Amaranth cycles home from work and is caught in unexpected rain. The rain, hardly a drizzle, is still potent, spattering her with memories not her own, unspooling scenes and impressions in the corner of her senses. Pies are smelt, rapes felt, hypothetical deathbeds ruminated upon. The ambivalence of it all averages out to a sort of heavy neutrality. Dense, gray, blunt. Like a…sledgehammer. Sledgehammer? They need better words for what it’s like. Where are the poets? Buried deep underground, of course–drugged out of their minds, probed by scientists. The good ones, anyway. What’s left are the hacks, the cowards. But then isn’t Am herself a coward, a meek little girl indeed, brave only in her art? Well, isn’t that what matters at the end of the day? She mistakes a parked scooter for a lion, sagging power lines for drippy snakes, tram tracks for graham crackers. Real bad, this rain. Feeling a seizure coming on (little bitch), she stops to take shelter under the awning of a pizza place she passes everyday but has never been inside. Up close she can actually read the sign, neon-red cursive that says Claire’s. Or maybe Elaine’s. From outside it seems pretty empty, no line. Am locks her bike to a crosswalk sign, then enters. The woman behind the sneeze guard gives her a nod, her face squirming its way to a smile. It’s like her nerve cells have, after exhaustive convening, agreed on a configuration to assume. Multsign. Am feels bad for clocking her, this humble pizza woman. Is this Claire/Elaine? But man, what variety! Cute names, too. Neptune’s Bounty. That one has calamari on it, imitation crab. One slice is fifty dollars. What a world. “A slice of cheese,” Am says. “Sure,” the woman says, and with a paddle she shoves the slice into the oven. Delivery confirms it: slow, deliberate, but loud, verging on a shout. Lots of people knocking around in there, no doubt. Keeping it together. Not to condescend, but still. Keeping it together. Just swell, sister. Keep it up. Am picks a counter seat by the window to keep an eye on her bike. Claire/Elaine saw her no problem, even before she said anything. Still feels like a miracle whenever someone can see her, which these days is like 80 percent of the time. One day–around 90 to 95, let’s say–it will stop feeling like a miracle. The world will be a little less miraculous. A fine change of pace, she thinks. Out the window it’s really coming down, near tempestuous. Lear in the storm leering at the storm, a stray droplet whispers. She takes a napkin and dabs herself dry. No rain in the forecast, and yet! What a world. Centuries of study and yet the weather remains an enigma, grows more enigmatic in fact. Why bother. With what? With forecasts. With anything. And what? Give up? It’s a new world they find themselves in, one born from the old. It’s no clean slate they’ve been dealt. At best a messy palimpsest. But everyone’s trying their best. Palimpsest was one of Joy’s words, though the context in which she would have used it is murky. So much of her bullshit bounced off Am. How interesting it had all seemed in the moment! It’s a good word, palimpsest. So good she wonders if she’s using it wrong. Am thinks about Joy a lot these days. Out the window a scruffy man–a scrap sailor, perhaps–dances euphorically on the sidewalk. Am can’t help but feel jealous. She danced in the rain all the time as a kid. No longer viable, alas. But then she could always leave Sandymount, the Archipelago. Find a place where the rain’s less psychically taxing. Where would that be, anyhow? Ancestral haunts. Hiberia. Eriu. Pukchoson. BREAKING: Pyongyang Citizens Report Memories of Little League Baseball, 9/11. It’s in the atmosphere now, Am. No escaping it. Try Antarctica. Alternatively: stop being a little bitch. She considers taking out her sketchbook to capture the dancing sailor, then reconsiders. Voyeurism is cuck shit. But then the dancing sailor sees her (!) and gives her a wave, as if he’s read her mind and is granting permission, but as she waves back she realizes he’s actually waving to this kid and her mom who've just gone under the awning. Just the kid waves. Mom doesn’t stop her though, doesn’t drag her away or rebuke her or do much of anything, really. Just holds her kid’s hand, and even then it’s like the kid’s doing most of the holding. “One cheese!” Am gets up. Did Claire/Elaine see any of that? Whatever. She hands over her pad. “Some weather, huh?” Am says all suave. “Yes,” she says, tapping out on her pad before returning it. “I’m inside all day so I don’t care, but yes. It’ll blow out to sea soon.” “Here’s hoping.” Am says. “Stay dry in here.” She contemplates a flirtatious wink, then thinks better. Sex with a mult seems like a minefield of intimacy, consent arrived at democratically suspect. But man, little action since the cule was obliterated. Nothing worth counting, anyhow. She takes her tray back to the counter and watches the scene outside some more, the sailor and the kid and the mom. The sailor is trying to breakdance and failing. Were it not for the smile on his face you’d think he’s writhing in pain on the sidewalk. A passing tram splashes him, jolting him into further euphoria, and the kid lets go of her mom momentarily to clap. Kid’s dressed well for the weather. Astonishingly well, the hood of her red raincoat paned like a hazmat suit. Mom not so much. She’s got a striped tank top, shorts, slides. Soaked and unphased. Weird. Everyone has their tolerance level, Am supposes. She knocks on the glass. Why? To get their attention? It doesn’t work. She knocks again, a little harder this time, and nothing. Again, with two knuckles. Nope. Rule of threes. Whatever. She folds her cheese slice up egg roll style and takes a bite. The nice thing about a stint of invisibility: you come out the other end a lot less self-conscious. No one’s sitting close enough to clown on her for eating her pizza like a freak, and even if there were, who cares. Egg roll style is her sister’s technique from when they were kids. Quite innovative. You’re left with an impromptu mini calzone of sorts, an O’Neill Cylinder with grease leaking from either end. There’s a satisfying density to it that can’t be denied, though you finish fast if you don’t pace yourself. It’s not for the undisciplined. Hint: put it down after every bite. Do something with your hands while you chew. She raps her fingers on the plastic countertop in a staggered rhythm, faster and faster until the cascade of clacks unite into one thump–which she cuts off abruptly, like a zen drummer. Then another bite. Repeat as necessary. It occurs to her that if she wanted to more perfectly adhere to the rule of threes during that spontaneous glass knocking episode just now she could have gone from using one knuckle on the first knock to two on the second, ending with three on the third. She tries knocking on the counter with three knuckles, noting the awkwardness. Someone walks out. But wow, her slice is half gone already. Not a small slice, either. Clairlane’s is generous with portions–make note. But half gone? Am’s feeling ladylike today, and it’s ladylike to leave a little uneaten on your plate at the end of the meal, so in practice the already half gone slice is already more than half gone. After just one bite? It’s like she’s skipped ahead. Outside the kid and mom are gone, but the dancing sailor remains, no longer dancing. You can tell he’s coming down by the muted affect, the stillness–like a wet corpse washed far ashore by some freakish tide. The rain has died back down to a visible drizzle, and the sun’s back to dry the guy out. The pizza woman and weatherman should trade places. Who knows, maybe they have. No one is anyone anymore, everyone everyone. You’d think that’d make things better. And yet. She leaves her plate and tray on the counter. Outside the lock is gone but not the bike.