“Nova! Nova!”

“Ah. See water, lung water, your water, deep water, yes water, sea water.”

“Little Elephant?”

“Water goes from teeth to heart. Sizzles to the penetralia, you have the deepest heart of all hearts. Beware of treason. The moment you tramp on no-man’s land you are exempt from water not sea, the saline blessing sinning against trickster —”

“Stop the sea, won’t you?”

“Of all ages white or Indian, you know nothing about incest. But do you? The vernal God resonates with the invisible river echo. Dusts, dusk, ducks, dubstep no belief, make-belief. Join a fat business. Everywhere you are not needed but not invited. We share a belief of —”

“Little Elephant! Little Elephant!”

“Screaming Nova! Nova! Nova! Nova! Nova! … he’s a bleeder. Who knows that? He sickens. He vomits. It’s inside him. He can’t help neither can we. Blood is mostly made of water when you see water the body reacts out of spontaneity you have nothing against mutual attraction. Do you? We often say —”

“For God’s sake!”

“No water in the zoo. You ought to keep away the snakes.”

Silence. Little Elephant had finished talking. The two speculated as Nova vomited, trickles now instead of torrents. Water melted from the down of his lips into a desert of dust. At last even that ceased, and an apologetic smile hung to Nova’s ears as they lulled in shameful understanding.

“I could not bear it.”

“We thought as well.”

Amidst crowded embarrassment, someone coughed. They smiled, cradling disparate hearts of lead.

“Well…”

“Well…”

“Carry on?”

“Let’s carry on.”

“Good idea.”

“Okay.”

“…with what?”

“Well…”

“Well…”

“What’s in it?”

“What?”

“Your suitcase.”

“Oh. Nothing.”

Little Elephant beamed. A radish glow dimpled her cheeks, and her radish, fluorescent teeth gleamed through lips like radish flesh.

“We should build a fire.”

“Why should we build a fire?”

“We do it every day.”

“We do?”

“Once in a while.”

“Why not build a fire?”

“Why not build a fire? We like light, too.”

“We do?”

“Why the hell not?”

Hell, determined the brooding businessman. It could not be worse than crooked imprisonment. They tramped the floating land, wading invisible waters, waging war against cage bars, rust shredded like water. They turned steel into wood by sucking the life out of it. Soon a spark, then a fire. They cuddled, speculated with grim attention as the solitary eye turned purple and pale with envy, then glided crushing into the horizon like a shooting star. Almost instantaneously the day was dark. The businessman convulsed. Little Elephant had to reassure him it only happened once in a while.

“It comes and goes between a long, long day.”

Almost instantaneously their eyelids dropped like drinking flames. In another second they came crushing into complete darkness, where the fire burned without presence.

Little Elephant awoke to suppressed whispering. She felt it, and knew immediately. The island was plagued. The zoo and all of its extinguished bars trembled, bent under violent spasms that would run like hereditary blood through their magnanimous spine. When she opened her eyes, the world was on fire.

Amidst the flames, battered as a shepherd, the businessman dreamed with empty eyes. The suitcase was open. Through the gape of nothingness a pair of spectacles glared with furious clarity.