alain woke up. johnny was gone.
alain waddled over to the window and looked out at the windswept boulevard.
it was october in the great sprawling heartland of the open road.
where every door was open and every bird sang.
alain swallowed his pill.
then he went back to bed and pulled the soft downy quilt over his head.
meanwhile the hotel was a bustling hive of activity.
johnny woke up in a hayloft.
outside he could hear the cows yawning and the sheep murmuring softly.
it was time to be up and doing.
the air was filled with a thousand buzzing bees,
and a lone butterfly.
there are two kinds of people in the world, alain mused drowsily with a touch of pride as he burrowed liked a macacque into his secret world of demonism and pure color -
sense people and non-sense people.
sense? did we not abolish sense long ago, when the leaves were green ?
and the peanuts were still in their brown paper bags?
later, snow covered the hot dog stand,
but the portugese ambassador had been deeply compromised by the chambermaid's notes in the margins of his diary, which he had foolishly forgotten to lock up.
i am sorry to see, said the resident manager
to the hastily assembled maids,
that there is less water in the carafes
and that there are fewer pistachios in the silver dishes.
are we free to go now, sir, asked the head chambermaid with just a touch of passion.
i have butterflies waiting to be let out into the cold december air.
some call them moths but i call them the children of apollo.
