“Don’t let him hear you say that.”

“I know, I know. Thought above all.”

“Think of honor as a currency. It is an honor to be invited into this den of thought, the oasis in a desert of ignorance, plastic, non-English speakers, television watching, and emoticons.”

“I’ll try.”

I wrangled my attention and tried to read another page, but it was useless.

What was bright and hot on my brain was Margaret, on the verge of stealing a precious tool from a lover in the Sonoran. I saw horse hooves kicking up dust. And she was not alone: there was a man smoking a pipe in an Ethiopian coffee grove, a beekeeper scraping honey in the future city-state of Hente, a skin diver who had expanded the capacity of her lungs beyond science, all hovering close to the gems.

When the cuckoo clock struck three, the bookseller sat down at the table next to me. His disciples ambled over. One removed the bookseller’s shoes while another grabbed a bottle of apple cider vinegar. The third applied the ACV to a towel and started rubbing the bookseller’s feet. The first then retrieved a bottle of coconut oil. I left without buying the book before they reached the moisturizing stage.

Blithe was on my bed, eating saltwater taffy.

“Hey, so I happened to read on your pad the part in your Arrow-Line where Margaret is going to find the Echometer so she can track the gems and memories and I love it, that gives me the chills, like the part of film previews where the drama and the music come together in a crescendo—”

“Yeah, that’s called the Pinnacle, or, informally, the orgasm. It’s very cis-male-centered.”

Oof, Blithe was starting to enter the “identity consciousness” phase.

“Well, why don’t I help you work on the Arrow-Line and see if we can get the Echometer in there?”

“Pen, all that Catalpa shit is meaningless. It’s like expensive perfume that makes you want to buy things. It’s a complex blend of chemicals that approximates something pleasurable. I can’t. And they must be at least halfway through the season by now.”

I flushed.

“Well, I want to buy the desert and the jewels and the guns and the smoke.”

I went into the backyard, and there was Aiden and Egret sitting side by side, furiously coloring.

Egret wore a crop top and baggy purple cargo pants. I wanted to congratulate her on picking a name that so perfectly suited her tall and graceful form.

They both looked up.

“We’re trying out these new pheromone crayons,” Aiden said.

“And also trying to stop from boning each other right here,” Egret added.

That Sunday evening, with the ice cream truck song looping in the background, I called Margot, a duty like injecting myself with a needle and sending hormones into my bloodstream.

“Hi, Pen, how’s your friend?”

“He’s okay. I’m taking pretty good care of him.”

“That’s good.”

“You know, the Unfuneral is coming up.”