Macedonia

Introduction

Macedonio Fernandez invited his future readers to reinvent his novel, The Museum of the Novel of Eterna. I am taking him up on his offer. This is an open-source novel. It will span continents as well as generations. It is pretentious. It is impertinent. It takes a lot of nerve to rewrite the world's first good novel, but why not? I will tell it in my own way. I will take a stab at it. I will either have fun, or else I won't do it. I will write when I write and I won't when I don't. I will stop when I stop. I am starting it now.

This is dedicated to the ones I love.

And to its five main influences:
Macedonio Fernandez
Julio Cortazar
Jorge Luis Borges
Clarice Lispector
Manu Chao

La Presidenta

When Macedonia ran for president, they began with name recognition. Such an unusual name, they thought. We must use it. It was the twins who knew how to spread the word, by printing out thousands of little slips of paper, like fortune cookies, and distributing them throughout the capital city and even into the suburbs. They took the night trains out. The slips came in different colors - all nice pastels - and contained the one word - Macedonia - done up in their favorite Papyrus font.

They had a meeting about slogans, but that ended quickly. We only need one, Esperanza declared. "Wisdom, Beauty and Power. Why choose when you can have it all?"

When they see her face, Miranda decided, they will want to see it again.

When they hear her voice, added Edward, they will know it from the radio. It will remind them of something definitive. No doubts.

People on the street began talking about Macedonia. There was even a story in The Daily Spectre. What's with this mystery word? Why is it littering our streets and our bars, our theatres and bus stops, our schools and our parks? Everyone assumed it was the start of some ad campaign, and criticized the people behind it for making a mess and not cleaning up.

We'll persevere, said the twins. Now their idea was to plaster the papers on walls, in tunnels, on subways. Esperanza wasn't sure about the publicity but remembered the saying - it's all bad. She was working on the platform and acceptance speech.

"Now Is The Time". She thought it was good. No one could argue with that.

"The People, Together, As One". If we have to.

Her followers held meetings that went late through the night. They were concerned about timing. When's the election? Next year? Didn't matter. Don't worry, Lola said, there's no hurry. There's bound to be another one someday. We'll build up our brand and when it's our turn we'll be ready.

To the Read-Aloud Reader

Macedonia, the Novel, may be read aloud if you like. It will be helpful if you already speak english, otherwise it might come out funny. I cannot guarantee it will sound good out loud. I didn't write it aloud. I wrote it in silence, well, typing. Typing makes noises but usually it's hard to hear the words as they're typed. It's possible that someone could do it. That would be some trick.

If I were to read this aloud, I would probably pause now and then, and drink water. This would help keep your throat from hurting too much. If reading aloud, go ahead, make some noise. Don't whisper. It's not meant for whispering. You can use funny voices for characters. They won't mind. Lola would like a deep voice, kind of husky. She's small but she thinks herself mighty. Edward would sound pretty formal - you could probably guess from the name. Esperanza is lively and laughs quite a bit. Macedonia is both serious and serene. Milo doesn't care what voice you use. He just doesn't care.

Other characters may have preferences, but since they haven't been created yet, they can't tell me right now. There are only those five, so far.

Please, go ahead, read aloud. It won't bother me. I will put on my headphones and listen to sambas.

Introduction to the Twins

The twins figured prominently in the planning of the novel. One of them was always off carting books around, while the other one stayed by the phone and relaxed. Calmly the twins decided their roles. Glancing at each other mildly was all it took to divvy up assignments. Milo would handle contingencies. Lola took care of preparations. In case of unforeseen events, neither one would do much of anything. It was better to let those things slide.

Afternoons were often devoted to planning. Hunched over their notebooks, first one then the other would take a turn sketching. And then there were lists. In a shoebox the organized scraps of forgotten ideas gathered dust and the ink disappeared. These were the days of foreshadowing.

One of them would be growing soon.

There was never a doubt that the twins would come through. Reliable as always, they showed up on time, and waited in front of the house. The neighbors' dogs barked for as long as it took. Anyone who might be driving along could see for himself that the twins had arrived and had brought all their stuff. They had boxes and bags of it, things spilling out, mostly yellow, but some pink and green.

Then they'll tumble into the den, and sprawl out on couches or bean bags. They might not talk much at first. Milo will fidget and Lola will listen to music. In the meantime, the plan is in motion. Asked if they're ready, they'll always say yes, and then, when it's time to move out, they'll be first through the door and back on the street. The twins know the way and look serious.

This time they won't be deterred.

For the Skip-Ahead Reader

If you are already concerned about how this novel will end, I invite you to skip ahead to the last few pages. There, everything will be made clear. All loose ends will be tied up, all mysteries exposed, all questions will be answered. I understand your impatience. I almost always skip ahead to the end of a novel, when, at a certain point, I just need to know. I am concerned about the characters. Will they be senselessly killed off by some brutal beast of a narrator? Will they suffer some other disaster?

If you don't like what is happening with the characters or the plot, you have a few options. One, throw the book as far as you can across the room, or off a cliff. Two, just stop reading, put the book in the trash, forget about it. Three, rewrite the book yourself. Why not? I promise I won't sue or send you menacing letters. Four, pretend it really isn't happening. Never underestimate the power of denial.

If I stop reading a novel partway through, I almost always take the opportunity to throw it as far as I can. I once threw a novel across four back yards in San Francisco. That was fun.

Sometimes you skip ahead readers will read the last pages, decide it's okay, then go back to reading from where you were, but now it's all spoiled. Why wade through the details? Why go through the grind? Maybe you liked the writing, but it's lost something now. That's just the chance you take. If you are a skip ahead reader, you've done this before. You can cope.

If you have just skipped ahead and returned, I thank you, and welcome you back where you were. And now, let's proceed.

Introduction to a Dream

I was out driving one night, very late, going nowhere at all, in my truck with the stripe down the side. I drove slowly along the dark country lanes. There were clouds in the sky and no stars, and no lights. I noticed I'd already gone twenty miles and for some reason I thought that important. Another mile and a half, I said to myself, and I'll stop, and I'll see where I am.

In a mile and a half I did stop. I pulled up in front of a driveway. It seemed quite familiar, in fact the whole scene had a definite deja vu feeling. I have been here before, I thought. I got out of the truck and walked up to the door of a little white ranch style house. I knew it was number fourteen. I know someone here, I was sure, but I didn't know who it would be. I knocked on the door and I waited. After a bit the door opened, and there stood a man of my age, unfamiliar. I felt sad that I still didn't know him.

I'm sorry, I said, I must have the wrong place. I thought I would know who you were.

The man looked at me strangely, and then said my name. Tom? Is that you? Is it you?

Do you know me? I asked

Yes I do, he replied. I'm Alan, he said, Alan Leighton.

I just shook my head. I did not know the name.

I knew you a long time ago, he pursued. You worked in a bookstore downtown in DC, and I was a customer once. I bought a Machado de Assis. We started to talk, and soon we decided that we would be friends. We exchanged our numbers, and got together one time. We went to a movie, I think. I don't remember it now. Wait, it was called Oblomov, the one that was based on the novel. It was long, and dreadfully boring. We walked for awhile along the canal, and talked late into the night. But we never got together again.

Why not? I said, I thought we were going to be friends.

We didn't hit it off, I guess, he replied. I mean, we were friends, but just for one day.

Oh, I muttered, and that was all I could think of to say.

Well, good night, Alan said, and he closed the front door. I turned and walked back to my truck. I drove back the way I had come, and after twenty one miles and a half I was home.

Introduction to the Parts of the Novel

The novel will consist of many parts. Each of these is called a chapter. The chapters will be very small. Each chapter will focus on one, and only one, aspect of the novel. The chapters will be short because I do not have much time. I can only write in short bursts and I am easily bored.

There will be some sequence to the novel. It is probable that earlier parts should be read before later parts. This is not always required, merely convenient, and occasionally enlightening. It is not necessary to keep track of the characters. They can keep track of themselves.

Some of the chapters have characters. Some of the chapters have plots. Some of the chapters are about other things. Don't worry. It will work itself out. If you are the kind of reader who needs to know where you are at all times, I will include a progress bar. This will have some nice effects like a barber-shop pole and advances along at your pace. This way you keep track of yourself, like the characters do. Everyone's on their own in the end.

Introduction to the Green Glass Door

The green glass door makes its first appearance in a dream. The dreamer was standing in a long, dark hall. He could hear noises, like people shouting, but there was no one else in the hall. There were many rooms on either sides, and all their doors were closed. He walked down the hall slowly, and the shouting seemed to move along with him, always ahead. Sometimes he thought he could make out words but forgot them the moment he heard them. The corridor ended at a green glass door. Behind it, the shouts were even louder. He felt that he should open the door and discover the source of the noise. As soon as he opened it, there was silence. The door opened on to a huge empty room, the size of a grand ballroom, with shiny hardwood floors, and stained glass windows way up high on the immense vaulted ceiling. Cautiously he made his way around the room, as if any moment the shouting would resume. He circled back to the green glass door and exited, closing the door gently behind him. The moment he closed it, the shouting began, even louder than before. Quickly he re-opened the door. Silence.

Introduction to the Ultimate Plot

The ultimate plot has a timeless and universal quality, something that resounds in every individual. We all can relate. We identify with the hero. Something is rightfully his, yet he is denied it. Others are keeping it from him. Whatever the cost, he must have the thing. Call it The Big Book Of Resentment.

You have all heard this story. A baby abandoned at birth. Someone predicted bad things would occur, so the King and the Queen (mom and dad) give it up to a peasant with instructions to kill it. Of course he does not. He raises the boy as his own. But the boy is a Prince, not a slave. One day he finds out who he is. By this time he has grown, is a handsome young lad, and strong and belligerent and brave. He goes on a trip, a long journey home, where he announces his presence to all. The King and the Queen are dismayed - his brothers and sisters as well - but what can they do? They have to face up to the truth and they welcome him back. But it's not enough. Nothing's enough. Nothing will ever be enough for this guy.

What does he want? Everything. He wants the best room in the castle. He wants the prettiest girls. He wants everyone to kneel down before him. He wants to be King above all. He's given a choice. Three goddesses come. He could have power or wisdom or beauty. The boy has to choose. Guess who wins? Aphrodite, of course, and Paris (our lad) chooses Helen. The rest we all know. A war to the death. Ten years then a horse then disaster. Does Paris really care? What's it worth, the whole world, what are others, their lives, when you, yes when you have been cheated so much.

This story could be about you. About when you were small and your sister got more presents than you. Your mom and your dad liked her better. She was a black belt, she could do dancing, and you, just a slug, even fat. They never liked you, they liked her, you could tell. And someday, you swore, you'd get even. Your parents grow old, they get sick, they need help. Go ask Alice, you say, go ask her. She was always your favorite, so go to her now. Don't ask me, I got nothing to say.

A woman gets pregnant, and she has a son. Her boyfriend and her are too poor. They give up the kid for adoption. Later on they get married, they have other kids, they turn out the happiest family. Years pass, then one day, a visitor comes, a young man who looks just like their children. I'm your son, he declares, the one you gave up, now I'm back, so welcome me home, and they do. He moves in with them, everyone gets along, it's just happiness for ever and ever. But something else happens, the other kids turn. Who's this guy who gets all their attention? Who the hell is this guy who didn't live here, who didn't grow up with us all. Now our mom is in love with this man. Now our dad is all proud of him too. Hell with that, they decide, and they go their own way, they grow up, the family collapses. All that's left is the kid who was there at the start, and the parents, who didn't even know him.

The ultimate plot can wear many disguises, eternal and infinite shapes.

The Earliest Memory

This is how it happens. I'm walking down the street. It's a hot September day. I have just purchased a book by Guy de Mauppasant and another by Gertrude Stein. I wonder if the same percentage of interesting writers exists in every culture at every time, and it's only the social structure, the economic structure, and pure dumb luck that determines which ones are ever heard of, which ones persist through time. A new character for Macedonia pops into my head. I walk with him for awhile. I start to sweat a little bit. My office is some blocks away. I return to the office and sit down to tell his story, but first I write this prelude. There are lots of possibilities. The impact of this character on the plot is still unknown.

For Marquis, the earliest memory is a voice on the radio saying "it's three o'clock in the morning in Monteaudio", followed by the sound of his mother and father, fighting in the kitchen. Why am I awake? he wonders, then he listens.
"I told you he'd return", his father (August) says.
"It's a curse" declares his mother (Bonita).
"Stop it with that nonsense," August replies, "there's no such thing. There is no curse, it's just bad luck"
"Same thing" Bonita says.
"Okay", says August, "let's not quarrel about the words. So what are we going to do?"
"We can move away" she suggests
"He'd track us down again", he says.
"Then we'll move away again", she insists.
Marquis has gotten out of bed and ventured near the kitchen. He sits out in the hallway, hiding and shivering. The night is dark and he is sure he's never felt this way before. Half-afraid but dying of curiosity. Who is "he"? What's going on? He waits and shivers and waits. Suddenly their voices stop. It is three oh five in the morning.
"Damn radio", Bonita says, and footsteps coming closer to the door. She grabs the portable radio and for a moment wants to smash it against the wall. Instead, she violently forces it off. Standing by the door, her back is to her husband, and she starts to cry. Quiet sobbing, but Marquis hears and cannot help himself. He runs to her and throws his arms around her legs.
"What are you doing out of bed?" she asks, and picks him up to take him back.
"We all need sleep", says August, and the lights go out.

Andando

I will be moving on soon. There are too many loose ends, it doesn't make sense. More and more I feel a sense of urgency. I must find a place to be human. I can live with uncertainty, but I'm not sure I want to.

An assortment of snapshots, that's good enough. Old photos just thrown in a box and let sit. A girl and a boy in a fountain. A flower. A dinosaur. Warriors. You could make up a lot from a little.

In the center, a notion. Hold on to that. Start out with a solid idea, and then move around. Circle it, watch it, think of its parts. Mosaics are made of small pieces. Each piece on its own is a color, a shape. What holds them together is key.

I will be starting out on a journey, and the trip will be words. Each one makes a sound like a train on a track. Rock steady, now picking up steam.

I wanted to show you the thing at the bottom. This time it's an object of sorts.

Sit back and relax. We're going. Andando.

Introduction to the Sub Text

Quite often a work of fiction is a pretext for the author to proclaim his opinions on various subjects. In such cases the subtext of the work takes the form of "mommy, mommy, look at me!". The author likes things he approves of and dislikes all the rest. Some things are better than others, some places are better, some people are better, some foods are better, and bla bla bla. Now we know.

At other times the author is not aware that his biases are gleaming through the characters and the plot. Here the subtext is an unintended glimpse into the author's inner life.

The literary types make their living by analyzing these subtextual contexts. This is how we know that so-and-so was a misogynist, that so-and-so was a racist, that so-and-so had a fear of committment, and so-and-so-on.

The novel becomes a meta-novel, a substitute for the real life of the author, and the analysis of the fiction becomes a meta-biography, and the interpretation of the interpretation of the interpolation of the interwoven becomes a sublimation of the deconstructor's intention to expose the inner workings of his or her own private insinuations.

Might as well come out and say it.

I like pie.

Entrance to the Introduction of Federico

It is now proper to introduce you to Federico. He has been waiting patiently, has been alluded to at least one time before, and is now ready to step onto the stage.

"Hello", he says.

What? Won't you answer back? He's come up very politely so far. If I were you I would at least nod my head and say, "okay, so this is Federico, and I don't know anything about him".

Very true. You know nothing about him, other than the fact that his name is Federico and he was willing to say hello to you, even though you, apparently, were not so willing to return his greeting. That should tell you something about the man, for he is a man. A young man, perhaps in his mid to late thirties, with a bit too much hair on his head. He is perpetually in need of a haircut. He hasn't shaved in a few days and so he also has a bit of stubble. He goes to work like that, would you believe it? And he works in a hospital. They must have pretty shabby standards in terms of appearances.

Federico has been working for several years, since he finished up his education and now is capable of helping other people, which is something he likes to do.

He has no family.

Just thought I'd mention that. Federico was given up at birth, to a shepherd, no less, and raised on a ranch. He quite liked living on a ranch, and learned a lot about medicine and diseases there. He liked it, but as a youth he had to wander, leave the family farm and find his way in the world. He ended up here in the capital city, and has so far made his way quite nicely.

Now, then, won't you say hello to Federico? That's better.

"Pleased to meet you", he replies.

A Letter from Edward

I received a letter from Edward and feel compelled to share it with you, a reader who has already come to expect something from this character:

Dear Sir or Madam,
In accordance with our prior arrangement, it has become necessary for me to cease my relationship with this project, effective immediately. Our mutually signed contract allows for this termination by any party, at any time, for any reason. I am not therefore required to state my reasons, but I suppose some explanation is in order.

I do not see my place in this situation. I was never abandoned at birth, or given up for adoption. I have no siblings. I am an only child and got along remarkably well with both of my parents. I have no primal wound. I have no big book of resentment. I am not in want or need, am fully satisfied with both my current station in life and future prospects. I am, as you see, not a candidate to be the protagonist in this work, as far as I understand its essential and ultimate plot.

One of the others, and I daresay, any one of the others, may turn out to be this key personality. I can not be, and will not be, that one. As I have no wish to be a bystander, innocent or otherwise, or bit player, available for momentary amusements and perhaps some enlivening discourse (of which as you can plainly see I am quite capable), I hereby tender my resignation as a character in this novel.

I wish you well in your endeavor, as I do my former colleagues, especially the delightful Esperanza, of whom much more should be written. I should be glad to be considered in future if you require a leading man without such deep conflicts as you intend, perhaps a dashing action figure in some colorful adventure.

I remain, respectfully, your former figment,
Edward Hoffman

Experience

Macedonia has lots of experience. According to her biography, at one time or another she has been a short-order cook, a bus station ticket agent, a supervising regional parks manager, a radio broadcaster, an elementary school teacher, a wife and mother, a mechanical engineer, and a police lieutenant in the army.

You might know her if you saw her. She's the woman of the world. Most people would think she has no chance of becoming President, not only because of her gender, but those perceptions are changing fast. Why should a President have to be a politician? Really, it makes no sense. Lately we are seeing a lot of Presidents whowere bureaucracts or tin miners or retail clerks or even military men. Some have even been starving artists, even a writer or two. The nation is becoming receptive to change.

And even if she has a glass eye. Who can tell? It looks just like a real one.

Macedonia is somewhere in her fifties. Her children are not an embarrasment. She has an ex-husband who is in fact a liability of sorts. He drinks. And he says stupid things. That's pretty much why she left him. Oh, and the ridiculous haircuts he gets.

She lives in an ordinary house and drives an ordinary car. She is not one to make fashion statements. If I have something to say, she declares, I say it. I don't mince words.

She's something of a card sharp, a trickster. She cheats. For money. And she doesn't really care who knows it. She flaunts it. See if you can catch me, she profers. Her sleight of hand is something to behold, or not to behold, that is. She can do all the tricks. Put a card in the deck, and she'll find it, even when closing her eyes. Her fingers just seem to know.

Some of her people have wondered, if quietly, if a swindler and fraud is Presidential material.

They love her, did I mention that? Everyone loves Macedonia. She's a talker alright. Serious and serene. She's got power in words and they gather around, at the bars, in the parks, and wherever she goes, they follow, they love, they obey.

Introduction to Miranda

Miranda is pretty brazen about her aimlessness. A mere twenty-two years old, she has already figured out that nowhere is exactly where she likes to be. You might find her napping on a cross-country train. You might spot her in a supermarket aisle, pondering detergents. Don't expect her to look up when you say her name. There are a lot of Mirandas around.

Although she aims for aimlessness, she tends to appear when you least expect her, and that can almost be relied on. Once when the twins were tending to their flock of memos, herding them into oblivion in the form of a ritual bonfire, the phone rang out of the blue, and it was Miranda. The twins exchanged glances and agreed to let it ring.

In a small city like ours, you tend to recognize more of the hundred thousand people than you might think you would, especially if you take the same bus every day. Looking out the window, passing by all the little shops and their keepers, you know who woke up blurry, who read the news, and who puts one foot right in front of the other. The exact change people climb aboard and don't waste time. The driver pushes off and hopes to strand at least one old guy at the stop.

The fog and the cold are specialties here. Miranda tends to follow the steam from one vent to another. As the day warms up, she slows her pace and looks for ledges. Her mother was a wanderer. Her father raised her in a barn. Her family remembers her as staring out the window all the time, a four year old in search of new horizons.

Someone searching for Miranda could start anywhere. You might as well ask the sky. At the end of every rainbow, Miranda. At the end of the line, and wherever lost packages accumulate. Notes posted randomly on telephone polls will reach her. This is how she found her way in here. Someone searched, and she was found.

The Big Book of Resentment

All of us carry a big book of resentment around with us wherever we go. At appropriate times, we open it up, and log another entry. Someone is better-looking than we are. Someone beats us at cards. Surely they were cheating. We were going to say something, but then someone says it first. We would have said it better, but now it's too late. Someone gets a bigger slice of pie, and we like pie.

It isn't necessarily a book of big resentments, it's that the book is big because there are so many of them, and they accumulate from very early days, when we're babies and things are not exactly how we want them to be. We do not like this food they are stuffing in our mouths, but we have no words to tell them. We push away the spoon and they think we are being cute.

Someone cuts in the line ahead of us. Someone gets a better seat. Someone came into the restaurant after we did and look, they already have their food and we do not. Someone got the promotion after we worked our butts off but they were bigger ass-kissers. We deserved a gold star but only got a silver one because some other guy pushed us and we pushed back and we got caught not them.

We want to sleep, but someone wakes us up. We want to go, but someone's taking too much time getting ready. We want to use the bathroom, but someone else is in there. We want noodles, we get rice. We ordered the blue, they shipped the green.

We've got a lot of entries and one of these days we're going to sit down and organize them into nice little categories and add things up and find out who it is who ripped us off the most. Was it the weather? Was it the city? Was it the school? Was it mom and dad? Was it the obnoxious little sibling or the obnoxious older one? Was it the boss? Was it the so-called friend? Was it God almighty who after all is pulling all the strings behind the scenes if you believe that kind of thing.

Some resentments we write in blood red ink. These can never be erased. Others are merely penciled in. Some are only notes we planned to fill in details later, then forgot.

The book gets heavier all the time. We carry it around. We bring it out for show and tell at lunch with friends. Some resentments are shared with others. Some are ours alone. Some we never talk about. Others we bring up all the time. How interesting. Tea cups made of tin foil.

We love our book. In some ways it is who we are. If we lose it, let it go, than who do we become? Selfless, without memory, without pain. We might as well be clouds.

Introduction to the Possibilities

At this time, we are considering the possibility that Macedonia will run for president and actually win. We are considering the possibility that there will be an assassination attempt, and it will be Edward, our former character, who is either the assassin or the last-minute-hero-rescuer. We are concerned about Marquis, and the yet-to-be-named character who is causing his parents so much worry. We are concerned about Miranda and where she is now.

This is all to say that we, the imperious and recently discovered "we", are entertaining various possibilities. If you would like to submit your own plot or character suggestions, please forward them to us now. We will be accepting them for at least thirty days from exactly now.

The city may or may not suffer from a two-day general strike. Shopkeepers might close early on sundays. There could be a scare about terrorists or some such alarming development. Someone, driven by a sense of resentment and revenge, is bound to take some sort of action. This could be the crux of the matter.

Or maybe the plot will center around the questions of who, what, when, where and how. We are setting up several parallel conditions. What are those twins really up to when they exchange those meaningful glances? What's up with all those boxes of notes?

Here is how we do it. We make up some stuff, and then we ponder what it all means. We wonder how we could make so many mistakes, and yet each one only serves to push the whole forward. There is no turning back. If a character can't cut it, we cut him. If a plot development fails to develop we let it go. We cannot lose. We're making it up as we go along.

Consider the possibilities.

Freedom.

Rebuttal

As a courtesy to a character, I am reprinting a rebuttal to a recent introduction. This rebuttal takes the form of an interview between Esperanza and Macedonia.

Esp: It has recently come to our attention that you are said to cheat at cards.

Mac: This is absolutely not true. I have never once cheated at cards.

Esp: So you are not "a swindler and a fraud".

Mac: Of course not. I am a decent, law-abiding citizen.

Esp: Is it also true that you were once a police lieutenant in the army.

Mac: This is also a prevarication. I don't know who came up with this or why. I have never been a non-commissioned officer of any kind.

Esp: Do you have a glass eye?

Mac: Of course not.

Esp: In regards to your ex-husband, do you have any comments to make about his haircuts?

Mac: Ridiculous. Where do they come up with these things?

Esp: What would you like to say to the public?

Mac: Don't believe anything you read.

Wikipedia

Needless to say, I was both surprised and profoundly discouraged when I came across this Wikipedia entry concerning my novel:

"Begun in the spring of 1823, and spanning continents as well as generations, this haphazard, sprawling mess was left to flounder incoherent and incompleted on the internet. Consisting mainly of prologues, meta-prologues and brief, confusing introductions to characters of uncertain relevance, 'Macedonia' was best described as 'a method in search of a madness'.

The distinguished meso-american botanist, Pedro Trevelyan, is said to have conceived 'Macedonia' during a bout of malaria contracted while traveling by stage coach through the jungles of Uruguay in search of a cure for hiccups. Later, Lady Daphne Verguenza picked up the thread and added some peculiar chapters of her own concerning a vague presidential assassination plot. Macedonia Fabricatta, the legendary Italian horticulturalist and riverboat queen, was somehow interpolated into the true historical events surrounding the unprecedented appointment of the first female radio broadcaster in the history of the americas.

Some time after this, a decidedly European twist forces the novel to flounder in a sequence of dreams which meander through Catalonia, Normandy and the Baltic. These dreams, the fevered offshoot of a popular movie about a ragtag group of lesbian rugby players from the outback who overcame vast obstacles in order to become the first ragtag group of aboriginal lesbian rugby players to be featured in a major film, often involve images of snakes and baths and rainbows.

Fortunately, one is spared from further developments along this line, for the novel veers unexpectedly into patchy monologues concerning a theory of the novel, metaphysics, and the author's sense of duty to his imaginary yet devoted readers. Finally, the piece comes to rest on the rocky shores of a retelling of the Iliad, dressed up in the modern garb of adoption, delivery vans, pop-tarts and ingratitude.

Not for the faint of heart, this grueling episode bears all the hallmarks of mid-nineteenth century twaddle, including a romance between a poet and a duck, after which the reader is invited to participate in a book tossing contest to see how far they can throw the very novel itself. This I was happy to do, and my copy is now resting peacefully at the bottom of the small pond that graces my neighborhood."

I don't know what to say. Of Wikipedia I can only comment, caveat emptor. You get what you pay for.

The Committee of the Lost

Federico arrives early and stays late. He is working all the time. He notices all arrivals at the emergency room and at a glance decides if there is anything he can do for them. If there is, he rushes over and does it. The other doctors and nurses move out of the way. Doctor Fred is the best. All his patients love him, especially the little old ladies and the ones with amnesia, who arrive from the country every day but don't know how. Some of them cannot pronounce their own names. One Florencio Maglinao stuttered so badly he came down with a case of hiccups that lasted several days. Even Federico could not prescribe a cure.

Through the crossroads of this single room, almost all citizens of the city have passed at one time or another. Often it was the very last place they ever saw. Sometimes it was the first. It's no accident they put this place on the road from the airport, in the heart of the city. At all hours of the day and night the door is open, the breeze sweeps through, the rain allowed to freshen the floors and the walls. The nurses gather behind the wooden platform and the doctors share an office behind a curtain. On the single desk a radio is always on, beaming facts and information essential to a person's well being, especially the time, and the weather, and the inexorable laws of nature.

At twelve oh three the announcer declares that the gravity on Neptune is only one-fifth as strong as the gravity on Earth, even though the mass of that planet is more than seventeen times as great as ours. Once you understand this fact you realize that it's no help whatsoever in your daily life, and you're reminded of all the other facts they drilled into you at school. You know this world is not the only one.

Some lost people gather in a corner and have meetings about abandonment. Some were brought and left by others. Some have given up on themselves. They meet sometimes, now and then, and form The Committee of the Lost. They take turns telling their stories. Each one has something new to add. After the ritual sharing, they fall silent, and listen to the radio and the sirens in the distance. Macedonia is speaking to them now. "At the tone, the time will be twelve oh four, and twenty seconds ... Mosquitoes dislike citronella because it irritates their feet."

Esperanza comes on tuesdays. Edward met her here. The Committee has no members, but anyone can join. Miranda shows up now and then. Federico knows them all.

Florencio

It happened pretty suddenly. August and Bonita met at a midsummer party by the river on a very hot night. They both had way too much to drink and found themselves naked and entangled in the morning in the weeds behind the outhouse. They were practically children at the time. They told no one about it, but nature found them out and soon everybody knew. Bonita was sent away and August forced to work a number of jobs to pay for her internment. After the boy was given away, she was allowed to return home but forbidden to see August ever again.

Well, that didn't work. The village they lived in was quite small and there was no way to prevent any two people from ever meeting. Slowly they got to know each other over the next few years while they came of age, fell in love, and eventually married.

August continued to work several jobs throughout his life. He was a fisherman first and last, but also a foreman, a repairman, a maintenance man, a mechanic, and a builder. He could really do almost anything he set his mind and hands to. Bonita also worked very hard, restricted as she was to her place and time's ideas of woman's work. Neither one could read or write too well, and this made it hard for them when they finally decided to move to the nearest city, some years later.

They stayed with one of Bonita's cousins while they looked for work and went to school at night to improve their basic abilities. Bonita tended to her cousins' children and August did whatever he could. Their life in those days was hard, made even harder when Bonita was with child, again and again, especially because they always died, each one. Sometimes they died inside her, and a few died shortly after birth. It seemed they would never have another living child.

They felt they were cursed, and they both knew why. It was the one they had given up, back when they were still both children themselves. He was always haunting their thoughts, and even when they managed to make their own home and found steady work and finished all their learning, they could not rest easy. They wanted a family so badly and the family would not come.

Finally a child survived, a little boy they called Marquis, and when Marquis was only six months old, a visitor came to their door. This visitor was a young man, probably around twenty. He claimed to be the child they'd given away, but was he? They opened their home to him and let him in. They accepted him as their own, even though he looked nothing like either one, or like any of their kin. He knew nothing of their village, nothing of their ways. He'd been raised there in that city. He was big and strong and angry.

His name was Florencio and he refused to work, though he was more than able. He demanded extra food. He demanded the only bed. He would not help Bonita in the house. He would not even look at the baby. He only talked, and never listened. He had a lot of grievances. If only they had not given him away at birth, he would be different. Instead, he declared, this is how I am.

Florencio made life miserable for the little family, and they did not even know if he truly was their son. He could be anyone. Lots of people knew their story. What were they to do? Bonita's cousins were no help. They were afraid of Florencio and his famous temper. It was rumored he had been in jail for killing a man in cold blood. August was a peaceful, quiet man. Bonita wanted only to be with her baby. They talked quietly late at night while Florencio was sleeping. They decided they would run away.

They came to the capital. It took all the money they'd stashed away to get a ride on a truck with the few things they could sneak out of the house while Florencio was just around the corner gambling with his friends. They were so scared he would see them escaping, but they were fortunate. Neighbors who had compassion for them were watching out and distracted him at the very moment he might have discovered them.

August and Bonita started over, and for a few years everything was good. The baby Marquis lived and thrived. August found new work. Bonita was very happy. Every day they were together was a blessing, and they knew it.

Introduction to the Critics

Already the novel is receiving some criticism, and it has not even been written yet. Some of the critics are afraid that the book is too silly. Some have said there are parts which are too sad. One mentioned there was not enough suspense. Another added that she had no idea what was going to happen, and, as a skip-ahead sort of reader, that bothered her. All agree that the proliferation of introductions is most unfortunate, and they would prefer to read a straight-ahead novel, with constant characters of definite relevance, and a plot that lurches inexorably forward.

Some questions were presented to me directly, in a petition by a group of critics demanding explanations, as follows:

Who is Florencio Maglinao, and is the Florencio of August and Bonita the same Florencio who came down with an incurable case of hiccups?

What are the skin colors of the various characters? You have not mentioned this, nor have you described the breasts of your females.

Why was Edward introduced in the first place, if he was later to resign his position as a minor character in the novel?

Will the alleged simplistic retelling of the Iliad contain a counterpart to Hektor, who is our favorite in that story?

How did Macedonia Fabricatta become a renowned horticulturalist? How does one do that? We would like to try our hand.

Can we have more of the twins, please? We like them.

I understand that Monteaudio is a sort of joke on Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, but it is not a good joke. Please tell your editor to fix that.

How come the plot keeps creeping into the introductions? In the original Macedonio Fernandez novel, which you are presently butchering, the prologues come first, followed by the novel itself.

How dare you impugn the Wikipedia by quoting a non-existent entry? Don't you know that sensible people use valuable time making important contributions to that esteemed resource?

And in conlusion, we, the undersigned, wish you would not make us read anything we will not like.

Thank you for your consideration

The critics

Esperanza

Esperanza will tell you that her life began on a cold April day in the middle of the afternoon, when she was somewhere between fifteen and twenty one years old. She had just stepped off the train and that was all she knew. This city was unknown to her. The face she saw in a shop window, not her own. The pale, thin body that accompanied it was strange and unfamiliar. When she opened her mouth, someone else's voice emerged. She had no name, no thoughts, no sense of where she was.

She did not speak the language and there was no way to tell someone about her state, but somehow people helped her, and she found herself in Federico's waiting room. Dr. Fred examined her and found her sound of body if not mind. Classic case of amnesia, he told himself, except amnesiacs do not typically forget how to speak. She could only stare with wide blue eyes beneath her yellow bangs. She had no papers with her. She stared at the soup the nurses brought as if she'd never seen soup before.

Federico wasn't sure what to do with her. There were places he could send her, but these were not happy places. Clearly she was lost, more lost than most. He decided the committee might help. If she were to belong anywhere it was with them. She followed where he led and sat down where he pointed, on a soft brown couch in a corner of the hospital. A few others gathered in that section. A voice on the radio was soothing to her although she could not make out the words. It was Macedonia who would teach her how to speak again. Macedonia who would tell her what she needed to know.

The twins sat down beside her. Edward was also there, and immediately fell in love. He was a short, very strong young man, with a pencil thin mustache and slicked back hair. The twins were nine years old at the time. They tried to get her to talk. Milo wrote down words on scraps of paper, words in various languages, but it seemed she could not read them, for she always shook her head. Lola said these words out loud, in case she recognized the sounds. Esperanza wasn't deaf, but she did not understand.

It was Lola who pointed to the radio and got Esperanza to smile. Lola repeated words that Macedonia was saying, and explained them with pictures and pointing at objects. Slowly, Esperanza began to repeat the words and indicate the corresponding images. Lola said there was hope after all. Esperanza repeated that word several times. This is how she got her name.

Introduction to the Rain

Certainly Miranda, with her wild long black hair and her baggy jeans, would have found nothing unusual in the sudden appearance of Esperanza. She would not have been surprised at her amnesia, nor her apparent foreign-ness, her whiteness, or her desparately quiet voice. Had she been there that day, Miranda would have taken her by the hand and led her back into the streets. She would have put her on a bus and told the driver to just keep going. She would have sent her anywhere but to the committee of the lost.

Fortunately for Esperanza, Miranda was not there that day, and it was the twins who took her home, and gave her their room, such as it was, for they lived in the ruins of an old metal shop, and their bed was a discarded frame with a pile of foam rubber on top. The tiny Esperanza nearly disappeared inside that heap of pillows, and there she slept for nearly three days. In the meantime, the twins were organizing things. Milo had written a series of notes on pink and yellow scraps, while Lola painted instructions in lipstick on the floor.

They knew all about being lost. They had been lost together, during a storm, at sea, at the age of four and three quarters. Milo clung to the captain's desk, and Lola clung to Milo, as they tossed all night in the warm, dark southern ocean. No one else survived, nor were they ever found. Instead, they drifted ashore near the fisherman's docks, and crawled out of the sea like the very first land creatures. They stole some fish and started a fire. Already they knew everything they needed to know.

The twins never knew where they came from, and didn't care. They had rules, they had a method. They made their own way in the world. As time passed, they collected certain people, beginning with Doctor Fred. Milo's leg was crushed by a falling pier one day, and Lola knew it was time to bring in someone else. It was not hard to find the doctor. He had the habit of being everywhere he was needed. He did not try to own them. He merely fixed the leg, offered a room for awhile, and left them alone.

After Milo recovered, they disappeared again, but Federico knew they would return. He had told them of the committee. It was always changing, as some were found, and some got lost again, but the corner of the hospital, it's collection of couches and chairs, the small wood stove, the table with books and magazines, was always open to anyone. For the twins, it became their office. They were the shepherds who welcomed the strays, and gave them direction.

Outside the city roared and choked on the engines and fumes of buses and cars, and everyone who was not lost was busy rushing to their places. The sky as always darkened at noon to let a downpour sweep the streets and send the people scurrying into bars and shops. The twins peered out the door and waited for the next arrival, who could arrive at any time.

Macedonian Clutter

I was enjoying my morning tea and cinnamon bun, when the doorbell rang. This was unusual since I rarely have visitors, and that day was no exception. When I got to the door, no one was there. Instead, I noticed a newspaper clipping had been left half-jammed in the mail slot. I took it out, and returned with it to my breakfast nook.

The clipping was an article from the crime section of that morning's The Daily Spectre. "Wanted", it read, "two suspects have been implicated in the recent spate of 'Macedonian Clutter'. These incidents of litter, vandalism and graffiti, somehow centered around the word 'Macedonia', have been plaguing the city and even the surrounding suburbs in recent days. Metro police got their first leads today when residents of the Outer Dandruf neighborhood reported sighting two juvenile males, apparently identical, approximately twelve years old, with long straight brown hair and striking, bright green eyes. The youths were said to be wearing old denim jackets, black sneakers and gray trousers. Metro police are offering a reward of One Hundred and Fifty to anyone with information that leads to the arrest of these vagrants."

Naturally, I was concerned. Apart from the factual errors, which are customary for that newspaper - indeed, almost a tradition - it was clear that the twins sighting could wreak havoc on the plot of the developing novel. If the twins were to be caught before their characters were fully developed, it could have devastating consequences on the remainder of the narrative.

Fortunately, I realized that the twins would be made aware of this article through The Committee, whose varying members spread far and wide throughout the community, and would have time to make alterations to their appearance, as well as put them on their guard and make them more cautious in future proceedings.

Retraction

Hmm. Ahem. Yes, well.

This is embarrassing.

Not sure quite where to begin.

The thing is, you see. Yes. Well.

Okay, then come right out and say it.

I'm afraid, that is, I'm sorry. I mean, I'm afraid I have to admit I've made rather a big mistake. You see, I was writing under the impression that the Macedonia, that is, the person, about whom this historical account is being written, is the same person, I mean, was the same person, as, well, I screwed up. I really thought this was about Macedonia de San Miguel, the notorious bank robber, forger, and gangster who roamed this country in the middle of the past century.

I seem to have gotten a few things wrong. The time, for one thing. The place, for another. The person, yes, of course, the person entirely. It could happen. I'm not the first person to have mistaken one Macedonia for another. Clearly, that Wikipedia article we recently encountered is proof that the same error has been made before. Nevertheless, as a recounter of historical incidents, one might expect a higher standard.

I really am very sorry.

Now, to further clarify, Macedonia de San Miguel was actually deceased at the time the events in question took place. Macedonia Fabricatta, the famous horticulturalist, as you will not doubt recall, never actually resided in this country. She was, in fact, also deceased at the time of the events in question. Both of these Macedonias are not the Macedonia of this novel. Their appearance here has been regrettable. I once again apologize with all my heart.

Our Macedonia, the real Macedonia, it appears, is someone about whom almost nothing is known. That her name was spread around on slips of paper all over the capital and even the outlying suburbs, this much is certain. Repeated references to this occurence appear in The Daily Spectre over a period of several months during that year. Only her first name is known at this time. I will of course attempt to gather more information, and will pass it on to you as it becomes available.

A woman known by that handle was said to broadcast the time and accompanying factoids on Radio Reloj during the decade in question. Whether or not this was her real name is presently uncertain. I guess I could round up some pay stubs or something, interview some people, check around. Okay, I will.

Just so you know, right now this is where we stand. Macedonia, Radio Reloj, slips of paper, a rumored presidential campaign, a collection of lost and missing children casually overseen by a kindly medical doctor, a city, a country, and some bits about abandonment, resentment, and dreams. I thank you for your patience.

This has been your author speaking.

Introduction to the Red

In the beginning, there was a need to keep the children busy, the children of patients, the children with injuries, the children who loitered in the lobby. It seemed like a good idea to put some toys in a corner. Everyone pitched in, all the nurses, all the doctors, and even a janitor or two. Some toy cars arrived first, and then a doll or two. These were kept in a cardboard box beneath the coat rack, and dragged out whenever a child started crying or tearing magazines.

The corner seemed to grow on its own. No one now remembers where the couch or chairs came from, or the library, or the radio always tuned to Radio Reloj. Doctor Federico installed the little kitchen himself. The paintings on the wall were done by some of the children, using paints and charcoals donated by someone. The electric oil heater and the closet full of clothes and shoes and blankets were among the more recent arrivals.

To make room for all this, the area expanded. Waiting room benches were moved to the other wall, and the floor tiles changed to a different color (red) so it would be obvious where the hospital began and where the children's world ended. On those red tiles, the only rules were those the children made themselves. Most were unspoken, unwritten rules. No questions. No demands. No refusals. No fighting.

Eventually an ordinary patient's child was unlikely to venture over there to play. They could tell this wasn't meant for them. This was something else now, a refuge for the lost, a camp for refugees. Some of the original occupants were all grown-up by now, and knew it wasn't for them any longer. They stopped showing up, but always with regret. There was no other place in the world like this. You could come, you could stay, you could leave.

Outside these tiles these kids had nothing else. The city's not the same for small ones with no homes. Imagine yourself, as a child, abandoned and lost, alone, in any city you know. By the docks, the fishermen may set aside a small part of their catch to keep the kids at bay - better to let them steal a little than steal a lot. The police may let them sleep in one abandoned shack for a week, before moving them along to another. They learn to hide, keep out of sight. They learn to see in the dark. They find what they need, and if it works for them, might help each other out. Occasionally someone sees them and approaches, wanting to help. Suspicious, they let them approach, before dashing away at the last second.

At least the twins had each other. Miranda had no one, ever, until she found The Red. Hers had been a childhood spent in basements, in stairways, under piers. Who would teach her how to talk? She didn't. Avoiding all contact, she was wild, and first snuck in the hospital to follow the smell of food. The children watched her, let her be, let her grab the bread and escape. Gradually she became more bold. One day she sat down on the floor. Esperanza was drawing with crayons and Miranda was intrigued. Edward set a cup of cocoa on the floor beside her. Miranda flinched, and almost ran, but stayed.

Occasionally some authority arrives and demands that something be done about the children. City service requirements were invoked. There was talk about permits, social work, conditions, regulations. Federico politely turned them away. "What can we do?" he would say, "they come and go on their own. How can we deny anyone entry into the emergency room?". No one can prevail against him, and so The Red remains.

On the Ethics of Authorship

Writing is a cruel occupation. No other art form allows the artist to inflict as much damage on his or her subject. Painters don't routinely torture their protagonists ( Christian iconography aside ), musicians rarely kill off whole groups of people, and sculptors don't describe their stony fellow's terrible childhood, but authors regularly make all sorts of bad things happen to their characters.

The world is worse, of course.

We know that lives are complicated, that motives are rarely simply or easily explained. Novelists do their best but typically fall short. Your molester was once molested. Your murderer was abused. Your greedy guy was formerly deprived. Textbook psychology usually wins the day, yet these things certainly happen. Why do authors want to write about it? Why do readers want to read these things in novels when the newspapers are always filled with them?

As an author, you invent some characters, and tell their stories. Good things happen, bad things happen. You try to emulate some kind of a life, make them seem as if they're real. You get attached to them, you feel responsible. It is painful sometimes to hurt them. It's shameful when it's not. To abandon a child. To let them roam the streets, alone and unprotected. To provide some sort of shelter. To offer them some hope. How can they not turn out badly, and when they do, who is to blame? Where is justice? Where are their rewards?

Someone should come by and gather up the children, take them to a castle, and make them warm and safe. We need a hero, a savior, someone to do the right thing. In the real world, you can only do a little, if anything at all. No one can save everyone.

I remember being very angry with authors who behave badly towards their characters - gratuitously, pointlessly, as if they were torturing animals, or blithely, irresponsibly, as if they were drunk drivers. La la la la la, oops, character falls of a cliff. La la la la la, oops, character A bites off character B's penis (you know who you are). La la la la la, oops, time to kill another one.

There is a way to make a bad thing beautiful, but it's rare. I don't believe it will be happening here.

Of Process and Limitations

I wish I could just sail right through, and write this whole thing in a single swoop, because the whole thing should be a whole, if not a moment than a clutch of time all gathered together, colorful and unified. But I can't. I have a life after all, a job, a family, time constraints, these limitations. In the snatches I can scribble this down, I am a different writer every time. Things happen in the world and they affect me. I see things, I read things, I change from day to day, and so the story changes too, because this story is not a set piece with a beginning, middle or an end that I know of from the start. It wanders and meanders, it changes and it grows. This is not something to be captured, but something to be released.

It's not just you. I also have questions. Uppermost in my mind is the question of Doctor Fred. We know he has been bending the rules to create this little safe haven inside the emergency room of the city's central hospital, where homeless children can come and go as they please and find food and clothes and toys and each other and not be hassled, and not be chased, but where do they sleep? Can he not do more? Surely some of them will take a nap at times, but this is not a permanent residence, and don't they need that most of all? And what about some parenting, supervision, education, attention from adults all kids require. Federico has no time for all of that, and he is only a man, not a system, not a group.

He does have help, you know. Other doctors, nurses, employees of various levels pitch in and give whatever they can. Federico himself began a little school and handed it over to others, his wife Amalia included. Didn't you notice how nicely Edward wrote his resignation letter? And clearly the twins are quite literate, with all their little notes, and Esperanza speaks quite well, I think, don't you? It's not a traditional school of course. There are no regular hours. There is no mandatory attendance, homework or exams. Children who are motivated, learn. Teachers who are motivated, teach.

When you look back on it, you should not be surprised that some graduates of The Red have gone on to have success in life, acquiring skills and jobs and homes. In this world there is nothing for certain. Some who begin with much end up with nothing. Some who begin with nothing may end up with much. Don't tell me it's the economic system, or cultural values, or ethnic or national traits. What I have said is true in all times and all places, given a relativity of measurement. The myths of prince and pauper are of course exaggerations, but poor to not-so-poor, or middle-class to poor, can happen for almost anyone anywhere in time and place.

Here I am convincing both myself and you The Red was some exceptional thing, that Federico worked a miracle, but this is not what I am thinking. There is always someone who can help, and always someone needing it. In my own life I can remember those who helped, and those whom I have helped. Again, the scale is relative. I have saved no lives, and no one has saved mine. Esperanza taught Miranda how to paint. Amalia taught Florencio how to read. No good deed goes unpunished.

Two Discarded Characters

It was just at this point when Alan Leighton was set to take part in a scene involving Florencio Maglinao, a lost package, a flurry of telephone conversations, and a fatal railroad accident, when I realized that Alan was no longer a suitable character, for a number of reasons.

In the first place, he slammed the door in my face. True, I had awakened him in the middle of the night, arriving out of the blue, as it were, nearly twenty years after we had briefly met. I explained to him about the dream, the truck, the magic numbers, all of that, and still, he slammed the door in my face.

I understand that when I first discussed this matter with you, I had presented it as a dream, and I merely said he'd "closed the front door", but the more I think of it the more I begin to remember the closing as a slam. And I also began to remember, that night we went to see the movie Oblomov. True, the movie was long and boring, but there were some interesting facets I had hoped to discuss, but this Alan fellow was too dull and only wanted to grab a beer.

Why did I even consider adding this guy to the story? Because of the lost delivery. Florencio Maglinao, you see, is the driver who unaccountably lost my package, and later claimed my package had "experienced an exception". He went so far as to blame the loss on a fatal railroad accident. The package itself was unimportant, just an object I could easily re-order, but it was infuriating that this Florencio made so many excuses and refused ultimately to even say the word "lost". Packages do not "experience exceptions". Period.

Alan Leighton was intended to have some connection with this bit - maybe he was the fatality. Maybe he was the railroad engineer. Maybe he was a reporter for The Daily Spectre. I'm not exactly sure how he was going to fit in, but he was going to be there somewhere, and then I discovered that Florencio Maglinao, who "stuttered so badly he came down with a case of hiccups that lasted several days", is not the same Florencio as in the story of August and Bonita. Therefore, Florencio Maglinao is to be discarded, and Alan Leighton along with him. This is the last you will hear of these two characters.

As to Maglinao, I hope he gets the hiccups so bad that they won't go away until he finds my package. So there.

The Real Florencio

The real Florencio haunts his friends the way he haunts this book. Who is he, where does he come from, and what does he want? they wonder. He is a leader, we all know that. Leaders are people who get other people to do things. Florencio has never been without a follower. From the time he was a small child, roaming the streets of the capital city, checking in now and then at The Red, he had a gang, tough kids who weren't quite smart enough to make it all on their own. But that's a lot to ask of a kid.

Florencio would be the one to target their victims, but he always stayed out of trouble. He wasn't the kind to cause physical damage, and any of his gang who made that mistake was out, no second chance. Stay out of the way, unknown, in the shadows; this was always the Florencio Way. It was hard to resist temptations. He might want that purse but she's clutching it too tightly. He might want that wallet but it's too deep in the pocket. Go for the easy money, be quick and be quiet. You can always get enough if you try.

Never be greedy, Florencio said. We aren't going to get rich, not like this. When we're older, we'll find other ways, and he did. He did scams, he did trades, he did whatever it took. At times he had families living under his roof. He had men to look after, their wives and their kids. He worked hard and got tired of being the boss.

Sometimes he took a vacation. He'd head out of town, go some place he'd never been seen, find a mark, take a chance, play a game. He knew about people, especially those who had needs. People with something inside. He could be the long-lost son. He could be the prodigal child. He could be the distant relative from the old country. It was just a vacation. Soon he'd go back.

He especially liked playing the long shot adventure, something incredible, hard to pull off. He was convinced he had a future, a glorious one. A man as audacious as he could get far. Once he toured a factory as if he were the son of the owner and damn if he didn't pull it off. He once took the place of the limousine driver of the head of the national security police, and nobody ever knew. He could've blown the bastard's head off.

He had a natural confidence and ease. People were afraid of him, yet they wanted to be close. People were in love with him, yet they yearned to get away. Florencio was aware of the ambiguity he caused. He never had the same lover twice. He never let anyone know him, yet he was never alone. It seemed impossible for him to shake them. Wherever he went, people followed, as if he were magnetic to the core.

The Hunting

It was Esperanza who first tracked down Macedonia. She began in January, after a morning session by the stove with the others, listening to the time and all those useless facts. She heard something about how no two fingerprints are alike and she thought, I must find Macedonia now. Not telling the others, she began to stake out the radio station building, spying on everyone who came and went during the hours just before and just after the morning program. She hid carefully behind some shrubs so the doorman wouldn't chase her away. She brought some snacks to keep her company, out there in the rain and the cold of the morning.

Surely one of these ladies must be Macedonia, Esperanza told herself, but she never had the feeling, truly, that she thought that she would get when the real Macedonia passed by. She, like all the children, had grown attached to the calm, clear placid tones of Macedonia on the radio. The woman who owned that voice would walk a certain way, she would have a certain bearing. Esperanza would know her telepathically.

The ladies she saw entering and departing all might have been her, but weren't. Some had nice warm coats on. Others wore fancy shoes. Each one had her hair done nice. They all must work there, Esperanza thought, or else their husbands do. The radio station was right downtown. This was no place for beggar children to be allowed. Soldiers and policemen, doormen and drivers kept the poor away as best they could. Government officials strolled nearby, held meetings in the park. Judges, even politicians walked this way. The Daily Spectre building was on one corner, Radio Reloj on another, the Supreme Court occupied the third and the Library on the last. Esperanza knew the Library best. She'd been chased away from there perhaps more than from any other place in town.

Somehow she kept concealed. She was a sneak, and a good one. She had learned a thing or two from friends. Miranda taught her speed. Lola taught her invisibility. Edward taught her composure. Florencio taught her the bluff. From Milo she learned determination, and she kept to it, day after day, but Macedonia never appeared. Esperanza began to make lists, describing all the women of the building. She considered sharing her secret with the others, but decided she would do this on her own. Weeks went by and soon she knew all the ladies, and knew that none of them were the one she wanted. She was puzzled. How could Macedonia be on the radio every day, yet never appear at the building?

Then one day she saw her. She even knew a block away. Something about the little black hat. Something about the plain black pumps. It was the way that Macedonia carried herself. She was all of it at once. Beauty, truth, and power. She was younger than Esperanza had expected, perhaps thirty-five or thirty-six. She had dark curly hair, falling past her shoulders. She had a thin face holding large eyes, with eyebrows straight across and almost touching. She had a half a smile, but only on her lips. Her eyes were calm as clouds.

Esperanza wanted to jump out from behind her shrub, but something held ber back. How can I approach her? Esperanza wondered. And when will I ever get another chance? It seemed that Macedonia didn't come too often. She must do a lot at once, because she didn't leave the building until much later in the day, long after her shift on the radio had concluded. Esperanza followed her as discreetly as she could, hiding from the soldiers yet not losing sight of the tallish, thinnish Macedonia, who strolled calmly several blocks until the Avenida Optima, where she waited for the Number Seven bus to Abondancia.

Introduction to the Descriptions

As the narrator, I realize I am supposed to be telling you not only what is happening but also what everything looks like, to give you a sense of place and time and climate. It is not sufficient for me to merely state that "Esperanza hid behind some shrubs". I should also indicate that the shrubs in question were of the oleandar variety, typically produced white blossoms, but were currently bloomless, it being January and rather cold.

I should also mention that the radio station building was done up in a sort of rococo style, a pale imitation of an Italian Renaissance palazzio, with attempts at ivy creeping along the sides but not achieving much in the way of height. I should further declare that the sidewalks along which trod politicians as well as judges were kept immaculate by nightly sweepings and hosings. A virtual army of cleanliness engineers were employed to keep this, and the surrounding half dozen blocks, the very model of hygiene.

The same cannot be said of the vast sprawling neighborhood to the south of center city. This area, known as The South, was largely composed of cinderblocks, cardboard and sheets of tin. The streets were mainly rocks and dirt. The millions of people who lived here had scarce sanitation, little electricity, and practically no running water. For this reason, the same judges and politicians previously mentioned, all took northbound routes on their way home in the evening.

A thin line of steadily improving neighborhoods wound its way along the hillsides to the north, eventually reaching a sparsely populated region of ranches and estates. Average family incomes could be calculated by the block along this route, and, in direct proportion, the availability of public services such as police protection and taxis.

By day a black cloud rose over the city, steadily darkening the skies from the beginning of the morning rush hour until the typical mid-afternoon downpour rid the city of its smog. The evening breezes pushed away the foulness of the afternoon commute. Through the middle of The South ran a filthy river in which the people fished and did their laundry. Finally, where the river reached the sea, the bustling docks were filled with ships and endless mountains of containers.

A single four-lane freeway fed the traffic from the port to center city, bypassing the The South at a cozy elevation. Underneath its overpasses, immigrants made their homes. Most came from the interior of the country, where a handful of families owned nearly all the land, and no one else could prosper. The children of the farmers came to Monteaudio in the hopes of doing something, anything, to give their own kids everything they never had themselves.

Can you see this? Is this enough description? If not, be consoled with the idea of city parks filled with rocks, grass, trees, et cetera.

The Following

Following Esperanza's lead, we set a private detective on the trail of the supposed Macedonia. We did not at first believe that the thinnish, tallish, curly-haired, large-eyed, black-shoed woman was indeed the Macedonia of radio broadcast fame, so the objective we presented to our detective was to record her voice and match it to recordings we made from the radio. In order to accomplish this task, the detective would need to get her to talk and, preferably, mention the time.

Our detective (hereafter referred to as Inspector Mole) encountered the same problem as Esperanza. The suspect's schedule was erratic. In fact, she did not appear for another seventeen days from the initial Esperanza sighting. Inspector Mole required payment for entire days in which he accomplished nothing. We found this most inconvenient, not to mention expensive. We did not include that much wasted time in our initial budget. We were even considering cancelling the whole procedure, but decided in the end we could not rely upon the children to do all our dirty work for us.

He found her, then, and clambered aboard the Number Seven bus for Abondancia. Sitting beside her, he attempted to engage in conversation, but the suspect was decidedly not interested. It was at this point we determined to regret our choice of Inspector Mole. Not only was he a bit past middle-aged and inclined to a slight obesity, but he also reeked of cigarettes and moonshine. The suspect would not even agree to tell him the time, and actually got up and moved to another seat when he inquired.

Inspector Mole wisely chose not to follow her too closely, as he might've ended up in the clutches of the law, and, despite the fact we are referring to him as Inspector Mole, he was not actually a policeman. This is just a cute term we thought would be amusing. "We", of course, meaning myself, your devoted narrator.

The good detective did at least manage to locate her house. She lived, seemingly alone, in a small white stucco home surrounded by a black spiked gate, in a relatively lower middle class neighborhood not too far from the center of the city. She did not seem to have a dog, but there were indications of a cat, and, possibly, a parrot.

A parabolic microphone would have been too out of place. Inspector Mole decided to focus on a reverse-address lookup, from which he obtained a phone number. Brilliantly, he hit upon the strategy of calling her up at home and recording her voice in that manner. He did manage to record a few choice words. "Hello?" and "Who is this?". Then she hung up.

The voice analysis expert we engaged reported that these words were not enough to rule her in or out. Thus we were left with a pair of really exorbidant invoices, which we have not yet decided to pay in full. We have nothing much to show for our endeavor, but at least we have the address, which me may pass on to the children after all, and hope that they have better luck than I.

Introduction to the Not Happening

Nobody here is going to die of cancer. There will be no rapes. There will be no flight cancellations. Mass evacuations will not occur. No one will own a boa constrictor. No one will correct another's grammar. Buildings depicted in this work of fiction will not collapse, nor will they be subjected to government inspections. Most, if not all, of the characters in this work will survive through the very end of it.

I would like to assure you that shoe sizes will not be considered important, nor will it matter materially the length of anyone's hair or the size of their breasts. Some people will be shorter than others, and where relevant, that comparison will be made explicitly. It has already been mentioned that certain individuals may bear a grudge, if not specific, than generalized. Other individuals may not. The intensity and specific nature of these grudges may have a bearing on the outcome of any actions undertaken.

Dominoes have been referred to as a "pasttime". I would like to make it clear that I am in no way sponsoring or condoning this activity. I would also like to clarify my opinion that guns and knives, when used to harm other people, are bad, very very bad. I really and truly believe that people should not hurt each other intentionally.

Someone I know believes it is very important that government intrusions into personal lives should be minimal at most. This extends to the placement of traffic signs and the regulation of pedestrian flow. This same person has no disagreement with his own government using nuclear weapons whenever it feels like it. Go figure.

Nuclear weapons will not be used in the telling of this story, aside from the last paragraph and this sentence. Whenever necessary, only green energy sources shall be tapped, if by "green" one means anything of or pertaining to this planet.

There is a slight possibility that someone will be offered flowers as a friendly gesture. This in no way purports to justify such activities. Characters who are perceived as nice or friendly may not be so in real life. It behooves the reader to keep his or her wits about them at all times. Nothing will be as it seems.

This is not happening.

Introduction to the Back Story

It is common practice for storytellers to fill in enough details about the background of the characters such that their motivations for actions integral to the plot will be intelligible, otherwise, who could explain why anyone did the things they did? This is known as 'the back story'. It helps to know that Paris, as an infant, was given to a shepherd to be murdered, so that later on we can understand why he chose Beauty over Wisdom and Power.

No, it doesn't.

Lots of people would make that choice, regardless of their infantile circumstance, child-rearing or youthful experiences. We are all humans. We have lots in common. Our motivations are complex, and superficial attempts to provide trivial explanations are not helpful at all. In fact, they tell us nothing more than that the author was trying to show off.

For this reason, I am not going to tell you about Edward's parents, Norman and Sylvia Hoffman, or how they came to this country with practically nothing, how they labored at the most menial tasks in order to get the barest necessities, how they lived in a camp with no roof throughout the long cold winter, how Sylvia contracted TB and died, how Norman took to the bottle and could not care for his infant son, how Edward was left to fend for himself on the streets, on the docks, beginning at the age of six. This will not help you understand how he found The Red, how he learned to read almost at once, how he took to typing official notices and forms from a table outside City Hall, or how he earned enough to rent a small house in The South along the river, where he let Esperanza and the twins move in. It will tell you nothing about his generosity of spirit, his photographic memory, his fondness for collecting odd bottle caps, or the love he felt for any woman wearing green.

Perhaps there were reasons for these things. The bottle caps may have reminded him of his father. The green may have recalled his mother. Were I a more typical author, I would definitely make those connections, and let you know about it every chance I got. Instead, I will tell you categorically that those connections are incorrect. The bottle cap game was something he started doing with a childhood friend, whom he hasn't seen in many years. The green also is linked to her. He still hopes to come across her again someday.

All of this may seem potentially important, and might have been, but Edward, you'll recall, has withdrawn himself from participation in this novel. He is no longer a character in it. The other youths may still be living in his house, but this is not quite certain. You really don't know how old they all are at this point, because I haven't told you.

Special Introduction to the Novel for Characters from Other Stories

First of all, thank you for joining us. We will make every attempt to accommodate your interest. No doubt you are here to find your counterpart, for we all like to identify ourselves and know exactly who we are. As someone told me today, all of us are always leaking our identity, through our appearance, styles, mannerisms, actions and words.

We have not undertaken a retelling of the Iliad, despite what you may have heard or read from the critics or the Wikipedia. It is true that a certain character will have to make a choice, and that this choice will be the definitive action in this story. However, it has not yet been determined who that character is or what shall be the nature of the decision.

If there were a need to choose between Wisdom, Beauty and Power, we have already presented Macedonia, who claims to all three. One would simply choose her. This would not cause a thousand ships to launch nor a ten years' war to ensue. Perhaps there will be alternatives, or perhaps this will be a red herring entirely.

We may not have a Menelaus, or a Hektor, or Achilles. We may not have Prince Myshkin, Joe Christmas, or Hazel Motes. We may not have Macabea, Emma Bovary or Cassandra It's entirely possible that some of our characters will not correspond to any others ever in the history of literature. Nevertheless, we welcome all those from other stories who would like to find a doppelganger here. Jakob von Gunten is welcome, as is Joseph K. Pirx the Pilot is allowed, as are Rachel and Deckard and Roy.

We present to you a pile of photographs. These pertain to the life of one or more of you. Some of the pictures are old and grainy. It is hard to tell who's who. You are not certain who the baby is. It could be you. It could be your little sister. You don't remember your mother ever looking like that, but styles have changed. Places and faces are indistinct. The city could be any town. That living room, in any house. You were born and raised and then forgot. Your memory units are depleted (we call them 'mehmets' here).

The past is a story you remember portions of. The rest you fill in differently at different times. The chain of events that led from there to here seems to you improbable at best. Why you left that lover. Why you left that town. Who you went to that movie with. The color of the car you drove. The parts you repeat to strangers are all boring to you now. Sometimes you wish you'd lived a different life, or at least be free of yesterdays.

It's possible that Hektor wished he'd snuck right out of Troy before that damned Achilles got him. Or kicked the shit out of little brother Paris before he made his stupid choice. He's sitting there on the battlements, pretty sure he's screwed, wondering what he could have done. If I was Hektor then, do you know what I'd say? Fuck!

And then I would apologize.

There are always the children to consider.

On the Crossing of Paths

A lot depends on coincidence, in fiction as well as in life. If so-and-so did not happen to be at such-and-such a place at such-and-such a time, then X would not have occurred because Y would not have happened. Most of the time these random encounters lead to nothing. How many times has a near-miss been even more influential, yet the parties not involved never knew about it. Letters get lost in the mail. Messages are lost in machines. You turned your head for a moment and you didn't see a thing.

When Bonita got sick, there was nothing to be done at first. They had no money for doctors and they were new in town, and did not know where to go. Anyway, she'd been sick before and had always gotten better on her own. This time seemed to be no different, at least not for a day or two. When blood came out with her cough on the morning of day three, it was time to ask for help.

Neighbors pointed them in the direction of a local medicine woman, who prescribed hot poultices, herb teas and salty soup. On the morning of day four, more blood, and greenish phlegm as well. Another neighbor steered them toward a curer, who had some medicines he'd picked up from some guys who'd robbed a pharmacy. Penicillin seemed like a good idea, and some aspirin too. On the morning of day five, August took the special fund and all three headed downtown on the bus. They arrived at the emergency room just moments after Florencio had left.

He'd come to visit his old friends, and see if there was any news that might be useful to him. Florencio liked to keep tabs on everyone he'd ever known. If anyone had a run of good luck, or any good news, even, he'd be sure to pay a call and squeeze whatever he could get out of such a situation. Ronaldo had a baby? There were sure to be cigars. Fantima won at numbers? Didn't she owe him twenty-five? Edward found a house? Maybe he could stay a night from time to time.

There was always gossip at The Red. With nothing much to do but talk, the kids there chattered all the time, and new kids kept arriving. Florencio always came with gifts. You never knew who might be useful later. Who didn't like Florencio? He smiled a lot, he laughed and was your friend. He had a way with kids, the littlest ones especially. If they got rough with him, he just got rough with them. They had to learn to fight. His secret was to do whatever they did, to be like them.

He was not that way with grownups. Those were people to be used, every one of them a mark, including all his former friends once they'd all gotten older. They were almost grownups now, the lot of them, late teens and early twenties. The gang he'd grown up with were branching out, trying to make it on their own. Their days at The Red were numbered. The twins were there most every day, but the others were already coming less.

Florencio that day met a little girl who had no name. The others called her Nameless. She had straight blonde hair and pale grey eyes and seemed as frail as a mouse. She didn't talk much, but shivered a lot. Florencio rushed out and soon returned with a brand new fuzzy coat for her, and chocolates. Nameless almost smiled as he wrapped her up inside the coat. He put her on his lap and talked her quietly to sleep. When she was snoring peacefully, he set her on the couch, motioned for the other kids to let her be, and slipped away.

He'd been gone for only a minute when August, carrying Bonita, and with Marquis trailing behind him, entered the emergency room.

The North

Milo wasn't used to having a room, and he spent a lot of time there pacing back and forth. Lola would get annoyed and tell him to stop but he couldn't. She didn't like getting angry at him so she left the room and went downstairs. They were alone more lately than ever before. He thought it was the house. Maybe it was everything.

Since June they'd started to change. He'd noticed it first. They had misunderstandings, miscommunications that they never had before. A glance did not suffice. He'd had to explain what he was feeling and didn't know how to do that, and it came out wrong, and he didn't understand the looks she gave him in return. Of course their bodies were changing and this they accepted without question, but to change inside was unexpected. To have a different idea was unprecedented.

The room was filled with boxes, which in turn were filled with paper. Scraps and pieces, torn and whole pages, covered with lettering, words, experiments. Milo had a way with writing. He could copy any font in any language easily. From time to time he did a job for Mister Alfonso at The Sign Shop. He knew he needed to do more of that, because it paid, it actually paid money, and with money you could get the things you need. The idea, and this was the very unprecedented one, of having a regular job, was strange and even crazy. Why would you ever want to go to the same place every day, and do the same things every day, and come home and get up and start all over, and at the end of the week be glad it was over, and for two days do nothing but forget the five to come. Never in his life had he dreamed of such a thing, but now, with getting older, with The Red becoming not unwelcome but clearly not inviting, and with Lola seemingly incapable of doing any such thing, he had to make a choice. To work. To get a job.

Mister Alfonso told him anytime, come by, I'll give you work. He had plenty of work for Milo, plus he had a machine in the back that was intriguing, a computer. You could do things with that machine much easier than by hand, but definitely not as fun. It seemed to Milo he was heading for a trap. He took a careful look around. Alfonso was short, like Milo, and fat, unlike. He had a very big smile and a very big laugh and when he found the young man defacing his property he let out that smile and he let out that laugh and he invited the boy in for a beer.

"I like your style", he said to Milo that very first day. "I don't like too much the graffiti in general, but you have a certain way with it. What was that you were writing anyway?"

"Names", Milo said, "I just like to make up names and put them up on walls. It's a way of saying"

"Saying what?" Alfonso asked, and Milo only stared.

"Saying", Milo repeated, "it's a way of saying"

"Oh" Alfonso replied, a bit confused, and realized somehow that the boy had a language of his own. He began to think about him more. As time went by, Milo came around sometimes. This is the way it is on the street. When you find something good you come back. You get more. Alfonso seemed to know, seemed to expect and even look forward to his visits. One day he shocked Milo by asking about his twin.

"How do you know?" Milo demanded, for he never brought Lola here and never once mentioned her.

"I am one myself" Alfonso said, "and I guessed. It's okay. You can bring her around. I won't bite"

Lola came once but she didn't return. She didn't like Milo going off by himself and doing these jobs and coming home with this money. They had supported each other forever, so this was not new, but it smelled like the north to Lola, and she hated the north. The north was for going and stealing. The north was for hating and judging. Now lately it seemed, more and more, that Milo was heading that way.

Introduction to an Introduction

It took Esperanza weeks to work up the nerve to knock on Macedonia's door. First she had to decide what to wear. She wanted to seem casual but not too casual, a little formal but not too formal. Since she had no wardrobe, though, in the end she simply wore the best outfit that Miranda could steal. That was the easy part.

She had to figure out what to say. Why would someone show up at some stranger's door and "just want to talk"? It had better be for a good reason, or at least for something believable. Maybe she was doing a survey. Did she work for the government, then? No, that would be too scary. If a government official knocked on your door, it couldn't be good. An interview, perhaps? Esperanza liked this idea, but she needed more of a story. Was it for a student paper? But Esperanza didn't go to school. For a newspaper, then? But Macedonia was in the media business. She would know people and places and Esperanza did not. She would get caught in the lie.

She settled for a puff piece from a remote provincial magazine. She thought that would work okay, but it all turned out to be a waste of time, because as soon as Macedonia opened the door, she said,

"Oh, you're the girl who's been following me. Won't you come in?". Esperanza followed shyly to the kitchen, where Macedonia made her sit and tell her what she wanted in her tea. Esperanza was now too nervous to talk, so there went the interview story out the window. Instead, Macedonia did all the talking. She wanted to know why she was being followed, especially by assorted street youth. Did they think she had something worth stealing? She invited Esperanza to take a look around the house, and note where anything valuable was. All she asked was that they come and steal things on a day when she herself was not around. She didn't care about things. She just did not want to get hurt, or see anyone else get hurt either.

Esperanza was not sure what to say, or even how to drink her tea. It seemed like an alien drink suddenly. She acted like she'd never seen a cup and saucer in her life. But she managed to convey to Macedonia that she had only the friendliest intentions.

"You sure have a funny way of going about it", Macedonia scolded, while offering more biscuits.

"We listen to you every day", Esperanza said, and described the corner in the emergency room of the downtown central hospital where the homeless kids gathered for shelter, for food, and for company. Now it was Macedonia's turn to be startled.

"You're the teacher", Esperanza instructed, "we learn lots from you every day. You seem to know all sorts of stuff. How spiders make their webs. How far it is to Sweden. Why some trees are always green. Where's the coldest place on earth. How the Ancient Egyptians baked their bread."

"It's all nonsense!" Macedonia blurted out. "I just read that crap". She regretted having been so blunt, but it was true. "I just have a voice they like", she continued, "I don't know anything special. They hand me the papers, I read them, they record it, they play it on the air. It's just a job", she said.

Esperanza did not understand. Surely it was something to be the voice of the world, the one voice you could rely upon. How could that be nonsense?

"Listen, dear", Macedonia continued, "I'm not who you think. It's flattering - but definitely weird - to know there's a bunch of kids out there who gather around and listen to my little program. Most people just tune in when they want to know what time it is. Sometimes you can hear it in an elevator, driving people crazy. It's a public service station, you see? It's nothing more than that."

Macedonia was annoyed, but also quite relieved. She was certain she'd been targetted by a gang of ruthless thieves, and instead it was only harmless children, pathetic, lost, abandoned kids, gathering around her idiotic program like a bunch of cavemen circling a fire. It might have been ridiculous, but it was also kind of sad. She was feeling a bit maternal towards this Esperanza girl already, and only later kicked herself for telling the girl she could come back anytime, and even bring her friends.

Introduction to Zero

Nameless hated weakness. She had no tolerance for any sign of it. I didn't get where I am today by being weak, she told herself, and even though where she was today was nowhere, absolutely nowhere, still she believed in her system. Anyone she met began with zero points. Anyone who fell below that level was an automatic target. Anyone who rose above was cut some slack. It was not easy to rise above. It was very easy to fall.

No one knew her system, and even she could not explain it. Someone who showed her kindness might gain or lose by it. Someone who did the opposite might get the same. She often decided randomly, and it depended on her hunger, on her sleep, on the weather. Out there beneath the docks where Nameless often hid, she scratched statistics into rocks, kept lists like Santa Claus, by code names, every one she met. She was storyteller, judge and jury. At night she lulled herself to sleep with tales of vengeance and reward.

The taxi driver with the dark blue shoes was going to be surprised one day. Opening the door as always to his car a thousand rats jump out and grab his arms and bite his face. Nameless put them there, somehow, invisibly in the night. The soldier who kept watch all day to make sure no one planted bombs at the museum would find an apple in his pocket, and wouldn't know how it got there. Nameless.

She spent her days alone, exploring every alley, every street and every corner in the center and the south. She knew where she belonged, and where she could obtain. Mostly she observed, kept mental notes, invented schemes. She never forgot a face, or the sound of someone's voice. She was gathering her talents. I can be anything, she thought, but most of all she was invisible. No one saw her. No one cared.

Huddled in her fuzzy new coat she thought about Florencio. This man had wanted something, this she knew, but what it was she couldn't tell. If she'd asked the others at The Red they would have told her how he plays his game, curries favor, sets up debts, calls in markers, asks for favors, yet is always there in case you need him. Something about Florencio meant she couldn't decide on points. She needed some new method in her system, some way to withhold judgment. Always she was quick with up or down, but not this time. She'd let him stay at zero for awhile. No one ever stayed at zero.

Introduction to the Borrowed Character

There is a certain character who was borrowed, that is to say, stolen from another story. This character, who has already been introduced, is almost as alien in this story's world as if he had come from a different planet entirely. This can happen in a fictional work. Sometimes a character pops up who seemingly doesn't belong. Maybe he has traveled in time. Maybe he has traveled in space. Perhaps he merely got off the bus at the wrong stop.

The borrowed man (and it will be a man, I'm pretty sure), carries a briefcase. In this briefcase he has papers, and those papers are written in a different language, which is to say, a different language than the one you are reading now. If we were to understand those papers, we would have to have a translation. This would make for a metaphysical curiosity, because already this story you are reading has been translated from yet another language. It was not written in the language you are currently reading, I can guarantee you that. I will not tell you the name of the original language, because that would all depend. It's confusing, I know.

The papers in the briefcase refer to the story we are telling. They are notes. They are answers to a quiz. This story is the subject of a class, and the borrowed man's a student. We do not wish to give away too much too soon, and so we will have a conversation with the borrowed man, but we will not tell him anything. He will ask a lot of questions, which we shall dance around. Gracefully, like a swan.

The intruder (I will call him that) may have a pivotal role to play. It might seem odd that a character who does not belong would enter the story and affect it, merely by his presence, and at the same time this intruder is someone who wants to know how it all works out. Of course, as you can see, the ending will depend on the actions of this intruder, so it all becomes a muddle. If he does this, then that. If he does that, then this.

It's possible we may set up security, and bar the character's entry. We might consider building a 700 mile long fence. Unfortunately, we do not know which direction he might be coming from, nor do we know quite how to fence off the future or the past, nor can we prevent someone from leaping off of one page of a book, onto another page of another book. You say that such a thing cannot be done. I say that if it could be done, it still couldn't be prevented.

Introduction to the Loot

Florencio, in the meantime, was wondering what the twins were up to. He'd been watching them for years. They were never on the best of terms, he and they. They never needed anything from him, and he could never get between them. He had tried, over the years, first with one and then the other, to get a thing going on, but they were inseparable. He could barely get a word in to one before the other intervened and cut the conversation short. For their part, never once did Milo or Lola initiate any contact with Florencio. They didn't trust him.

Now they were going around the city (and even to the outlying suburbs) plastering the name 'Macedonia' on walls, spreading leaflets, scraps of paper with the name, scratching out graffiti Macedonias, occasionally next to that a logo (this was relatively new). Florencio knew from his sources just who this Macedonia was alleged to be, and he had heard these activities were part of some strange subtle plot to run her for the President of the Republic.

Ridiculous, of course. For one thing, there were no elections scheduled. It was anybody's guess what year or decade that might happen. The generals-in-charge seemed to like things just the way they were. And then who was this Macedonia? A voice on the radio? When did a voice ever get to be President? It all must be a joke, but Florencio didn't comprehend the notion of activity for its own sake. He was certain there was money to be made, if only he could find the angle.

He was experienced enough to know the twins were up to nothing for themselves. What did they care? They were scroungers, happy to get by with just enough. Their friends were also bottom-dwellers, the useless Esperanza, the invisible Miranda, and the workaholic Edward. Macedonia herself appeared to have few assets. Florencio had checked her out. She was less than nothing in his eyes. A suburbanite whose rent was paid by daddy, a daddy who lived overseas and made payments through the bank. Nothing you could steal.

Inside her house, again, not much. He took a few things here and there, knicknacks, just so she would know. He watched her, had kids watch her, checked with Nameless to see what she would think. He saw what he expected. He was getting good at using Nameless in his own way. He offered her the pick of all he got and she took nothing, only scowled in disapproval. So there must be something else. Florencio was never going to let them get away with it.

Introduction to the Facts

At the tone, the time will be eight forty four, and twenty seconds

People with blue eyes are better able to see in the dark.

At the tone, the time will be eight forty four, and thirty seconds

A person swallows approximately 295 times while eating dinner.

At the tone, the time will be eight forty four, and forty seconds

It takes 17 muscles to smile, 43 to frown.

At the tone, the time will be eight forty four, and fifty seconds

A group of frogs is called an army.

At the tone, the time will be eight forty five, exactly

There are no ants in Iceland, Antarctica, and Greenland.

At the tone, the time will be eight forty five, and ten seconds

Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar were both epileptic.

At the tone, the time will be eight forty five, and twenty seconds

It's illegal in Alabama to wear a fake moustache that causes laughter in church.

At the tone, the time will be eight forty five, and thirty seconds

Rain contains vitamin B12.

At the tone, the time will be eight forty five, and forty seconds

Until President Kennedy was killed, it was not a federal crime to assassinate the President.

At the tone, the time will be eight forty five, and fifty seconds

The flea can jump 350 times its body length, that is like a human jumping the length of a football field.

At the tone, the time will be eight forty six, exactly

One cubic mile of seawater contains about 50 pounds of gold.

The Other Macedonia

Macedonia was not surprised her house was broken into, although she was a little curious about the items that were taken. Who would want her porcelain puppy collection? These were useless, and she didn't even like them. Obviously a stranger then. Of course. Why would any of her friends do such a thing? It had to be that girl, or one of that girl's associates. Her father had always warned her not to be so open. "People want things" he'd say, "they're always after something". Well, her father would know. He had once been fairly prominent in political circles. It was no accident he was living overseas.

She was not an only child, but she was the only member of the family not to flee. She liked it here. She'd travelled over there when she was younger and yes, they had nice buildings, and yes, they had nice art, and yes, they had all sorts of things, but they did not have what she loved the most. She adored her very own civilization. Other people mocked her, they said the bread was bad, they said the wine was bad, they said the beer was bad. They said that all the food was bad, but no, she loved the food, especially all the open air food roasting on the sidewalks, and the chickens turning for hours on their spits, and that dressing on the fruit salad who knows how they make it, and the way the coffee tastes, and the way the coffee smells, and the homegrown cigarettes, she liked them too.

She was basically a snob for all things Monteaudio. She loved the soaps and daytime shows. She loved the way the bus stopped everywhere, even in the middle of the street, if anyone wanted to try and cram in. She loved the afternoon downpour and to watch the fishing boats come in at night. Her older brothers also left. They lived abroad, in various ancient cities. Her mother had long since passed away, victim of a secret crime. Macedonia was not afraid. Her mother had been strong. Although she had been just a child, she remembered what her mother said and kept it as her motto. "Why choose?" her mother liked to say, "when you can have it all".

She had kept a low profile ever since her father's exile. She had seen for herself that somtimes when you reach out, you can get your hand slapped, and when you speak up, someone might be listening. She had always expected to be spied on, but not by missing children! Could the generals be working through them? Did they leave more eavesdropping devices in the house? She was a little worried, but more than anything what bothered her was the story in The Daily Spectre about the scattered notes that had her name on them. Who was putting them in theatres? Who was writing her name on walls, and what were they doing it for? At least so far no one had connected them to her. Thank goodness for the other Macedonia, she thought. They'll probably think it's her.

Posted

Everything changed when Milo put two words together. Up until then, he had just done one - Macedonia. Macedonia in every combination of letter-case and fonts, every color he could think of, every medium as well, from chalk and pen to paint and spray. Suddenly he expanded operations. No one was quite sure why, especially not Lola, who could not explain his actions anymore. Milo had developed a mania for this enterprise far beyond the original game.

MACEDONIA
PRESIDENTA

now appeared on walls and bridges, on posters plastered on poles, on sidewalks, city buses, even scrawled on manikin foreheads in department stores. The Daily Spectre vowed to get to the bottom of the matter. The army became involved. The prank was taking a dangerous turn.

Of course the children knew about it. Everyone who wasn't asked could tell you. The people on the street hear rumors, and many started getting nervous. The generals didn't like that word.

Presidenta.

It begged the question, when? They'd been promising elections for a long time now but had no intention of acting on it. The rich were prospering. The poor were generally quiet. Who could ask for anything more?

They wondered who it was, this Macedonia. Was it the gambler? The horticulturalist? Who else could it be? It was fortunate for our Macedonia that Macedonia was not her real name. Her name was Carmelita.

Now it was all over the front pages of the papers, and the lead story on the TV news. Crews of painters and erasers were sent out to obliterate all traces of the message. The perpetrator, whoever it was, was threatened with charges of Attempting to Impugn the National Character. That was serious, indeed.

Milo was playing crazy. Macedonia Presidenta was going to make his name, if it didn't kill him first.

Inspector Mole

Inspector Stanley Mole found no evidence of a subversive plot. He found no evidence of a non-subversive plot either. He found no evidence of a secret government conspiracy. He found no evidence of a gang of street kids playing a prank. He found no evidence of anything whatsoever because Inspector Stanley Mole was absolutely the wrong man for the job.

It didn't help that he came from forty years in the future, and from another continent where they didn't even speak the language. It didn't help that he didn't know his way around the city, or even how to properly read a map. It didn't help that he couldn't drive in that crazy traffic or that the streetlights sometimes had red on top and green on bottom, and sometimes had green on top and red on bottom, or that sometimes the green was blue, or that sometimes the yellow lights were orange. It was all pretty hopeless.

The buffoon in charge of appointing Mole to the job was the conjurer-in-chief to the general-in-charge, Lieutenant Franco Franchetti. He had a theory that the only thing you needed to do to solve any problem was hire a competent professional from the future. This person would clearly have knowledge of advanced techniques and sophisticated tools to help him. Unfortunately, although Stanley Mole did indeed meet the qualifications, he was a sort of throwback in his own time, an old-fashioned detective who believed in footwork and plodding along mechanically without employing too much mental machinery.

He complained about the hotel. He complained about the water and the food. He didn't like the noise or pollution or all that population out there, doing whatever it was they were up to. They were in the way. There was too much bustle. Where he came from, you could find a parking spot almost any time. If you needed to buy something, you went to the one gigantic store and they not only had it, but they also had it cheap. Here he didn't know where to go. And the cigarettes. What were they, wrapped in toilet paper? There was much he didn't like or understand.

How are you going to find out who's been putting up signs unless somebody catches them in the act and then reports them? Lots of people must have witnessed these adventures, but no one would admit it. At least not anyone that Mole asked. Or if they did, he didn't understand their answers. This was not a case he approved of. Give me a murder, he muttered, especially an obvious one. Most of them are obvious. Someone in the house, family, aquaintance or friend. Then you just apply the pressure and squeeze. But to find this needle in this haystack, no, there's just no way.

Franchetti was disappointed. He couldn't understand why his theory didn't work. He didn't realize that while, in theory, there's no difference between theory in practice, in practice there is.

Introduction for the Short Reader

At this time I feel I must apologize to my short readers. Although several of the characters are short in stature, and some of them do bad things sometimes, this should not be taken as a reflection on their height or other physical characteristics. For the most part, they are children. Those that are not children, are just short, but this is not the reason they do the things they do, or at least it's not the only reason. It's true that some short people feel cheated, that life hasn't exactly lived up to (so to speak) their expectations, that they deserve more, and if it isn't given to them, they will take it, and if someone has the things they want they'll take them too. Not all short people, naturally, but some. Or so I'm told. I'm not helping matters any, am I?

I also wanted to clarify that I don't believe all detectives from the future are ingracious idiots. Certainly some of them will be, but not all. The lieutenant merely made a bad choice. We're not sure exactly how he made that choice, or the whole mechanics of the thing, in the same way we're not certain about the traffic light situation, but we think it must have something to do with buying things online or wholesale or some such messy situation.

It should also be noted that the paler characters in this novel may appear to be less intelligent, but this is also accidental and not a trend or declaration. While the fairer skin may be indicative of a lack of depth this has not been scientifically proven, yet. Nor does a military connection imply deficiency of brainpower. And just because a soldier might have lost his gun while guarding a national institution does not mean that all soldiers are that careless.

The short, pale corporal in question was just sleepy. This is all. He'd been at his post for hours, without enough to eat. The changing of the guard did not occur on time, and he was left to guard an extra shift. He was not to blame for this, or for his lack of stature, or for the fairness of his skin, or for the fact that the detective from the future did not solve the case before it was too late.

The Essential Fanaticism of the World

What if fanaticism really is an essential quality of being human? Some people argue that there is a genetic basis for religion. Others say that man is a "political animal". We divide ourselves into camps of normal and crazy. We talk of "passion", energy and drive. We strive to reach our goals. We give a hundred and ten percent. We can be workaholics. We want to succeed. There is a sense of the fanatic in all of these endeavors.

What if being insane is fundamental to being alive?

The mullah says if you don't follow God's path, you're doomed, but what if you're doomed if you do and doomed if you don't? But this priest, by being a fanatic, may be closer to the essence of humanity than we with our beloved detachment. Darwin noted that pigeons don't perch, or willingly roost, on trees, and all he did to reach this conclusion was to pay attention, to observe. It's something else to believe that the creator of the universe periodically pays visits to nobodies and tells them The Truth with a capital T. There's just no way to test it.

One blade of grass says to another - the way that I'm bending is The Way. Follow me!

We are all that blade of grass, certain of our direction. Each of us convinced that we are right, that we are just, that we know what to do. We are all insane. And, too bad for us, we're blades of grass that can be dangerous, to ourselves and to each other. It would be okay if all we did was bend. It wouldn't matter then if our way was The Way or not. We couldn't force someone to go that Way. But we have tools of power and we use them to inflict our crazed beliefs.

We have the power of persuasion. We have the power of weapons. We have the power of conformity. We have the power of faith. We have the power, most of all, of being fanatical believers of a world we cannot prove. Those who sit in judgment, those who wait, and those who pray are all bit players in this game, and whether we agree to it or not, and whether we participate or not, and whether we even know it or not, somebody somewhere coming right at you changes your world forever.

The Last of Miranda

The last time anyone ever saw Miranda she appeared at The Red carrying an envelope which she entrusted to Esperanza with the instructions not to open it until after the Twentieth of December. Esperanza promised and tucked it away later in her blue box at home. Miranda didn't stay long. She stowed a few apples into her pockets and said she'd been having some trouble but wouldn't say what. She said she'd been cold and couldn't get warm.

The nurses wanted to inspect her but Miranda wouldn't let them. She knew she was supposed to. One of the prices they paid for The Red was a regular checkup but this time she asked for a waiver. The nurses were not allowed to refuse. She lingered a minute, and seemed that she wanted to talk, but when Esperanza engaged her she turned abruptly and left.

Outside she was hesitant also. She had made up her mind to go overseas, but didn't quite know how to do it. She knew it was dangerous however she tried, by boat, by plane, or by foot. In the end she decided to walk, knowing exactly how far it would be. She had heard on the radio the distance. Thousands of miles, over mountains and deserts and jungles and towns. It would take a long time for even the fastest of cheetahs.

Miranda would walk, and would never be seen. She had managed to bend light around her, something scientists could not even accomplish. She had other mysterious talents as well. She could go days without food, without water. She had done this so many times. She could go wihtout shoes in the winter in snow. She could go without clothes, and not be abused. She was filthy, she smelled, she looked mad. No one would ever molest her.

Miranda had secrets but wanted to tell. She had seen things, she knew things, she sensed them. She did not have the words to express it. Her father, he had once been her king. When she saw him go through all the troubles he had, she had wished she could help but could not. She was only a child when they took him away. Her mother had once been her queen. She went crazy, you know. That's what they all said.

So her riches had turned into rags. She had dreams that were golden and glowed. She could sing like a dove and she sang as she flew. Through the night. Through the caves. To the ends of the earth. Miranda had felt the whole world.

Changes

By this time, the characters have changed considerably from when we started out. Esperanza no longer frets about the past she lost and never recovered. She is busy now making preparations for the wedding. To Edward, of course. They've been in love since the very first moment we mentioned her name. He has always treated her gently, and with great respect. In her own way she relies on him. He is the story that makes the most sense of her life.

No one would think that Milo and Lola are twins. He is at least a foot taller than her and only their eyes show any resemblance. His hair is long and curly. Hers is short, almost cropped. Milo is focused on the present and the future. Lola is clinging to the past. She remembers her childhood as a kind of golden age, a time when speech was superfluous and everything flowed. Now she must labor at everything. Where she used to draw freely, now she feels cramped. She cannot think of things to draw. She sits by the phone and waits, which is odd, because no one ever calls.

Milo is all over town. He has jobs. He has fun. He has no time for her. He rushes in late and won't stop for supper. He has other places to go. He speaks in a rush. She doesn't know what or even who he is talking about. He has plans and he searches through boxes for something he wrote down a long time ago. She cannot remember her dreams. She misses him most when he's there.

Esperanza does all the chores. From morning to night she is cooking and cleaning and shopping and dusting and bringing home children for meals. Lola goes through the motions and smiles, even plays, but much of her isn't around. She knows she's unhappy and doesn't know why. Esperanza's the other way round. Edward as always reliable, shows up on time, right when supposed to, tends to his business, thinks of his plans. Someday they will open a shelter for real.

In the meantime, they're busy, absorbed in their lives. I write a few things but they're out there, alive all the time. By the time I've told you a little, they've changed. It's hard to keep track of these things. I picture them home in the evening. There are always some children around. Some friends of Milo's knock on the door and are yelling for him to come out. Lola reaches a new conclusion. Already she's moving along.

Wikipedia Update

It appears that the Wikipedia entry concerning my novel has been updated, presumably by knowledgeable sources:

"Begun in the autumn of 1923, and spanning generations as well as continents, this confused, incoherent mess was left to flounder uncompleted on the internet. Consisting mainly of introductions, pseudo-introductions and short, bewildering asides on characters of uncertain relevance, 'Macedonia' remains best described as 'a method in search of a madness'.

The distinguished British Botanist, Peter Trevelyan, is said to have conceived 'Macedonia' during a bout of yellow fever contracted while traveling by train through the jungles of Paraguay in search of a cure for hiccups. Later, Lady Daphne Verguenza picked up the thread and added some peculiar chapters of her own concerning a vague presidential assassination plot. Macedonia Fabricatta, the legendary Italian horticulturalist and riverboat queen, was somehow interpolated into the true historical events surrounding the unprecedented election of the first female President in the history of the region.

Some time after this, a decidedly European twist forced the novel to flounder in a sequence of dreams which meander through Catalonia, Normandy and the Baltic. These dreams, the fevered offshoot of a popular movie about a ragtag group of lesbian rugby players from the outback who overcame vast obstacles in order to become the first ragtag group of aboriginal lesbian rugby players to be featured in a major film, often involve images of snakes and baths and rainbows. These sections were later removed from the novel.

Finally, the piece comes to rest on the rocky shores of a vague dereferencing of the Iliad, dressed up in the modern garb of abandonment, emergency rooms, day-glo and ingratitude.

Not for the faint of heart, this grueling episode bears all the hallmarks of mid-twentieth century twaddle, including a romance between a clerk and an amnesiac, an incompetent detective from the future, a collection of bus routes, and a map of a lost underworld civilization."

Introduction to the Damage

I would like to point out that no characters have been irreparably harmed in the making of this novel. It is true that some have been ill (but don't worry, Bonita is okay. It was merely a touch of the flu. She's now resting comfortably at home), and others have died, but those were not characters we actually knew and grew fond of. Edward's parents, Miranda's parents, Carmelita's mother, it's true, they did die, but did not have to suffer, not much. They were introduced, sometimes with some fanfare but usually not, and then they were dead.

Some characters were dealt a poor hand. As the author I am solely to blame. I'm not proud of myself, to be sure. I wince for the pain I have caused them, especially the innocent children. I want to take care of them, like Dr Fred did, like Edward and like Esperanza. I want to open a shelter for them. Once they grow up, I feel less sympathetic. I think I know why that should be. Small children are capable of far greater joy, and therefore I think they deserve it. As grownups we make our own misery. Therefore we've only ourselves to blame, and that's true of the characters also. They could have made something more of themselves. That they didn't, in all cases, why is that my fault?

Assuming you have come this far (and not just skipped ahead), I think you should continue to read. We're coming quite close to the end. I am already sad to be leaving this interesting world that I found. The characters could be more developed. I'm sure I have failed them a lot. Some of them deserve better writing. I apologize to them and to you.

The Mystery of Her

Florencio couldn't say why he was so interested in her. Maybe he was just getting more interested in women, generally. He was reaching a certain age after all. A young man's been playing around and wants to get more serious. He begins to question his lifestyle, wonders what he's doing with his life. He begins to get ideas, about himself, about the future, about what he deserves and what he wants. Florencio had a long list of ideas in all those areas.

He was pretty good at stalking. Carmelita was aware of the others, but not of him. Accompanied, now often, by the nameless child, he watched her shop at market, watched her tape her facts at home, watched her reading on the patio, watched her talking on the phone. He developed a sense of where she'd be at any given time. It wasn't easy stalking her. A young man like himself, dark-skinned and unemployed, stood out in neighborhoods like hers. He had to dress up for the job, pretend to various occupations, undergo disguises, all to catch a glimpse of her.

He was not in love with her, or so he told himself. Obsessed, perhaps. The central problem was this Presidenta thing. She acted like it wasn't even happening. How could she not know? Every day the story was in the paper. Every day more signs and notices appeared. Everyone was talking about it. Milo was in hiding but an army had sprung up, it seemed, of copycats and others. All the street kids either did a bit or knew someone who did. It had gotten out of hand. And yet, the woman herself in the middle of the storm seemed like it wasn't there. It was like she was walking through the rain and never getting wet.

Florencio longed to run up to her and ask her, how? How can you go on like this? Don't you know what's going on? Are you stupid or oblivious or callous or indifferent? How can you run for President and just go shopping every day at three, and sleep in late, and read your romance novels? She must have something, he thought, some quality. She was pretty, but too old for him. She must be nearing forty. She was not a beauty like his Lola was. He was not in love with her, and she had nothing that he wanted. It was just the mystery of her.

I have had enough of this, Florencio told himself. Thinking of his Lola he decided he had already wasted enough time on this Macedonia. From now on I will go for Lola, he decided. I will make her mine. She's the one I want. She's the one for me.

Introduction to the Little Girl

Nameless had enough of her as well. She didn't know why she'd gone along with Florencio all that time. She did not even like him. He was selfish. He was vain. He was stupid in a way. He gave her treats and she liked that. He talked to her as if she was a person. Not too many people had done that. She was like his little sister, and like a little sister, she was lost inside his shadow. It served her purposes at first. Not any more.

He noticed that she wasn't there as he began his quest to win the lovely Lola. He thought this would be difficult. He'd never had any luck with her before. She would stay beside her brother, not even look at him, not even talk to him. This time he waited until Milo wasn't around. He was surprised he didn't have to wait too long. He thought of what to say to her, and while he stood there thinking on the sidewalk, she came out the door and came right up to him and asked him if he wanted a coffee. He followed her inside and there he was, sitting at her table, all alone with her, the smooth Florencio at a loss for words. The beautiful Lola smiled. Florencio began another life.

Downtown at a bus stop. Nameless waited. She was not sure where to go. Lots of things were bothering her. She felt jumbled up inside. How can someone who has nothing still go on losing things? she wondered. How can someone who has nothing still have things to lose? The number Fourteen bus arrived, people got off, and people got on, and Nameless stood there waiting. She couldn't take that bus. She didn't have any money. She couldn't take the number Sixteen either. She couldn't take the Twenty-Two. All these buses came and went and Nameless, still there waiting.

The number Seven bus from Abondancia arrived. Nameless stirred. She walked over toward the side door. As people disembarked she counted them and watched, and then the one she had been waiting for came down the steps. Nameless reached into her pocket and pulled out the regulation army service revolver she'd paid for with an apple. She lifted it and pointed. No one noticed. No one stopped her. Just before she fired, Carmelita saw her face and recognized her from her street. "That's the little girl", she thought, and then the bullet hit her.

Arrival

Nothing new to hear the blare of the ambulance if you spend your days inside an emergency room. Nothing new to see somebody rushed in on a stretcher, bleeding, people shouting, the injured person screaming out in pain. Nothing new to see the panic in the family, the nurses and doctors rushing all around. It happened every day, and in their little corner in The Red, the little children played, and the older ones looked after them. So it was an accident that Esperanza happened to look up at just that moment. Usually she wouldn't. Usually she just ignored the fact of where they were.

It was an accident that the medic moved his arm away just enough for Esperanza to see the face of the woman on the stretcher, and fortunate he had wiped away enough blood for her to see exactly who it was, and she screamed "MACEDONIA!!!!" and rushed over to the stretcher, but the medic pushed her out of the way, and they rushed the injured woman into surgery, and locked the doors behind them. Doctor Federico was on call that early monday morning.

Outside the operating room, Esperanza gathered all the kids and called the house. For once Lola got to answer. She'd been waiting there with Florencio, talking about that very thing. Macedonia! Who she was. Word spread. More and more of the children arrived, crowding into the hospital until there was hardly any room. Someone had alerted the police. Not that a woman had been shot downtown. This happens every day. Not that some little beggar was arrested for doing something bad. That happens every day. But dozens and dozens of beggar kids gathering at the hospital, crowding into the emergency room, overflowing onto the street, and all of them crying and shouting MACEDONIA, MACEDONIA, this doesn't happen every day. The reporters from The Daily Spectre came. The army came. Lieutentant Franco Franchetti arrived, and every one made way.

The Scandal

The scandal of the generals attempting to murder the former president's daughter under the cover of this suspicious Macedonia smokescreen, and then trying to blame it on a crazy homeless child, was enough to force them to hold elections within a few months, an election in which the former radio broadcaster, Carmelita 'Macedonia' Entonces, was swept into power under the slogan "Wisdom, Beauty and Power. Why choose when you can have it all?"

Her campaign was run by Edward and Esperanza Hoffman. Florencio and Lola Bermudez organized massive recruitment drives throughout The South. Within days of her election, the government authorized the construction of a brand new homeless childrens' shelter next door to the general hospital. The building was designed by Milo Gans. It was a thing of beauty, You walked in the lobby and all around were paintings and graffiti. The corridor led to a huge green glass door, and when you opened it, you entered a big bright room full of windows and skylights, with tropical plants and trees and vines, populated by colorful birds and lizards. There were fountains and caves in the rocks. There were children laughing and playing. Glass doors of green all around this area led into bedrooms and kitchens and play rooms and theaters where children could come and could stay, and no one was ever turned down, and no one was ever left out, and no one was ever alone.

Miranda's Letter

I thank you Esperanza, but there is no Hope. The Colors on the Flag may change. The Fates of Men will not. I am The Skip-Ahead Reader. I have been to The End and Know how things turn out. Florencio was truly born a Prince but never will be King. Lola is the Pretty One, but her face won't launch a Single Ship. Milo's wily Campaign succeeds, but then he must go Home. Where will Milo go? Where is his Home? Macedonia will wish she never had been Macedonia but All of Us are what we Are and Wish that We were Not. Esperanza You alone have seen Me. Where the Widow went. Where the Refugee will go. From the Ashes of this World to the City of the New. Go Back. ReRead Again. Nameless are the Children you will Never See. Pity them. Help them. Those who cannot Help themselves.

Who have Nothing

Who want Everything.

They are Who we Are.