Sweet Airedale fumbled gamely and mumbled mainly touching his toes diligently. Diligentibus, leaving open the question of heorshe, toforofby I am interested it concerns me specially.

O pulchrae! O pulchri!

O honey-Latin dulcet ones, Vergil tilts his head to one side, marveling at the Greek. In the wings his Italian acolyte waits impatient, to tour the dead the dead the dead.

No need, Alighieri, the dead the dead the dead whisper hiss susurrate their peculiar preoccupation with my failures continually. Take a tour of my skull, sir. I think there are popes here.

Mother Mary cradles her son, and what good is a thing done decently and in good order? Yet the bread is the same, the wine is the same, the air and fire reach down on lightning fingers though no one knows for sure what path they take. That flash frightens the dead the dead the dead for five seconds of perfect sky. Their bones rattle and fade.

Who can discern this?

The footfalls of the elephants, that sound, disrupts the silence. Their hides are painted with bees. They fill the lawn with the smell of their dusty backs, they knock over the gnome and dance solemnly amongst the tall grass. Everyone watches from the safety of the long portico. Where are the prophet and the Marigold Woman? Does anyone know? I’m sorry, sir, they’re still out. Would you care to leave a message? Yes, I would. Withoureyesturnedinward howcanweseeGod? At the tone, sir.

This is the last dance, but the dead the dead the dead are intent on spoiling it. Their hissing disturbs the elephants. If someone–someone who is now sitting in the window-seat wrapped in a blanket–could walk onto the lawn and call halt, perhaps the elephants would discharge their duties and return to Carthage for the last time. But the window-seat and Carthage are both a million miles away, out with the stars but unable to sing with them, wheeling interminable cycles in the cold and the silence. Earth looks very small from here.

The elephants try to keep dancing, the bees on their sides wrinkle and ripple, the dead keep hissing, no one quite knows what to do.

Soon, someone must arrive. Perhaps it will be Mother Mary with a crowd of saints and abbas, and we will dance with them instead of the elephants. Until then, is there nothing to be done?

God only knows, sir.