And then we see it. Why will I startle, gag, vomit in horror at its living face?

Because of the cosmetics? Because I see how it may complicate my schedule?

Because I face my own gaping mouth and see a womb within me that this is the spawn of, and the smoke rising, and I’m appalled?

Questions later. Now it’s time.

You bastard, it’s time. Wake up. Wake up. It’s time. It’s time!

You bastard... Wake up... It’s time...

I’m hungry. Where’s Mama?

Love me? Love me?

Where’s Mama?

Mama? Mama? Mama?

You see me as a father. Then I’ll give you a father’s advice: disappear.

Responsibility. Does responsibility require me to live with the consequence of my stupidity? Buy it every toy in the store in a frantic effort to keep it smiling?

That’s not convenient.

Yes, that sounds contemptible. “I will not cross the street to save the bleeding child.”

But where does responsibility end? If my responsibility has no bounds, then it can’t be sensed. So how do I guide myself except by my own convenience?

Is that so strange? I meet a beggar, I give him a quarter, or I don’t. Does either decision change his life?

I give him a quarter because I find it more convenient than to give him ten thousand dollars. My decision is based solely on how, at this moment, it makes me feel.

You’ve learned to write. Sloppy spelling, but no worse than my students.

What? You want— “Give me a wife.” That’s obscene. Obscene.

To create a freak like yourself, a squeezed, scarified, dribbling female to pant after you and breed desolation?

To breed? To breed?

Love me, like mama.

Control yourself. That’s enough. Big boys don’t cry.

Very well. I’m moved by your pain. Or I feel my responsibility. Or I don’t fully realize the implications. Or right now it’s more convenient to do as you ask.

I’ll do it. You’ll say thank you. And leave me. We’ll be in touch.

I didn’t really look, I opened the door, and there was a horrible creature standing there. It may have been a mirror. And naked I ran to the night.

Was I playing God? Did God loathe His children? Did He thrust forth His Will, then recoil nauseated, appalled?

Or was the Will achieved? I created life, half-born, the skull wedged at the hip bones, crying out of the womb, screaming for love, then pushed back into its prison.

The world is full of these felons, locked in the womb, half-born. He might have been an angel, for all I know.

But he looked like a man. That was the loathsome thing. He looked perfectly human. He could lug more weight, perhaps, but I had done nothing more than my mother did for me. I created only myself.

I see it now. We must taste our life and let it pass. Create from the roots of desire, fingers dug deep in the earth. Open the channels, ride the crest. Speak into the eyes, the swallowing pupils, and meet them in joy.

If I could only—

Henry, my playmate, my friend, my brother. I’ve put you through such torment.

But we’ll grow old together, talk of our foolishness. Let’s go to lunch. I’ll pay.

Henry? Henry, talk to me.

“Nice weather we’re having.”

Don’t talk about the weather.

“Well I can’t feel much of it.”

How was your day?

“Well I met a monster and he killed me. Other than that, not bad.”

We used to play monsters.

“You made a good one. That’s a joke, Victor. Laugh.”

Henry—

“Laugh. Huahh. Huaahhhh—”

Stop it!

You are accused of the deaths of your sister Wilma, her nursemaid Justine, your friend Henry, and a large number of people found mutilated in motels and alleyways! How do you plead? Guilty!

Will you marry me?

Thank you. Elizabeth, I want you to be my wife.

You don’t see the darkness. A secret so thick I can’t open my eyes. I must tell you.

Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!

Are you ready to order?

Mosquitoes.

Please marry me!!!

Sing, we’re alive, alive and we die, give birth—

Give birth to fingers, to flowers.

Give birth to Mama.

Hello Mama.

Mama, it’s sweet.

Hello.