Katrina wore a ring Kip had given her; a ring that he had found the same day, hidden in the grass; a shimmer of sunlight down in the dirt.

When Kip had let go of his begierd and met the Hanthra, they had gifted him a ring made from the translucent grass. In their dimension, it appeared as it was; in Kip's, it didn't exist.

What Kip let go, the absence of which allowed Kip to fall into an alternate dimension, was what the Hanthra called the begierd; just as Kip called them Hanthra.

He had first met them during the summer of 1975.

He had recently graduated from High School, and, to celebrate, had proposed to his girlfriend of eleven months, Katrina. She had accepted, and he had screamed like a girl into his pillow when he got home.

He didn't tell his parents; he knew what they would say.

More Begins - Part VI. ^

It's not the end.
It's just one tongue.

But; that was a long time ago.

Kip had fallen through the wall. When he woke up, he knew that.

And yet, he was lying in a field.

The grass was knee high, almost translucent, tinted green. Shrubs erupted from odd points, sharing the transparency of the grass. The world looked like glass.

Kip reached a hand out, grabbed a piece of it. It felt like velvet.

The sky was a light purple, with blue clouds flitting back and forth.

And before he knew it, Kip was gently falling asleep, snuggling into the velvet grass, feeling the warmth of the purple sky bear down on his shoulders.

Something nagged at the back of his brain, but he let it go, let everything go, fell.

No one called Kip's father "Nigger" again after he broke a man's nose.

Then again, they'd never seen him, because he'd been fired.

He figured that was a fair trade.

It went on like that for a week; Kip murmuring, equipment beeping, Katrina stirring.

She only woke up once before she died. Her gray eyelids flitted open, and Kip uttered a soft moan when he saw what they were hiding. He knew she was dead the moment he saw how deep her eyes were.

She lazily looked around the room, then looked at Kip.

"Right in the face."

A smile snuck up her lips for a moment before fatigue stole it away.

"Take it easy," she said, and died looking at him.

"Her vitals are strong," the doctor was saying, "but she's given up. We can't force her to fight her way out."

Kip sat down beside the bed.

Beep, said the equipment.

He curled a lock of Katrina's hair around his finger. Nearly black, like a river rock, he'd said, once. That was a long time ago. His hair was gray, now. His eyes were deep, now.

She stirred, but didn't wake.

"Please save her."

The doctor's lips tightened.

"Please."

She walked out of the room.

Kip pulled Katrina's hand to his mouth, kissed her fingers, mouthed around her fingertips,

it's not the end, it's just one tongue, it's such a shame it didn't last so long, it's not the end, it's just one tongue, just one tongue, just one tongue,

beep,

he knelt by the bed, still kissing her hand, murmuring, whimpering.

He wished his hair wasn't so gray, her arms weren't so deep.

The bluebirds finished cleaning the bones.

"Take it easy."

Kip woke up again.

The hospital was dark. Someone coughed around the corner.

He stood up. His clothes were on the table beside the bed. A doctor had come by earlier, and said he was fine, the wound should heal up, press on it if it starts bleeding, take it easy, take it easy, take it easy.

"Take it easy," she'd said.

He pulled on his pants, shirt, shoes. Heard the someone cough again.

Started walking towards the exit, felt dizzy, leaned against the wall. Fell through the wall. Kept falling.

It felt like an eternity before he hit the ground. Kip often felt that he'd never stopped falling, that it was all a dream, nothing was real but the fall.

"Take it easy," she'd said.

His head hit the ground with an exceedingly dull thud.

It's not the end,
it's just one tongue,
it's such a shame
it didn't last so long.

For a long time after that, neither of them spoke.

She kept touching his hands, his arms, sometimes his face. He closed his eyes, and she kept squeezing his fingers, brushing her fingers down his cheeks.

Eyes open, he followed the fingers to Katrina.

"Who did that to you?" He gestured at her arms.

"I... I did."

"Why?"

She faltered. Bit her lip, looked up at the ceiling.

Kip still remembered their second date. She'd been so nervous during the movie that she'd bit clean through that same lip.

"I don't know."

Kip nodded. That made sense.

In some sick way, it made sense.

Katrina's eyes softened.

"Katrina!"

Nothing.

"Katrina!"

A muffled yell from across the house.

Kip grumbled, stood up, shook out his hair, walked down the hall.

"Katrina?"

"What?" It was a grating noise, seesaw, sand in the joints.

"Have you seen my wallet?"

"No."

He walked into the bedroom. Katrina was looking at herself in the mirror. Kip was struck by how thin she was. It was like a bamboo stick had eaten his wife.

"Don't stare at yourself too long. The mirror'll get tired of it."

An awkwardly pregnant silence ensued.

Kip shuffled back down the hall, sat back down in his chair, clicked back on the TV. Falcons were playing the Eagles, today.

"War of the Birds!"

An overly enthusiastic sportscaster was down on the field, gesturing wildly at the teams on either side of the field, a mic stuck in his face, his voice booming across the stadium, the crowd booming back.

"Which Birds' are gonna wind up dead?"

The crowd cheered louder.

A nurse glided by. Kip reckoned it may have even been the same one.

"Excuse me?"

White cap turns.

"What happened?"

The cap turned again, like it hadn't heard, and walked away.

Kip sighed. He leaned back in the bed; stared at the ceiling; counted the bugs in the fluorescent lights, so many dead little husks of things, ugly things, rotten things; wished he was holding Katrina's hand, wished Katrina had never been born, wished he had never met her, wished he was kissing her, wished she wasn't just a dead, ugly, rotting husk of a thing. His eyes brimmed, flooded, tasted salty to the thousands of bacteria thriving on his eyelids, recently migrated from the scratchy sheets, alive and well, alive and well, alive and well.

Something shattered on the floor down the hall. He stirred, heard nothing, wiped his face, fell asleep.

The second time he woke up, he was alone.

Katrina had been dead for four years; yet, he expected her to be there. The rough blankets still covered his feet, a sharp something still poked his head; but no Katrina.

He smiled, frowned. His head was bleeding.

"There's no way I'll live that long."

"Why not? Sad people live a long time, when they want to, seems like."

"What?"

The moon started sinking, unnoticed.

"Do you ever feel invisible?" Kip asked.

"No. I can always see myself. How could I be invisible?" The corners of her mouth danced upward. Lips met, once, twice, parted, three times.

"Do you think up these answers beforehand?"

"Do you think up these questions beforehand?"

Nervous giggle.

"You know what your last words will be?"

"I don't. And neither do you, chick."

"Yes, I do."

Pause, cue lips, once, twice, pause, nervous giggle.

"Your last words'll be, 'Am I invisible, yet?'"

Something rustled beyond the fence. A family of rabbits had bedded down peacefully for the night. They'd been found by something, and so they rustled.

"And the answer'll be, 'No.'"

He found that hard to believe, but then he smelled the grass, the breeze, the skin; felt the touch, the lips, the leaves; heard the rustling, the breathing, the soft disconnection; saw the bulb, saw the dirt, saw the spaces in between the atoms; tasted her, only her, forever her; forgot.

Kip Pilgrim never remembered what she'd said until the day he turned 106.

The moon was low in the sky, a big, white bulb; flowers would sprout from it, if it would just plant itself in the stars.

But it stayed above stars, below stars, in front of stars. It was the greatest star.

A gentle hand brushed Kip's face. Falling leaves from the tree above them glanced off his arm, one landed in her hair; picked it out, kissed her, lay back against the trunk; felt the bark against his back, felt the hand brush his face, felt the wind pull at this shirt; smelled the cut grass from beyond the neighbor's fence, smelled her skin, inches away, smelled her sweet skin, millimeters away, touching him.

Katrina stared him right in the face.

"Right in the face, Kip," she'd say whenever she wanted his attention. She already had his attention.

"You've got the saddest eyebrows I have ever seen," she said. She raised her own. "You'll live to be 106 years old. You know that?"

The saddest eyebrows met, frowned in earnest confusion.

"And you weird me out more than anyone I've ever seen," he said.

"That's a silly thing to say. Do you see me weirding you out?"

Met again. "I guess not."

Her hair brushed against his shoulder. He could smell it, carried on the breeze with the grass clippings. It mixed pleasantly. He sighed.

At one point, all the hope had drained out of his eyes.

It was like watching a bird die.

At least, Katrina felt that way.

She'd driven home from work, alone. On the way, she ran over a bird; one of those that look the same as all the others, brown, white, something, can't remember; one of those that never ranks high in the birdwatcher's book; one of those that's never thought important.

As the brakes pinched and the car slid to a stop and Katrina bolted from the car and the sky was blue; why, that bird had never been more important in his life.

There was nothing she could do. It twitched.

There was no blood. It was like a crumpled piece of newspaper. A sick, sad, crumpled piece of newspaper.

She thought about trying to unfold him, but tasted bile at the thought. A bird's bones are hollow. It would be like bending broken straws.

So she watched it die. It didn't take long. The twitching stopped, it relaxed, looked more like a dead bird, less like newspaper.

She got in the car, drove home, opened her veins, for the bird, for Kip.

He felt before he saw.

Something smooth brushed his lips, something rough covered his feet, something sharp poked his head.

And kept poking.

He opened his eyes.

The smooth was Katrina, eyes wet, squeezed.

The rough was the blanket. It smelled like cheap lotion.

The sharp was a wound under a bandage on his head.

Fell, hit it on a mule, a pool, something, somewhere. Katrina looked very pretty. Her face was flushed, almost flustered, almost blushed. She'd received a blood transfusion. Kip figured it was the light, though he'd never seen anyone so pretty in fluorescent.

She sure is pretty.

A nurse glided by.

"Hi."

Dry lips cracked open. "Hi."

"Thanks."

Dry lips cracked smile. "Yeah."

"I love you."

Dry lips cracked shut for an unnoticed moment. Eyes flicked to arms, to hands, to arms, to eyes.

Do I?

"Love you."

When Kip came to, he was in a bed with scratchy sheets.

Both times.

This wasn't the first time around. They'd been together twice before the long one. The current one.

Both times, Kip had unceremoniously ended the relationship. The first time, he'd been honest, and they didn't speak to each other for months. The second time, Katrina called him first. He didn't believe her when she said she was sorry, but he was so happy to hear her voice again, so happy to imagine her, in her room, on the phone again, that he let go what suspicions he had.

Test trial number two lasted a short week; then he lied, and broke it off more abruptly than even he thought he could.

His heart was entirely intact, which surprised him.

The third time was a mistake. A dreadful, strange, exotic mistake.

Kip blamed Mexican food. Katrina blamed Prozac.

Kip had never fainted at the sight of blood before.

And yet, when Katrina's veins lay open before him, it was all he could do to keep from swooning long enough to quickly drag her into the bathroom and wrap her arms in towels.

He hit her head on the toilet as he was pulling her in. A dark bump started to grow on her smooth forehead.

He finished wrapping her up, and ran into the kitchen. After desperately grabbing the phone from the wall and ejecting a short sentence or two, he fainted, lights out before he hit the cedar floor.

"We're going to have to ask you to leave, now."

"Erm," Kip said.

Mount Rushmore looked at him distastefully. His throat constricted more, and his strangled erm just became a strangle.

His head hit the floor with an exceedingly dull thud. The bluebirds finished cleaning the bones.

"Mr. Pilgrim, your request is formally denied."

At that very moment, something in Kip's brain broke. The tiny little hammer he'd been using to hit the black woman's eyes exploded into fourteen hundred bluebirds, and they grabbed bits of him in their sharp mouths, tearing, ripping, peeling back layer after layer.

It was natural that the bluebirds wanted to eat Kip alive. He'd done nothing to save them. It felt like they were swarming down his throat, but he wasn't quite sure. They'd pecked out his eyes, by then, and his body felt like it was on fire. The choking sensation was practically a relief.

"What's the matter, Iris?" Kip's father asked.

She grumbled: "I'm depressed."

"Why?"

"I'm fat. And lazy."

"Oh."

"You do realize your proposition is ridiculous."

Kip's eyes lazily shut, opened. "I... I don't think so."

"But you want to eradicate glaciers."

"Yes."

"You don't find that ridiculous?"

"No. Do you?"

"I just said..."

The black woman's eyes bulged dangerously, like ripe, angry little grapes. Kip saw a little table, saw the ripe, angry little grapes on the table, saw a heavy little hammer smash and smush them. The white goo tasted like cranberries.

Kip thought that was odd.

"Look," he started, "glaciers are evil. You don't know them like I do. Have you ever even seen one?"

The bulge increased. "I... no."

"Don't you wonder what's underneath?"

"No."

"I think that is ridiculous."

An exasperated groan escaped the mulatto lips, and the grapes grew precariously larger. They're just about to pop, thought Kip. He'd been attacking them with his little hammer for just over a minute, now.

Kip sat himself down in an uncomfortable chair at the end of what he felt was a pompously long table; the type that was setup so as to mimic the feeling of being in the nosebleed section.

Seated at the other end of the table, approximately seven kilometers away, were four people, stacked so closely together they resembled Mount Rushmore, save for the fact that one of them was a black woman. She stuck out like a sore thumb. Or rather, like a thumb sore from being struck multiple times with a hammer.

Kip thought about what it would be like to hit her in the face with a hammer.

He smiled again. Somewhere off in Space, his mother nodded approvingly.

Kip's father got a lot of guff for smoking KOOL cigarettes.

The men at his office called him "Nigger."

He laughed every time.

Kip's first wife, Katrina, was afflicted with multiple disorders; one being the scourge of over-glamorous women everywhere, the rest pertaining to the way she preferred cereal boxes and silverware be arranged, especially in others' homes.

They had met in high school, the day after Kip's mother received a terrible burn on the left side of her face in a horrific accident involving the stove, a small dog, and a Dutch apple pie. Her students took to calling her Red, which was short for Red Clam Chowder, which looked a great deal like her face.

Kip never officially asked Katrina out on a date. It, more or less, just happened. When Kip considered the fact for the first time a month after they were wed, he certainly considered it odd - very queer indeed, his exact thoughts being - and mused as to whether the occurrence should make him feel powerful or powerless. Kip was somewhat obsessed with thoughts about power. Not necessarily the thing itself, but the thoughts were addictive, like the KOOL cigarettes his father smoked.

After taking to mind the fact that he hadn't convinced Katrina to eat a light Caesar salad for dinner, he decided on powerless.

One of the doors that led into the freezer opened quickly, and a secretary shot Kip a colder-than-appropriate glare as he pulled his hands out of his pants.

"The board is ready for you," she said. After waiting a few seconds, added, "Mr. Pilgrim."

"Um," he said.

On a bright Monday morning in 1974, Kip Pilgrim was 17 years old, and was making his breakfast. His mother was telling him that he needed to smile more. In his big head, Kip was politely responding that she needed to diet more. Losing a couple hundred pounds would be beneficial to your health, he thought. As it were.

Mrs. Pilgrim was a schoolteacher. She had once found a garish cartoon depicting several stickmen holding harpoons, shouting, "Call Captain Ahab! Let's go PILGRIM HUNTING!"

Remember that, Kip smiled. His mother nodded approvingly.

It begins. Part VII. ^

Kip had always been severely opposed to destructive things. He was very well known for his articles on the subject, most of them decrying the injustices of the Great Gun, War, though some, including his most recent, focused around the lesser derringer of environmental protection. In fact, he alone had convinced the Mayor of Snellville not to cut down the oak trees on the sides of Main Street through an ingenious maneuver that involved the application of hefty amounts of sheep offal to the stumps in front of City Hall. Granted, he had spent the night in jail, wherein he had an unpleasant experience with soap, but that was the price of preservation, and he bore it with the staid determination inherent of peaceful warriors like himself.

But as he sat in an overmuch air-conditioned office, gingerly tucking his fingertips beneath the elastic waistband of his undershorts in an attempt to ward off the more negative effects of frostnip, he couldn't help but wonder if perhaps - just perhaps - Kip Pilgrim had taken it just a titch too far.

But; that was a long time ago.