The Second Coming

nourishing of all vegetables.”
    â€œWhat is entailed with you?”
    â€œNothing. Why?”
    â€œYou seem somewhat pale and in travail. Is the abomination at home or in the hemispheres?”
    â€œI don’t know. Maybe both. You mean my brain. I don’t feel very well, to tell the truth.”
    Later he irritated her and she got rid of him. He was standing by while she told him what she meant to do with the stove. There it was hanging from a rope suspended between two chimneys. It looked like a small iron house ripped from its foundations, pipes and connections dangling. She explained.
    â€œI bought the thing which is called a block-and-tackle. I tied the ropes on the chimneys which have shoulders like steps.” Listen to me talking good, she thought. Perhaps in order to talk all you need to do is do something, then explain what you have done. “Tomorrow the stove will go from here to there.”
    He stood, hands in pockets, looking up at the stove from under his eyebrows as if it had descended from another world.
    â€œHow?” he asked.
    She did not reply.
    â€œWhat—?” he began and stopped.
    He is in some kind of distress, she thought.
    After a moment he said: “You got that thing up there all by yourself?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHow are you going to get it over there?”
    â€œIt’s downhill.”
    â€œI know, but—” He stopped.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œAh, why do you want it over there?” He sounded as if he had a hundred questions and picked this one at random.
    â€œTo keep warm.”
    â€œYou’re going to put it in the greenhouse?”
    â€œYes. What type of stove do you call it?”
    â€œIt is a cook stove.”
    â€œDoes it burn wood?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWill it both keep me warm and cook?”
    â€œYes. It also has a water tank.”
    â€œThen it will have hot water?”
    â€œIf it gets cold water and then you feed it wood.”
    She clapped her hands without smiling. “The climb is underway.”
    â€œYes, right. The climb may be underway, but”—he turned toward her, shoulder turning with his head, but did not quite meet her eye—“you see, it has pipes which you connect with a plumbing system. And I don’t believe—”
    â€œI can bring water down from the rock.”
    â€œWell, yes, you could if—”
    â€œDo you have my dossier?”
    â€œYour what? Oh, you mean how do I know about you?”
    â€œYou look like you know about me.”
    â€œI know something about you.”
    Her eyes tell. Forehead muscles pushed her eyebrows down into a shelf. Then he had come from her parents.
    â€œThen the word came from the bloard.”
    â€œBloard?” He didn’t know what she meant. From the board? the broad? blood? blood kin? bloody broad? All these?
    What she meant was board and bored, meeting of her father’s board which was boring because it bored into you.
    â€œLook. I’ll be back in half an hour.”
    â€œNo no. Naw.”
    â€œI didn’t mean to upset you. I’m going to get a golf cart from the club and a trailer and a couple of men and we’ll put the stove where you want it.”
    â€œOh no.”
    â€œNo? Why not?”
    â€œBecause there I will be with people having put the stove where I want it. And that’s the old home fix-up which is being in a fix. Then what? The helping is not helping me.”
    â€œI see.” After a while he said: “You mean you would rather do it yourself.”
    â€œThe arrangement is the derangement. When the arrangement is arranged, then you know what the ensuement is.”
    â€œNo, what is the ensuement?”
    â€œThe ensuement is: then I am with the arrangement.”
    â€œYes, I see that. But does that also mean that you can’t accept anything from anybody?”
    She tightened her arms around the brown bag. “The contents are intense and also tense.”
    â€œWhy is that?”
    â€œBecause of the thanks. After thanks come blanks.”
    â€œNot necessarily. The avocados are yours. You don’t owe me any thanks. But if you did thank me, it wouldn’t take anything away from the avocados. They wouldn’t become blank. They’re solid.”
    â€œThat is not the climbing question.”
    â€œWhat is the climbing question?”
    â€œWhen are you going to leave?”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œYou