Crossbows?
It has been many years since the Captain was at sea, expertly piloting his giant ocean liner, the Valhalla Queen, in and out of fjords as contented passengers lined its decks to snap photos of icebergs, glaciers, and baby seals before racing inside to the ship’s dining room to wolf down their sixth or seventh gourmet buffet of the day. Worthless, degenerate swine, the Captain used to mutter into the sleeve of his handsome dark-blue uniform, taking care that no one heard him. Then, as often as not, following his dinner at “The Captain’s Table,” the Captain hurried to the simple good taste of his own cabin, where he removed his jacket, stood in front of the bathroom mirror, put two fingers down his throat, and regurgitated everything into one of the black plastic bags he kept for that very purpose beneath his sink. When he finished, he’d rinse his mouth, replace his jacket, and carry the bag back outside, where he would nod at the various happy passengers who sat on deck chairs wrapped in blankets, staring stupidly at the Northern Lights as they awaited the midnight buffet to be set out in the second dining room. When he was certain he was totally alone, he’d hurl his former dinner as far away from the ship as he could, into the icy water, return to his cabin, and enjoy a dreamless sleep.
The Captain’s hair is white these days, but above his left eye there is still a stain: a birthmark in the shape of an anchor. He combs his hair over it, and so successful is this strategy that even people who have known him for years are unaware of its existence.
Sometimes the residents of the Burrow will ask each other about the pond or the tree that hangs over it.
“How does the tree look to you these days? Does it look healthy? Do you ever wonder what kind of tree it is, exactly?”
Or, “How deep is the pond these days?” Or, “Have the birds begun to build their nests in the rushes of the pond?”
And the answer will invariably come back: “Actually, it’s been awhile since I’ve been outside at all.”
Jeffery thinks that out of everyone who lives at the Burrow, Raymond is the wild card. And as if to demonstrate this truth, on the very day following their conversation regarding jet planes, just as Jeffery is about to grasp the knob of the front door of the Burrow to go outside, who should appear but Raymond, his arms spread, grabbing on to the sleeve of Jeffery’s tan, cotton-polyester, lightweight jacket.
“Jeffery,” Raymond asks, “do you remember your dreams?”
Even from Raymond, this is a strange question. But then, what strikes Jeffery as even more bizarre is that Raymond must have been lurking by the front door for God knows how long, like the Ancient Mariner, waiting for him. And, what is even stranger, it is clear to Jeffery that Raymond must have gone to the door directly from his bed, because he is still wearing his red-and-white-striped pajamas, which could use a wash. Truly.
Also, there are three or four fresh wood shavings in his hair, as usual.
Raymond, being the Burrow’s longest resident, is the one who remembers Louis best, and when Louis left suddenly, in the middle of the night, without an explanation, it made Raymond nervous. How could someone be there one moment and then in the next disappear? When Raymond tries to picture Louis now, he can only recall a tall, coffee-colored man with gray, curly hair who was fond of sweaters, and always polite, and who never failed to clean up after himself when he used the kitchen. But what else? He used to like to talk to Louis, he knows this, but what did the two of them ever talk about? What were Louis’s features? What happened to him? The man seems to have been washed away somehow, and the thing that sticks most in Raymond’s mind is, of all things, the sound of his name, Louis, which, curiously, was the same sound made by Louis’s worn brown leather slippers as he shuffled down the hall on his way to the kitchen. At any rate, with Heather in her room most of the time and Viktor being with Madeline these days, that pretty much leaves only Jeffery for Raymond to talk to.
No wonder he misses Louis.
Viktor’s favorite word is rectum. There are others that come close—rector, correct, erect, even rectitude—but for all-round satisfaction and simple purity of sound, rectum wins, hands down. Rectum, that great two-stroke gong of a word, beginning with the crispness of the rec, and then, just as the listener is brought to attention by the rec, comes the hollow tum of doom at the end: rec-tum, the whole journey of life in two syllables, and the end of life, too, if you think about it. And just guess where that exit point is? Garbage in/garbage out. People write all the time they 
something, so why isn’t there an equivalent for the rectum? It is literally amazing that here we have one of the most important organs in the whole human body, and yet most people refuse to give it the recognition it deserves, have failed to embrace the power of this simple word. But Viktor has embraced it. That’s his secret.
Meanwhile, Jeffery still has his hand on the knob of the Burrow’s dark front door, getting ready to leave. “Why do you ask?” he asks Raymond.
“Because,” Raymond answers, “I’ve been having the same bad dream lately, and I can’t seem to stop it.”
“Maybe you should write it down so you can remember it,” Jeffery says, and gestures toward the exit.
“I already remember it,” Raymond replies. Somewhat disconcertingly, he begins to tug harder on the sleeve of Jeffery’s jacket. It’s one Jeffery was given several years ago by an old girlfriend, and for that reason it is his favorite article of clothing. It still smells of her patchouli and, at least in his mind, of her spit, which would sweetly leak from her mouth like a child’s when she fell asleep on long rides, her head on his shoulder as he drove carefully homeward so as not to wake her. Her name was Pam, he thinks, or Jan.
“Okay,” Jeffery surrenders. “Let’s go to my apartment. You can talk about it there. ”
And what kind of town is it where people are so backward that they refuse to learn the names of the trees that are in their own neighborhood?
Cypress or pine—these careless people answer if you should ask them—what difference does it make, as long as they are there?
But aren’t the names of things important?
The Burrow, for one.
“Twilight souls” is the name the Captain gives to the uncomplicated and unaware primitive races he came into contact with during his days on the high seas, caught, as they were, somewhere between animals and a higher being. But caught where exactly, the Captain refuses to specify.