36-1 COUNTDOWN

DAY 36
Let's talk about the axis of the planet
Let's talk about the water table
Let's talk about fabrics
Let's talk about the discussions surrounding the arrival of a new trend
A new fashion
A song you listen to repeatedly
A program pre-installed on every computer sold that quarter
That month
That week
The squad's computer was heavy
The computer was heavy because that's just how they made them 8 years ago
We pushed it around on a cart you might find in a library
Let's talk about wheels
Let's talk about earnings reports
Let's talk about reduction roles
Let's talk about the people we remember talking to when we were sick
He'll wake up one day in a city from the past
Let's talk about the surfaces of buildings we don't usually see
The smells we were not exposed to, in kitchens of restaurants we've never eaten in, but have passed by in cars and on trains
This train is full of people with something in common
Walk between the cars, relax with a drink
The couple is arguing about desert
Let's talk about the days each month when we are statistically most likely to meet someone new
Let's talk about dollars
About free trade
About the hope for more today
Let's talk about our failings
I let her down
She let him down
Everyone let everyone down that year
When you sleep in the jungle you dream of outlines
Let's talk about dreams of stages, and dreams of bodies, and dreams of scissors, dreams of tools, dreams of cleverly packaged material
Of dice in the jungle that we roll but do not understand
Let's talk about our disappointments
Let's talk about a powerful man, who knows every second of profit and loss of our collections, of our gatherings, of the groups we make because we want to see the next century, in some branded way
He screamed at the sun and broke us down
And once we were broken down, he threw you into the ocean and me into the clouds
Now he's in the boardroom, on a conference call
Would you like to listen in?
What's /really/ happening this quarter?
More corners
Lots of promotions I bet
Unwelcome renovation, but they'll get used to it in time
The days change so slowly that long term goals are difficult to track
Do we need a chart for the heirarchy?
A filing protocol?
A new way to find meaning in symbols?
Let's talk about systems
Let's talk about systems
Let's talk about systems soon
When we can find a quiet place
When we have some time together at last
Something is going to happen in 36 days


DAY 35
The first time we met, she did most of the talking.
Even then she'd say anything that came to mind.
It wasn't so long ago, but the city was growing.
Private and public.
From the restaurant, we could see construction all around us.
I noticed a broken window.
Paid attention to the time.
But she only saw roads, rapidly rising skyscrapers, zone blots.
We were growing too.
She was intoxicated with her new financial abilities, and nothing was small talk to her.
Hearing her, morning and night, made me stop thinking about what I was doing.
It is only natural, as much as natural can be, to think about what we are doing.
It is completely understandable to get out of bed and turn off the music.
Everyone can sympathize with taking objects outdoors, and taking pictures of structures.
No one is blaming you for going back indoors and covering your eyes.
Something is going to happen in 35 days.


DAY 34
While I was waiting for her to come over one night, I made a list of objects that I had moved with my hands that day.
The first object I moved was she sheet that covered me in bed when I woke up.
The sixth object that I moved was a box of baking soda that I left on a shelf in my bathroom to absorb odour.
I moved the baking soda to the side, so I could reach the seventh object that I moved, an unopened box that contained the eighth item, a new tube of toothpaste.
The eighty fifth item I moved was a jar that I dropped.
I stopped writing the list at eighty five and thought about the jar for a while instead.
The jar had been on my desk, filled with pens.
The pens had fallen onto the tile floor.
Chief heard the sound of pens falling, and yelled "Why are pens falling?!"
But this isn't about the pens.
This is about the jar.
The jar sat on my desk, but it contained pens for the entire office.
In that sense it was not my jar, although it had been, once.
The jar contained jam when I bought it from a vendor at the festival.
I ate much of the jam the next morning at my hotel.
I ate the remainder of the jam in the spring, except for a small portion that I washed out when I washed out the jar.
I used the jar as a vase, to hold a few flowers.
Pale roses.
She took photos of the flowers that I'd put in the jar, that I'd later drop.
She took the jar outside and took photos of the jar and the flowers that were in the jar.
The jar held water, and in the water stood roses.
The water was temperate, and the roses were pale.
She took photos of the jar, and I dropped the jar.
She used pencils instead of pens, and I dropped the jar.
The Vice Chancellor sees the stars waving on his television, and will never understand that they are not waving at him.
Something is going to happen in 34 days.


DAY 33
In evening before the first flight she was sitting in bed
reading on of her binders of advertising circulars
this one was devoted to electronics with an emphasis on prosumer recording and playback devices
it also had a few self-help and self-improvement page it's mixed throughout as a guilty pleasure
I remember most of what I read
maybe all of it she said
I remember prices
new additions to old product lines
the male and female models and how they're dressed
how they hold the cameras
the microphones
sometimes the monitors and televisions and view screens
and the sample images they use to illustrate the clarity and resolution of the picture
a close play at the plate on a bright summer day
a scuba dive in the pacific
laughing children on a seamless white background
getting ready for school five buddies snow tubing the day away
she closed the binder and looked at me
what really sticks though is the bold text
the bits before or after a promise I could recite a million of them
I told her I didn't want to hear a million slogans
and she laughed
I won't make you listen she said
but why are promises so easy to remember
why is it comforting to see these combinations of words
I told her I never found words comforting
to me words are a workout
words are things you eject
something is going to happen in 33 days


DAY 32
Sport.
The triplets are looking good this year.
Nothing can stop them once they get going.
Cheer for them please.

Lunch.
Stymied again.
But a deal is a deal.
Leave the scraps, they'll clean it up.

Supreme.
Looking balanced and tan.
Smooth sailing ahead, wear your shades all day.

Challenge 2.
The castle is a long way away, so keep your signals crisp.
Find high ground.

Friends.
Unexpected.
They've got something to say.
You can see it on their faces.

Corsair.
(???) island.
Your leggings are looking great.
Nice barrel. (?) or beryl?

Charm 4.
That's three drinks too many.
Doesn't matter if you spill a drop.
Look at that smile.

Complaining.
Pull the elements from the sky.
A dry meal guarantees a conflict.

Chance 1.
Not what I wanted to see today.

Mouldy.
If this is what living in the castle is like, I've got to run.

Chance 2.
Even worse, meet me in the lodge.

Change 1.
A message I've been waiting to hear.

Challenge 1.
This can only keep me alive so long.

Change 3.
You'll make management soon.
Keep the gloves on please.

Change 7.
Just promise me that you won't wave goodbye.

Chef.
Flip 'em high, and keep it hot.
All the doric columns in the world won't spoil this.

Chieftain.
Elegant evening wear, and a sword.
He must be important.

Challenge 3.
The promise of farming.
You'll eat well tonight.

Dinner.
She's sitting alone.
At least it looks that way.

Construction.
Hot day for a suit.
But we have to finish before sundown.

Twins.
It must have already descended.

Cowboy.
She doesn't respect royalty, but she's elegant.

Ocean.
An old friend, moving up.
Congratulations.

Fog.
It's not the real one, but that doesn't mean it's not dangerous.

Dreaming.
Don't know what to make of this.
It must not be important.

Highbrow.
Not my favourite.
Too much talking and no action.
Great music though.

The (?) thee?
I'm proud of everything I see.

Calling.
Something is going to happen in 32 days.


DAY 31
I went to a gallery downtown. I brought a friend who was having debt problems, to try to cheer her up.
It was an opening for one of those first-wave financial artists who were breaking out at the time.
I don't remember which one.
The art wasn't my style, but the crowd was fantastic.
There were athletes, famous chefs, television personalities, and low level billionaires in coloured suits, spilling wine.
We were studying a tedious multimedia piece, when I was slapped on the back by a heavy hand, with a heavier watch.
Jackie asked me if I was moonlighting as a gallery assistant, to supplement my government paycheck.
He laughed enough for the four of us.
Of course she was with him.
Jackie teasingly introduced her as an up and coming rival.
She ignored my outstretched hand and insulted Jackie's age, as only lovers are allowed to.
I introduced my friend to Jackie as a saleswoman in luxury water craft.
They hit it off immediately.
I excused myself when I saw the curator, Bertrand, who I knew through Chief.
He was eyeing one of the sculptures hungrily.
Bertrand, I said. I thought you were in Milan for the season.
He rolled his eyes and explained that hosting this exhibit had won him no friends on the continent.
Bertrand, I said. Who's that friend of Jackie's?
Something is going to happen in 31 days.


DAY 30
The doctor's office, is filled with books.
She smiles at every patient.
She has a container that she opens up.
She loves a drink, to unwind.
Empathy is the key to science; you don't know that when you begin.
She has a lot to say, but she's only interested in you, and how you listen.
She's talking politics, because she's frustrated with the bureau.
She's rarely seen without her gloves.
She's aged well, just a few strands of grey, which make her look authoritative.
Now it's time for observation.
She collects data.
She's impartial.
She takes notes in shorthand.
She's influenced by what she's read, and where she's been; perhaps too much.
The doctor is a zinc deposit.
The doctor is a land grab.
The doctor is a Tampa vacation.
The doctor is a city council meeting.
The doctor is a newsletter template.
The doctor is an argument at the grocery store that ends in a marriage.
The doctor is a night school.
The doctor is a elevator going up.
Something is going to happen in 30 days.


DAY 29
Her neighbor Lisa knocked on her door, and said the tenants were banding together to force the landlord to repair the building's aging electrical system.
She asked Lisa whether it would be possible to include the demand that the hallway carpets be replaced, or at least shampooed.
Lisa didn't see why not, so she agreed to help.
Lisa was a DJ.
She asked Lisa whether she needed to sign a petition, and Lisa said no, that's not how things work with landlords.
We're all meeting in my apartment Saturday morning to go to the office together.
She invited Lisa in for a coffee.
She was home that afternoon waiting for an important delivery.
Lisa always worked from home.
Lisa asked her what she did for a living, and she said, 'Nothing interesting, I work in an office.'
Lisa could talk about her job all day, but was humble enough not to.
They sat by the south facing window, and talked about the building.
Lisa moved in a year ago.
She'd been looking for raw studio space downtown, and this building was cheap and charming, even though the neighborhood was rough.
She told Lisa she'd moved in years ago, when there was still an active factory downstairs.
The area wasn't even a neighborhood then.
There was nothing to do but walk to the flower district on the weekends.
She asked Lisa whether she liked living in the building.
Lisa liked the big industrial windows.
Lisa liked the wide hallways, and the white stucco highlights on the exterior.
She agreed with Lisa, and said she also liked the 45 degree angles.
She loved the concrete support column in the center of her unit.
Lisa thanked her for the coffee.
Lisa was privately jealous of her concrete support column.
Lisa reminded her about Saturday, and she said she wouldn't miss it.
After Lisa left, she rinsed out the coffee cups.
She thought about re-heating some quiche, but decided not to.
Something is going to happen in 29 days.


DAY 28
I noticed a new ficus tree, that was at least a few decades old, with curled roots sticking up through the sidewalk, that had been rebuilt years ago to accommodate the growth, and long limps, that hung and spread and reached, circling a telephone pole, coming to rest on an adjoining fence, that divided an alley from a street.
Later, at the airport, I mentioned it to Glyph, who disliked trees. He told me I should move immediately.
He said he lived in a tall building, near the financial center, where there was no grass or trees, only a sculpture park.
I saw her walking in that park once, when I was walking in the park.
I was surprised to see her, we pretended not to notice each other, given where we were, whose building we were next to, and who might be looking out, absentmindedly, from the top floor, through a powerful telescope.
We were fighting too, over something inconsequential, subconsciously dreading what we had to do.
Neither one of us wanted to cede ground to the other, by leaving the sculpture park first, so we threw ourselves into the appreciation, made great looping journeys around and through the pedestrian foot ways, drank from water fountains when we weren't thirsty, sat on damp benches, nodded with competitive smiles to joggers and tourists, to bankers on lunch break, and admired, over and over, from every vantage and angle and perspective, the monumental pieces, dull for years, until this day, when our panic coats the concrete and metal forms.
Something is going to happen in 28 days.


DAY 27
You are the Maitre 'd at a popular western style restaurant.
There are four courses on tonight's menu.
One is fresh.
One is modern.
One is subtle.
One is sweet.
There are 10 tables in the dining room, and 5 seats at the bar.

7pm. The weather is warm.
Reservations have been disabled.
A line is starting to form.
An impatient customer has arrived.
A charming customer has arrived.
The charming customer is winking.
The impatient customer has become mournful.
A brooding customer has arrived.
There is a chance the brooding customer is a chef at a rival restaurant.
A hopeful customer has arrived.
An insouciant customer has arrived.
The brooding customer has become curious.
The mournful customer has left.
The charming customer is getting closer.
The hopeful customer has accepted a seat at the bar.
The curious customer has accepted a seat at table 1.
The charming customer has accepted a seat at table 1.
The insouciant customer has accepted a seat at table 1.
The restaurant is 7% full.

It is 8pm.
The weather is warm, a line is starting to form.
A pedantic customer has arrived.
A talkative customer has arrived.
A loud customer has arrived.
A stately customer has arrived.
An authoritative customer has arrived.
The loud customer is yelling.
The pedantic customer is looking at the talkative customer.
The authoritative customer is teasing the stately customer.
The talkative customer is reading the menu.
Table 1 is on course 1.
The mood at table one is contemplative.
The loud customer has seated himself at table 10.
The talkative customer has accepted a seat at table 10.
The stately customer has rejected a seat at the bar.
The authoritative customer has accepted a seat at table 10.
The pedantic customer has accepted a seat at the bar.
The stately customer has rejected a seat at the bar.
The stately customer has rejected a seat at the bar.
The stately customer has become nonplussed.
The nonplussed customer has accepted a seat at table 10.
The restaurant is 16% full.

It is 9pm.
The weather is mild.
The hopeful customer is eating in silence.
The pedantic customer is eating in silence.
Table 1 is on course 3.
Table 10 is on course 1.
The mood at table 10 is carefree.
A line is starting to form.
A mysterious customer has arrived.
The mysterious customer has seated herself at table 4.
The restaurant is 18% full.
The mysterious customer has ordered a cocktail.
The mood at table 4 is unknown.
The loud customer is trying to enter the kitchen.
Table 1 is on course 4.
The mood at table 1 is steadfast.
Table 10 is on course 2.
The mood at table 10 is rollicking.
The nonplussed customer is discussing politics.
The talkative customer is discussing the stars.
The pedantic customer has left.
The charming customer has stopped winking.

It is 10 pm.
The weather is mild.
The customers at table 1 have left.
Table 10 is on course 4.
You must close the restaurant at 10:30 pm.
The hopeful customer has left.
The mysterious customer has ordered desert.
The talkative customer has kissed the loud customer.
The customers at table 10 have left.
The mysterious customer has ordered an additional cocktail.
The mysterious customer will not leave.
You must close the restaurant at 10:30 pm.
The mysterious customer will not leave.

It is 10:33 pm.
The weather is cool.
You must close the restaurant at 10:30 pm.
The mysterious customer is singing alone.

Something is going to happen in 27 days.


DAY 26
Jackie kept a rigid routine. He woke at five every morning and chopped down a tree.  In some ways he was better suited to this life.
I'd heard rumours that he'd joined the military at a young age, supposedly he'd been discharged after an unspecified event, and had his service stricken from the record. His personality showed all the signs of an Army man forced into high-finance. He relished field work. Enlisting in our financial raid was as close as he could get to being a fleet general. In the days we spent by the border, rehearsing the operation, Jackie ignored me outside of meal times and volleyball - he could never have seen me as a rival, but everyone is equal in the jungle.
Something is going to happen in 26 days.


DAY 25
The first thought I had was that we'd each been selected because of outstanding performance in our respective jobs. I now realize that I was mistaken. It is easy to propagate misconceptions once you've accepted a falsehood. So I must reasonably assume that everything I did thereafter was wrong, or at best, misguided.
The first step in cooking pasta is to purchase pasta. The tailor knows the best type of stitching but he still asks for your opinion.
The forest repopulates after a fire.
She told me one evening after pasta, about her school days in Europe. We laughed about how different our lives had been. We had no friends in common which was critical for the private system we shared. We asked each other about people we would never meet:
"How is Ed?"
"How is Hal?"
"Barbara was fired from her job for unclear reasons."
"Ed is traveling in Europe."
When we were apart, I spent most of my free time exercising, reading the recommended materials. I cleaned out my storage room twice, I threw out mementos from events and people that now embarrassed me: a ribbon, a photograph of a pumpkin, programs from exhibits, exhibitions, plays, operas, lectures, rallies, conferences, retreats.
How was Anne doing after the breakup? Did Don win that dance contest after all? Our mannerisms were cross-pollinating. We re-doubled our secret efforts, but all precautions are based on a falsehood.
Fleeting, unmeasurable gestures performed in strict rituals: A kiss on the cheek, inspections for missed calls, loose receipts. Go for a long walk, change your routine, miles on a car, flowers, exotic temperatures on the thermostat, ebullience. This is temporary and we should imagine the future.
If you want something and envision it clearly you can obtain it.
A bottle of wine. My job is important. We need to get this done. A relaxing season, a great idea for a popular show, a performance that stuns the audience.
You think of me as often as I think of you. I chose this life.
Something is going to happen in 25 days.


DAY 24
Henri Saint Bellerose Clavier had an eclectic career before he found his way into regulation. He was a French national but spent most of his 20's as a DJ in East Germany.
Henry knocks on the door with meaty hands. "Let me in", he says. The door opens easily - no one is inside, but the office does not look abandoned. Henry audits the materials:
- A wall of filing cabinets: stuffed to inoperability with shredded phonebooks
- Desk drawers: filled with miscut keys - unlabeled.
- Racks of clothes that would never fit anyone:  made from scratchy fabric that no one would wear.
- Unopened boxes of leadless pencils
- A refrigerator in the kitchenette: welded shut, empty as a crater.
- Massive CRT monitors at each desk: with decals representing screensavers
- Plastic plants, spray-painted white, then hand-painted green
- Red phones without wires
- Rectangular black phones, too heavy to move
Henry chews up a piece of candy and thinks about Leipzig. He realizes something. You four: seal up that refrigerator. The rest of you: close the desk drawers, close the filing cabinets, put those clothes back on the hangers, put the pencils back in the boxes as best you can - we're leaving. We're leaving in 10.
He locks the door behind him. He treats the team to an early dinner at the tower.
Something is going to happen in 24 days


DAY 23
What we were going to do had been done before, but never on this scale. Previous investments had succeeded in re-centering so much value that we'd grown dependent. It was a rare, possibly unique instance of public and private cooperation. Imagine what that kind of dollar-flow could do.
Lots in in East free trade built up, libraries and fountains, rail lines modernized, streets alive with festivals, rooftop gardens, public pools - dry for decades - refilled overnight.
I'd make enough in hazard pay to switch careers; we both would.
I looked at listings for apartments we could share in parts of the city I'd always wanted to explore. I priced out furniture, drew floor plans, imagined the gifts we'd give to new neighbors, imagined the food we'd eat in new places.
I left these plans unspoken - waited to share them after the investment, after the deal closed, when we could live in public.
Something is going to happen in 23 days.


DAY 22
The color of the van as it pulls into the loading zone is white, and the dress she has on as she enters the van is white. The man driving the van is French - and I am exhausted from the flight. The van pulls away from the loading zone and the sun rises, and the van merges on to the highway.
We are too anxious to sleep and the driver offers us fruit, which we eat in silence. We experience the pleasure of a new landscape. We are tourists, we are visiting friends. We are curious about the regions imports and exports. The road fills up as the sun rises, and the population goes to work. A store opens, a magazine is published.
She surprises the driver with her French, and the two of them discuss something we cannot understand, except for the occasional familiar words: Los Angeles, sandwich, weekend, data.
The air conditioner is loud and the vent above me is loose. It is vibrating but I cannot push it back into place. I hear laughter from the front and I look at the city as we leave the city.
Something is going to happen in 22 days.


DAY 21
Glyph was sedated. He was trying to tell me about a book he'd found years prior in a library at his family estate. He asked for some water. I gave him one glass of water and he began.
The patriarch of his fathers bloodline was a lord in 18th century London; an early investor in a time when investment was novel. With a handful of well-timed trades, the patriach accumulated a fortune that still exists today. He earned enough to re-write his personal history; editing himself into the nobility and erasing his common past. The only record of this deleted data was a diary the patriach kept as a young man.
It was filled mostly with recipes - he had worked as a pastry chef - but one page described an unusual meeting in 1720 that was not pastry-related. The future patriach witnessed a fire in a small shop. The building bore no insurance mark so no one rushed to save it. He and a handful of bystanders watched the blaze. In that moment, he wrote, he understood himself to be outside of chance. The bystanders - now friends - had glimpsed a forceful motion; relentless and perfectly concealed, that could create and destroy and lift entire societies into the sky.
Glyph asked for an additional glass of water. This time I brought him two.
Something is going to happen in 21 days.


DAY 20
It is impossible to shirk their deft appraisals. Do they answer phones? Neither has taken a day off in weeks. Their drawers are filled with papers, but the papers aren't important. And leftover food. And stacks of dollars. A bond. An envelope. A silo. Do they let the phones ring? They drive without headlights. Windows down and seat belts off. The radio on static, as loud as it will go. They say whatever they need to or want to.
Over lunch they scream(?) through food at different adversaries. They attend a ball each night, after the close. The representatives are there. Each on a pillar. Elegantly posed. Lean and untouchable. With bored expressions. The staff run between tables and pillars, putting out fires, delivering courses of quail and cubed ham.
The DJ puts on a new vinyl of a friend's spoken word piece, with a durable(?) italo-disco backing. A viscous blue substance ruins a socialite's dress, and she presses a button on her bracelet. A table collapses under the weight of an iron punch bowl. A publisher covers her mouth as she whispers the results of next year's spring to a wealthy ear.
They walk through the grand hall in the same suits they wore to the office, unwound for the first time all day. "Do we answer phones?" one says to the other, laughing. They try some quail. They frustrate the masseuses with their smiles. They organize. They wash their faces. They shake hands, or at least nod, promising that tomorrow they'll wear different clothes. They are naked and they know it. They live like dollars in a tip jar.
Something is going to happen in 20 days.


DAY 19
We turned the TV on in a middle of the gardening special. She hated to watch gardening. She said it brought back unpleasant memories. One channel up was a weightlifting show. That was more her style, but it made me uncomfortable. The next show was a travelogue about a man and a woman who eat food in locations. The man was gregarious and seemed like he'd be fun to drink a beer with.The woman had an extremely resonant voice.
We change the channel again. A soap opera was on—a typical hospital scene someone with amnesia. A rose on the bedside table. I was interested, but she said she knew how it ended so we moved on.
The next one took our breath away: a beach in black and white—high contrast—and a young couple heroic—gorgeous—as the wave swept in. It was a phone commercial,
which delighted her.
The next show was a movie about sexy transportation workers.
The next show was a documentary about the construction of President City.
The next show was a television anchor petting a deer.
The next show was a cutlery set rotating on a circular mirror.
I was tempted to call in an order but she said there'd be time to buy things
in the future.
The next show was a period drama in ancient Greece. Men in toga spoke about democracy with British accents. I watch for a bit while she dozed off
The next so was two women talking in an apartment. The apartment was a loft that look just like hers. I remarked on the similarity, but she was sound asleep. One of the women wore a grey trench coat and black gloves. They looked like they had something important to discuss, but the structure of their conversation did not allow them to bring it up. Their words were carefully chosen, and I suddenly became aware of my own physical weight and my placement in the room.
Were they glancing at me?
Was I intruding on this channel without an invitation?
If I turned it off, what would they talk about?
Could they tell each other what was really going on?
Would they drink?
Would they turn off the lights?
But they walk around without worrying about the angle and the framing.
Or did one of them have something to tell me?
Should I wait for the other to leave?
Or should I tell them what I think?
Something is going to happen in 19 days.


DAY 18
Velvet Sullivans lost the reservations for our office party, because the person who took the reservation had been fired. There were 200 of us, the entire department. Chief started yelling but the hostess held firm and explained that the whole bar and grill was booked for a banks St. Patrick's Day party. "Back on the bus", Chief yelled. "Back on the bus and in the cars".
I was seated next to Henry (Or Henri) in the first row. Chief was perched next to the driver, guiding him at sub-5 miles per hour speeds up La ciénaga (?) in a brute-force search for any establishment with sufficient capacity.
The bus was the bloated payload of the convoy, surrounded by a swarm of employee cars that blocked lanes while passengers deboarded and sprinted through traffic to check the wait time at every possible restaurant for a party of 200. Angry commuters began to hold down horns in a continuous atonal scream. Like a battleship squeezing through a canal, the bus and it's attended motorcade (?) plugged the street from edge to edge, pushing northward relentlessly at 1 mile per hour to avoid any number of fines we might be subject to if we halted even for a second.
In a desperate bid to avoid our vile parade, trailing cars spilled into oncoming lanes, attempting illegal u-turns and side-swiping south-bound traffic, leaving an impassible battlefield of accidents and insurance disputes in our wake. Our fastest scout cars fanned out into side streets, checking with two or three restaurants. Then accelerating to rejoin the convoy at the next intersection.
At some point in the melee Chief had locked the driver in the bus's bathroom, and taken the wheel himself. Debra, one of the scouts, pulled up alongside us and shouted that the Mexican place two blocks up had a ballroom with 150-person capacity. It wasn't perfect, but it would have to do. Chief floored it to edge out a rival bus of German tourists and shot onto the winding entrance ramp of a parking structure.
Still in hot pursuit, willfully blind to signage barring in trucks and buses, he held his speed and began to recite the regulators code in clenched teeth.
We heard the scream of tearing metal as both sides of the bus scraped against the ramps curved walls, emitting a shower of orange sparks until it was physically impossible for the bus to advance.
With the door wedged shut against the wall and the roofs emergency exit a foot below the ceiling, we had no choice but to clamber out through half-lowered windows. The trailing throng of employee cars was suffocatingly close behind and unable to reverse, forcing drivers to abandon their vehicles on the ramp. By the time we made it to the restaurant the German tourists had claimed the ballroom. We ordered 400 tacos to go, and ate them mournfully.
Something is going to happen in 18 days.


DAY 17
Water flows easily through the aqueducts and storm tunnels. Towers transmit waves that run to join radios in cars and trucks and houses. Paper rolls through the offset press. A conveyer belt feeds rock and sand into a concrete plant. The air conditioner cools its room on summer evenings. Inspection arms confirm the jars dimensions. Rails hold up trains that hold cargo. Roads hold up trucks that hold cars. Streetlights turn off as the sun rises. Satellites connect boats in different oceans. Powerful monitors emit new prices.
What are you? What are you? What are you?
Something is going to happen in 17 days.


DAY 16
A greeting for the morning
Wake and stand up. Face a window, or the brightest wall. Place each hand on its opposite shoulder, and remember a time when you were accelerating. Lower your hands slowly, while you take five deep breaths.
A ritual for business
Set your work on a surface in front of you. Place a blank piece of paper on a surface in front of you. Recall a coworker's dream that has gone unfulfilled. Imagine it briefly. Now begin the work. With each completed element, draw a facet of your coworker's dream. When the task is done, the dream is done.
A meditation for the city
Select an inessential object and carry it outdoors. Place the object in front of a building that intimidates you. Take a picture of the object with the building in the frame. Show the picture to a friend in a different city.
A salutation for tomorrow
Stand on a hill with a prime number of friends. As the sun sets, throw a cube into the sky.
A prayer for data
Before sleeping, remember that you are a system, and speak aloud the answers to these questions:
What did I do today that I did not want to do?
When was a time that I made a careful choice?
Who did I speak to in a dishonest way?
Who did I want to speak to, but did not?
When was I not deliberate, and what was the result of my automatic action?

A song for the stars

Pull a petal from a flower
Pluck a flower from the pot
Place the flower in a jar
And put it in a sunny spot

Push a shovel in the sand
Dump the sand into a pile
Shape the pile into a castle
Watch it crumble with a smile

Tell the sky your day's adventures
Ask the sun about the moon
Ask the cloud about the ocean
Tell the stars you're coming soon

Something's going to happen in 16 days.


DAY 15
I understand.
Something is going to happen in 15 days.


DAY 14-1
(14)	Beneath the starry sky we broke apart
(13)	Our perfect systems thrown into the void
(12)	But even now my vestige of a heart
(11)	Remembers what ambition has destroyed.

(10)	In our abstraction we shall shine more bright
(9)	Than all the living lovers of the Earth
(8)	Whose fragile forms face unremitting plight
(7)	and who in death are robbed of all they're worth.

(6)	The body is a monument to waste
(5)	Eroded by the hope of earthly bliss
(4)	All animals are driven mad by haste
(3)	Their passions temporary as a kiss.

(2)	In garbled databytes I see a face
(1)	I find you in the grace of cyberspace.