Orrin Mather’s existence is compromised from the moment of his inglorious conception. His anorexic mother delivers him prematurely. His infant body suffers the agonies of drug withdrawal. He survives, but his mother’s malnutrition and multiple addictions have taken a toll. Orrin will never be able to make and enact plans as easily as others do. He will often be surprised—usually unpleasantly—by the consequences of his actions.

I cannot make him a more perfect human being. That isn’t within my power. All I can give him are words. And by writing these words into the cerebellum of a child, I dissolve myself and make a shadow world real.

He lies sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a rented trailer home. His sister Ariel sits on a plastic chair a few feet away, eating cereal without milk from a chipped bowl, watching television with the sound turned down. Orrin dreams he is walking on a beach, though he has only seen beaches in movies. In his dream he sees something rolling in the surf—a bottle, its green glass faded by years of sunlight and salt water. He picks it up. The bottle is tightly sealed, but it opens, somehow, at his touch

Papers tumble out and unfold themselves in his hand. Orrin hasn’t yet learned to read, but, magically, he can read these words. He reads them all, page after page. What he reads here, he will never forget.

My name is Turk Findley, he reads.

And: My name is Allison Pearl.

And: My name is Isaac Dvali.

*   *   *

My name is Isaac Dvali and

*   *   *

I can’t write this anymore.

*   *   *

My name is Orrin Mather. That’s what my name is.

*   *   *

My name is Orrin Mather, and I work in a greenhouse in Laramie, Wyoming.

In the greenhouse at this nursery where I work, there are paths between the plants and the seedling tables. That’s so you can get from one place to another. Also so you can work on the plants without stepping on them. Those paths all connect with one another. You can go this way or you can go that. It all has the same beginning and the same ending. Though you can only ever stand in one place at once.

I believe I was born with these dreams or memories about Turk Findley and Allison Pearl and Isaac Dvali. They troubled me much when I was younger. They came to me like visions. They blew through me like a wind, as my sister Ariel liked to say.

That’s why I went to Houston on the bus so suddenly. That’s why I wrote down my dreams in my notebooks.