Now, then!

Cue AC/DC (as if we all didn't have "Back in Black" running on a continuous loop inside our heads all the time anyway). I'm back!

And now that I am back I've received literally some e-mails asking where I have been and what manner of wondrous things I've been up to. Ready? Here we go.

I danced a surreptitious flamenco on a sun-flamed Barcelona beach. I extracted nineteen lark's tongues but lost the recipe for pie. I learned to carve life-sized effigies of myself and set up tea parties which I then proceeded to karate-kick. I gulped saltwater, choking, and burst through the surface into a sour sheen of spilled diesel.

I dotted yellowed vellum with spots of squid ink by candlelight. The pen came from a Denrovian eagle; the vellum from Basque lambs. The notes I scratched trailed across the page and became a symphony, a dirge, a jumprope chant, seventh-grade doggerel, a libretto, a haunt.

I built a church and prayed to a god who worked, and breathed, but knew not me.

I smacked a pan of water; I shook the roof with my rage; I burned a loaf of bread; I turned wood to fire, then to smoke, then to ash.

I saw cities of men, and empty skies, and the cold glittering stars. Squirrels chattered, jays fussed, the dark gnawing wet things gnashed and shrieked at the sound of wings in the air.

I punched an egg; romanced a wisp of cloud; watched the stars wheel. It turns, it all turns.

And now: I am back.