Lexicon

pistol. His eyes were wide and there was a sheen of sweat on his face that told her he had put himself into a heightened mental state. Poets could do this, if they really wanted. She had seen them do it. They talked and moved very rapidly for about an hour, then slept for days.
    “Gotcha,” said Eliot.
    She held up her hands. She wanted to speak, but it seemed like if she opened her mouth, he would shoot her. He would shoot her anyway, of course. That was why he was here.
    They faced each other a moment. Maybe some guys would come through the door and take care of Eliot. That would be super handy.
    Eliot wiggled the plugs out of his ears with his free hand. “I had to render the outlier unconscious. He couldn’t be trusted.”
    “Okay,” she said.
    “I blame myself for what happened. I should have stopped it.” She didn’t know what to say to that. “I have to kill you.”
    She nodded. It had been like this for a while.
    His fingers flexed on the pistol. “I’m sorry I didn’t teach you better.” His expression was very strange.
    “Eliot,” she said.
    “You have to stop.”
    “Eliot.”
    There were soldiers approaching. She could feel them. This idea was distressing in a way it hadn’t been a few moments ago.
    “I made mistakes,” he said. Around her, soldiers boiled out of the air like ants. There was a great deal of noise and Eliot could have shot her but he didn’t and he fell down and died.
    • • •
    After this, she felt strange. People came and went, soldiers and poets, and sometimes they stopped to speak to her but she didn’t hear them. When they began to package Eliot, she walked to the front of the burger place and sat at a table. Occasionally someone walked by but for the most part she was alone. She began to cry. She didn’t understand why, because she had wanted Eliot dead. She had wanted that very clearly. But there was grief coming out of her anyway, spilling from her compartments, and she was reminded that not all of her wants were hers.
    A shadow fell beside her. She looked up to see who was stupid enough to disturb her in this moment, and saw Yeats.
    He righted a fallen chair and composed himself into it. He was wearing a beautiful dark gray suit and his hair looked fresh and bright. He was wearing sunglasses but he removed these and set them on the table, and behind them his eyes were flat.
    “Oh,” she said. She felt stupid. Of course Yeats was here. She should have realized that.
    “Congratulations.” He surveyed the line of dust-blown buildings across the road. “You see now why I wanted you, specifically, on Eliot.”
    She didn’t reply.
    “Persuasion stems from understanding. We compel others by learning who they are and turning it against them. All this, the chasing, the guns . . .” He gestured vaguely. “These are details. What Eliot could not escape was the fact that I understood him better than he understood himself.” Plath hovered at the edge of Emily’s senses. Yeats said, “A glass of water, please. Let’s make it two.”
    Once Plath had gone, Yeats shrugged his jacket and passed it to Masters, who was standing like he was planted there. “I have been visiting delegates. Not all of them agree with my new direction for the organization. Some tried to move against me. Expected, of course. Futile, since I understand them. We attempt to conceal ourselves, Emily, but the truth is we do not entirely want to be concealed. We want to be found. Every poet, sooner or later, discovers this: that within perfect walls, there is nothing worth protecting. There is, in fact, nothing. And so we exchange privacy for intimacy. We gamble with it, hoping that by exposing ourselves, someone will find a way in. This is why the human animal will always be vulnerable: because it wants to be.” Plath arrived with two glasses, of a kind Emily recognized from years before, and set them on the table.
    “I feel bad about Eliot.”
    “Yes, well,” said Yeats. “Some kind of suppressed emotional overflow, I would imagine.”
    “And I’m remembering things.”
    “Oh? Such as?”
    “I came out of the ER. Through that door.” She pointed. “I went that way. People were killing each other. Because of the word. Harry came after me. He knew what I’d done. But he saved me anyway.”
    “I’m not sure why you’re telling me this,” said Yeats. “It’s irrelevant.”
    “I’m not talking to you.”
    A figure was walking toward them, coming from the direction of the