A dark bedroom like a mausoleum. A nightstand, a darkened lamp, a glass of water. Flickering light from TV. TV plays the theme from Looney Tunes or some such happy music.

On the wall above the bed a large iridescent-on-velvet portrait of Elvis Presley singing or a Polynesian woman with naked breasts or something like that.

Throughout the scene, the atmosphere is hushed and holy.

Dad lies out straight under the covers, propped up on pillows. He wears dark sunglasses.

He’s watching TV: Laugh track. He moves. Laughter. Shifts. Laughter. Puts his face in his hands and weeps. Laughter. Sighs. Laughter.

He raises the remote…hits the channel button repeatedly.

TV: Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country—

—expecting a miracle—

—(Singing:) We’re all existin’ on the same planet

We’re all inhabiting the ball

Ain’t it ironical

That it ain’t conical

Or some of us would surely fall

Your wife put Amy’s head beneath the wheel

And acted out her black psychotic rage

That’s why your second wife left you

And rode off on her wooden steed

And drifted off among the buttercups

And left you here to rot and bleed

DAD hits the remote repeatedly.

TV: Shots of a skiing competition: sunshine, excitement, colors bright against the snow…

Then images of a burned-out shopping mall: water dribbling over charred and melted stuff…

Miss America, and splashing fireworks, and flowers waving in a field…

Then the same shopping center, only now a blazing inferno. People flee in panic. In the foreground is none other than you yourself, Oliver Wendell Homes Cassandra, dressed just as we see you in the flesh right now in your comical pajamas. Your eyes are wide, your mouth wide open. You explode into flames.

Meanwhile, MARIGOLD enters.

She comes in cautiously. Sits on the edge of the bed. For a long time DAD fails to acknowledge.

TV:—twenty-eighth sign, or symptom, is one which family members may not be quick to notice. You take long aimless walks. You drive the less inhabited roads all night, without a destination, listening to voices on the AM radio. When you see long-haul trucks in the distance, so far ahead of you down the road you can’t hear the noise they make, silent trucks floating away from you toward the horizon, you ache unbearably with—
—Survivors of last month’s blaze, the worst in New Jersey history, told stories of mannequins afire and gift-wrapped packages bursting into flames—

DAD: (hitting the mute): Burnt-up gifts. Think what a disappointment that would be.

MARIGOLD: Dad? Can you see me?…It’s me. Marigold.

DAD: Hello, Marigold.

MARIGOLD: Hi.

DAD: Would you be real?

MARIGOLD: Yes, Dad. I’m just on suspension.

DAD:…I’m not sure I comprehend.

MARIGOLD: I mean from work. The Department. You knew about that.

DAD: The Police Department?

MARIGOLD: I’m not in the Police Department, Daddy. I’m in the Department of Agriculture.

DAD: “Agriculture”…Words get destroyed in my mouth. They come out meaningless. I can’t believe how dishonest I’ve become. Words in my mouth are like tiny, whole lives destroyed by a giant.