Dude Looks Like a Lady (Sorry, Aerosmith)

Did I hear somebody out there say, “Come on, Wordplay, show us some cultural mythological relevance by taking on Game of Thrones. No fair just sneaking by with a passing reference like you did last week. What’s your stand on the next ruler of Westeros?” I probably just imagined this, since it’s so rare for me to feel someone really wants to know what I think—but I’ll take you up on it anyway. It might interest you to know that I’ve been caught up in Game of Thrones myself lately, watching old clips and trying to figure out what happened in previous seasons when I wasn’t looking. Let me start out by disappointing you: I have no prediction vis-à-vis the Iron Throne. I have a few observations, though.

First, I’ll start with my lack of qualifications for doing this: I had never laid eyes on GOT before 2017, when I watched a few episodes and noticed how well done the show is. I hold to that: they should win awards for the opening credits alone, which are stunning. I missed all of the earlier seasons when precipitating events were happening and characters were maneuvering into place. Gotta say, not sorry I missed Joffrey Baratheon, Ramsay Bolton, and all the gory events of earlier seasons. As far as I know, the only episodes I saw were from Season Seven.

To wit: People were struggling across a frozen wasteland; there were battles with an unprepossessing fellow called the Night King; a queen named Daenerys killed a couple of fellows who refused to bend the knee by means of dragon’s breath; this same Daenerys got it on with a handsome fellow named Jon Snow; a dragon was killed; there was a good bit of screen time given to a family called Lannister, in which one guy was bonking his sister, and another family called Stark, which featured a scary little girl named Arya who assassinates people; and there was a spectacular breaching of a wall by means of what I believe was the dead dragon brought back to life by, I think, the Night King. Is that about right?

I got to see the opening episode of Season Eight but didn’t see last week’s episode. I could tell I’d gotten hooked by the fact that I spent so much time this week reading recaps of what happened on Episode 2 and watching retrospectives of previous seasons. GOT has a sprawling cast of personalities: there are many characters dead and gone from previous seasons who played a vital role in events that followed. I do not know the relationships of all these people to one another; I do not know the geography of Westeros, though I do know that Winterfell doesn’t look like a place where I’d want to hang my hat. Rather chilly, if you ask me, inhabitants and all. Oh, and there’s a good-looking guy named Rhaegar Targaryen who is Jon Snow’s real father (which everybody knows by now). But was he ever on the show or just seen in someone’s vision? Just one of many things I have no idea about.

I was occasionally struck by how much a character reminded me of someone I know, but that’s no big deal. It happens all the time. I’m not sure if the GOT creators are into drawing pointed parallels between events and characters on their show and events and people in real life—I believe that happens sometimes on television and in movies, but I’m not sure they’re doing it on GOT. I do find it amusing to entertain the possibility, though, and, of course, in the spirit of archetypal analysis, there are always parallels to be drawn, regardless of any premeditated intent on anyone’s part whatsoever. I’ve also become aware of the phenomenon of “fan theories,” in which the show’s fans propose explanations and outcomes that they believe fit the story’s arc to date. In that spirit, I am prepared to propose one of my own, which is this: Brienne of Tarth is really Donald Trump [and I have the photographic evidence to prove it].

I don’t really remember Ser Brienne from Season Seven: the Starks, Lannisters, and Targaryens were taking up too much oxygen, I guess, so if she was in there, she slipped past me. Brienne of Tarth was just knighted in the last episode by Jaime Lannister (the guy that bonks his sister), and based on what I’ve seen, I’m surprised no one thought of doing it before (knighting her, that is). This is a woman who is entirely credible as a warrior and is apparently well thought of by most people. She was once in a bathtub with Jaime, and I think the show is trying to imply there might be something between them, though as far as I know, there hasn’t been anything verifiable yet. (It was a big bathtub, so get your mind out the gutter, you weirdos.)

As to the Donald Trump connection, just look at this picture:

I took it from a satirical news piece by CNN’s Jeanne Moos on past presidential visits to Great Britain and was struck by the physical resemblance between President Trump and Ser Brienne. I might not have brought this up, except for the fact that I was reading some of the reactions from British officials about the president’s impending visit to their country and was actually, I must say, offended by the tone of some of their remarks. I told you a long time ago that I hoped President Trump meant to do good by running for office, despite appearances, and I am still hoping that might be true, despite having lost faith several times along the way. I’ve always believed he is smarter than many people think he is, and regardless of whether you like him or not, he is our president—the fact that this privileged son of wealth can talk to unemployed factory workers, good old boys and girls, and others outside the sanctioned arena of political correctness and People Like Us and gain their confidence ought, perhaps, to tell you something. If it doesn’t, it’s not my fault.

Back to those comments, though—I guess it was just the tone of indignant horror, the blaming of the president for all bad things that are happening in our country, that very British attitude of superiority from the Undisputed Arbiters of All Things Proper that got my American back up. How dare you talk about our president that way, you lily-livered pustules on the back of a rotten whoreson bag of wind. (Is that Shakespearean enough, do you think?) I mean, God Bless English Literature, but if that’s all you have to stand on, it has, after all, been a long time since Shakespeare. Hell, it’s even been a long time since Keats. It’s been a long time since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Been a long time since Agatha Christie.

I suspect our president is up to anything the British might want to throw at him, so I’ll be looking forward to his visit with interest. I guess the accompanying question is, what will happen to the noble Ser Brienne of Tarth on GOT? Some of the fan theories have it that she will not survive the impending battle, so I guess the thing to do is to keep your eyes on her. I confess I hope to see her survive and thrive, though not, perhaps, to end up on the throne. That’s not a burden I would wish on anybody.

Now that I’ve totally upset the apple cart, I guess the next thing you’ll want to know is whether I personally identify with any of the characters on GOT. I will say that I’ve seen myself in several different characters and situations (remember, we’re good Hillmanians here, so we strive to be mindful that all of us play a variety of different roles day in and day out). However, there is one character I relate to more than the rest. Don’t worry, adoring public, I can hear you saying, “OK, smarty-pants writer, who is it?” Well, I’d rather not tell you—and I don’t think you’re going to be able to guess. And that’s all for this week.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to all. This is an abbreviated post due to the fact that I worked all day and am a bit tired. Also, I don’t really have a topic. Everyone is talking about Game of Thrones, and by a fluke, I caught the Season Eight premiere last Sunday. I previously blogged about my impressions after catching a few episodes of Season Seven, but I didn’t even realize the show was on hiatus last year, so that shows you how much I know about Game of Thrones. I do like the dragons, though.

Equal Time for Apollo

After I read my post from last week, something occurred to me: I didn’t bring Apollo into my archetypal discussion of Sherlock Holmes. For some people, he might seem like more of a natural match for the archetype of the Great Detective, with his devotion to science, music, and other pursuits. He didn’t even occur to me while I was writing the post, though I admit Mr. Holmes has attributes in common with him. I should at least have brought him up and said why Mr. Holmes seemed to me more like Athena than Apollo, so I’ll do that now. There are really several reasons.

First, I think of Apollo as trailing clouds of glory, making grand entrances, and otherwise creating a grand spectacle. He’s good at a number of different things and rather a proud god, sure of his appeal to nymphs and mortals alike. As the god of light, he’s always shining, and I can’t help but think of him in his most natural guise as possessing enviable golden curls that are constantly glinting and gleaming. In other words, you really can’t miss him—a room is almost too big to contain him. Mr. Holmes, on the other hand, is more of an indoor person, most at home talking things over with Watson in his rooms in Baker Street. Although you could say that he “sheds light” on the facts of his cases, it is more as if he points out to people things that they have seen for themselves but failed to understand. He does have a large store of knowledge about chemistry and other sciences, but aside from that, he’s uncannily observant.

I think of Mr. Holmes as more professor-like than the grandiose Apollo, as someone who uses his brain to the full. For that reason, he seems closer to Athena, who sprang from her father’s head and whose attribute is the owl. (Apollo seems more eagle-like.) Besides that, Mr. Holmes is no skirt-chaser, being very abstemious in that regard—more like Athena, Apollo’s chaste sister. In many ways, he seems not to care that much for his body and physical well-being. There is a darkness that clings to his character, a kind of counterbalance to his logical brilliance and devotion to scientific methods. He has an opium addiction that sometimes sinks him very deep into darkness, giving him more in common with Morpheus, the god of sleep and dreams, than with shining Apollo.

And yes, I know that both Apollo and Sherlock Holmes play stringed instruments, but Orpheus also played the lyre, and his melancholy seems much more in synch with Mr. Holmes than Apollo’s blazing virtuosity (I don’t object to blazing virtuosity; I’m only trying to draw a distinction between styles). I assume Apollo rarely does anything without the accompaniment of crescendos and thundering chords, those Fabio locks all a-tumble, as he overwhelms some poor Greek on the battlefield or chases a fleeing girl who couldn’t care less about his perfect pitch. His is more the grand style of Bach or Handel than the lyricism of Orpheus. I think of Mr. Holmes, generally, as playing for himself rather than with intent to impress.

Lastly, I was thinking about Mr. Holmes’s faculty with disguises, which reveals a tricksterish quality that he occasionally employs to good effect on cases. This sly, shape-shifting ability to change his coloration is at odds with Apollo’s proud, clear lines. In another context, I compared Apollo with an airline pilot, a role in which you expect clear-headedness, precision, and perhaps a certain amount of bravado, but most of all, decisiveness—you don’t want your pilot playing tricks on you or doing something unexpected. Many of the gods (including Apollo) had the ability to disguise themselves and play tricks when they wanted to, but Hermes is known for his quicksilver quality. Mr. Holmes, like Hermes, seems not only to make use of disguises for his own purposes but also to enjoy tricking people.

All of this is really to say that Mr. Holmes, like all of us, is an amalgam of different qualities, with perhaps one or two dominating. He’s not above showing off. And for those of you who think I’m being too hard on Apollo—who does, after all, have gifts of his own and sometimes plays an important, positive role in human affairs—I admit that there is something in what you say. My blog, however, is currently represented by an image of Apollo chasing a distressed nymph, so it’s probably a good idea to point out that all the gods have both light and dark aspects. I do think other qualities predominate in the character of Sherlock Holmes, though he takes much of his scientific brilliance from dazzling Apollo. But not the curly hair.

Essay on Panache

Last week, I wrote about the plethora of Sherlock Holmes stories currently flooding the bookshelves (and there are many others besides the ones I wrote about). I didn’t get to say everything I wanted to, though, about the appeal of the detective’s character. Although Mr. Holmes does represent an archetype, it’s not enough just to say that. I wonder, in fact, if he doesn’t represent the appearance of a new archetype that arose with the development of science, technology, and other aspects of modernity. I remember having a conversation with someone about whether new archetypes ever appear. I believe they do, in response to changing conditions. Maybe Sherlock Holmes is an instance of an archetypal character that appeared in response to the times and couldn’t have appeared sooner.

I was taught that the multiplicity of gods in the Greek and Roman pantheons represents various conditions and forces that affect all aspects of human life. In other words, there should be a god for every occasion. Sherlock Holmes probably has the most in common with Athena (or Minerva), but it’s not an exact match. Athena, who sprang from the head of her father, is the goddess of wisdom, but she is also a warrior goddess and often appears in the capacity of aiding or advising her favorites in matters of war and strategy. Holmes is a logician who combines finely honed powers of observation with an ability to draw conclusions from the evidence, which is perhaps not quite the same thing as wisdom, Athena-style. He solves puzzles and unravels mysteries, something the Greek gods were not necessarily wont to do, being more expert at creating mysteries and expecting mortals to accept things as they were.

There’s a chapter in my book on the nature of the labyrinth in the literature of the 19th century, and I discuss the detective novels that appeared at that period. I wrote at length about Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White and about the way the plot of that novel resembles a labyrinth in which the characters are caught and out of which they escape only by following the threads that have ensnared them. They get very little assistance from anyone else and have to be their own detectives. The mood of the novel is somber, and although they succeed in rescuing a loved one, they prevail in spite of a largely uncaring world. Their triumph, however, is very real. Unlike the Greek story of Orpheus and Eurydice, The Woman in White features a return from the underworld. The protagonists barely escape the labyrinth, but escape they do—their determination and detective work carry the day.

Sherlock Holmes is the professional embodiment of these characteristics. Doing what comes naturally to him, he makes a science of solving mysteries for other people. In his time, scientific inventiveness and technological advances were rapidly changing ways of life that had been settled, in some cases, for centuries. Much was gained, but much that had seemed certain, like Christianity and man’s place in the universe, didn’t seem as rock solid as it had been. I always think of Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” as the expression of this sense of the loss of certitude: one lover exhorts the other to remain true in the face of a growing feeling that nothing—not the institutions of society nor the universe itself—offers security in an atmosphere of gathering darkness.

Behold, then, the entrance of Sherlock Holmes upon this somewhat chilling scene. While it may be true that the modern world really has “neither joy, nor love, nor light/nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain,” damn it, Sherlock Holmes is on the case, and you can bet he’ll give satisfaction, let the forces of darkness do what they will. He represents the triumph of mind over matter, and while I would agree that it’s quite possible to take the ascent of thought too far (in separating ourselves from nature, for instance, when we are always and ever a part of it, merely), Mr. Holmes does something the Greek heroes were rarely able to do, and that is to snatch people back from the edge of a precipice the Fates have prepared for them, and to do it without turning a whisker. Not only is he preternaturally effective, he also has style. I think style is vastly underrated.

By the way, I am not arguing that God is dead, or never lived, or that life has no meaning. I never said that. (Personally, I believe in God, by whatever name you call him/her.) I’m only describing the conditions in the 19th century in which people had reason to question a lot of what had been accepted as gospel for a long time. It’s necessary, in my opinion, to do this, to question things you’ve been told, but it can be quite uncomfortable. I don’t think the appearance of the archetype of the Great Detective means that man is in charge of all he surveys; it is more, perhaps, that he is taking his destiny into his own hands and fighting back against the joylessness, darkness, and pain that have, after all, been with humankind from the beginning and that religions were designed, in some measure, to deal with. Rather than opposing or replacing God, Sherlock Holmes rises to meet him, you might say, which is perhaps what God intended all along.

Wither Baker Street?

If I remember right, my first reading of Sherlock Holmes occurred in the summer after my first year of college. I’ve read and re-read several incarnations of the detective’s exploits over the years and have also enjoyed nearly all of the filmed versions I’ve seen. If we aren’t currently experiencing a Sherlock Holmes revival, we’re at least experiencing the proof that he never really goes out of style. Authors as diverse as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (writing with Anna Waterhouse) and Anthony Horowitz have created their own versions of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in recent years, approaching the characters from various angles that add something new to the material while remaining faithful to the original in spirit.

I came across Mr. Abdul-Jabbar’s Mycroft Holmes two years ago and recently read the follow-up novel, Mycroft and Sherlock. The authors make Sherlock’s older brother, Mycroft, the main character, with the emerging detective (introduced as a teenager in this series) playing a co-starring role; there are also endearing new characters, such as Mycroft’s friend Cyrus Douglas, a merchant and philanthropist. While still within familiar territory, these stories reveal new aspects of Sherlock’s character by not only portraying him as a younger and more vulnerable brother but also by depicting him in relationships with characters other than Dr. Watson. The third novel in this series, Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage, will be released this fall and is already on my reading list.

Bonnie MacBird’s novels, Unquiet Spirits and Art in the Blood, are close in atmosphere and tone to the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories. Unquiet Spirits, in particular, with its Scottish setting, well-developed characters, and bizarre set of plot circumstances, is an impressive and uncanny evocation of the Holmesian universe; Art in the Blood weaves a series of disparate plot threads together in a tale of murder and a stolen artifact that stretches from London to Paris and the Northwest of Britain. I’m looking forward to reading Miss MacBird’s third novel in the series, The Devil’s Due, which is due to be released later this year.

Theodora Goss’s “Monstrous Gentlewomen” novels, while focused on a set of female characters, include Holmes and Watson as friends of the Athena Club. With their light-hearted tone (despite some underlying seriousness), her books go the furthest in placing a new twist on the characters of the two men, depicting both as more romantic characters than they are in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s originals. In Miss Goss’s hands, the well-intentioned protection offered by Holmes and Watson to a group of young females clashes with the determination of the young women to fend for themselves, sometimes to comic effect. And I don’t know how to break this to you, lest you think the universe is playing tricks on us with synchronicity (maybe it is), but Miss Goss also is releasing a third novel in her series this fall, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl. My reading list is growing—maybe yours is, too.

And then there is Anthony Horowitz’s The House of Silk, which has Holmes and Watson investigating a mysterious and terrifying series of events to uncover the scandalous truth behind the titular house, whose true nature is concealed until nearly the end. I read this book almost two years ago, when I had just arrived in L.A. and had neither a dime to my name or a library card, so that I had to keep returning to the library to read it. In fact, I started reading it in one L.A. County Library and ended up finishing it in the library of another town. Though steeped in sadness (a widowed Dr. Watson is recalling the events of an earlier time when Holmes was still alive), the book is a page turner. Like the other Sherlock Holmes authors named here, Mr. Horowitz has created a series; his Moriarty was published in 2014.

So what is the import, Dr. Watson, of all this Holmesiness? Why are all these great minds thinking in the same direction? I think it’s quite simply the appeal of a great archetypal character. No matter the circumstances, Holmes always keeps his head and always gets his man. In a world of confusion, pain, sorrow, and injustice, his powers of deduction inevitably lead him to the truth in the end. He is a person in whom you can place confidence—no considerations make him waver from his search for facts. His world is not so very different from ours, so it’s no wonder that Conan Doyle’s readers have refused to let the great detective die, even in the 21st century. We could all use someone like that in our lives.

How It Came to Be

I usually try to post a little background on my fiction, but last week’s post was done in a few hours before I went to work, and I was still making small edits two days later. Suffice it to say that it started with a wish to pay tribute to Salt Lake City and a seed planted in my mind when I was last there about the nexus of the physical and spiritual in that particular place. I also wanted to write about a type of character I hadn’t really explored before (who was decidedly unspiritual), so I came up with the wedding guest. I’ve known people like him before, but he isn’t based on any one person.

I have actually taken the train into Salt Lake City twice (and it does indeed arrive around 11 p.m., though I believe it sometimes runs late). The experience that gave me the idea for “Salt,” though, was really the overnight visit I made about two years ago. It would be hard to get any idea of the character of the place just by passing through on the train and not wandering around at length. I drove into Salt Lake City one summer evening on the way to somewhere else, walked around, and saw some of the same sights the wedding guest saw—though, alas, no angels. I could imagine seeing them, though, and that was the germ of the story.

If you’re wondering where the salt came from and why it’s in the character’s pocket, you probably read very little mythology and fantasy. It’s a trope that you bring back a souvenir of some kind from an experience like this, and in this case, in particular, I had the sense that without tangible evidence, this boy might later talk himself out of believing that he’d had a very unusual time of it in Salt Lake City. If he’d been to the stars, it might have been stardust; if he’d been to fairyland, it might have been a gem from the fairy king’s mine.

Well, Watson, you know (or should know) my methods by now and should realize that I don’t write this blog for literal-minded readers. Anyone would think some of you had never been to school the way you carry on. Personally, I don’t like to have everything spelled out to me as if I cannot appreciate a story for myself, so I’ll say no more, just in case someone out there actually liked it and resists the notion of having everything explained to death. It’s good sometimes to sit with something and ponder it, but don’t expect it to suddenly reveal an underlying “this equals that” equation. If you do, you’ll never find what you’re looking for, at least not in this blog.

Salt

(A Short Story)

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”—Samuel Taylor Coleridge

It hadn’t been a bad wedding, which meant, of course, that there’d been plenty of beer at the reception. So much so that he now had a headache and was fuzzy on some aspects of the latter part of the night before. Now that he’d been accepted to law school, he was going to have to cut down on his partying. Sometimes, when your future was at stake, you just had to step up to the plate and take one for the team. He’d heard that once you made partner, you could pretty much do as you pleased, and since he was planning to be the youngest partner ever at a major East Coast law firm, he thought he could sacrifice present comfort for later bounty.

Right now, though, he felt like he’d been scoured dry from the inside out and that something was trying to crawl out from behind his eyes. Being on a train didn’t help . . . That rocking motion was enough to upset your tenuous hold on an already delicate stomach if it didn’t split your head in two first.

He was holding said head up with one hand, elbow propped on the tiny tray that popped up from a hidden slot somewhere beside his seat. He’d trapped his hand in the crevice trying to pull the damn thing up earlier and had had to call the porter, an irritating Colored man who had looked at him with disfavor before removing his imprisoned hand, with much more force than was strictly necessary, and setting the tray in place with a crisp, judgmental snap. He was considering having his father write to the president of Amtrak with a complaint against the fellow, especially since his hand was now an unbecoming shade of purple and black due—he was certain—to the mistreatment he’d received. His father had been college roommates with the Amtrak president, which was the whole reason he was riding for free. He was now weighing whether the satisfaction he’d derive from getting the porter into trouble was worth possibly jeopardizing future free rides. Perhaps it wasn’t worth all the questions that were bound to be asked. People were always trying to make mountains out of molehills.

Now, as the train pulled into Salt Lake City with a juddering sound that morphed into a drawn-out screech and then an ugly shudder that shook the whole train, our wedding guest, shocked out of his reverie by this latest unwelcome development, looked out the window. He was unable to see beyond the unaccountably bright lights of the station, but a few minutes later, there was a rap at the door of his compartment, followed in a moment by the appearance of the irritating porter, who informed him of a mechanical problem that would necessitate a delay of some hours. Indeed, he went on to say, it would likely be mid-morning before the train would be on its way again, and the passenger might want to consider a hotel for the remainder of the evening. Amtrak had arrangements with a hotel in the vicinity of downtown that was within walking distance—or perhaps a cab would be better?

The wedding guest waved away the porter, who seemed to be hovering. What did he want now, a tip? The nerve of some people knew no bounds. He stumbled to his feet, bumbling down the corridor of the train car in the porter’s wake. The distance from the top step to the station platform looked, to the wedding guest, to be a half mile at least, and he was wondering how he could possibly be expected to negotiate such a distance when he felt, or thought he felt, a firm hand on his arm, guiding him and propelling him forward and down, so that he found himself standing, alone, next to the train car, now silent except for a low-pitched hum and a ticking sound. The air seemed to be full of fog, but he discerned the outline of the station and headed inside, noticing, even in his compromised state, the gleam of marble and brass and the golden warmth of the light, though the place seemed to be deserted. He wondered briefly where the other passengers might have gone and concluded that perhaps he had been the last one to be notified and the last one to disembark. Typical, wasn’t it? The black hands of the station clock read ten minutes past eleven.

He was nearly out the door when a sound behind him made him turn. He saw that the lobby wasn’t deserted after all, but it was only a gray-haired cleaning woman, broom in hand, tidying up near the station’s coffee shop. She seemed to wearing some type of bulky coat that bunched up around her shoulders and hung awkwardly to near her ankles, an odd fashion choice even to the eyes of a heavily hungover college student. She paid no attention to him, going on about her task, but when he glanced back over his shoulder before pushing through the door, he saw the bunched material rise and unfold into what appeared to be a pair of wings. Oh hell, no way, man!

Trying to process what he had just seen, the young man had no sooner stepped outside when something flew at his head, flapping furiously. Backing into the wall, holding his wrecked head in his hands, he looked up, trying to see what had attacked him. It was a large seagull, sailing off down the street. Nervously, the student set off in the opposite direction, hoping the gull was not planning a return attack and unsure of how he would defend himself if that should occur. He realized that he had now forgotten the name of the hotel the porter had mentioned but thought that if he just kept walking he might see it and recognize it. He did not want to go back to the station for fear of encountering either the gull or the strange cleaning woman or both.

After midnight in Salt Lake City on a summer night, the streets were quiet but by no means, as he soon discovered, empty. He was vaguely surprised: wasn’t this place full of strictly religious people? Mormons or something? Shouldn’t they be at home, slumbering peacefully, or praying? And yet here and there he saw forms: walking, huddling in small groups, lounging. He’d say one thing for these Mormons, or whatever they were, they were quiet, even when they were out late. He heard not a whisper from any of them, which probably indicated, now that he thought of it, some kind of religious restriction. Maybe it was a vow of silence. After walking a short distance he realized that, unlike him, they were not coatless in the summer night but appeared to be wearing the same type of cape he’d seen on the cleaning woman in the station. Which could only mean—wait . . .

But he was right, wasn’t he? On looking as closely as his bloodshot eyes would allow, he realized that everyone he saw was endowed not with a cape but with a large pair of truly magnificent wings. Struggling to process this latest revelation, he was suddenly struck by a happy thought. It was obviously some kind of a celebration, like Mardi Gras. That was it! Shaking his head at the fright he had suffered a moment ago, he started to relax. If it was a party, he was all for it, and though a little while ago, he’d been considering total abstinence until the day he made partner, he now thought that perhaps just one more might have a beneficial effect on his splitting head and settle his stomach into the bargain. The hair of the dog, as it were.

His wobbling footsteps newly revitalized with purpose, he set off down the street, looking for an open bar. From time to time (for they were by no means boisterous), he saw people in angel costumes, taking selfies, riding the escalator in the town center mall, playing in the fountain, talking on cell phones, strolling hand-in-hand in the grounds of the great temple. There were angels in cars, angels on bicycles, angels in the crosswalks. No one spoke to him, but he was okay with that, he really was. Now that he knew just where he was, he was willing to get into the spirit of it. He’d heard that Mormons were a little stand-offish, anyway. No worries, man—let them party in their way, and he’d party in his.

In the event, though, he never located the party. After wandering for a couple of hours without finding much of anything open, only those infernal angels gliding around, he sat on a bench against a wall and fell asleep. He woke up with a gleam of sun striking his face, and when he squinted toward the source, the gleam disappeared behind a cloud. It was a foggy morning. He’d heard there were mountains around Salt Lake City, but he was inclined to think he’d heard wrong, because all he could see was mist. Thoroughly stiff now, he managed to haul himself upright. If only he could remember the direction of the station.

After nearly an hour of walking, during which he encountered not a soul, he realized that he was back on the street on which he had been surprised by the seagull, and yes, there was the station, half a mile ahead and on his left. He moved toward it nervously, scanning the air for any lurking seagulls, without, however, encountering any. Entering the station lobby, he saw that the time was not quite 7 a.m. He saw no one, passing through to the waiting room for his platform, likewise deserted. Relieved to find that the train was just where he’d left it, resting outside on its track, he sat down to wait, dozing off now and then. He woke for a final time when a bustle of activity revealed a returning coterie of fellow passengers, some of whom looked at him curiously, all presumably better off than he was for a few hours sleep in the hotel he had never found, damn them. They could keep their stupid looks to themselves.

Climbing back onto the train, with a mouth that felt like the desert floor and a hollow feeling in his head, he was greeted by the porter, who looked as crisp in his uniform as if he’d spent the night on a bed of down and silken sheets. He thought he detected a humorous gleam in the fellow’s eye, though his demeanor otherwise was solemnly professional. Damn the man, he’d report him for two cents just for his insolence. But the porter merely handed him a bottle of water and politely ushered him into his compartment. Once he was gone, the student slumped into his rather stale-smelling seat, wondering how he would get through the rest of the day and how long it would now take them to get home.

As he leaned against the window, something hard bit into his hip. Reaching into his pants pocket, he felt something cool and smooth, with jagged points and a bit of crumbly material adhered to it. He tried to pull it out, but it was stuck fast, as if it had been glued on; staring at it blankly, he wondered what it was and how it had come to be there. It looked like a crystal of some kind. On impulse, he put a finger to his mouth to taste what he had touched: salt.