.The phone rings
Pahn knows it is for him
but there is no one there to answer…
…he is at a river
a shelter
in age and ruin
healing in to the riverbank rotting
away its scar of newness
He doesn’t know what the shelter was for
gear?
tools?
books?
People worked here
Pahn has come to find something
with Rahbin and Ahnjehlia
They sit to look
The river is muddy
and carries things away
There are intimations of the library
and the view from here is the same as it is
from there
except
There is freezer ice
melting with rain
in Wildcat Canyon
distinctly out of proportion
and causing this melt flood
They move about
Crawling
stepping on old boards
loose and rotting
that hint of old men
Pahn knows it is for him
but there is no one there to answer…
…he is at a river
a shelter
in age and ruin
healing in to the riverbank rotting
away its scar of newness
He doesn’t know what the shelter was for
gear?
tools?
books?
People worked here
Pahn has come to find something
with Rahbin and Ahnjehlia
They sit to look
The river is muddy
and carries things away
There are intimations of the library
and the view from here is the same as it is
from there
except
There is freezer ice
melting with rain
in Wildcat Canyon
distinctly out of proportion
and causing this melt flood
They move about
Crawling
stepping on old boards
loose and rotting
that hint of old men
Pahn leaves his companions
and enters the shelter
For a moment it is a garage
but Pahn’s mind changes—
it becomes the library
..and in his confusion
he feels shaking
Awakening in his barn
in his bed
he wonders
if he is feeling an earthquake
or if
he has just rolled over in his sleep
The shelter is again a garage
for now
and the earth is indeed shaking
He stands in a stuccoed arch
facing asphalt and power lines
panicked
He runs in circles
until the temblor stops…
…This pavement suggests a city
and there are city folk
talking about the flood
showing Pahn the water marks
on their mobile homes
without showing themselves
The earthquake bids him inside again
It is a school now
He wends through sheets of broken glass
and fallen beams Here
the earthquake has made ghouls
left among the children of this school
and the children who are threatened by the ghouls
ask Pahn to save them
Pahn shatters the ghouls
with splintered boards
as is they were made of glass
and leaves Down the sidewalk
as if he were going somewhere
he walks on a street of real distance
wearing only a towel
to face a real city
lost
People deride his manner of dress
push him down
He comes to the barn again
still no essence
he supposes
this time it is a museum
There is a dark-skinned family
picnicking outside
The father rests by a telephone
off the hook Inside the door is Michael Jackson
talking on another telephone
The father asks Pahn to hang up for him
Pahn hangs up perplexed
Inside
Michael calls his family
The telephones are black
The telephones are always black
There is another family here
down the hall foreign
Penelopeya is with them
She accompanies Pahn outside
and back in again
to see Uncle Lotho
and an auntish woman
who are comparing gold
At last they walk through a door
past the black telephone
into the library
where uncle Lotho
is Pahn’s supervisor
and Pahn is working on a spirit drawing
Uncle Lotho chides Pahn
because this spirit drawing is wrong but what does he know
about spirit drawings anyway?
and he chides Pahn
for leaving old maps out
Pahn wants to leave
but doesn’t know where to go
He goes out back with Penelopeya
and here is the river
the flood receded
Penelopeya does a strange thing—She climbs
high into a maple
and jumps down smiling
Uncle Lotho has come out to watch and he is also
smiling
He says she does this every day
…
Pahn hears the phone ring in his barn
Uncle Lotho answers
hangs up
Penelopeya asks for whom they were calling
Uncle Lotho says it was for
Ahgreyeuss Pahn
But he is not there
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