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joint and chastise myself for feeling sorry for all these people’s stupid sad stories.  Lots of families have died apart from one another, and the dead are far from the troubles of this world. I sit watching a hawk ride thermals in the afternoon, almost evening, sun.  I smoke, I sit, and I start to feel better.  The roof is warm even shaded by overgrown trees, and the light and green leaves and fresh air cheer me.  I pull a paperback out of my backpack that I’ve purloined from the house and read until dark, smiling to myself.  Life isn’t all that bad, dude.
     
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         I sleep and I dream that I am swinging in a hammock made from people’s tattered clothes.  I lie there in the hammock, and a man dressed in a white jacket and black tie brings me an umbrella drink.  He’s familiar somehow, the one from the living room, I decide.  Black liquid runs from the hole in his forehead and makes a spreading stain on his left shoulder.  I nod politely and sip at the drink as he walks away.  The sound of waves softly crashing on the beach and receding follow me into wakefulness.
         Something is not right.  My eyes snap open and I regard a deep blue early morning sky. There is a slight chill to the air, and I almost think I can see my breath before me.  The fogginess begins to lift from my mind and I remember the sound of waves.
         Sitting up, my back stiff from sleeping in the valley of the roof, I hear a noise.   It sounds like soft swishing of grass, as if someone were walking below me, only multiplied several times.  I hold an oath in the off chance that the group below me are of the living breathing variety, and stand, slowly .
      Below me stands the figure of a man, completely naked, his skin the color of old nickel.  His eyes are on me:  yellow milky affairs with grey pupils.  His tongue is curled down to his chin and his teeth look sharp and white.  Next to him is a woman in a dress, scraggly patches of wavy black hair and a hooked nose that looks slightly crooked.  On and on, surrounding the house on all sides, perhaps a dozen ragged and horrifying figures, arms raised as if to the sun, daring me to jump.  I gather my thin camo jacket I’ve been using as a blanket.  I don it now taking my time.  I sling my half empty pack and check my Avtomat-Kalashnikova 1947.
         Breakfast consists of some fruit leather and a few sips from the canteen.  Yesterday afternoon’s joint is this morning’s roach, and I light it pulling greedily, as the sun warms my legs and face.
       I walk carefully over to the front of the garage and wait patiently as my new friends assemble on the cracked black top of the driveway.  It is holding up pretty well, all things considered.
         When I see that my friends have assembled, I look down upon them and smile: “Welcome!  And good morning.  As you may have heard, class has been cancelled indefinitely.  I see that you, like myself, have not been discouraged by this fact, and have been drawn here by a longing and desire to fill your minds with knowledge.  I think I will call this lesson, The Fall of Man.  There, yes?”
         I point at the naked man, his hands raised and eyes locked on mine, an almost joyous expression on his face.  “A question?”
         I look down at the AK and check the safety.  Safety first.  Always.  I slide down the lever on the right hand side, consider muttering some awful one liner and settle on not spoiling an otherwise sublime moment.  Crowded as they are before me, aiming is optional.  Still, I take aim and count fourteen head shots.  I feel like an over industrious feline leaving one hell of a door step offering.
         The rest of the morning is rather uneventful.  I walk and enjoy the smells of the trees and grasses; the sharp smell of strange weeds trampled underfoot.  I marvel at how well the earth is doing at healing itself of the wounds dealt by