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On Darkened Lawns
by Daniel Braum
It was a dark summer night during the big brown out of ‘05. The trains weren’t running and my girlfriend, Kerri, was stuck in the city. Even so, with no power to the traffic lights I was staying off the roads so I wouldn’t be going to see her tonight. Putting off the inevitable. On my way to Calahan’s to drown my sorrows, I noticed my neighbor’s lawn jockey was missing from its place among the parade of lawn deer, lawn ducks, and ceramic mushrooms that blighted an otherwise pleasant green-grassed, well-manicured-shrubbed, suburban front yard.
My relationship with Kerri was on borrowed time. Something about the old men at Calahan’s and the bartender who looked like she could have been something once, comforted me as I struggled with the question what does one do with the good times once a relationship is gone.
I drank myself into quite a stupor and sometime after midnight I figured it was time to shamble home before I risked not waking up tomorrow.
I walked home, no closer to any answers. Still lost in thought, I wondered why my keys didn’t work in my door. I looked at the lawn and realized I must have turned down the wrong block.
It was full of lawn jockeys, their lanterns shining with the glow of thousands of fireflies.
I stood there thinking, damn some kids really did a good one. And then I saw the jockeys were moving; escorting kids to and from the corner where the bus stops; trailing men in suits with brief cases to their cars. Everywhere scenes of suburban life were being played out like ghostly-recorded images and the lawn jockeys followed, illuminating them with their yellow-green, too-bright lantern light.
And for it a second it all made sense, I understood the place of these purposeless lawn ornaments in the universe. Then I reminded myself of the hour and the impossibility of it all and told myself that it couldn’t be.
“No, you had it right the first time,” said a blue and white jockey standing next to me. “This makes perfect sense. You’ve traveled far to see us my friend.”
As he spoke I had a vague recollection of passing out. Was that my body face down on the steps there behind the little cast iron man?
“So where do you want to go?” he said.
“To see Kerri, I guess,” I said without thinking. It came out naturally.
The clunk of horseshoes on asphalt filled the night. The jockey smiled and now that I heard the echoing sound I realized the rest of the commotion was strangely noiseless.
“Your question,” the jockey said. “Good times. They are a noble pursuit in and of themselves. They are never destroyed, even when you and she are no more.”
A pair of tall strong horses, the same yellow-green as the lantern light galloped down the block and stopped in front of the house.
I remembered tripping. Stumbling. Falling on the brick stairs. My head smashing on the concrete.
“So, I’m not going to make it work tomorrow after all, am I?” I asked.
The jockey’s fixed expression seemed somber as he stiffly shook his head from side to side. Then he climbed on one of the horses.
“Come on,” he said. “Kerri awaits. I shall race you there.”
-END-
THE WALKING MAN
by Daniel Braum
THE WALKING MAN
At first I thought I’d start this by describing him as a sort of mad Colonel Kurtz, in reverse, a poet warrior, walking out of the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the four corners of Japan, into his own personal heart of light.
But that wouldn’t do. Nor would any cryptic reference or word puzzle made up of his Haiku. As much as this would please him.
And then I thought, maybe I’d begin with an image, of the man behind the glass window, screaming, screaming, for people to hear, yet they are walking on by, oblivious to the workings of his mind, the strings of words stitched together from his heart.
I am one of them. A fool who mistook the etchings on the glass, the panes fogging with midnight breath, for the workings of a genius, bored with the conventions of conventional prose.
“Love ignition overdrive,” he reads to the crowd.
The words come alive in my mind. And I am enlightened to the mysteries of his zodiac.
We study and teach and plot in his garden hideaway. We drink wine and feast with friends in the shadow of the golden Buddha, knowing that this is but a moment. One of those moments, a wild convergence of so many lifelines that will never cross again. I see that mournful glint, ever present in his clear eyes. I deduce meanings and stories from the fragments of word filled papers he carries, relics of moments, stretching into the past. I marvel at the giant pirate chest full of words he has amassed.
And I think of him, walking. Into this future, a line stretching away from our intersected moments, strung from his treasury of words.
I thought I’d write about a man who walked and walked and transformed all he saw into immortal art in the pattern of the ancients. In this story he doesn’t stop. He keeps on walking. Through all of Japan. All of Asia. All the world. And up into space, rising in a swell of mystic rhythms and notes, free from the ipod full of acid jazz and punk rock tethering him to the ground.
He walks from planet to planet. Footsteps dissolving into sprays of cosmic dust. Every expression cosmically significant, yet meaning nothing at all.
His treasure chest, no longer needed, left earthbound.
- END-
PILE UP ON HIGHWAY FIVE
by Daniel Braum
Beneath Highway 5 and the thousands of cars speeding by, the insubstantial hatchling cracked out of its insubstantial egg and floated up. It rose through the cars and the oblivious humans driving them. And if they could see the hatchling they would think it looked like some sort of giant jellyfish.
The hatchling rose higher and at the cloud line rendezvoused with an elder.
“Welcome,” the elder said. “It is time to feed.”
The elder wrapped one of its tentacles around the hatchling and dipped it down into the steam of traffic. When it found a weak human, it grabbed its life force, ripping its energy out of the body which slumped over in the back seat.
The hatchling reveled in its first meal.
“All of this. All for us.”
“You must only take the weak. The dying,” the elder said.
“Why?” said the hatchling. “It is so easy. So potent.”
It dipped its tentacles into the flow of traffic.
“When you die the spirits of those you’ve taken will be waiting for you. Thus we only take the weak.”
“What a foolish notion,” the hatchling said and ripped the lives from a dozen drivers and gorged on them.
Cars screeched and crashed causing a chain reaction and pile up.
The hatchling rose into the air and the elder followed. It wrapped its tentacles around the young one, this time not in instruction.
“My time is almost over. But yours is finished. Soon we shall both know who was right.”
The elder squelched the life from the hatchling and followed it into death.
- END -
THE GHOST OF ZOLI HAUSENHIEM, JAY LAKE, AND HOW THE CABAL UNCOVERED THE SECRET TO EVERYTHING
by Daniel Braum
To celebrate our first anniversary, each of us here at the Cabal has come up with a story beginning with a line provided to us by the illustrious Jay Lake. Click the link at the bottom of the page to see how Alex Dally MacFarlane started us off yesterday, and tune in tomorrow to see what David Kopaska-Merkel comes up with...
Zoli liked to hang around psychiatrists’ waiting rooms to hit on the low self-esteem chicks. That’s what the case file said. Who the hell still said “chicks” and thought psychiatric help meant low self-esteem? Someone was gonna get smacked.
Patients reported feeling cold spots and someone pull their hair, when no one was there. So we knew we’d find Zoli there. We brought the EMP detector and FLIR heat sensor and the rest of our gear. I had a good idea we’d be able to contain him once we found him, but I couldn’t be sure. It hadn’t been written yet…
#
Jay Lake made me write this.
Three years ago I was stopped for a lay over at O’Hare waiting for a flight into Wisconsin when I saw his distinctive long hair and bright shirt, at the gate across from me.
I approached thinking of how to introduce myself and found him muttering.
“Luc, Sara, Kat,” he said.
“Huh,” I said.
“You know,” he said. “Cabalistas. Zoli. Zoli, Zoli…”
I stared blankly not wanting to offend.
“Oh,” he said. “You’re not going to meet Kat for another twelve hours and thirty six minutes.”
“Right, uh congratulations on Lake-Wu,” I said, and walked away looking at my boarding pass.
I didn’t know it then but I know it now. It was all part of Jay’s plan. Everything is.
#
The pattern is quite elegant, at least the parts I can get my mind around. It’s a matter of syncing up the 3rd letter of every word in the lettered edition of Lake-Wu, with the prime numbered pages of the Jacob’s Ladder screenplay, and then using that cipher to read Gibson’s rejected screenplay for Alien 3.
Its all here. I can show you. All roads lead to Jay Lake. The spaces in between the words, The implications they hint at. I’ll show you. I’m typing the cipher but its not showing up on my screen. Why are these words coming out on the screen? I’m not writing this…
#
Zoli liked to hang around Psychiatrists’ waiting rooms to hit on the low self-esteem chicks,” Zoli thought. Simultaneously, Jay Lake’s hands typed the words into an e mail.
Why did I write that, Jay thought. He hit send anyway, thinking those crazy Cabalistas would get a kick out of it.
Zoli tried to materialize the waiting room. A woman waiting there felt an odd tug on her hair. In the lobby, Dan Braum, with a back pack full of high-end electronics, was about to push through the door.
- END -
POSTCARDS FROM PANDEMONIUM
by Daniel Braum
INCIDENT AT VALENTINO’S
Through solid information I had heard that Minaesphoptuian Hirentheah, a minor demon, a particularly slippery class six, had been at Valentino’s Bar and Grill. Valentino’s was a real spiffy pool joint; two floors, over a hundred tables, a sexy wait staff; place got real crowded on Sat nights. It fit Minaes’s modus operandi; debauchery and desire. Money and sex and egos flying around along with drunken pool games made for bad bargains and easy dealings.
Why work harder than you need to, the last demon I had collared said to me. And I agree. But I don’t take bribes, I collect bounty. Big difference.
As I enter Valentino’s I think of her sitting in the secured cell in my basement. Sooner or later a bounty to go out on her, and the rest of them.
Minaes stands out in the crowd to me, clear as day. I see right through her guise of zoot-suited pool shark. Then she sees me when shouldn’t. I’m masked to the gills way above what a class six can detect. But her glances betray her and she shows me the positions of the five major demons at the bar and tables. To the crowd they look like grizzled under cover cops.
Minaes dissipates into the ether, not bothering to cover her tracks but I can’t follow. A storm of demonic magic flies at me. Curses. Words of binding. I buckle in pain as the demons encircle me.
“Bounty on you, Ilyanna,” one of them says. “Illegal detention of Infernal-kind.”
I try to escape but I have no strength.
“There are bounties on all of you,” I say. “Hunters that have been on your tails for centuries. Release me and I shall hunt them…”
“A deal?” Another of the demons says. They are quiet. Conversing in each other’s minds. The crowd is running out of the joint in panic, thinking it’s a raid.
“Seal the deal in blood?” the first one asks.
It’s a dangerous game, opening my veins voluntarily around their kind. Voluntary is the key for them to have a hold on me. A guarantee I’ll keep my part. I don’t know if its gonna make things worse, but I’m not going back to Pandemonium, not tonight, so I might as well try.
I allow them to open my vein and I ready to receive the blood.
- END -
THE OLD WOMAN, THE SILVER ORREY, AND THE BAZAAR ON MERCURY
by Daniel Braum
Dimitri had the forge almost ready to melt the silver when they found him, his mother’s list held out in front of them like a warrant.
The fact no one warned him there were visitors did not bode well. From the cavernous main work area steel clanked and molten metal hissed as it poured into great ceramic molds.
Behind the heavy door beside him was the space Dimitri had covertly co-opted for his mother. Her arcane texts, full of astrology, Da-Vinci’s drawings, and roman mythology still littered the floor, surrounding the silver orrery she had built, in erratic orbits. But the flying machine, along with Mother, was gone, and had been for almost a day.
Dimitri thought his mother was brilliant yet mad enough to leave a list with the steps of everything she had done.
The visitors were a man and a woman clad in modern black suits. Dimitri wondered if they were agents of the Czar or the Bolsheviks and hoped nothing worse.
“The bazaar of Mercury?” the woman asked, and upon hearing what he took for gibberish, Dimitri thought everything might turn out okay after all.
Then she passed a strange device over Mother’s list. He had never seen anything like the sleek, metallic thing before. It fit snugly in her hand and cast a purple light that revealed glyphs and characters overlapping each other with its glow. Orbits of the Earth and planet mercury criss-crossed the page.
Something worse, Dimitri thought and remembered Mother just after she had built the orrery and had asked him for help with the cabin for the flying machine.
There’s not a lot of air in there, he said.
Doesn’t have to be. Trip will only take a minute, Mother said.
How are we getting this thing out of the foundry? Dimitri asked.
We’re not. I’m launching from here.
Launching, Dimitri had thought. And where was she going? Nowhere unless she had a secret tunnel in mind. Mother was capable of mad feats big and small, she cured colds, delivered babies and saved their mother’s lives. She had predicted the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, and the fortunes of the Czars who came to her clandestinely. Dimitri was a man of science and steel yet he did not doubt his mother.
The male visitor pointed to Mother’s list.
“Mercury circles the sun every 88 days. For three minutes on the 87th night it disappears from sight,” he said.
“Where does it go?” Dimitri asked.
The pair laughed and Dimitri saw what he took for fanaticism in their eyes. It didn’t bode well. He looked for a steel bar he could use as a weapon.
“It goes nowhere,” the woman said. “All come to Mercury, for the great bazaar.”
He could sense her need, palpable as run-off steam.
Mother had wanted the orrery made of silver.
In case things went wrong, they couldn’t touch it, she had said.
Was this demon, this non-person, this thing from another world what she had in mind?
“The door is open?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” Dimitri said.
She shot him in the head, killing him.
She pushed open the heavy door, eager to find the orrery and divine direction to the bazaar and maybe finally a way back home.
Last Stop
by Daniel Braum
Buzzing black flies careen into the dusty plate-glass window. Through it, I see him park his Harley by the ancient pipe-cactus at the side of the road. He opens the door. It jingles and a blast of hot, dry air circulates the aroma of coffee, frying burgers, and burnt bacon. Before the door closes I feel, more than hear, the thrum and warble of the thing over the bend, though there is a sound that carries above the tinny classic rock coming from the little speakers in the booths.
Marla, that’s what her nametag says, extends her lower lip and blows a lock of her curly raven hair out of her eyes. Green eyes. Green eyes clearly frustrated with the customers. She notices him in a second, sure as a kangaroo rat knows a plump cactus blossom has fallen to the desert floor. She leaves her station, coffee pot in hand, and greets him.
He clanks his dinged metal thermos on the counter. This guy isn’t here for science, or profit, not on that bike. Curiosity or art, maybe. But I don’t think so.
“Damn if I know where my next cup is coming from,” he says. “Better fill ‘er up.”
Her body language screams disappointment. Those green eyes search for something more. I think of all the last stop diners I’ve been to. All the signs that said “last gas for 200 miles” and I laugh, then stop myself.
I came for the thing that opened up round the bend. But I was heading away, out of town, when I stopped in and saw her.
I understand why she wants to go. She’s seen the interviews of prospectors and storytellers and their tales of beauty and wonder on the other side. Those that come back. The lucky few that do, show up in random places. Tuscaloosa. Perth. Johannesburg are the hot spots, lately. Those that aren’t mad, have been “touched”. I guess you can call it that. Touched with a bliss that is apparent and infectious even from a TV screen.
What is it about this guy? Is he a Prospector? A treasure seeker? A thrill chaser? Just another pilot of purple twilight doing it just because? I want to ask him, maybe convince him to take me along, but it will ruin their moment.
She walks with him outside. That whine and warble is louder now. The government men will be here soon and I don’t want to be around when they do. Being detained is not pleasant.
I watch them kiss goodbye. Why he doesn’t stay with her or take her with him, I don’t know. Guess I never will. Some people just have to drive.
He speeds off, trailing a cloud of dust. When the sound of his engine fades, I will go to her, or think of something witty to say if she comes to refill my coffee. There is nothing here for her now; soon there will be nothing for me.
-END-
FROM THE BOOK OF MONSTERS ( FN 1 )
by Daniel Braum
Pg. 270.
Excerpt from the account of Raul Sanchez given to Father M. Sorenson. ( FN 2)
Translated from Spanish by D. Francis Leslie. PHD ( FN 3)
Ash Wednesday. 1983.
I had just come from church. Some of the old farmers asked for help with something that had been tearing up their fields. ( FN 4) Something had dug a huge pit right where they said; a tunnel about four feet around at the bottom. So I climbed down, and immediately realized something was there.
At first I thought I was looking at the hindquarters of a fat, giant mole. Then it turned and looked at me. Its face was a human face but was shriveled and purple. When I saw its teeth, which were jagged and triangular, like an old shark’s, I realized I was face to face with a demon from the first world. ( FN 5 ) I thought I was going to die. But I was wearing the Ash and the two brothers were protecting me. It tunneled into the earth and I never saw it again. ( FN 6)
#
Footnotes:
(1) The name commonly associated with the untitled volumes of D. Francis Leslie’s accounts, transcriptions, and translations of unexplained biological and paranormal occurrences from around the globe. -DB
(2) Original footnote from D. Francis Leslie: These skeptical notes predate Sorenson’s account of The Green Man and related episodes in the now infamous town.
(3) PHD appears after D. Francis Leslie’s but confirmation of where this doctorate was obtained and of what discipline remains unconfirmed at the time of this printing. I located a degree in Veterinary medicine for one Franklyn Brahma, one of his suspected alias, from a school in Thailand. I’ve heard accounts of F Brahma traveling with some of the more reclusive crypto-botanists in China but was unable to find any documentation. -DB
(4) A Handwritten Note from Father Sorenson’s transcription read as follows: It is more likely Sanchez was investigating an animal of some sort that was tunneling under his fields of illicit crops. I am of the opinion this story was concocted to keep prying eyes and thieving competition out of the area.
(5) Original footnote from D. Francis Leslie: Despite the references to Mayan mythology and cosmology I doubt Father Sorensen believed Raul was a religious man.
(6) Original footnote from D. Francis Leslie: There are tales of strange creatures attacking livestock and even children. Finding out if these accounts are connected to Mr. Sanchez’s tale will require additional investigation.
"Go."
by Daniel Braum
“Be careful,” Natalia says. “The shark doesn’t bite, but it’s jagged down there.” Her boyfriend gathers her up like a possession. I shrug this off and grab my mask.
It’s an eight-foot nurse shark just sitting there under the broken hurricane wall just like she said. To see it you have to dive about nine feet or so and hold onto the bottom of the concrete, pull yourself down and hold your breath long enough for your eyes to adjust to the darkness.
The guy next to me is trying to get my attention. Pointing at me. A trail of blood trickles up to the surface. It takes me a few long seconds to realize it’s coming from my hand. I must have cut it on the barnacled, rusty piece of rebar I’d been holding on to. Before I let myself go up, I sense the shark is not alone. Something is with it in the darkness.
#
That night, I’m in my room, listening to the night sounds of my happy neighbors as I drift asleep. Soon as I turn the lights out, I sense that presence.
My eyes adjust and I see a shark in the corner, standing upright, like a man. It’s saying something. All garbled. Lost in translation. But I get the sense it’s a command. I turn on the lights but it doesn’t disappear. I can see its jagged teeth and jaw moving as it repeats its command.
My cut hand is throbbing. I look at the bandage, then I’m alone in the room. Except for dozens of ants chaotically fleeing the corner instead of marching to my waste basket in neat lines as usual.
I go outside for air. Natalia is alone on her steps having a smoke.
“You too.” she says. It isn’t a question.
“Yeah,” I say.
They’re leaving tomorrow. I have another few weeks on the island planned. But what about everyone else?
In my head I hear the sound the shark was making. Was it saying, “go”?
My throbbing hand tells me it’s a warning.
Ibis Rises
by Daniel Braum
After a lunch of chicken tikka masala and palek paneer washed down with the most fragrant rose lassies from that little red place on Bank Street, Maia and Jocelyn were walking to the bus stop heading back to their dorm. Jocelyn, having grown up in Brissy, paid the sticky heat and everything else no mind. Maia was quite happy not to be in the London winter and was taking in the Jacarandas and cute houses on stilts when she spotted an elegant white bird. It rummaged through the trash with its long, hooked, black beak, dwarfing the pigeons poking around alongside it.
“Wow, what’s that?” Maia asked.
“You mean the Ibis, love?” Jocelyn said.
The word Ibis conjured images of ancient Egypt into Maia’s head.
“I’ve never seen one before,” she said.
“We have birds from all over.”
“Ha. This is the closest I’ve been to Egypt.”
Powered by Maia’s focus and belief the Ibis’s attention shifted from picking apart the rubbish bags.
Where am I? Where are the pharaohs, it thought. These buildings are not the glorious works of Thoth. This river is not the Nile.
Filled with god-consciousness, the Ibis lifted its head, sensing how the energy of world had changed since it last manifested and letting knowledge flow into it.
So many new mysteries to learn. Such great wonders to uncover. To protect.
The Ibis noticed Maia and Jocelyn watching. It gave a little squawk and thought,
All this time and their kind is still just stuck in the muck.
Then it craned its head higher.
I sense so many seekers, so many yearning to worshippers, just waiting for me to rise and lead them. I shall start by-
Maia looked away, her attention caught by a big Jacaranda near the bridge over the Brisbane River.
“Can I take your picture, Joce? Its so lovely,” Maia said.
“Yeah, they’re in full bloom this time of year, doll.”
With the power of her focus and belief gone, the god-aspect faded from the Ibis. The bird went back to picking garbage as if nothing had happened, while Maia snapped a picture of Jocelyn under the purple Jacaranda.
-END-
Boon of the Monkey God
by Daniel Braum
The road to the shore winds down the mountainside, a narrow snake covered by lush green canopy, alive with birds and butterflies. A troop of monkeys swings above paying us no mind. Our little hotel room offers nothing but a ceiling fan as respite from the midday Costa Rican heat. So we trek to the beach, a bag with left over fruit for the monkeys that live there.
A resonant howler cry joins the song of the lazy afternoon.
“Make a wish,” Connie says. “They don’t do that during the day!”
“Ok.”
“So?” she asks.
“I’m saving it.”
She smacks me, playfully.
We’re just about at the bottom when a four hundred horsepower roar decimates the tranquil buzz of animal sounds and gently breaking waves.
A candy-apple red sports car speeds down the hill, convertible top up. The tinted passenger side window rolls down revealing the innocent face of a pretty Costa Rican teen. She’s done up in god-awful make up and wearing a whore’s dress. A man in a dress shirt and tie leans over.
“How the hell do I get to the beach?”
“You can’t,” Connie says.
“Come on. She wants to see the beach.”
This ass makes me ashamed to be an American.
“No vehicle access,” I say. “Cars aren’t allowed.”
We leave him to spin his wheels, literally, and go for our swim. We move farther and farther up the beach but we can’t escape his shouting and revving engine.
“That arrogance must serve him well in his life, but its not going to do him any good here,” Connie says.
Not yet. I think, afraid of what the future might bring.
We take another dip then trudge to our room. A breeze from the waves below blows the thin drapes. I turn the ceiling fan on. Its lazy spin accelerates and then it is rocking in its loose anchoring. We lay on the bed. Kiss. Take off our clothes. Soon we are matching the fan’s rhythm.
As sleep takes us, I hear the sports car on the road. A monkey howls. This time I make my wish.
Connie is still asleep when I wake. I go outside to the communal kitchen to find ice crackling in glasses on the patio bar, but no patrons. Our host is gone from her eternal post, lip-sticked cigarette still burning. I glance down the mountain to the shore, not a human in the waves or the beach. A boat, unguided, crashes into the rocks.
A howler jumps from the canopy to the table and joyfully smashes an empty glass. His eyes full of acknowledgement of my selfish wish.
I walk back to the room, with a mischievous smile.
“Hun, want to go for a swim?” I call.
Kookaburra
by Daniel Braum
I had just returned from three months Down Under. And being back I yearned for all those musical Aussie accents and watching the fruits bats high in the evening Queensland sky. Was it my friends I missed most or the sense of living in a city that had not completely steamrolled nature in order to exist?
These were my thoughts this Saturday afternoon. Autumn had just changed the leaves of my cherry tree to orange but I had the pleasure of taking my god-daughter to the annual Pet expo.
“Be a good girl and hold my hand.” I said to Marti. “They have giant mountain gorillas there, so don’t get lost,”
“Nuh-uh,” Marti said, dismissing the notion as one of my frequent teases.
“B’sides. Grillas are il-leeegal,” she said, one-upping me, as was our way.
We strolled through aisles lined with booths peddling kittens in cages, greyhounds on leashes, and every pet supply I could image. One booth, for a local sanctuary for injured and abandoned birds, was teeming with rather well behaved parrots.
In a cage quietly sat a squat bird, with a large black kingfisher’s bill, its white feathers dusted with gray and black.
“See Marti, that’s a Kookuburra.”
She liked the name, but the bird did not capture her attention.
“She’s from Australia,” said an old woman. The way she had so smoothly emerged from the bustling crowd of strollers and families it seemed she had come from nowhere.
I couldn’t get Marti’s attention away from the parrots. The crowd’s almost angry buzz was wearing on me. More than anything, I wanted to be on the bridge overlooking the Brisbane river.
“So go back,” the woman said, as if my thoughts were being broadcast. “Maybe you could find a way to bring me.”
“I should. And I’d love to,” I said, this time certain I had spoken aloud.
“Who are you talking to, Uncle Dovyd?” Marti asked.
“The nice old woman,” I said.
Marti gave me a look that said, not another silly tease.
I turned to point, but the woman was gone.
The Kookaburra laughed. The gurgling bellow, wholly alien, seemed to stop time.
“Wow, what was that?” Marti asked.
Pungent eucalyptus and tropical humidity filled the expo center and for the most ephemeral instant, all was silent before the din of the crowd returned.