volume one IN THE D U D L E Y C L A R K - Ohio Vine Tours

evaporated during the night, embraced by its brethren and
sistern in the Great Hydrologic Cycle.
He crosses to the scarred door that restrains the screeching,
turbulent world and unlocks its deadbolt.
He cracks the door ajar.
That portion of the hall he is presented with appears to be
chock-full of nothingness.
He opens the door a bit wider so he can see all the way down
to the B THRO M.
It, like the hallway, overflows with vacuity. Emptiness. A
total lack of all things human.
Relieved he will have the little room entirely to himself, he
steps into the hall.
It is precisely at this juncture that his right toe encounters a
small, plastic object.
Said object, suddenly abristle with kinetic energy transferred
there by the tap from Roy’s right toe, clatters noisily across the
tatty carpet until it encounters the opposing wall and—as all
irresistible forces met by immovable objects should—abruptly
stops.
The result of this abrupt stop is that the object under
discussion disassembles, its parts no longer making up a whole,
and scatter in several directions at once.
The kinetic energy provided by Roy’s right toe soon enough
sputters out, and the plastic objects come to a rest upon the
hallway floor.
The hallway that continues its slow unraveling.
Roy frowns as he focuses on what appears to be an audio tape
and its exploded case.
So intent had he been on the fullness of his bladder, he had
clean forgot about the lasagna trap he set the night before. In a
flash of rewound memory, Roy recalls carrying home the foilwrapped
treat in a plastic Safeway bag, then writing the note,
then placing the bag and note against the bar of light at the
bottom of 28/RR. His eyes scoot there now, leaving behind for a
moment the plastic fragments.
The bag is no longer there.
112 ROY ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY