do have a soul” while in another a man he’s a Jewish man and he’s dying an Old Poor Jewish Man he’s dying as usual and the Polisher Rebbe he tells him to go to the Polisher Priest and convert to have himself converted to Christianity Catholicism whatever it is that they believe in the Popes and so the poor old Jewish man goes to the Polishist Priest and converts and lives In fact he lives only because he converts but when the next New Year comes around Rosh Hashanah meaning the Head of the Year how he heads to shul anyway his feet take him there and for the very first time since his conversion it’s as if he felt he had to go was impelled felt compelled by Something the God of the Other and the moment he crosses over the threshold of the shul the synagogue it falls in on itself collapses and crushes all the assembled praying to death their own Kaddish in the third Polisher Rebbe story the Polisher Rebbe receives prophecy in a dream though in another occasional variant a highly placed and paid Police Informant informs the Polisher Rebbe that gevalt a pogrom is to take place tonight and so Der Polisher Rebbe that was his name he goes to all of the town’s the village’s the shtetl’s tailors and from them collects tailors’ dummies all of their mannequins and then has them all dressed up like Jews then sends for all the Jews’ goats and cows and calves and chickens too for all of their animals and has them too all dressed up like Jews Aba said Like Hasidim they looked with their dark hats and dark suits and white shirts and dark yarmulkes and white tzitzit and black payos and cool Asian imitation RAYBAN sunglasses on all these tailors’ dummies for the gentiles Goyim to slaughter instead then evacuates all the Jews all the Real Jews to another town a nearby village a neighboring shtetl though just for the night during which they won’t sleep a fortieth of a wink because when they all return to their shtetl the next morning early at the rise of the sun they find a whole ghetto of Jews they’d never known before whom they’d never seen before in their lives never heard of Jews all cleaning up from last night’s chaos disaster sweeping up window glass mess fathers and mothers mopping up children all the old tailors’ dummies and livestock brought to life come to life conscience and good housekeeping and so the Jews have to leave there’s no room for them anymore in their old houses Ancestral homes Aba said they have to abandon in search of another homeland to find yet another Source Aba said are the stories that night I forgot the stories I couldn’t recall I couldn’t remember though I tried no matter how hard squinting my eyes pressed and pushed on my stomach like I do when I’m trying to go to the toilet to Pish before bed which I forgot Aba always insisted upon but just as standing At military attention at then sitting upon the Waterless old newspaper older magazine toilet that night lying I soon enough tired myself out with just thinking or actually not thinking at least trying not to think and instead occupied myself with reading all of the titles off all the books high up on the bookshelf all the way across my huge it seemed room it seemed in the dark facing my bed to swallow me with its many mouths that were only shelves of more teeth that were books but I could only make out I could only read the titles of the books that were closest to the crack of the door the sliver of hallway’s glowworm nightlight I insisted on remaining open and on and the books they just had the same titles I knew from every night I remembered A HANDBOOK OF SOCCER RULES a few fake abridged versions for kids of the selected works of Jules Verne HOW TO SPEAK GERMAN IN TEN EASY LESSONS and then as a bookend a Tanach with my barmitzvah portion bookmarked with a leaf from the “aspen” in our backyard I had to begin studying in the fall the same portion my Aba had the first one which is the portion called Genesis of the book that’s also called Genesis because In the beginning I had a late summer birthday like my Aba with the Haftorah from Isaiah Fear not for I am with thee I will bring thy seed from the east and gather thee from the west I will say to the north Give up and to the south Keep not back bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth the same titles I knew from each night I did this which was almost every and still I don’t know why I didn’t just go ahead and up and rearrange all the books on my shelves why I didn’t just put new titles there move some old ones around others but I never did and so quickly it seemed but it probably wasn’t I was bored of the titles and so moved I wandered my eyes to the left or so to stare dead ahead at the crack of the draft at the door at the seam the scar of the suicide attempt of the wall its light that was coming through shining though getting narrower and narrower or rather becoming shorter and shorter smaller it seemed as if a rectangle becoming a square becoming a yellow circle that was like a block I used to play with that the Queen gave away to my new cousin in Arad I never would meet becoming a generic cereal O I would string as if to bead a bracelet or necklace on a shed of the Queen’s hair drowned in my milk whole in the morning becoming just a pinpoint a prick the sting of a wasp one for both of my eyes and yet one for each too imprinting itself singeing themselves incising and gashing until despite the pain I fell asleep finally I must have fallen asleep at long last I fell asleep I did as dead as I am now and will be forever and there yes here yes this was what I am after this is what I’ve been after what I was trying to say what I’m saying that heaven is like: when I fell asleep and into a dream but into a dream THE Dream that might or might not be new novel or original but I’m sorry it was a dream at least I’d never had before and certainly not since I dreamed of dreaming and that was it was a dream of a dream only in which I was in bed with the covers with the Aeroplanes on them the helicopters’ propellers and rotors tangled up to my nose with my eyes closed I saw what I thought what then happened was that I was sleeping and that I knew I was dreaming that I was dreaming of sleeping and in that sleep I was dreaming that was it that was all I was forced was compelled it’s that I was cursed to dream myself dreaming and with everything around me the same and unchanging and me unable to change it or myself I was straightened into this dream of dream into this dream of a dream of a dream with as many levels or hierarchies or heavens’ worth of consciousnesses if you want attendant upon the phenomenon as I can now attempt to admit to know understand that was it was without revelation there was no revelation there was none at all to be had and instead though it’s a poor bargain if you’d ask me now if only you could only if I could answer in return the assurance of existence that’s it times tenfold that’s all that I am shining I’m just shining through the horror just through the raw yolk of existence cracking a shine through its knobless handleless shell it was horror yes because It was horror or rather more accurately more faithfully It was terror yes more like terror that was it was terror it was abject terror abject total terror yes terror that’s what heaven is like that absolute truly terrible dreaming of dreaming of mine.