Okay, fine.

Here's what I came up with.

By the way, all this stuff is copyrighted to me for all eternity, in perpetuity throughout the universe.

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Revisiting the canyon.

It began when the particles of dust in the air met the fullness of the ground. When dizzy air had disappeared, and we all could walk and breath oxygen.

The two of us lived in the house that had seemed so normal, so detachable from society, back when it was a suburb. When it was a necropolis around us, this pale shelter of dry wall and stucco was a fortress, a garden, a heart and a lung. We grasped to it like a womb.

There were other houses around us, but this one is ours.

Idleness evaporated, thankfully. We went to work right away. Everything before us had to be analyzed as a potential tool or material. I remember the joy I felt, finding a deformed used staple on the ground once we had set up the bin labeled "steel." Every drop of oil, every speck of plant matter, every torn piece of paper and unidentified fuzz had a place now. When necessity forces you to identify with the work of survival, a wasteland turns into Eden. This lesson was a blessing. I feel it was the big one, the sustaining one.

And so a pile of garbage is just as much a garden as a sweltering bed of irises and herbs. Everything is made a feast by my discerning fingers.

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Day One

It was the first day that laziness slid off my bones and the world opened up to me. I don't know what caused the change; but I welcome it. I welcome it as it comes back to me every day, like the sun returning on its course. And, like the sun, I hope it returns faithfully, and I do not have to resort to desperate sacrifices to win its good graces.

I woke up in bed, next to Lilly curled up and painfully resisting the day. I threw the blankets off the bed and glided out the front door in my bare feet, an uncovered whimpering Lilly echoing behind me.

I knew that this new day was different. The sunshine was pleasant, the air was breezy and warm (it was late June) and all of the world seemed laid out before me.

I went into the garage and begin the Work.