then you and BeatBax can share with us, and we’ll all sing!”

“I… I’m sorry.” Dan cut the cupcake into thirds. “I need to tell you something.”

Next Section
Commentary

Faith’s steam flew faster than Jay could clamber. Soon Jay lost sight of her, but he continued to trudge up the slopes.

The red mountain’s last digestive quakes forced Jay to drop flat and cling to the ground. He wondered if these rumbles were the winged Zephyr adjusting to its subterranean tomb.

Why did he fear falling? When his knees broke, they righted themselves—but the sound of snapping tendons and the sight of inverted kneecaps had rattled him regardless. Even the mere thought of his great height made him feel teeth take root in his throat.

Then the red mountain was immobile. In the stillness, Jay appreciated the sky. Its mustard tone had melted to honey-gold as he climbed. The sun wore a blue halo which burned orange and red as it set, escorting twin moons below the horizon. Purple night blanketed the desert and the sky’s honeyed heights turned mud-colored, sprouting stars. Jay thanked those lucky stars as the air cooled and he knew he wouldn’t bake to death.

He 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 not dreaming. I’m awake right now.”

He stood and resolved to follow Faith. He’d already surpassed the steepest slopes, so now each footstep rose easier than the last. His feet cracked thin frost on the red mountain’s summit.

He jogged so effortlessly each leap threatened to throw him into orbit. Since he wasn’t dreaming, he knew he must be escaping the planet’s gravity. He was high enough. He relaxed on the mountainside.

Above him, the muddy sky burned royal indigo. Stars drifted so quickly that Jay saw the ebb and flow of galactic clouds. These cosmic eddies outlined a figure against the black background of space. This grand human shape crossed muscular arms over its chest.

Jay looked up from the robot his T-shirt. He hadn’t moved an inch since smoking centipede.

Dan had left his apartment. Faith had slumped into Beatrice’s vacant space on the couch. Jay stared at the birthday-cupcake until he could speak. “Faith. Hey, Faith.”

Faith wriggled against the left armrest. “Beatrice.”

“No, it’s me. Jay.” He rubbed his stiff neck. “Are you awake? Can you see me?”

She buried her face in the couch. “I’m flying through time.”

“My centipede had more space in it than time,” said Jay, “but I’m back, here and now. Did Dan and Beatrice leave somewhere?”

“BeatBax?” Faith snuggled a cushion. “Beatrice…”

Jay gave up. His throat was too raw to carry a one-sided conversation. He reached—with considerable effort—for the glasses of orange-juice to drink their last drops. The citrus only tickled his esophagus.

The apartment-door opened. Dan entered pale, shaking, and teary-eyed. He leaned on the kitchenette counter and yelped when he saw Jay was cognizant. “You’re awake!”

“I think?” Jay counted his fingers. “Yes.”

Dan closed the kitchenette window-blinds. He doubled over the sink like he would vomit.

“Do you have more orange-juice?” asked Jay. “My throat itches.”

Dan brought the gallon of orange-juice from the refrigerator. He unscrewed the cap and spilled juice on the coffee-table. Jay took the gallon and drank directly from its mouth. Dan squeamishly wiped the spill with paper-towels.

“Aaah!” Jay finished chugging. “I left half for Faith. Did Beatrice take off early?”

“Um.” Dan covered his face. “Yes.”

“Faith misses her already,” said Jay. She hugged cushions to her chest. Dan sobbed. When he wiped his tears, Jay swore his nose slid away. “Dan, you’re melting.”

“You’re still hallucinating.”

Jay counted his fingers. He had ten, but they lengthened and shortened with sickening sensation. “No… My hands, my hands are changing.”

“You’re hallucinating. I promise.” Dan sat on the couch’s right armrest and collected his breath. “Jay, I think I need to be alone for a minute.”

“Take your nose.” Jay passed him the orange-juice cap.

Dan humored him and traded the cap for Faith’s red card-stock pamphlet. “When you can read, you’re done hallucinating. Have Faith try, too.” With that, Dan limped to the bathroom as if internally wounded.

Jay squinted until he understood that the cover of the pamphlet depicted a bird sheltering fledglings with its wings. He tried reading the pamphlet’s title, but the cursive refused to cooperate. He opened the pamphlet hoping for more legible typography.

Next Chapter
Commentary

Jay and Faith were awestruck by the Zephyr: a shiny white sphere set in the sky like a polished moon. “It’s beautiful,” said Faith, the quivering snow-pile.

“It’s huge.” Jay couldn’t block it from view with both hands at arm’s length. Seams split open along the white sphere’s surface. “And growing!”

“Indeed,” said the Mountain’s Heart, “but the Mountain is larger. We will swallow it.”

“Cool!” Faith pointed her only paw at the white sphere’s seams peeling at the corners and fraying into feathers. “Are those wings?” Yes, wings peeled from the sphere in sheets. When they flapped, the winged Zephyr drifted like an awkward dirigible. “How can you swallow it all the way up there?”

“It’s not the only one with wings.” The bird unfolded its forty-foot wingspan. Faith oohed and aahed. The Heart turned them both a stern gaze. “Don’t get into trouble.”

“What’s in these pits?” Faith used her paw to crawl to a cave. “Can we climb inside?”

“Only if you intend never to resurface.” Reconsidering, the Heart stomped and all the holes on the red mountain sealed seamlessly. “Better safe than sorry,” said the bird. Then it initiated liftoff.

Its exhaust flooded over Faith and Jay. Jay only fell, but Faith flew for meters like an Autumn leaf. “Help! JayJay! I’m too aerodynamic!”

Jay blocked the breeze with his body and Faith fluttered down safely. The Heart of the Mountain zoomed toward the winged Zephyr on thin steam.

Faith shook out another forelimb. “Can you give me a hand? I’m having trouble making myself.”

“You want me to, uh…” Jay mimed squeezing legs from her bulk. “Like, play-doh you?”

“Wait, I’ve got it.” Faith waggled out two hind legs and kicked frost from their feet. “I like being a fox! We gotta smoke centipede more often.”

Jay was distracted watching the Heart of the Mountain cross the yellow sky. “Sorry, what?”

“Centipede! We should smoke more!”

“Oh yeah. We smoked centipede.” He watched Faith shape her ears. “Smoke without me. I don’t like being bullied by a bird.”

Faith gasped with glee. Kicking frost had formed a fluttery tail behind her. “Oh, hohoho! Look at this!” When her tail left the lee made by Jay, it was almost stolen by the breeze. Faith huddled on her haunches in safety. “Can you sculpt yourself, JayJay?”

“If the wind blows you away, maybe I shouldn’t try. We’d both be blasted across the mountain.” As Jay spoke, the Mountain’s Heart confronted the winged Zephyr. The Zephyr’s wings threatened to smack the robed bird from the air, but the bird barreled right. Blue tentacles spilled from its sleeves and constricted the Zephyr’s wing-joints. “Do you think the mountain can really swallow that thing?”

“Bug-Bird seems to have a handle on it.” Faith watched the Mountain’s Heart drag the Zephyr through the sky. “Do you think Dainty and BeatBax can hear us talk?”

“Who?”

“Dan and Beatrice. They’re on the couch with us.”

“Oh. Right.” Jay wiped sweat from his brow. The Heart’s tentacles slung the Zephyr in an easy arc. “I mean, we can hear each other, so we must be speaking aloud. Yeah, they can hear us.”

“Wow!” Faith watched the Zephyr sail through the air. The Heart shot on a burst of steam to beat the Zephyr to the red mountain’s peak, where it phased into the rocky cliff-face. “Oh. Weird!”

The ground shook. Rocks rolled off the mountain’s edge. Jay stood. “What was that?”

Just before the massive winged Zephyr collided with the peak, the peak collapsed into a caldera. The caldera widened and the mountain wobbled. Jay braced himself.

The Zephyr landed in the caldera like a hand in a glove. The caldera deepened to drag the Zephyr into the red mountain with earth-shattering quakes. “Woo!” Faith let volcanic convulsions throw her through the air. “Fun, huh JayJay?”

Each ripple knocked Jay’s feet from under him. A heavy fall snapped both his knees backwards. Jay shrieked.

“Oh! JayJay!” Faith landed beside him. “Are you okay?”

Somehow Jay’s knees were intact and rightward bent, but he hyperventilated then held his breath. His hands shook.

“JayJay?” Faith raised a paw to his face. “Jay, can you hear me?”

Jay retched and held his neck. With a spasm, he spat a tooth on a line of saliva.

“Oh!” Faith reared from the tooth. “Oh no! Jay!”

Jay hacked up three more teeth and spat blood.

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.” Faith gathered the teeth, but they sank into her snow. She gave up and pat Jay’s shoulder with a paw. “Okay, okay, let it out,” she whispered. “C’mon, breathe with me, man, breathe with me!”

“I can’t—” Jay vomited a whole mouthful of teeth. Some were broken and chipped. “They’re—stuck—in m—” He coughed bloody shark-teeth. “My—”

“You smoked centipede!” Faith locked eyes with him. “This isn’t real! Hold onto yourself!” She looked into Jay’s throat. His esophagus churned with canines and molars. Shark-teeth swam amid the mix. Faith turned her tail to him. “Open wide.” She dipped her tail’s tip down his neck. The teeth soaked into her fur and she pulled them from his mouth. “There, is that better?”

Jay panted and gave Faith a thumbs-up. He rubbed his throat. “It felt like throwing up thumb-tacks,” he managed. “Maybe I didn’t drink enough orange-juice.” He spat more blood and closed his eyes to clear his tears. “Thanks, Faith. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

She was gone.

Jay stood. He saw white steam rolling up the red mountain. “Faith?” He waved at the retreating steam. “Faith! Wait!”

The steam didn’t stop. With a sigh, he climbed the mountain after it.

Next Section
Commentary

Jay screamed in an arc over the dunes. The desert below was wrinkled like an old pink peach. The sky above was tinted honey-gold as he neared the zenith of his trajectory. The pink and gold spun so quickly he saw only whirling apricot. He shut his eyes and hoped his death would be swift.

A sonic boom opened his eyes. The bird zipped so close it caught Jay in its exhaust. Jay coughed and choked on the frozen fog. Through panic, Jay noted how lucky he’d be to die cold in a scorching desert. Anyone else would die of heatstroke or thirst, but he’d shatter on the red mountain like ice. An interesting first!

His tumbling stabilized. The red mountain’s surface seemed smooth from afar, but now Jay saw a thousand tiny caves like pores.

The bird landed in a foggy cloud. As Jay fell the final forty feet, he felt the fog compress beneath him like cream. The cold mist rest him on the mountainside.

Before Jay could catch his breath, the bird snared his waist with a tentacle. “I am the Heart of the Mountain!” It lifted Jay to show him the caves pockmarking the mountainside. “Today you attain Zephyrhood!”

It tried to cram Jay into a cave. Jay braced his limbs against the hole’s rocky mouth. “No! Stop! Please!”

“The Chain is pulled and the Wheel spins!” repeated the Heart of the Mountain. It mushed Jay against another hole. “Your arrival was fated! Enter!”

The caves were so dark Jay could not guess how deep they ran. He beat the tentacle with his fist. “Let me go! Why am I destined? What did I do?”

“You arrived.” The Heart blinked its green compound eyes. “Into the Mountain you go, toward destiny!”

Jay struck the tentacle with a red rock. Four suckers released, and Jay squirmed from its grasp. The hard terrain hurt his feet as he ran.

The tentacle swiped at him but he leapt into lingering clouds of exhaust. He ran blind, only hoping not to fall into a hole.

The bird beat its wings to blast the clouds away. Jay sprinted to stay with the flying fog.

He tripped. He rolled and scrambled to his feet. His protective fog had fled. “Please, no!”

The Heart of the Mountain loomed over him, and what had tripped him—a white fox with a fluffy tail. The Heart of the Mountain retracted its wings and demanded: “Who are you?”

The fox’s ears lay flat. ” ‘Where am I?’ is more like it.” From the red mountain she and Jay looked down on mile-high dunes. “How’d I get here?”

“This is the Mountain. I am its Heart.” From each sleeve, the bird extended five blue arms of normal thickness but five times normal length. They plucked the fox by the scruff of her neck and pinned Jay to the ground. “Which of you is the prophesied Zephyr?”

“Hey! Put me down!” The fox couldn’t shake the grip on her neck. “Help!” Her body turned to fine snow. The Heart’s hands slipped through her. She fell in a pile beside Jay.

“Time runs short! Which of you is the Zephyr? Shall I bury you both?” The Heart scooped the snow next to Jay and compressed them both in place with all ten hands. “What are your names?”

“Faith,” popped the pile. Snow flecked onto Jay.

“Jay,” said Jay.

“How did you get here?” demanded the bird.

“You threw me,” said Jay.

“No,” said the bird, “how did you get to the desert?”

“JayJay?” Faith’s eyes surfaced on the snow. “Oh, JayJay! We’re still sitting on Dainty’s couch!”

“Yes! That’s right!” Jay sighed in relief. “We smoked centipede-powder. We’re hallucinating.”

The Mountain’s Heart blinked. The facets of its compound eyes disbanded and most of them retreated into the bird’s skull. The remaining eyes scrutinized them both. “Centipede-powder? From whom?”

“Virgil Blue,” said Faith, “by way of Virgil Skyy, taken under the supervision of Virgil Orange.”

The Heart relieved pressure from its palms. Jay squirmed away, but Faith couldn’t control her snow-body. “That explains you two,” said the Heart, “but the Chain was pulled and a Zephyr must arrive! Where is it?”

“How should we know?” Jay stood and brushed dust from his body. He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not even sure what a Zephyr is!”

“Really?” The bird retrieved its arms and became a sky-blue cloth cone, like a tepee. It regenerated its compound eyes. “We’re all Zephyrs, one way or another. But for this Zephyr, the Chain was pulled! It must arrive as surely as the Wheel spins! To join all Zephyrs in the Mountain!”

“Virgil Skyy didn’t even mention Zephyrs!” Faith grew a slender limb and used it to shape a snout on her face. “He did mention mountains, though.”

A sound like a gong bowled over Faith and Jay. The roar ruffled feathers on the Heart’s head. It cast its green gaze to the sky. “Oh, thank goodness! I worried it would be subtle.”

Next Section
Commentary

Jay stared at the birthday-cupcake while the world fell away. He didn’t know why Dan paced and wrung his hands. He didn’t recognize Faith barely breathing beside him. Finally the coffee-table, walls, and floor all spun into void.

When Jay blinked, he sat naked on a dune. Heat from the mustard sky baked the sand rust-colored. “Oh no.”

He tried to stand, but his legs buckled under him. He rolled down the dune’s hot slope. Deeper sand was cooler and damper until he tumbled into a moist, shadowy gorge. He pressed his limbs against the narrow walls but found little purchase with the sand. Falling sand revealed tiny tunnels left by worms.

At the bottom of the gorge, Jay panted and desperately felt his body. No bones broken. Two arms, two legs. He 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 not dreaming. I’m awake right now.”

This only worried him. In dreams he could count beyond ten on his fingers to assure himself he was safe, but if he had ten fingers, he was really lost in a desert where the sky wasn’t even the right color.

He stood using the East and West gorge-walls for leverage and looked North and South. To the North, the gorge steepened into an overhanging sand-cliff. To the South, the gorge expanded into a wide valley. He limped South.

As his hands traced the walls, Jay noticed more worm-tunnels. Some seemed dug by worms thick as wrists. Could this gorge be the collapsed tunnel of a worm four feet wide? The ground now seemed to undulate underneath him.

He sprinted out of the gorge into the valley. Safe from danger, he hoped, he sat on warm sand. The dunes still trapped him, but the dune to his South was barely half a mile high with a shallow slope.

A red mountain’s rounded summit peeked over the dune. To be visible from Jay’s deep vantage point and from many miles away, it must have been titanic. Olympian.

As he rest, he noticed he was nude. This would be fine in a dream, but in a desert he would shrivel like a raisin. He also noticed he had no genitals. His crotch was round like the summit of the red mountain over the dune. He didn’t even have a belly-button.

The idea made him anxious and he decided to move. He stood and jogged up the Southern dune. He had to scramble on all fours as it steepened. Halfway up, the dune eclipsed a forty-degree angle, and his climbing made loose sand flow like a waterfall. He had to crawl like a meticulous caterpillar.

When he finally crested the dune, he surveyed the desert. The red mountain sat on a mesa like it ruled the rippling sand from a throne. The sky was cloudless, but the sun seemed small. It led two tumbling moons like misshapen potatoes.

Jay noticed a sky-blue triangle on the mountainside. He squinted, deciding if its rounded curves were those an animal or if its sharp angles were man-made.

The triangle widened. Sapphire wings unfolded. The shape rocketed skyward on a burst of steam. “What the hell?” Jay put his hands on his hips and watched the shape surpass the red mountain’s peak on a vapor-trail. When the sound of liftoff reached him, it was a cannon-shot. He puzzled over the shape until he realized it was coming right for him. “Oh, shit!”

Jay jumped down the way he’d climbed up. He slid down the dune on his back and steered with his hands to avoid the sharpest rocks. At the bottom of the valley, he turned to see if the shape had followed him.

A giant bird with great green bug-eyes joined the mountain in peeking at Jay over the dune. The bird stepped into full view: twenty feet tall in billowing sky-blue robes, it glided down the dune on a forty-foot wingspan.

Jay backed into the gorge; he’d rather deal with worms. He was deep in the gorge before he heard the thunder of wing-beats behind him. The bird landed without visible legs or claws, just robes to sand. It withdrew its wings into its sleeves and inserted its head into the gorge, but was too wide to follow Jay. It opened its squat yellow beak. “The Chain is pulled and the Wheel spins,” it said. “You have arrived.”

Jay retreated further.

“I am the Heart of the Mountain. Be not afraid. Come to me.”

Jay did not. He backed away until he bumped against the steep North wall of the gorge.

The bird’s body morphed under its robes. From its right sleeve, a blue tentacle puckered slimy suckers. “Your fate is with the Zephyrs in the Mountain.” The tentacle snaked through the gorge and wrapped around Jay’s waist. Jay clawed at the sand-walls, kicking and shouting as the tentacle dragged him away. “Speed is quintessential.”

Having said that, the bird flung Jay over the dunes.

Next Section
Commentary

Jay’s T-shirt featured a giant blue robot on the moon. Japanese characters spelled LuLu’s Space-Time Acceleration over the stars. While Dan puzzled over the kanji, Beatrice surreptitiously sat left of Faith on the couch.

“Can you read it?” asked Dan.

“Of course,” said Jay. “RuRu no Jikuu-Kasoku. I learned the pronunciation the first time I visited Japan. I always check whether the final volumes of the manga were released when my work sends me to Asia.” The symbols had complex sub-parts made of multiple strokes. “Plus I know Chinese, and lots of characters carry over.”

Dan nodded and counted pilots in their cockpits. When Dan and Jay stood face-to-face, it seemed a mirror stood between them: Dan was pale and Jay was dark, but they had similar haircuts, identical jawlines, and indistinguishable builds. “Here, Jay, sit down. Faith has extra centipede-powder if you’d like to try some. Beatrice and I could trip-sit both of you. Oh, and happy birthday! Faith brought us a cupcake.”

“Oh! Thanks, Faith.” Jay sat on Faith’s right. “And, hey, Dan… Beatrice told me she might need to leave early. She’s on-call at the hospital today.”

Beatrice refused to touch Leo, the water-pipe, as Faith taunted her with it. “It won’t bite, BeatBax.”

“You promised you’d cut back on bug-sticks.”

“It’s not cricket, it’s centipede! And from now on I’ll only smoke my home-grown crickets. They’re organic!”

“Does that really mean anything?” Beatrice sniffed the bowl of powder. “Ick. Do you know what you’re getting into, Faith?”

“Nope! You’re the nurse. Tell me!”

Beatrice used her phone to show Faith a website warning of various bugs. “The psychedelic high from smoking centipede lasts minutes, but it can feel like hours—and some people have lifelong psychological complications after one dose. It’s not just a big bug-stick.”

“I didn’t peg you for a bug-head, Dan,” said Jay.

“With anxiety like mine, you have to be.” Dan set three glasses of orange-juice on the coffee-table and sat right-most on the couch. “Who’s partaking? Drink a little juice.”

Faith and Jay sipped orange-juice. Beatrice did not.

“Allow me to demonstrate.” Dan held the pipe aloft. “I’ll light the powder and plug this little hole with my thumb. Breathe in slow until I unplug the hole.” He mimed igniting the blowtorch while plugging and unplugging a hole near Leo’s stem. “Then inhale, hold it, exhale, and chug the rest of your orange-juice.”

Dan inhaled through the pipe. The water in Leo rumbled quicker when he unplugged the hole. Faith leaned close. “Neat!”

“Who wants to go first?” asked Dan. He held the pipe to Faith and Jay.

Jay folded his arms like the robot on his shirt. “I’ll go first. Let’s get this over with and see if I like it.”

“Thanks, JayJay.” Faith wiggled her shoulders. “He knows I’m nervous,” she said to Beatrice.

“Don’t be,” Beatrice chastised. “Panicking is the worst option on a psychedelic.”

Jay nodded and sipped more orange-juice. “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

He inhaled through Leo. Dan torched the centipede-powder. White smoke slipped through slotted glass fingers and burbled in ice-water. Dan shut off the blowtorch, but Jay’s inhalation stoked the embers until the smoke looked like milk.

Dan unplugged the hole. “Now.”

Jay gasped the smoke deep into his lungs. His coughs spilled orange-juice on the carpet. He threw his head back to quaff the remaining juice. When he put down the orange-juice, he froze and stared through the wall.

“Wow.” Faith couldn’t pry the pipe from Jay’s grip. Dan rubbed Jay’s knuckles until he released his grasp. “Maybe I should wait until he comes down to take my toke?”

Dan cleared ash from the bowl with a paperclip and packed the last of the centipede-powder. “Take it now. I’ve heard it’s better with company.”

Beatrice watched Faith put the mouthpiece to her lips. Faith met her gaze and coyly kissed the glass buboes around the mouthpiece. “Can BeatBax light it for me?”

Beatrice shook her head. “No. I can’t. I’m barely comfortable watching.”

“Okay. I’m sorry, BeatBax. Thanks for being here for me.” Faith sipped orange-juice. “Light me, Dainty.”

Dan scorched the powder. Faith grinned at the cloud she caught in the chamber. Dan unplugged the hole. “Now.” She gasped the cloud and coughed it into her orange-juice, spilling everything. Dan gave her the extra glass. “Sorry Beatrice, I guess there’s no orange-juice left for you.”

“Hm,” acknowledged Beatrice. She watched Faith chug the juice and sit stock still. “Now what?”

Dan rearranged the pillows to help Jay relax. “We should make sure they don’t choke on vomit or chew their own tongues off, but otherwise they’ll be fine.”

Beatrice sighed. Faith still held the pipe like a vise. Beatrice rubbed Faith’s knuckles like Dan had rubbed Jay’s and put the pipe on the coffee-table.

The four friends sat on the couch. None looked at another.

“I like your outfit,” said Dan.

“Thank you,” said Beatrice. “It’s what all the nurses wear for work.”

Dan smiled and chanced a glance at her. Beatrice fiddled with her phone. “It looks good on you.”

“Thank you,” Beatrice said definitively.

Dan shrank. “Faith told me sometimes I make you uncomfortable. I want to apologize.”

“There’s really no need.”

“I know. She told me that, too. Can we still be friends?” He extended a hand for her to shake.

Beatrice considered it. She finally shook hands without eye-contact. “I need to go,” she said.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to chase you away.”

“You know I’m on-call today. I have to go to the hospital.” She stood and picked up her purse. “Goodbye, Dan. Take care of Faith and Jay. Make Faith text me when she’s able.”

Dan watched Beatrice shut the door behind her. Through the kitchenette window he saw the 1:00 bluebird-line strike Beatrice head-on and smear her across the intersection.

Next Chapter
Commentary

Years later, Dan Jones couldn’t tear his gaze from the bus-stop outside his apartment. He washed clean dishes again and again just to stand near the window in his kitchenette watching buses unload passengers every quarter-hour. By the time Faith disembarked the 12:30 bluebird-line, Dan’s fingers were raw and prune-like. He waited at the peephole for Faith to knock on his door. “Dainty! Ready to help me smoke centipede?”

“Faith! Come in before you say things like that!” Dan opened the door and received from Faith a frosted cupcake with the number twenty-eight written in cinnamon candies.

“Happy birthday, Dainty.” Faith kissed him on the cheek and lounged on his couch. “Share that cupcake with JayJay. You two have the same birthday. Can I hold your bong?”

“Thanks, Faith.” Dan put the cupcake on the coffee-table by the couch and passed Faith a glass pipe. “It’s not a bong, it’s a water-pipe. I named it Leo. I use it for cricket, but it works with centipede. Is Beatrice coming?”

“JayJay and BeatBax missed the bus. They’ll be on the next one.” Faith looked into the water-pipe like a microscope. Dan had cleaned Leo to crystal clarity, so she saw five internal fingers of slotted glass submerged in ice-water. Ten glass buboes circled the mouthpiece for a solid grip. The erect stem of Leo, the water-pipe, held aloft a tiny bowl for filling with powder. “I’m nervous,” Faith giggled. “I’ve been putting this off for years.”

Dan took the pipe from her and set it gingerly on the coffee-table. “How much centipede-powder did you bring?”

“Check it out. You’ll like this, Dainty, it’s about a religion. I got it visiting my uncle in high-school.” Faith passed him the red card-stock pamphlet from her purse. He opened it to see a plastic-baggie filled with brown powder. He scanned the pamphlet, a religious introduction with text in ten languages. “Monks from the Islands of Sheridan were lecturing in Wyoming.”

“And they gave you bugs? And you accepted them?” Dan hesitated to open the baggie. “Maybe you shouldn’t smoke this, even with all of us here to trip-sit you. Taking bugs from strangers is ill-advised at best.”

“It’s okay. I’d met one of the monks before, apparently.”

“You must have impressed them. This is a lot. There’s enough to share with Jay and Beatrice if they want to join you.”

“JayJay might,” said Faith, “but ever since BeatBax started working as a nurse, she’s bugged me to cut back on the bugs. And… um…” Faith stared at Leo, refusing to meet Dan’s eyes, and took a deep breath. “You know, Dan, sometimes you get a little too close to Beatrice, and it makes her uncomfortable.”

Dan covered his face. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I’m… attracted to her, but not sexually, or even romantically.” He wandered back to the kitchenette to watch the vacant bus-stop through his window. “I just think she’s perfect. I’ll tell her that when she gets here. Then she’ll understand.”

“Maybe don’t,” said Faith. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate your feelings if you just give her space. We’re all friends here.” Dan nodded. Faith tried to smile at him. “Hey Dainty, look at this!” In her purse she carried a cardboard-box. She unfolded its flaps—it contained moist earth. Six raw crickets were stuck eyes-down in the dirt, sprouting buds with their own black, beady eyes. “They’re propagating!” she said. “I told you we could grow our own. If I dried them, would you wrap the wings? You’ve got a knack for meticulous work like that.”

“I could try,” said Dan. He compared the budding crickets to a hand-drawn illustration in the red card-stock pamphlet. “I should show my professors this pamphlet. I’ve never heard of a Sheridanian religion. News about the Islands of Sheridan is all crickets and centipedes.”

“The monks seemed reclusive. It makes sense no one knows about them.”

“But they lectured in Wyoming. Were they lecturing across America?”

“No, just the one lecture in Wyoming. They made a point to mention they would never return.”

Dan closed the pamphlet. “Well what was the lecture about?”

“Nothing. It was a silent lecture.”

“Did they… make hand motions?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t in the room.”

“And you want to smoke centipede-powder they gave you?” Dan wrung his hands. “I’ve smoked centipede, Faith. It’s a harrowing experience at the best of times. What if they cut it with something?”

“Centipedes are prepared by Virgil Blue. Are you gonna tussle with Virgil Blue? This is the way it’s meant to be!”

“If you say so.” Dan poured half the centipede-powder into Leo’s bowl and packed it tight. He brought a black blowtorch from his bookshelf. “Did Virgil Blue tell you to drink cold orange-juice when you smoke centipede?”

“Virgil Blue didn’t say anything. They were the silent one. But Virgil Skyy didn’t mention orange-juice, either.”

“Then call me Virgil Orange, because I just saved you a sore throat. I’ll be right back.”

Dan hurried to the refrigerator. Faith stole his spot by leaning across the couch. “This is a nice apartment, Dainty.”

“Thanks. It was my dad’s before he died.” Dan poured three glasses of orange-juice and looked at the bus-stop outside his kitchenette window. Passengers disembarked the 12:45 bluebird-line. “There’s Beatrice and Jay. I haven’t seen Jay since he started transitioning—he looks great. What should I tell him?”

“Tell him you like his T-shirt.” When she heard a knock at the door, Faith shouted: “JayJay, BeatBax, help me smoke some bug!”

Next Section
Commentary