I confess I am still upended from my novena week. My writing projects are spread across all my floors. It is a triumphant, perilous time.

The pebble-mill churns out its secret code.

My Boulevard is becoming a desert, lodging itself in a dream of the Seven Cities. I've been dragged to this place, this wicked place, in search of water and gold. The Seamother is no longer the sea, nor is she my mother.

The pebble-mill ceases.

Take a balance beam, a gyroscope, a lodestone, and bind them together in a migraine-inductive whole. My vision bends when I contemplate it all. These dark days. My vision bends until I can see the back of my head, but I know what needs to happen next.

I hear an Ootetsu! O great gentle beast, you are simply you, the way we are all simply you. I cannot learn to love until I have learned to love us all as simply you. These yous, this us, none are anything in common except extant.

Oh heart! You teach me the ways of perpetual motion, and between your glass I finally, finally stop struggling.