text: It is cold and dark. You are lying in there. You’ve been dead for quite some time. Suddenly, your feet twitch. You weren’t dead, you were only asleep. You get up, walk over to the window, and the city is on fire. The city’s not on fire. The sun is shining, the trees are pristine. It’s the window that’s on fire, and the three birds on it. Your hands are on the windowsill, so you draw these hands back in horror and scream. You wake up. You were dead again, but you just woke up, so obviously, you’re a liar. You look at these hands. See these hands? Do you like these hands? Something about hands. Again, up. You walk into another room. Your mother is at the stove, her back toward you, cooking something delicious. She turns around. She is not your mother. This is not a room. You are not dead. At the window, the city is not on fire, but your glasses are, so you quickly throw them out of the window, and they burn three birds along the way. You go downstairs. Your mother is at the stove, her back toward you, cooking something awful. You look at the table. Your father’s clothes are there, lying about as if they were hurriedly thrown off. “Where’s dad?” She turns around. She is your father. You look back at the table, and the clothes are on fire. You wake up. Liar. You go downstairs. Your mother is at the table, her back toward you, cooking your father. Quickly, you put on your father’s clothes, pick up his newspaper, and pretend nothing has happened. You look up. Your father is at the stove, her back toward you, cooking something about hands. You look at these hands. They are not on fire. You take off your glasses and set them beside your newspaper. Glancing out the window, you notice three birds. One, two, three. They have enormous hands. You look at these hands. Yes, much larger than these hands. You look back at the window. Your mother is on fire. Dad accidentally poured the stove on her. You wake up in the exact same spot, in the exact same scenario. Your father is still on fire. The birds are applauding with their tiny, tiny hands. You look at these hands. No, these are your mother’s hands. You can tell because they are black and charred like your dead, dead mommy. What, are you crying? Little baby, crying because his bitch mother’s dead? Fucking faggot. You wake up in your mother’s clothes, which are still on fire. You withdraw in horror, sobbing on your father’s clothes. The birds shake their gigantic heads slowly, as if to say, “What a fucking faggot.” The room is cold and dark. Your parents are lying there. They’ve been asleep for quite some time. They wake up. You are dead. You wake up. You are not dead. Why must you do this to me. You walk over to the window. Where there was once a city now lies a crystal-clear pool. Three women are swimming in it, all naked and only one particularly attractive. You touch yourself regardless. They see you and laugh, shaking their gigantic hands at you, as if to say, “What a handsome young man, I wish he would fuck us.” You stop touching yourself because you have no hands. You lost them in the fire. The great fire. The long great fire of something something. Something about hands, there was something about hands, I know there was something about hands. In a moment. You wake up, swimming with two other women in a crystal-clear pool. You look down. You are not particularly attractive. You touch yourself regardless. The other women have no hands, but their stumps are warm and feel nice on your tiny, tiny clitoris. The three of you hop out of the water and dry off by hanging in a tree. The other two hung themselves wrong. They are dead. They have been dead for quite some time. They wake up. They close their eyes again. They have been asleep for quite some time. The room is cold and dark, and you are wondering if you should wake them up so that the three of you could go downstairs and do something in the kitchen, where your mother is cooking something delicious. You have been dead for quite some time. You have not been dead for quite some time. If at all you have been dead, it has been no time at all, or at least for so little time that one may say that you are not ever dead, but only occasionally pretend to be so. Something about parents. Oh yes. These hands, they are all over the women, you are tickling and stabbing, they are laughing and moaning. The hands, that is. The hands are women. These hands. Wait a minute, it was always these hands. These hands that wrapped around the doorknob, that lifted the eyelash off of her cheek, that pawed your bodies at the lake. Something about a lake. There was never a lake. There were never any birds. Only giant hands and tiny clitorises flying around. What the hell have you been doing? Are you all right? You wake up. The room is cold and dark. You walk over to the window and see nothing particularly interesting, except for three dead bodies hanging from a tree over a crystal-clear pool. You go downstairs. The police are at the stove, their backs turned toward you, cooking something delicious. They turn around. These hands are not the police. The police at the stove, the ones who just turned around, are, in fact, the police. They are arresting you for the murder of the three dead bodies at the tree. You look out the window. “What tree?” Excuse us, sir, we meant the two dead bodies on the stove. You glance at the newspaper, pretending that everything is all right. You look up. Everything is all right, except for your parents, who are hanging from the tree. They have been dead for quite some time. You turn to your darling wife and child and say, “Fucking faggots.” Hurriedly throwing off your clothes, you run outside to begin the day. You wake up. Welcome back. Obviously, you have been dead for quite some time. Let me show you around. This is what you thought was a kitchen. It is actually a table lamp. This is what you imagined were six women, only one of whom were particularly attractive. It is actually only one lady, but she has 10 enormous hands. She is your darling child. It seems just like yesterday or even a few seconds ago, she was a bouncy, bubbling baby, frothing in your lap, eating all of the furniture, spilling catnip on the cement as the two of you went on your early morning jog to the supermarket. You needed beets. Where on earth are the goddamn beets. You turn to Martha. “Martha, where on earth are the goddamn beets.” She turns around. She is Martha. Oh wait. No. No wait, yes, this is Martha. You totally missed what she was saying. “Could you repeat that, Martha?” She turns around. She is still Martha, and you still have no idea what she is saying. “Excuse me please, Martha, but could you say that again?” She turns around. This time, she is definitely Martha. She turns around. No wait. She is still Martha. Aren’t you forgetting something? “Martha, there seems to be something about these hands, these hands that fondled you on our wedding night and on many nights before that one, and also myself.” She turns around. She is Martha, but she is definitely you. All of this time, you have been constantly turning around and talking to yourself in the mirror. You idiot. You imbecile. You fucking faggot. She turns around. “We bought beets yesterday, don’t you remember?” Ah yes, of course, the beets thing was forever ago. And actually, what you thought was the beets thing was just a rock by your door. Let’s move along. Here is where you’ve been sleeping for the past few months. You glance in. A crystal-clear pool teeming with hands and babies--yet bereft of baby hands--lies before you. The babies have been dead for quite some time. They open their eyes. Did you think that children were innocent? Did you not realize that the mask begins with conception? You fool. You utter imbecile. Something about faggots. Hands. These hands. These hands that slap the faggots. Ah yes, in a past life, you were a professional faggot-slapper. I seem to recall that you set a record for slapping faggots. What was it, like 60 faggots in a day? That’s impressive. I didn’t even know that that many faggots congregated in such close proximity to each other. There were no faggots. What are you hiding? Show me thy hands. You open these hands. A dead bird lies on the open palm. Its foot twitches. Did you think that animals were innocent? You glance up. She turns around. No wait, that’s a mirror. Something about beets. No, we did that already. Are you dead again? You wake up. Clearly not. Hurriedly throwing your clothes back on, you rush out the door, tripping over your darling child along the way. She has been dead for something something something. No time for that. No time for dead babies, even if they are your own. Your sweet darling baby. Dead. And you tripped over her. That’s awful. Seriously, we don’t have time for this. You go downstairs. Your wife is at the table, her dead baby turned toward you, cooking something that smells like a dead baby. Okay, seriously, we don’t have time for this. You go back upstairs. The room is cold and dark. Well, better than dead babies. You lie down and go to sleep. You have been dead for quite some time. What you thought was you dead was actually a second table lamp, set next to the original. We don’t need two table lamps in here. Who did this. Martha, was that you? You fucking idiot. Okay, let’s take this table lamp into the next room. It’s cold and dark in there anyway. You open the door. This isn’t a room. This is a room, you just accidentally thought the opposite. Why does that happen sometimes? Anyway, this isn’t a room, it’s a window. The city is on fire. It has been this entire time. In order to cope with this horrifying sight, you have been constructing this elaborate fantasy to distract yourself from the true reality. Of course not. This is a room, let’s leave the table lamp here and move on. You open the window. Three women with tiny, tiny heads light down on these hands. You’re so excited that you crush them, in your excitement. “Oh sorry, I was too excited.” You open these hands, smeared with blood and excitement. Speaking of blood, where’s that fucking faggot father of yours? You run downstairs. He is at the stove, his back toward you, cooking something something something. You crush him with these gigantic hands. You open these tiny, tiny hands. A little bird is sitting there. It smells delicious. You pour him back onto the stove. More time for that later, but as it is, we have all of these table lamps located in this one room. This is highly impractical. Martha, if I find you, your bitch ass is fired. Let’s keep moving. The room is cold and dark. You have been laying here for quite some time. Not quite dead. Not quite laying. Sort of hovering, at an angle. A little unsettling. Martha, next scene please. You go downstairs. Your table lamp is at the table lamp, its table lamp toward you, table lamping a table lamp. It table lamps around. It is not a table lamp. It is Martha, holding a bunch of table lamps, the fucking faggot. “Get over here, Martha!” She shrieks, dropping table lamps left and right. The room catches fire from all of the exploding table lamps. Tour’s over, I guess. Back to sleep with you. Aren’t you forgetting something? Something something something? Something about these somethings? You look at these somethings. A something lies across them. You something it. You are something. No matter what you are, you are something. You are at least something. Something something hands. Something something these hands. These hands. Oh, these hands! Oh, I had nearly forgotten! I had nearly forgotten about these hands! These wonderful hands, I had nearly forgotten about! Oh, these wonderful these hands! You wake up. You are dead. You are obviously not dead. You walk over to the window. The city is on fire. You have never left this window. You have never woken up. This isn’t a window. Your eyeballs are on fire. Of course not.