People ask for prayers all the time and I am not sure what it is they are asking for, prayers or prayers. Kneeling or standing, to ward off evil or speed it up and pass it by. One is in surgery the other is a child with an agressive form of November on Otis road out by the cranes. Cranes never die or if they do their bodies are strung so far and wide we don't see them. As it is in life when we don't look too close to notice or hear the leaves rustling one by one but instead, in a group yet they all go in one direction. Prayers up! they say and I wonder where is the up they mention, the proximal or distal? Do they still want to stop it and why don't they know what it is that they want? Otis stayed alone for four days without water or food looking toward the door, waiting for Claire to come back in. We all wait for that and fear the exception while existing in an exception, the one leaf that occasionally breaks free, walks out that door and does not return. Pray for the door to open or close? The light is on at the neighbor's house where she is getting ready to go but much slower than anticipated. He is up there hiding his daughter and wife because he bludgeoned too many of us on the way up his lonely hill. He never asks for prayers, some never do. It is too late to pray they think, easier to install a grab bar and night light. The Parable of the Tardigrade All the moments fit together like a jigsaw puzzle and there is no use wondering if the detective understands this or not as long as he knows where the edges are, the straight ones. The ones that line up and constrain the rest of it when in reality the big picture is fractal and this the prophets knew as well as Borges. The kind detective practices feng shui and asks for dates and times, when was the last time you saw the victim, talked to the victim...as if people keep notes up on their fridge that say, you saved my leg thank you very much like I do. All these puzzles are set upon table after table extending as far as the eye can see but the detective is on his own surface as well as am I. Once the wind blows it tears down the tin roofs out in the valley, rips then to shreds and scatters them upon the desert floor and we all start over to reassemble, to gather our things into some kind of order. But nay! I swear by the sunset redness,and this too: And when the heaven is rent asunder, and then becomes red like red hide, I dropped the ball. It was too hot to hold much longer than a did. A bolt of lightning can only be held for so long. Nothing more than a stray laser in the cosmos on a journey with the rest of them, walking like ants in self similar lines into self similar tunnels. The ants and Otis know the killers and accept the killing but for some reason, we humans don't get it. Yet. We will one day but for now we toil over the puzzles, ask questions and form conclusions. The KP index was high that day and there will be a time in the future when we'll know when to warn again. As did the aboriginals. For now though, we are just getting this machine up and running with low level contraptions that used to bring water to the surface for cows. Not much progress but when you realize the thing is already running, it isn't about starting or stopping it, not at all. It lingers in the mean, the mode and the meridian at midnight.