IT'S NOTHING MAJOR! IT'S NOTHING MAJOR!

or, if it was something major,

IT'S MAJOR! IT'S MAJOR!

And maybe you could rate the people you knew by how much you loved them, so if the device of the person in the ambulance detected the device of the person he loved the most, or the person who loved him the most, and the person in the ambulance was really badly hurt, and might even die, the ambulance could flash

GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU! GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU!

One thing that's nice to think about is someone who was the first person on lots of people's lists, so that when he was dying, and his ambulance went down the streets to the hospital, the whole time it would flash

GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU! GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU!

"Grandma? Over?" "Yes, darling? Over?" "If Grandpa was so great, then why did he leave? Over." She took a little step back so that she disappeared into her apartment. "He didn't want to leave. He had to leave. Over." "But why did he have to leave? Over." "I don't know. Over." "Doesn't that make you angry? Over." "That he left? Over." "That you don't know why. Over." "No. Over." "Sad? Over." "Sure. Over." "Hold on," I said, and I ran back to my field kit and grabbed Grandpa's camera. I brought it to the window and took a picture of her window. The lash lit up the street between us.

10. Walt

9. Lindy

8. Alicia

Grandma said, "I hope you never love anything as much as I love you. Over."

7. Farley

6. The Minch / Toothpaste (tied)

5. Stan

I could hear her kissing her fingers and then blowing.

4. Buckminster

3. Mom

I blew her a kiss back.

2. Grandma

"Over and out," one of us said.

1. Dad

We need much bigger pockets, I thought as I lay in bed, counting off the seven minutes that it takes a normal person to fall asleep. We need enormous pockets, pockets big enough for our families, and our friends, and even the people who aren't on our lists, people we've never met but still want to protect. We need pockets for boroughs and for cities, a pocket that could hold the universe.

Eight minutes thirty-two seconds...

But I knew that there couldn't be pockets that enormous. In the end, everyone loses everyone. There was no invention to get around that, and so I felt, that night, like the turtle that everything else in the universe was on top of.

Twenty-one minutes eleven seconds...

As for the key, I put it on the string next to my apartment key and wore it like a pendant.

As for me, I was awake for hours and hours. Buckminster curled up next to me, and I conjugated for a while so I wouldn't have to think about things.

I woke up once in the middle of the night, and Buckminster's paws were on my eyelids. He must have been feeling my nightmares.

MY FEELINGS

12 September 2003

Dear Oskar,

I am writing this to you from the airport.

I have so much to say to you. I want to begin at the beginning, because that is what you deserve. I want to tell you everything, without leaving out a single detail. But where is the beginning? And what is everything?

I am an old woman now, but once I was a girl. It's true. I was a girl like you are a boy. One of my chores was to bring in the mail. One day there was a note addressed to our house. There was no name on it. It was mine as much as anyone's, I thought. I opened it. Many words had been removed from the text by a censor.

14 January 1921

To Whom Shall Receive This Letter:

My name is XXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX, and I am a XXXXXXXX in Turkish Labor Camp XXXXX, Block XX. I know that I am lucky XX X XXXXXXX to be alive at all.

I have chosen to write to you without knowing who you are. My parents XXXXXXX XXX. My brothers and sisters XXXXX XXXX, the main XXXXXX XX XXXXXXXX! I have written XXX XX XXXXX XXXXXXX every day since I have been here. I trade bread for postage, but have not yet received a response. Sometimes it comforts me to think that they do not mail the letters we write.

XXX XX XXXXXX, or at least XXX XXXXXXXXX?

XX XXXXX X XX throughout XXXXX XX.

XXX XXX XX XXXXX, and XXXXX XX XXXXX XX XXX, without once XXX XX XXXXXX, XXX XXXXXXXX XXX XXXXX nightmare?

XXX XXX, XX XXXXX XX XXXXX XX! XXXXX XX XXX XX

XXX XX XXXXXX to write a few words to me I would appreciate it more than you ever could know. Several of the XXXXXX XXXX received mail so I know that XX XX XXXXXXXX. Please include a picture of yourself as well as your name. Include everything.

With great hopes,

Sincerely I am,

XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX

I took the letter straight to my room. I put it under my mattress. I never told my father or mother about it. For weeks I was awake all night wondering. Why was this man sent to a Turkish labor camp? Why had the letter come fifteen years after it had been written? Where had it been for those fifteen years? Why hadn't anyone written back to him? The others got mail, he said. Why had he sent a letter to our house? How did he know the name of my street? How did he know of Dresden? Where did he learn German? What became of him?

I tried to learn as much about the man as I could from the letter. The words were very simple. Bread means only bread. Mail is mail. Great hopes are great hopes are great hopes. I was left with the handwriting.

So I asked my father, your great-grandfather, whom I considered the best, most kindhearted man I knew, to write a letter to me. I told him it didn't matter what he wrote about. Just write, I said. Write anything.

Darling,

You asked me to write you a letter, so I am writing you a letter. I do not know why I am writing this letter, or what this letter is supposed to be about, but I am writing it nonetheless, because I love you very much and trust that you have some good purpose for having me write this letter. I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love.

Your father

That letter is the only thing of my father's that I have left. Not even a picture.

Next I went to the penitentiary. My uncle was a guard there. I was able to get the handwriting sample of a murderer. My uncle asked him to write an appeal for early release. It was a terrible trick that we played on this man.

To the Prison Board:

My name is Kurt Schluter. I am Inmate 24922. I was put here in jail a few years ago. I don't know how long it's been. We don't have calendars. I keep lines on the wall with chalk. But when it rains, the rain comes through my window when I am sleeping. And when I wake up the lines are gone. So I don't know how long it's been.

I murdered my brother. I beat his head in with a shovel. Then after I used that shovel to bury him in the yard. The soil was red. Weeds came from the grass where his body was. Sometimes at night I would get on my knees and pull them out, so no one would know. I did a terrible thing. I believe in the afterlife. I know that you can't take anything back. I wish that my days could be washed away like the chalk lines of my days.

I have tried to become a good person. I help the other inmates with their chores. I am patient now.

It might not matter to you, but my brother was having an affair with my wife. I didn't kill my wife. I want to go back to her, because I forgive her.

If you release me I will be a good person, quiet, out of the way.

Please consider my appeal.

Kurt Schluter, Inmate 24922

My uncle later told me that the inmate had been in prison for more than forty years. He had gone in as a young man. When he wrote the letter to me he was old and broken. His wife had remarried. She had children and grandchildren. Although he never said it, I could tell that my uncle had befriended the inmate. He had also lost a wife, and was also in a prison. He never said it, but I heard in his voice that he cared for the inmate. They guarded each other. And when I asked my uncle, several years later, what became of the inmate, my uncle told me that he was still there. He continued to write letters to the board. He continued to blame himself and forgive his wife, not knowing that there was no one on the other end. My uncle took each letter and promised the inmate that they would be delivered. But instead he kept them all. They filled all of the drawers in his dresser. I remember thinking it's enough to drive someone to kill himself. I was right. My uncle, your great-great-uncle, killed himself. Of course it's possible that the inmate had nothing to do with it.