But even this is not enough, and the stranger comes at you, his eyes the consistency of a doll's, his teeth bared in a grin, and it suddenly occurs to you, just before his face is so close that you see nothing but black: I have killed him before. The language of children resembles music in the merging of pure and impure sounds, the articulation of what cannot be articulated, with the most direct means of conveying what can be said. You slam tennis balls against the wall, savoring the deathless moments between shots, infinity between the stroke, the hit, the wait, the return, and the boy behind the fence, in an effort to annoy you, shouts, And -- hit! Ready … and -- hit it! Oh, bad one! You do not res-pond because you savor the endlessness in his voice: the clutching of breath, the innumerable incipient thoughts, sounds, feelings, as if he is Lin Page 4 running at full speed through a field, no end in sight, delirious with the headlong rush. Arrrrrr haaaaah hummmmm, he now sings. Yeah, hrrrrr … F … U … C … You whirl to face him, and he looks straight at you, mouth slightly open, the smell of fast food ketchup on his lips, seized by the obvious thought: What are you thinking? Pure giggle, a caving in of the body as he shakes in congealed laughter. With a wave of the head he begs you to follow, and he leads you down alleyways, past filth and puke and shit, to the forest beyond the city, where grass is free to grow in any gnarled direction it chooses, and the trees boom with vitality, to a river which sparkles crystalline like a creek, and all the while he chants aimlessly, perhaps a rap song he once heard, locked into a single phrase, Get it together, get it together, get it together, and you are concerned for a moment, because you have seen corpses seconds after death, their nervous systems