On the ground, tocte nuts the man will crack open and offer just like he offers everything he owns, widening his eyes in an expression that says something like now this is yours, period, you’re responsible for it, it’s your problem, whether you eat it or throw it out, it’s yours, it’s up to you. An expression that could also be a warning of what is beginning between us. But he hasn’t yet given me the nut. I first must cross the garden, which is no small feat; it’s immense and there are trees blocking the sun. And I must confront a hairy plant hanging like a hunk of flesh or piece of liver or heart, and a one-eyed stone turtle lying underneath it. With a single eye that generates patience. The other is a dark hole where I imagine water pouring out from. I get close, but that sole eye’s gaze scares me. I follow the path, certain there’s something more in the middle of this wild little forest, and I find in the middle of some bushes, right where I calculate the center of the garden to be, an object that fills me with nostalgia and suddenly unleashes the past and the dead and sealed off childhood in my body. A board like the ones we used to find in the park to practice target shooting, with long machine guns and red pellets. A board with all sorts of objects that are affixed to it, objects that include boxes of gum, lollipops, trading cards, plastic figurines, and in the middle, surrounded by a piece of red cardboard, the big prize, in this case a plastic doll with a pink knit dress and a little hat in the same pink color. When I get close, the sweets are indeed little boxes of Chiclets; they’re the old-fashioned lime and orange Frunas, Jet chocolates, Bon Bon Bum lollipops. The doll also seems to be from another time. It’s possible to return to a dead childhood, to its forms of beauty. I sense the man’s footsteps getting close, but I’ve already picked up the gun next to the board and pointed it at the doll. I miss. My shot hits a little piece of paper located between two boxes of gum that says success is a matter of perseverance. Then I turn to look at the man, who has a nut in his hand, and after cracking it open, he gives it to me as if saying now it’s yours, it’s up to you whether you eat it, you’ll decide what you do with it, you’re responsible for it now. I eat the nut. But the holes it leaves behind give me chills and I chew it feeling like I’m champing at emptiness. Patterns of holes. Little holes. I can’t stand it. And with this thought, or wanting to slow the images terrorizing me, I’m about to ask about the existence of the board or garden, but the man says let me see your underwear.