Stunned, bent glasses hanging from one ear, Egon felt himself in two places, two heads at once high above the ice moving through a whirling unraveling of thoughts like a tangled spool of electrical wires… snatches of music and static like the changing of stations on a car radio…
…no time left for you…the strong fishy taste of the liquid in a jar marked "Gefelte" found in a garbage can one night out behind the neighbor's house, the one where the odd-looking but fascinating boy with a huge ant farm lived,..the house with a Christmas tree (wish we had one) in the front window like everyone else and a funny looking candle holder with a star on it and nine candles that were lit every night one by one… wishing to try the strange foods being eaten at the table, everyone sitting stiffly around the table, nobody looking at each other…
…of swinging back and forth, sleet stinging his face the sound of wind in ropes even as those ropes frayed and tore high overhead…
...why does he need all those ants in his room? Ants belong in the kitchen in the pantry on the crackers when there are crackers…no time left for you…the robin that built a nest with three greedy babies in on my window sill… bet he'd like it, wish I could show it to him but he doesn't like me… wish I could knock on their door… it's cold out tonight, if I knocked on their door they'd call the cops…. I'm hungry… they'd call the cops…the old man would beat me again…
...of two lights, one large with an 8 blazing on it, one small and intense, circling… circling… the sensation of a trap's foot pedal in his hand… the soft whine of a proton pack on standby…
…seasons changed… distant roads…calling me…why can't I play with him daddy? "Ain't goin' near them dirty Jew – they done killed Jesus!"… of coming home from school to find that the old man had found the precious stash of discarded Barbies scrounged from trash cans and dressed and mended and given them to Granny to play with…granny who sat naked in the front yard screaming… surrounded by headless dolls…heads flushed down the toilet because they were evil… running away… roads are calling me… wandering through Woodstock stoned, rainbows in the sky… a torn lace dress made of curtains… humping in the mud with anyone, eyes on the rainbows in the sky… abortion… the sweet sting of heroin…I'll find myself some wings… Charlie Manson saying, "Sorry babes, you're just too coo-coo for us!"…wonder what he's doing tonight?
…fumbling in the cold, fingers clumsy in gloves and bandages, closing down on the pedal… the dangling trap swinging on it's cable opening…bright light spilling out… rope singing and straining… was that Janine yelling?
…no time for the love you send…
…the blurry impression of a small light chasing a large light into the trap… the larger light fraying as it resisted capture…ears ringing…
…the sound of paint on canvas…you need not wonder why… of things with angry faces floating in the wind… wish I could ask to come in… the sensation of falling… the edge of a dirty stove… more falling… the sensation of frigid, dirty water, of being carried away even as he was pulled down…
The rope snapped.
…no time left for you…
Rope slithering behind him, Egon fell the rest of the way, landing on his side on the branch spiked ice where the wind had swept clean a patch, face to face with the faceless remains of someone he'd once known without knowing many years ago… hand relaxing on the pedal so that the lid snapped shut, cutting off the light and the static.