The Meeting

After the meetings ended, after the coffee and cigarettes, an announcement could finally be made. For years the majority held the same opinion while a few others waited before making up their minds. A decision had been made. But before those who disagreed could burn homes in protest, send children off to a far away village, the majority kept the pronouncement secret until they could disconnect the town from the outside world. After that another meeting was called to decide whether to tell anyone anything about what they had decided. They thought it best not to say a word.

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Somebody somewhere made a mistake or willingly uncorked the test tube containing the end of the world. Under a microscope it looked like a dollar sign eating cells in a brain. You saw it coming, watched it lurking like a child with profits bleeding from its nose, spreadsheet eyes peeking through the windows of every bank in the world. So you stole blueprints from tombs below cathedrals hoping some day after the dead have stopped rising, a surviving architect might rebuild the world. You did what any atheist would do: walked through museums with a camera saving the faces of Mao, Marilyn and The Last Supper for what comes after the cannibals.

Revenge of the Invisible Man

What if people forget who I am because I've become invisible? In my loneliness I blow on the bare shoulders of women on line at a drug store, make an umbrella float down a sidewalk, apple rise from a fruit stand. Wolf Blitzer tells CNN viewers the law of gravity has been broken in just this one place, his panel of physicists say it's impossible; a correspondent interviews a street magician who says it's sleight of hand. But it's not, it's my hand. I lift the yellow cotton dress of an obnoxious woman to reveal pink Minnie Mouse panties. A grocery cart suddenly careens away from a kid with sagging jeans; his t–shirt says Stay Calm. Being invisible is political fun. I go into the offices of Republican House members, whisper that if they don't stop trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, I'll send the DVD of their penises between the feet of undocumented workers to Edward Snowden. To make sure they know I mean it, I scratch my name backward on their foreheads with a razor. When they look at themselves in the mirror, they'll remember me.