Life was the homonym of its antonym, which was the word Wednesday. Which language was that? A sharp wind froze me but I was immobile in my thoughts. I opened my eyes and tried to see the stars through the noon. No luck. The darkness that I saw when my eyes were closed, what was it? The absence of light? Or was it the interior of my brain, or my whole interior? Like at night when the sky's blue smokescreen peels back to show off its satellites and fires. Same thing when I remove the sun from my eyes and turn in to see my interior, my chasms and my orbits, my tumbling poles, all the spinning, rumbling planets slowly turning around my lot of darkness. My lot of allotted words. My allotted time. All this given to me by some unspeakable syllable, a metonym for the autonym. Inside me far back in there I heard that sound echoing breathlessly. What time is it to die or breathe and sleep or watch the end unfold? Ineluctably eternity disrobes, a naked noise so big it can't be said. Through the immovable business of infinity, I swung from pole to pole in my designated orbit of the sound. Let loose the noise. I heard it crying to me. Who made it? Why? Because everything must be done.

There was a glimmer over my eyelids which I opened and caught a blinding spot of light. Binoculars, or a rifle sight reflecting the sun from across the river in a tower of the pulp mill.

            My sister? Who knows. She'd driven me to paranoia. And even if it were her—should I run after or away from her? On the one hand, she knew where my dog was. On the other, she terrified me.

            I rose and made my way back to my squat.

            On my way through the dingy hallway, I stopped in the bathroom and sat on the lid of the toilet. Pondered for a while. Nothing came to mind. Sunlight sloped in through the little window and glinted off the faucet. There must have been a dove nest just outside the window, I could hear a crowd of them crying. On cue a siren wailed.