from Section 1

Imitation trees tower a building, my home, set at the base of Mount Anf. I lie in it now, cheek to the floor, wadding material, tomato colored, or the color of near ripe tomato. Something goes on here, not what I love; I love audience.

My alarm is beeping, I must rise for work. My job, audience; my apparel, distinct circular patterns (spirals, loops, coils), functioning as pure decoration and operative equipment. When activated, the bands of plastic draping my hat rise, recast as one rotating wing, shoot me up to a range of elevations; from there I hover, watch, scan. The set of coils strapped to my back, camouflaged as a pack or mod shawl, is a motor responsible for horizontal movement, hurtling me along a single plane forwards, reversed, over streets, bridges, houses.

The apparel, designed by Uncle, is gear so lovely, so functional, I could wear it to dine or shop in a cosmopolitan area, even to wing around the world, but I stay here near Mount Anf whose bounds are deceptively small; what they contain is fascinating. My job is audience. I have never snapped a picture, or even held a camera. Off hours I sleep, eat, attend to sensations not visual.

Before my birth, Uncle established Mount Anf—an, artificial hill, its surrounding city—as an organized matrix for probes, trials, experimentation. Now, as then, it sits in the center of a region of chaos.

My job is audience, but this week I spent more and more time at home, last week too. I have been overspending time there. Before leaving it today I drink two strongly boiled cups of imported coffee, eat two much less strongly boiled imported eggs.

My neighbors, Kip and Hoyle, non-biological siblings, inhabit the most wildly decorated home in Mount Anf. The couple is well known: Hoyle, Uncle's chief assistant; Kip, a lead rocker and song writer. They sport a similar, not identical look: caps, gloves designed by Uncle, fitted jeans and brightly colored chaotically patterned material also designed by him. Both are bone thin, bow-legged. Hoyle wears thick, heavy framed glasses (Uncle wears glasses too, thinner than Hoyle's). Kip and Hoyle's downstairs ceilings, walls, floors are painted light blue, flecked with pebble and boulder sized darker blue spots. Furniture—throw pillows, lamps, several small tables, a massive rectangular table—is yellow. One portion of the ceiling opens up to the sky for stargazing and ventilation; a strobe—made active by the couple after dinner, during parties, and when Kip practices rocking—hangs from the other ceiling portion.

Usually Kip and Hoyle are last on my route, but this evening I am cranky, and change the pattern by making their home my first stop. Downstairs is empty, but through an upper-level window I see Kip settled on the floor, back pressed to the wall, legs spread open. I had forgotten this is his standard position early weeknights. Glitter dusts his ceiling; a wallpaper design of alpine skiers, faces turned up toward the sky covers the room's four walls. To Kip's left, a row of switches embedded in a mound of plastic; he now presses one switch to start the projector behind him, which plays a film documenting Hoyle at work. The first shot, a close-up of Hoyle, right eye pressed to a magnifying glass, drafting her patterns on paper. A second sequence shows Hoyle ascending the slope of Mount Anf, lugging her cart of excavation materials. Swarms of plastic (battery operated) insects head toward her. A backdrop of mountains, rays from a sun that looks hot, fixed, shining, frame these shots of Hoyle working Mount Anf. The third and last shots depict Hoyle and Uncle in wide-brimmed hats, and heavy eye make-up (protection from sun), alternately lunching (high table, shoulders poked out over china), and discussing Hoyle's findings.

The film is short, four minutes, and possibly new; it is the first I have seen of it, and I am familiar with Hoyle documentaries. I stay through two runs with Kip, immobile on the floor, a position he maintains for medical reasons.