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By Root 589 0

shower spraying hard against his head, a place that right now she must go, and in the night he’d went and had been driving, though he could not see over the dash, and how he’d felt his body moving fast across the land toward that lit spot calling for him to come forward, to move into its hull and stay and sleep, until suddenly from in the fold of darkness there appeared an enormous gleaming dog, a dachshund several times the average size, and how it had come unto him so fast even in unseeing that there was no time for him to spin the wheel, and he’d hit the dog and heard it go underneath the car and there was squealing and blood had sprayed over the glass, the son had become so shook up she couldn’t stop the car or take his cold hands off the wheel and he kept driving without slowing, he drove and drove, and when he found he’d somehow gotten home again he washed the blood off of the car, he scrubbed the car’s skin with baby diapers, the way he’d seen his father do, taking care, and though the blood came off the car it would not come off him and it did not smell like blood.

The son had told the 45-year-old man what he wanted one day in a wife though the son didn’t know quite what he meant by what he said.

The 45-year-old man had been asking for the son’s cell phone number but the son had not yet let him have it. Please, the man kept typing. Please. Please.

The man had sent the son strange pictures of a light.

The first name the man had given as his real name was as well the name of many other people.

Now the son was typing and typing to the man in the chat box. He was also looking through websites for pictures of buildings laid to ruin—buildings beat apart by wind and weather, or hit by lightning or burned with fire. He didn’t know why he wanted to see those things, but by now he had a drive full. They were there inside his computer. They were in there, copied on and on.

There beside the chat box with the 45-year-old man, another chat box opened. The message said, HELLO. The son did not recognize the screen name, HELLO444. He minimized the message. It popped right back up again.

HELLO444: I KNOW YR THERE.

HELLO444: I KNOW YR READING.

HELLO444: I CAN C YOU THRU YR SCREEN.

The son waited. He was looking. He stretched before the panel. A small icon in the corner said HELLO444 was busy typing. The son watched the blinking cursor on his end. He stood up and went to the window and looked down on the street. There was some mud there, moonlight, other houses. He stared a moment, somewhat transfixed. He heard the message chime immensely, a thousand tiny phony bells.

The son came back to his computer and saw another message, and again.

HELLO444: IN THE FAR BACK CORNER OF THE ROOM IN THE HOUSE WHERE YOU LIVED BEFORE WHERE YOU ARE NOW THERE IS A VERY SMALL LATCH SET IN THE FLOOR OF THE ROOM WHERE YOU WOULD SLEEP NIGHTS EVEN THOUGH THIS ROOM WAS NOT YOUR ROOM. IF YOU LIFT THE LATCH AND PULL THE LID BACK THERE IS A LITTLE PASSAGE JUST BARELY BIG ENOUGH FOR SOMEONE YOUR SIZE TO SQUEEZE THROUGH AND IF YOU CLIMB DOWN FAR ENOUGH AND THINK THE RIGHT THING YOU WILL COME OUT IN ANOTHER ROOM.

HELLO444: IN THIS ROOM YOU AS A PERSON SPENT MANY HUNDREDS OF HUMAN YEARS. YOU GREW INTO SEVERAL DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF A MAN, SOME ENCHANTED, SOME QUITE BORED. AS YOU LEARNED TO LEAVE THE ROOM THROUGH MANY WAYS OTHER THAN HOW YOU CAME, YOU FOUND PASSAGES TO OTHER ROOMS CONTAINING OTHER PEOPLE AND YOU HAD MANY WIVES AND YOU WERE VERY WEALTHY. YOU LIVED IN SPLENDOR FOR LONG EONS AND YOU WERE WISE AND YOU WERE WANTED. THERE WAS NO CEILING ON EARTH THAT COULD CONTAIN YOUR HEAD AND WHEN YOU TOUCHED YOUR HEAD WHOLE PLANETS DIED.

HELLO444: WHEN YOU GREW OLD ENOUGH YOU WERE GIVEN THE GIFT OF A SMALL OCEAN IN WHICH YOU BATHED FOR FURTHER HUNDREDS OF HUMAN YEARS AND YOU GRANTED WISHES TO PEOPLE WHO CAME TO SEE YOU THOUGH SOME DID NOT KNOW THAT YOU WERE THERE, AND YOU APPEARED IN MANY DIFFERENT FORMS TO MANY DIFFERENT PEOPLE AND YOU WERE WRITTEN OF IN BOOKS, YOU WERE WRITTEN OF IN THE BOOK OF MARK, YOU WERE WRITTEN OF IN EITHER/OR AND MOUNT ANALOGUE