Whether these are the right or wrong words, whether they flow like endless rain or they dry and wither on the vine, they are, finally, a bunch of words, no better than any that have gone before. There is a start, and there is a not - yet - remembering - to - be - a - start. There is a not - yet - remembering - to - be - a - not - yet - remembering - to - be - a - start, and there is a slept - in - and - missed - the - becoming - of - the - ten - thousand - things.

Then there is Christopher, who reclines in his armchair in deep meditation. For a moment, I think he is a withered grey tree with an open cavity where the heart should be. I reach into the hole and sift cold ash with my fingertips.

“Dear Yen, it is good of you to ask. For a minute there, I lost myself. Could you tell?”

Christopher is no longer a tree. Embarrassed, I pull my fist from his chest, leaving a sucking pucker. High-pitched air streams into the closing wound, sounding like Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata played backwards.

Christopher buttons his dentist shirt. He stands and ushers me into his chair. He tips the chair up on its hind legs until the high back rests against the wall, and then shines a bright light in my eyes. It hurts, but I don’t say anything because I’m still waiting to hear about the Great Clod.

“Bamboo flute,” Christopher says, reaching out a hand, palm open, five fingers splayed. His assistant, a short-haired brunette in a nurse’s uniform, rushes in and hands him an evil looking pair of pliers. “Open,” he says to me. I am scared but I smile, because the assistant flashes me when Christopher isn’t looking.

Christopher begins probing my mouth for impacted wisdom teeth. The nurse drops a tongue dispenser and I catch a view of cotton panties when she bends over to pick it up. I whistle as soon as Christopher takes his tool out of my mouth. He slaps me, hard, and I sit holding my cheek and listening to the sound of my whistle reverberate around the room like a police siren.

“When the Great Clod belches,” says Christopher, “only decisive action can stifle it.” He finds the tongue depressor on the floor and I shut my lips against it until he gives me a look like he might turn back into a tree again. Reluctantly I open, licking grit with my tongue.

Christopher pops the first of my wisdom teeth from my jaw with his tinfoil-tang pliers. A high-pitched note sounds as air pours into the wound. Pop-pop-pop. Three dissonant notes join the first. Pop-pop-pop-pop. Christopher is getting carried away with his pliers.

“Izgnauhz,” I say around the cold metal.

“Don’t try to talk,” says Christopher. “We need cotton to stop the bleeding.” He helps me out of the chair and leads me by the arm to the back door where my hiking boots and jacket are. We lean on each other for balance as we tie our respective laces.

Outside, liquid sunlight pours over giant redwoods, larches, firs, and mighty scotch pines. A river roars nearby. I sneeze, and the force flattens the notes from the holes in my jaw by a semi-tone. I hate British Columbia.

Christopher claps his hands, then rubs them together in the chilly morning mountain air. “Yen, we need to find you a cotton tree,” he says. He looks around and then, as if suddenly noticing its existence for the first time, he points to a gargantuan redwood not four feet in front of us. “Climb up there and scout around,” he says.

I look at the redwood and pee my pants but get to the top through a miraculous collaboration of determination, mind-over-matter willpower, and ass-numbing flatulence. I look down, and the world spins. I’m a lumberjack, and I’m not okay.

“We’re ramblin’ beyond the dust o’ this world, kiddo,” says Chu the Magpie, balancing on one foot on the end of a branch. “I’m gonna talk a little crazy and I want you ta try’n listen a little crazy too, okay?” He hops a little closer, staring and staring with his idiotic little twit bird eye.

“SQWAAAK!” he yells right in my ear. I nearly fall off the tree. Chu flies away and shits on Christopher’s head and shoulder, which makes me laugh.

“C’mon down,” Chris yells. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.” I gaze at the sky where three-in-the-morning stars twinkle just behind happy afternoon blueness and then, eternity tucked snugly under one arm, I climb back down.

Christopher gets a very serious look on his face, but it is undermined by the bird poop. “This is about sound and breath and air,” he says. He breathes deeply and I realize I’ve forgotten to for an entire minute. I inhale a chest full. It hurts, but is more satisfying than sex.

We stand still for a moment and the forest comes alive with sounds. The river roars. Leaves rustle and grass grows. The sounds from my stinking mouth fall into perfect harmony with the forest.

“This is the piping of the earth,” says Christopher. “This is the slow inhale and exhale of the world. There is also a piping of the heavens.”

I fall to my knees. The sounds are beautiful. Christopher looks at me and extends a finger to help me up. I grab it to raise myself, and he lets one rip. “And that’s the piping of man!” he laughs, slapping his knee.

A breeze comes up, and the trees call, “Hooo.” It grows stronger, and they call, “Yooo.” Small breezes make small harmonies while, somewhere, whirlwinds sing entire operas. When the great winds pass, all the cavities are filled with emptiness again. But from whom, such a belch?

I stand bereft of words or beginnings. Great understandings fall from my clustered hide and wither in the dirt. Trying hard to make things One, I had failed to notice they were all the same thing. I am close now, so very close.

“How ‘bout this, you Fuck?” Christopher leans a bloody palm against a tree. The other hand holds the bottom of his leg, which he has severed just below the knee. He shakes the limb angrily and blood pours down his arm, all over his clothes. “You stupid, bloody dunce!” he shrieks. “You crotch-licking douche-bag!”

Finally, I know what I know. I move to Christopher and put my arms around him in a hug so I can lower him to the ground. His head and back are drenched in sweat and his wound makes him shake like a leaf in a thunderstorm.

“No one is older than the stillborn child,” he mutters.

“Don’t try to talk,” I say, stroking his hair. “We need to get you some cotton.”