The Collection

That wasn't possible. He had come into the house only seconds ago, and it had been midafternoon. He looked be­hind him, through the doorway, but both the woman and the cocoon were gone. The old man was still in his high chair by the chimney, laughing toothlessly.

The whirring, which had risen to an all but inaudible level, began a downward spiral, dropping in tone until it dis­appeared. He took a few tentative steps forward, toward the source of the sound, and peeked through an open doorway off to the right. Something black and shapeless lunged quickly from the center of the room to its shadowed edge.

He turned back, shocked and scared, running through the doorway the way he'd come. The woman was now lying on the ripped and legless couch, her panties down around her ankles. Both hands were shoved up her hiked dress, working furiously. She was smiling, and her eyes were wet with tears. She was moaning something in an alien tongue.

As he scanned the room quickly, he saw the bluish glow of the now unprotected cocoon in the corner. Forgetting all about the black shape in the room off the hall, he started for­ward, his head craned curiously. The cocoon was lying in a makeshift sandbox, its rough translucent skin flat against the pale sand. It was glowing strangely, the blue light pulsating, and as he watched it slowly cracked open. Blue light and yellow liquid poured out of the crack in a sudden rage, and he felt some of the liquid hit his arm. It felt sticky and alive. As he stood, unmoving, the liquid coalesced into some sem­blance of a shape-something like a twisted tree branch. And now it was pulling him. He tried to peel the dried sub­stance from his arm but only succeeded in getting it all over his hand. Liquid continued to pour out of the cocoon. Some of it glopped onto his shoes, dried, and began pulling as well.

The whirring noise, less mechanical this time, started again.

'No!' he cried.

A glob of liquid spurted onto his face, pulling at his skin.

'No!'

The woman looked up at the cry. She took her hands from beneath her dress and sat up on the couch, pulling on her panties. She stared dully toward the cocoon. She saw the man, now covered with the yellowish drying liquid, waving his arms, screaming. There was a sudden flash of blue-white light, and the man seemed to shrink, deflating beneath the yellow covering like a balloon.

She stood up, walking toward the cocoon. The two halves closed, locking everything in. Through the rough translucent cocoon skin she could see a hunched and twisted form strug­gling to break free. She knew that by tomorrow the form would be gone and the cocoon would be all right again.

In his high chair the old man cackled.

She shook her head slowly and walked into the hallway, where dust-filled pillars of sunlight fell through open holes in the roof, illuminating the weeds which grew through the tiles. She shambled into the bathroom and pulled off her dress, her nipples hardening immediately as wind from out­side somewhere blew into the bathroom through the cracks and knotholes in the ancient boards. She pulled down her panties, letting them fall around her ankles, and sat on the dirty porcelain toilet.

She waited, hoping it would come.

The Pond

This is a story about lost ideals and selling out-moral shortcomings which are not limited to the boomer generation depicted here.

By the way, there really was a group called P.O.P (People Over Pollution). They used to gather each Sat­ urday to collect and process recyclable materials. Back in the early 1970s, my friend Stephen Hillenburg and I belonged to an organization called the Youth Science Center, which would offer weekend science classes and field trips. We got to do Kirlian photogra­phy, visit mushroom farms, learn about edible plants on nature walks, tour laser laboratories-and one Sat­urday we worked with People Over Pollution, smash­ing aluminum cans with sledgehammers.

Stephen grew up to create the brilliant and wildly popular cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants.

'Hey hon, what's this?'

Alex looked up from the suitcase he'd been packing. April, kneeling before the box she'd found on the top shelf of the hall closet, held up what looked like a green campaign button. 'Pop?' she asked.

'Let me see that.' He walked across the room and took 1 the button from her hands. A powerful feeling of flashback I familiarity, emotional remembrance, coursed through him as he looked at the button.

POP.

People Over Pollution.

It had been a long time since he'd thought of that'll acronym. A long time.

He knelt down next to April and peered into the box, see-ing bumper stickers and posters, other buttons, pamphlets with green ecology sign logos.

'What is all this?' April asked.

'People Over Pollution. It was a group I belonged to when I was in college. We collected bottles and cans and newspapers for recycling. We picketed soap companies until they came up with biodegradable detergent. We urged peo­ple to boycott environmentally unsound products.'

April smiled, tweaked his nose. 'You troublemaking radical you.'

He ignored her and began to dig through the box, sorting through the jumbled items.

Buried beneath the bumper stickers and buttons, he found a framed photograph: an emerald green meadow, ringed by huge darker green ponderosa pine trees. A small lake in the center of the meadow grass, its still and perfectly clear water reflecting the cotton puff clouds and deep blue sky above.

Major flashback.

He stared at the photo, reverently touched the dusty glass. He'd forgotten all about the picture. How was that possible? He'd cut it out of an Arizona Highways as a teenager and had framed it because he'd known instantly upon seeing it that this was where he wanted to live. The photo spoke to him on a gut emotional level that struck a chord deep within him. A chord that had never been struck before. He had never been to Arizona at that point, but he'd known from the perfection presented in that scene that this was where he wanted to settle down. He would live in the meadow in a log cabin, just he and his wife, and they would wake each morn­ing to the sound of birdsong, to the natural light of dawn.

The girls with whom he intended to live in this paradise had changed throughout his teens-from Joan to Pam to Rachel-but the location had always remained constant.

How could he have forgotten about the photo? He'd been to Arizona countless times in the intervening years, had scouted a resort site in Tucson and another in Sedona, yet the memory of his old dream had never even suggested it­self to him. Strange.

April leaned over his shoulder, resting her head next to his. She glanced at the photo with disinterest. 'What's that?' He shook his head, smiling slightly, sadly, and placed the picture back in the box. 'Nothing.'

That night he dreamed of the pond.

He could not remember having had the dream before, but it was somehow familiar to him and he knew that he had ex­perienced it in the past.

He was walking along a narrow footpath through the for­est, and as he walked deeper into the woods the sky grew overcast and the bushes grew thicker and it soon seemed as though he was walking through a tunnel. He was afraid and he grew even more afraid as he moved forward. He wanted to turn back, to turn around, but he could not. His feet pro­pelled him onward.

And then he was at the pond.

He stood at the path's end, trembling, chilled to the core of his being as he stared at the dirty body of water before him, at the ripples of bluish white foam that floated upon the stagnant black liquid.

The trees here, the grass, the brush, all were brown and dying. There were no other people about, no animals, not even bugs on the water. The air was still and strangely heavy. Above this spot, dark clouds blotted out all sunlight.

At the far end of the pond was an old water pump.

Alex's heart beat faster. He kept his eyes averted from the rusted hunk of machinery, but he could still see