Around here they call it the Devil’s Workshop. This idle mind. So when they discover someone sitting alone in a room, they send a hero in to the rescue. The yellow telephones you find all over town—there’s always a professional companion at the other end. And, of course, there are the loneliness parlors where volunteers wait to embrace you in their white gloves. Years ago all the old monks were rounded up from their monasteries and married off to widows. I know it’s blasphemy, but I miss the trumpeter who used to climb out onto his rooftop and play his sad ballads. And all those mournful violins that replied. I heard talk yesterday…They’re going to start digging up the dead. On the grounds of loneliness. Then they’re going to replant them. This time two to a coffin.

Prometheus stole fire from the gods. Then tucked it under his coat and handed it off to us. He paid the price, of course. That dark bird you see circling the foothills? It swoops down every morning to where the poor fellow is chained to a rock and eats away at his liver. All this comes to mind on winter mornings like these. When we huddle around his fire. I’d like to thank him. On behalf of the whole human race. And hike up there. Fire a few shots to scare off that beast. Then stitch the old god up and drive him into town to show him what we’ve done with his gift. How we bake these little muffins. How faithfully our furnaces chug along. I’d introduce him to welders. Short order cooks. People in the profession of fire. We might even hold a parade. Set him up on the back of a convertible. Have the mayor hand him the keys to the city. The whole shebang. But if I know anything about fate, even as he waved at the crowds, even as he shook the confetti from his hair, he’d be homesick for his rock.