Just waking up and emerging out of the subconscious,

the unconscious, the primordial consciousness –

home of the primal scream…(in fact I think I hear

screams) out of the the collective unconscious,

whatever you like to call it.

The phrase I like:

TIME WAS ALL AT ONCE AND FOREVER

In the dream time that has no time.

It seems to me I really did hear

screams in the night. This usually means

just one thing… Matilda is whipping the preacher

again. And boy does he need it!

He needs a cleansing from the

bottom of his heels to the top of his head.

It’a good to scream and howl a bit before

confession. And just like in church,

the preacher confesses on his knees…

with Matilda standing above him, wearing black leather

and boots, and carrying a whip. This gives

the preacher a sense of direction.

Whoops!

Ah well, this stuff isn’t going into

the newspaper… I hope.

Hank has adjusted quite well

to ‘WAIT-A-BIT!’; it’s not like

he had a choice.

He went through several breakdowns

that first winter. Now he helps edit

THE RAVEN SCREED, no, I mean

THE RAVIN’ TIMES. He even writes some of

the stories… and weird stuff it is, too!

Thank God he’s not normal. He’s

not even nearly normal. Of course,

nobody comes from a normal family

and that’s a fact. Normal families do not

exist in Canadian society.What’s normal

for humanity is abnormality.

And that’s not a bad thing.

Abnormality means variety. And without

a wild stream of variety, the creating

universe would be dull. And the world

around us is anything but dull (life’s

rich pageant)…if you look closely,

that is.

THE CLOSER YOU LOOK, THE STRANGER

IT GETS!

This should be a law of Quantum Physics,

except:

THERE ARE NO LAWS OF QUANTUM PHYSICS!

Not that any man can write.

It’s 5:52 A.M. in Brussels. That’s the only

part of my watch I can make out in the dark.

God only knows what time it is here. Not that

it matters. Time has only a fluid, tenuous

grasp on reality up here in these parts.

Reality is something else again,

and it appears to be timeless.

Yeh, what I was trying to say is

that the screams have died down

considerably. The preacher will feel far

better in the morning.

Matilda interprets the duties

of a mayor far differently than I did.

But everybody’s agreeable and Matilda’s

getting rich. She has a unique way

of collecting taxes.

Also, she’s one of the major contributors

to the Town Annual Liquor Fund – – the TALF –

which is very generous of her. In the middle

of nowhere… where else is she going to

spend her money?

We have a system that works! Others

might think it’s immoral, disgusting or

deranged.

But others don’t have a vote up

here. We have nineteen registered

voters. And maybe another ten folks

that don’t vote, because they’re hiding.

They built a dandy bomb shelter

and they’re not coming out…

Until it’s safe to do so.

I wonder what the Mad Poet of Rat

River does when he visits, and Matilda

is performing her duties as mayor.