I heard on Ananova while snoozing in the clover
They've mapped the human genotype at last
And when the news was done I looked up into the sun
Through my Fuji DV1 and photographed a lone
Golden eagle like a Stealth jet on a test

As the clichés turn to truths
Like the trees begin to lose
Their leaves I think
I've lost where I belong
                         --Momus, "Little Apples."

I DROVE ALL night-- well, most of the night anyway-- once again trying to distance myself from something I couldn't readily define.
        Above me, above the clouds above me, all the stars had gone out.  I knew this because I, being the chief engineer of this narrative, creator of this little world, had made it happen.  No one else knew this, of course-- and whether or not they actually did come to realize it, well, that was entirely up to me.  I was in control, now.
        But if I was in control, why was I running?
        I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles hurt.
        I ground my teeth.
        The vents blasted hot air into my face.  Outside the car, the city was very cold now.  The air was making the trees crack.
        I turned a corner and found myself in a warehouse district.  I was the only person on the road, tonight.  I was the only person in the city who was even outside, even though I really wasn't outside, even though I was in a car.
        Everyone else was either celebrating, or not celebrating, as the case may be.  And even sometimes not celebrating is a type of celebration.
        "I hate winter," I said to the vents.  "I used to love winter, y'know.  But now, I just hate it.  Hate it with a bitter passion.  Winter," I said to the vents, but they weren't really listening, "it does things to my mind."
        I laughed and turned on the radio.
        Static.
        Eventually, I found a faint station playing Morton Feldman.
        I turned it up.
        Subtle violins, oboes, clarinets, flutes, the occasional violin playing low notes.  Subtly shifting chords, flats, minor keys.  Very slow, still, almost repeating, but not quite.  The effect, coming in and out of a crackling noisewall, was mysterious.
        Like watching the stars wink out, one by one.
        The piece was For Samuel Beckett, I think.
        The music was like stumbling into the middle of a continuum, an eternity of quiet variation.  Like listening to a painting occasionally obscured by static.
        A transmission from another dimension.
        The perfect music for slowly driving around an industrial area in the middle of the night, looking at the empty buildings, the strange fenced in satellite dishes, the deserted cars, the huge looming constructs made of girders and pipe.
        Music for Godot.

THE CAFÉ WAS empty, dark.
        They'd closed early tonight.  They always did on New Years Eve.
        Janelle, the new girl, had been unsure what to do.  Close, stay open, or what?
        She'd wanted to go home, but she also didn't want to get fired.
        Heather, who was still there with Bob, said:  Just close up.
        But Janelle wasn't sure.
        So Heather phoned the boss on Janelle's behalf, to put Janelle at ease.  Janelle was always so totally hyper....
        And ultimately, if Heather hadn't made the phone call, poor Janelle would still probably be there, in an empty store, all night long, waiting for people to come in.
        And, of course, this being maybe the coldest New Year's Eve ever, nobody would show.  They were all partying somewhere else.  Either big parties or tiny little intimate parties.  Even the bums had packed up early  And so, they closed up.  Janelle was happy.
        And so, exactly 12:17am, January 1, 2002, when a small a wire snapped in the walls behind the stove, no one was there.
        And the snapping of the small wire created a very small spark.
        And very quickly, the small spark became a small, and then much larger, flame.

HEATHER PUT HER hands over her ears, and then a pillow over her head.  There were nights when he didn't snore, and then there were nights when he did.  Usually his snoring was somehow connected to the consumption of food before bed.  The more he ate, the louder his snoring.  Tonight he had had two sandwiches and a can of beef ravioli.
        She'd tried to break him of the habit of eating before bed, but it hadn't worked.  Whenever she complained about his eating, all he did was pout.
        And she hated it when he pouted.  In general, all men, when they pouted, they just plain needed to be shot.  Or hit.  Or something.  Anything.  To show them what real pain really was.  To give them something real to pout about.  To break them out of their sad little cycles of self pity and false revelation.
        She elbowed Bob.  Nothing.
        He sounded like a broken wood-chipper.
        Maybe if she drove her heels into the base of his spine....
        She thought about the impending wedding.
        Wedding....
        That word.  It....
        She listened to Bob snore.
        She at up, propped herself on her elbows.
        Maybe, if she put the pillow over his face....

BY 2:00 AM, January 1, 2002, the front of the shop had filled with enough smoke to attract the notice of the barely functioning smoke detector.  It began to beep.  By about 2:15, because it was only barely functioning, it finally got around to sending a signal to the approprate people.

AND DRIVING THROUGH the industrial zone, listening to Morton Feldman, at about quarter to three, the morning of January 1, 2002, I heard fire trucks and police cars in the distance.  I drove towards the sound and reached it just in time to see a battalion of fire rescue vehicles speed by me.  I didn't chase them.  I knew what was going on.  I went to the 7-11 instead.

BY 2:39 am the fire had spread from the walls, to the kitchen.  By 2:41 am, an explosion in the kitchen sent flaming debris out into the seating area.
        At this point, the "emergency response expert" manning the watch at the security company finally noticed the signal being transmitted from the barely functioning smoke detector (supplied by the security company at no extra cost for joining the "Special-Rate 5-Year Plan"), a signal that had been coming in for roughly 26 minutes, and alerted the closest fire station of the possible impending emergency.
        By 2:42 the entire seating area of the coffee shop was consumed in flame.
        2:56.  Another explosion, this time in the seating area, blew the windows of the shop into the street.
        3:12.  Despite the efforts of fire fighters, the fire had spread to adjacent bays in the complex of which the café had been a central unit.

BOB SLEPT.
        He slept in his underwear, and a t-shirt.  He'd tried sleeping naked a few times but he found that he always ended up somehow sticking to the sheets.  Or, worse, sticking to Heather.
        But, he was good sleeper, and also a very good dreamer.
        And in his dream he was standing in a huge tile-covered room.  The tile was dirty, brown.  It looked like a food court of a university, but there were no food kiosks.  In fact, the stretch of tile he was standing on seemed to be (as near as he could tell) infinite.
        And it was white, porcelain tile, actually, not brown.
        And, in fact, the food court didn't have any kiosks because it in no way resembled the food court of a university.
        And, actually, it wasn't tile he was standing on at all, it was more like a grid.  Like an infinite expanse of graph paper.
        And above him was a cold night sky filled with stars.  And the stars were going out, one by one.
        He watched them.
        When the last star finally went out (it took quite some time, and his neck was getting sore so he was glad this part of the dream was finally over), he began walking forward.
        Strangely enough, even though the sky above him was black and starless, he found he could still see.
        I have to get home, he thought, this is a desperate place.
        And to his right, in the distance, hovering above the grid, there appeared to be some sort of rodent and some sort of bird spinning, locked in what looked to be a perpetual state of combat.
        He shivered.  Looked away.  Kept walking.
        A shape in the distane.
        He walked closer, it grew larger.
        It was a woman.  At first he thought it was Heather, but then realized that, no it wasn't.  Not Heather, no.
        And then he noticed that she was talking to someone.  No.  More like, yelling at someone.
        Brian? he thought.
        And on cue, I looked away from her, and towards Bob.
        And when Bob saw me, he began running to me.
        But I held up my hand, and then he stopped.
        And she said, through clenched teeth:
        "You never, ever, ever give anyone a chance."
        "I know," I said to her, but looking at Bob.
        "You're not even listening," she hissed.  "You gave up years ago."
        I nodded.
        "Hey, Bob," I said.  "No words of wisdom today."
        And then I smiled.
        And when Bob felt my smile everything-- for him, not me-- went black.
        And I went back to what I was doing.
        And Bob fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

IN THE END, the fire department was only barely able to contain the fire.
        In the end, by sunrise, the fire was completely out.
        In the end, the entire complex the coffee shop had been a such central part of was reduced to ash, blackened wood, smoldering beams, sheets upon sheets of dirty black and gray ice.

IN THE END, I drove home before sun up.
        The Feldman piece was long over.  It had stopped, suddenly and without warning.  There had been no development, no change.  Very Feldman.
        And then, just as suddenly, the station had gone off the air, gone dead without warning, turned to static.  Poof.
        The only thing that captures the minimalistic stasis of this place better than Morton Feldman's music is radio static.  Or maybe television snow.
        I turned a corner, drove towards my house, pulled into the driveway.
        I got out of my car, left it running, plugged it in by the light of the headlights, then reached back inside the car, turned off the headlights, pulled the keys from the ignition.
        I walked out from under the carport, looked up at the sky.
        The cloud cover was lifting.
        Great, I thought, now that the clouds are gone it'll get really cold.
        Clouds do that, keep everything warm.  Keep us from the cold merciless touch of interstellar space.  At least partly, anyway.  A little bit.  Sort of.
        I looked away from the clearing clouds.  I didn't want to see if there were stars up there or not.
        So I leaned on the side of the house and for some strange reason sobbed.  But only once.  And no tears came.
        ("Cold merciless touch of outer space."  Heh.)
        It was all very clinical:
        I just made a crying sound.  A single crying sound.  Just once.  And then poof.
        ("Think your name."  Heh.)
        And the funny thing was, I hadn't felt like crying.  Actually, I hadn't felt like anything.  No emotions at all.
        Zip.  Nada.  Nuttin' honey.
        Psychologists call it a "flattening effect."  That's when you lose all sense of emotion, just become totally numb, disconnected from anything, well, not anything "human," exactly, but disconnected from anything emotional.  It happens a lot to schizophrenics, from what I hear.
        Or I could have the facts wrong.
        That happens to me sometimes.
        ("Stars, M+Ms."  Heh.)
        I stopped leaning on the side of my house, walked up the sidewalk to the front door, opened the door, went inside, closed the door, didn't turn on any lights, took off my jacket, went to my bed, took off my pants and socks, pulled back the covers of my bed, crawled under the covers, closed my eyes, began to shiver.  And tried to sleep.
        Apparently, language is the house of being.
        A smart guy said that once.
        Smart guys say lots of things.
        ("Secret face of 1999, 2000, 2001.  It just goes on."  Heh.  Heh.  Heh.)
        Somehow, though, that knowledge still doesn't keep me warm.

Next:  Aftermath....