To exist in a system of binaries is entrapment. Always either one or another. Why can't it be neither. And then it isn't. And there she is again, that woman in a black Mercedes with the blonde hair - I see her everywhere now - in the parking lot of the Arclight smoking a cigarette, standing outside M Cafe, driving at the intersection of La Brea and Melrose. She has appeared and reappeared so many times now that I have come to expect it. Tell me something, I say to a bus parked on the side of the road. Anything, I tell the traffic light. Or just do this, I say to a lone bird pecking at something on the sidewalk outside of LA Mill, I'll ask for something and you make it appear. What says the bird. Something material? A person? No. I say. A sign, silly. If there is really no space between you and me, if we are both just one, then it is like asking my own hand for something. It is like asking myself. So I will tell you what I believe and you confirm it. Or don't I tell the tree. Don't confirm it, I say because it isn't about belief and unbelief. It isn't about you or me. It isn't about the spaces that exist between us. It isn't about the day to day, our sufferings, minor or major. Or even our euphoria. Because it goes it's own way, doesn't it? Ask says the bird, or don't. You are here for something, aren't you? asks the tree. Yes. I say. No. I don't know. I've never known and never will. I wanted confirmation. Certainty. I look into the wary face of the bird. You should have known better. YOU of all people should have known better, he says. I know, I sigh. We always know. It's like Salman Rushdie marrying Padma Lakshmi. Or Arthur Miller marrying Marilyn Monroe. Or...This isn't about people marrying other people says the tree. No, I say, it is about knowing the trajectory of a narrative. You and your trajectory says the traffic light. I love the idea of a trajectory, I say. So do I, says the bird. No, not that kind. I say. We know, they sigh. Your trajectories are different. So tell us, they say. Tell us what you came here to tell us. Ask us what you want to know. Our answers are timeless. And truer than the ones blurred by the limits of your ephemeral subjectivity. Not yet, I say...first I have to sit on this curb. First I have to watch a bad movie with Hillary Swank that just happens to be on TV. First I must wait for thirteen full moons and four whole seasons. And then I can say this: I was lucky in this life. I received many things and people called it karma. This I believed. Do you know how this feels, I ask the bird. No, but I understand other languages, he says and pecks at the pavement. Tell us more, says the pavement. I am obsessed with what I don't understand and I spend every minute trying to understand the dimensions I don't. But my efforts feel paltry. I can learn all I want, but it's no good. It feels like when I went through all the SRA cards in the second grade within the first month and then there was nothing to do. This must have made you feel smart, says the tree. No, I remember. It just made me sad, I tell the bird. I am aware of the limitations of my own mind so acutely that sometimes I cry. I am afraid that none of the answers this world is able to provide will ever be enough. I don't do that says the bird. Nor do I says the cat watching the bird. We do other things, says the cat. We live, we survive. We feel affection for our young. We feed, and we don't see time the way you do. We see the seasons. We feel the cold. We don't choose as many things as you do either, says the traffic light. We don't think, hmmm...sushi for lunch today, or shall I clean my desk drawer, or I like this new pair of shoes or I am getting fat, I need to go for a run, or shall I hike or do yoga. That must be nice, I think. We can hear you, they say. Tell us about your choices, asks the bird. I live in California I say. Why do you? they ask. Because it is warm. Because I am driven by nostalgia, the past. We remember the past, says the pavement, but we don't feel attached to it like that. No, says the bird. How can you feel affection for a time? it gets worse, I say. Sometimes I feel affection for a time that doesn't even exist. How do you do that? says the traffic light. I don't know, I say. I just do. When I am not thinking, I am dreaming and my dreams tell me things. They told me to stay. They told me who I would meet. They told me what I would feel. And they warned me of things that would occur. Do you know what will happen tomorrow? asks the tree. No. Do you? I say. Yes, but I am not driven by expectation or conditioned by disappointment like you are. What are you here to learn asks the woman in the Mercedes. Oh, you. I thought you'd never ask. I suppose I am here to learn to love. No, scratch that. That is the kind of thing Christian rock singers say. But perhaps they are right. I am not an angry person, though sometimes I have a temper. Mostly I am confused. Mostly I am piecing things together at my own pace, and don't like to be rushed. So this is about someone trying to rush you through life says the bird. Maybe. I think. Maybe I say. but it is all over now. Now I am in a different place, different than where I was before or the many times before even that before. I feel adrift. And you are the only things that anchor me. Us? asks the tree. Me? says the bird. Really asks the skeptical woman in the Mercedes as she checks messages on her cell phone. I don't know what anchors me now. All I know is I am not connected to the people I once knew. Not in the same way. All I know is, I am my own person and maybe that means I am connected to everything. In a way that I never before understood. Neptune, says the tree. You are dreaming. Neptune is illusions, I say. And maybe I have those, or had those once. But no. This isn't about dreams. I am not Pandora anymore, am I, I ask. You remember that, says the cat laughing. Of course I do. I wrote it three years ago. That I am Pandora. I wrote it because of the dream with no ending. I knew I would open the box, and I knew what I would find. You should have kept that box closed says the woman in the Mercedes. Why? I ask. Because of what you found! They yell. I found myself, I say. Are you sure? They all ask. And we all hold our breath.