Chapter 15

The wind was whistling bitterly when I came upon the crime scene in the cold. There, on the sidewalk, a television set had been murdered in the night.

The thing lay like a cadaver face-down on the sidewalk. So I could not see its telltale blank expression to know that it was truly dead. But its power cord trailed on the ground, twisted, away from any life-sustaining outlet. I turned and rushed quickly to my apartment, sanctuary from the wind.

Beneath my new bathroom light bulb - a light still emotionally detached - I thought I recognized the face in the mirror. That evening, the Vietnamese lady at the salon had done a good job of restoring my face; time had done the rest. Still, you can never go back, said the face. Indeed, the Vietnamese lady said, "You nose still a little crooked."

But for her that wasn't the point in keeping the beard. She trimmed it and said, "Keep it. It look good." I imagined television stars getting this treatment, complete with shampoo, walking out as new people - whole new personas! - even though one day the television stars would all end up dead with their power cords pulled out.

Ah, but to be truly new - that required a nose job. And as fate would have it, I had one of those waiting for me tomorrow. "Your new nose, sir." said the doctor. Then, just like on TV, there would be an unmasking before a mirror and I would gasp in wide-eyed wonder at the brand-new old me, while in the background there would be some clapping and a couple of nurses laughing, carefree, and -

Wait - in the mirror, I thought I detected a new pattern . . . that face, eyes blank, said, "You cheated death." You should have laid there, face down on the steps, your pretty neck broken and your brain trailing out of your skull like cords . . . but - dancer that you were - you twirled and fell mostly on your hands. Death slunk away, the blood on your hands not enough for even a prime time special. Do you not know? Having cheated death, you are now detached from life.

About 6,500 miles away in the desert a television news reporter was left alone in that whole wild country to tell the world in pictures the story of the slaughter. He came upon a man, face-down in the dust, his entrails trailing away in twisting cords . . .