irk stepped up and read. I wondered how long it would last, what the outcome would be. He read, and it seemed to me at any moment he would collapse. But it was an engaging reading. He read: “I don’t know if my mind conforms to the continuum of future poses. Some days, it doesn’t much matter. Others, it’s a question of more abstract dimension than personal necessity. But every now and then I think to myself that before I die I want an answer. I want one almost enough to keep living until I find one. But I won’t take that pill. I won’t, I swear it. Of the outstanding questions, you must think that the continuum of future poses is about as relevant as the grizzly bear. But I assure you that this is not the case. The only reason people subscribe to this idea is because the scientists have so stridently claimed, and their public relations detachments have conducted such broad-reaching and comprehensive public information campaigns, that all of you have been led to believe erroneously that the subject is extinct. The scientists would like you to plug in and retire all concerns you have about the continuum to the public archive in the center of town. This may seem to you to be a powerful, compelling reason. Many of you have plugged into the archive, deposited your reservations there, and made space for that which you considered more essential: circuitry maps, modules of strategic utility, and more of Disney’s enchanting enjoinment systems. You like the neatness of the solution and, after all, the scientists have proven themselves correct, often by mathematical logic, often by draconian logic, time and time again throughout the ages. Given the slim nanochance of error, your response to my obsession with this point is, si weft? So what? It is true that our scientists have proven themselves correct as relentlessly as the clock ticks. In those cases where the proof was muddled, they gave it sense by creating from the proof a context in which it could remain a proof. These are pleasant solutions to examine in the lifestyle section of the newspaper. And yes, I concede to you that the continuum of sexual misconduct, the dialogic of vital energies, and the tantric perfection of hermetic crisis have an importance the loss of which would be tantamount to the eradication of grilled cheese or the implosion of bandwidth. We would find it hard, if not impossible, to survive in a humane way. What is it, then, that the continuum of future poses holds out for me? Why do I have this obsession and why have I occupied this soapbox to resuscitate this all but exed vadiad? I think it is still relevant. If the tantric perfection of hermetic crisis says that breadth is the solution to fear and conflict can be contained in an unstable system, provided that unstable system is abetted in its instability and encouraged in its isolation, then we understand immediately how to deal with crises. There is an answer then to a very obvious question. It takes very little thought and any innocents involved know and understand immutably they have no innocence and the god is thus proving it. So likewise with the continuum of future poses. We have who we are now and not who we will be in the future and both are key; a simple matrix can help to unite the two from twixt and make them twain. But the continuum has a further and greater personal relevance to my children and to myself in the circuitous world shape. It means that there can be the happy medium, not the uneven front end and overburdened back end. The pair can be unified. We take it that this is no longer, now that we are unified from the beginning, but this continuum remains relevant not because it has ceased to be relevant, but because it is still so. Fact, they have proven themselves correct so relentlessly as time has ticked past that many of us have ceased to check their proofs. Many of us have determined that with the demands of everyday life . . .” Dirk stopped talking, set his forehead on the podium and began to snore. “This,” Scott whispered into my ear, “is literature. Damn Dirk. He takes metafiction and turns it into science fiction and lambastes the whole fucking thing. It's goddamnn brilliant. I mean that with two Ns, as in a Thomas Mann, goddamnn.” “Scott,” I said, “I thought you gave me all your speed. I thought you’d stopped with that shit, you fuck. This is business. How can I take care of you if you don’t let me do my goddamnn two nn job?” And I slapped him around a couple times and went out looking for a place where I could get me a bourbon and soda.

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