The common is unusually calm--they captured the storm last night, it's sleeping in the stockade, relieved of its duty, pacified, tamed, a pussycat. But not before it tied the flagpole in knots, and not before it alarmed the firemen out of their pants. Now it's really calm, almost too calm, as though anything could happen, and it would be a first. It could be the worst thing that ever happened. All the little rodents are sitting up and counting their nuts. What if nothing ever happened again? Would there be enough to "eke out an existence," as they say? I wish "they" were here now, kicking up a little dust, mussing my hair, taunting me with weird syllogisms. Instead, these are the windless, halcyon days. The lull dispassion is upon us. Serenity has triumphed in its mindless, atrophied way. A school of Stoics walks by, eager, in its phlegmatic way, to observe human degradation, lust and debauchery at close quarters. They are disappointed, but it barely shows on their faces. They are late Stoa, very late. They missed the bus. They should have been here last night. The joint was jumping. But people change, they grow up, they fly around. It's the same old story, but I don't remember it. It's a tale of gore and glory, but we had to leave. It could have turned out differently, and it did. I feel much the same way about the city of Pompeii. A police officer with a poodle cut squirts his gun at me for saying that, and it's still just barely possible that I didn't, and the clock is running out on his sort of behavior. I'm napping in a wigwam as I write this, near Amity Street, which is buried under fifteen feet of ashes and cinders and rocks. Moss and a certain herblike creature are beginning to whisper nearby. I am beside myself, peering down, senselessly, since, for us, in space, there is neither above nor below; and thus the expression "He is being nibbled to death by ducks" shines with such style, such poise, and reserve, a beautiful, puissant form and a lucid thought. To which I reply "It is time we had our teeth examined by a dentist." So said James the Lesser to James the More.
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