Serial Library passage June 21

I was a big part of the reason people were finding it hard to find things on the beach. People were finding me on the beach. We were gathered together, all of us, on the beach and a small, fresh wave washed in, fresh as snow on the polar ice cap. We could smell the wave, the white cap of the wave, and it was the smell of cold, and the smell of icy vodka, and it was the smell of wanting that brought us here to this place, to this beach, on this day in the history of all days. The people found me standing alone not moving, like a tree doesn’t move, swaying a little maybe as the wind took the molecules from the surface of my skin and spattered them onto the wall of the kingdom of God. But I was rooted, for all intents and purposes, to the sand, and the sand felt happy and good on my bare feet, warm. I felt warm and happy as a clam and the waves crept toward my bare feet and pushed their foamy souls toward my face, my face shining, the white foam bubbling gently in the sun on the sand, like crabs crawling out of the sand and leaving their bubbles in the sand, and then later in the moonlight, after the sun had painted my face and the wind had taken my hair out for a test drive, and now the third wave had arrived and the wind was gone and the dark sat about me like a blanket of windy moonlight.

Serial Library passage June 6

I saw a starfish. I didn’t want to pick it up or anything. But it was nice to see. I’d never seen one except in pictures. They aren’t perfect. Starfish aren’t. Their points are off some. Like, not symmetrical, you know. I thought, If I could fit myself into that thing, that would be the way I feel sometimes; like I’m pointing out in all different directions, none of them symmetrical, none of them even related in any way to the others; and always changing, like I’m flowing into my own points and then bulging out of them and forming other points where the bulges get real big and then those new points bulge and meanwhile other parts of me are disappearing.

Serial Library passage June 6

Everything fell apart, a man said. God glanced down. Shook his head. When was everything ever together? he wondered. He seemed about to cry. It would rain later. People in grey coats, lined up. Standing in puddles. Waiting. What are they waiting for? God thought. He pulled out his handkerchief. Dabbed beneath his eyes. God has no eyes. But he could imagine having eyes. He could imagine this so clearly. He could put his handkerchief beneath his eyes and almost feel them there. There’s so much to be sorry for, God thought. He touched his chin. He could almost feel a chin where his chin would have been if he had ever had a chin. I’d have whiskers, God thought. It made him smile to think like this. I’d shave every morning. I’d have a briefcase.