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was vast despite the smallness of its conveyance—the
potential to change the world wrapped in a moment’s Red
Dream.
I left the factory at nightfall, during the coldest rainstorm
of the season. My senses prickled, agitated by the ceaseless
touch of icy rain. This was by design. I wanted every nuance
of my journey fortified against forgetting. This was a special
time—the beginning. Of life’s phases, it was most powerful,
mystical. It was the seed from which all things emerged, the
point against which they would be measured. All my ironies,
truths, failures, and victories would be balanced against the
moment it all began—during the coldest September rain I
could remember.
My father was asleep upon my back, his ever-present
rage a soothing warmth. Only the loudest shocks of thunder
moved his spirit, sounding so much like his own terrible
laughter. Night owls to the last, my sisters were tucked
into their beds, but not asleep. I could hear them giggling
as they caught the lightning when it flashed, balancing its
blaze across their serrated smiles. It was fall, and we were
all together, at the beginning of something special. I smiled
at the thought of having received autumn’s orange blessing.
Whatever inscrutable thing moves behind the amber fires of
summer’s death, I do not know. But if not a god, what then?
The calling behind the list seemed obvious to me, even
without the blood and its insertion within a corpse. The
names must be stricken from the list, and by that action,
instigate some wider, perhaps cosmic process. The world
seemed lifted from my shoulders as I walked the darkness.
It revealed, possibly for the first time, a combination of
elements that not often occupied the same space, their
natures incompatible—will and wonder.
I wanted to set aside the practical considerations of
my craft, to be exclusively guided by the weightless
drift of dreams. But such practicalities are unfortunately
required. This world is no fan of my work, and it makes
16 | Mark Anzalone