imaginative expressions and noble cathedrals of knowledge, from which came the cruelest weap ons. Killing was a main feature of plays, movies, and novels, where every kind of weapon was wielded with delight. People tortured and killed in their dreams. Awake, uncharitable and violent impulses warred with civil order, as some people struggled not tokill each other,butmerely tohurt in the way of the rationalizing coward. "Yes, we learned to adjust how we saw our selves, as a kind of collective delusion, a cosmetic means to a measurable peace with ourselves/' "So why did we suddenly remember?" "It's a glitch. Or there's some purpose to our remembering." "A purpose?" "Maybe we timed it?to remember after a point." "Timed what?" "A clock!" "Wemust forgetagain!" The nostalgic said, "Actually, we like being this way." "But we are monsters!" "Best to accept our identity!" "I can make us forget again," said the head of a major corporation. "How?" cried thehopeful many. "How?" whispered the threatened few. "Sales techniques can sell anything." "Mercy!" "There's a timer somewhere in our genome. Itmay even contain a message from our distant past telling us why we remembered, and might show us how to forgetagain. We may have done somany times before. The engine that casts this delusion is inside us!" "We'll be cured!" cried the dragons all over the world. Somehow, even the despondent loners in the deep valleys sensed thepromise of salva tion and roared in reliefat the sky. "Itwill be expensive," said theCEOs, "but it must be done." "But do we want another cover-up?" asked a few. Then came a rumbling, and a great gong sounded in theirheads, but theydidn't notice at firstthat it was coming from inside them. "We're being called!" cried thepeople. "By whom and for what purpose?" They listened. The gong was long and slow between beats, relentless. Two Poems GeorgeZebrowski The morning school bus goes by, carrying itsdesperate load ofnew brains seeking tosecure the future forthedying. These are thebottles that we stuff with scribbled notes and cast forward intoepochs that we can only imagine. We know,we know, what theschool bus is, butwe don't think toomuch about it, nor pay enough fortheschools where itdisgorges its loads and picks themup, inendless lost afternoons. These minds riseup likedivers fromoceanic depths, And awake in time topull up others. But fewnavigate theseas under thestars awake. Most reach skyward forawhile, then fallback towatch the school bus goby? Nature has confessed, "I can'tmake living things last forever, So I'll let them liveby parts Of a relay race into the future, And I'll help them forget The absurdity ofmy eternity And theirown passing By changing themalong the way. Besides, it's toohard To keep one model Running forever. "I did not count on them TTiinkingabout it." May-June 2010 ?33 SCIENCE FICTION The dragon people looked into theirmir rors and saw their sleepless, bloodshot eyes set in scaled, weary faces, waiting for an even more terrifying revelation. . . . "It was better," said the religious, "when we discovered our kinship to the apes. But at least we were no longer apes. We had progressed." But, of course, itwas dragons before apes. To be descended from apes had been a step forward. "We must sleep, and we must forget again," the analysts said. "If we can sleep, we'll wake up to . . . our humanity. That is our true shape, this is thenight mare." "Yes! If only we could get enough sleep!" "Go to bed for a week or two and allwill be well." "All will be well!" "Why should it,why should we think so?" asked the criticalminority. "How can we believe that we can stimulate the return of our better selves?" "Humanity is our true shape," said the analysts. "We have only mis placed it. Humanity!" "Saying won't make it so!" cried the doubt ers. "And even iftrue, why did we lose it?" The question swept across theworld and hung in amocking silence. "There's something about dragons," said one analyst. "Yes, there is something about dragons," said another. "To accept, even to love." "We stand on a precipice fromwhich we secretly yearn to leap into this...