FROM THE FORTHCOMING NOVEL "THE SHADES"

Mark took the handkerchief from his shirt collar and twisted the salty rag over the pail. The pail was now half-filled with salty water. Mark was so thirsty, he wanted to drink the salty water from the pail to quench his awful thirst. Later, Mark decided that after his work was done he would sit in the shade of his back porch and eat some pretzels. Washing down the salt with a cool hand-squeezed lemon-and-seltzer, Mark would imagine winding the day down and reeling in that old sun.

13 years earlier, Mark was so high on grass that he couldn't handle his rake in the autumn yard. The cold sun beat down on the man. And the cold beat the man. And he sighed, "I'm a slave to a hooker."

A History Of Witches, a book about Mark's exes, would soon reach its final draft. Mark removed his sunglasses and garden gloves and rubbed his eyeballs with his right hand thumb and middle-finger. The tension behind Mark's eyeballs was unreal.

"Unreal..." Mark said, and then lost balance for a moment. "Do you want unreal???" Mark stared off into the other side of the yard. Then Mark removed his eyeballs. happy halloween