“They relate that Orion of Optimia, who as a player on the harp was second to no man living at that time, and so far as we know the first to invent the dythirambiac measure, to give it its name and to recite it at Corinth, was carried to Tynareum on the back of a dolphin. He had lived for many years at the court of Periander [Tyrant of Corinth], when a longing came upon him to sail for Italy and Sicily. Having made rich profits in those parts he wanted to recross the seas to Corinth. He therefor hired a vessel, the crew of which were Corinthians, thinking there was no people in who he could more safely confide, and getting on board he set sail for Tarentum. The sailors, however, when they reached the open sea, formed a plot to throw him overboard and seize upon his riches. Discovering their design, he fell upon his knees beseeching them to spare his life and making them welcome to his money. But they refused, and required him to kill himself outright if he wished for a grave on the dry land or without loss of time to leap overboard into the sea. In this straight, Orion begged them, since such was their pleasure, to allow him to mount upon the quarterdeck dressed in his full costume and there to play and sing, promising that as soon as his song was ended he would destroy himself. Delighted at the prospect of hearing the very best harper in the world, they consented and withdrew from the stern to the middle of the vessel, while Orion dressed himself in the full costume of his calling, picked up his harp, and standing on the quarterdeck, chanted the Orthian. His strain ended, he flung himself, fully attired as he was, into the sea.

“The Corinthians then sailed on to Corinth. As for Orion, a dolphin they say, took him up on his back and carried him to Tynareum, where he went ashore, and thence proceeded to Corinth in his musician’s dress and told all that had happened to him. Periander, however, disbelieved the story, and put Orion in ward while he watched anxiously for the return of the mariners. On their arrival, he summoned them before him, and asked them if they could give him any tidings of Orion. They returned for answer that he was alive and in good health in Italy, that they had left him at Tarentum where he was doing well. Thereupon Orion appeared before them, just as he was when he jumped form the vessel. The men, astonished and detected in falsehood, could no longer deny their guilt. Such is the account hat the Corinthians and Lesbians give—and there is to this day, at Tynareum, an offering of Orion’s at the shrine which is a small figure in bronze representing a man seated upon a dolphin.”

-Herodotus, Book 1, Titled Cleo

…

From a dream had, Saturday, Dawn, June 7, Bellavue, Pennsylvania.

‘How many times have I ridden in the front seat of this ambulance while my son died in the back?’

‘Will they bring him back this time?’

The ambulance screamed down Luerssen and right across Moravia, left down Harford Road—where he died again—right across 33rd Street where he was revived again. He could tell, knew, by the cadence of the ambulance, what was happening in the back; it had occurred so many times…

Time slipped.

He woke in a hospital waiting room.

“Mister Banes,” came the voice, “your son is stable and recovering. We are keeping him overnight.”

He looked up at the doctor, an unreachable cipher gone down a long ago taken fork in Life’s road.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said.

“Mister Banes, do you have a ride? That is an 8 mile walk uphill and you have to make it through—”

He walked away, out through the lobby, listening only to the cadence of his 15 year old dress boots, what went on quickest when he went looking for his lost son, being carried around the neighborhood by “friends” in an alcohol induced coma.

Weird shapes haunted his walk home, to the home he was in the process of losing through work injuries. A kickboxer worked a heavy bag hanging from a tree on Lake Montebello Drive. Only one white, Japanese sedan, at Aragonne Drive, tried to run him over for sport, unusual for such a long walk through Baltimore. The front of his boot was smashed in front of the toe. Lucky for him they were two sizes too big.

As darkness fell a pack of pitbulls padded down the street towards him. The one in the lead, a big white and brown boy, looked at him with concern, wondering what kind of dog human he was. The second, a black bitch, watched traffic. The third, a brindle boy, scanned the house fronts and stairs for danger. The fourth, a big white bitch, kept rear guard, looking behind.

He saluted the pack. They stopped and looked at him in wonder, as he walked dazedly by.

He came upon Big Earl X in the alley behind Harcourt. The drug dealer swallowed hard and nodded, standing next to a bucket. Banes shrugged his shoulders and said, “He’s alive—I don’t have to kill you,” and walked on by.

A deep rumble of a truck, sounding like an off road vehicle, roiled up over the bend, rolled past him, stopped, put on its hazards and waited. It was a souped up Jeep, an actual steel vehicle. Banes walked past, but was stopped by the passenger side door kicking open. A bald man with short black beard and piercing gray eyes, wearing a black T over jeans that did not properly conceal his firearm, spoke, “I’d like you to address my congregation. Please, Mister Banes, get in.”

Looking in the back and seeing no others, he complied.

The man nodded respectfully, extended his hand, and let Banes know who was far and away the man with a crushing grip barely applied. “Paul, I’m with SMASH, Southern Maryland Area Skin Heads. We have a church. You are the next guest speaker—unless you decline?”

“My wife will be worried. I need to stop at a pay phone—the 7-11 on Belair, next to the pool hall, across from the cemetery gate.”

He made the call, sounding like a ghost, unable to recall what he said a minute later. The time slip was returning—he’d been with him, in the Jeep before. He usually had trouble clearing his gun before Banes bailed, shooting him in the ass, only crushing him against the stone wall of Holy Redeemer Cemetery on occasion. He normally died by being run over in the cemetery.

‘Why do I keep getting recycled?’ he mused.

“How should I know, race traitor,” spoke the angel, the first time this agent of Eternity had pried openly into his mind.

“Okay, I’ll go—won’t bail this time.”

…

Two hours later, just before midnight, they arrived at a farmstead outside of Crownsville, an old three story house, with one white van parked outside.

Paul looked at him, “Your quarters are upstairs, first door on the left—bathroom across the hall. Get squared away and I’ll be waiting out here at dawn. Peter is the house keeper.”

Peter absently waved to him, busy as he was reading. He was a tall thin man with straight brown hair cut bowl style at the ears.

He stepped out of the shower at dawn—another time slip. Drying off and getting back into his sweat-stale clothes, he could hear the engine outside and became worried that he was late. Rushing into his dress boots, not zipping them up, he asked Peter, “Where do I put the towels?”

“Oh, we take them with us. It’s yours.” He then went back to reading Von Mises’ Human Action in a green dust jacket.

‘That is strange.’

Paul was already pulling away, slowly, very slowly. Eager to make the church address and then get back to his sons, Banes jogged to the Jeep, which did not stop until it came across from a freshly dug hole, complete with the idle back hoe what had done the excavation. Banes open the door and said, “Sorry I’m late, Paul.”

“Sorry, but not late,” answered Paul as he drew his square black pistol and split the sky with three thunder strokes.

Light sizzled through his chest as Banes slipped through time again and laughed, a fountain like laugh that trailed off in gurgling bubbles.

‘What color was the towel?’ he wondered as the road closed and Girdion reached out from Oblivion with his cold claw.