I was in a room even more horizontal than the last. Perhaps I should say that it was about as horizontal as you can get, which is why it was no problem at all to sweep the halo of my third finger about the tender skin of my thigh.

In this small space, I found my mind was racing. I was playing out all the possible scenarios for my fate based on my new knowledge from the stone wall that spoke like a recording and from my audience with Guy Flat. I knew it would be something about my middle fingers.

I figured that they would want my middle fingers, and I figured that I was not about to give up my middle fingers. Being that middle fingers were the source of their fuel and energy and everything else, my middle fingers were really all they would want from me. My middle fingers would be all that they would really be able to use.

I thought, my mind racing, that if I had no middle fingers at all, that I would be of no use to them and they might release me.

This improved my mood somewhat, for I saw that there might indeed be a way out of my current fix. Every time the Horizontalist guards switched the rooms I was in they made a quick inspection of my middle fingers. Perhaps they were inspecting them for the bird, but maybe they were just checking to see that my middle fingers were still there and that I was still of some value to them.

So if I had no middle fingers, they might just let me go the next time they switched my room to one even more horizontal than this one. And that would be a hard room to imagine, because this one was so horizontal that if there were a level bubble between my head and feet it would be about as much between the lines as it could be.

So how do I get rid of my middle fingers without getting rid of my middle fingers? I certainly didn't want to chew off or cut off my middle fingers, because I wanted them bad. Without them I would never be able to fully express my feelings at so many situations, Sisterine.

So I had to create the illusion that I had no middle fingers. I was wondering if this would be possible with mirrors or with movie tricks. But being that I had no mirrors, and movie tricks were also likewise out of the question, me not being a member of the movie union, I had to think of something else.

I remember there were times that I could pretend that I didn't have a thumb. The illusion was quite convincing, at least it convinced my four year old nephew for a few moments.

To create this illusion, I simply folded my thumb back into the palm of my hand. The trick was to only show my nephew the back of my hand. If he could only see the back of my hand, the illusion would be convincing. If I made an error and showed the palm of my hand, it would be a direct giveaway and I would reveal my clever ruse.

If it worked for the thumb, perhaps it could also work for the middle finger. And if it worked for one finger, or for the thumb, which is not really a finger, most scientists say – if it worked for one digit, perhaps it could work for two at once.

The key would be practice. Practice does make perfect, and perfect is so important when you have Horizontalists who want to chop off your dear middle fingers.

And so, in my horizontal space, I practiced. I practiced hiding my middle fingers of both left and right hands in the palms of those hands. I tried to stretch those middle fingers as far forward as they could go.

The time I spent as a fan of heavy metal music came in very handy at this time. It is the practice among the fans of that specific genre of music to contort the hands in such a way that all the fingers and thumb are splayed aside from the middle finger, which is bent back. The practice also includes practicing such contortions on both hands at once.

So I tried it out. I also stuck out my tongue, for that is as well a heavy metal fan practice, and I considered doing that as well for the guard. I thought about this use of tongue only for a short time, and then I decided it would be best not to stick out my tongue in this situation.

I would have to hold out my hands with my middle fingers both bent and hidden in the palms and only show the guard the back of my hands. Even if I turned around, I would have to turn my hands around in such a clever way to not show the palm.

If I could convince my nephew with my thumb, perhaps I could convince the Horizontalist guards with both my middle fingers. At least it was worth the try. And if they were not convinced I could always fall back on the excuse that I was just feeling the heavy metal music inside me and for that reason did the finger thing.

I heard the key turn and then the door opened. The light of the sun, or of a heat lamp, blinded me, but I had thought ahead and already had both my middle fingers bent back into the palms of my hands and both hands with the backs facing up at the guard. Actually there were two guards, just as I had two middle fingers.

The first guard picked me up and started leading me forward. I thought my plans was all for naught, until I heard that first guard say, Wait a minute.

He had a quizzical look on his face, and then I noted that he was looking at my hands.

He was looking at my hands and looking a little confused. It reminded me a bit of that look on my nephew's face when I showed him the famous missing thumb trick.

The first guard said to the second guard, Take a look at this guy. See? He's missing his middle fingers.

The second guard looked and now he had that quizzical look. They stood there and looked. I lucked out. They did not look closer at my hands and they did not ask me to turn my hands around so they could see the palms.

The second guard said, It looks like we already harvested his middle fingers.

The first guard said, I think you are right.

The second guard said, Our orders are to let prisoners go when they are missing their middle fingers.

The first guard said, I guess somebody goofed up. We need to let him go.

And so I was freed. I was freed and walked away from the barbed wire in its long horizontal line. I could have flipped off the guards with the two middle fingers that I still indeed had, but I thought better of it and didn't. I just walked away, and when you walk away, you are gone from the Horizontalist prison. Boy, was I ever glad. Now I might even be able to find a phone so I can call you, Sisterine, and explain my long and puzzling absence with my voice itself.

Oh, that water. Sometimes it makes me so mad. Like when I thought I was drinking it, which means putting it in my throat, and then it goes and gets in my nose. And then that water makes me sneeze!

I can't stand that. I hate when that happens. I like to sneeze when I have a proper cold. That's what sneezes are for. Sneezes aren't for water getting in your nose instead of your throat.

And sometimes I am at the drinking fountain and there is this nice stream of water, and I am drinking it into my throat and it really does feel good and refreshing because it is water, and then that water fountain water stream gets all ragged and then it goes crazy strong and the next thing you know I've got water in my nose and I am coughing and sneezing. Coughing and sneezing are for colds, and not for water. Oh, that water. When that happens, I get so mad at water.

And sometimes I am in the shower and the water is the right temperature, but then the water goes and gets too hot or too cold, and I am suffering from that! That is just the worst when that happens, and then I get really angry at water for doing that to me.

And sometimes I am doing my best at being dry and then a puddle jumps up and gets me all wet. That is so frustrating! That is like the worst thing when that happens.

And I'm just barely beginning with this about water problems. Don't get me started when it comes to water.

Dumb water. Damn it, that's what I say. Damn the water.

Sisterine, I am now able to speak to you again on the phone, so you cannot see me but you can hear my voice. I have told you other things in other media, and soon you will know these messages to get the complete picture of my absence and adventures of containment.

And so now I can talk to you but I cannot see what you have on your face, just as you cannot see what I have on my face, which is the supreme earnestness of it all, the seriousness my face can tell you with my voice about all that has happened, and how it has made me grow in a vertical fashion as a person, and how I have gotten better and stronger and more reliable.

I escaped from the Horizontalist prison thanks to my clever ruse, and now I could bend out fully my formerly confined middle fingers, which I still had and could hold up high, and therein lie the secrete of the ruse that led to my escape. I stretched out my middle fingers and felt so free. I waved my middle fingers in the air, so proud of them, so proud and free and delighted.

You don't know how good it feels to still have your middle fingers when they were so threatened. So I felt good and even wanted to sing.

So I started to sing a song I made up. It went a little like this:

I am Mintyfresh

And I am free

I am looking for Agent Only

I am looking for he

I have my middle fingers

That's the greatest thing of all

And if I need some rings for them

I'll buy them at the mall

And I was coming up with even more verses and things to sing, but somebody heard me sing, and that person gave a deep rock yell, and so I heard it, and so I stopped singing.

First I held my hand over my mouth as if I had goofed and the Horizontalists had found me for I had given myself away in song. But then I realized the voice was coming from someplace else.

And then I heard that whisper. The whisper coming from rock. And then I saw the rocks on the ground, the rocks in a row, the rocks like the clues to follow a trail.

So I followed that trail of rocks, and I followed the whispering sound. I am sure that there were words in that whisper, but I didn't hear them as words, I just heard them as sound. I followed that trail of rocks until I saw one big tall rock. The whispering was loudest here, and I recognized words now in the whispers. I recognized my name and I recognized the trailing outline.

For the rock I walked up to was not exactly only a rock. It was Agent Only, but now he was part stone.

Agent Only! My joy was so strong because it was so long since I had seen him. I opened my arms and tried to hug him, but then I felt that parts of him were hard, because parts of him were rock.

What is up? I had to ask him, for he was Agent Only, and he was even taller than he had been, but he was also partly made of rock.

And Agent Only told me the first part of his tale. The first part that he told me is the last part of his tale. For he was a prison of the Horizontalists as well, but while I spent my prison time trying to think of how I could preserve my middle fingers, he was Agent Only, and he spent his prison time thinking of ways to out-fox the Horizontalist scum.

And in all his thinking he had come up with a force to fight their Hypnotic Trip Therapy. He made his own science, and discovered his own force for good. And he found that source in rocks and stones. And that force of power was something that he called Tall Stone Energy.

And he told me that his experiments in Tall Stone Energy led to his escape from the Horizontalists. It also made him taller, but it also partly turned him to stone. Now he couldn't get around on his own, so he asked for my assistance. And so I am looking for a dolly to move him around, and that's when I saw this pay phone. But I have spent my last quarter, so I now must say goodbye to you Sisterine, on the answering machine, and I must resume my search for a dolly with which to move around my Agent Only partly made of stone.

Beep.

You know that when you take a bath or a shower, that the water takes the dirt away from you. You know that, but do you also know that when it takes your dirt it also takes your secrets too? Did you know that?

Yes, indeed it does. The water takes your secrets.

And why ever would it do that, you might wonder. Well, you have to remember that this is water we are talking about, and water is often up to no good. And it is taking your secrets so it can use them against you someday.

Maybe not today. Maybe. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe. But maybe someday. And you can count on that.

How do I know? Well, maybe the water has taken some of my secrets and used them against me. Did you ever think that might have happened?

And it hurts when it does. Water knows just how to hurt you. It knows all your buttons, and it can press them. That's the kind of thing that water is.

And now it's seeping around my feet too. Not only is it giving away my secrets, but it's getting my shoes all wet again.

How can you ever win if water is somewhere around? And the answer is, you cannot win when water is around.

Sisterine, Agent Only told me the story of his disappearance. It was a story of capture and of hostage. He said that he ripped off his t-shirt to leave a clue behind that he was gone. He said the clue was meant for me, but either I did not notice it, or else the wind blew it away so I could not notice it.

He was captured by the Horizontalists. He said that he knew it was them immediately by the way that they held out their arms perfectly flat when they reached out to grab him.

He tried to go up and he tried to go down, but there was nowhere up or down to go. There was either left or right, and if he went in one of those directions he would play right into the trap of the Horizontalists. So he had no other choice but to surrender to them and go vertically limp.

And so they captured Agent Only, and that is why I could not find him. And they put him in a series of small rooms, just like they had done for me. And he had read their minds as best he could to find out what they were doing, and why they had to capture him.

Agent Only resisted their Hypnotic Trip Therapy, and would not fall down into the position where they could easily harvest his middle fingers for their Middle Finger Industries. He studied their ways and he paid close attention to their gestures, and so he discovered the facts of their dangerous business proposition.

He too faced an audience with Guy Flat, and he also resisted the chance he had then to flip off this leader of menace. And after facing his audience with Mr. Flat, Agent Only was sure that he was being evaluated in some way or another.

But there was one difference between him and myself. He always was placed in less and less vertical rooms, as I was, but all of his rooms had one wall of stone, while all four walls of all of my rooms were made of gypsum wallboard, which is stone-based, but not quite the same as stone.

He leaned into those stone walls to feel their cold and feel their pain. And along with those things he also felt their energy.

He said that it was almost as if he had a conversation with the stone of the walls. It was almost like he was asking the stones questions, and getting stone answers.

Thru this close relationship to the stone walls that bound him, he was able to come to some knowledge of the great powers of Tall Stone Energy. He was sure that this would be a powerful force, which was something very necessary if one must fight the powerful Hypnotic Trip Therapy, as practiced by the Horizontalists.

But perhaps he went too far. In discovering the secrets of Tall Stone Energy, he took a little too much in. It's like he overate it a bit. And the result was that he turned partly to stone, just like the song says.

But his turning to stone was also the device that led to his freedom. For by turning partly into stone, he was able to blend his body into the pattern of the wall.

When the guards returned to feed and taunt him, they didn't see him. They figured that he had escaped, so they left to look for him.

And in leaving him, they left open the door of his small horizontal room cell. And thru the opening, part-stone Agent Only was able to leave.

Only he had to drag his stone self along the floor and thru the door. It took days to do this. It might have taken years. But even tho the guards returned before he had fully escaped, they didn't even see him because his part-stone self blended into the walls so well, as long as he stayed naked.

And so, Mintyfresh, he told me, I was able to stay completely vertical, because my part-stone base is wider than my part-stone head, and so I can stay up easily. And I am grey enough from the rock in me to pretty much blend into so many places.

And he thought that he felt my presence somewhere nearby. The Tall Stone Energy helps him in that, he thinks. And so he spoke thru the stone walls, whispered really, to give me some clues about what was actually going on, because the Horizontalists sure weren’t telling anybody the truth. And he sounded like a recording going fast and slow because some rock is hard, and sound moves slow there, and some rock is softer, and sound moves inside it more like the dickens.

And so over weeks and maybe months he made his way to this space outside the gates of the Horizontalist compound camp, and that is where I saw him, and he was now partly made of stone but with two fully tall and extendable middle fingers.

And I did find my dolly, and I found this calling card too, so I could add another message to our answering machine. So I hope you enjoy my story of what happened to Agent Only, and I also hope to see you soon, when I have returned from this latest dangerous mission.

Beep.

Sometimes you have to make water, right? You know what I'm talking about, don't you?

Some people refer to the act with the letter that follows 'O' in the alphabet, but I'm not one of those people.

You might say 'make water.' I call it 'necessary water safety performance,' because that's really what it is.

It is necessary, because you really do need to get that water out of you.

And it makes you safer, and you have to be able to perform the act to do it properly.

You're not really making that water. That water is already made. And if you keep it inside of you, it will eat you up or pop you into pieces, or all of the above.

So you can see why you really need to do it, whether you need to do it just a little or real bad.

If you have to do it real bad, you should just do it. Even if it means doing it in your pants. Sometimes you have to do a necessary water safety performance in your pants to save your life.

Even if you only have to do it a little you should do it. It's just the necessary and the safe thing to do. And if you do just a little in your pants, I'm sure that nobody will notice.

Nobody ever notices with me. That's because I always wear dark pants. People never see the water on me with my dark pants.

If you wear light colored pants you're just asking for trouble, that's what I say.

Don't forget to do a necessary water safety performance. Do it now, and I do mean NOW! Your life may depend on its success.

Sisterine, now I must write to you on this filling station postcard to tell you that it is not easy to find a dolly in this suburban dreamscape so I can move my friend of partial rock.

My first stop was this filling station, and I looked among the chips and ice cream and hot dogs and motor oil but I saw no dollies for sale. I didn't ask the clerk and she didn't say that they had none for sale because there was no clerk, but I did think that I saw one in back for internal use only. But I didn't have any money anyway, to buy one legitimately, so purchase was out of the question.

If I was to use their dolly, I would have to steal back during the cover of night to pilfer it, to abscond with it, to steal it, to be so brutally honest.

I decided to check what my other options were.

But all I could see was giant hedges hiding the roofs of houses with satellite dishes and lawn mowers and garden barbeque parties. I saw a few storage sheds, but my x-ray eyes wouldn't let me see if there were any dollies inside them.

I thought about my partial rock friend and how he really needed this dolly so I could get him around, and so I concentrated even more, and so I looked in the sky as well as in the backyard and street and I tried to will the appearance of a dolly. I tried to use my double middle finger flip off energy, but had no such luck. I held up some rocks, hoping to tap their Tall Stone Power, but I didn’t even have the scientific name correct (the name is really Tall Stone Energy). There was no dolly. There might be an infinite number of dollies in the world, but right now there was not a single one for me.

So I went back to the filling station. I pretended to be filling myself up with the free tire air to give an excuse for hanging around. And so I sat there and waited for the sun to come down and the moon to come around.

When the sun punched out of its day of work, and the orange turned to blue and then to black, the lights came on at the filling station, for it did not close for the day but stayed open for refuelers after dark. I had forgotten about this, so I had to wait even longer.

I pretended that I was counting all the gas pumps, like I was some kind of gas pump counting inspector. That made it obvious, at least to me, that I did have a reason to be hanging out here after dark, and not that I was waiting so I could steal their dolly when nobody was looking.

And then I counted the lights in the overhang. And then I counted the letters in the gas station name. and then I would have counted the people and the cars coming and going, but there were no people and cars coming and going, so I didn't have anything to could for a while there. This filling station was open late even tho it didn't do any business, and then I wondered if I should come back in the morning, but then I wondered if the lights were just on timers.

So I went around to the back of the filling station building, and there were no lights there and no distinguishing features, but I did see the dolly sitting on the wall near the back door. And it was sitting there, just sitting there, and it wasn't chained to a person or a wall or another dolly or a pile of chains. It was just there as if I could take it.

I walked over to it and then looked both ways. It was dark, but I could still see, and others could, by extension, still see me, if there were others within line of sight of me. That is why I looked around. But I didn't see any others. If I was on the coast, I would say that the coast was clear. But I wasn't on the coast. I was behind the filling station.

I made a quick test of it. I rolled it just a bit and then let go of it. I whistled, but couldn't get to a tune. I looked away and then looked back at the dolly and I had a friend in need, and that could always be my justification.

So I darted forward and jumped over that dolly and lifted it up and then played its wheels and rode it by pushing to the back end of the back parking lot of the filling station, and then there were bushes and hedges and that kind of greenery can hide a dolly and hide a me.

And before too long I was wheeling it away, and I didn't even have to carry it for it was a dolly and it had wheels. I could push it ahead of me, and I could assess its elegant vertical nature, and how its wheels rolled out the horizontal too. I think this was a good dolly, a bright red dolly with black as night wheels. I think Agent Only would like it too, but I have to write this postcard before I do deliver the dolly to him, because I fear we will be very active when he has his dolly for action, and there will be no sufficient time to write out another postcard until after our next adventure, and so I am writing it out to you, and just over that ridge is my rock friend Agent Only.

And that is the truth from this dolly wheeler, Sisterine.

You may wonder how it is that I know so much about water. Well, I have to tell you that it isn't just coincidence.

Water and I used to be real good friends. We were just like that. We were best friends, really, until water deceived me.

And that's what water can do. It can betray your trust and let you down, and man, did water ever let me down.

I'll tell you about it someday.

So I'm the one to listen to on matters of water. You might say that I'm an authority, because I've been there. I didn't study water at the University, I studied it at the School of Hard Knocks. Or the School of Hard Water, because all water is hard, even soft water is hard on you.

And if you want to hear my advice, I'd tell you that you best watch out for the water. The water is rising, and if it rises so much, it will go over your head. And it is headed in that direction.

That's the thing about water. If it goes somewhere, it is going to go up. And if it goes up so much, it will cover you. And if it covers you, you won't be able to breathe thru it.

And that is how water will get you in the end.

So watch out!

Sisterine, when you put a partial stone Agent Only on a dolly, you better get ready for the action, let me tell you. I have to tell you that he really did ask a lot of me when he got me behind the dolly and got me to slide him on that dolly.

It had been days or hours or seconds since he had been able to move because he was part rock now with a thick stone base, and so now that he had a dolly he could finally move, with help, and man, did he want to move, and man, was I the help.

He asked me first to roll him a ways down the sidewalk, so I did. Then he asked me to roll him up that slight ramp for a wheelchair, so I did as he commanded.

Then he wanted to be rolled across the street, so I obeyed the walk signal and did so. I pushed hard at the dolly, because he wasn’t light, as much rock as he was and all.

He asked me to push him in a zig zag pattern, so I did, although it was not easy making those tight turns. But he wanted them tighter. He commanded, Tighter Turns, Mintyfresh. Tighter Turns! So I tried my hardest to make those zig zag turns even tighter.

He wanted to go down that dip, so I pushed him down that dip. He kept on wanting to go there, and then back here. I did as I was told, but I have to tell you that I was starting to ache. I have to tell you that I was getting wet with sweat and getting a callus on the palm of my left hand.

He asked to go faster, so I tried as hard as I could to run behind that dolly. Those dolly wheels turned, but I had to run and push to turn them faster, and that's harder than it might sound.

Then he said, Enough of this Horizontalism, Mintyfresh. I want to go vertical.

That's when I told him that I wasn't an elevator. He said that he knew that, but he also pointed with his heavy part rock hand at the stairs nearby.

I asked him if he wanted me to push him up the stairs.

He said, Yes, you got it, Mintyfresh. I want to go up, and then I want to go down.

Imagine a big rock on the base of your dolly. The big rock has a flat base, so it does stay on the dolly, but then you have to cart that rock and dolly up some stairs and then down. And then imagine that your rock is part person and telling you all about how it wants you to push it up those stairs. Imagine all that, and then you know how it was for me.

The secret is that it hurts. The secret is that it is hard. I got in front of the dolly and stepped up a step. Then I pulled up on the dolly handle, and while the wheel rolled up, I pulled all the weight up the riser and onto the next step.

That was hard. There were many steps. And he kept asking me to take him faster.

He said, Mintyfresh, can't you go any faster? What are you? Are you an old lady dolly-pusher? I want to go faster. I've got places to be.

I pulled him up. I told him that I was going as fast as I could. I told him that I was getting tired. I secretly set my middle finger up straight at him in a reproachful manner, but I don't think he noticed. And we were too good friends anyway for him to do anything more than ignore it if had he seen it.

I pulled him and his part rock up on the dolly all the way up to the top of the concrete steps. There was a landing there, and I just wanted to stay for a long time. Then he told me to take him back down.

And he told me to go faster. He said, Go Faster, Mintyfresh. I don't want to spend forever on these steps.

So I pushed him from behind and I pushed him down the steps, and this time gravity was with me and he went down easier than he came up, and he went down faster and harder too. And it got to the point where I wasn't really pushing him down but rather his heavy rock nature was pulling me down behind him. I kept my grip on the dolly handle, but the dolly was dragging me down at an angle and I was running to keep up and keep ahold.

He went bump bump down the steps and he was going fast so he didn't tell me to take him any faster. He actually said, Slow down, Mintyfresh, but I couldn't go any slower because I had really lost all control.

Finally he and the dolly and I were all at the bottom of the steps. Agent Only, part rock that he was, looked a little dazed, plus I noticed that he had a big crack running up his side. That was new. That was from the bump bump bouncing down the stairs so fast.

He said that I should have watched out better.

I told him that he got what he was asking for.

He told me that he didn't mean to go that fast.

I told him that I was tired of pushing and chasing around his dolly, and then I sat down at the steps and looked down at the concrete of the ground. The ground had a big crack in it too.

And then he said I did deserve a break, and so, Sisterine, I am taking up my break writing this postcard to you with my stub of a pencil.

They say that the oil gets in the water, but what do they know. It's really the water getting in the oil. It's not the oil washing up to the shore that's the problem. It's the water washing up to the shore that's making things hard on us.

I know it's making things hard on me. I know it because of that way that it looks at me.

It's got that water eye, water does, and it looks at me.

I don't like the way it looks at me. That look kind of hurts.

It's a look that you know will betray you, it's a look that you know will wash up to the shore and make things sticky.

And that's why I don't trust that water. I don't trust it washing up to the shore, but you know, it does wash up to the shore.

That's why I avoid the shore. I stay far far away from the shore, because you know that the water is up to its monkey business at the shore.

I don't go near docks either. Or waterfronts. Or harbors.

They are all trouble.

I even avoid listening to the recordings of the excellent singer Dinah Shore. I avoid her recordings just because her name is Shore.

That's how bad water it. Water is so bad that it made me have to avoid Dinah Shore, and I really do like her singing.

She used to date Burt Reynolds, did you know that? But the water got between them.

Water is behind most celebrity split-ups.

I bet you didn't know that.

But now you do.

You're welcome.

I want to tell you to your face, or call you on the phone, Sisterine, or communicate thru the psychic airwaves, or stroke my message into your arm, but now I have to write in the dirt with a stick, for I ran out of postcards, and I need a new pencil. But I have to tell you about what we are doing next so you know what I am doing with my time. For I am spending my time with Agent Only and not with some hussy, and some day I will be back to you, but only when our mission is accomplished.

For Agent Only outlined to me all that we must do. We must infiltrate the Horizontalist compound. We must overpower them and shut down their middle finger factory. We must try our best with Tall Stone Energy to disable their massive Hypnotic Trip Therapy. We must try to save as many of the middle fingers that they uprooted and return them to their proper middle hand place. We must do all that, and more that we do not even expect.

We must do all that and now we are two people, and one of us (he) is partly made of rock due to too much Tall Stone Energy. We have a lot to do, and we are certainly understaffed.

That's where Agent Only's next idea came in.

Mintyfresh, he told me, we need to form a group of stalwart chaps, and maybe ladies too, if they are tough enough. We need to form a crack unit group with which to carry out our big and large mission.

But what I wonder was where do we get this group.

And so he told me that we find our group in the places of hard people. We find them under rocks and in the midst of bar brawls. We find them in dangerous card games and in the midst of big fist sailing. We find them with their middle fingers extended in a dangerous message, and we find them behind the furniture, but not hiding behind the furniture, but being tough behind the furniture.

We find them in the usual and in the unusual places. That is what he told me

And so I imagined this tough group of us, and to hear it better I played in my mind the music from the Magnificent Seven. And I could see that one from our band would be like Steven McQueen, and one from our band would be like Yul Brinner. And one would be like Charles Bronson. And I wondered which one I would be like. I wonder if you know that, Sisterine.

And I got so into imagining our group that I was humming that music out loud. Agent Only asked me what I was doing, and I told him I was humming the music. He said that he liked that music and he wanted it to be the theme for our group of warriors. I didn't tell him that the music was already taken.

But now we had to find our band, and so I had to put the rock base of Agent Only back on the dolly. As I did that he told me Be careful, and pointed out his crack. He said it felt a little like a headache in his leg, and I saw again what the stairs did to him. I wondered if it was dangerous. It was a long cut but there was no blood because that much of him and more was made of stone.

I slid him on the dolly and this time I had to lay down some rules. I had to tell him that we would have to go a comfortable speed for me. And he agreed. And this talking back to Agent Only felt good. I was now heading to be one tough hombre. I think the music I was humming helped me to be that way.

Where do we go first? I asked the partial stone Agent Only.

He told me that first we must seek out Felix the Raven. I didn't know where this Felix the Raven was, and I didn't have my MapQuest, so Agent Only had to tell me. I didn't know who he was either, but Agent Only told me a little on the way.

Felix the Raven, Agent Only said, is one tough operator. I knew him back when we were stationed in the high Andes mountains in covert operation against the Knights of Insurance. We fought well together because he was almost as strong as me. He could also sometimes achieve a faint sense of flight when he got superexcited.

I didn't know that Agent Only was ever stationed in the high Andes mountains, but when your buddy is now partly made of rock you have to give him a break.

Actually I don't want to give him a break. That's why I will be careful with this dolly.

And I also have to leave behind this spot on the ground where I am drawing you this message.

Did you notice that the water is already up to your ankles?

What, you didn't notice? Well, maybe you better pay more attention.

You might say, Oh, that's no problem because I can always go to higher ground. But higher ground is only higher ground because it isn't wet yet, and if I know water, I never knew a water that didn't want to make higher ground into a world of underwater.

Didn't you notice that the water is up to your ankles? Let me tell you something about water. Water is a master of illusions, so you better look again.

But look with your dry eyes. Don't let those tears fool you into ignoring the water.

See how tricky that water is? Getting in your own eyes to make you see the illusions it wants you to see?

That is pretty devious, but that is also how water is.

So I warned you. Remember that. And look down at your ankles.

Look closely.

See? I told you so.

And so Agent Only and I went on a dolly-pushing voyage to find Felix the Raven. Only Agent Only didn't really know where Felix the Raven was. So he said that we also should look for Norman the Rhubarb and Simon the Crayfish. And Phyllis the Spiny and Burping Peter. They all would come in handy, if we found any of them.

First I had to take him to a phone. So that took quite a bit of looking around, because we didn’t happen to be in a phone showroom or a telephone wonderland, or anything like that, so it meant I had to cart the partial stone Agent Only around along the side of the freeway and down the exit ramp.

I asked Agent Only, Where do you expect to find all these agents?

Agent Only said that they might be hiding in mountain ranges, or they might be somewhere right in front of our faces. Maybe they were in hiding, or maybe they were in plain sight and trying to get our attention.

I think my biceps were getting a little stronger. But that comes with having to cart around an agent partially made of stone.

What kind of middle fingers do these people have? That was a question that I had. I was just wondering.

Agent Only said, They have massive big middle fingers. Their middle fingers are not only their longest fingers, they are their way longest fingers.

Sometimes I wondered if Agent Only was making some of this up. I don't think I trusted him as much once he had partly turned to stone.

And it also looked like he was trying to grow a mustache. But when you are partly made of stone and growing a mustache, your mustache looks more like some dirt glued on your face. Not very attractive. Not exactly the effect that he I think that he thought he was striving for.

I was wondering if we would ever find a phone. And then I asked Agent Only, How are you going to call these agents if you don't even know where they are. Do they all have cell phones?

Of course they have cell phones, Mintyfresh, Agent Only told me. Only their cell phones are cellophane phones that can easily be hidden. When they are on the phone, you don't know that they are on the phone because it looks like they are just talking to a piece of cellophane. You can see right thru these phones, and they are very flat.

I was starting to wonder what people with cellophane phones could do to even help us against these evil Horizontalists.

What if we don't find Phyllis the Spiny or any of the others? What if their telephone numbers have changed? That is what I wondered, and so I asked partial stone Agent Only the question.

He told me that he believed that he had accurate phone numbers. I wondered where he had them written down, but then I thought that he probably didn't have them written down.

I was beginning to wonder if that Tall Stone Energy was going to his head or something.

There is a phone within our midst! Agent Only suddenly said that as loud as a rock could be, and that's pretty loud.

I looked around and didn't see a phone.

He told me to keep on going. He told me to go over that hill.

So I rolled him up the hill, even tho I told him that I was pretty much over that kind of up and down and zig zagging kind of dolly pushing. But I did push him over this hill. I gave him that one extra push.

And I didn't believe it, but once we were on top of that hill I saw a gas station and at the side of that gas station were two pay phones side by side.

And also at the top of that hill right at our feet was a change purse that somebody had dropped. I didn't have any change left and I'm sure any change Agent Only had was probably turned to rock, so finding that change purse was a lucky break.

Agent Only said, Faster, as I rolled him and the dolly down the hill, and you know what? When he said that I pushed him faster.

And now he's talking on that other phone and I'm leaving a message for you, Sisterine, on this one.

And that's about all I can say before the beep comes.

Beep.

You might like that water. You might even invite that water to your awards ceremony and give the water an award for being such good water. You might feed and give that water something to drink. And you might thank it with a speech and show a film clip of it being nice water.

You might do all that, but if you did that, let me tell you that you are a fool!

Trying to suck up to water? That'll do you good.

No, it really won't.

Water likes you to suck up to it. Water likes flattering phrases and gestures of praise. It likes to be liked. Can you blame it?

But you don't want to like water. You don't want to be nice to water. You might be nice to water, but that's not a good thing to do.

Because you know what that water is going to do with that award you give it? It's going to wash it all away.

You know what that water is going to do with all those words of praise you say to it? It is going to cover them all up with its burbling and its babbling. And if you wrote those words of praise down on paper, it's going to make that paper all soggy and run the ink of it.

And if you were just nice to the water, that would be a mistake, because the water is not going to be nice back to you. It might be nice to you during that award ceremony, but then get to the next day and you'll see that the water is no way your friend.

That's just the way that water acts. And if you don't believe me, just try it out. I dare you to invite that water to your award ceremony.

I bet you don't.

Sisterine, I asked him how the phone calls came out and he said that he called all of them. But could he have called them all in that short time?

And he said that he called them all, and he named Clarence the Unbearable, for example, and I said that I didn't even know that he was going to call Clarence the Unbearable.

And I asked him where we were going to meet some of these agents. And he told me, and then he hesitated so I wondered if he really knew. So he looked around and he said, Actually, we are meeting them here. And that was fine with me because that meant I didn't have to dolly his part rock and part very heavy self very far, but it also made me doubt whether he was completely honest with me or not.

And so I tried a little trick on him. I asked him if Julio the Finisher was coming too, and he said yes. Only Julio the Finisher wasn't one of the agents he listed earlier, it was one that I just made up. When I pointed this out to him he said back to me that Julio the Finisher was indeed the name of one of his agents, and that he had called and talked to him too.

I guess you can't win with Agent Only. But I'll still believe my eyes only when I see Julio the Finisher arrive.

And so I found a nice rock to sit on and Agent Only was a nice rock that he was standing up of, and so we hung out by that filling station waiting for all those agent to arrive so we could have a force to defeat all the Horizontalists in their Horizontalist compound.

And we waited

And we waited.

I asked Agent Only what his phone calls were like. I asked him if he had to leave messages.

And he said that he spoke one on one with all the agents, and that they were all committed to coming to help us, and that they were all willing to break work that moment on their current missions to assist us because they knew how important our mission was. The struggle against the Horizontalists is the primary struggle today, they all said.

I asked him if they really all said that.

Agent Only told me that most of them said that.

I told him outright then that I was starting to doubt him a little. I told him Sure, he was right that there were Horizontalists and all, but I told him that I thought he was getting a little flakier after he partly turned to rock.

He told me that, unfortunately, Tall Stone Energy does not have a convincing ray to make me see his way. I just told him that I didn't think his arguments were all that convincing any more.

He told me that we just had to wait for all his agents.

And so while we were waiting, I was writing to you, Sisterine, with a sharp rock I found. I've been writing to you on the rock that I'm sitting on. And that's why you know about all my doubt. And that's how I'm telling you, and I don't know what to do about it.

Because we kept on waiting. And I didn't see any agents.

I asked him how long it would be before the first one came.

He told me that he cannot predict, because they were in all the corners of the world. Some could walk here, but some would have to get airline tickets.

I thought that certainly one of the agents would have gotten here by now. One must have been close enough to get here within a couple hours.

And that's the way the sun went down and the night got cold. I had to get off this rock, because it was colder than the ground, and so I lay down on the ground, and now it's the next morning.

I see the sun reflecting on the gas prices, but I don't see any of those agents here yet.

I'll give him a little more time, Sisterine, but I really don't know. Maybe I'll give up on this case, but I'll give him just a little more time.

But not much more time.

Did you see that? Did you see that? What did I tell you? Did you see how the water just tried to get you there?

I bet you didn't even see it. Despite all I've been telling you, you still trust the water, don't you? And because you still trust it, you don't even notice when it tries to get you.

Man, that's bad stuff, what the water just tried to do to you.

And you're all, What could it do, it's only water. What could it do?

Let me tell you what could it do!

Hell, yes, I'll tell you.

Well, one of the things that water can do is get your hair wet!

So you're probably thinking, so big deal, my hair might get wet.

But what if your hair had a nice curl or a bounce. When the water gets to it and makes it all wet it just plasters it against your head and you lose that curl, and you lose that bounce.

Did you think about that?

When the water gets your hair all wet then you end up with helmet hair, and that's no good for anybody, unless you like helmet hair.

I don't like helmet hair. I really don't think it flatters anybody.

And that's why you need to watch out for that water.

Did you see that? It just tried to get you again!

Sisterine, the next day came and I was getting hungry. I told Agent Only how hungry I was and he told me that he didn't get all that hungry since he was turned into part rock.

But that didn't stop me being hungry.

And I wasn't particularly into the thought of eating the chips or the pretzels they had at the filling station. I wanted a real meal.

And he asked me where I thought I was going to find that real mean and I told him that I didn't know, but that maybe I should look around. But he said that we were waiting. And I told him back, Waiting? Are we waiting for anything or anybody or are we just waiting?

I think I got a little mad at him. I think I raised my voice at him.

He said, Raising your voice is a good vertical thing to do now and then.

And that made me feel a little bad, because even tho he had kind of a stoneface, I knew I still might have hurt his feelings when I said that.

And I don't know what kind of look you have on your face, Sisterine, but I can imagine it.

But first I had to find something to eat. The Horizontalists didn't keep me very well fed, and I had been away from them for over a day now, and hadn't eaten since my last prison meal.

My stomach was getting pretty vertical with me. If it had a middle finger, it would know how to use it right now.

So I left him. I left him by the filling station and I took a walk to look for food. I didn't say that I'd see him again soon, or that I'd see him later. I just said I was going to look for food.

I walked away. I walked over the next hill. When I got to the top of it I saw more hills. I didn't see a restaurant or a grocery store, at least not clearly.

I did see a cluster of buildings a ways away, so I went toward them.

There was kind of a road, but I didn't see any bus stop signs, so I just walked.

Agent Only couldn't have walked with me if he wanted to, because he was partly made out of rock.

A guy made out of rock is a real burden, if you are the one who has to cart him around in a dolly. And I am the one who has to cart him around in the dolly.

I thought that maybe I wouldn't go back to him to cart him around in that dolly. I thought that maybe I could pretend to lose my way, or maybe I would actually lose my way in real life and not make it back to him for that reason.

I kept on walking. I could see those buildings getting bigger, more vertical, which meant that they were getting closer.

Even if I found food and I went back, I wouldn't bring any food back to him, even if that would be the nice thing to do. But he did say that he wasn't very hungry, being part rock and all.

Come to think of it, I never have seen a rock eat before. Maybe a cartoon rock, but not a real world rock.

Real world rocks don't eat, which means they never get bigger, which means they never get more horizontal. Which might mean that there might very well be something to this Tall Stone Energy that Agent Only talks so much about.

The buildings had gotten so big that now they were bigger than me. I used to be bigger than them, but now that I had reached them, I was the smaller one.

Some were houses and some once had shops and restaurants.

The secret here is Once. Now they all looked empty. Now they had broken windows and as I walked I could tell that the ground was wet because my feet made squishy sounds.

See? What did I tell you about the water?

But I didn't see a restaurant or a grocery store that was still open.

I did see a grocery store, but it had a Closed sign. The window on the door was broken and so I was careful not to cut myself and walked into the place.

Shelves were knocked down and there was a bad smell. Most things in boxes had been taken. All I saw left was some rotten lettuce.

I walked back further and the refrigerators weren't refrigerating. But I guess that was alright because all the ice cream was gone.

I thought I'd check out the storeroom, so I went to the back of the store and there I found the storeroom.

There were lots of cardboard boxes, but I checked them all and they were all empty.

I didn't see anybody else around.

When I went back outside I saw this long graffiti wall, and I thought that this would be a good place to let you know where I was and how I was doing. So that's why I'm writing this message to you on this graffiti wall. I even found a paintbrush and some paint.

I hope you like this message, Sisterine. I wrote it all to you, so you could tell how hungry I am.

And I am still hungry. I'm even thinking that I'm so hungry that I'll go back to that filling station and get a frozen pizza or something.

You know one of the things that you don't often think about water, is what happens when it gets pretty cold.

When it gets pretty cold, water turns to ice.

You might say, Well, that's ice and not water, but you know what? They are one and the same.

Ice is just very cold water. And water is warmer ice.

They are, like, made up of the same atoms or something.

And if that water didn't make you soaking wet, that ice can make you slip and fall.

That ice might look so fine, or maybe you didn't even see it with your mukluks and goggles, but just step on it and watch yourself slip and fall on your back.

And that's real bad for your back.

And you might not think that the water did that, because you slipped on the ice. But the water did really do it.

That's how dangerous the water can be. Think about how dangerous it is as water and then multiply it by a few times to tell yourself how dangerous it is as ice.

And the answer is, pretty dangerous.

You can take my word for it.

Sisterine, just a few hours ago those chips and pretzels that I imagined at that filling station sounded so bad, but now they are sounding so munchy and good that I could eat them now. And so I have to make this town, which was so big around me, into as small around me as it was when I first saw it from the hill by the filling station.

And so I started walking back to that filling station. As I walked I wondered some more about what happened to that town. I didn’t wonder too much, tho, because I was so hungry. I started thinking about all the things I wanted to eat, like pizza and pot pies and pastries. And thinking about all these things that started with P made me need to actually pee. So I did.

There might not have been enough food in the world for me, as hungry as I was. I was so hungry that I forgot about Agent Only and that he must have still been somewhere around that filling station, and that I was kind of trying to ignore him.

So I took an out-of-the-way route back to the filling station so I wouldn't have to run into Agent Only, and I got back to the filling station and walked in.

The lights were on and I thought it was running like normal, but only now did I notice that nobody was inside it. I didn’t see anyone at the cash registers or any customers looking at the cheese section, or anywhere else. I was the only one inside.

I saw that the store had some frozen pizzas, and remember how I was thinking about pizzas? I saw the microwave oven by the coffee and used a plastic knife to put half the frozen pizza in the microwave. I tried some of the coffee and it was still hot.

There was nobody to pay for the food, and I still had some money in that change purse, so I knew I could pay if somebody got there, but nobody got there. Nobody came to stand behind the cash register or anything. The filling station was like that town in that nobody was there, but it was unlike that town in that everything was still in place, and hadn't been looted or whatever.

As I waited for the pizza to cook I looked thru a newspaper. There were surveys about whether people liked up and down or side to side, and the results were within the margin of error. But there was nothing about the Horizontalists taking over, which is kind of what I expected, or anything like that, or anything about people losing their middle fingers.

So I ate my pizza and drank my coffee and I stood up behind the cash register as if I was working at that filling station, and it's not like I knew how to run the cash register or anything, but it just seemed best for me to be there.

I finished looking thru the newspaper and then looked at some magazines. I went thru the pages and looked at the people in the pictures. I tried to label them all, like, this person is horizontal and this person is vertical, and that seemed a good thing to do to pass the hours. I’d have to tell Agent Only about that game.

The pizza was pretty good. I could see there were donuts and ice cream and other things, but I just sipped my coffee and took my time.

I pushed some of the buttons on the cash register, but only managed to make some prices light up. It wasn't like I was really trying to make the cash drawer open up, but if it did open up I wouldn't have minded to look inside. Just for clues, mind you, to see if the place had been robbed or not.

I did see those phone cards, and that's how I'm calling you and leaving this message. Which makes me wonder whether something happened to you or whether you are just letting the answering machine take the calls because you don't want to deal with me and maybe you don't want to deal with anybody, or maybe you just don't want to deal with me. Or maybe what happened to everybody else also happened to you and you are missing or horizontalized or your middle finger was harvested for middle finger energy.

Which would be horrible, but if that did happen I have to say that I did tell you so.

And you were pretty skeptical.

But I guess I'm not skeptical any more. So maybe I will check on old Agent Only out there with his dolly and his crack.

And maybe some of his other agents have showed up by now.

But I doubt that.

You might know about water in that puddle, and water in your sink, but did you also know there was water in the oceans?

That's right, the oceans. And those oceans are pretty darn big. And it's not only that there is water in the oceans, it's that the whole oceans are made of water.

There is lots and lots of water in those oceans.

And that water is dangerous. So that means that there is so much danger in the oceans that I can barely believe it.

I bet that's more frightening to you too.

A few drops of water can be trouble. And now here's most of the earth's surface covered with the stuff. And it goes down deep, too. And I better tell you that it's in the clouds too, while I'm at it.

And you know that on some days clouds are up there covering the whole sky.

Now that's dangerous.

The water can get you from the oceans and from the sky above. That's a lot of directions that it can come from to get you.

That means that you better be careful. And while you're at it being careful, don't take any extra risks. So stay away from the oceans. Don't even let them get near you.

Hi Sisterine. I got this phone card so I'm leaving you another message.

I looked out the plate glass windows of the filling station and I could see Agent Only and he was alone, and the other agents hadn't arrived, so I decided to spend some more time in here.

It's kind of nice to be at the cash register of an empty filling station, with all the magazines and the food and coffee.

I even replaced the coffee in the coffee machine filter. It took me a while to figure it out, but I figured it out, and now I'm having some fresh coffee.

I also found the bathroom here, and it felt good to evacuate my system in that filling station bathroom.

I'm kind of king of my own world here in the filling station, and I can see the dusty outside thru the plate glass windows, and I have all these cigarettes up above me if I feel like smoking.

I was thinking about giving one a try, but I didn't.

I could try a little bit of every candy bar, too, but I just tried a bite of three of them.

I could drink the beer in the cooler too, I could drink it all, but so far I've only had one can.

I tried beer and a donut just to see what the combination was like. It wasn't so bad.

There are some paperback books here too, so I'm looking at some of them. Not really reading them, just kind of checking them out to see if I might want to read them.

There's a radio too, but all I've heard so far is music and advertising. I guess most of the programming is automated these days, and maybe there's not much news going on so they don't have the news breaks.

And I did hear some shock jock type announcers, but they were just making fun of minorities and not really talking about what was going on in the world.

So I do wonder why things are so empty, around here and around the world.

But at least I have my middle fingers, and I can stick them up in the air when I open a magazine page up and there’s the picture of the president, who does kind of look horizontal, even tho he stands up pretty vertical in most photo ops.

I’m just hanging out in the filling station, Sisterine. And I'm thinking about you. I'm thinking about how I'd really rather be home with you and sitting in front of the TV set to watch the news reports or the comedy shows. And maybe we could have a little talk, but not have to talk too much about relationship things, because that's kind of a drag to me even tho I know you like to talk about those things.

It's nice but it's also kind of lonely being all alone in your own filling station. I got all these calling cards, and I got our answering machine to talk to. It's not all so bad.

But I suppose we have that Horizontalist threat that we should fight. And Agent Only is not going anywhere without me to push his dolly.

And although I'd rather just stay here in my filling station...

If a customer did come I'd sell him something. Maybe I'd even give something away as a nice gesture, because we've had so few customers today. Actually we've had no customers today except for me and I'm not exactly a customer because I haven't paid for anything yet.

I guess if you want to get technical about it, I've been kind of a looter today, and that's not good.

What do police do when they find looters? They shoot to kill, isn't that what the police manual says?

What if it isn't a customer that walks in, but the police? They might shoot me because I am a looter. Or maybe they'll think I'm a clerk at this store.

Or maybe it will be a police who has a part time job in this filling station and knows that I am not one of the employees.

If it was that cop, I'd be dead for sure.

Maybe I should hang up and go outside to Agent Only before that cop arrives.

Goodbye, Siserine, and I love you, and I will come back to you, but I have to go now because that cop might come.

Beep.

Ooh, that water. It is devious.

Sometimes it hides as ice and sometimes it hides as steam.

Steam? Oh, you didn't know. Yes, that is water too. It's a kind of water. It's a state of water, like a Michigan of water.

And you know how hot steam can get. Sometimes it can burn you. That means that, yes, water can burn you too.

I've been burnt by water.

At least in a metaphoric sense.

And that's why I have to warn you. This is serious business. Water is a serious thing, and it's out to get you.

It's not out to get just you. It's out to get everybody, and that includes you.

I bet you're frightened, at least a little bit.

Even if you're not scared of water, maybe you're scared of steam. Because steam is kind of like a ghost. Steam is really the ghost of water. It can move like a mist, because it is a mist, and it can climb up in the air, and it can shoot into your face and burn out your eyes.

And then you wouldn't be able to see it coming, and that would be real dangerous.

Steam is bad stuff, man. It's like the worst state that water can be in.

Because ice isn't moving very fast. Of course a lot of ice is a glacier, and that can move, but it moves pretty slowly. You can outrun a glacier, even if you're a slow runner.

And water, you can usually hear it coming because it makes that babbling sound. It makes that babbling sound because it is pretty unstable and doesn't want to talk like a regular person.

But steam just moves like a ghost. And it doesn't even make that ghostly laugh sound, it makes no sound at all. So with steam, you don't even know it's there until it has fully enveloped you.

That means that it has surrounded you.

And if it surrounds you, you know how hot it can be. That means 100th degree burns. And those are the burns that kill you. Ask any doctor.

And watch out for that water turning to steam on you too. Because it just might do that, and that's a good way for it to get you.

Read Part Four

Sloppy BooksContact

: E-mail me