 Chapter 11 of the Yellow Sheet. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Yellow Sheet, the LibriVox Nano-Rymo Project 2007. Chapter 11, Written and Recorded by Chris Hughes. Derek watches the troopers' taillights slide away into the night, into the far distance, before finally releasing the airbrakes, with a shutter the big machine heaves off, rolling up the gravel shoulder and back onto the interstate. Liz tries not to watch the road, the steady line, the headlights spilling into the unforeseen future. She tries to avert her gaze from the beating reflectors, tries to ignore the thrumming pavement, the warm heat blowing up from the floor. She looks at the dash, reads all the dials and nods, turns her head to the window to look at shadows and silhouettes, the smudged light of a farmhouse, a train in the distance like a shooting star, and blinks. She stretches her arm, flexes her shoulders, squints hard to moisten her eyes. She leans, she presses her face against the cold glass, but inexorably, inexorably drifts, drifts into warm comfort, drifts off to sleep. When Liz wakes, they are at a rest area. Parked away from the lighted shelter, shelved with the other rigs, engines running, running lights soft and orange and curved along the parking lot, like a small coastal village. Derek's absence from the driver's seat is betrayed by the sound of soft snoring coming from the cabin and back. His NYS cap hangs from the wheel like a saddle slung from a rail. Liz clicks open the door, lets herself down, checks the duffel at her side, and presses the door closed rather than slamming it. She crosses the pavement, powdery soft with frost, and enters the blinking bright shelter building. Inside, a man studies a map. A woman with a blonde bob stoops at his side, helping a young boy drink from a can of orange soda. Liz hesitates at the trooper in full uniform, but he's older, grandfatherly, and only serving coffee and white, styrofoam cups from a large, dull, silver coffee urn. Around him is a semi-circular array of well-meaning public service pamphlets, earnestly telling us what we already know. Leaning over cold ceramic and icy sink water that numbs her fingers, Liz tries to avoid the gaze of the mirror. The red-brimmed eyes, the oily red hair. How long has it been since she's eaten? She pulls out her cell and wonders how many plot devices its invention must have ruined, but not this one, since she can find no signal. Okay, she thinks, an option of one. Back to the lunatic in the truck. At least she's stacking up the miles. Back in the cab. It sounds like someone's dropped a spoon in the garbage disposal. Liz waits for the sugar rush of vented goods. Derek stirs and the garbage disposal noise turns softer, broccoli maybe, or Brussels sprouts, and then stops. Throat clearing and rustling follow. His head pops out of the curtain, and for a moment he could be a squirrel. Long hair come loose from his ponytail, cheeks and eyes puffy with sleep, swiveling left, swiveling right. Perhaps just a hint of a nose wiggle, testing the breeze. Mornin' sugar, he says. That it is, she tells him. He bolts out of the sleeper and plops into the driver's seat, a shaving kit in his lap. Um, he tells her, slapping both hands down on his denim clad thighs. Right, she says. Don't go anywhere I wouldn't go, he says, and winks and climbs down and out of view. Liz climbs back in the sleeper. She looks in the fridge. Open can of beans covered with plastic wrap, a few slices of ashen lunch meat, and a bag of carrots. She turns and looks under the stained pillows at stained sheets. She opens and closes all of the cabinets. Feels under the foam mattress, finding some magazines of a certain nature, tosses the tangled blankets around, spilling out handfuls of watered up socks. She looks up at the ceiling liner for any other hiding places, but it appears like most ceiling liners, intact. Back in the passenger seat, she looks in the glove box. Feels down into the slot for the logbook and under both seats, but comes up with nothing more than some peanut shells, a cellophane wrapper, and the carefully crafted device she'd carelessly lobbed at the floor. Carefully crafted, Worth likely figured in percentages of GNP, obviously precious to someone, perhaps even someone precious to her, unless, perhaps, once anyway, quite a few perhaps as a go, too many perhaps as for pondering, life had been nothing but wavering, churning perhaps as since its appearance. A crystalline choice, then, finally another option of one. Simplify, simplify, simplify. She pops off the vent cover and down into the hot, rushing air of the big rig's heating and ventilation unit, skitters the absurd amulet. Simplify, simplify, simplify. Enough with boys and their troublesome toys. By the time Derek exits a shelter building, dawn glow has begun to seep over and around the black trees. Elizabeth watches him turn from silhouette into solid object and back to silhouette as he passes through cones of icy xenon light. She watches his flannel shirt flap, watches for a spark of gunmetal, for a telltale bulge, his pockets, his back waistband. When he tosses the shaving kit between them on the seat, furtively she feels two aerosol cylinders, a probable bar of soap, various widgets and gadgetry, but nothing solid, nothing hand fitted, or hefty and dangerous. And so her quarry, a mouse in her house of simplification, remains stubbornly AWOL. Raid roll, ma'am, he says, levering into gear, the truck hissing loose from its overnight moorings. Sure am, she tells him. You don't mind dining on the road, do you? If we keep our pace, we can be in Jackson by nightfall. Jackson. No, no, she tells him. On the road is fine. Drive thru his frozen burritos, whatever you got, she tells him. Jackson. Jackson sounds fine, she adds. Jackson, he tells her. Look out, Jackson. Here we come. And with a grunt, the big rig starts coming up to speed. Miles pass by. Hours drizzle away. The sun coming up cold and hard behind them, casting shadows on the blue hood and the road. The interstate green highway signs. Live oak, tallahassee, alpha, mobile, little naps broken into little pieces. Pleasantly uneventful conversation. His niece and nephew, his beloved red socks, the taste of fresh squid on the pier in Monterey. Fragments, disjointed, all balled up and rolling on. Breakfast is on a wet picnic table, at a Chick-fil-A. The freight line are parked at the Sonoco, across the road where it will fit. They hit a warm hissing rain on the outskirts of somewhere. Some bird tucked into suddenly rising hills. Chattanooga, welcome to Chattanooga. The sun is softened, yellowed, and when Derek opens the cabin door to climb down and fill up, it momentarily feels like the aftermath of a late summer thunderstorm. Simplify, stacking up the miles, space and muffled distance. Elizabeth startled momentarily, startled when he taps on the glass, startled at his bright face in the window, by the short cropped hair on his head, soft and downy. Derek hanging on the side mirror, denim shirt speckling with raindrops. Miss Liza, he tells her. Miss Liza, you should come on out here. It's real pretty and real warm. Pretty and warm. Picturesque. Pretty and warm and picturesque sounds good. Sounds simple. And it is, more or less, neglecting exurbia, neglecting the throwaway structures, the noisy, exhausted highway. The mountains loom over the Texaco, throwing the orange truck and Derek and herself into gloomy shadows. Sure wish my misses could see this, he tells her. Worst part of over the road, all the stuff I've seen. And he's right, the pecanth diesel vapors pinching the senses, murky mountain shadow framing the distant scene. All of it like a postcard, wish you were here, who wouldn't want to be in the distance there, down through that valley, filled with the moist goldenrod sunlight. The scenes pass on, life through a screen. Tangled, messy, the slide carousel inverted. Cardboard frames that have to be held up to the light to make out the depiction and the depicted. Galveston dead ahead, forced green Peterbilt, haggard in a suede jacket, sleet, Liz. Dinosaurs sin Claire, his ex-wife, used international. Derek's daughter. Fresh faced, Eliza, tear-out next left, flying J. Moustachioed, frontage road exit only. Cotton Oxford, Tulsa by Sunset, Salt Spreaders, E. Timeshare at Lake Havasu, Betty, Franklin, Lady, Comover, vinyl windbreaker. Hauling fish on the eastern seaboard, flat-faced white Volvo, sugar again, McKenna. My boys, his boys, Derek's boys, Grand Rapids next right. My teenager, BP, Charlotte Bypass, swimming, swimming, popular bluff, downtown. Always been a Ford man, down-vest. Lonely old man, always a lonely old man. Buffalo Arena, three-quarter mile ahead. Watertown, Utica, dollar and a quarter per axle. Barnstable by nightfall. Calamity's crazy day. And when Elizabeth climbs down out of the black, sterling acterra with its spacey chrome tank at the naughty pine, she has to put both hands down, palm flat, on the gravel lot. Derek helps her to her feet. Helps her to slide the bangled key into the rusty lock of Cottage 12B. Helps her draw the curtain closed and under the springless, lifeless mattress. When Elizabeth wakes, the room is still mostly dark, lit only by bathroom lights spilling onto the suite's carpet. Her well-meaning husband, screaming down the street, indeed, has slept fitfully and lays father of her children uncovered, tucked into a ball. Elizabeth pulls the blankets, considers taking them with her for her troubles, lying protective, bastard, deny their children indeed. But instead lays them over him, gently, softly. She quietly slips her clothes from their hangers and goes into the dressing room with its cold marble floor and his and her closets. She dresses in a powder-blue running suit, runs her fingers through her closely cropped hair, looks for any of her 35 years in her face in the mirror. They must be there, and more one could easily believe. She slips the car keys from the pocket of his pants, folded over a chair, checks his wallet to make sure he's brought enough cash and credit cards to get back to New York. She considers leaving a note on resort stationery, but what would she say, see you later? I still love you, Derek, that she needs to figure this out without pills or anything else they can conjure up. Thanks for the relaxing rest and lovely vacation after my release. That she appreciates the concern and help, but that if he, miserable scumbag that he is, ever tries to have her committed to a psych hospital again, she'll... No. No. Better no note. She kisses him on his damp forehead, takes a last deep breath of his slightly sour but familiar smell, and picks up her suitcase. And so she starts in, living from her car and the envelope of rainy day money that it seems like she's had her whole life, she casts her nets wide. An occasional mom and pop roadside motel for a shower, and a chance to study the theses and dissertations she's lifted from deserted university archives, or the texts from her various correspondence courses, an occasional small town library or coffee shop, or highway rest stop for an internet connection, and conference schedules and seminar announcements, and self published magazine subscriptions and mail order guides for creating new documented identities, or building a time radio, or assembling a device for out of body viewing with parts from Radio Shack. She has post office boxes and post offices scattered up and down the coast, at which she stops intermittently to retrieve her hall, and at which she sometimes uncomfortably sees her picture tacked to a bulletin board, her face and faded inkjet ink under the 30 point type, beloved mother, and below, last seen. She intermittently deposits her hall in one of her two rented self storage units in Massachusetts and New Jersey. She will try it all, up and down the coast from Bar Harbor to Cape May, every boardwalk psychic, tarot card reader and spiritualist that's thought to set out a neon shingle. She networks, she collects business cards and names and addresses and phone numbers on sticky post-it notes. She subscribes through assumed names in PO Box hometowns to 79 different magazines and newsletters, from the slick British UFO journals to single sheet, single spaced, double-sided newsletters, advertised under such headings as Paul's Unknown Mysteries of the Universe. Yearly subscription, $6. Self-addressed stamped envelope to PO Box 1232 to dry pseudo-profound quarterlies like ad nauseam. She's joined the Rosa Crucians, she's traveled throughout the interior, hotels, universities, civic centers, shopping malls, YMCA's, any gathering she gets wind of, lectures on string theory and super string theory and hyper string theory, Brain World and Folded Dimensions and Casimir Effects and the Calibri-Yau manifold, support groups for persons believing they've seen aliens or been abducted by aliens or are aliens. Sometimes it's time travel and the desperately sincere devotees speak in hushed, reverential tones of the traveler they personally know and their instructions for attaining a better life while saving the world. Even if the subject matter doesn't pertain, or it's obvious the only secret the sponsor knows is the transmogrification of gullibility and the cold hard cash she goes. She drinks their thin, scalding coffee, eats their packaged cookies, sits on the hard metal fold-out chairs. Perhaps she thinks, perhaps one of the other attendees, perhaps she'll meet someone like her. Of all these people, there must be at least one other trying to make sense, who is living the same slippery life, or at the bare desperate minimum, is ready to admit to the possibility of such a life. But after months and months of this, of narrowing leads and winnowing the fields, after speaking with the shy grandmothers, the hippies, the beer-bellied vets with authentic tinfoil hats, tiny, spectacled men with illusions to form her lives at Langley, all the nuts, the whack jobs, the burnouts and the dreamers, the gullible and the out-and-out psychotic, all the believers. She's left with one more and more imperturbable, unshakable, unmistakable conclusion. Derek was right. She must be nuts. So, down to one crystalline conclusion, and Ockham would be proud. Simplify, simplify, simplify, and simplify she had. Liz checks into the same Nantasket Beach Resort where she'd left Derek sleeping fitfully twelve months and twenty thousand miles before. She needs to steal herself for the one final heartbreaking circuit to close the PO boxes to empty out the storage units, and then she'd head home, home to New York, and whatever hospitalization and concern professionals that might entail. But even with this crystalline conclusion, she sleeps a fitful sleep. The dreams lucid and semi-lucid keep coming, mushroom clouds, bullet trains, women in red, women in costume, women tied to chairs with duct-taped mouths, semi-trucks with mottled, morphing drivers that just won't shut up, a high-rise inferno, her naked in a field of blue tulips, on a beach under a yellow moon. More than once she awakens believing some dark figure stands at the foot of her bed. Perhaps one night is not going to be enough. Perhaps this is what it's all going to be like from now on. Perhaps she should just get up, get up to clear her head, perhaps a drive, and she can try again. With this last thought she rises and goes into the bathroom to dress. Looking into the mirror she must admit the year, this year of living dubiously, has been good for her. Her hair has grown long and drapes over her bare shoulders. In spite of the restless sleep her face is unlined, her eyes clear and bright to gee in blue. She's lost weight, her muscles toned, and she's become an expert and semi-expert in dozens of subjects, both legitimate and some not so clear. Classical and modern physics, of course, but also the ins and outs of the Novikov self-consistency principle. Everett and Deutche's work on the mini-worlds theory, quantum mechanics and quantum entanglement, and tipler cylinders. And religion, spirituality, psychology, and other belief systems. Meditation, psychonautics, and the tryptamine family of semi-synthetic substances. The design and manufacture of microelectronics. Pharmacycology and neuroscience. Reduplicative paramesia and the Cotard delusion. Evolution and neurotheology. Metaman, metaverses, and mutation. DSM-4. Brain chemistry and neurohormone secretion. The amygdala, residents of memory. Alzheimer's, Lyme, Parkinson's, and Morgellen's disease. Syphilis, epilepsy, and dystonia. And most poignantly, Kedel's incompleteness theorem. Even if she hasn't found THE answer, she's located herself, and is well-armed to take on anything man-made society can throw at her. Even though the night is cool, she drives with the windows down to listen to the urgent surf, the wind whipping the seagrass. Just detectable above the crisp air, the comforting salty smell of the ocean. She drives through the empty off-season parking lots, down by the deserted boardwalk, down by the empty beach. Finally turning onto a narrow road, winter dunes encroaching and occasionally covering the pavement. The road was marked private drive, but the beach houses are dim and vacant. Doesn't matter if some wandering patrol car should come across her now. The road winds and twists, and with the dunes on either side obscuring her vision, she's probably driving faster than she should, but it's just her out here, and only soft sand on either side. She rounds a bend and bang in the middle, startled in her headlights as the tallest man she's ever seen, again. The tallest man she's ever seen from the wild, wind-blown hair to the enormous Adam's apple, like he swallowed a pizza box on end, glows in the headlamps, positively luminous, and looks rightfully horrified, and bang the tallest man she's ever seen, again, is coming over the hood and tumbling onto her windshield, and she, rightfully so, is skidding to a gritty stop. She's seen this tallest man, now blinking his eyes at her through the windshield, before. He sat in the back row at the lecture on the Born Rule, just this afternoon, up in Peabody. A few weeks before, she ran into him at the refreshment table, after an out-of-body support group meeting over in Woonsocket. Till now, he's kept to himself, and she's not been able to speak to him. Hello? she asks. Uh, he tells her, sprawled across the car hood, face pressed against the glass. Hello? You all right? she asks. Uh-huh, he slowly says, and then, give me a moment, and just a moment please. And then, hi. Hi, she tells him. Are you okay? I don't know, he says. Am I? Are you bleeding? I don't think so. You're awake, that's positive. Everything looks to be at the correct angles. Uh-huh, he says, and lifts his head. Maybe you shouldn't move, she tells him. Perhaps, he says, but how will I know? he asks. Okay, she tells him, and then, but if anything hurts, starts to hurt, worse, you know, lay back down, okay? Cell phone? Yeah, okay. And he comes up on all fours. No, no, no, no cell phone. It's philosophical, he tells her, crawling down off of the hood. A choice. I prefer my own distractions to those of others. Finally, raising up to his own height, he puts his hands on his hips, and stretches backward and forward and side to side, and then looks at her from bottom to top. I know you, he tells her. Uh-huh, she tells him. Where do I know you from? You're not a neighbor. No, no I'm not. This is a private road, you know. Yes, I know. I'm sorry, terribly sorry. It's the middle of the night, you know. Yeah, terribly, terribly sorry. Really, you have no idea, she tells him. And then, can I take you somewhere? Home? The hospital? Were you out here on foot? Where's your car? I could have been killed. The probability was not insignificant, you realize, he tells her. Where do I know you from? Around, I suppose. I've been around. So, Lyft? No. You've been around, perhaps, but around's not, you know, my scene. How about a seat in the car? Get your bearings. My bearings are fine, never been better. Yeah, okay, a seat in the car, he tells her. Okay, great, she tells him. A seat is likely an order, he says. Hmm, he tells her. You've been around. You've been driving like a mad woman up a dark, deserted, off-season, private beach road. Yeah, she tells him. A mad woman. That's me. You're out running down strangers in the middle of the night with your windows down on a somewhat intemperate, I might call it, intemperate windy night. To what do I owe this pleasure? Just, you know, driving. Just driving, he tells her. Couldn't sleep, he adds. You know, couldn't sleep. Aiming for a reboot. Reboot. You? Me? Me what? I was minding my own business is what, he tells her, and after a pause. I was looking for my dog, actually. She runs off. She loves me, loves the house, loves her bed, but eh, she runs off. Your dog? Yeah, I think my ex-wife put her up to it. Yeah? Yeah, so she could tell people I was out looking for her. A lot of work went into it. My wife's humor, I mean. Carefully planned, plotted, and constructed. She was a follower of the neo-constructionist school of gags. Gags? Yeah, she named the dog Epiphany, just so she could say to people, and I've heard her do this, on the phone, at the door. Heh, she's probably written it in email. Don's looking for an Epiphany. Or the professor's out seeking an Epiphany. Funny. I don't think it works. Those two little letters, A and N, kind of mess it all up, don't you think? Throw it off, kill her. She could have went with himself, or religion, or reason, or even later, his dignity. Now that would have been funny, he laughs. And she was an expert on possessive pronouns, he laughs again. Of course, now it would just be silly, I suppose. Well, what I say to you, I'm looking for his dignity? A joke with a too narrow perspective, and apparently an expiration date, don't you think? Pie, he wants to know. Pie, Elizabeth says? A lift, you wanted to know, he tells her. So pie, a lift to a diner, over in Cahacit. All night, great cherry, he tells her, and pointing to his face. I think this is going to be black and blue before the night is out. So consider it the steel hand of Hammerabian justice, an eye for a pie. Okay, pie, she says, and puts the car in gear. Don't worry, he tells her, the local constabulary hang out at the other diner. Constabulary, she says? Yeah, cops. You're running from something, a twitchy, bad out of hell mad woman. I don't know, maybe cops. No, well, I'm not asking, I don't want to know. Keep your own distractions and such, you know, he tells her. Hmm, husband perhaps, ex-husband? Maybe all of them. Ah ha! Wave function collapse in the Copenhagen interpretation lecture, that's it. No, wait, fourth row, third seat from the left, Susan Clancy's talk. Hmm, he adds, you have been around. Yep, told you. I recognize you from the start. You know who I am? No, I mean when I went around the bend, in the headlights, my first thought. I know that guy, and bang! Hmm, he tells her. Thump, she says, and shakes her head. I don't know you, I've just seen you around, I think, at some of these things I go to. It's sometimes hard to say, oh, she says, don't worry about Epiphany, she'll come home. She can get in through the downstairs, just one of my own distractions. Searching for her, I should say. A reasonable excuse for wandering. Reasonable excuse, she wants to know. Sure, insufficient reasonable excuses and it all goes to shambles, don't you think? You lose causality, and then you start thinking you can do anything. You're a strange man, what was it, Don? That's right, Don, and you are, other than a strange woman I mean. Well, that's the $360 billion question, isn't it? She tells him. The tallest man she's ever seen holds his cup of coffee, wrapped in two enormous hands, up to his chin, and blows across it. He studies her like this, over the rim, as it were, and says, it's him. Or you think it is. Pardon, she says. That's what you're pursuing, or what's chasing you. You think it's your husband, your marriage. You're losing yourself in intellectual pursuits, maybe hoping to meet someone. You're presumptive, perhaps. It's a long confused story, and the coffee is bottomless. Well, you've got it wrong. It's not unheard of. You'd be surprised how much progress one can make by going ahead and being wrong. It makes no sense. Little does, he tells her. Even the stuff we think we know, just shiny edges, just enough to grab onto, lift it into the air, and call it ours. If I could tell this story, she says, and takes a sip of coffee, if I could tell this story, I wouldn't have a problem, or at least no one would think I did. Suppose that's something else I have to look forward to. Trying to tell this story in a professional setting. A husband doesn't understand you. How could he? I don't understand me. He means well, maybe that's enough. It's a lot, he tells her. Never underestimate meaning. Ha, she tells him, meaning at another swallow of scalding coffee. Start at the beginning, he says. I'm not sure there is one, or which one. The middle, then. Cristen at your beginning and go. We could have the waitress bring a bottle of champagne. For smashing, I mean. And smiles. I have these, these, I guess episodes is the parlance, but it's not. That's their term. Me, I don't have a term. Episodes, no, no, not episodes. They think I might be sick. Sick? Sick is in not well, not normal is in abnormal. The last time I tried to tell this story, they tried to lock me up. Ooh. Liz sighs. My well-meaning bastard husband. I thought he knew I was as is. That's the agreement, right? As is, as was, as forever will be. I thought if anyone could help me keep track, it would be another sip of coffee. Ah, so you are a mad woman then. And a fork of pie. Seizures? Paul on the road to Tarsus? Premonitions? Dreams? He actually told them I went running, screaming down the street like some crazy person. I don't feel like a crazy person. Hmm. No, no, no and no. Hard to say. Seizures, episodes, even dreams imply the passage of time, right? But these are instance. In the middle of chopping onions, they linger. In my head, but I'm still there chopping onions. I've never left. No one would even know if I hadn't mentioned it. No one explained absences. Those were fiction. What's he going to tell them? She tells crazy stories? Ah. The unintended consequences of intimacy. And some people want to read minds. I've met a few. He told them I denied our children. They're like memories in a bite of pie. You're right. This is good, she tells him. But they're not. False memories? Who knows? No, not memories. I mean, in memories you're always younger, right? Memories imply past. But that is how I experience these. Like memories, but without implication of past. Some are, don't get me wrong. Set in the past, I mean. I'm a student. I'm a little girl. And another's your older? Right. Older, wiser, seemingly. But someone else. Someone I'm not. Someone I don't think I could be. From here, I mean. I don't see how this person enjoying her pie and coffee. And another bite of pie. Could become that person. I don't know. Running through pots down her plots in Berlin. I see. We're eating a strange meal in a Shinjuku high rise with vivid snow falling past the windows. It's like I've lived from both ends at once. I see, he tells her. The same people in and out, real people. I've known some of them my whole life. Derek, that's my husband, shows up, but he's not. Just a mess, really. Nonlinear pastiche of my imagined lives. You know, what we need here is a chinchilla. And he laughs. Never mind, something I read once. And he laughs again. So like dreams then. No, I asked myself that at first. Was I just narcoleptic? But dreams are, no matter how clearly remembered, their beginnings are fuzzy, their endings abrupt. If I let myself, she tells him. I think I could, if I worked at it. Go forward or backward from any of them. And would all be there. Have you tried? Maybe they hook up. You know, rewind, fast forward, rewind. See if you're on the same reel. Maybe you're not. You're a little frightening to hold on to. I mean, it feels like walking down steps. And if you start thinking about walking down steps, well, you know where that leads, falling through space. And that's the last thing I need. What do you mean not? Just a thought. Have you heard of coffee the waitress wants to know? How was the pie just a top up then? She tells them. And begins pouring, splashing on the Formica top. Whoopsie. It's okay, I won't charge you for that. She tells them. And spins away, jabbering, jabbering. There's something else Elizabeth tells him. Something that really gives me doubts. This is my shakiest, okay? So don't run away now. Thanks for everything if you do. You've been great. And walk? He tells her. On a dark night like tonight? Sounds dangerous. I could be run over. Yeah, okay. Well sometimes Don, chopping onions say, I'll have like dirt under my nails. I'm chopping onions. I'm wandering in Montana. I'm running from a bomb. I'm hanging from a cliff. I'm chopping onions. I have dirt under my nails. Now I'm chopping onions, right? What would I be doing chopping onions with dirt under my nails, Don? Can you tell me that? Certifiable, right? Huh. He tells her. He don't say any grins. And the legal pads. The disappearing legal pads, she says. Elizabeth, Don says. We know, she explains. If someone would bloody well tell me then. Elizabeth, Don asks, and grabs her shaking hands. Do you have a passport? Huh? Passport, she blinks. Well I have a passport. Okay then, let's get it. There is someone who wants to meet you. End of Chapter 11. Chapter 12 of The Yellow Sheet. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Yellow Sheet. The LibriVox Nano-Rymo Project 2007. Chapter 12. Written and recorded by Kristin Hughes. You have the information. Take care of yourself. Wish I could go with, but classes won't teach themselves despite what some professors think. But how? Information indeed. He'll find you. But, he's been waiting. Waiting for me? Why? How? Answers aren't mine to give. Just have to be patient. Patient indeed. Now promise you'll come back and see me. I did, and would keep that promise. Though who knew when that would be? It began again. So many arrivals, so many departures. So many arrivals and departures that she wasn't even jet-lagged. Time and geography left behind. I remember that. I am living that. But now, I do feel jet-lagged. Yes, too many arrivals and departures. Too many me's for sanity. Beth, Betsy, Liz, Liza, Betty? Elizabeth, me. I'm not certain what is real anymore. Not entirely. Though some things feel like memory rather than something other. My mind seems to be failing me at times, but my sense is so acute. Tell me I know. My mother called me Beth. That was real. I was married. I even had a family once. Once? Yes, I think only once. But where has it gone? Where is my Derek? Not the delusional or the polyamorous or the betrayer or the bastard who tried to have me committed. Is that what he became without me? What I made him? I wish the tornado swirling round me would set me down in Kansas or some equally dull place and... Dull, yes. That's what I want. Dull, boring, mundane, excruciatingly uneventful life. I'm not sure I care what or why anymore. Just let it stop. It's as I descend into exhausted oblivion. I wake. Where? Here. Always here. Always where I am, but somehow from a dream into a dream. Life blurry, unfocused, slightly unreal. The shadow at the edge of vision. Was it there? Just a shadow? Or a thing of substance just beyond my reality? Questions, questions, questions, too many. Too many frustrations. Always moving and asking until my body rebels and I am forced to stop. Like a ship on the ocean tossed by storms but proudly still bestriding the high waves and holding on its course. I read that somewhere once. Byron, I think. And no matter how much my head and heart and body rebel I will hold my course. At least this stop hasn't been entirely unproductive. I met a man. No, no, nothing like that. He was grandfatherly. Gray and faded with ancient eyes that held an eternity of pain and grief, loss and tragedy. And yes, mingled with that, love. Such a warm and joyful man. Pity what happened. I should have liked to have known him longer. Was it Cairo or Calcutta? Perhaps Crete. I'm almost sure it started with a C. My apologies, I can't tell you where it happened. I don't know myself. Though it's of little consequence, the place is not the key. I do know it was a cafe. I was drinking sludge masquerading as coffee. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite fond of the sludge. But I have things yet to learn. My patience and self-control are underdeveloped for sludge drinking. One must stop in time unless one is fond of chewing, but stop too soon and risk wasting a not insignificant percentage of the drink. Such small cups. But let me return to my gentleman. For a gentleman he was, and there are few enough I've met who truly merit the description. He was a rescuer of stranded travellers. Kind words, lively conversation. I watch him for a time before his companions depart and his focus turns to me. I know you, he said, dragging a chair to my lonely table. Do you? I did not know this man. There were no remembrances, not the slightest flicker of feeling. But little surprises me any more, and I felt no discomfort at his statement. Yes, may I sit? He waved his hand at the chair he had supplied. Please do. You will not ask me how I know you. It is enough for now that I know. Tell me how you are and what you've been doing to find your answers. My answers? We all seek, some find, some do not. It is in the manner of seeking. Now you are running, yes? Away or towards? Towards, I suppose. It's not running for the sake of it, not any more. I'm searching, as you said, for answers. Running is running, it wears on the soul. The manner of running is not important. I ran once like you, but now I have found peace. How? I cannot answer that. The process is unique. But you, I started, wondering if we were talking about the same thing. He seemed to know, to understand. Did he, or was he only a cryptic confused old man? But his manner of conversation was so altered from what I had heard only a few minutes earlier. No talk of fishing and food and the beauties of the island. Island? Perhaps it was Crete. I would simply ask him. It could do no harm. You know what is happening to me? You've experienced it, haven't you? The whirling chaos, new places, new lives. You create your chaos, it does not rule you. Choose your reality, Elizabeth. He invited me to stay with him. I didn't hesitate, as it was the wrong time of year, and the few hotels in this quiet corner of the world had closed for the season. Somehow I trusted him. Familiarity spread in me with a rapidity that made me wonder. Had I known this man before? I think I must have stayed there some weeks, perhaps months. At least that is how I remember it. He spoke little of the past as it related to his life. Mostly he talked of the present, the now, the moment. He enchanted the mundane. We cooked together, he taught me. We walked by the sea and in the hills. It was a comfortable life. I would have been glad to continue like this, but I knew in the beginning it wouldn't last. And this time it wasn't because of me. He was ill. I would stay as long as I could, as long as I was allowed. I couldn't bear for him to be alone now. We continued our first conversation now and then, but it always ended the same. He insisted the answer was not to be found by running. But how could I stop? It wasn't by choice I lived my life in this manner. His answer? You must stop. Think now. Why do you run? To protect those around me. I tried to have a normal life. Once I think I did. Did I stop or was it only memories bleeding like spilt wine on a tablecloth? How long have you been experiencing these shifts? Shifts, a memory stirred. Somewhere, some time I had talked of shifts, with whom I could not recall. I don't know, does it matter? All the crossing and recrossing, it could be a week or a lifetime. How old do I look? Older than you should, older than you are. Just as I am older than I should be. I asked how old he was, but he would say no more. The conversation had tired him. As the days passed he spoke less and less. Often he seemed to be drifting in daydreams, then suddenly starting would say something inexplicable. I became his nurse, I cared for him. It seemed right, natural, as if all my life I knew it would come to this. He was fading fast. It troubled me I couldn't remember, couldn't draw him from the myriad cast of players who had contributed to my life's work. And he wouldn't say. He asked me to call him Keros. A Greek name, but the man was not. Certainly an American, one who has lived abroad for so long as to forget. His life, his culture, even his language existed in an in-between place, blurry, and not quite either or. My Elizabeth died. I died. I will die again and again. If you believe in prayer, then pray you never enter a reality where you are dead. It's not healthy. None of this is, but that. That is particularly destructive. His fingers bit into my arm. Such strength, such pain from one so frail. You're not dead, I'm here. I'm Elizabeth. You are not my Elizabeth. No, she is dead. And so am I. No. I soon shall be. Old before time and after. I must go. Your light still glows lovely, but do not burn so brightly, Elizabeth. I did, and will not last the night. Keros. The name sounded wrong. Look behind the bureau. I held him for a moment. Then he was gone. My grief would have to wait. The bureau. I slid it away from the wall, examined the back. Nothing. The wall. Yes, it had been painted over, but I could see a faint square outline. A butter knife was sufficient to chisel away the paint and patched plaster. I removed the square and thrust my hand into the hollow. A book. No. Nothing so simple. It was no ordinary book from a modern publisher. It was not old. Yet hand-bound and so beautiful. The title etched on the cover read The Blue Tulip. A flash of memory. I had held this before. On closer examination a yellow slip of paper fluttered onto my lap. Maddening, frustrating, intolerable yet expected. The words we know. I was about to throw the paper to the floor when I noticed in faded pencil M1020.b7706 Printed near the bottom. End of chapter 12. Chapter 13 of The Yellow Sheet. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Yellow Sheet. The LibriVox NaNoWriMo project. 2007. Chapter 13. Written and recorded by Smokey B. M1020.b7706 It seemed certainly to be a call number of some sort. But Liz was unsure how such things worked. Would it be the same book in every library? Or did that change according to inventory? Surely she would soon seek and see. But it mattered less than the books she held already. It was not large with perhaps an inches width of thick guilt-edged pages bound in a sparkling red leather. Inside each word was carefully printed by hand a script which caused Liz a burst of a bullion to sorrow one might ghostly compare it to the burst of a boil. The pain was intense but tinged with a relief and with a hope that the hurt would soon heal. She knew that graceful, sinuous script which bespoke the strength of its author, bespoke a depth and patience learned of failure and pain and mad, ravening joy and eventual peace. Was it, Liz wondered, the hand of the man now passed on behind her? If so, the book must be nearly as old as Liz herself for decades had passed since his frail fingers might have worked such wonders. Inside once again was the title atop a charming sketch of its namesake and beneath that the words, for your birthday. Tears sprang to her eyes as she read this inscription and she thrust her arms out so they not splash the book. She knew this book. It had been very dear to her. A wrenching sob of sorrow and ecstasy welled up within her and with it a flood of relief. This book was a corner piece in her puzzle. Turning the title page she beheld two even columns of verse upon page two and knew that the whole of the book was thusly emblazoned. Upon it she read these words. Aeons ago in the land of Hokkaido which was pestered by crime as Fleas Pester Fido a perfectly dreadful beginning Liz thought happily to herself a great joy looming inside her. The king loosed his tongue in a raging invective dismayed that his lawmen were so ineffective. O curse all these brigands they suck the state's blood and chew up our monies as cows chew up cud. These outlaws and robbers they pillage at will fat purses and coffers they easily fill. The best of my warriors must stay at the war to keep the troll demons away from our door and those that remain our cattle are bumbling as they are stumbling and though the blue tulip that strange vigilante does all that he can a single man can be in two spots at once and much less in twenty though he have muscles and sword skills aplenty or fifty or sixty or eight hundred and two and that is exactly what he'd have to do to stop all the foot pads and robbers and vise bedeviling this nation which once was so nice. In raptured Liz slowly backed up reading all the while and sat upon the bed a morbid thing to do perhaps given the man expired upon it but Liz was enthralled she had read this book many times before and having said so he shook his head sadly the pain of his reign had worn on him badly now strode he away his spirit nigh broken not knowing the hero of whom he had spoken was in the next room well honing her blade and well scrutinizing the plan she had made to comfort her father and ease his great grief to scatter the villains by slaying their chief widely he was known but strongly protected for he'd seized the keep that long lay neglected high up in the mountains that scraped at the sky where in those who ventured were surely to die for ravenous ogres and venomous worms had with the bandit reached amiable terms they tore up and trampled and off masticated all those in the peaks who snooped and invaded the king cannot at all that his youngest daughter would soon risk a grim and terrible slaughter he knew not a bit that so long ago when off she had set amidst a light lovely snow to learn at her school in the sapphire city to learn to be wholesome and quiet and pretty she snuck promptly off to the district of Ginza and forsook these duties to train as a ninja Liz pressed the book shut weeping freely in a torrent of feeling she knew this story knew the message of hope and persistence underlying its joyous nonsensical words knew its tale of doing good and beating the odds by heeding your heart she knew too that it had been meant to provide example and instruction to a young girl in a time and culture where girls lacked such guidance where they were taught to be smart and dependable and to measure themselves by the success of their man she knew she had had a part in its making was it written for her about her by her she did not remember that she would have to keep reading she could not wait to keep reading yet a dead man lay beside her and things must be done and then came a knock at the door end of chapter 13 of the Yellow Sheet this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the Yellow Sheet the LibriVox Nanorimoproject 2007 chapter 14 written and recorded by Kristen Hughes I thrust the paper into the book the book into my bag and flipped the strap over my head as I bolted for the kitchen our only visitors had been neighbors but this was not our neighbors had friendly knocks tap tap neighborly, high neighbor don't mean to bother you knocks whoever it was it was sure to be someone unwelcome the knocking became more insistent pounding, pounding till I thought the door would come off its hinges I would sneak out the back door and head toward the hills but no more pounding from that quarter what to do back to the bedroom it was late now, dark now the only light, a small lamp near the bed I extinguished it the window I could hear them them plural them walking not trying to be quiet them stomping around the house not good at all there was nowhere to go flying was not an option what strange thoughts enter the mind when stressed who could be out there and what did they want with me with him I don't want to be here anymore I felt for the bed for him his hand was cool to the touch what should I do if only you had stayed with me a little longer choose your reality words, his words choose his hand dissolved within mine goodbye why panic, why fear I got up from the bed strange why was I sitting in the dark I turned on the lamp and blinked in the sudden illumination I was alone no one nothing to fear but my heart was still pounding and my muscles taught I listened silence something was missing someone should be here a soft rustle a wave of apprehension as the doorknob turns and drifts silently open are you okay I thought I heard you scream she looked puzzled are you going somewhere no, not going no, I I stammered, somewhat shocked to notice a bag slung over my shoulder is it happening again I don't know what's happening I feel there should be someone else here a man, a dead man in the bed but no, there was no one who she crossed the room tenderly taking my arm and seating me on the bed sitting herself close, intimate, concerned she searched me looking for I know not what visible change madness probably she worried about my little episodes it's silly a forced giggle you'll laugh please tell me she stroked my hair her breast just brushing my arm I thought I thought there was a man in the bed I kept the dead part to myself well, no wonder you screamed jaw tightening a twinkle in the eyes a condescending pat on the arm I would have too if I thought there was a man in my bed it's not so bad, you know have you ever tried it? pounding, an echo of pounding at the door, the window I didn't hear it wouldn't hear it it wasn't real no, and I don't plan to a different kind of tightening I'm sorry, I said before she could continue I wished my head would clear the pounding subside I didn't think are you sure you're okay with this? I took her hand so cold a shutter of memory a cold hand in my own a man's hand wrinkled and soft we can cancel I'll come down with mumps or something no, they'll be here soon God, the whole thing was so incestuous incestuous indeed I'm not sure why we agreed to this in the first place but it's too late now to cancel and I... I want to see her maybe it'll give me some closure at least they got a hotel having them stay here would have been too strange I mean, I know we were all a big happy family once but it's been so long ten years funny how much one's life can change yes she was somewhere else now another time and place some ten years past another woman holding her hand the fog lifted after a moment and she continued does it bother you seeing Derek again and Corey? not as much as seeing Jen bothers you but then I wasn't really in love with them wasn't I? do copious denials until you begin to believe your own rewrites equal truth? I love you though I said slipping my arm around her waist ditto copious affirmations there was a knock at the door Alice panicked you get it, I'll be in the kitchen a quick kiss and off she scurried Liz you look great, how've you been? a good, and you? yeah, I'm good an awkward dance ensued a hesitation, a hug, a kiss, a handshake which was right, which appropriate considering past relationship and present circumstance he smiled, I giggled he settled for a warm hand on the shoulder and a kiss on the cheek a flush spread over me at his touch I wanted to pitch myself at him wrap myself around him stop it, not an option where was the uneasy self-conscious boy I remembered what stood before me was a man palpably confident thoroughly male you look so grown up did I actually say that? yes, yes I did he laughed an easy laugh, warm and pleasant it's the suit I promise I'm exactly the same Cory you remember I'm afraid this is a busman's holiday for me I had meetings in the city today and more tomorrow I did, however, bring some extra clothes he said, pointing to a duffel on the floor outside the door I didn't think you'd mind if I changed here no, not at all I waited for him to get his duffel then led him to the bedroom you can change in here and if you need the um... facilities at all, they're here I said, opening a door leading off the room thanks, he said slipping off his jacket and throwing it on the chair so what are you doing with yourself now, still writing? no a laugh, a tug at the knot of his tie I haven't written anything in years unless you count proposals, analyses and reports the tie hit the chair with unnecessary force so, business, what made you stop writing? you were good up, Liz, shoes, flick, flick it's probably a sensitive topic not good enough it, it doesn't pay and, well a person has to grow up sometime buttons, one cuff two cuffs, a collar button I'm sorry it didn't work out things rarely do sleeve, another the shirt drops so, um what are you doing now then? I know business, but a trouser button, zip uh, I don't mind if you want to stay but, well he was holding his trousers up with one hand while the other sort of flicked around in the air oh shit, sorry what was I doing? another knock, thank God I escaped to answer the door Derrick and Jen, apologies for being late apologies from Chuck and Spouse, they couldn't make it hands half extended and retracted cringing, thinking I'd rather be back with Cory's nakedness Cory to the rescue, calm Cory, confident Cory slaps on the back, kisses on the cheek comfortable Cory taking charge Alice, Alice in the kitchen, Alice making dinner Alice cooks? silence, I'll get her Alice, Jen, Jen, Alice hi, hi, silence how are yous and howve you bands? bottle of wine, red, white something stronger, family, work another bottle, table, food Alice drinking, Alice talking house, hobbies, another bottle reminiscing, should've bends and should've duns dessert, coffee when I was in Crete, said Cory oh, Crete is beautiful, I said the nicest little village by the sea? yes, I wish I could just pick up and move there Alice stirring why can't you? Alice motioning let me get some of these dishes out of here Liz, could you give me a hand? Alice turned on me the moment we entered the kitchen what's with you tonight? what do you mean, things are going pretty well considering all that between you and Cory fawning and agreeing with everything oh, Crete is beautiful you've never even been there a memory stirred, paralyzed I stood there unable to move or think but I had, I had flash the sea, flash a house flash a bedroom flash, flash, flash images flooding, flashing, a man walking, a cafe, a book then out of focus, Alice a blurry kitchen I held my head Liz Alice was speaking, not to me my knees buckle someone catching me, strong hands biting my flesh lifting me, carrying me warm, solid flesh against my own something soft under me I try to open my eyes Elizabeth, a man's voice I try to speak something brushes my cheek the room comes into soft focus Cory sitting on the edge of the bed leaning over me you're cold here, drink this I choke as something warm and biting is poured in my mouth sorry, too much? give me a minute I croak I shift, I turn I prop myself on an elbow try again I nod, better yes, thanks the fog begins to dissipate where's Alice? she's trying to get rid of Derek and Jen did they? no, she's making something up it'd be a while silence, embarrassment what just happened? did I faint? Cory looking and looking away fidgeting I have some photos, want to see them? sure they're for my trip he said, digging in his duffel the pictures spilled from the envelope he chose one and handed it to me here's that village I was talking about before Liz? I knew that village the small house, just there it was real boom, boom no, not that again fading, Cory here Cory with me the bed, the bureau the book I've been there Cory, my bag, get it quick Cory jumped, the pictures slid to the floor this? yes he handed it to me I would hold on the book, where was the book? it was here, I still had it have you seen this before? I asked, thrusting the book into his hands the room, growing dark then light again I was losing my grip I, I don't know it seems familiar it's important, I said taking the book from him I started open to show him the pages pounding again I was in the dark room the book solid in my hands but Cory fading I reached for him he was clearer I could still feel him solid and warm end of chapter 14 chapter 15 of the yellow sheet this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer the LibriVox NanoRymo project 2007 chapter 15 written and recorded by Humaguire the rain is pouring down, glowing like yellow bullets in the headlights smashing into the windshield and the wipers on high, extra high wash against the glass past ease, lower lip biting face over and over and over thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack like the sound of some manic drummer some heartbeat, some constant beating an endless fight against the rain that will not let up that comes harder and harder she thinks she must be drowning in it now eco is shaking and cold hands cramping against the wheel she leans right up against it, her nose almost touching the leather of the wheel so that she can see better so that she can get under this rain get closer to wherever it is she is going a destination she has forgotten or doesn't even know or never knew but wherever it is, it is better than where she has been which she can't remember either except these quick flashes police, batons, a truck, a big American truck from the movies, a man a plaid shirt a shaving kit an explosion in the lake deep beneath the lake a woman's breasts with an amulet hanging between them was she running from these memories these dreams, these images she didn't know, she did not have the time to think she knew only that she had to keep driving, driving away from what was behind her that if she let her mind wander at this speed in this dark with this rain on this windy unknown road wherever it was, she was lost she would lose control of this car and smash into the dark trees that flashed at her from either side of the road reaching at her as her headlights hit them illuminated them trying to grasp at her one after the other again and again to slow her down, get in her way and flying by her as she kept speeding along past them getting worse, smaller one lane now bumpier, winding more and she shifted down and up again as she tore around the bend and there was a big thunk from beneath her and she was momentarily weightless head flung up and back, everything seemed to stop even the wipers and she hung there waiting, waiting, waiting for something for the end maybe, for this dark panic and her gut to melt away to be washed away with warmth and calm that she knew existed somewhere once felt and she waited for the cramps in her shoulder and neck muscles to loosen and relax waited for sleep, sleep with no more of these dreams the car landed and she bounced up and down again back into position nose inhaling the leather steering wheel teeth cutting into her lower lip the paved road had turned to gravel and now she could hear the rocks and stones bouncing up from below her hitting the undercarriage of the car like bullets and asynchronous she had percussion to go along the constant thwack, thwack, thwack of the windshield wipers that continued their assault on the windshield in front of her she turned another corner felt the car skidding under her sliding towards the trees and she shifted down spun the wheel as the tail of the old Mercedes got away from her fishtailing right then left the full nature of her momentum now be under control and this was it she had time to think we think we are in control pointing in one direction a false move and everything we are doing is undone beyond our control not under it we don't control these machines and she felt something welling up in her every bit of fear fear that was already there in her throat now took over her whole body this is it she thought maybe I won't have to run anymore but whatever she did she could not have told you if you asked and she briefly imagined someone asking her later at a party or in an office somewhere and how she would smile and giggle a little and say I have no idea what I did I was so scared but somehow somehow she managed to get the car straightened and she realized she was crying the tears coming down like the rain outside with no windshield thwack thwack thwack to wipe them away so she wiped them a second no more just a second when her hand covered her eyes one beat a moment that was so short that the wipers made only one thwack had maybe begun the second thwack when she opened her eyes clear of tears now and she saw him standing in front of her illuminated in the road standing tall, taller than any man she had ever seen dressed in white drenched with the rain but just standing there and as she slammed on the clutch in the brakes she had time to study him as the car slowed and began to skid straight towards him she did not have time even to spin the wheel not that it would have made any difference and as the fender hit his legs she watched his face a kind face his crumbling pain and exertion his fine features that reminded her for some reason of the black and white picture of her father standing, legs spread hands behind his back and military at ease pose outside their house in the mountains in akita prefecture with his linen shirt and pants his wire frame glasses the body hit the windshield bounced into the dark and the car suddenly was stopped and silent except for the windshield wipers she turned the wipers off and jumped out of the car the wind and rain hurling abuse at her and she slipped in the mud grabbing at the hood of the car as she raced to get him wherever he was in front of the car he was lying on his back lit by the bright lights of the headlamps drenched, he must be dead she thought and she helped beside him crying again now and took his face in her hands wiped his black hair from his eyes hello she said hello hello please hello hello are you alright hello she never killed a man before she might be sick hello he answered eyes still closed yes he said I think I am okay, I think so he lifted his left arm and flexed his fingers then next his right arm and flexed that hand too eyes still closed hands work he said let's try the legs left then right he lifted them nodding yes he said feet okay now oh I will have a headache stay don't move Ayiko said what's your name Daiichi Okada he answered don't move Okada san he did he moved he sat up yes he said I will have a headache he opened his eyes and looked into her as a gentle smile on his face he felt his forehead with his hand tapping and pressing it then the top of his head behind it all my parts are in the right place he said Ayiko laughed and cried at the same time and she hugged him and kissed his neck and then she realized what she was doing and pulled back bowing her head I'm sorry she said I'm just happy you are alive I know you from somewhere he answered and touched your cheek briefly did he really do that she thought to herself and yes yes he did he did touch my cheek she studied him and yes he did look like her father in that picture but he can't be my father my father has been dead seven no eight years and had gray hair when he died this man is in his thirties or forties she tells him she does not think it is possible that he knows her and he replies what do you mean exactly by possible unsure how to answer him she helps him to his feet he groans but nothing seems broken and she helps him to the passenger seat of the car he is drenched in his back is covered in mud from the muddy dirt road she opens the trunk and finds two towels why did she bring them she wonders she closes the door and then installs herself in the driver's seat using the other towel to dry her hair what were you doing out on the road like that she asked well it's my road it's a private road so really I should be asking you that question she does not answer but instead starts the engine again starts the windshield wipers she doesn't know how to answer except to start driving again which she does and he doesn't complain I was looking for an epiphany he says again she does not answer not sure what this man means what he wants why he was out on the road that's my dog he says epiphany my wife named him that it was a joke she liked to tell people on the phone that I was out looking for an epiphany but of course epiphany is always escaping that's the nature of that dog I'm always chasing after it in the rain always looking for an epiphany but that doesn't quite make sense I echo answers I know she was a sweet woman my wife she's dead now she thought it was funny even if the article messes up the joke she died in the war I miss her and if epiphany wants to spend the night in the rain that's her problem what war I echo thinks but doesn't ask up here he says just a little further on the left she slows and he guides her into the driveway a small opening in the trees that she never would have seen the pathway is even smaller than the road and the branches of the trees actually caress the side of the car as she continues on another layer of percussion in the night drive jazz she's been listening to since she can remember they drive slowly now she feels safe and whatever she was driving from is behind them down this little winding drive until finally they come out into the clearing her headlights illuminate a little shack with a kerosene lamp burning in the window and beyond it she can see the rocks in the sea the rain has stopped she realized but the wipers are still on thwack thwack thwack she turns them off come in he says let's have some warm coffee and pie a dog barks runs at them tail wagging epiphany echo says and the man says yes he opens the door to the little shack and she feels the warmth inside sees books lining the walls here's Brahms coming from the speakers she cannot see she steps inside it is small open with a little kitchen and a loft with a ladder and a bed two chairs by a desk and piles of books a microphone on a stand she's shivering cold and wet deep in her bones but she feels the cold and the fear and the panic seeping away epiphany curls up in the corner and Daiichi Okada closes the door coffee he says and pie yes Aiko leaves her gently touching her shivering arm do you have a passport? how? passport? cheap links? well yes I have a passport in the car ok then he says that's good there is someone who wants to meet you but first coffee and pie end of the yellow sheet chapter 15 chapter 16 of the yellow sheet this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the yellow sheet the NaNoWriMo project 2007 chapter 17 written and recorded by Alan Drake no I'm sorry thank you but I don't drink coffee Aiko said with a change in tone since when a deep voice boomed into the room since never I'd like something stronger she said as she turned around towards the new voice please something stronger she continued I've had enough rain enough at the sight of the older man entering the room she stopped speaking he entered from an alcove opening through a rounded arch Daishi can offer you some fine gingyo shoe but that will not go with your favorite favorite what? her voice broke off again uncertain, confused don't look so serious Aiko the man said sympathetically I'm speaking of your favorite pie strawberry rhubarb rare in Akido very rare even than his very fine gingyo shoe but then you or two are you not Aiko? rare very rare indeed she gave a short bow an embarrassed recognition are you it's been formalities first interjected Daishi the passport she unzipped a pocket inside of her jacket she extracted a red passport offering it formally holding it forward with both hands she bowed her head again Daishi accepted it in like manner and passed it to the as yet unnamed older gentlemen who looked only briefly at the back cover and then placed it down on the table oh gee she exclaimed yes but let's keep it to English excuse me I think we can leave apologies behind as well and it's also time to stop running about Dogen Michichika spoke softly sit please you will please pardon me for suggesting that you slow down Aiko sat on the mat at the square eating table her head tilted imperceptibly as she gazed down at the microphone in the short tripod stand it stood straight upward reminding her of the thin white mushroom she picked as a child wandering through the forest with her uncle and aunt Daishi Okada placed a Masu on the small table in front of Aiko and another across the table as he sat opposite Aiko Dogen smiled once he settled gracefully sitting upright formal but relaxed he took the bottle from Daishi who was standing next to him and poured out the translucent gingershoe until it reached the very brim of the wooden box in front of Aiko the bottle had no label nothing but a simple hand-inked Enso graced the face of green cast glass it's from Daishi's Hokado Korra it would be incorrect of me to comment before you had tasted it but I can say that Daishi does not follow new government regulations when brewing for himself after a pause Daishi headed for one of the bookcases and added and friends speaking of friends Daishi is everything set up? in the brainstorming session yesterday Hughes set up the mic he was happy to leave it for you he sends his very best wishes thank him for me please he has set things up perfectly although his pension for a manga is well we can shock it up to age is it on? click it is now I will be leaving there are other bottles behind the Mishima collection the mic is omnidirectional afterwards be certain to press the stop button a two gig cog five thirty seven minutes should be enough Dogen Michichika there is no clearer window than you Daishi sound of door closing sound of sipping soft murmurings of satisfaction oh gee let's keep this to English that's fine with me uncle fine is fine what's past is prologue so what do you have for me? I have missed you I thought that this missing was a permanent thing I didn't know I have missed you too and your Aunt Raindrop has missed you as well there is much to talk about but we must move on to what you know and what I know and start putting the various pieces of this mess together make it coherent I promise you we will have the rest of my lifetime your aunt's lifetime to be a family again but for now we must pull it all together that is why your aunt and I disappeared it was your aunt who made the strawberry rhubarb pie you know so American you are I please there are so many parts pieces fragments, spinoffs false starts, inventions intrigues, dreams solid tales lies duplicity so is life any different is life a haphazard novel verging on a what is Buddha a dried shit stick ah you have learned your lessons well you have always had a good memory which is why you are here today but when I ask what is Buddha I want to know what you know what you remember and a haphazard novel verging on a no a strawberry rhubarb pie now you are playing with me now you are playing with me what is the answer to the answer you didn't bring today what are the questions to all of the questions I have many many sheets of perfectly constructed shit sticks most are yellow but one relates little to the other exactly how do you sort it out or is it up to the sheets to sort themselves out the ones that are yellow should at least and every one is different all of the yellow sheets each of the NYS's no at this point they all say the same thing which is you know why do you ask me what they say you know yes they all ask what is Buddha shit stick you see you are stuck that's plain maybe you need a piece of pie that's your solution yes the pie doesn't go with this then drink more no I want pie with this Daichi would be hurt you would hurt his feelings he offered coffee yes I shouldn't have started drinking I should have had the pie what's wrong with you having the pie with the ginger shoe at the same time what's wrong with me having the pie and the ginger shoe at the same time yes what's wrong with having the pie and the ginger shoe at the same time what's wrong with having the pie and the ginger shoe at the same time is is is that I don't know many Elizabeths there are, what planet any of them are on, what dimension any of them are in, what epic in history any of them are living in, or, or, or if they are all happening at the same time, or are the same things, or altogether irreconcilable, or if any of them are irrelevant? Almost exactly. Almost? I want a piece of and raindrops pie. Now? Yes. Yes. I don't want to drink, but it is so exquisite. And the pie? The pie will be exquisite too. And you know this? Yes. How do you know there is a pie? I smell it. I could smell it before I came into the hut. What is this hut anyway? Why does Daichi, with all he has, all he is, have this shack? Because someone rode it in. Are you telling me that someone, some ones, writes a chapter a day and we're living it? Huh. That's one theory that's been floating around, but is plainly purile. No offense intended. So, we're living a dream or we're not. Or the lizzes are not someone's concoction? Shit stick. She's different than you're making her out to be. God, I need a piece of pie. She's different than she started out to be. For God's sake, at one moment she was absolutely real, and then... What part of this do you think is nonsense? Anything that has to do with a renaissance fair? Why? Too simple. What about the law that states the simplest explanation is the true explanation? That's not how it goes. It's something different than that. Occam's razor. Lex Parsimone. Excellent. Now, that's a real shit stick. Long period of laughter between them, without words. Oh, yes. That's right. That's it. All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best. But how do you, how do we, how does the greater cause get met, if everyone is working independently? Occam was a fourteenth-century monk, and worse, he was a logician. Maybe we should turn to what the existentialists say, my old friend Camus. The world is indifferent to human suffering. Another shit stick. But maybe the question is, what's the difference between art and play? Play is play, and art is a shit stick. You might have something there, or you might be drinking too much. It is getting smelly in here. Laughter. I know I said we should keep this to English, but I don't think I can say this in any other way. You will remember. Sound of Dogen reaching into his pocket and extracting a small business card slides it across the table to Aiko, written on the business card is Kyojitsu Imaku. Ah, something like Kyojitsu Konku. Takibo Yu-yo. Yes, somewhere along the line of burgeoning, disparate thoughts and words and people and promises and hopes and fears and confusion. Confusion is good. That was a child's exercise. Was it? Where do thoughts come from? I'm not sure. How long do thoughts linger? Hang around in our heads. That depends. On what? How important they are to us. Us? Me. And so after they hang around for a while, where do they go? They don't go anywhere. They just fade away. Where do they fade to? As far as I'm concerned, they should all just fade away, particularly this convoluted puzzle. Why should they? Or it? Gee, you've gotten argumentative in your old age. Gee, you've taken up drinking in your young age. Why are you bothering to record this? I thought we were going to discuss in detail each and all of the disparate pieces and to try to find a way to have them all work together. To have a record of our exploration. To be certain we didn't lose any threads. I think you should turn off the recorder. Now you're closer to what is Buddha. What is not Buddha? Oh, you almost have it. That deserves a reward. Click. A reward would be a piece of strawberry rhubarb pie. A piece? I'll eat the whole pie. Would you like to take a guess at how many words? Um, one thousand seven hundred and sixty seven. One thousand seven hundred and sixty seven? That's painfully exact. Give or take how many? One hundred. One hundred. Are you sure? Okay. One hundred words and one shit stick. Seventeen hundred and eighty four. And one Buddha. That would be a good line to end the chapter on. Too easy. I think we should come up with a solution. What are the central questions? What is R, the yellow sheets? Look, over at Daichi's futon. Ah, a yellow sheet. Exactly. How many more will you find before we figure this out? I did come up with an interesting fact you may not know about. Which is? Before there was a yellow sheet or sheets, there was apparently a blue tulip. Sounds like a red herring. There are a lot of those swimming about. So, how do you get out of this? How do you figure a path through it? It's overwhelming. Confusion is good. Why? Because in this place and time, I'm your father's older brother and the only family you've got. And you're in the only country you're living in. I'm also very angry about all of this. And sad. And perfectly content. That could change. So, what are you going to do about it? Kill the Buddha. That's a hard thing to say. Not really, if you remember. And I'm certain you do. Just mull it over. Over a piece of strawberry rhubarb pie. Want a piece? I really am glad you're my uncle. Am I? Now, that's not nice. What I mean is, I might just find out over, let's say, the next seven or eight days that I'm not your uncle. Or that you don't exist at all. Hmm. If I don't exist, how might I find out I don't exist? What is Buddha? Exactly. End of chapter 16. Chapter 17 of the Yellow Sheet. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Yellow Sheet, the LibriVox Nano-Rymo Project 2007. Chapter 17, written and recorded by Sean Megahy, DucktapeGuy.net. Sleep comes quickly, almost too quickly. What was in the Ginjo shoe? Rice spirits or something more sinister? She tosses and turns beneath the Yellow Sheet and dreams, fitful dreams, dreams of the road. Another road, another town, another cottage. Another Elizabeth. Ico, Beth, Liz, Liza, Betty, Betty Crocker, Betty and Wilma, Betsy, sweet Betsy from Pike. Who is she now? Where is she going? Will this journey ever end? What is real? The journey or the destination? Another Yellow Sheet. We know. Always the Yellow Sheet. She tosses and turns beneath the thin Yellow Sheet. Another street, another town, another lifetime. Somewhere in the Northeastern United States, she glimpses something reflected in a storefront window. At the edge of this nondescript town sits a nondescript strip mall plaza filled with trendy upscale chain stores whose names and stylized logos do nothing whatsoever to betray a description of the contents inside. She parks her car in section F of the vast parking lot. Her grandmother told her that she always parked in section F, so if she ever got confused as to its whereabouts coming out of the store, she could ask herself, now where did I leave the F in car? Walking into the brightly lit store, she sees row upon row of glass shelving filled with assorted glassware, dishes, ceramic figurines, and home accessories for any event or season. Pasted throughout the store are oversized posters with catalog pictures of the store's products looking just so slightly nicer than they did on the shelves. All with a stylized logo and the slogan, home accessories for any occasion. As she wanders aimlessly through the aisles, her eyes fix upon a glass display case. Inside, on a special stand which is draped in yellow fabric, sits a necklace with an oddly familiar medallion. It appears to be very, very old and made of bronze, but it is most certainly a cheap knockoff made in China or Taiwan. Beside the stand on a yellow card is written. Replica Antique Medieval Medallion, item M1020.B, $77.06. We know you will not find better prices anywhere. The yellow sheet, always the yellow sheet. Another road, another town, another cottage. Another Derek, some Derek, her Derek. He rolls over and caresses her shoulder, her breast, her hip. She spoons into him and smells his familiar musky aroma. She feels the warmth of body on body, the smoothness of his plaid shirt, his plaid shit. She recoils. Is this the Derek who swept her off her feet and fathered her children? Who promised, till death us do part? Is this the Derek who ran off to find himself in the Orient only to find some hussy 15 years younger than I? Is this the Derek who had me committed? Who would not believe, even when I showed him the yellow sheet? Awakening briefly, alone, she tosses in turns beneath the thin yellow sheet. Another road, another town, another question. Always more questions. She fingers the worn yellow sheet as she climbs the steps into the library. It is an impressive-looking brick structure built by the largesse of a Carnegie grant 100 years ago. Like every other public library in North America, a monument to an empire all but forgotten, but for a gift that spans generations. Stepping inside, she walks briskly to the public card catalog. Why do they call it a card catalog? Long gone are the rows and rows of wooden cabinets filled to the brim with index cards, each a treasure map leading to literary riches, replaced by row upon row of sterile humming computer terminals. Catalog, how to search the catalog? Every system in every town is different with names like Worldcat, Ecat, and Biblicis. But this is a new catalog to her. LibriVox, the voice of books, free voices, book voice. A white screen appears with only a few choices. Title, no help. Author, if she knew the author's name, she wouldn't be searching. Status, what the is status for? Why can't I do a simple keyword search? Wait, three more links are below. Browse entire catalog, recently cataloged, more search options. Selecting more search options reveals still more confusing choices. Category, status, reader, MC, BC? She pulls the faded yellow sheet from her pocket and types the code written there, letter by letter, more from memory than actually reading the text. M1020.B7706. A new screen appears. One matches. Works in progress, one. LibriVox volunteers. Yellow sheet, the. LibriVox, NaNoWriMoNovel 2007, open. Readers, email me when this book is completed. The yellow sheet, always the yellow sheet. She clicks the link. Another page, full of questions, always questions. It appears to be an audio book currently being recorded by a bunch of crazy volunteers. Wait, what's this? Chapter 8, read and recorded by Betsy Bush. Listen. Betsy? Beth, Liz, Liza, Betty, Elizabeth, me? She begins to listen. Chapter 8 of the yellow sheet. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The yellow sheet, the LibriVox NaNoWriMo Project 2007. Chapter 8, written and recorded by Betsy Bush in Marquette, Michigan, November 2007. The yellow sheet, always the yellow sheet. She can't listen to it here. She must save this file and find a safer place. But how? She looks down and inserted into the USB port is a navy blue memory stick, engraved in white with a stylized picture of a tulip. Scrawled on the case in black marker are two words. We know. She quickly saves the file, pockets the memory stick and leaves the building, leaves town. Another road, another town, another question. Always more questions. I co-awoke, oddly refreshed after her fitful sleep. The first rays of light tickled the shadows until they faded away from gray. As she looked out towards the sea, she wasn't expecting the dormant words of Gothay to seize her so violently. Just for once, have the courage to surrender yourself to impressions, to allow yourself to be moved, to be uplifted, yes, to be instructed and kindled by something great. In less than a minute, she was out to sliding double doors. Their shiny finish of Canadian pine flashed in the rising sun as they slid closed. They settled into immobility, remaining unlocked for she left without keys, without money, without food, without wallet, without her passport, without anything that might identify her, with nothing but the clothes she wore, her amulet and the tan duffel bag containing the yellow sheets and the blue tulip. The time for questions was passing. She was surrendering herself to the uncertainty of not knowing why, of not knowing how, not even knowing with certainty who she was from day to day. I co-beth, Liz, Liza, Betty, Elizabeth. She strode down the well-trodden path, new to her, but familiar and comfortable nonetheless. As she walked, she heard the stillness of night begin to emerge into the symphony of the awakening of the day. She passed no one as she walked, saved for an overly friendly dog, obviously excited to have slipped his tether and, a little later, a weary man inquiring about said dog. She pointed him onward and he left, thankful for the revelation. Above the trees she could hear a dove's plaintive cry, a breeze skittered through the trees, providing an erratic counterpoint to the steady rhythm of her footfalls, squishing along the still-damped trail. As she walked, the rhythm of her feet recalled for Ico an old ballad half remembered. And though the blue tulip, that strange vigilante, does all that he can, a single man, can't be in two spots at once and much less in twenty, though he have muscles and sword skills aplenty. So, engaged in her contemplation of where, of when, of who, Elizabeth Ico was unaware that she had awakened two sleepers who had found shelter under a hedge just beyond the path. The two women intently watched as Ico passed, then silently began to pursue her. After about an hour's walk, Ico began to regret that she had left the cottage without any food. She pressed on, what she hungered for was not food but respite, an end to this interminable journey and answer to these lifetimes of questions. The sounds of the forest gradually gave way to the rhythmic pounding of the surf against cliffs relentlessly hewn over millennia. The squeals of gulls could be heard overhead. Some distance away, the sun glinted off the lenses of powerful binoculars. It appeared that Ico and her pursuers were being watched. Dogen Michichika satisfied a small four-wheeler ATV. In his hands were a powerful set of binoculars equipped with a transceiver that was transmitting whatever he viewed in real time. How he had longed last night to lift the veil to cover Ico's eyes, but he could not. He would not. E must develop full understanding on her own. She was so close, but time was running out. Dogen was a bit perturbed when he spied the two women tracking Ico. He was not worried about what they might do. There was nothing they could do to change things now, but he was disturbed that they had been able to track Ico here to this place which had held its secrets for so long. Ico slowed her pace. Becoming aware of a loud rushing sound behind her, she turned to see an ominous black cloud towering over the trees and two women running toward her. Another road, another journey, another Elizabeth. Another question, always questions, always the yellow sheet. We know. End of chapter 17.