the thing to do, I thought, is to walk in circles. This is demanded by the mythology of all deserts and wasted places. A number of traditions insist on it. I was about a mile beyond the campus. Motion was strange. Motion consisted of sunlight on particular stones. (With the opening of classes I had been brushing up on perimeter acquisition radar, unauthorized explosions, slowmotion countercity war, superready status, collateral destruction, crisis management, civilian devastation attack.) All the colors were different shades of one nameless color. Water would have been a miracle or mirage. I took off my shoes and socks and the stones burned. I saw a long bug. I was careful to keep the tallest of the campus buildings in sight. This was a practical measure, nonritualistic, meant to offset the saintly feet. I remembered then to think of Rutherford B. Hayes, nineteenth president, 18771881. That took care of that for the day. Each day had to be completed. I avoided a sharp stone. Something sudden, a movement, turned out to be sunlight on paint, a painted stone, one stone, black in color, identifiably black, a single round stone, painted black, carefully painted, the ground around it the same nameless color as the rest of the plain. Some vandal had preceded me then. Stonepainter. Metaphorist of the desert. To complete the day truly I had to remember to think of Milwaukee in flames. I was doing a different area every day. This practice filled me with selfdisgust and was meant, eventually, to liberate me from the joy of imagining millions dead. In time, I assumed, my disgust would become so great that I would be rel............