The Way Out

From these icy heights we descended. The snow gradually melted. In time, the lane turned to dust. Just before our final descent that would take us to the sea, we all had an incredible urge to pee. A dust storm left several cars stranded above a precipice. We could hardly see. The sloped road curved sharply. Leo had brewed morning Dejong tea. When the road finally leveled, another spring flowed like the first spring, a long time ago.

Interlude

Several months had passed since the lemon murder, the cherry assasination, and the moon homicide. We found a cheap hotel, got drunk on J et B, a local whisky, and lost track of time. Hitch grew distant. One day she just packed her T-shirt and left. She said she had shown us what she betrothed, and that was that.

We could hear the bustle of the streets: the vendors, the electric zip of the streetcar turning the corner, the bicycle bells, the clack of sandals on the cobblestones, the chickens carried to market, the street urchins peddling tea, the three penny gamblers, the bells in the steeples competing with time, the shouts, greetings and whispered trysts, through the wooden slats of our French shutters. The blades of a ceiling fan drooped down as it sluggishly churned the heavy air. The bed was a tangle of brass spirals, bookends to a saggy mattress. We jammed in the cramped shower stall and slopped around. This led to further intimacies and painting. Leo painted tigers, parrots, fish and cows. One day I found him panting. On hangover days we sent out for mushrooms. We made breakfast love and fried eggs and had sex lettuce for lunch. We didn't sing about the nights we had seen or the days we had heard, or the smells we had felt on our song. Summer faded, and September with its cumulous melodies and crisp skies – its weight towards an end – brought with it the gusty sirens of fall.

Mixing the Ruins

A long time ago, before anyone danced a tango or swayed to a samba, the sea hollowed out a tunnel in the lava rock near Sorrento. The cove wasn't far from the place where Vesuvious erupted. Some people made it to the water and escaped in boats, but the hot lava foiled anyone who attempted to swim. As the lava flowed down the mountain, it buried a dog that was making its way to the sea. The ruins of a Roman fortification stand on the bluffs just above the cove. In the fading distance you can see the town of Sorrento draped over the cliffs. You can hear the church bells ringing faintly.

It was late afternoon. Soft grass covered the knoll where a group of young scouts sang quiet folk songs with guitars. A small stack of handbooks lay piled in the center of the circle. A fishing boat turned the corner around jutting rocks far below, flocked by delirious gulls. Two fragile boys, naked except for their scuba masks and snorkels, waded in the cool November water of the little cove, searching. They stooped and pushed their faces under the water with the coming of each wave. The language they spoke segregated vowels and consonants. Was this good? They stuttered some t's, v's, b's, or d's. The wave swept in and flooded the little pool. They put their faces down in the water while it was high and peered beneath the surface as the wave receded. After they caught their breath, they mumbled a few a's, e's, o's, i's or u's. The waves swelled anew. They put their faces under again. As it ebbed, their mouths uttering consonants rose once more above the water.

"What are they looking for?" a Boy Scout asked. The voice was curiously distant like the bells of Sorrento. "I don't have a clue," replied a Girl Scout softly. "Perchance they are looking for soft shelled crabs," said the Boy Scout. "I don't think so," said the Girl Scout, "it's November and there are no soft shelled crabs here. All the crabs have discarded their shells and gone south." "Then they are looking for black sea urchins," said the Boy Scout. "They can't be looking for black sea urchins," the Girl Scout said, "the urchins too prefer warm water this time of year." There was a long pause. Several waves washed ashore, and the horizon, which had been amber, turned lavender. "They must be mixing the ruins," whispered the Girl Scout as if to tell a secret. "Every November about this time, children walk about ancient sites and place in them bits of pottery, glass and other shards which have washed ashore from elsewhere in the world. The children take the broken fragments and plant them in the ruins above, as if they had been there since antiquity. Quite often they bring bits and pieces, coins, and broken pots from places as far away as Madagascar. This secret practice is ancient and widespread. Archaeologists have made countless erroneous assumptions as a result. There is no way of knowing."

The boys muttered. The innocents sang, and new waves washed the shore. Soon it was dark and the boys, swinging their sacks of deceptions, scaled the stone stairs to the bluffs.