like tiny explosions. Pats on the shoulder, proper and friendly kisses on each cheek, why I am here? Rethink: I know why I am here, but not why, because nothing has been done, nothing prevented. Events have been documented. That is all I do. In this society, there is no honor in merely observing. I am an instrument. Someone blows a wind through me, my mouth moves, my fingers jump up and down like keys. I finish my fourth glass of wine, head throbbing, skin taut and filled to bursting. Someone says, What's on tap for your next masterpiece? General laughter, as far away as the wind whipping through the exhibition hall's statue-gray courtyard. Above all, only one thought, stark as the flashbulbs that drone on ceaselessly, directed at myself: You are nothing. How dare I think that, how selfish, how self-absorbed, but this is not about me, this is about the thought, this is outside my purview, and I hold one hand to my head, the
 | | other to my mouth, not sure which one will erupt first, and all the while You are nothing you are nothing you are nothing you are nothing you are nothing you are nothing you are nothing.
My father was murdered. Late day at the university, a thunderstorm at night, driving alone down Route 40, minding his own business, and then the screech, the full force of the 18-wheeler driving him against the railing, a chance ribbon of metal slamming through windshield, gashing his forehead. And yet, even then, his face a bloody wound and his right eye punctured like an olive, he still breathed, his body squirmed, unconscious. But the trucker who collided with him was drunk, scared, playing scenarios in his head. Make it look like an accident. Push the car off the side of the road, off the cliff. It must have been a sight, the pot-bellied trucker and the shadow he cast, his boots tracking prints in the
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