"It's desire," she said. "The Buddha said."
"Keeps us chained?"
"Yup."
"What desire?"
"You know. Food, sex, fame, money, ski equipment."
"But you like sex."
"I'm not unchained," she said.
"Who would want to be?" he asked. He smiled.

She didn't answer. Instead she reached across him for her sweater which she began to crawl into. He watched her maneuver and reached for one of her breasts. She slapped his hand and bounced off the high, creaky bed.

"I, for one," she said.
"You for one, what?"
"Would like to be unchained."
"The Buddha said?"
"The Buddha said."

He watched the young couple on the bus. They were standing in the back, there was nowhere for them to sit. Not that they minded. She wore a thick down jacket, a Bogner or Kitzbuhl, something like that. The boy held her shoulders pulling her to him, pushing her away, pulling her to him, pushing her away, making his chest and her round, softly padded bosom collide again and again. Bouncing. She smiled at this and didn't look around to see who on the bus might notice their bouncing. The boy smiled too and kept talking, saying sweet things by the look on his face. Smiling and talking and bouncing. He seemed very happy. She too. He watched the young couple from where he sat through a small forest of seat-less passengers, suspended by single arms from the overhead rail. He was not watched in turn. He made sure. He felt embarrassed. He also felt very lonely watching the warmth between the boy and the girl. He desired. The Buddha said.

She reached for another handful of crumbs at the bottom of the paper bag. She scooped them with fine fingers and felt the crust dust find her nails and lodge beneath, dry and scratchy. She did not care. She watched the ducks watch her watch them. She brought out her cargo and scattered it on the water. The ducks saw and startled and made for the food. She thought about food and ducks and the need to eat. The Buddha said.

It is a painting of a Yeats poem. It is a dark night and in a glade he wishes for the cloth of Heaven. And there are stars. She watching the painting can see them spread before her in the painting, but she in the painting does not see stars and she treads on the cloth. His cloth. His dream cloth. For he dreams the cloth, and she treads on his dreams and she does not tread lightly but tramples these stars which are his stars, his desire. So the Buddha said. She stands in front of the painting and notices no one or nothing else. It is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen. She sees the poet's face, its pain. She knows the pain. The pain is as real in his face as in her memory. No matter what the Buddha said.

Five boats set out. Engines can be heard as they leave the dock. Engines and gulls. They head into wind. Human shapes fast and strong bring out and hoist sails. Engines are killed. Of five boats only four will return, but this he does not know. No, he wishes he was one of them, leaving the prison of feet onto the water. And he watched as the sailors soon to drown tack and head for open water. He does not wish himself dead but he would be could his wish be granted. The Buddha said. He does not listen.

She bites her pencil. She bites her nails. She mumbles. She sighs the way blood sighs before an exit. She climbs the stairs and feels the weight of hard years in her calves and wonders yet again at the pain within them. Should she see a doctor? But other days it's just fine and there is nothing to worry about. Only the tenants that will not let her sleep for all the creaking at night and she steals into their bedroom for she is sure they are not in. And she looks at the unmade bed and sees the stained sheets. Not that she had to see to know. So what is she doing here? She wonders. But not honestly enough. And so there is no answer. The Buddha said.

There are fifty thousand varieties of rice. Fifty thousand. He is not quite sure why this strikes him as completely absurd. Really un-real. If asked, he would perhaps have been able to name four, five different kinds of rice: brown short, brown long, white long, white short, that's four kinds, wild rice, five. Leaving forty-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-five to go. His world has no room for fifty thousand varieties of rice. But it is true. He's heard it more than once. From people who seemed to know but who never stop to think about what they know. That's so they won't explode. He explodes, however, and cannot find a sixth type of rice to save his life. Still forty-nine thousand nine hundred ninety odd short. What's the other one? For every cockroach you see there are twenty you don't see. That's apparently true too. So how many types of roaches do we have? He looks it up: here are four thousand species. Four thousand. Each species innumerable, no doubt. So between rice and cockroaches there just isn't room for anything else. The world is built on a foundation of rice and cockroach. Growing and scurrying beneath the surface of All and keeping everything balanced. No doubt. Just rice and cockroaches, except for butterflies of course. Innumerable butterflies. How many? He does not look it up. He does not want to know. He knows there are very many. Very, very many. Very many. He gives in, looks it up: one hundred forty-eight thousand species, surpassed only by the beetle in variety. There are at least two hundred fifty thousand species of beetles. Two Hundred Fifty Thousand Species. And are there perhaps not twenty more species you don't see for every one you do? There is no digesting these numbers. There is no understanding them. He refuses, refuses to understand the sheer quantity of life. He feels miserably single but then thinks of how many cells he comprises: literally trillions. Trillions. Just a word, a sound, not a quantity. Drops of water, grains of sand. Oceans of them. The Buddha said.

She does not eat meat. There is something fundamentally wrong, she says, in a world where some living creature has to be some other living creature's food. So, she will not eat meat. But plants are life too, he says. The plants die to feed you. Yes, but without pain, she says. How do you know? I don't, she says. Maybe plant pain is more intense, crueler than ours, since they cannot scream. She does not answer this but he sees that she worries. He longs for a hamburger, he says. She frowns. They agree to disagree. You know what 'fresh' in fresh chicken means, she says (he's heard this one before, many times). It means 'recently dead'. That's what it means. The same is true of apples, he says. That is true, the Buddha said.

She's been here again, she said. You're paranoid, how do you know that, he said. I can smell it, she said. I know her smell. She's been here again. Can we change the locks, he asked. No, no, she said, I don't think so. It's her door. Why is she in here, he asked. Don't know, she answered. Don't know. Maybe the Buddha knows, he said.

She walks back to the docks and the forest of masts where seagulls dart and dive and the pelicans circle for fish. She longs for space. A horizon. Reflections. Breeze. She arrives and takes it all in. Feels life is much too short. But, she thinks: Is the gull's life short from the gull's view? Is an ant's life short from the ant's view? Is the pelican's life short, she thinks, finding again her favorite flyer. My life does not seem short, but that's me looking. What would a mountain think? Or a planet. Or a sun? Or is time nothing but a question? The Buddha said.

Her eyes cannot leave the pelican, skimming the surface as if skating on his wingtips. Next to the pelican all other fliers are amateurs, she thinks. But is the pelican proud? No, said the Buddha.

She tosses again in the stifling dark. Her blankets are many and warm but they bring her mother alive and she must keep them surrounding her. She hears that awful noise again in the room above her. That creaking and thudding that can only mean copulation and she turns over to confirm that it is twelve thirty and she should have been asleep two hours ago. But the constant lovemaking disgusts her and drives her deeper into her mountain of blanket. There is no escaping the Buddha.

"Do you think she hears us?" he asks.
"Of course she does," she says.
"Don't you mind?"
"I don't mind."
"But she does?"
"I'm sure she does."
"Don't you mind that she does?"
"It's her sin, not mine."
"The Buddha said?"
"The Buddha said."

Later he asks, "Still want to be unchained?"
"Yes," she said.

Her answer hurts him. He turns to find her face in the half light. Her eyes are closed and she looks very peaceful. He waits for her to look back but she does not. She is asleep. Would he have disliked the Buddha had he known him, he wonders. He's pretty sure he would because even with her here next to him he is alone. So the Buddha said. We are all basically alone. Skull prisoners. Yes, chained. Said the Buddha. He wishes for the cloth of heaven.