And in your frustration you butted your head against the mountain, against the celestial column of rock that held up the sky. And that column which buttressed Heaven collapsed, the north sky tilted, the stars ran toward the west, where they are today. And I saw all of it, and I came to the knowledge of beings like you. And your opponent, whom you never could defeat. Amused at this veiled jibe, you slit a pillow in half, corner to corner, with the flick of a finger-nail. And I suppose you found a way to defeat him? you snort. The Stranger laughs Yes -- outside, a mother screams as children are snapped into pieces under the wheels of chariots. It was easy, he says. Curiosity. He wanted to know how to kill you. I said I knew the answer. He crept in close to listen -- just as you are now -- and at that moment his body was open to me, his mind receptive, unguarded … You spring to your feet, but he is beside Lin Page 6 himself with laughter, pounding his hand against the pillows, pop pop. He chokes in enough breath to say, You proud, silly thing -- you were taken in! And you hear the town walls crumble a dozen miles away, aged stone cracking open and the fragrant dust inside scattering out to pepper the white bones of long-dead soldiers, even as the banner of the enemy army is hoisted aloft, nearly invisible in the dark. You tumble from the top of the tower, not intentionally, but not purely by accident either. You have survived a multitude of falls, yet you still experience the initial rattle of fear -- Maybe this time is the last. On the way down, you take deep notice of the city lights, every tremulous window, how they pass you by like fireflies. You recognize an office where you worked, the one time in your entire existence you had a headache, almost unbelievable to think you could ever have