The voices are a map.

It's your grandfather, she says. He's had a fall.

He puts his head in his hands.

There are two landscapes. The function of one is to limit the other.

He sees objects all around. He can comprehend what surrounds him, while only imagining his presence in those surroundings.

Certain people he knows, even personally, are prepared.

He had a hard time recalling.

"C'mon," somebody said.

"Just spit it out," another said.

"Something about a droopy eyelid," he said.

"And?" somebody said.

"So?" another said.

"There's more," he said. His eyes were watching the ceiling. Lines of light, cars passing, lies on the open street. "Something about her condition," he said. "She said, 'they think it can be controlled.' No. Something else. She said: 'It can probably be controlled.' "

The room got dark.

"I've sat next to people like that," somebody said.

"I've felt them crying very near me," another said.

He put his head in his hands. He couldn't see through his hands. The room was getting darker.

The next thing he knew, he was holding on. She was shaking.

Dear --,
It rained. It poured. It hailed. I made coffee. May, 1997. June, 1997. August, 1997. I made married. I counted my monetary gaps. Divorced. I filed my name like a business. The phone doesn't ring. I won't panic, I won't even think: a/c payments, the cost of having beer delivered, cold showers, keeping cool. The guy living downstairs is a chef. He leaves everyday of the week at 10:35 am. The door swing shuts. I stay where I am. The guy upstairs is some kind of mechanic. He leaves at 6:30, comes back at 4:15. He's been living here for 8 months now. I've never seen him. I go out the front. I remember something I thought I'd forgotten. I march back up the stairs, unlock the door and take a seat at my desk. The papers on either side of the computer are the documents I promise to subscribe into the machine, enter and discard and print out again - everything: filed, recorded, saved, soiled, uploaded, reborn, rebirthed. You bastard. Don't start this crazy shit again. PK Dick, Dalton Trumbo, Vonnegut. Try reading something short and blunt like a fist. Summer hail. Sun goes.
Love --.

Dear --,
You write me a postcard. You write me a letter. You write me an email; Subject: This is the summer of going crazy. Getting email is like getting a letter except you don't think about it, you don't value it, you don't feel like you should keep it before you throw it out. Instead, you respond immediately and you don't remember what you said and you figure, well, anyway, someone somewhere is keeping a record, has a kilobyte file with your name on it, is storing up everything you've already forgotten. So why should I?
Wishing You the Best, --.

Dear --,
When was it? A few summers ago? A few hot decades interspersed with this tiresome cold season? I drank beer by the lakeside and said later: So I'm heading out for a midnight canoe ride. You called me crazy, called me irresponsible, tried to take my beer away. I laughed and said your so gullible. Just kidding, I said. My hot body. My ha ha ha. My message in a sinking bottle.
Salutations, --.

Dear --,
I have lost a crucial invoice, a bill I thought I paid, a dream in crayon on a pink piece of recycled scrap. I clean the desk and find the letter I received from you five months ago. I feel guilty the way those men who go to Thailand to have sex with little boys feel guilty. I forget what I am looking for. I forget everything. I write back. Not word for word but subject for subject, idea for idea, my heart, my breast, my clinging flesh to flesh.
Hope All Is Well, --.

Dear --,
Winter's only over and you're already burning through summer like a forest fire set by an errant American outdoorsman who just can't face the darkness, who promised his Sherrie a big bon in the big outdoors. Don't come visit. I got bills to pay and a headache this big.
Best --.

Dear --,
You send me this story by Harlan Ellison about a man who keeps bumping into his ex-wives and having sex with them, one night stands full of regret and longing and bitterness like the skin of a fruit. I stop reading it. I swallow. He has eight ex-wives, and he notices a pattern by the third most recent wife. Here's the catch: his first wife, numero uno wife, wife number one, his original true love. 54% of all first marriages are failures.
Hugs and Kisses, --.

Dear --,
Dandruff like it's never been seen before. If you didn't write me, I wouldn't feel compelled to write you back. Shaking my head over a piece of paper. You've noticed that I almost never respond to your emails. And when was the last time I sent you a postcard of a tanned woman in a white bikini with the name of state written under her in bright letters? Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma. Coincidentally, I'm sure, these are the names of your daughters. I cannot help you find them, we are no longer in contact. Though I will say they are all fine women, tall and clear complexioned with strong minds. Invoice number: 935-1. 4-Apr-97. 2000 covers printed 2 colours over 1 colour varnished. Prepress 81. Paper 100. Print/bind 260. GST 35.07. PST 0. Found this bill next to your scribbles. You see, I do keep records. Enclosed please find a copy of my recent catalogue, no obligation necessary. You don't know how busy I am. I'm taking some time out of my day to day. You think business slumps in the summer? Here, it's the other way around. Try to keep cool. Try to read less speculative adult fiction. Try to imagine yourself before dignity's veil cast over your face like mist rising in a morning's wilderness only partially spoiled by motor boats. A morning that nobody knows.
All the Best, --.

Dear --,
Extra blue Selsun strong with medicated tingle. Tea tree oil Koala all natural antibacterial exfoliate. I buy hot oil cleansing scalp unclog treatment. I stay up late soaking my hair in an old wive's tale of oatmeal, dark ale and maple syrup. I see a commercial for Nizoral, kills the fungus that starts dandruff, $15.99 for a small bottle that fits in my palm, 2 teaspoons twice a week. This is how I live now - do not ingest, do not leave near children, product as magic, guaranteed write McNeil Laboratories, Guelph, Ontario for a full conditional refund details of offer available. Fungus. Fungus.
Missing ya, --.

Dear --,
Your postmarks from Florida. Your special deliveries from Idaho. Your warning from the postmaster associate of upstate New York: postage due, six cents. But they deliver it anyway and that's something, isn't it? Remember me, you write from your cell in Pittsburgh. Your jail in Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh. I say it out loud. I feel hot breath on my butt. Pittsburgh. Your legs pulling around my chest. Jail. The way he pins me down from a distance. The way he licks my anus like a stamp.
Regretfully Yours, --.

Flutter and die. Decrepit wings between us. Wipe the dust off our faces. Turn away from the season.

Over here where I am, the moths bang across the screen.

In winter it is too cold to follow the sidewalk.

Hey, whose face is that? Eyes closed to the cold. I see nose, lips, the flash of a white cheek. I see what peaks out from the pink of a doubled-up parka.

The months are nothing: days, heats, feelings.

There is a sudden smell here.

An empty gourd leaned on its side. I buried his body in the field next to his hut. His flesh would not decompose. The dregs of spirit would drain from the length of his cavities but he would not decompose. I moved in. I counted the days.

I came here to marry Merelda. When I arrived she pretended not to know me though I saw her clearly three times in my sleep and she was beautiful and she was my wife. My mother held my ankles as I left so I would know the weight of the steps I was taking. The people here looked strangely at me. I stood in the square picking grains of sand out of the palm of my hand. The villagers gathered. Here, they said to each other, is a young strong man who has come from far away and is now dead to his family. Here, they told each other, is a philosopher who has come to our town to count the ways and calls of the possible numbers.

I became the philosopher's apprentice. I looked back into my dreams - even then I was preparing to become a philosopher. I stood in the square fingering the land's kernels. Words are numbers, as convincing, as perfect, as essential. I learned this from the old philosopher. I began to speak in numbers. I am writing this to tell you that I was never a philosopher, just a young man who yearned for the home he left and loudly calculated the distance.

Every day was an exception.

Merelda, I said. At least read the beginning.
She put down what she picked up.

This town was not even a town. I settled with them at the edge of the great forest. Certain words were not required: Visitor, traveler, adventurer, guest, migrant, pilgrim, wanderer. None of these things had numeric equivalents. I was none of these things. I told them they lived precariously on a ridge that overlooked a huge valley. Beyond the valley were the mountains. I explained that there were many towns. I come from one of the many towns, I said. Behind the town is the great forest. Inquiry is an empty box without compulsion. Compulsion less sincerity equals zero. And behind the great forest? they asked. I made notes. I crafted lists. I listened to the distance.

Merelda held out her pale arms and offered me the warmth of her skin.

I am a man Merelda, I said. Like any other.

Don't scratch, she advised.

Merelda dropped to her knees, touched her forehead to the crumbling moniker at the edge of the forest.

The land is change, I said.

I've never been to the mountains, she said.

I was above her. The trees were above me.

I am adding it up, I warned. I have invented an invention.

The villagers moved forward. I was older than they remembered. My hands trembled. I held up a crudely wrought screen. People gathered and argued.

It is a collector of bugs, Merelda said.

There are many kinds of collections, I said. That is the drawback of comfort.

Your hands are soft, Merelda said.

The road was dark and I had said too much. The juice spilled from his chin and the road pointed in all directions. He was drunk. He used his stick to talk. He said that it was me. I still believed what he taught me. He said too much. I inquired about the inquiry.

She was wrapped in a tight cloak. The sun came from behind us. I saw the scorched darkness of the mountains. I wanted to know when I could again expect a morning of such clarity. I wanted the knowledge of passing time I knew she had. She bared back inside me and grabbed my ankles. The mountains, I explained to the bemused villagers, can be seen rarely not because they are so small, but because they are so large. Merelda knew everything I did not. I looked at her face. She looked at the mountains. The sky shifted. She shook off her cloak.

The wind is stripping the flesh from the land, she said.

Nobody can see the wind, I said.


In the latest part a woman arrives for my semen. She raises her skirt. I am the one with the wisdom, she tells me. Merelda, I moan. The rug dries. A drought settles.

Years go by.

Merelda sleeps with many men. I write a long text that would have made sense to her. She refuses to read it.

The men came to me. I explained to them how to burn down their forests, how to see what was behind and all around them. I articulated the need for more. They understood. They went home and wanted their wives.

Desire arrives before epistemology. Logos plus methodology plus desire. Rhetoric minus the accomplishment of hope. All this equals nothing. I came here to marry Merelda. The fields must extend into the forest. The land is crowded. The trees suck out what is fertile. I must do what is reason for me.

One tree at time, I said. In other lands where there is no forest.

I have never been to other lands, Merelda said.

Place and time exist in an enviable order. Flesh is the dream we keep having. She showed me the space. We saw it through the slits of our eyes. Merelda.

A gentle breeze pulled the soil around our boots. Hills formed at the boundaries. The rains never came. The soil became unhinged. The town was the only town past the mountains on the edge of the great forest. I won't go into detail. The town was not even a town. I held my palms still. I was dead to my family.

Merelda and the old man were wrapped in mesh screens. Tiny flies of a kind they had never seen before swarmed in their faces. The flies against the wind. The old man knew about layers. He knew about permeable soil. There were twelve layers of verdant earth. Then there was rock. Covered in mesh, there was no way to eat. The old man stopped eating.

I clawed at her mesh. She took my hand.

We danced and felt the width of the desert drag on our ankles.

Listen, I said. I came here to marry you and now we are married.

Perry opens the apartment door and hears the shower. Gently, he pulls the door closed. He creeps up the stairs. She puts conditioner on her hair, pulls it back. Perry gets closer. His boots shuffle on the hard-wood floor. The sound of water hitting the bottom of the tub. Her breath in the steam.

They live near the factory where Deb's dad Billy worked for thirty-three years. The sky turns gold, then blue, then gray. In June, the air is cold, it breaks into hard pieces. Debs goes to work in slacks. A sweater. Then, suddenly, the clouds open. There is a layer between Debs and her skin. She pulls at her outfit.

"It's unnatural," Perry says.

Debs drinks beer from a bottle. She doesn't look at him.

The night is a mask.

Perry wants to go out. Just get out. When will the weather break? He wants to go to Suds. He isn't afraid: Fear would be something. But he isn't afraid. He suffers. He suffers from an upset stomach, from terrible dandruff, from premonitions of another unseasonal morning.

He goes into the spareroom. There isn't much in the spareroom. There's an old chair with hardwood armrests. The lamp sputters but stays on. It's a lucky lamp. The heavy base is a carved Buddha. Debs calls the spareroom the babyroom.

"I don't know why I did it," Perry says. He is on the phone with his friend Steve. Steve does something for a living, but they never talk about it.

"She screamed?" Steve says.

"Yeah," Perry says. "She screamed."

Debs' father Billy drops by. The first thing he says is: "I don't know."

Debs stares at him, looking for signs.

He scratches at his head.

"You seen that sky?" he says. He kisses Debs on the top of the head. She nods. She's seen that sky. She holds up a beer, motions to the fridge. Billy has a red face, cracked and fissured all the way up to his thick head of white hair. He looks, Debs told Perry, like he once lost his temper and then never found it again. He's doing alright today, though. He's just dropping by to let them know that he's seen the sky. Tomorrow is his sixty-second birthday.

"Perry gone out?" Billy says. Debs shakes her head and points down the hall.

"Not talking today?" Billy says. Debs crosses her arms over her breasts. Billy smells the factory on everything.

"I'll have that beer," he tells Debs.

When he gets into the kitchen he doesn't want it. He opens the refrigerator and sticks his head in and breathes the way he does for the doctor.


"I'm going to Suds," Perry announces. "I'm sorry."

Debs gets up. Turns her back.

"I'll come too," Billy says. They look at Debs, at her back. The sky flickers incandescent. The factory dreams twenty-four hours long. Debs isn't sure how sure she is. Is it him? She faces the picture her father painted: A gash of fading purple, a dog casually rendered from an old snap-shot, floating and exact on the corner of the gruesome cloud canvass. The door opens and closes. Debs thinks. Arms straight across her chest. A frown with no expression.

Billy doesn't usually talk about the factory.

"Debs is more like me than her mother," Billy says.

"How's that?" Perry says.

"When I used to work at the factory -" Billy starts laughing. Perry claps him hard on the back. "Excuse me. When I used to come home in the morning after my shift I would see the most beautiful colours. I mean I would see incredible fucking colours, just there in front of me, and I would be too tired to do anything with them. And now, now when I'm not so tired, when the days are so long and my pension's in the mail every month, I don't see shit. I don't see them anymore. I don't see anything. Real colours, you know, they aren't so easy to see. I don't see those anymore."

Perry nods. Debs is like Billy. Perry doesn't understand either of them. The bartender puts a bowl of salted peanuts on the bar.

"Thanks," Billy says. He dips his hand into the bowl and tries to close his fingers into a trap. Perry looks away.

"You see the sky today?" the bartender asks.

"Hey," Perry says. "Hey. Tomorrow's your birthday."

Billy starts laughing. He spits peanut. Billy's laughing is like any physicality; it is a way to end things.

Perry picks up his mug. He feels the cold solidity.

"Will you marry me?" he says. Nobody hears him.

What is the family secret? At night, on the way back from Suds, the sky is so purple it is almost black. Perry doesn't know about stars, or constellations. He stands on the sidewalk across the street from their building. He looks up. She lives here, he thinks. Behind the squat building three smoke stacks point jagged exclamations marks. If the sky wasn't so thick, Perry would see things the way they actually were. He would see his bedroom window, and the silence of a lamp switched off. He would see spectacular colours.

Debs is in the shower getting cleaned up for Billy's birthday dinner. They are going to the fancy restaurant where Billy eats the ribs and Debs' old high-school sweetheart is the head waiter. Debs strokes herself with soap, lathering up her belly. She hums a song. The night is the old man's night. He worked the night shift. She remembers not remembering him; Billy as a darkness in the shadows of the sky, a temperature change, a night-light in the hallway distance.

And Perry? Perry is Perry, one way or the other. Perry is taking a shit and trying to think of something nice to say. He gets up and wipes. Mechanically, he examines the toilet paper, drops it in, flushes.

Debs screams.

"Oh shit," Perry says, "I forgot. I'm sorry. I forgot. Are you okay?" He pulls the shower curtain back and sticks his head in.

Debs is standing at the far end of the tub avoiding the water. Her skin is red. She looks at Perry as if just noticing him, his anxious face, his bristly hair beaded with sweaty drops. She laughs. That's it, Perry thinks. The end. What time's dinner? he wants to say, or Forgive me? or Shut up, shut up, just shut up. But Perry laughs too. The bathroom has a small window. A man in the adjacent building looks through with his binoculars. He stops, though, when the air gets too thick.

Perry shakes Billy's hand and feels the locked currents of tension in the old man's fingers. They can't both be like this, he thinks. Not tonight.

"Hi Debs," the head waiter says, grinning his nice teeth. Debs is wearing the black dress that makes her body longer. She stretches over to the head waiter and presses against him. Perry and Billy watch, waiting to see what, if anything, she will say.

"Hi there," Debs says. Perry coughs.

"How about the sky tonight," the head waiter says.

"Like one of Pop's paintings," Debs purrs.

"I hate fucking puppets," Billy says, looking around menacingly. "Don't come after me with any fucking puppets. Just keep them away from me." Billy takes a faltering step back.

"Easy there big guy," Perry says, grabbing his elbow.

"This way," the head waiter says, touching Debs with precision.

Perry is going to pay for dinner. He wants to pay for dinner. The first thing to do, he thinks, is to pull out my wallet and just pay. He feels the bulge in his pocket.

"How about a whiskey?" he says. "Who wants a Scotch?"

Debs looks at the blunt ends of her nails.

"Debs?" He touches her shoulder.

"Oh not for me." Her first words to him in two days.

Billy tries out different ways with his napkin. He looks at his lap.

"Nobody wants a whiskey," Perry says. He can feel the head waiter behind him. "Nobody wants a goddamned drink before dinner?"

The head waiter has a name. In this town, people are called Lloyd, Stu, Jack and Bert.

"Keep 'em away from me," Billy says. His napkin slides off his lap.

Perry sucks in air through pursed cigarette lips, he isn't smoking, he wants to be smoking. Debs puts the menu in front of her face. The restaurant gets dimmer. The lights turned low for supper time. Smirking, the head waiter puts a candle on the table. He leans over the glow of Debs' shoulder. He looks down. The air is thick as dinner. When Billy starts laughing, Perry gets up and smacks him on the back. Billy laughs louder. The head waiter shows up with a Scotch in his hand. Perry keeps slapping Billy.

"Don't," Debs gasps. "Don't do that." She is giggling uncontrollably.

Outside is eventual. Outside the most beautiful light escapes the purple-hued prism of the sky.

Perry sits down. He can't stop himself from smiling.

"Mother?" he said. "What are you doing?"

He was supposed to call her Mother.

"Mother?"

The sound of water was heavy. The distance between the tap and the pink peeling sink.

"Mother?"

He kept looking at the walls, to see if they were cracking. He was in his room. He was calling her Mother. He was supposed to call her Mother. He was sitting in his room. He couldn't move. He couldn't hear her above the weight of water dripping. He couldn't sleep. He dozed off. He woke up. He followed the damp patches. Small wet steps to the bathroom. She turned and smiled. The steam smacked him. There was blood on the mirror. There was a hole in her forehead down to the centre. She was smiling. She smiled.

"You should have seen what came out," she said. "Some hard stuff and some soft stuff."

He met the famous woman under a tree.

Let's stay out of the sun, she suggested.

She said something about where she was from, something about her childhood.

He clenched his nails into his skin. He wasn't sure yet. It was real, wasn't it? He never thought she might have had a childhood. He took out his camera.

Don't, she said.

The flash lit up the lines of her face.

No, she said.

Stop here, Riley said.

German didn't stop.

Stop, Riley said.

German gripped the steering wheel. A plastic lizard dangled off the rear-view mirror. Somebody honked, shifted.

Stop.

German brought the wheel around. Somebody swerved. The U-turn pulled them into a parking spot.

What's here? German said. He lowered his face into his arms over the steering wheel.

Riley opened his door. The old lizard made a bold circumference.

We were supposed to be out of the city by now. The traffic. The fucking traffic. German trailed Riley down the street. Riley followed some path, the sidewalk, the buildings, the breaking taste of Fall. He pulled his hat down tight. They were late. They were always late. He turned into the kind of building that makes up the edge of a city.

The lobby was lined with mirrors. The elevator was slow. German clenched his teeth. The fucking traffic. There was only one way out of town. Riley worked the elevator. He considered all buttons. His fingers drifted. The door slid open. German stared out into the lobby.

You don't even know where we are.

Riley stabbed a button.

The door at the end of the hall had a small sign on it. Riley pushed it open. An empty waiting room, fashion magazines, brown wallpaper, a reception desk with no one behind it.

Riley moved to reception. German rolled his eyes. Riley picked up an unmarked bottle. He unscrewed the cap. He smelled the frothy liquid. German felt the backs of his teeth touch.

A dark woman in a white uniform took the bottle out of Riley's hand.

She looked at Riley.

This is it, he thought.

Riley took off his hat. The woman came around the reception desk. She guided Riley to a seat. A man brings everything to where he is going. A man goes through this much, and then has nothing left to go through.

Riley shut his eyes. He wanted to cover the seams of his eye-lids with his fists. He wanted to keep it all, to let this be the single moment in his life when everything he was could be walled up inside of him, and nothing could get out. Arms closed across his chest. Eyes against cheeks. Pink scalp beneath blighted yellow hair. The receptionist stared.

Rush hour, German thought.

First appointment very free, the receptionist said.

Riley stared at himself in the mirror. His scalp soaking. Red liquid dripping off the sides. The phone rang. Riley wiped his hands on a towel. It was German.

I've got the mold, Riley said.

The mold?

Yes.

You canceled the trip for the mold?

Yes.

That guy isn't even a doctor. I'm telling you.

Look at this, Riley said, staring at himself in the mirror. Just look at this.

I cancelled with Debbie, Riley. I cancelled with Debbie because this was supposed to be the weekend.

Debbie, Riley said. He held the hair in his fingers up to the light.

Riley clutched an empty beer bottle in both hands.

Another, he said.

Debbie giggled. Riley's getting drunk.

German brought a beer from the fridge. Riley put his bottle down. One of his hands moved to his head. No don't it'll just - He scratched casually at his forehead. Under the hat territory was conquered. Shifting and climbing. Some discomfort, she said the first time he called. Burning, she admitted the second time. Very toxic, she suggested the third time. Using as directed?

German flipped through the CD's. What do we want? he asked.

Riley swallowed the rest of his beer. Let's do shots, he said. He could feel each finger's purchase on the empty bottle. German and Debbie stared.

Have another beer, German said.

It's so exciting, Debbie said. You must be so excited.

Something loud, Riley said.

Your annual Fall trip. Debbie touched Riley's arm. You must be so excited.

Next weekend, German said. He handed Riley another beer.

What about her? Riley asked.

Debbie got up. She pranced around to the music. The music was loud. Debbie made it louder. Riley heard the march of exploration. His hands drifted loose. The bottle dropped to the floor. Riley looked at his hands. No scratching, she advised the fourth time. Riley wrapped around another beer. He swallowed. He kept swallowing.

Debbie danced behind German. She put her hands over German's face. Riley could not get up. He was somewhere, anywhere - German and her in another world, the itching air around him where he was, her palms across German's face, his forehead, the impenetrable boundary where the forest gives way to mountains and hands join hands in excavation.

Riley staggered to the bathroom.

Cold water, she advised the fifth time.

The tap ran.

German turned to Debbie. His lips covered hers.

Riley's awake, Debbie said.

Show him, German said.

Okay, Debbie said. She put out her cigarette. She turned down the music.

Do it, German said.

Okay, Debbie said.

Riley tried to sit.

Are you ready? Debbie said. I'm going to recite the encyclopedia from A to F. But in Flemish. Okay ready? This is the encyclopedia in Flemish.

Debbie brought words up from the bottom of her throat. She murmured and hissed. She threw her hands around the apartment. She blew out words. Riley closed his eyes.

Full treatment costs three thousand dollars, Riley said. I took out a loan.

What? German said.

There are no guarantees.

We were supposed to be here hours ago.

It's dark, Riley said. He walked into the bushes.

Not that way. German grabbed his collar and pulled him back on to the road. The frost from their breath mixed and made a certain kind of silence.

It's cold, Riley said.

We better get moving.

German was smiling. Riley shivered. He felt his face. His fingers crept up. The cold is numbing it, he thought. They strapped on their packs. Riley watched where his friend's feet fell.

I always forget about this hill, Riley said.

The air, German said. Taste the air.

Riley opened his mouth. Stuck his tongue out. The wind pulled at his hat and at everything that was under his hat. Riley hooked his hands under the straps of his pack. There was nothing under the hat. The air was the flavour of ice.

Look, German said. The big birch finally fell.

Riley squinted into the woods. White shapes settled.

See the way it landed? If it had gone the other way, we would have had to cut through it.

Riley saw a dead white splash on a glacier of gray.

Your eyes are better, he said. He hunched forward into the woods. I can't see it. He stuck out his neck. His lips were dry. He pinched them together. He mouthed a tune. He followed the bulge of his eyes with his body, low into the under-brush. His legs buckled. He went down. His pack twisted around and pinned his arms to his body. He hit the ground hard, still humming.

Fuck, German said. German's laugh. The cold wind on everything.

I'm trapped. Riley giggled.

German pulled Riley up. The leaves under them, cracking and crumbling. Wet sleet bounced.

Riley was blue. He clawed the seal off the bottle. He twisted his wet fingers around the cap. He brought the bottle to his mouth and closed his teeth down. He spit out the cap and drank. A light spluttered and caught.

Here, Riley said. In the sudden dim of the lamp, German looked bigger. He took the bottle. They stood in the cabin feeling the heat.

Shit, Riley said. What time is it?

It's almost ten, German said.

Shit, Riley said. He dug into his pack. Combs, towels, vials, gels. The pack deflated.

German watched. Riley brandished a large rubber cap with a plug sticking out of the top. You can't plug that in, German said. He started stacking wood in the stove. There's no power.

Battery-pack, Riley said, holding up a black box.

German lit the paper under the kindling. Riley held the bottle to his lips. He coughed. Ice melted off the lip of his hat. These trips used to be fun. Riley moved toward the stove.

This place'll be boiling in half-an-hour, German said. Riley held the bottle. I better get more wood and check the cover on the rest. You know how to turn it down? Don't let it get too hot. You remember how to turn it down?

It's freezing, Riley said.

But it heats up quickly. Remember?

Go, Riley said.

I should fill the tank too, German said. Keep the pipes from cracking.

Riley nodded. He felt the drops on his face shrinking. His skull shifted and fissured under his hat. Cold air. A door swinging shut on its hinges. He took another drink from the bottle. He pulled off his wet hat and then the bandanna over his head. His scalp clamoured for the treatment. He put a finger up there, located a wisp. He squeezed green jelly out of an anonymous tube. He rubbed the viscous cool into his head. He closed his eyes and spread the gel on every fibre, every loose strand, every empty patch. He thought of rubbing and stroking and breathing. He thought about bringing something dead back to life. Riley was concentrating. He concentrated the way the doctor had told him to, he was thinking about how he wanted his hair to be, how it should be. Riley wiped the sweat from his upper lip with the skin of his arm. The stove glowed red and heat reached out. He felt the haze of his slick head, the warm grip of plastic and electricity. Palliative heating unit, he thought. He pushed the dial to high. He was not how he was. He was how he was going to be. I'm not Riley. He got into his sleeping bag. He heard the crack of the fire, the buzz of electricity. He encouraged his head.

German leaned against the door of the cabin. He caught fat snow flakes in his hands. Red light ran through the chinks and cracks in the wood. It was late and his toes were fused together. He stood there. Winter had decided on something. The possible season of the air. Great snow flakes settling.

Riley, he yelled. Hey Riley. It's snowing.

German pushed open the door. His frozen hair ran a sudden shower down the back of his neck. He wiped his eyes. The lamp was out.

Hey, he called. The air in his lungs, a punching sore. Riley, he said.

He fell over his friend. He pulled at the sleeping bag. Riley's face appeared. German smelled piss. The stench of excretion. He shook Riley. Riley was still. German ripped the burning rubber cap off his head. Riley, he said. He touched his head. Sweat and petroleum jelly. Strands of hair. He dragged Riley out the door. He held him up to the unexpected snow.