The ocean, the land, the bridge. These are the metaphors of my life. I stand on sinking ground, toes curled against the tension of the the surf and sand, the give and take, the conquest and retreat. Submerge into eternity or hold my ground a while longer?

There is, of course, the bridge. The mediator. It arches over the rivals, dipping into one, clutching the hands of the other. It's base is mossy, cool, a fuzzed pillar for fish to dart around. It's back is hot, sunbaked.

The bridge is the holder of peace. It is the symbol of one....

Spinning. Thirteen years old and with my friends in some suburban backyard, spinning. Looking up at the nightime stars and spinning. Spinning until a single star became the axis around which the universe revolved. Spinning until everything made momentary sense and then dissolved away in fits of giggles and pratfalls on the grass.

Spinning, the car catching my rear bumper and turning me in a full circle so that the city became a blur.

Spinning in the pool, three somersaults in a row is what turned the pool into the ocean filled with the giant squid and the great white...

Shape, function, ability, beauty, perfection. I wanted it all.

It started when I had a freak SCUBA diving accident that left me partially deaf in both ears. I'd gone and gotten the implants that made me hear again. But the surgery was such a success, the technology so advanced, that now I could hear better than ever. I heard couples squabbling politely over their meals from across crowded restaurants. I heard babies crying from four blocks away.

Next, I lost my vision in a freak astronomy accident and had full eye replacement surgery. Now I could see the seat number...

The city was empty. The day had swept by on the brush of a filthy broom, skittering over the edge of the world. We were happy.

But we'd always secretly reveled in disaster situations. When the status-quo was torn asunder, that's when we came alive. It was the status quo that we couldn't deal with.

The last bits of ash were falling out of the sky. The TV said that this might be the end of it. But they also said it might not. Storm clouds at night make the world all that much darker. So we lit our candles,...

When the father arrived home to his squalid, Lower East Side tenement building, he was exhausted. He paused at the door to pose for a Jacob Riis photo, and then trudged though the entryway. The grit of coal from the furnace in the oil refinery still covered his face. This, despite the fact that we worked on the docks hauling fish. His apartment was in the rear of the building: a cramped, filthy space overlooking a pile of rubbish that the realtor had described as a “quaint fixer-upper with a partial city view.” He approached the door, removed a rat...

I was reading a great book when the words turned to sand. A hole opened up on the page and the words drained through, and I, engrossed in the plot, followed them.

When I awoke everything was different. But just slightly so. My alarm clock's red letters were blue. My green-striped sheets were now blue striped. The knobs on my dresser had turned from square to oval. My fat tabby cat was a calico.

The stuff was all there, it was just the details were mixed up. It was like a sketch artist had recreated my room based on a...

Its iron heart broke in two each time it welcomed a visitor. Ironic.

Its sign was officious but it's symbolism romantic. Just like any heart, it was forged by mixed signals.

"Enter me. Break my heart in two. Leave. Break my heart again. I am only whole when I have nothing or everything."

"But once you get inside, if you have ignored my words and pulled open my heavy gates, you will still be facing a brick wall. And you may feel a moment of blank indifference that reaches inside of you and takes your hope. But before you turn...

I came upon the stone after walking my whole life. When I reached it, I was surprised at how big it was. I looked up at this giant head of stone and it looked down at me and spoke.

"Why did you come here." the stone asked.

"To change you."

The stone laughed at me. "I have been here since you've known how to know. The earth has fallen away and yet I rise up. I am fundamental. How is it that you intend to change me."

I held up my hand. In my hand was a piece of sandpaper....

"Peasants," he thought, and stuck his pitchfork into a square of hay.

"What do they know about building a good, angry mob?"

He hoisted the bale onto a workbench and began teasing handfuls of straw out, putting them in neat piles.

He came from a family of mob organizers and leaders. Three generations of good, strong men who knew how to lead a group of frothing townsfolk up mountain passes, across fields and to the front gates of witches, evil doctors and foreign-born ne'r do-wells.

The secret to a good mob was in staying organized. Make sure everybody's got something...

The disco ball was turning. That was the first indication that something was wrong. That disco ball hadn't moved since 1982, when his brother put it up in his parent's attic to make room for his Tattoo You poster. The disco ball had hung for 30 years from a four-by-four, good solid wood. ("That wood ain't going anywhere, his dad once told him. That's old country wood, original American oak. Before all this," and let a wave of his hand tell the rest.)

He was up there in the attic when the disco ball turned, revealing it's multi-faced mirrored squares,...