HOMELESS

Homeless AND hopeful

HOMELESS

by

William W. Wraith

 

 

Bill sliced through blue sky, spotless but for a lone cloud way up high.  The becalmed lake below mirrored for him with perfect clarity the trees and mountains along its shore.  Then among the reflections, he noticed a dark swift form replicating his every move—was that his shadow flitting along carefree as a bird?  He descended, hoping to get a better look at himself, trying to remember.

      Fully in the here and now he recalled nothing of the past—not even his name—harbored no regrets or longings at all; it was as though he'd just been born.  For this moment, he knew only that the fresh breeze on his face was cause enough to take delight in living.  If this serene dream flight were to last forevermore, Bill would have no objections; but then, as moods invariably do, his took a sudden twist.

      For another reflection appeared in the looking-glass lake.  He turned his head to see a beautiful bird now gliding in tandem with him, wingtip not a foot away, gazing at him with luminous eyes.  Their gleam seemed to Bill a gossamer thread gone straight to his heart, filling it anew with desire, compelling him to tag along, finally to land with this anonymous stranger near its nest situated upon a lofty pine bough far back from the shore.

      "Are you pursuing me?" chirped the saffron-breasted, black-capped beauty, eyes smiling.

      "I think it is you who fished me in, and just when I was feeling trouble free, too.  Can't a body have a little private time; must outsiders always interject in others' resplendent dreams?"

      "Well, excuse me.  But don't I know you; isn't your name Bull?"

      Now this did strike a cord of memory.  He looked over his newfound companion, admiring his fancy patch of bachelor button blue feathers extending from nape to wings.  "No, it's Bill.  Now that you bring it up, I'm positive it's Bill.  How ever could I have forgotten?"  Then bizarre frightening memories flooded in behind the name, like pieces of nightmare all dark and jumbled, and his companion, sensing his new mood, twittered.

      "You're not a happy bird, are you Bill?  What's your trouble?"

      "Well, isn't it the way of the world that someone just had to remind me?  As it happens, I am weary of the same old wretched stuff.  Just so tired of life, is what I am.  I'd forgotten about all that there for a minute, until you showed your beak."

      "Oh, you would have remembered it all on your own sooner than later.  Forgetfulness never lasts.  Better to face things head on.  Where's your courage?"

      Bill whistled a little song at that, surprising even himself.  "Courage, what a mighty idea, one I've not the vigor to grapple with," he concluded.

      "You know the great thing about being a bird, Bill, is that you need never land in the same tree twice.  You can make something new of it every time you take off, too.  Me, I'm never bored or sorrowful."

      "Really?  Braggart!  But wait; pigeons, for instance, are always staying in the same place.  I know.  I've watched them a lot.  What boring lives they must lead."

      "Bill, you're no pigeon."

      "Excuse me, but do I look like you?"

      "You don't have a mirror at your place?"

      "I don't even know if I have a place in this world.  I don't think the world wants me."

      "Oh, pity, pity you.  However, to answer your question, I doubt anyone would think you are quite as handsome as I, but in form and color we are very similar, yes indeed.  I have little doubt we are kin.  As to your place in the world…."

      Then, just as Bill thought he was going to find out something useful a huge pileated woodpecker, all black but for white face and neck and brilliant red crest, attached himself to the tree trunk just above the nest and rudely began chiseling away, superseding every other sound in the world.  Frustration rose up in Bill.  He chirped frantically for the intruder to be quiet, to no effect.  Then he felt himself begin to swoon.  The daylight world became ever-shrinking squares of black and white abuzz with a million insect wings, and then what light remained broke into a thousand smashing mirrors.  Aghast, he realized he was losing consciousness, feared at the last instant he would fall from the tree and perish on impact with the forest floor.

 

* * *

 

Tap, tap, tap; tap, tap, tap—unrelenting.  Blink; blink.  Bill for a moment did not fathom the nature of the transformation.  Where was he?  Darkness surrounded him, but for a single shaft of light shining right into his eyes.  A hand came up to shield them, and he heard a muffled voice.

      "Rise and shine, sir."  The flashlight tapped repeatedly on the window.  Bill Finch all at once remembered and moved with difficulty in the cramped space, finally climbing out from the back door of his Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser.

      "Sir, you can't sleep here.  You'll have to move it out."

      "But I was playing in the casino earlier," Bill lied, "and now I'm all tapped out."

      "Sorry, sir, but you appear to be trespassing.  We'll have to notify the police if you don't move right along."

      "OK, OK."  He had to pee like a horse, but as always first things first.  Flout the social order at your peril.  He smiled sheepishly at the pair of security guards —great actor, he—got behind the wheel, and used a good portion of what precious fuel remained in his tank to turn over the big V-8.  He drove slowly out of the garage, coasting where possible, and down a few blocks to another high-rise, one he was sure he'd not been rousted from before.  Along the way, his thoughts raced painfully fast on a kind of fuel money cannot buy.

      The dreams were constant now.  Would he ever experience restful dreamless sleep again?  Half the time when he awakened he for some moments could not tell which was the reality, which the dream.  He knew one thing sure:  He was rarely fearful in his dreams, as he was in this waking existence most people think of as the one true reality.  He'd often heard of a connection between homelessness and mental illness.  He feared both labels fit him now.

      He parked, then crawled in back and tried in vain to resume his restless sleep.  He relaxed and remembered how in adolescence he'd longed for a car.  His mother had asked, "But where would you drive to if you had one, Billy?"  The question had left him speechless.  All he'd known then was that he wanted to be elsewhere, that undiscovered country laid just beyond the horizon and he felt like a dog chained to a thick tree, like a prisoner ball-and-chained to a life he had never asked for and longed to modify.

      Now he was a young adult.  He'd owned the old brown Oldsmobile many years, and yet he still felt a prisoner, except when he dreamed.  The car had not been the answer.  Nor had the marriage, the ownership of property, the dream job.  No, nothing he'd thought would swing wide his cell door had done the trick.  His wife died young, tragically diseased.  Before that, his employer sent his job to another country and with it their health insurance and his dignity.  He'd sold his property to pay the doctors and hospitals—and finally the funeral home.  His parents were retired in far-off Florida.  Retired on the dreaded fixed income they'd slaved for all their lives, frail beings both, so that even those good people he'd depended on throughout his youth were not available to him now, here in this present more barren by far than those early days when bullies had made school life a daily hell.  At least back then, others had acknowledged his existence, however unpleasant their attention.  As had the security guards just now, he admitted with a shrug of dejection.

      Now the car was his home.  It was by pure chance a station wagon; he'd never dreamt the day he bought it that he'd be living out of it years later.  He thought it would be big enough for him, Lisa, and all the children they would have.  Oh, how utterly mistaken can be one's expectations for life.

 

* * *

 

After the year of tragedy wiped him out financially—and more important, emotionally—Bill had emptied his meager bank account and hit the road, just wanting to get away from the scene of all his sorrows.  He'd have preferred to die with Lisa, but his heart insisted on beating no matter how he begged it to stop.  He set out without a destination worth caring about, and no thought for how far his meager purse would carry him.  Finally, of necessity he stopped in Las Vegas, splurged on a last good meal—how many days ago?—only afterwards measuring the extent of his fortune:  five dollars twenty-seven cents.

      Worse than lack of money, his complete disinterest in starting over.  Nothing excited him.  Certainly not flipping burgers, or selling, or buying, or anything to do with commerce or tourism or industry.  His fulltime occupation right now was nurturing his hunger, that dull pain the cosmos seemed to think he deserved.  He bore it with some satisfaction.  Oh, that Lisa could have felt hunger, but her crippled pancreas toward the end had disallowed so basic a desire.  His enjoyment of hunger, in dedication to her loving heart, was his only recompense for losing her.

      As it peeked over the barren hills, he quit the car to savor the sun, its radiance nowadays his only breakfast.  Bill had paid assiduous attention to his famished wallet, since arriving in town spending not a dime, but for that one last supper.

      Now he set out on his established rounds, which cost him nothing.  First he walked to the so-called "world's biggest motel," where he posed as a guest, entering the pool compound, pulling off his shorts, underneath Speedo trunks ready for the cooling waters.  He spent several hours swimming and reading fiction, making believe he was on a healthful extended vacation.

      When finally one too many guests had assailed him with prattle about their gambling follies, he'd dressed and hurried away to the library down the street.  He walked in the door of the breezy air-conditioned building, took a few turns and found himself once more among the stacks.  What providence that the first book that caught his eye was "Bird Watcher's Picture Guide."  He carried it to a reading table, shook off his afternoon drowse, and within minutes happened upon a picture of the bird he'd conversed with last night, perfect right down to its saffron breast and cornflower blue wings.  "Bullfinch," read the caption.  Bill Finch laughed and laughed, until he remembered where he was and shushed himself.  Oh, the strange workings of the unconscious mind!

      With library hours winding to a close, Bill walked out among the lengthening afternoon shadows, made a leisurely pace toward his next destination, a little slot dive called Mr. Sigh's Funhouse.  He was going to drown himself in the gratis champagne, though he did not much look forward to the headache it would surely fetch.  He might get a free meal there too, if he could convince some employee he was a paying guest.  On that, he figured his odds at two to one, for despite his troubled mind he still did have a certain charm with people.  The bubbly was a sure bet, unless they recognized him as a freeloader from previous nights and showed him an early door.

      Not far from the library, a dark robust homeless man sporting a strange black skullcap marched fearlessly up to Bill and said, "Hey, mister, could you spare a dime?"

      "I was thinking of asking you the same, friend," was Bill's instant rejoinder.

      "Oh, I've much more valuable than money to offer my friends.  I'm Tenzen," he said in a most affable manner, bowing and gesturing like a pleased praying mantis.  "And what is the name of my newfound friend?"

      Bill Finch resisted the temptation to roll his eyeballs.  After all, what made him any better than this one?  Bill doubted he would ever have the guts to panhandle, but he doubted even more the sustainability of his present daily grind, and he really hadn't the gumption to apply for steady work.  He might never again get past thoughts of his lost life with Lisa.

      "Let me guess," continued Tenzen.  "You look like a Bull to me."

      A strange accent.  "Well, I was born in May.  Are you an astrologer?"

      "No, no, it's just that you look like a Bull."

      "Well, Bill is my name."

      "Yes, that's right, just as I said."

      "Now how could you guess, eh?"

      "It is just one of those things I do well, Mr. Bill.  I know people."

      And so Tenzen drew Bill into a wide-ranging conversation.  He seemed to blend shrink with swami; his observations were so gallingly right on the money.  Why was this man—who surely could charm a cobra out from its hole—a homeless beggar?

      "Listen, my friend," said Tenzen, "you just keep in mind it isn't healthy to sleep in the same bed twice.  In fact, it is no more possible than to step in the same stream twice.  You know what I mean?"  Bill didn't.  "You mustn't cling so, even to those you have fervently loved."  On this note, Bill decided enough was enough.  For now, for some demented reason, he enjoyed clinging to his sorrow.

      "Look, I really have to go."

      "Then take this with you, friend," said Tenzen, reaching into his saffron pouch.  He brought out an osier box and shoved it into Bill's hands.  It amounted to a miniature wicker basket with a small lid attached by a thin twisted willow rod.  "Look inside, but only seldom.  It is a talisman; for good luck, you understand."

      Bill peered inside, and there was a dark green cricket staring back at him, busily cleaning its antennae.  "But I really don't believe in luck," he said, before realizing he was alone on the street.       Wherever Tenzen was now, he had gotten there mightily fast.

 

* * *

 

The sun was setting in a bloody blaze of glory.  Bill looked his new mascot over once more before entering Mr. Sigh's Funhouse.  "Well, at least you're not homeless, eh, Mr. Cricket."  In seeming affirmation, the cricket shuffled his legs like a dancing boxer awaiting the opening bell.            Good luck, eh?  That beggar Tenzen seemed a formidable charlatan.  Bill had never before come face-to-face with such an oily tongue.  But he couldn't help liking him and besides, who else in recent past had given him a gift—a living being at that.  Not that he could love a cricket.  The very thought of it, and the very idea of "luck"!  He shook his head, and this time his eyes indeed did roll.

      Yet the moment he entered the joint an innocent appearing young woman scurried over to tell him he was this evening's hundredth customer, and she straight away showed him a seat for the free steak and eggs.  It was skimpy fare by today's gluttonous standards—he could still see the plate—but a veritable feast for thin-pursed Bill.  He finished up, and with the single paper napkin wiped the cheap pepper sauce from his lips just as the champagne fountain in the main room, out and around the corner, began to flow.  He could tell the party was on by the sudden squeals from the lowbrow crowd.

      The garishly dressed tourist throng thought it was really something, this gilded monstrosity delivering the white sparkly from its dozen spouts into their little plastic cups.  Management knew from vast experience the sweet liquid would loosen minds and wallets, and tonight it worked even on Bill.  He decided to break a dollar—change for the telephone, he'd convinced himself.  That there was nobody to call he chose to ignore; he spent a moment regretting Tenzen had no number.  Added to his loose twenty-seven cents, this gave him five quarters and two pennies.  As it happened, his quarters turned out to be superfluous, for he found himself smack-dab in front of a piping hot penny slot.  Boldly he dropped his two coins in, pulled the handle and out rained two dozen.  He graduated to a nickel machine when he had ten dollars, and to quarters when he had a hundred.  By then his champagne brain was abuzz, and luck began to seem real.  Why, this was so easy!  He kept touching the osier box in his pocket, making sure it was still there.  He did not want to drop his little friend under a crush of tourist feet.

      Five hours past dinner Bill's wined mind counted out three hundred dollars.  All his!  Was this satisfaction, or what!

      Of a sudden, he realized he'd outgrown Mr. Sigh's, billfold-wise.  So he wandered out into the warm night air and swam like a salmon in the prevailing direction of the sidewalk horde until the next door grew up in front of him.  He followed a boisterous party into the Golden Ducat and plopped down into a chair that felt a hundred pounds to move, that so happened to serve a blackjack table.

      Bill uncrinkled a five-dollar bill and put it on the spot.  "Sorry sir, but its twenty-five minimum."  Bill looked up at the dealer, whose vest reminded him of peacock feathers.  His energy had wined down by now; too much trouble to change tables, and so he felt for his cricket and then, reassured, added a twenty to the five with a nod and a smile.

      Nine hours past dinner Bill sat in a toilet stall counting two thousand dollars out onto his lap.  In the next stall over, he could hear a guy snorting cocaine or nursing a really bad cold.  Two to one the former, he made a mental wager; and even money an employee of this fine establishment.  Working a madhouse like this would drive anyone to drugs.

      He was feeling hungry again and thought to go feasting.  Then it dawned for the first time all night that he'd neglected hours on hours to think of his darling Lisa, and he felt ashamed for this good time.  Here he sat on this golden throne in this Golden Ducat, now looking at and kindly touching his captive cricket and contemplating the meal he could have.  "Why," he said to Mr. Cricket, "I could afford caviar tonight, though I've never desired it even once my whole life long."  But he feared he would stop being hungry for Lisa's sake should he dispel his hunger in any extravagant way, that he would forget her more and more every day, a kind of disregard he could not stomach.  He would rather live the pauper than allow her face to vanish from his mind.

      He was clinging again, clinging hard.  He was sure Tenzen would concur, and admonish him for his weakness.  Such deep reflection, in so wined a mind, caused him to fall into a dream:

      Again he was Bullfinch Bill, this time an especially ravenous bird, standing upon a forest floor carpeted with pine needles.  And there was his Mr. Cricket, looking to Bill much larger and greener now, and positively tantalizing.  He hesitated not a second before jumping on Cricket, holding him with his talons, pecking him apart, relishing him all the way down to his spiky rear legs.  All gone, he realized as his gorging came to an end.  He stood wondering, a little panicky, turning his head this way and that.  Thank heaven no witnesses!

      "Well, now look what you've done!  You must be really fed up."  Bill nearly jumped out of his feathers.  It was his finch acquaintance, perched well above him, sounding a lot like that Tenzen.  "You know that cricket was somebody's wife?"

      "Wife?  Mr. Cricket was a girl?  No, I don't believe you.  You just want to torment me.  Besides, 'wife' is a term applying only to humans.  An awful lot of them would be highly offended to hear you use it regarding a bug."

      "Nonsense.  Anyone, regardless his or her species, who does their part in the cosmos is deserving of respect, whether human or finch or even cricket.  You think she wasn't loved?"  This made Bullfinch Bill ashamed, for he knew his critic was right.  Bill himself might have grown in affection for Cricket, if he'd allowed her to live a day or two longer.

      "So now you have money.  Where will you go?  What will you do?"

      "I would give up the money to remain a bullfinch, free to land in any tree I wish, free to care only for the meal of the moment, to enjoy flying over lake and mountain and valley without concern."

      "Then stay here, won't you?"

      "You are just a denizen of a dream which will dissipate shortly, like light rain, and I will have to face dry dusty lonely life again."

      "Oh, you are just too negative.  And do you think you're qualified to distinguish dream from reality?  Millennia have passed since Chuang Tzu wondered whether he was a butterfly dreaming manhood, or a man dreaming butterflyhood.  How do you presume to tell the difference?"

      "Well, it certainly is true that money cannot buy the only thing I really want.  I want the unattainable; I want my Lisa back.  I don't care about anything less."

      "Then you have come to a dead end.  Perhaps it will be enough to turn you around."

      "What do you mean?  There is no going back."

      "That is sure.  But now you're good and fed up with life."

      "An understatement, friend."  Then Bill inquired, "Are you my Tenzen?"

      "Never mind me.  You must use this revulsion in your mind, take this negative energy and turn it on its head.  You have achieved homelessness the hard way.  Now preserve it, learn to live with it.  Clinging to delusions is pointless and of no value to you."

      At that, a banging commenced on the toilet stall door, to his mighty displeasure rousing Bill Finch, distracting him from an insight he might have found useful.  The porter said, "Hey in there, you OK?"

      "Yes, thanks."

      "We don't allow no sleepin' in here; that snorin' tipped your hand."

      "I'll be done in a minute, thanks."  Bill was angry that the dream was gone.  He was angry with the ghost of Tenzen taking the form of a bird just to rankle him.

      And, worst of all, he felt mighty full around the tummy.  He was afraid to look in his osier box for fear that he had really eaten his lucky cricket.  Egads, what a thought!

      Out to the casino he went, now more sober than he wished.  He came right out of the box betting hundreds at a time, not knowing what he wanted money for, and not thinking at all that he might just lose.  And lose he did, time after time, until from inside the pit he heard a suit saying to a clerk, "Boy, what a pigeon."

      Bill leaped up at this slight, whether it had been directed at him or not, and took the suit to task, wagging his forefinger in his face and barking, "I am not a pigeon, damn you.  A little bird told me so himself."  The rabid tone of voice, the madness in the words, was enough for the suit to call security, and two oversized goons hustled Bill first to the cage to cash out what few chips he retained; then he was out the door before he could say "c**k robin."

 

* * *

 

Just outside the Golden Ducat and Bill could hardly believe his bloodshot eyes.  For here came the sun again, flashing rosy on the glass buildings dotting the all but deserted Las Vegas Strip.  He'd gambled the whole night through, and now another day dawned before his eyes— his eyelids felt like sandpaper rubbing against dirty glass.  He sat on the curb, throbbing head in hands.  Despite having come out slightly ahead, he for a little while felt like the biggest loser in a town full of them.  Gradually it dawned on him what a counterfeit happiness he'd experienced, winning all that money; that nothing it might buy could ever provide him but temporary respite from his heartfelt sorrow.  He wondered that all that winning and losing could circle right back to where he started minus a night's sleep.  What was it all about, this life chock-full of meaningless activity?  Then came a tap on his shoulder, and Bill turned a weary eye.

      "Tenzen!"  There stood the panhandler, all decked out in saffron and bachelor button blue robes, wearing his droll black skullcap, his saffron handbag hung under his right shoulder.  His eyes gleamed like the rising sun.

      "All is not lost, young Bill."

      "What do you mean?"

      "Look in your box."

      Bill pulled the osier box out from his pocket and opened the lid.  There was Mrs. Cricket!  So it had been just a dream!  Cricket stuck out her head and explored Bill's thumb with her antennae.

      "So you thought you'd eaten your pet, eh?" Tenzen smiled broadly and laughed.  "Bullfinches much prefer seeds and fruit buds to anything that crawls."  Saying this, Tenzen stooped a moment and dropped a few micron-sized seed particles on the sidewalk.

      "How can you know my dreams?  Who are you?"

      "I am Anagarika Tenzen," he said with a bow and a flourish in a manner that hinted at some regal lineage.

      "Well, Anagarika Tenzen," Bill stood to face him, "please tell me how you can possibly know my dreams."

      Tenzen did not answer right away, for again he stooped, to greet a cricket from nowhere just arrived at the snack he'd laid.  He gestured to Bill for his talisman, and upon receiving it freed Mrs. Cricket.  "There now, go to your husband like a good girl."  Bill, all pursed lips and deep frown, stood wondering whether these two crickets had really met before.

      "Perhaps I am a great thaumaturgist, or a cunning guru," Tenzen smiled.  "But in all seriousness, it is my job to know as much as possible about my clients."

      "Client?  I never hired you."

      "Not that you'd remember.  But that is another story."  Together the two crickets finished their miniature meal and hopped off down the boulevard.

      "Well, why should you take an interest in me anyway?"

      "Come, walk with me and I'll tell you a little."  They sauntered slowly south down Las Vegas Boulevard, Bill with one eye on the cricket pair keeping pace with them.  "Bill, just imagine if you will all the sorrow this planet's population is suffering this very minute."

      "I can't.  It's beyond any imagining.  Nevertheless, most people seem to handle it.  I, on the other hand, think my sorrow might have sent me over the edge into lunacy."

      "Who's fit to determine normalcy of mind?  I'll tell you this, youngster:  there are infinite degrees of disgust with life.  But to really get over contempt for self or world, most need to get really fed up, for only then are people open to learning the supreme lessons.  Now the time has come when I think you qualify."

      "I think I qualify; I know it, because I'm damned well fed up.  So?"

      "So, when someone is so fed up he can't stand it anymore, perhaps he'll decide its time for a fundamental change.  'Anagarika' is not my first name, but a title I took up once upon a time, when I was as fed up as you are today.  It means 'homeless.'  Homeless as in 'my home is wherever I happen to stand, walk, or repose.'  I am free as a bird, you see, comfortable anywhere and in any company.  I never step in the same stream twice, or land in the same tree."

      "I envy you."

      "Don't envy.  Just rest assured whatever others have accomplished, so can you.  Turn your mind over.  Leave your troubled state behind.  Join with me, if it feels right."

      "To what end?"

      "First tell me, is there anything you'd like to salvage from your vehicle?"

      "Nothing there but mere trappings of a life ended months ago."

      "As I suspected.  Then we will start here, as we must, for 'here' is where we always sojourn; whether you think in terms of minutes or milliseconds matters not.  'Here,' in every moment, is where life begins and ends.  Remember only this, and the power that wishes and regrets hold over you will shrink like the darkness before the light."

      "Just keep walking, then?"

      "On down the path."

      "Anagarika, homeless forevermore?"

      "And be damned any forks in the road!"

 

 

Reviews

[Amber R. Recinos]

"he knew only that the fresh breeze on his face was cause enough to take delight in living"
This line was very powerful to me. If only us a human beings could find happiness in such simplicity. Wonerful line. I love how you describe bill's memories flooding his mind. You use such beautiful words.

I feel so much compassion towards him, and all the things that he is and has been faced with. Great write!!!

Amber

[Aaron M. Anderson]

What a captivating read! The characters were so engaging and believable, and the ever-thickening plot drove me onward towards the optimistic ending. I was very pleased with the crickets' role in the ending... the appearance of the mate was unexpected and refreshing. The dialogue was catchy as well. I do beleive I detected some references to Hamlet's "To Be or Not To Be" soliloquy, no? Fiction at its finest!

[Crazy Cat Man]

This was wonderful to read. thanks for sharing ;)

[The Last Wayward Son]

So there IS power in words, after all. I'm not going to criticize, seeing as you're a bit further up on the ladder than me, but I don't see anything to critique anyway. That said, good job. I did, at first glance, see a children's story, but after seeing the review and re-reading, I stand corrected. Anyway, great piece!

-Alex B

[Gabalicious!]

Hey Bill, I am going to give you a few reviews on this piece. This review will probably contain my initial reactions to you story. I will then reread it and give you a reflection on the story and your message at another time this week. If I coontinue to think that my review is insufficient I may even give you a third.

I really enjoyed this piece. I was actually surprised by the happy ending. I really liked that you developed the use of Anagarika into this piece. While the homeless part is correct, Tenzen is also keeping with the title of the Buddhists, although I'm sure I don't need to tell you that. At least I hope that your intention was holding to the way Anagarika help people deal and grow when faced witha new life. I also liked you quote from Chuang Tzu. Actually it's one of my favorites as I was a product of my dreams as a kid.

I think the story works well. It is adult while still dealing with the dream sequences, that many readers often mistake as childrens writing.although it is set in Las Vegas, it has that whole chinese proverb thing going for it (although tenze sounds Japanese). I like the lesson, although a bit extreme for people who strive for material possesions, it still will teach moderation in finding ones true path even if it is difficult.

All in all this is something I enjoyed reading, and I thank you for sharing it. One thing I would change is that when Bill is woken up in his car you mention he needs to pee like a race horse. Well I never read anything about him relieving himself, and if it isn't important I wouldn't even mention that he needs to.

Thanks again,

Gabe