“-So how about you?, I said: what do you do, if you don't mind my asking; -Not at all, he said: I'm into mitosis;-Aren't we all, I said;-”

“-jeez, these guys, with their on-again, off-again rela­tionships, lutgen said;-Yeah, Dave said: now you see them, now you see them once more;-They're virtual insects!, Jurgen said;-Virtually innumerable, said Dave;-I wonder, though, if we haven't got it wrong, Jurgen said: I mean, I wonder if maybe these guys' natural condition isn't to be lit up-if their ground state isn't actually when they're glowing;-Hm, said Dave: so what they're actually doing is turning off their lights­-Right: momentarily going under;-Flashing darkness­-Projecting their inner voids­-Their repeating, periodic depressions ...-So then, I suppose, we should really call them douse bugs---;.-Exactly...-Or nature's faders---;.-Flying extinguishers­-Buzzing snuffers-!-Or maybe­-Or maybe, despite what it looks like, maybe they really are glowing constantly, Jurgen said: but, through some malign unknown mechanism, their everlasting light is peri­odically swallowed up by un-understood atmospheric forces;-So then they're being occluded­-Rudely occluded­-Denied their God-given right to shine ...-So that, I suppose, would make them-o horror-victims­-Yeah: victims of predatory darkness­-Of uncontrollable flares of night;-So it isn't bioluminescence, but eco-eclipsis­-Exactly: ambient effacement­-Nature's station-identification­-Ongoing lessons in humility ...-In fact, that might explain the nits' efficiency factor, Jurgen Said: you know, these guys burn so cleanly that they produce what's known in the trade as cold light they put together this real slow oxidation reaction within these little cell-structures called photocytes, using a really weird enzyme and substrate that're, like, named for the devil; and the result is virtually 100% efficient: almost no heat is lost at all...-So, in fact, these folks should be our heroes­-Exactly: our role models­-Our ego ideals---;.-Hosts of syndicated talk shows­-Spokes-things for massive advertising campaigns---;.-In fact, children should be forced to leave their families and go be raised by them­-MacArthur winners, all...”

“-So, OK, that's part of it, he said: but for me, the more significant thing is that, every time, the Coyote just comes back: the world somehow allows him another chance; he's always given another shot, as if he had not just killed himself; that's what matters in these films;...You see the puff of dust, but he just comes back with another, identical story, and then it all begins again; and that's why I find these films literally miraculous: they're miracle plays, pathologically repeated, in which all the vio­lence and destruction have very little to do with the central premise- this miraculous capacity for coming back;”

“I mean, Ken has a policy of never taking even a one-granule snort when he's doing a show, and, though he's never said anything, it's assumed he expects the same from us; but there it is, God's terrestrial goodness, in exceedingly admirable quantity, and all of us just start giggling because, well, we just can't believe it... ; and we're all just standing there with our brains salivating, and then Kenny, y'know, while kind of looking down at the ground, Kenny hauls off and says:-Aw, what th' fuck ... ; it's our last week, i'n' it...? and he heads to the table in the corner and sits down;”

“And the man then said Oh, please: Just let me know if you come upon bark textures that recall the erosion patterns of human hope...And then he disappeared behind a tree...and the forest fell into silence...”

“...but what I am not interested in, Ms. Clipboard- or Mr. Canker or Mrs. Murmur or Call-me-Carol, all of you- is your questions; even your pointing and tipping Enoch pencils have six sides, my dear definers: pay heed whereon you pinch!; I am interested, almost exclusively, in being interested, and your reductivist probings are only intended to cordon off wings of my mansion;”

“in fact, while I was sitting there, listening to all the voices painting the quiet living room, the situation reminded me, somewhat, of a movie I once saw; it was called Rashomon, and at the end of it, for some reason, I cried; I remember that I didn't want the movie to end, to resolve itself in any way at all; I wanted the movie just to keep going, to keep coming up with more versions of its story, to keep producing more characters so they could add their takes on the tale; so I was really upset when the film felt the need to come to a conclusion and the lights came up; I remember walking home holding my fist to my mouth, to keep my crying from lathering out;”