which irrigated the auditorium. It was the first snake in the shadows of the original garden, the albino orchard snake offering our female memory the taste of – everything! As it floated and danced and writhed in the gloom over us, I often raised my eyes to consult the projection beam rather than the story it carried. Neither of you noticed me. Sometimes I conceded surprising territories of the armrest so as to distract your pleasure. I studied the snake and he made me greedy for everything. In the midst of this heady contemplation, I am invited to formulate the question which will torment me most. I formulate the question and it begins to torment me immediately: What will happen when the newsreel escapes into the Feature? What will happen when the newsreel occurs at its own pleasure or accident in any whatever frame of the Vista-vision, willy nilly? The newsreel lies between the street and the Feature like Boulder Dam, vital as a border in the Middle East – breach it (so I thought), and a miasmal mixture will imperialize existence by means of its sole quality of total corrosion. So I thought! The newsreel lies between the street and the Feature: like a tunnel on the Sunday drive it ends quickly and in creepy darkness joins the rural mountains to the slums. It took courage! I let the newsreel escape, I invited it to walk right into plot, and they merged in aweful originality, just as trees and plastic synthesize new powerful landscapes in those districts of the highway devoted to motels. Long live motels, the name, the motive, the success! Here is my message, old lover of my heart. Here is what I saw: here is what I learned:

Sophia Loren Strips For A Flood Victim

THE FLOOD IS REAL AT LAST

Joy? Didn’t I promise it? Didn’t you believe I would deliver? And now I must leave you, but I find it so hard. Mary is restless now, she is jiggling restlessly, neither of us has any pleasure now, and some of her fluids are so ancient and unreplenished that there are pinchy paths of evaporation down my arm. Patients in O.T. are signing unfinished baskets so they can be identified in the nurse’s collection. The short spring afternoon has darkened and the tight lilac buds beyond the barred window are barely redolent. The afternoon linen has been sterilized and crisp folded beds require us.

– Bow wow wow! Bow wow! Grrrrrrr!

– What’s that commotion outside, Mary?

– Just the dogs.

– The dogs? I didn’t know there were going to be dogs.

– Well, there are. Now hurry! Pull it out!

– My hand?

– The package! The oilskin package!

– Must I?

– It’s from our friends!

With some fishlike movement she maneuvered her haunches, altering all the internal architecture of her cunt reception. Like a trout dragging the hook into the roof of its mouth, some blunt delicious shelf of miniature fountains applied the oilskin package to my hooked four fingers, and I withdrew it. Her wide white uniform shielded me from curiosity as I read the message. I am reading it now, as Mary Voolnd insists.

ANCIENT PATRIOT

FIRST FATHER PRESIDENT

THE REPUBLIC SALUTES YOUR SERVICE

WITH ITS HIGHEST HONOR

the escape is planned for tonight

is scribbled in invisible ink which her lubrications have activated! Tonight.

– Grrrrrr! Arroooooof!

– I’m frightened, Mary.

– Don’t worry.

– Can’t we stay here a little longer?

– See the pretty lines, Mary?

– Too late for sex, F.

– But I think I could be happy here. I think I could acquire the desolation I coveted so fiercely in my disciple.

– That’s just it, F. Too easy.

– I want to stay, Mary.

– I’m afraid that’s impossible, F.

– But I’m right on the edge, Mary. I’m almost broken, I’ve almost lost everything, I almost have humility!

– Lose it! Lose everything!

– Help! Haaaaaaallllllpppp! Somebody!

– Your screaming can’t be heard, F. Come along.

– HAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLPPPPP!

– Click, clickclick. Bzzzzzzzzz. Sputter!

– What’s that funny noise, Mary?

– Static. It’s the radio, F.

– The radio! You didn’t say anything about the radio.

– Quiet. It wants to tell us something.

(DOLLY IN TO CLOSE-UP OF THE RADIO ASSUMING THE FORM OF PRINT)

– This is the radio speaking. Good evening. The radio easily interrupts this book to bring you a recorded historical news flash: terrorist leader at large. Only minutes ago, an unidentified Terrorist Leader escaped from the Hospital for the Criminally Insane. It is feared that his presence in the city will touch off new revolutionary extremes. He was aided in his get-away by a female accomplice who had infiltrated the Hospital Staff. Mutilated by routine police dogs in a diversionary tactic, she is now undergoing surgery, but is not expected to survive. It is believed that the escaped criminal will attempt to contact terrorist strongholds in the forests beyond Montréal.

– Is it happening, Mary?

– Yes, F.

– Grrrrr! Chomp! Arararara! Erf!

– Mary!

– Run, F.! Run. Run!

– Bow wow! Hoooowwwwllll! Grrrrrrr! R-i-i-i-i-p!

(SALIVATING POLICE DOG JAWS TEAR INTO THE FLESH OF MARY VOOLND)

– Your body!

– Run! Run, F. Run for all of us A——s!

(CLOSE-UP OF RADIO EXHIBITING A MOTION PICTURE OF ITSELF)

– This is the radio speaking. Eeeek! Tee hee! This is the ah ha ha, this is the hee hee, this is the radio speaking. Ha ha ha ha ha ha, oh ho ho ho, ha ha ha ha ha ha, it tickles, it tickles! (sound effect: echo chamber) This is the radio speaking. Drop your weapons! This is the Revenge of the Radio.

And this is your lover, F., finishing the joyous letter which I promised. God bless you! Oh darling, be what I want to be!

Yours truly,

     Signé F.

Spring comes into Québec from the west. It is the warm Japan Current that brings the change of season to the west coast of Canada, and then the West Wind picks it up. It comes across the prairies in the breath of the Chinook, waking up the grain and caves of bears. It

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