"Lost," said Scott. "Nobody is lost anymore. The word has become a casket, a husk, a monument to various pretentions. That is the way with words. It's popular to be lost now."

"See what I mean," said Nathan triumphantly.

Scott's glass was full of neon instead of beer.

* * * * * *

Last Friday was hot. And Mildred, my secretary, was late to work. The dictaphone kept sticking and played anything it recorded back to me backward. "Nathan Sincerely," Sirs Dear:" Not to mention the far east, the gold and uranium rushes, the stabbing by nail of the nine year old boy, and the discovery of a living Neanderthal in the Massachusetts mental hospital "I'm joking of course. I've got it all backwards. The Neanderthal wasn't Neanderthal at all, he was just a brilliant guy. And besides that he didn't live long. He killed himself by swallowing a spoon after convincing one of the doctors that he was, in fact, a Neanderthal. They let him into the dining room because that was the only place big enough to hold all the consultants and interested scientists. There he was able to kill himself. Bright Neanderthal.

But all that side. I should start from the front. Bullets flying, grown men and a lot of boys crying, rain. The under-ground surfacing in the sound of bombs ad applause. Hop scotch on the rocks. Saturday in my air conditioned studio, I spent most of the time in the dark room WROOMB my little girl calls it. Guess what her name is.

In my dark room, I'm piecing together a number of photographs--to make a whole. All the pictures are of my little girls. She is more alive for me in photographs. Maybe that is sick, but I feel more free to look closely at her then. I have more time to look. At times I fall through her eyes and out darkness is no longer divided. Then we live in one great fear which is akin to love. The collection of photographs is an attempt not only to record but to incorporate the seven years of her life. I realize it is a failure. One photograph, when the time is right, is the complete record and the essence, while the collection is a meaningless shamble. Nevertheless I admit I am incapable of staying at the right time, rather I am incapable of maintaining the proper state of mind to absorb the complete record and the essence of each moment, each photograph. And I know other people can't. And I want them to know they can't and that it is possible that they could. I want them to try. So I've decided on this collection made into a whole. It is not the whole itself, I guess, but a simple symbol of the whole need to reach the whole. That is what I'm trying to do. I need symbols, but simpler symbols, maybe to get rid of them altogether some day. Happy day.

In my dark room, at the moment, I'm working on a picture of Joyce in her crib. She was eight or nine months at the time. In this photo, she's an ungodly mess. Been crying. Scratched her own face. Hair matted with tears and sweat. Wet pants. . . . Her eyes are unfathomably deep. Deep as the eyes of a hypocrite who suddenly discovers he must adhere to one of his fronts to survive. Deep as the eyes of a martyr discovering cowardice. Deep as the eyes of a politician turning from an applauding audience and suddenly feeling that only the chair is real. And maybe, at that routine and commonplace moment of rage, she knew something, felt something like the cutting of teeth, like doom., I'm not going to use the eyes in this photo. I'm using the bars of the crib, blown up. I've yet to select a pair of eyes. She was necessarily looking at me in any good picture of her eyes. All I've selected so far are objects, symbols I suppose. The eyes alone would be enough for me, but others must see what I mean. I've thought of superimposing an enormous set of eyes over the whole works. It is the most satisfactory idea I've come up with, yet I feel it is trite. But I can do no better. When I think of other people looking at my work, I tell myself that I dared to be trite. Anyway, once I work, I cease thinking.

A sense of decay has set in. I find it comforting. Crushed civilizations moonsparkle on breezy nights. Below the waters of forgetfulness run waters of blue and turquoise depending on the light. I found a photo of Joyce siting in a corner with her knees tucked beneath her chin. She's looking at me accusingly. She's not sure what the camera means, and neither am I. I can only explain how it works.

My wife interrupted me twice in my darkroom Saturday. Both interruptions were due to phone calls. As I walked with her sown the hall to the living room, I noticed her palor. The excess of flesh creeping beneath the clothes she wears. I imagined how her feet felt in her shoes. The call was from an associate agency. They think I'm on to something since. I'm not at the office on weekends anymore.

"Aha!", I said, and hung up.

The second call was the same thing. But it gave me another look at my wife. She and Mildred, my secretary, remind me or each other, despite their difference in age. So I guess the sex drive, mine that is, is waning.

* * * * * *

A gay, yellowish light shone through the closed drapes. The room was a mess. Outside the traffic had its finest hour. The dirty snow festooned the gutters running harmoniously in the dripping dirty water. The quite sound of water filled the room. Pale yellowish toes protruded from the end of the bed, from beneath a tattered blanket. Not that Scott was tall. He had just inched his way down the bed. He wanted to dabble his feet in the sound of running water.

Earlier in darkest night, when the voices vanished, he had crept from the bed. Visions fell from him and hovered where he had lain, buzzing softly next to Mirna. He felt tremendously alone as he tiptoed to the window. Here he practiced ego loss. The yellow street lit luminescence of the drapes sucked his face in and he looked out. A bear drove by in a station wagon. A great big bear's smile left a trial of light. We're in a city, he thought. Us, the walls, the bear, the streets. Our poorly schooled soul looking through the drapes is encased in a cadaverous face. The eyes of the face have no significance save their cheerful twinkle, winkle one night. Out smile is friendly and wolfish. Our teeth nash concepts. The eaten letters are sparkling bits of dirty ice. We don't feel so all alone. Our's is simply the change of space. The place is the same. He saw himself across the street and waved suddenly, remembering that he was not alone. He waved at some bleating sheep folding their fleece in a mauve halo above the city. His arm disappeared. So did he.