this was the day wilder got on his plastic tricycle, rode it around the block, turned right onto a dead end street andpedaled noisily to the dead end. he walked the tricycle around the guard rail and then rode along a paved walkwaythat went winding past some overgrown lots to a set of twenty concrete steps. the plastic wheels rumbled andscreeched. here our reconstruction yields to the awe-struck account of two elderly women watching from thesecond-story back porch of a tall house in the trees. he walked the tricycle down the steps, guiding it with a duteousand unsentimental hand, letting it bump right along, as if it were an odd-shaped little sibling, not necessarilycherished. he remounted, rode across the street, rode across the sidewalk, proceeded onto the grassy slope thatbordered the expressway. here the women began to call. hey, hey, they said, a little tentative at first, not ready toaccept the implications of the process unfolding before them. the boy pedaled diagonally down the slope, shrewdlyreducing the angle of descent, then paused on the bottom to aim his three-wheeler at the point on the opposite sidewhich seemed to represent the shortest distance across. hey, sonny, no. waving their arms, looking frantically forsome able-bodied pedestrian to appear on the scene. wilder, meanwhile, ignoring their cries or not hearing them inthe serial whoosh of dashing hatchbacks and vans, began to pedal across the highway, mystically charged. thewomen could only look, empty-mouthed, each with an arm in the air, a plea for the scene to reverse, the boy to pedalbackwards on his faded blue and yellow toy like a cartoon figure on morning tv. the drivers could not quitecomprehend. in their knotted posture, belted in, they knew this picture did not belong to the hurtling consciousnessof the highway, the broad-ribboned modernist stream. in speed there was sense. in signs, in patterns, in split-secondlives. what did it mean, this little rotary blur? some force in the world had gone awry. they veered, braked, soundedtheir horns down the long afternoon, an animal lament. the child would not even look at them, pedaled straight forthe median strip, a narrow patch of pale grass. he was pumped up, chesty, his arms appearing to move as rapidly ashis legs, the round head wagging in a jig of lame-brained determination. he had to slow down to get onto the raisedmedian, rearing up to let the front wheel edge over, extremely deliberate in his movements, following somenumbered scheme, and the cars went wailing past, horns blowing belatedly, drivers' eyes searching the rearviewmirror. he walked the tricycle across the grass. the women watched him regain a firm placement on the seat. stay,they called. do not go. no, no. like fpreigners reduced to simple phrases. the cars kept coming, whipping into thestraightaway, endless streaking traffic. he set off to cross the last three lanes, dropping off the median like abouncing ball, front wheel, rear wheels. then the head-wagging race to the other side. cars dodged, strayed, climbedthe curbstone, astonished heads appearing in the side windows. the furiously pedaling boy could not know how slowhe seemed to be moving from the vantage point of the women on the porch. the women were silent by now, outsidethe event, suddenly tired. how slow he moved, how mistaken he was in thinking he was breezing right along. it madethem tired. the horns kept blowing, sound waves mixing in the air, flattening, calling back from vanished cars,scolding. he reached the other side, briefly rode parallel to the traffic, seemed to lose his balance, fall away, goingdown the embankment in a multicolored tumble. when he reappeared a second later, he was sitting in a water furrow,part of the intermittent creek that accompanies the highway. stunned, he made the decision to cry. it took him amoment, mud and water everywhere, the tricycle on its side. the women began to call once more, each raising anarm to revoke the action. boy in the water, they said. look, help, drown. and he seemed, on his seat in the creek,profoundly howling, to have heard them for the first time, looking up over the earthen mound and into the treesacross the expressway. this frightened them all the more. they called and waved, were approaching the early phasesof uncontrollable terror when a passing motorist, as such people are called, alertly pulled over, got out of the car,skidded down the embankment and lifted the boy from the murky shallows, holding him aloft for the clamoringelders to see.

we go to the overpass all the time. babette, wilder and i. we take a thermos of iced tea, park the car, watch thesetting sun. clouds are no deterrent. clouds intensify the drama, trap and shape the light. heavy overcasts have littleeffect. light bursts through, tracers and smoky arcs. overcasts enhance the mood. we find little to say to each other.

more cars arrive, parking in a line that extends down to the residential zone. people walk up the incline and onto theoverpass, carrying fruit and nuts, cool drinks, mainly the middle-aged, the elderly, some with webbed beach chairswhich they set out on the sidewalk, but younger couples also, arm in arm at the rail, looking west. the sky takes oncontent, feeling, an exalted narrative life. the bands of color reach so high, seem at times to separate into theirconstituent parts. there are turreted skies, light storms, softly falling streamers. it is hard to know how we should feelabout this. some people are scared by the sunsets, some determined to be elated, but most of us don't know how tofeel, are ready to go either way. rain is no deterrent. rain brings on graded displays, wonderful running hues. morecars arrive, people come trudging up the incline. the spirit of these warm evenings is hard to describe. there isanticipation in the air but it is not the expectant midsummer hum of a shirtsleeve crowd, a sandlot game, withcoherent precedents, a history of secure response. this waiting is introverted, uneven, almost backward and shy,tending toward silence. what else do we feel? certainly there is awe, it is all awe, it transcends previous categories ofawe, but we don't know whether we are watching in wonder or dread, we don't know what we are watching or whatit means, we don't know whether it is permanent, a level of experience to which we will gradually adjust, into whichour uncertainty will eventually be absorbed, or just some atmospheric weirdness, soon to pass. the collapsible chairsare yanked open, the old people sit. what is there to say? the sunsets linger and so do we. the sky is under a spell,powerful and storied. now and then a car actually crosses the overpass, moving slowly, deferentially. people keepcoming up the incline, some in wheelchairs, twisted by disease, those who attend them bending low to push againstthe grade. i didn't know how many handicapped and helpless people there were in town until the warm nightsbrought crowds to the overpass. cars speed beneath us, coming from the west, from out of the towering light, and wewatch them as if for a sign, as if they carry on their painted surfaces some residue of the sunset, a barely detectableluster or film of telltale dust. no one plays a radio or speaks in a voice that is much above a whisper. somethinggolden falls, a softness delivered to the air. there are people walking dogs, there are kids on bikes, a man with acamera and long lens, waiting for his moment. it is not until some time after dark has fallen, the insects screaming inthe heat, that we slowly begin to disperse, shyly, politely, car after car, restored to our separate and defensible selves.

the men in mylex suits are still in the area, yellow-snouted, gathering their terrible data, aiming their infrareddevices at the earth and sky.

dr. chakravarty wants to talk to me but i am making it a point to stay away. he is eager to see how my death isprogressing. an interesting case perhaps. he wants to insert me once more in the imaging block, where chargedparticles collide, high winds blow. but i am afraid of the imaging block. afraid of its magnetic fields, itscomputerized nuclear pulse. afraid of what it knows about me.

i am taking no calls.

the supermarket shelves have been rearranged. it happened one day without warning. there is agitation and panic inthe aisles, dismay in the faces of older shoppers. they walk in a fragmented trance, stop and go, clusters ofwell-dressed figures frozen in the aisles, trying to figure out the pattern, discern the underlying logic, trying toremember where they'd seen the cream of wheat. they see no reason for it, find no sense in it. the scouring pads arewith the hand soap now, the condiments are scattered. the older the man or woman, the more carefully dressed andgroomed. men in sansabelt slacks and bright knit shirts. women with a powdered and fussy look, a self-consciousair, prepared for some anxious event. they turn into the wrong aisle, peer along the shelves, sometimes stop abruptly,causing other carts to run into them. only the generic food is where it was, white packages plainly labeled. the menconsult lists, the women do not. there is a sense of wandering now, an aimless and haunted mood, sweet-temperedpeople taken to the edge. they scrutinize the small print on packages, wary of a second level of betrayal. the menscan for stamped dates, the women for ingredients. many have trouble making out the words. smeared print, ghostimages. in the altered shelves, the ambient roar, in the plain and heartless fact of their decline, they try to work theirway through confusion. but in the end it doesn't matter what they see or think they see. the terminals are equippedwith holographic scanners, which decode the binary secret of every item, infallibly. this is the language of wavesand radiation, or how the dead speak to the living. and this is where we wait together, regardless of age, our cartsstocked with brightly colored goods. a slowly moving line, satisfying, giving us time to glance at the tabloids in theracks. everything we need that is not food or love is here in the tabloid racks. the tales of the supernatural and theextraterrestrial. the miracle vitamins, the cures for cancer, the remedies for obesity. the cults of the famous and thedead.