“I’ve read Yeats too, my friend.”

“ ‘—while all about it reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.’ How about the shadows of the gypsy moths, Fanta? Shrouds in the trees. They’ll strip us bare. But it won’t matter. We’ve already sold our soul. Feedlots on the ridges, E. coli in the aquifers, spongiform in the brain. And now the goddamn ticks are going to kill us with a new spirochete.” The caller’s labored in-breath whistled. “But… oh, well, at least lawn mowers are on sale and there’s another pancake breakfast. At least we’re racing tractors on the fairgrounds. At least—”

A grinding patch of static cut off the speaker. Unsure what had happened, Fanta used the opportunity to say, “Well, now, I’ve been infected by Lyme disease myself, so—”

“—instead of the truth. You’re a corporate tool now. You work for the forces of destruction—”

“The hell I do. I—”

“You work for Koyaanisqatsi, Incorporated.”

“The goddamn hell I do. You have no idea—”

“—afraid to print my letters. The People’s letters. We the People, Fanta. If things go according to your plan, the People die, and only the rich will make it through the night. Well, let me say this: They had better goddamn hope so. The sun is upon us. Noon is our new midnight. Like the great martyr Thich Quang Duc, I will bring the light.”

Another static hiss and some fumbling.

“Can I talk now?” Fanta asked.

A solid click.

“Hello?” Thich Quang Duc rang a bell. Vietnam in the sixties. The self-immolating monk. “Listen, how about you tell me who you are? You’re the fella that signs off ‘FROM HELL HOLLOW.’ Am I right?”

The second click was the hang-up, he understood, because next came the dial tone.

Fanta stared at his antiquated answering machine. Aha, he realized. I’ve been talking back to a recording. A recording playing to a recording. One cassette tape to another.

The guy had recorded himself reading a letter and played it over the phone into the machine.

Fanta sat back in the old desk chair that after decades had become an extension of his aching, creaking body. He lit a smoke and sucked on his Walker bottle. He put his feet up, his journalist’s brain coming alive.

FROM HELL HOLLOW.

What was the story here?

God, how he loved to ask that question.

Whose story was it?

The lovely subject-object dance. Viewpoint. Where did the storyteller stand? How did the story and its teller connect?