Leanne shifted from one foot to the other. Monster cable didn't
interest her; neither did analyses of the signal path in Klipsch equipment
or the promise of free Surkie & Ganarkis speakers. Her obstacle raised him-
self on tiptoe to deliver some final words on the merits of his job as an
audiophile sales rep, but Leanne got frustrated and snatched the lighter
out of his hand. "Thanks," she said around her cigarette, and resolved not
to ask anybody for help unless she knew exactly what they were doing on the
former grounds of the 1964 World's Fair. Everyone had a reason.
	Everyone except Leanne, that is. After her ward was cited for ad-
vances in osteoporosis prevention, she and the other doctors set up a rot-
ating schedule to make sure each of them got much-needed time off. Her
number came up without a chance to make plans, so she headed for her bro-
ther's place in Flushing. It took little arm-twisting for her to follow
Ed's poet friend Butch out to the fairgrounds for some urban camping. Butch
needed help to follow up the poems that won him the Frost Society's "Best
Young Poet" badge, and he'd heard the Greek writer Ganarxis, a hero of his,
was holed up in one of the larger tents.
	Smoking in what she hoped was an intimidating fashion, Leanne mus-
cled her way through a knot of middle-aged folks gambling in the shadow of
the Unisphere. Her daily wanderings took her past all kinds of Fair debris,
but only the Unisphere still functioned as it had four decades earlier: it
loomed. If you spun yourself dizzy under its metal circumference, it roll-
ed; if you waited for sundown, it winked. (It also fucked, as in "Look at
that big fucking sphere." Leanne had noticed that everyone around her swore
like orderlies.) Bored of faking decorum, Leanne pressed her cheek against
the 'Sphere's cool surface and sighed deeply. It took a lot out of her,
milling around amid the master fry cooks, the brilliant day-traders, the
impeccable book binders. She knew she could hold her own in her field, but
there were too damn many fields. She wondered if the guy who sewed car
frames out of industrial plastic thread could help edit her backlog of un-
publishable papers.
	"What a vision of pulchritude! Whoop! Whoop!"
	"Hi, Butch."
	"Hi, kid! Zoom! Thunk! Kabamm!"
	"You don't sound so good."
	"No, I'm great. I just met the world's most amazing viper. I think
he walked here all the way from the 30's. Check this out... poof! Whale-
bone roach clip. I offered to write a poem about how he could roll two
joints at once with one hand, but he just gave it to me."
	"Did you find that Ganarxis guy to mentor you?"
	"Bing!" Butch indicated his cranial 100-watt. "I looked, but all I
found was this circus named after him. Circus Ganarchy, I think."
	"Where is it?"
	"Well... I don't know. I just heard some acrobats talking about it.
They drove here to try and join up. They never even heard of the guy, but I
guess they love his circus."
	"Tick tock..."
	"And a beep beep to you as well. G'night, Lee."

	200 yards out from the Unisphere, Leanne glanced back over her
shoulder. The vanguard of every class, every profession stretched out in an
array of makeshift shelters. She sneezed, and a faint clang came back to
her with the echo as though she were still leaning against the giant steel
globe. Reasons for skipping sleep started coming to her. With a little
practice, it got to seem downright easy.

written for Kamar, Ted & Yevy in my living room 10/22/01

Aside from the gunky ending, I think this worked out well. Halfway through I realized that I was more or less writing about Burning Man, where I was first exposed to fiction-on-demand. I tried very hard at that point to superimpose the story's setting on the landscape in my mind rather than giving in and describing only what I remembered. Not sure I fully succeeded. So it goes.

The three guys who asked for this story warned me that some of the words might not be real. I grimaced a little, and they offered to specify what part of speech each one was; this struck me as a reasonable bargain. "Surkie ganarkis" was identified as a proper noun, "Unisphere" as a common noun. What they didn't know is that there IS a Unisphere... anyway, since I didn't know what Surkie Ganarkis was, I figured none of my characters would either. Also a reasonable bargain, no?

Though I said I thought this one went well, it does demonstrate that a few good turns of phrase won't substitute for knowing what you actually want to say.

- everything is by Aaron Mandel; please ask first if you're about to steal something -

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