Book Two it will be revealed that Wanda was I and I was Wanda; and that I drowned her to save myself. This is the story I had cogently wished to unfurl within the confines of a professional, i.e., Dr Calliope K-M, plaintiff. But I will tell it alone, without help — this is as it should be. Perhaps there is time now. It may stand as a eulogy for a little girl lost at a tender age, too tender to be sanctioned. For you see, Wanda is a part of me I could not revive under any sort of gentle ministrations — the part that succumbed to the bountiful travesties committed upon her by the putative Father who is long dead. Mariel has told me I will meet him soon on another plane in Time and Wanda will thus be vanquished. Mariel has discussed the ‘kidnapping’ in evenhanded tones, applauding me for my sanity-saving ruse, her knowing Voice joined by others whom I have rubbed; their energetic Mass has let it be known. The Voices are deafening and fruition is near.
I left some personal things with Jabba for fear they would be confiscated — the paperweight long since buried. I could not let them have it. I predict thirty days of hospitalization maximal before imprisonment on theft charges, ect. As I am giving my best ‘nutcase’ show this will be an indomitable time (and has already been) to recoup energies squandered in the meaningless dance with Society’s snitching celebrity goons. To think Laura and Dana had to do with my demise is a cruel, mesmeric twist worthy of a future literary gambit — I will try to begin its saga, as I have kept my fat Pilot ‘Explorer’ pen and delicate leather notebook, a talisman purchased at Barneys New York the day of the Assault.
I called Jeremy and asked for a loan and he went off on me. It was well worth it — I received energy over phone, such was his outburst. ‘You took my wife’s jewels, you krazy cunt,’ ect. This, all he could muster, he is a TV hack, lest we forget. He yelped about pressing charges (a slight slur from the stroke but he is no Chris Reeve: he is completely capacitated). We both know there is no way he ever will — I have too much to tell. I am wiling away the time working on my set piece, a sitcom earmarked for CBS, Sybil’s Place, based on the life of society matron Sybil Brand, whose name graces the women’s jail. I hope it will not be confused with Cybill and, too, hope to get clearance from Mrs Brand herself once I am transferred to the jail-house. She seems to be a generous lady and I am counting on her benevolence in this matter; she clearly enjoys giving those incarcerated a leg up. Sybil’s Place will be exempt of the high camp, rough-hewn edges of your usual female prison soaps and, too, will bridge the world of high society within which Mrs Brand has always traveled so effortlessly. (I read in the Beverly Hills Courier that she is ninety-something and hope she doesn’t succumb before giving her legal/energetic blessings.) The show as conceived is a winner and I am prepared for the usual uphill battle and ultimate vindication on all fronts. It is a show for Dream Works or perhaps Brillstein-Grey, the Jews behind the Larry Sanders success.
This is truly the time of the ‘event horizon,’ part and parcel of the Black Hole concept — the ‘event horizon’ being the rim of such like a waterfall drop — the exact point where life and matter, all energy, is sucked in and Time, with a capital T, ceases. That is where my energy is now. Willing and joining with the cessation of all Time.
Energy on the ward is good. I am rubbing some girls here (non-sexual) to acquire vestigial strength for court and psychiatric appearances; too, for sleepfulness, waking vigilance, ect. There are a few pregnant ones and I seek them out for their double energy — getting to them before they become too big and muster out to Sick Bay (I am the starship healer). I must draw energy for the next Great Battle — that against Carsey/Werner and/or the perpetrators of The X-Files. Mr Chris Carter and family will sonn be in my web
Sara Radisson
Hell and bejesus, it took a while but we are finally Minnesota-bound. We have a first-class sleeper car with a jiggly bed and our very own shower and toitie. I cannot tell you what it’s like to be rocked asleep by the clickety-cluck-clacking, with you, the Quiet Storm, in my arms (you, the I of my storm.) We awaken at the witching hour and stare out the looking-glass window at the silvery world. Then it’s dawn and because I give Max the porterman twenty dollars a day, he is very good to us and brings hot tea and helps with baby’s things. Max serves lunch and dinner in our room, unless we choose to take it in the white linen’d dining car, with its perfectly polite passengers and their ambient, holy Middle American mur-mur-talk, the glass dome like some kind of church — isn’t that right, Samovar? That’s what we call you when you have on the furry hat Grandma sent. Boy, is she gonna be glad to see you!
Most of the Dining Car People don’t even know where we stay: they must think we fall asleep somewhere in the cruddy, high-backed seats with the riff-raff — if they knew how pampered we were, they’d be so jealous (sad thing is, most of the bedroom suites are empty because they’re so expensive)…. After we’re fat and sassy from our grub, we stroll below and find the door to our floating room. We lock it behind us, then nestle in for the night and Maxwell brings hot chocolate if we want. Aren’t we the luckiest people in the whole World Wide Web? Don’t you ever let anyone tell you anything else. You are my sunshine and my dreams, my heavy-lidded night-blooming orchid, all I ever wanted, all I ever need, and I made you long ago: you’re positively antediluvian, and younger than springtime too.
I ordered you with those damn infinity coupons, I did I did — sight unseen.
BOOK 3. A GUIDE TO THE CLASSICS
Zev Turtletaub
The black steward kneeled and stroked the drowsy superstar. “She’s the best. Aren’t you, Mimsy? Aren’t you the best.”
Mimsy lay on her seat without a yap while Zev Turtletaub got sixty pages of the Reavey translation of Dead Souls under his cinched Kieselstein-Cord belt. The trim, hairless producer loved this character Chichikov: a con man, replete with idiosyncratic servant and driver, traveling from town to town buying up serfs—“souls”—expired ones, that is, from well-off farmers and gentry still forced to pay census on their dead. But why? Because if Chichikov acquired enough names (so went his reasoning), he could approximate a wealthy landowner, a “man of a thousand or more souls.” Or something like that. If his motives weren’t quite clear, neither were Don Quixote’s. Zev was convinced there was a movie in it, an AIDS opera that would make Philadelphia look like the HBO cartoon it was.
Even in first class, pets were prohibited from lolligagging outside their pissy plastic enclosures. Yet this was the famous star of Jabber and Jabberwocky, the just-opened Mimsy and upcoming fast-track sequel, All Mimsy—the cabin being only a quarter full, an exception had been made.
“You’re so tired, aren’t you, Mimsy-girl?” The steward massaged the skin of the languid superstar’s neck, bunching it up then letting go. “Mimsy-girl looks so so tired.”
The phlegmatic pooch had indeed overexerted himself at Mimsy’s New York premiere. As if to mitigate a stressful itinerary, he’d shacked with Zev in the producer’s capacious hotel apartment. Mimsy loved the Carlyle. Life being what it was, there came a hitch: the studio jet was down and they had to fly back commercial. Bit of a bore.