• In the House there lives an unremarkable man who has hair the color of summer-scorched weeds and no face. A small red flower - two petals, the pollen-filled gold heart - has been painted where others have mouths (or so it is written by the silent gossips in the kitchen-bowels of the House).

    Hi. That's me.

    The man who is me has a job in the House. It's not a very good job. There is shoveling involved, and curses, and late-night work under fluorescent bulbs. The job is: burning the soapy remains of those dreams rejected, aborted, judged unfit for use. You know the ones; the ones you escaped into higher levels of subconsciousness, or gratefully shook off at the sound of the bell. Sometimes you finished them and forgot in the instant you opened your eyes. Mistakes. Regrettable. These things happen. It's a tough business, and dreams are Grade A Unrecyclable Substances. Hell, they're barely a substance at all.

    He sets most on fire, the man who is me, like he ought. He burns them with all sorts of things, mixes them in with tubs of gasoline, soaks logs in their viscuous lack, covers the jellyfish nightmares over with wax. Except for the days when a vivid corner or a striking undercurrent or a horrible, unavoidable truth catch his eye among the rainbow-colored masses of nothing and he (me) reaches out, quicker than quick, and snatches forth from the crowd a shimmering slip of loveliness.

    He has a hobby, you see. He cobbles together the dreams that he needs to live another day from these slips. He feeds on them. He subsists, in fact, on an illusory diet that he hopes will one day help him grow a face.

    When he grows a face he will be free.

    When he grows a face he will be me.