October 9: Tell Me a Story, Exhaustion, Once Upon a Time

"Tell me a story," Montana Wildhack said to Billy Pilgrim in the Tralfamadorian zoo one time.  They were in bed side by side.  They had privacy.  The canopy covered the dome.  Montana was six months pregnant now, big and rosy, lazily demanding small favors from Billy from time to time.  She couldn't send Billy out for ice cream or strawberries, since the atmosphere outside the dome was cyanide, and the nearest strawberries and ice cream were millions of light years away.

 She could send him to the refrigerator, which was decorated with the blank couple on the bicycle built for two--or, as now, she could wheedle, "Tell me a story, Billy boy."

"Dresden was destroyed on the night of February 13, 1945," Billy Pilgrim began.  "We came out of our shelter the next day."  He told Montana about the four guards who, in their astonishment and grief, resembled a barbershop quartet.  He told her about the stockyards with all the fenceposts gone, with roofs and windows gone--told her about seeing little logs lying around.  There were people who had been caught in the fire-storm.  So it goes.

Billy told her what had happened to the buildings that used to form cliffs around the stockyards.  They had collapsed.  Their wood had been consumed, and their stones had crashed down., had tumbled against one another until they locked at last in low and graceful curves.

"It was like the moon," said Billy Pilgrim.

That is an astonishing story, one that Billy hasn't shared with anybody yet, except Montana Wildhack.  He shares it in a moment of intimacy, both of them naked, lying in bed.  Her six months pregnant, petulant with child.  Instead of a fairy tale, a happily-ever-after, Billy tells her about the horrors of Dresden.

So it goes.

I am going to tell you the story of exhaustion.  This past weekend, I celebrated my birthday, led a poetry workshop, corrected papers, wrote a poem, and helped my wife throw a birthday party for my son and his school friends.  Today, I worked a full shift in the medical office, conferenced with students for three hours, and put together a Midterm Exam.  Now, I am blogging.  Soon, I will go home and collapse.

So it goes.

So, once upon a time, there was a saint named Marty.  Marty worked all day and all night for four days straight, closing his eyes only to blink away the sand of sleep.  By the fourth night, Marty was just a shade, sitting in his dark office, ghosted by the light from his laptop screen.

And then Saint Marty slept happily ever after.  The end.

So it goes.