#singing loudly in the car and smelling like sun screen

[fandomsandfeminism]

Summer 2023 checklist

Ask a friend for a book recommendation and then actually read it.

Go to your local library. Get a card. Attend 1 event they have. (Maybe see if you can borrow the book your friend recommended.)

Go to a park or outside space in your town that you haven't visited before.

Get a cheap pack of crayons, color pencils, or other cheap art supplies. Sit outside. (Maybe that park you've never visited!) Draw something badly. Enjoy how bad it is.

Get an outfit that feels about 20% skimpier and more revealing than you are comfortable with. Wear it. Eat something frozen. Feel cute.

Bake some cookies. They don't have to be pretty. Just follow the recipe.

Does your town have a Pride celebration? Go to it! (If it doesn't, what's the nearest one? Go!)

Find a farmers market. Buy something baked.

Get sidewalk chalk. Draw silly doodles outside your house. It's OK if it looks like a child did it. Your neighbors will like it.

[apricotgojo]

Boyfriend Choso headcannons !

ㅤ♡ Content: Gender neutral!Reader, tooth-rotting fluff, mention of nicotine, just down bad cute boyfie choso ~ SFW ★ A/N - ilovehimsomuchthisisjustpurebrainrot

He's definitely the type to make those lock screens of cute photos of you where the picture changes with every tap of the screen - and all of them are photos which you thought you looked absolutely horrid.

Choso NEEDS to be touching you in one way or another when you're next to him - be it holding hands, locking pinkies together while you walk, letting his hand rest on your thigh, putting his head on your lap or even just grabbing your legs and putting them across his lap just so you can sit comfortably on the couch with him.

Choso has never and will never let you light your own cigarette. It's basically just a silent understanding between you two at this point that you light up both cigs at the same time while he holds the lighter in the middle.

He will send you random photos throughout his day of things he does; random bowls of cereal, him looking annoyed with a cig between his lips with the caption 'bored', pictures of flowers bcs they remind him of you, pictures of cute cats and dogs he encounters outside and oh we cannot forget about the delicious gym mirror pics he sends you where he's shirtless, hair down and has his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth with just 'done ;)' as a caption.

his Instagram is basically just you. no profile photo, no bio just photos with you, of you, you and your cat and every story is about a moment with you.

EVERYONE knows he's in a relationship. He will bring it up in every single conversation he has undoubtedly. "Nice weather we're having." "Yeah, my partner loooves the sun" or "I think i feel sick" "My partner felt sick 5 days ago, actually."

You guys have the cutest but cringiest nicknames for each other and have made up your own nonsensical language.

his favorite nicknames for you are "bunny", "baby", "love of my life," "love -bug", "pretty"

Choso 1000000% uses a baby voice with you and he acts like a little baby when you guys are alone.

he insists on getting matching everything - keychains, rings, shirts, underwear.

If you mention that you remotely like something just prepare yourself to get something related to it the next day. "Choso, why is there a big ass block of brie in our fridge?" "You said you liked it at the restaurant yesterday so i got it." "I said i liked many things at that restaurant Cho~" A small smile, "I know." That's basically how you ended up with a new set of plates, an unholy amount of homemade bread and 3 bottles of vanilla handsoap which smelled exactly like the one at the restaurants bathroom.

although he's quite reserved and quiet in public, with you he can actually be all goofy.

car rides with him are great -he's grabbing your hand between gear changes and loudly singing and dancing with you to your favorite songs.

your tiktok drafts are basically just you and him doing cute couple trends,

he WILL rap along to sexyyred with you every time she comes on AND he will put his entire Chosussy in the dance with you - even if he refused to at first.

he's quite overprotective - he would never hold you back from going out or anything but he needs to know every detail about your plan.

He has a resting bitch face - you're aware of that but what's really funny is that when you're out together with others it only takes a "Cho~?" from you to make his bored face instantly light up with a soft smile. "Yes, my baby?~"

sometimes he asks dumb questions randomly.

"Do you still love me? Because you didn't show me your liked tiktoks yet.."

He is constantly mentioning the future with you - what your house is gonna look like, your future travels, the pets you're gonna have and sometimes he lets it slip up that he wants kids. (but reassures you that he'd be happy without any too, as long as he has you.) <3

[cowteapot]

Heatwave

Joe Keery x Reader

Summary: trying to survive the 100+° weather

Warnings: cursing, fluff

———————————————————————

The warm june air blew through the open window, inviting itself to fill the dark room causing sticky sweat to cover your body. You tossed and turned under the warm covers, kicking them off and flipping the pillow just to feel some coolness, reaching over to smack Joe on the chest and ask I’m to turn on the fan was a bust as your hand landed on a pile of empty blankets. You sat up, hair sticking to your sweaty face, you looked around for any sign of the boy, his clothes still sat on the large ugly orange chair you had gotten as a gift from your mom, his shoes covered in pale orange dirt still sat on your once beautiful carpet now ruined by the dirt stains. Standing up slowly and placing a thin white tank top on you slipped out of the bedroom and into the hall, the wood floors creaked below your feet and you slowly pattered to the main room, the harsh smell of tobacco floated through the screen door and slithered around the room. You peeked out of the screen door at the boy sitting in the plastic white chair on the porch looking out at the empty street, the glow of the cigarette lit up his face allowing you to see the slick sweat that adorned his face. The screen door opened with a loud squeak that Joe promised to fix but never did, he turned up to look at you “hey” it came out barely a whisper, your face softened as you stepped out into the heat, Joe opened his arms inviting you to sit on his lap which you gladly did. He took another deep inhale of the cigarette between his lips, you watched it light up like lighting bug, he pulled the stick from his lips, tapping the end with his thumb a few times the ash fell onto the wood porch. Joe tightened his lips and blew the smoke out through a small crack between them, you watch his every move with your head on his chest “did i wake you?” He mumbles but you simply shake your head “no. Too hot” you groan, burying your face into his shoulder, he rubs your shoulder “I know I promised to fix the AC-“ “a month ago” you cut him off rolling your eyes “I’m sorry I will do it this time” he turns to kiss the top of your head causing a sigh to escape your lips “you better.”

Your sticky bodies peeled apart as the sun began to rise, you two had sat for the past few hours just talking, you didn’t talk about anything in particular you just spoke about everything. You swung open the screen door with Joe following behind, you both were sweaty and tired but the thought of laying down and sleeping in the ungodly heat physically made your stomach turn. You poured yourself a glass of water as you pulled yourself up onto the counter top, your butt making contact with the counter top as you were only wearing underwear and a thin tank top, you sit with your head against the cabinet, eyes closed and the glass of cold water pressed against your cheek. Joe walked around the house opening every window to hopefully bring in a breeze, which honestly you both knew there wasn’t going to be one but he just hoped. You both mentally cursed yourselves for wanting to buy a fixer upper as the problems showed up one by one and really proved your mutual laziness. “Get dressed and get a coffee?” Joe questioned as he walked into the kitchen where you sat, he leaned himself against the fridge allowing the coolness to fill his body, you just groaned loudly, waving and arm at him which he didn’t see as he also sat with his eyes closed, he would never tell you this but the feeling of the fridge against his hot skin was better than sex and that was saying A LOT.

Once you two finally pulled yourselves up you both quickly got dressed, rifling through piles of clothes you found suitable cleanish clothing. Shoes were thrown on before dragging yourselves to the car. You climbed in sitting down with a hiss as the hot seat burned your thighs and the back surely singed off your skin, you quickly turned the AC all the way up as soon as the car was on, “Joe hurry up!” You practically screamed as the sun shone down onto your skin through the windows “fuck I’m going as fast as I can y/n just shut up” your face was pressed against the hot window, you were on the verge of tears from how hot it was. The car pulled down the street past all the houses with children in the front yards playing in small pools “Joe!” You turned causing him to jump a bit “what?! Fuck don’t. Don’t scare me like that” “sorry. Pool. We need a pool” his eyebrows furrowed “yea let me get right on that. I’ll build you a pool in the backyard in no time. Y/n we haven’t even fixed the AC or the door, or the water pump, or the-” “a kiddie pool Joseph” you smacked his shoulder “oh”

After coffee you found yourselves standing in the summer section of Walmart, Joe holding a a children’s pool and you holding various pool toys, “we should get this one too” he grabbed a pool floaty shaped like a diamond ring “what is that my wedding ring?“ you joked and he too laughed “what you don’t like yours” you looked down at the flimsy fake ring you two had bought in a gas station after your wedding day. You and Joe were never ones for a large wedding, instead you two went off the the courthouse and signed the papers one random day, no engagement, you didn’t even tell your families just a simple random thing you decided on. “I love it” though your finger had turned green and the faux diamond had fallen off you cherished it as he too cherished his own bright green finger and rubbed off copper ring.

The pool was set up in the front yard, pool toys thrown around the grass and sunscreen caked onto your skin, you both sat lounged out in the small pool, your feet propped up by his head and his by yours, sunglasses adorned your faces as you laid back and enjoyed the cool water, the sun beating down on your skin but you didn’t mind as the water kept you cool. You two had water fights, the grass slick causing you to slip a few times as you sprayed him with the large water blaster “give it up Keery” you raised your gun at him, he pumped the trigger a few times but a sad spit of water was all that came out, you looked at you with a worried expression “Not without a fight” he launched his gun at you, the soaker flying through the air before wacking you right in the face. “Fuck” you groaned dropping your gun and holding onto your nose “oh shit.” He ran forward to hold you up “I’m sorry baby. Is it broken?” He was kneeled in front of you, you were leaned forward holding onto your nose but his worried expression softened as you began laughing “who throws the gun?” You wheezed out and he too began laughing

You had now found yourselves sprawled out on the couch, a bag of frozen peas pressed against your nose and his bright pink burned body covered in wet towels “I told you to put more sunscreen on” you scolded him “I’m too cool for sunscreen” he huffed “your lobster ass says otherwise” you smacked his exposed burned leg with your foot causing him to groan loudly. “I hate you” he seethed and you laughed “I love you too”

[dazai-fics]

Stargazing – Dazai Osamu

Pairing: Dazai x Reader (high school au)

Word Count: 2.6k*

Warnings: slight cursing, smut/nsfw- oral, fingering

Summary: Having Osamu Dazai as your boyfriend has never been boring.

A/n: This has been stuck in my head for a while and I finally was able to sit down and write it out so I hope you guys enjoy and don’t judge me too much because this is my first time writing out smut !

Inspired by: Stargazing*- The NBHD

You could feel the cool of the evening seep into your bones as you groggily sat up in your plush bed. Once, then twice, did you blink to remove any bit of remaining sleep as you looked over to the source of your annoyance.

Your phone lit up with a string of messages from only one contact; a contact that as of late had made your heart pound in a way that was indescribable in every sense of the word. Sighing, you picked up the phone and began to read over the messages your extremely clingy boyfriend woke you up with.

‘Samu ♡:

1:04 AM

hey baby i can’t sleep u up?

1:04

Belladonna ? :(

1:05

I’m coming over, have a surprise for us :)

He’s what?

You were now fully awake at this point and groaned at the spontaneity and impulsiveness of your brunette lover. Knowing you had no choice but to go along with his antics, you got out of your bed and quickly ran to your closet hoping the faster you went, the quicker the chills would go away as they flared your arms and legs up with goosebumps.

You were already wearing sweatpants, so you decided to just throw on a black hoodie that was suspiciously too big on your figure.

You inhaled deeply as the smell of vanilla and mint overcame your senses causing a serene smile to overcome your features. Yes, this was indeed the sweatshirt of the Osamu Dazai; a man that in the last couple of months has invaded your every waking thought and had claim over any flush in your cheeks, dimple in your smile, and crinkle in your eyes as they closed shut-tight over the unbearable laughter released at one of his cheesy jokes.

Of course that didn’t mean everything was all raised heart beats and shared smiles with the boy as dating Dazai also meant caring for him and all his dark thoughts and emotions. As well as vise versa since your life by no means was easy and perfect. However, no matter how bad things got; or who left or entered your life, you could always count on Dazai, and him you, to be there whenever life caught you both in it’s gloomy and seemingly inescapable hold.

Another smile escaped your lips and you once again inhaled the calming scent; now thinking back to how you met the lanky, mysterious, goofball.

You had moved to your new town back in your freshman year of high school which of course meant having to make new friends and basically start a whole new life in a time that was so important and vital.

You remember your first day at ADA highschool so vividly; the sweat that built in your palms, and the barely visible motion of your toes curling into your shoes from anxiety. You had thought making friends would be impossible no matter how many times your parents assured you that your “charming” personality would help you make friends so very easily.

It was the end of the day and you were sure that your still very much lack of friends would mean that would be the truth for the rest of your four years in this high school you were very much forced to attend. You felt a tear quickly escape your eye as the anxiety started to take physical form; quickly you ran to a quiet corner and began to wipe furiously and harshly at your eyes as you reprimanded your sensitivity.

“What am I five? Why am I crying so hard?”

You jumped suddenly as you heard quiet giggles next to your ear.

You felt embarrassment flood your body as you wiped even harder to stop the tears. He was a bit blurry, but you could faintly make out the long, curly, brunette hair; dark chocolate eyes, and white bandages that wrapped around his long, lanky, figure. He also wore casual clothes which consisted of jeans, a hoodie, and sneakers.

Your first thought, of course besides the initial embarrassment and anger, was why he was wrapped in those seemingly endless rolls of bandages.

“Who is this weird banaged guy?” You scoffed to yourself as your sniffles came to an end.

“Done crying?” He asked teasingly, that stupid smug smile still on his face.

“I don’t remember asking for your help or comfort,” you said defensively, the venom not really reaching your still red and glossy face.

The boy laughed again good-naturedly; not intentionally trying to rile you up but he couldn’t help but think your anxiety was misplaced.

“Well then, why don’t you come walk home with my friend Atsushi and I, could be fun~,” he offered, his hand held out to you in an act of trying to make you feel comforted.

Your eyes widened as you hesitantly accepted his offer; the boy rushing you along as soon as your hands made contact, going into a rant over another boy named Kunikida mothering the absolute shit out of him.

Four years had gone by and you were both in your senior year;  nothing really changing between you except the now official titles of ‘boyfriend’ and ‘partner’ which you had longed for since as long as you could remember.

Since that fateful day, you had become a part of the best group of friends you could ask for consisting of Atsushi, Kunikida, Yosano, Kenji, Ranpo, kyouka, and of course Dazai.

However, you knew you wanted something more with Dazai since freshman year and although you two were… close, he never seemed interested in more. He seemingly always had a new girl on his arm bragging about the various amounts of… sexual interactions he would have with them and each time it broke your heart a little more.

Despite all that, he would hold you whenever you were down, wiped your tears whenever they fell, and held you close when you couldn’t sleep; pressing gentle kisses when he thought you were knocked out by exhaustion finally hitting you.

Dazai had intimacy issues and fears you knew were holding him back from officially committing to you which is why you never pressed anything and kept your feelings locked up nice and tight… until a couple of months ago when it all came to a head.

Harsh words; honest words were shared by you both in an argument you thought would rip the person you had come to love and rely on most from you forever. Luckily it did the exact opposite as Dazai decided he was done with denying himself from your pure and warm love that made his dark world just a bit brighter everyday.

And now you two were inseparable; lips never too far from each other, limbs entangled whenever chance allowed. Your other friends were definitely sick of it but you both didn’t care as you denied each other from this comfort for too long to let any time go to waste.

You were snapped out of your reverie by gentle tapping at your window. You quickly turned your head to see the man of your thoughts sitting patiently on the ledge, a goofy smile etched into his pretty, pink lips.

You scoffed playfully as you made your way across the room to open the window for him. Immediately, he placed his lips on yours in a passionate kiss as his hands came up to cup your face lovingly.

“Mmm missed you so much,” he mumbled against your lips causing you to giggle.

“We saw each other, like, six hours ago!” You exclaimed slapping him playfully, causing him to release a laugh himself.

“Exactly! Now c’mon I’m taking you somewhere,” Dazai commanded you gently, grabbing your hand as he guided you out the window.

“‘Samu it’s one in the morning, where are we going?” You groaned in annoyance wanting your boyfriend to join you in bed and cuddle you back to sleep.

“Nuh uh uh~ It’s a surprise!” He exclaimed playfully booping you on the nose as you both made your way to his black range rover.

“Alright, whatever, can I at least get a hint?”

“Hmm, okay, okay, fine,” Dazai relented as he began to type away on his phone playing a song from his spotify that came out on his connected bluetooth, touch screen.

Take it from the top, if I start I just can’t stop…

You giggled silently as you shook your head, your boyfriend rolling down both of your windows and turning up the music for what he likes to call ‘the full midnight drive experience.’

“So are we going stargazing?!” You yelled over the wind and music.

“Yep!” He yelled back cheerily taking one hand off of the wheel to rub at your thigh comfortingly.

“Pull it out of park put in drive, I can feel your heart beating with mine, underneath the stars, lookin' for a sign glowin' in the dark 'til the sun shines, made it pretty far on the first try, might've set the bar a little too high, started with a spark, now we're on fire-”

You both yelled together which winded up with you both laughing uncontrollably. Dazai continued to sing along with the neighborhood as you took this as a chance to examine how gorgeous this man truly was.

His silky, curly brunette hair went everywhere as the wind entangled with it, his dark chocolate eyes shined with the headlights from the cars going on the opposite side of the freeway, his bandaged hands gripped at the wheel allowing you to see every vein and bone from his knuckles, and his face was flushed pink from the yelling and wind.

You laughed freely as you once again joined in with his singing; utter and complete joy filling you both which was rare.

Eventually, you both reached a secluded park with a hill; perfect for sitting and stargazing. Once you both got out, Dazai layed out a towel for you both to cuddle on without getting soaked from the freshly sprayed grass.

You both giggled loudly like the teenagers in love you were as you made yourself comfortable on your boyfriend’s chest; his lanky arms coming to wrap themselves around you, one occasionally letting go to point out the constellations or meteors blinking past in the inky sky.

You had to hold in your snickers whenever he would wrongly name a constellation but nonetheless; you would place a soft kiss on his cheek and thank him for teaching them to you.

Soon, the soft kisses on the cheek would turn to passionate kisses on the lips as Dazai changed his position to where he was on top of you. He began to leave a trail of kisses down your jaw to your neck; the juxtaposition of his warm kisses to the cold air surrounding you both caused small whimpers of pleasure to leave your lips.

“‘Samu…” you called breathily causing your boyfriend to look up from the dark hickeys he was ever-so-carefully placing on your collarbone.

“What is it, my belladonna?” He asked teasingly, returning to his methodically placed kisses.

“More…” you whined as arousal began to pool in your gut.

“As you wish.”

Dazai kissed lower down your belly to the elastic band of your panties. After leaving a couple small kisses on your hip bone, he looked up into your eyes for confirmation it was okay to go further. You nodded urgently and placed your hand in his soft locks as if to urge him on.  He let out a chuckle at your eagerness but complied nonetheless; you were his princess and whatever you asked of him he would do, even at the cost of his own wellbeing.

After pulling down your sweatpants and panties, he immediately attached his tongue to your clit; moving it in small circles he knew would make you fall apart. Your whines and whimpers fuled him on as your fingers harshly pulled on his locks.

“‘Samu… want your fingers” You ordered in between moans.

“Where baby, tell me,” he whispered, placing a soft kiss on your clit.

“inside…please!”

“As you wish.”

Dazai slowly placed his ring and middle fingers into your tight cunt, “Fuck belladonna, so wet for me,” he all but moaned as he gently moved his fingers around trying to find the spot that would have you fall apart all over him.

“‘Samu there! Please!” You gasped as he found your G-spot; not letting up until your back arched and you cummed all over his fingers.

“Good girl; my good, pretty girl that’s it,” he whispered gently as he coaxed you down from your high.

He licked away all the wetness from his fingers as he came back up to meet your lips in a passionate kiss filled with lust and love.

“‘Samu, want more..” you begged softly against his lips.

“Mmm what could you possibly mean~” your boyfriend teased causing you to groan.

“Oh like you don’t want the same thing I can see your hard-on from here,” you teased back looking down to see he was indeed impossibly hard in well fitted grey sweatpants.

“Ha-ha touché, belladonna.”

You both shared a loving laugh as you once again met in a kiss, your hand cupping the back of his head to bring him even closer. Dazai separated for a second to take off his pants and underwear letting his painfully hard cock hit against his abdomen, Dazai letting out a hiss from the cold hair hitting it.

“Need you baby, please,” you whined as your boyfriend soothed you with a kiss to the neck as he began to line his dick up with your wet pussy.

“Almost in, tell me if it ‘urts,” he mumbled as he began to fill you up.

You gasped, never truly used to his size but feeling complete nevertheless.

“Okay?” He asked gently and you nodded kissing his cheek giving him the silent permission to keep going.

“Feels so good ‘Samu!” You moaned as he picked up speed.

“Fuck you’re so tight baby, always so good and tight for me,” your boyfriend praised as he kept up a gentle pace trying to bring you both to your respective highs.

“Gonna cum ‘Samu,'' you whimpered as you felt the coil in your abdomen beginning to snap.

“Go on belladonna, cum for me,” he praised as you did just that; the fast tightening of your warm cunt milking Dazai’s cock as he began to cum with you.

Dazai collapsed on top of you, burying his head in your warm neck and you wrapped your smaller arms around his waist.

“Love you so much ‘Samu,'' you whispered as you felt soft kisses being placed on the dark hickeys your boyfriend left prior.

“Love you more, belladonna; thank you for always being by my side,” he whispered back.

After indulging in each other’s warmth and comfort for a while longer, Dazai cleaned you both up with the towel and dressed you both as he then gently picked you up and placed you in the back seat to lay down as you had fallen asleep.

He took a warm blanket he always kept for you in the trunk and tucked and buckled you in as he took his place in the driver’s seat and drove you both back to your house.

Once you both arrived he took you in arms and walked you both up to the front door where he used the key you gave him to let you in.  As quietly as possible, he then took you both upstairs to your room where he tucked you in again and then got comfortable in the bed next to you; gathering you in his arms and then pressing a kiss to your head.

“Good night, my love sleep well.”

[sunshineseung]

Little Secret Part 2 // Changbin

🍄 | genre: smut mini-series ☁️ | pairing: Seo Changbin x female!reader 🌿 | wc: 3.6k 🌸 | includes: virgin!reader, kinda romantic, lots of smoochin’, lil bit of begging, reaaally soft sex, oral (f!receiving), consent :), protected sex, aftercare? ig

v Please read part one first! v

🌊 | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Finale |

“Alright, I’m gonna go. Thanks for having me over.” Changbin thanked his closest friend, always polite and courteous to Jisung for allowing him to come over so often. 

“Cmon, you know you’re always welcomed here.” Jisung cleaned up their mess of popcorn and chips, tossing the bowls into the kitchen sink before helping Changbin leave. “See ya tomorrow in the studio, right?”

“You know it!” Changbin waved to Jisung as he entered his car. His car started with a hum, and the Bluetooth connected to his phone and continued where his Spotify left off. Ignoring whatever song was playing, Changbin dropped his forehead into the steering wheel as he faced the text message app in his phone. He patiently waited for you, staring at the bright screen, until he saw the familiar ellipsis text bubble appear in the lower-left corner. His face lit up with glee, and he felt his heart start beating out of his chest. 

Changbin knew all too well that you had a crush on him. You made it more than obvious, stuttering over your words whenever he talked to you or hiding in your room whenever he was over. He and Jisung would joke about it in an attempt to brighten an otherwise problematic situation, but deep down, Changbin liked it. He liked the way you stared at him when he would be shirtless around your house. He liked the way you would go quiet in your room whenever he would start to talk purposefully loud about his sex life. He even liked it when he would go upstairs to use the restroom and hear your little moans of his name from inside your bedroom. He was always such a tease to you, and he couldn’t deny that he liked you too, but not in the exact same way.

Changbin lived alone. He had his own apartment downtown, and although he was known for DJing at parties, he would spend a lot of nights alone, left to his own thoughts. To combat intrusive or self-destructive thoughts, he would jerk off, obviously. And as much as he tried to focus on the pornography in front of him, he would always end up closing his eyes and letting his mind wander to you. The image of you riding him, bouncing on his cock as your chest rose and fell, was a go-to for him whenever he needed to cum fast. The thoughts of you doing sinful things with him never appeared until the beginning of this school year when he saw you carry a package to your room that was not-so-discretely a package from a sex shop. He always thought of you as extended family, being his best friend’s brother and all, but after imagining what naughty things might have been in that box, his mind was set. You were the only girl that could satisfy him.

He knew his experience would frighten you, but he wanted to ruin you more than anything. Jisung had never seen you with a partner, and although this was second-hand information, Changbin would love to take your virginity, making you cum over and over again anyway he can. 

This was his chance. He never knew how to make the first move on you without Jisung noticing, but if this was how it had to be, then this is how it had to be. 

You walked out to his car after sneaking past your brother, taking a seat in the passenger seat of Changbin’s car, refusing to look at him, although Changbin’s eyes were focused on you. He smiled gently, attempting to lighten the mood.

“Look, I said I’m sorry.” Changbin placed a hand on your shoulder and you gulped loudly. You could have sworn you felt your heart to a frontflip. 

“Changbin,” your voice was quiet, scared of what was about to happen, “if you don’t want to do this, then I-”

“Y/n, you have no idea how much I want to fuck you.” You were speechless. You darted your eyes to meet his, and his gaze was dripping with sincerity and lust. “Let’s go back to my place. You can sleep over, I don’t care. I just want you right now.”

“Wa-want me?” You bit your bottom lip, unable to believe the current situation you were in. The boy you’ve had a crush on since middle school was about to fuck your brains out until the sun came up. Your mind was foggy, but not foggy enough to refuse Changbin’s advances. 

His right hand rested on your thigh the whole 30 minute drive to his apartment, and you almost started shaking just thinking about what he was going to do to you. All your filthy fantasies were about to come to life, or you hoped they would. 

Despite your excitement, the thought of Jisung finding out terrified you. Although you fought constantly, he was always protective. He would never let anyone lay a finger on his precious little sister. The only person that could bully you was him. If he knew what his best friend was about to do to you, he’d explode out of anger. 

Changbin knew this. He knew damn well what he was doing would upset his best friend, but he couldn’t let this go any longer. Changbin would make lewd jokes about you infront of Jisung, each time resulting in Jisung fake-puking and threatening the older’s life if he were to ever even think of fucking you.

Ah, if only he knew.

You arrived at Changbin’s apartment. The elevator ride to the third floor was silent, but Changbin stayed close to your side the entire time. Your mind was still a mess, but Changbin’s presence made you a little bit at ease. As painfully horny as he made you, he was still your first love. You loved to be around him.

Once inside of his apartment, Changbin eased you in and welcomed you, giving you a quick “this is the living room” tour. You sat on his couch per his request and nestled back into the soft upholstery. Everything smelled like Changbin (unsurprisingly), and you almost fell asleep the second you sat down before Changbin sat next to you and leaned into your ear.

“This is your first time, right?”

You nearly jumped out of your skin. His voice was deep and hardly above a whisper. You felt so hot, and the atmosphere was so hot, and when you looked at him, he looked so hot. Holy shit. This is happening. 

“Yeah, but that’s okay, right?” You leaned away from him, afraid he would pounce on you at any moment. He noticed the fear in your eyes, and his glassy eyes reverted to his soft, warm gaze. He laughed it off, gently placing his hands on your hips and pulling you onto his lap, earning a quiet yelp from you. 

“Of course that’s okay, baby.” His nickname for you melted your heart. You blushed brightly, and Changbin thought it was the cutest thing he’d ever seen. He felt his chest get tight as a smile stretched across his face. “Tell me if it’s too much, alright?”

“Alright, Bin.” He leaned in, and you realized you hadn’t kissed anyone since Junior prom (Don’t tell Jisung! It was a one time thing!). What if you weren’t good enough for him? What if you were bad at this? What if-

Then his lips were on yours. He waited patiently for you to get more comfortable, never moving on until you began to kiss him back. The kiss was so light and sweet, something Changbin hadn’t experienced since high school, but it honestly made his heart sing. He was the one that was supposed to be teaching you! What the fuck was this? Your hands quickly found their place on his shoulders and the back of his neck as you pulled yourself closer to him. You could feel him semi-hard under you, and you gently pushed your body down to feel more of him without thinking that he would also feel you push down on him. He pulled back and hissed, cursing under his breath. You tried to apologize, but before you could utter a word, his eye contact made you speechless. 

“Eager, are we?” His smirk made your heart drop. God, he was so good looking it made your brain error. Of course you were eager, but you didn’t want to fully submit immediately. You were always a baby to him, so this could be your chance to have him see you as more mature, right?

“I just wanted to feel you.” Your sweet little voice made Changbin swoon. He knew you were innocent, and as much as he wanted to ruin you, there was an angel on his shoulder telling him to be gentle and caring. He wrapped his arms around you and brought you into another kiss, this time greedier and heavier than the last one, but you felt safe in his arms.

Changbin’s lips on your jawline felt like nirvana. He was so gentle with you, yet still domineering enough to make you entirely pliant in his arms, not like you’d know what to do if he actually let you be in control. You felt his kisses become rougher as he began sucking hickeys onto your neck. You arch your back and lean into his body, giving him full access to your neck. His hands went from supporting his weight at your sides to exploring your body, feeling you up over your shirt as slowly as possible.

“Take this off, princess.” Changbin tugged at the bottom of your shirt, hoping you get the hint. You nodded and hastily tossed your shirt off, exposing your braless chest. “Oh? Nothing on underneath?”

You looked down and covered your chest with your arms. Fuck, why were you so nervous? You’ve wanted this for years and now you’re shy? Changbin grabbed your wrists and slowly pulled you away from yourself, again exposing your chest to him. His face was unreadable aside from the casual smile that made your head spin.

“So beautiful.” Your face was as red as a tomato. His hands moved from holding your wrists to holding your hands, keeping you from covering your body. “This is what I’ve been missing out on this whole time? Damn, I should have done this sooner.”

He looks to you for any sign of discontent, but your soft puppy eyes tell him everything he needs to know, and he knows you need him. He dives his head into your chest, taking one of your nipples into his mouth, his tongue circling the sensitive bud, and takes your other breast into his hand, gripping your nipple between his fingers and twirling it gently enough to make you keen. He was so good at what he was doing, and you couldn’t help but moan and whimper, especially when his teeth began to tug at your nipple. 

Switching his head from one breast to the other, he briefly makes eye contact with you, and your adorably innocent gaze is enough to make him fully hard, his cock begging to be let out of his sweatpants. You looked so good, and the spit dripping from your chest lead down to where he wanted his mouth the most: your cunt. 

His heavenly touch left your chest, and you whined from the lack of stimulation before he stood up from the couch, taking you up in his arms in the process. He carried you to his bed, placing you down softly on the sheets. The smell of his overwhelmed you as you sunk into his pillows, quickly becoming blissed out and ready for more. 

Changbin joined you on the bed, taking his position between your legs, kissing your tummy and moving down to the waistband of your pants. You knew what was coming, but you didn’t know if you were ready. Your heart was beating out of your chest as Changbin looks to you again, lightly tugging at your pants.

“Bin, c-can you turn off the lights?” You point to the switch on the wall, and Changbin giggles before getting up and switching them off. The street lights from outside his window illuminated the room just enough for Changbin to still see the warm glow radiating from your body. He took a second to look at you, legs spread wide and chest arched up. Your eyes were glued to Changbin too, who had a noticeably large bulge in his pants. It was then that you realized you wanted this. You were ready for anything Changbin wanted to give you, to do to you. 

“You’re so fucking gorgeous, baby.” He comes back between your legs, and you raise your hips for him to slide off your shorts. The underwear you had on was nothing special, but Changbin loved it nonetheless. His fingers pressed your wet panties into your even wetter cunt, making the area fully drenched in your slick. You whined, desperately wanting more stimulation. 

“Please fuck me, Bin.” You didn’t know you had it in you to be so vulgar, and neither did Changbin. His eyes go wide as he looks up at you. You were so desperate, tears were lining your eyes. 

“Not yet, babe. Let me taste you first.” He slides your panties down your legs, adding them to the rest of the clothes. Now you’re fully naked, and fully at Changbin’s disposal. A single finger runs through your folds, and you whine when he begins to play with your clit, making small, calculated circles around the nerves. 

While your eyes are closed, he leans down and lays on his stomach to become eye-level with your pussy. His fingers leave your clit only to be replaced by his mouth, sucking and licking at your clit. You buck into his face subconsciously, and he can tell how much you love it by the liquid dripping out of your cunt. One finger slides in with ease, and when he bends it, you arch your back even more, and Changbin quickly finds your g-spot. 

“Bin, more, please.” Changbin could bust in his pants by how much you’re begging for him, but he loves it. Your voice gets so high-pitched and whiny every time you try to speak, but he loves it. 

He adds two more fingers, now thoroughly stretching you out. The drag of his fingers is insane, and he can reach deeper inside you than you ever could. You push onto his hand, subtly riding his fingers as he pumps them into you. His mouth is still attached to your clit, lapping you up like it’s his last meal. You feel yourself begin to become undone, and you throw your head back from the overwhelming pleasure.

“Bin, c-close.” That’s all you can squeak out before Changbin sucks harsher at your clit, pumps faster inside you, and makes you cum on his face and fingers. Your cum coats him as you shake from the most intense orgasm you’ve experienced thus far. You moan his name loudly, and hearing you curse so much is beyond sexy to Changbin. Your sweat reflecting the street lights, your back arched with your perky titties standing up, your beautiful moans and sounds. It’s all too perfect to be true. 

“Good girl.” Changbin takes his fingers out of you and sits up when you’re through your orgasm. He sucks off his fingers, tasting your sweet cum. The sight was too much, and you wanted nothing more than for Changbin to finally fuck you and take your virginity. “Is my girl ready for my cock?” 

“Y-yes Changbin, please, I need your cock.” You raise your hips, this time to get his attention back to your most sensitive area. He looks down and notices your neediness. Changbin’s shirt flies over his head and joins the rest of your clothes on the floor. He’s sitting between your legs on his knees, giving you a moment to ogle at his sculpted body, which you did.

You’ve seen him shirtless before, but this time was different. Now his body was over you, not across the room or in the pool. You subconsciously reached out to him, leaning forward and running a hand down his abs, stopping at the waistband of his sweatpants.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” Changbin laughs, but you get unbelievably embarrassed in a matter of seconds, leaning back and covering your face with your arms. Changbin pins your hands above your head and leans down to kiss your blushing face all over until finishing on your lips, his tongue dancing with yours. “Don’t be shy, baby. Just calm down and let me take care of you.”

That smile. It was so sincere. You felt like he cared. Immediately, your heart burns with passion as you lean forward to kiss him while still being held down by his hands. His hands move down your arms to your chest, feeling you up one more time before you feel his hands leave your body. He breaks the kiss and leans to his bedside drawer, pulling out a condom. 

Without missing a beat, he pulls his pants and boxers down his thighs, his cock springing free. It’s a lot bigger than you had imagined, but that’s okay. You wanted him more than anything, and judging by the precum leaking out of his tip, he wanted you too. 

Changbin slides the condom down his shaft, making sure to pinch the tip of the rubber. He leans down and holds your hands at your sides, entwining his fingers with yours. You try to take deep breaths to calm down, but now that he feels so close, your heart feels as if it could burst out of your chest at any moment.

“This might hurt, but it will feel good, I promise.” He runs his tip through your folds, getting the head wet with your juices before lining up with your entrance. “Do you trust me, Y/n?” You nod, but that isn’t enough for Changbin. “Words, baby. Do you trust me?”

“Yes!” All you can do is whimper and squeak, a mixture of anxiety and excitement bubbling inside you. “Yes, Changbin. I trust you.” 

Changbin pushes his member into you, stretching you around him. It feels like you’re about to be split in half, like your lower half could just fall off. Fuck, was it painful. But as Changbin bottoms out, he just waits. He waits for your face to go from pure pain to pure pleasure. You’re biting harshly down on your lip, holding in any whines from the pain. After a moment, you let out a moan and push down onto his cock as if it wasn’t already fully inside you. 

“Bin,” your glassy eyes meet his, “move.”

His thrusts are slow and steady, making this the most enjoyable experience for you. Although you’re far from an orgasm, Changbin is scarily close. Your cunt feels like it was made for him. You’re tight, so fucking tight, but just enough for Changbin to still fit. He looks down and catches his cock disappearing into your dripping hole. The sight is filthy, and he loves it. If that wasn’t enough to make him close, your pretty moans were.

He knew your face was pretty, but your sounds, dear god your sounds. You sounded like an angel. Whenever you moaned his name, Changbin could feel his heart flutter. You sounded so damn pretty, like the best song he’d ever heard.

Changbin’s thrusts became more sloppy as he struggled to hold back his impending orgasm. You just looked so hot. The way your face scrunched up when he thrusted into you, moaning and whining with every moment. Your chest bouncing in rhythm to the sound of his balls hitting against you. It was all too much. 

You felt Changbin’s cock throb inside you, and you instinctively tighten around him. With a shaky breath, he cums inside the condom. His pretty little high-pitched groans as he came made you smile, thinking to yourself, yeah, I did that. 

He pulled out and disposed of the full condom. You held your arms out to him as he watched you sleepily make a little grabby hands gesture towards him. You looked so cute, how could he not cuddle with you?

Then you realized you had to pee.

But you came back as fast as you could to cuddle with him, pulling yourself into his chest, hearing his heartbeat and making your breathing in sync with his. His warmth enveloped you. You felt like you belonged there, laying in his arms with a gentle smile on your face as you were nodding off to sleep.

Changbin watched your eyes flutter shut, admiring how adorable you looked in his big arms. He wanted to talk to you, make sure you were okay, but you were already asleep by the time he collected his thoughts. All he could do was pull you closer, taking in the sweet scent of your messy hair.

Changbin was always hooking up with girls and going on dates, but nothing ever stuck. Recently, he’s been keeping to himself, and whether he’d like to admit it or not, it was because of you and his wicked thoughts. His feelings towards you for the past few months have always been of sexual attraction, nothing more. Now, actually having you in his arms, he didn’t know if his feelings were entirely rooted in lust or if he wanted something more… no. There’s no way Changbin was going to catch feelings for his best friend’s sister. No way. No fucking way.

How would Jisung react if he found out? How would he even find out? If you wouldn’t snitch, neither would Changbin, and you both subconsciously agreed to never utter a word to your brother. There was no way he could find out. No way. No fucking way.

🍓🍰🐤🍀💐🍯

An hour ago, Jisung got an alert on his phone. It was way too late for one of his booty calls to be texting him. What the fuck would alert him at this hour. 

Life360

Y/n arrived at Changbin’s Apartment.

No way. No fucking way.

[likesomekindofcheese]

Will You Accept This Rose? Chapter One (Queen and Beatles Crossover/Bachlorette AU!)

Word Count: 2K

A/N: Hello! She’s up! I know this idea has been done with BohRap so I thought it would be fun to try my hand! The Bachlor/ette is my ultimate guilty pleasure show!! I got a lot of inspiration from @freddiesaysalright​;s Bachlorette AU and the @bohrapbachelorette​ blog, so check them out and their beautiful writing too! Enjoy!

Warnings: swearing and some drinking.

 Heels clicking, you took a deep breath and walked downstairs. Right outside the doors, Chris Harrison stood in his tan suit with a big smile that wrinkled at the ends of his tan skin. His large eyes sparkling as he saw you in your blue evening gown that slinked to the floor.

“Well, Y/N, are you ready for tonight?” he asked, rubbing his hands.

“I…I’m so nervous!” you confessed with a laugh. “Actually…I’m shaking I’m so nervous!”

You took out your hands to show the tremor. He took them in his and he smiled.

“You have nothing to be afraid of. The guys are all wonderful. It’s a smaller group…I’m sorry. The last Bachelorette made her decision and she is now happily engaged. Thank you so much for popping in last minute…This is a lot, but it will be fun. Do you feel ready for this?”

Taking in a deep sigh, you admitted, you did not feel ready. But honestly, when would you ever be? There was a cold breeze, and you felt a shiver despite the balmy California air.

“I…I am…” you made yourself say.

“Have you ever been in love?” Chris asked, he shepered you to walk around the rose bushes to get out the nervous evergy you had left.

“I…I honestly don’t know! Maybe a couple times, but never…never passionately. Deeply.”

“Well. Y/N. I’m about to help change all of that. In fact, your husband might be here in less than an hour. Are you ready to meet him?”

“As I’ll ever be!”

 ----------------------------------

Meanwhile in Garden Lodge, Freddie let out a yelp as the credits rolled. Jim hurried in with his bowl of popcorn to see what the matter was.

“It’s on! Already! Oh-it…it’s time!” he muttered, gathering his things.

“Oh! Darling-look at her-she’s glowing!” he commented.

They got the blanket ready and sat on their places on the couch, well-reserved for Tuesday nights and The Bachlorette.

“I was so excited they announced her! Pass the popcorn, Fred…” Jim said. He made sure the wine bottles were pre-opened and ready to be poured at the right moment.

“She’s so beautiful I got chills seeing her walk out-here you go…” Freddie said, smiling proudly as Y/N beamed on the screen with a happy, hopeful smile.

“Thanks love” Jim stuffed kernels in his mouth as Miko hopped beside him, purring loudly.

 --------------------------------

The first limo pulled out slowly. You stood still, hands propped before you. Trying to slow your breathing, you made yourself look then try to flee from nerved.

The door opened. You could feel your heart pounding a mile a minute and your breathing shallowed.

You were ready to see a man, not a little boy. But at least he was cute.

Then out stepped a little boy with auburn hair and a pale, smiling face with round cheeks. He wore a small tux and held one red rose in his hand.

Behind him walked a taller man, slender, with auburn hair, hazel eyes, and a gentle smile.

“OH, hello there?” you asked, squatting down to be at the boys height.

“Will you accept this wose?” he asked, showing you the rose in his chubby, grubby hands.

“Of course! Thank you!”

 --------------------

“Awwwwwww,” Fred and Jim said in unision. Delilah meowed as if in agreement.

-------

“What do you say, Rob?”

“You’e welcome!”

“This..is this your son?”

“Yes, this is Robert Deacon!”

“Hello Robert!”

“Hello Y/N! Are you gonna marry my daddy?”

The man turned the color of the rose and pushed him to the side.

“Ah…a little esoon for that, I think…

Luahing yourself, you reached out to hug him.

“I’m Y/N”

“And I’m John Deacon. It’s lovely to meet you, Y/N.”

He gently handed him away to a young assistant from the camera who guided the little boy back to the limo to go home.

“I’ll see you soon, Rob!” the man waved. He gave him a kiss on the forehead before sending him off.

Hmm, he’s already a good father… you noted.

The next limousine pulled up and you heard the strumming of a guitar. A voice with a slight twang, but light and playful sang along to it.

“Love me tender, love me sweet

Never let me go

You have made my life complete

And I love you so”

A handsome young man with long dark hair, stark eyebrows, and high cheekbones walked out, singing along to the Elvis ballad. When he smiled, you could make out slight fangs. But nonetheless, he gave you a grin you could not resist.

Cheering, you applauded and he took a playful bow before walking up to you.

“That was wonderful!”

He placed the guitar over his head, putting it away. He pulled you in for the softest hug you had ever received so far in your life.

“Nice to meet you, I’m George, George Harrison. Like the song?” he asked, gesturing to his guitar.

“I’m Y/N and I love it! You play guitar!?”

“I have for years!”

“That’s amazing!”

“Not half as amazing as the sight in front of me” he said with a wicked grin again. 

 ---------------------------------

“Alright, time for the wine…” Jim announced, pouring it into the glasses.

“You know what they say about a man with a big guitar, eh?” Fred laughed before his first sip. “Y/N might be a lucky woman if she takes him to the fantasy suite, darling.”

 ------------------------

You smiled and glanced at your folded hands, feeling yourself get hot.

“That was lovely! Please play for me some more during the party!”

“Well, if Y/N asks me, who am I to say no?” he replied with a wink. “I will If you’ll give me a snog on the cheek…”

Obliging, you pecked his soft cheek.

He then walked out, strumming a chord here or there.

The next limo that pulled up had an odd noise. You turned to the side to a camera person.

“Is…is that a bark?”

You were right. Out popped a large English Sheepdog walked over, wiggling in a happy dance as it wagged its tail in front of your gown.

“No! No Martha! Don’t get dog hair all over that gown!”

You laughed, reaching a hand down to scratch her head “She’s fine! It’s just a dress! I don’t mind a bit of hair!”

“Oh, well…that’s good.”

Looking up, you saw the prettiest pair of green eyes you had ever seen. His hair was brown and soft and his lashes were so thick, long, and dark you wondered if he used a mascara and where you could get it.

He reached down and kissed your hand gallantly, “I’m Paul, Paul McCartney. And I see you met me dog already!”

“She’s lovely!”

“She is-“

“And I’m Y/N Y//N!”

“Well, it’s pleasant to meet you. And I hope to see you in there soon…”

“Martha’s a sweetheart!”

She sat in front of you as you scratched her head.

“Martha can tell a good heart when she senses one, but I think mine has room for another lady in me life” he said with a wink.

The next man walked out. Another young man with brown hair and a square jaw and bright eyes that sparked with intelligence. His pants looked a little tight around his thighs and he smiled as soon as he saw you.

“Hello there, Y/N. I’m John, John Lennon.”

“And I’m Y/N.”

He took your hand into his and lifted it up to his lips. He then cupped yours with his other hand and kissed it so tenderly it made you melt on the inside.

“Are you enjoying your evening so far?” he asked.

“I…I am a lot more now,” you answered back.

“Well good, and Y/N….you look really beautiful tonight. Right from even when I peeked at you from inside the car, you were glowing like the sun…”

“Oh, that’s…that’s beautiful! Thank you!”

“Mind if I ‘ug you?”

“Sure?”

He wrapped his arms around you, then lifted you up and twirled you around, you burst into laughter.

He hugged you one more time and then headed over to the party.

The next limo arrived and out walked another man. He had dark hair with a slight white streak but bright blue eyes and soft, puffy lips that burst into a charming smile when he saw you.

“Hello there!”

“Hello! And you’re…”

“I’m…I’m really Richard. But you can cuse me stage name, Ringo…”

“Oh, sure! Hello Ringo-I’m Y/N”

You naturally hugged him.

“Y/N, I hope you don’t mind but…I bought you some gum. Thought you might like it after all that drinking-alright?”

He pulled out a packet of your favorite gum. You gasped as you accepted it.

“Why…yes! Yes I do!”

 ---------------------------

“Not exactly roses, darling”

“Well, it is a little early, Fred. And she’s the one giving roses.”

“But the song isn’t fucking ‘Chewing Gum is a Girl’s Best Friend’ for a reason!” Fred huffed, downing half of his glass.

 ---------------------------------------

Next appeared another car and out stepped another guitar with one of the prettiest boys you had ever seen. His blonde hair glowed like sunbeams and his eyes were the color of the summer sky. He strummed his guitar and sang in a rasp that thrilled you:

“I…just wanna testify!

Whaaaat Y/N does to meeeee!”

Changing up the rhythm enough to sing your name. He then added a bunch of “doo wops” with an impressive falsetto “yeeeeeeah!”

“That’s amazing! You play and sing!”

 --------------------------------------

Jim kept his face down in his hands for a solid minute.

“Doesn’t take much! You’ve already seen another guitarist!” he complained.

 ----------------------------------

“Yeah-write too. I’m Roger-Roger Taylor.”

He gave a half-lidded look that made your stomach churn.

“And I’m…I’m Y/N! I mean- you know I- I am Y/N!” you began giggling out of nervousness and hugged him.

Then in drove a car…or it sounded like one. But there was a Rocketship constructed over the car like a parade float. And the door read “YOUR FUTURE HUSBAND.”

Laughing, out stepped a space suit with a different flower: a tulip. He handed it to you and you laughed.

He removed his helmet and revealed a mane of curly, dark hair. His cheekbones were high and his eyes hazel and soft. Despite the largeness of his hair and height there was a gentle demeaner on him.

“Hello there!” you said with a laugh “are you my future husband?”

“I…I mean, I hope I might be” he said with a little blush in his cheeks. You hugged each other, he was warm and soft and smelled of fresh deodorant.

“That was amazing! Who are you?”

“I’m Brian, Brian May…”

“Wonderful, I’m Y/N…”

You walked over to the main living room of the mansion, happy and a little overwhelmed. Already they were all wonderful. Though George and Roger stared at each other with fire in their eyes at the two acoustic guitars. Roger gently put his down and shoved his hands in his pockets. George took a deep breath and held onto his carefully.

You walked in, each with your own glass of wine to begin with.

“Gentlemen, to finding love!”

“To finding love!” they raised their glasses and clinked them.

“Ey Y/N, let me steal you for a minute…” Roger offered, he slinked forward, eyes bright and confident.

“Oh, sure!”

You found out that Roger had written songs before. They were all lovely. His lyrics bright and honest. Your favorite was one about being in a small town, of laziness, frustration, and ambition and hope. It made you teary eyed.

 ------------------------------------------

“A guitar competition…would be interesting this season….no, Lily! That’s not cat food!” Fred said, shooing her away from the bowl.

 -------------------------------------

John showed you a card his kids worked on. He was a single dad, widowed. His heart had been broken by the sad passing of his dear wife, but he was ready to move on and was sure he found new love.

George strummed you a few songs he found out were your favorite. You tapped your feet and sang along. George himself smiled.

“Thanks Y/N, it’s wonderful to play for you!”

John walked over. They both began playfully “fighting” over you. Dancing each other around, doing a couple silly “fight” moves.

“Well, y/n can decide, can’t she?” John said, turning over.

“I, uh, of course!”

John then took you away as you caught your breath.

“There boys are like me brothers! What you saw was natural, was all but…Y/N, you like to read, don’t you?”

You gave your honest answer. You both wound up chatting about books and television. He was well-read, could give opinions on plot holes and the best actors, and even told you about the poetry he wrote. You both walked back inside the mansion holding hands naturally.

Brian noticed a record player in the corner and walked to it.

“Hmph, feels a little quiet…”

He placed the needle on the record and soon some jazz was crooning around the room. In a flash, Ringo was on your side.

“C’mon Y/N, let’s dance!”

He took his hand in yours and you moved away to the music, forgetting everything. He spun you around, you shook and kicked your legs and laughed so hard. You hardly cared how silly you look.

 -------------------------------------

“Look at all the other blokes, they’re ready to punch him in the gut any minute!” Jim chuckled.

Fred nodded, hypnotized. He poured another glass of wine as Delilah settled on his lap for cuddles.

 --------------------------------

Brian took your hand and walked you out.

“See there, the stars are out tonight…” he said, pointing up.

“Oooo, beautiful!” you sighed. “There’s Orion!”

“Orion?”

“Yes! He’s the easiest one! I still see him!”

“Yes! Well, he’s like my old friend: always there.”

“That’s cool Brian, that you have a friend who’s always there in the stars.”

 ----------------------------------

“Pretentious, darling.”

 ------------------------------

“That way, when you look up, imagine I’m there. Even if you send me home or whatever, I’ll be there, your friend, looking after you, protecting you.”

 --------------------------------

“Bloody stalker!” Jim hissed.

 -------------------------------

It was indeed a beautiful night. He led you back as you sat on the couch with the other gentlemen.

“Oh, what did you do?” Lennon asked, sipping his wine carefully.

“It’s a starry night! You should see it-it’s beautiful!” you said.

Martha stood on the corner, panting happily as Deaky and Roger petted on her. Though you noticed Paul was looking at you. Your eyes went over to him and he paused, batting his eyelashes in false innocence, and tilting his head.

“Wha-what is it, Paul? You’re quiet?”

“Nothing, it’s just you’re looking beautiful tonight, that’s all. Can you blame me for wanting to have a look at you?”

Giggling more, you leaned your head down and smiled. The others stared daggers in Paul.

Chris Harrison walked in.

“Hello lady and gentlemen, enjoying your evening?”

You noticed he had a plate, and you froze.

----------------------------------------

The couple screamed at their television.

“Oh, now the shit starts!” Freddie declared with a wicked laugh.

---------------------------------------

“Yes, yes we are!” Paul said with a pleasant smile. “You know, drinks, a fine night, a dog, a pretty lady-what could be better?!”

He then saw the plate and his charming smile dropped.

“Well, it’s now the part of the evening where Y/N must make her first decision…”

He set a short, red rose on a silver plate before you. Looking around, you saw them swallow nervously or smile despite the anxiety in his eyes.

There was clever John, adorable Ringo, sweet Paul, dashing John, romantic Brian, hot Roger, or soft Deaky to consider.

But only one could get the first impression rose.

Reaching down, you placed it between your thumb and forefinger, other hand cupping the petals gracefully, and thought about your options before settling on the right one.

    Who should get the first impression rose? Vote in the Google Docs Poll below!!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScQHKdQiABhf7ukQvwu6xjMsff-ggtnlNV0rr7_PKy6aSEUUQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

Taglist:  @queenlover05​ @youcanbemyhoneychile​ @seraphicmercury​ @ewannmcgregor​  @gwiilymslee @cherry--coke @queen-paladin @yourlocalmusicalprostitute @isitstraightvodka @coincidence-ithinknots-blog @rhapsodyrecs

[werejusttouchingeachother]

DUBAI 2019 [August 26th, 5:30PM]

Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 T/W: cursing Words: 3234

Seoyeon slows the car to a stop in front of your apartment, glancing at you as you stare out the window in silence, lost in your own thoughts. The furrow in your brows is enough to tell her that you’re reliving New York and she sighs, pulling your eyes back to her.

“It’s very hot today,” you mumble softly, peering back outside the window. It’s evening but the sun still shines down brightly over the city, glinting over the tall skyscrapers in a way that it reflects down blindingly. Your apartment is at Jumeirah, overlooking the beach on the side that wasn’t facing the main street and even the turquoise ocean seems to be sparkling like diamonds underneath the sun’s bright rays.

“He kept telling how the sun hurt his eyes during the shoot,” you continued, chewing on your lower lip absentmindedly as your eyes scanned the beachside for a familiar small-looking man with a walk that made him look a lot bigger than he was.

“Y/N.” Seoyeon called your name and she grabbed your hand to get your attention. “Stop overthinking. Its Dubai, he can’t exactly roam around. He’s probably already at your place. And if he isn’t, I’m sure he’ll be there soon.”

You nod furtively, sighing loudly. You pause before lowering your head and whispering, “I don’t want a break, Seoyeon.”

“Who said anything about a break?”

“What if he does?” You question, turning to look at her. Her eyes widen when she sees your red nose—a tell-tale sign that you were holding back tears.

“I can’t do that again,” you admit in a croak and Seoyeon shakes her head at you, arms wrapping around your shoulders and pulling you into a hug.

“Y/N,” she says soothingly, rubbing her hand on your back comfortingly. “He can’t either. You know that. Both of you went through hell the last time and you know better now. It’s not going to happen again, okay? You just need to talk to each other, address what happened back at your office. Clear the air and it’ll be easier to move past it. Stop stressing unnecessarily.”

You take a shaky breath as she pulls you back by your shoulders, smiling gently at you.

“Tell you what,” she starts. “I’ll come up with you. If he isn’t there, we can wait together for him.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Again, I wasn’t asking,” Seoyeon rolls her eyes at you, switching off the engine. “Get out. I can already feel the heat.”

Seoyeon and you wait for more than an hour at your apartment. She busies herself by going adventurous-cook-mode in your kitchen, gathering several ingredients as she decides to make pasta for the both of you. When she notices you sitting on the couch in silence, zoned out as you stare through the television screen without actually watching what was on it, she drags you into the kitchen to help her.

She’s just shut the door of the oven after placing the dish of pasta inside, peeling off the oven mitts when your phone begins ringing on the kitchen counter. Both of your heads turn in the direction of the phone and you leap across the kitchen floor to grab it when you notice that it’s an unfamiliar number.

“Hello?” You answer hurriedly and feel your shoulders sag in relief when you hear Manager’s reassuring voice come through.

“Y/N, relax,” he laughs softly at the tension that he could undoubtedly feel radiating from you even through your voice. “He just came to the set right now. He was with Jongin at the hotel all this time so don’t worry. We’re almost done here so I’ll drop him off soon at your place.”

“Is he okay?” You ask, straining to hear his voice in the background of the other side although it’s in vain—the crew is loud as always, multiple people chattering at the same time.

“He’s… not the best,” Manager responds slowly as if to lessen the brunt of his words. “He’s quiet.”

You close your eyes as your shoulders slump in worry, running a hand over your face. Angry Baekhyun was fine—you could calm him down by clinging onto him, kissing and babying him until he finally gave in and grinned at you, reciprocating your affection.

But quiet Baekhyun meant hurt Baekhyun—the one who didn’t want to talk, the one who didn’t welcome hugs, who wanted to be alone gaming and angrily yelling at other players. It meant a closed-off Baekhyun and that always worried you.

Overthinking was a common battleground in your relationship, one that made you wary since both of you often seemed to be on opposing sides while within your own heads.

“Just bring him home quickly,” you respond to Manager, nodding at Seoyeon as she raised her eyebrow at you. “And thank you… Hyungnim.”

You could hear the slight smile in his voice as he replied, “You’re welcome, dear. I’ll see you soon.”

Hanging up, you turn to look at Seoyeon who is leaning against the counter.

“He was at the hotel,” you respond to her unasked question. “With Jongin. Just got to the set and Manager is bringing him here now.”

She nods, watching you. “That’s good. The food will be ready by then. He likes pasta?”

You shoot her a look and she immediately nods, quipping, “He loves food, he eats everything, got it.”

She checks the timer then and grabs the block of parmesan cheese on the counter, placing it back in the fridge.

“He’s quiet,” you say and she nods, turning to you.

“As are you,” Seoyeon states, shaking her head at you. “Stop it, Y/N. Your forehead is going to have permanent wrinkles from the way you keep frowning and worrying. Relax. He’ll be here soon so talk it out, just like I said. No running nor sweeping it under the rug. All right?”

You nod tiredly and she frowns as she looks at you then. “He’ll be here soon so go shower. You’re still in your work clothes which smell like cheese and dough now, by the way. Also, there’s flour on your skirt.”

“You need any more help around here?” You ask, looking around the kitchen which was spotless due to Seoyeon’s quick hands. You shake your head before saying, “You know, we could have just ordered in.”

“Shut up, you know I like cooking,” she snorts, washing her hands in the sink. “It kept that noisy head of yours shut too.”

“You should really meet Kyungsoo,” you suggest thoughtfully, giving her a small smirk. “I feel like the two of you would get along great.”

“I can only drop so many hints, genius,” Seoyeon rolls her eyes at you. “Your boyfriend picks them up better than your dumbass.”

You laugh at her statement before turning around and heading for the shower. The water is warm and instantly comforting against your tense body, relaxing you as you stay under the shower for a while to thoroughly wash away all the knotted emotions you were feeling. You smile as you hear Seoyeon singing in the kitchen as she puts the dishes away, feeling thankful for such a genuine friend who was always the first to offer any and every aid whenever you felt like you were on shaky grounds—whether it was to distract you from your worries, to give you a hug or even to drive you home.

You honestly didn’t know what you’d do without her.

You step out of the shower in an extremely faded old shirt that you weren’t certain belonged to you or Baekhyun, drying your damp hair with the towel. The entire house smelled like Italian—you can almost taste the freshly baked cheese that Seoyeon had so generously added atop the pasta. You head for the kitchen and begin to grin when you hear that she’s singing Tell Me What Is Love.

“Seoyeon, I got it,” you call out, voice slightly muffled by the towel. “You’re not even trying to be subtle anymore so relax, I will set you up as soon as he’s back from enlist—”

You stop as the front door opens and Baekhyun enters, his eyes meeting yours immediately. His gaze shifts to Seoyeon and he grins, cheerfully greeting her.

“Baekhyun,” you mutter, taken aback by his friendly demeanour and sudden appearance as you glance behind him. “Where’s Manager?”

“They needed him back at the set,” Baekhyun replied casually, closing the door behind him. “I think it was urgent. He apologised, said that he’ll meet you tomorrow.”

“Oh, okay, sure.” You nod, still feeling slightly hesitant as he looks around curiously.

“It smells amazing in here.” He looks at Seoyeon then, smiling excitedly. “Seoyeonie, did you cook?”

“Yes, I did,” she grins, straightening from the table where she’d been setting the meal. “It’s hot from the oven so wait a bit and then eat a lot, okay? I’ll just be leaving now.”

Baekhyun protests but she shakes her head, shooting you a look to which you nod. Muttering that you’ll text her later, you stand awkwardly with the towel still held to your head as she exchanges pleasantries with him before leaving the apartment.

Baekhyun turns to you then and you swallow, Seoyeon’s words echoing in your head as you open your mouth to start the dreaded conversation but he beats you to it.

“Later,” he says, the one word immediately making your eyebrows draw together in confusion. “Let’s not get into it right now. Your hair is still wet.”

“Let’s-my-what?” You blink, shaking your head at him as you hold your hands up in an effort to slow him down. “Wait, are you saying you don’t want to talk about what happened?”

“I said later,” he clarified, grabbing the towel from your hands. “Not right now. I can’t get into it right now. Can you go get your brush?”

“My what?”

“Your hair’s a mess, Y/N,” Baekhyun said slowly as if you were a child who couldn’t understand him. He sighs when you just stare at him in bafflement, walking in the direction of the room. “I’ll get it myself.”

“No, wait,” you grab his arm, stopping him. Quickly, you head for your bedroom and grab the brush from your dresser. You glance at your reflection and stop, noticing how your eyes were slightly swollen. You’d assumed the shower would have made it less noticeable but it still looked as if you’d cried and you were certain that Baekhyun hadn’t missed it.

You walk back to the living room and stand at the door when you notice him going through the albums that you had placed next to your sound system. He’d connected your phone to the speakers and the silent room was filled with soft music from the playlist you’d had on shuffle this morning.

“What?” You ask, noticing Baekhyun’s sour expression. “Why are you frowning?”

“This is Jongdae's.” Your eyes fall on the disk inside the player that he points to, seeing the familiar green design of the April and a Flower CD.

You pause in confusion before prodding, “Yeah? And?”

“Where's my album?” Baekhyun mutters in his all-too familiar pouty way as he rummages over your collection.

You roll your eyes at his whiny tone, unable to fight your amused smile. “It’s there, you big baby. Next to Dean’s.”

Baekhyun's eyes search the cabinet, fingers finally finding his album as he pulls it out from between the others.

You grab the towel from the back of the chair where he’d placed it and dry the ends of your hair that had dampened the front of your shirt.

“Hey.”

You’re bent over with the towel atop your head but his serious tone makes its way through your vigorous drying. You straighten immediately, pushing your hair away from your face as you ask quickly, “What?”

“This isn’t signed.” Baekhyun turns to you with the City Lights album held up in his hand. “I’m literally your boyfriend, what the fuck?”

He mutters curses beneath his breath as he searches around for a marker and finds it on the shelf below the CDs next to your notepad. Biting back a smile, you stand beside him as he uncaps the marker and lowers it to the album.

“Not on your face,” you instruct reflexively and he pauses, glancing at you.

“Why not?” Baekhyun smirks and you already know he’s going to say something dirty. “You can sit on it but my signature can’t?”

You smack his arm and he laughs, moving aside to escape your hand. He leans over the desk to sign it and stops then, hand freezing mid-air.

You blink at him in confusion before asking, “What?”

Baekhyun caps the marker again, placing the album back and giving you a small smile. “I'll do it later.” He glances at you, eyes falling on your hair. “Your shirt is practically see-through now, Y/N, come here.”

He takes your hand before you can respond, pulling you over to the couch. You feel out-of-sorts and disoriented at the way he was behaving, like you were stepping on eggshells around him.

After all, it wasn’t often that you fought. There were silly arguments, of course, but they usually ended with him doing crazy antics to make you laugh.

But this wasn’t a silly argument. This was a recurring fight that hit too close to what happened in New York and the way he was acting right now wasn’t helping—in fact, it terrified you more. It reminded you of the eerily calm manner he’d been in as he uttered those last words in your apartment at New York before leaving.

Maybe we should take a break.

You close your eyes, willing the haunting memory to leave your mind as you stretch your legs out on the couch and lean your head back. Baekhyun sits behind you, moving closer so your back is against him as his hands rub the towel over your hair. The music playing from your phone slows as the song reaches its end and you feel Baekhyun's hand stop slightly as the familiar intro piano chords of Chen's Love Words fill the room.

You roll your eyes, already knowing what’s coming as he blurts, “Ya. Don’t you think this is a bit too much? You have the album on your phone too?”

You raise your hands to the towel on your head. “It’s a fantastic album, Baek. One of the best released this year, for sure. It helps me sleep.”

Baekhyun takes the towel from your grip, resuming his brushing. You lapse into silence and he pulls you further back so you’re up against his chest. His voice reverberates through your back as he asks, “You have trouble sleeping?”

You open your eyes that had involuntarily closed at the gentle massage of Baekhyun’s hands, shoulders immediately tensing at the unexpected question. You try to be as nonchalant as possible as you say, “Some long nights that I have to pull at the office. The songs are all soothing so they help.”

You pause, running out of things to justify your words and you continue to ramble, “It’s really such a perfect album, the vibes are perfect for this time of the year when it's getting cooler. I was so awed when I first heard it that I even texted Jongdae and he was so shy, whining ‘noooo, you're just teasing’ when I kept praising it, it was really cute—”

“Y/N.”

You stopped, lowering your gaze to your hands on your lap. He removes the towel from around your head, putting it aside and placing his hands on your hips. “You never did tell me. What happened with the old apartment?”

The words are already leading to a conversation that you weren’t certain you wanted to have. The fact that Baekhyun still remembered the first place you rented as soon as you’d moved here—a posh two-bedroom apartment at Downtown Dubai—took you aback and you fought to not show your surprise.

You hesitated before shrugging. “I did tell you. It was far from the office and this place is more convenient this way.”

Your tone was steady enough to pass off as convincing and you were thankful that your back was facing him.

Baekhyun grips your hips then and manhandles you as he turns you around until you're sitting cross-legged in between his splayed legs. He tugs you closer until you’re just shy from being on his lap.

Spoke too soon.

Placing a finger under your chin, he lifts your head. Warm brown eyes locking with yours, he says, “Now say that again while looking right at me.”

You gaze back at him in silence, trying to force the words out of your mouth but as always, the lie was choking in your throat.

It had been almost three years and it was still less difficult to lie to him on the phone. Not that you got away with it—he’d still catch your shifty tone—but it was easier than doing it face-to-face.

So like a coward, you decide to change direction. “What's wrong with this place? I know you liked the other one more but this isn’t all that bad.”

Baekhyun raises an eyebrow at your words. “You're right, I did. It had that fancy pool. And there’s nothing wrong with this place—except that you don’t sleep on the bed, do you?”

You blink, caught off guard by the sudden accusation. “What?”

He gestures around the couch. “This is your bed.”

You’re silent and he continues, “Look at the table. There's way too many empty containers from takeout and too many bottles of water.”

“Yeah, so?” You scoff. “I lay on the couch and eat while watching stuff, Baek. Obviously.”

He shoots you a look then. “Your glasses are here.”

“I left them here by accident before I left for work the other day, they’re usually in my room.”

“Oh, for fuck's sake, Y/N. There’s a clock. A cable for your phone, stretching all the way from the TV, by the way. I didn’t even know they had extension cords that long. And oh hey, a blanket!”

You open your mouth and he cuts you off again with, “Before you lie anymore, your bedroom looks like no one is living in it. The bed has never been cleaner and I know you don’t make it because you believe there’s no point in making your bed since you just fall asleep on it at the end of the day again. If I swept through that room, I’m pretty sure I’d only find footprints in your wardrobe ’cause that’s all you use, Y/N.”

He emphasises the last bit to drive the point further home and there’s nothing left for you to argue so you look down, playing with your fingers again until Baekhyun takes your hand, intertwining your fingers together.

You know what he’s going to say even before he says it and you look up, meeting his eyes. They bore into you and you’re silently pleading with your gaze now.

“Babe.”

Don’t say it, don’t say it, dontsayitdontdontdont—

“Is this about New York?”

You flinch, his fingers tightening around your hand as if you were going to run and he was trying to make sure you wouldn’t. You can’t blame him either because New York hurt unlike any other.

[mysticalenergy]

Making Up

Sitting outside in the winter sun, I was thinking to myself, ‘This time a week ago, we were happy. We laughed, we joked, we made the poor girl in the lingerie shop blush.’

A lot can change in a week. I’ve hardly seen Tom the last couple of days. He’s gone before I get up, I assume running or working out, then he puts in an appearance very briefly before he either disappears into the office for hours at a time, or goes out. When we do see each other we hardly speak. It’s not that we’re arguing, we just quite literally hardly speak, like strangers living in the same house. I don’t know if it’s him, me, or maybe both.

Diana got an invite to visit with some friends who live out near the mountains and, as she’s probably heading home soon, decided to take them up on their offer and left yesterday morning. I don’t blame her for going. This is my home and even I don’t want to be here at the moment. She’s supposed to come back tomorrow afternoon but, if things are still like this, I think I might tell her to stay longer. I’ve booked myself in to attend a writer’s workshop tomorrow night so she’d be on her own for the night anyway probably.

I hurt. I don’t know how else to put it, I just hurt. I keep asking myself if it’s always been like this when he starts a new job, but I don’t know because I’ve always been working myself. Maybe it’s just me. I’m not used to sitting around doing nothing. Hopefully this afternoon I get the news I’ve been waiting on; I can start to use my leg again after 6 weeks. Tom was supposed to come with me but, I’m hesitant to ask because I don’t know what he’s got going on.

He still has all his papers strewn around the living room and it’s really bothering me. I don’t understand why he can’t take it all in the office, he spends enough time in there. But no, he sits in the living room and spreads everything everywhere knowing it drives me nuts. I think he just enjoys pissing me off.

Heading inside, I put spotify on and went to the kitchen to make a coffee. Looking around I saw the mess and felt the need to tidy it up. Careful not to mix things up, I gathered papers and stacked them neatly, then put all the pens and highlighters in a container and left them next to the papers.

Music is such a wonderful medium and can do so much to change a mood and before long I found myself singing along, loudly, and even attempting to do a bit of a dance on my crutches, laughing at myself and how uncoordinated I am. It’s different when I danced with Tom while on the crutches, he helped hold me up and turn me around.

Still singing, I turned around to go get my coffee and noticed him leaning against the wall, the hint of a smile on his face, “I haven’t heard you sing in so long,” he said so quietly I barely heard him.

“Hey,” I said softly. “Didn’t hear you come in.”

Watching the expression on his face harden, I waited for it. Nodding towards the stereo, he pushed himself off the wall, “I’m not surprised given the volume you’ve got that at. I could hardly hear myself think on the phone.” And, there it was, back to the new normal.

“Sorry,” I apologised. “I’ll turn it down.”

Walking over to the table, he looked down at the piles of papers I’d stacked up. “Didn’t I tell you not to touch them?”

“They were all over the place, I just tidied them up a bit,” I replied.

“Jesus is it too much to ask for things to be left where you put them so you can find what you want when you want it,” he ranted more to himself than at me.

Muttering to myself, “maybe if you didn’t leave your stuff laying around it wouldn’t happen.”

“What the hell are you muttering about?” he said.

“Nothing,” I calmly replied. “Nothing at all.”

“Where’s the highlighter I was using?” he snapped.

Taking a deep breath and counting to five before saying anything, I turned and asked, “Was it the yellow one?”

“No, it was pink with purple spots,” he quipped. “Of course it was the bloody yellow one. You saw me using it.”

“Jesus, alright. Calm down, I was only asking.” I snapped back, leaving him to it and heading to the kitchen.

“What the hell are you doing now?” he asked.

“Getting out of your way,” I answered.

“You can get back over here and help me look for the bloody pen,” he demanded.

“Ok, that’s it,” I stormed. “I get that you’re tired and stressed out but don’t take it out on me. It’s not my fault and it’s in the bloody container on the table with the rest of the pens and highlighters. Open your bloody eyes before you open your mouth.”

He looked down at the container on the table, “Just leave my stuff alone and be a good girl, keep the noise down, I’ve got phone calls to make.”

“You condescending assho...don’t speak to me like I’m a child,” I said, raising my voice. “I said I was sorry. You’re hardly ever home anymore so I thought I was fine.”

Looking at his watch, he went to walk away, “Just keep it down, I’ve got a call to make.”

“Guess, I’ll go on my own then,” I muttered. “Getting used to being on my own.”

Spinning on his heel, he glared at me, “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” he shouted. “It’s not like I’m doing nothing here you know. It’s called work, not that you’d know about that, we don’t all get to sit around and do noth...” he stopped himself from finishing the sentence.

“Go on,” I yelled. “Say it. You don’t get to sit around doing nothing like I do. Well screw you Hiddleston, it’s not my bloody choice to be doing nothing. I’d love to be back at work rather than putting up with you and your shit at the moment.”

Storming out of the room and heading for the office he stopped and turned around, “Don’t forget we’ve got that dinner to attend tomorrow night, hopefully you’ll be in a better mood. Make sure I have a tie to match whatever colour you’re wearing and if I don’t have one, I’d appreciate it if you could get me one,” he almost spat.

“What dinner?” I asked, “you didn’t tell me about any dinner. I’m going out tomorrow night.”

“Cancel your plans," he said. "I told you about the bloody dinner a couple of nights ago. I meant to tell you last week but it slipped my mind. Maybe if you listened occasionally...”

“You didn’t tell me about a dinner and I do listen,” I retorted. “I’ve got plans, go without me.”

“As my wife, you’re expected to be there,” he shouted, opening the office door.

Angry beyond words, I looked him straight in the eye and quietly said, “But I’m not your wife.”

Standing there glaring at each other, breathing heavily, he shook his head, “You can be a real bitch sometimes,” and with that he went into the office and slammed the door shut behind him.

Going to the door, I knocked, “Tom? Tom, can I come in? I’m sorry.”

“I’m on the phone,” came the cold reply.

…

Checking the time, I grabbed the keys and headed for the door. Getting into the car, I drove out of the driveway, tears rolling down my face. Deciding that, come hell or high water we were sorting this out tonight, I drove myself to the surgeon’s office for my check up.

The surgeon checked my knee, moving it this way and that, then gave me the news I was waiting for. I could get rid of the brace and start putting a little bit of weight on it. It meant I’d still need the crutches for a bit longer but I didn’t care, I was allowed to walk. Leaving the surgeons office, my first thought was to call Tom but, considering how we’d left things, I wasn’t sure that was such a great idea. I figured he’d see for himself when I got home anyway.

Arriving home, I saw that his car was gone and, feeling very deflated, I went inside. I fed Bobby and Paddy then wandered around the house not knowing what to do with myself. Unable to settle, I ran myself a bath hoping the warm water might calm me. After 10 minutes, I’d had enough and went to the kitchen to make some chamomile tea. Drinking the tea, I turned on the tv and channel surfed but nothing looked interesting so I turned it off again. I picked up my book and opened it, then sat staring at the words, not really reading them. Turning the laptop on, I thought I might write for a while, but after 3 minutes of sitting with a blank screen I gave up and pushed the laptop away. A couple of minutes later, still staring at the laptop sitting on the coffee table, the screensaver started. My screensaver is set to show a slideshow of all the photos I've got saved. Tom and I smiling at the beach, Tom and I smiling while bushwalking, Tom and I smiling at a café, Tom and I sitting on the floor near the Christmas tree kissing...ok, so this wasn’t a great idea. Not knowing what else to do with myself, I decided to go to bed. No point in staying up, God only knows what time he’d be home.

…

Going into the bedroom, I picked up one of his shirts and put it on. I’d started wearing his shirts simply so I could smell him, this was the 3rd night I’d gone to bed alone. Getting into bed, I tried reading again, but the words were just a jumble. Putting the book down, I looked over to his side of the bed, reached out and dragged his pillow to me and lay there hugging it. Inhaling deeply, I could still smell him. Putting my hand up, I grabbed my phone and typed a message, ‘Hey Boo. I miss you so much xx.’ Reading it twice, I deleted it, put my phone down, then picked the phone up, retyped the message and hit send before I could change my mind.

Turning out the light, I lay for a little while listening to the night noises around the house. The trees rustling in the breeze, a distant bark from somebody’s dog, Paddy or Bobby scratching, the gentle hum of the fridge and the soft ticking of the grandfather clock.

Snuggling down, still hugging Tom’s pillow, my eyes were getting heavy, and my heart felt a bit that way too. I missed him. I missed his stupid jokes, the sexual innuendo, the gentle touches. I missed pissing him off doing things I’m not supposed to, hell, I even missed him groping me at the most inappropriate times. A silent tear fell from the corner of my eye and landed on my pillow. ‘4 months tops’ I said to myself, ‘only 4 months and he’s finished filming.’ This time seemed extra tough, but I knew it would be after spending 6 months together.

I was hovering in that blissful state between consciousness and sleep, aware of the sounds around me but so close to sleep as to not care, when I heard a car. Fighting to stay awake, I listened for the key in the door but I was too far gone and sleep claimed me.

Waking, I looked at the time and discovered I’d only been asleep for half an hour. Rolling over, I settled myself back down on the pillow and was just about to close my eyes when my sleep fuddled brain registered there was a soft glow of light coming into our room. Rolling back over and squinting, I lay quietly listening for any sounds. Not hearing anything, I decided to go see why the light was on.

Barefoot, I made my way quietly down the hallway towards the living room. I knew I’d turned the light out so figured either Diana had come back early, which was highly unlikely, or Tom was home. Entering the living room, I saw him laid back on the chair, earphones in, eyes closed, looking absolutely wiped out.

Walking over to the chair, I slowly reached out and stroked his forehead. Eyes still closed, his hand reached for mine, holding it to his lips, “you should be sleeping love,” he said.

Leaning across the back of the chair, I kissed his forehead, “I’d rather be here with you.” Standing up and putting my hands on his shoulders, I started massaging them. “I’m sorry about this afternoon.”

Opening his eyes and sitting up a bit, he tilted his head back so he was looking at me, “Come here,” he said patting his lap.

Walking around to stand in front of him, he pulled me down in his lap, cradling me in his arms. “You have nothing to be sorry for. If anything, I should be thanking you for making me realise what a bastard I’ve been this week. I know it’s no excuse but with all the workouts, meetings, phone calls and costume fittings, it’s been hell. Then factor in the time difference issues we’re having, and it’s just been a royal shit show. But none of that is your fault.”

“No, it isn’t my fault and I wish you’d talked to me about what was going on. I’ve felt so isolated and lonely,” I explained. “Then there’s the mess you insisted on leaving behind. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t take it all to the office.”

“I wondered about that myself,” he said, “But I think I figured it out.”

“And what did you come up with?” I asked.

“I didn’t want you to forget I was here. Didn’t want you to forget why I wasn’t with you all the time. I know I don’t usually worry so much, but this time, with your leg,” he reached down and touched my leg, “you didn’t have work to keep you occupied and I felt guilty that I’d left you when you still needed me...not that you’ve ever needed me, but you know what I mean. I’ve missed hanging out with you, missed you, missed us. I guess it all just got to me and rather than talk about it, I bottled it all up.”

“I shouldn’t have let it go so....”

“Oh my God, your leg!” he exclaimed. “The brace, shit, I forgot. I’m so sorry.” Pulling me close to him, he buried his face in my hair.

“Do you want to know what the surgeon said?” I asked softly.

Keeping his face buried in my hair, he nodded.

“No brace, I can put some weight on it, but still need to use the crutches for a while until my muscles get used to being used again,” I told him.

He didn’t speak, merely nodded again and gave me a squeeze.

“Tom, what’s wrong? Look at me,” I said.

Slowly he looked up at me, tears in his eyes.

Wiping them away, I whispered, “Why are you crying?”

“Because I love you so much. Because I was so damn wrapped up in my own world, I lost sight of what’s important. You. You’re more important than any of this. Your crack about not being my wife hit a nerve and made me stop and think. I made a few calls this evening and said the endless 18 hour days have to stop. I don’t mind doing a few, but not day after day after day. I also owe you an apology about the dinner. I realised I hadn’t told you about it, I only thought I had. And, even though you’re not my wife as you so... lovingly... pointed out, and we will discuss it again at some point no matter how much you don’t want too, we do have to go. Now, how about you give me a kiss and let me show you how sorry I am.”

[veronicassadboi]

Ooo i have a good one-J realising his feelings for V (inner thoughts) love you 🥰

I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it ❤️ love you too!

Jug realising his feelings for Veronica.

———

“I bought you cupcakes, a very sweet way of telling you that you are ever the gentleman.”

Jughead eyes Veronica, grateful for her bringing cupcakes all the way to his new trailer, eyes dragging over her velvet dress and red bottoms on his peeling green flooring.

She was ever grateful for his presence at La Bonne Nuit, he could tell by the way he feels her smile from across the Speakeasy. He was grateful for her presence after hours while they spoke lightly under rising sun, dust plumes reflecting from sun streaming in through the windows. Her humour surprised him, people and dynamics are interesting when it’s one-on-one.

Her sarcastic comebacks were hiding something… what? He wasn’t sure yet, but he was figuring her out bit by bit. What surprised him most was that every night, he couldn’t wait for La Bonne Nuit to close just to share that chocolate shake with her after a dozen cigarettes and a booming headache. She’d tell him her dreams of escape and he’ll swap them with his dream of becoming more than Riverdale.

“I better go..” she says, trying to look over his shoulder into the trailer. “The whiskey glasses won’t clean themselves.”

Her eyes hold longing, Jughead knows, because his heart holds it too. The lick of her lips keeps Jughead’s eyes on her a little longer. “You don’t have to go,” he murmurs before he can stop himself.

He gets to watch her smile a little longer.

———

He promised Veronica she’d never be alone this summer, and she laughed at him but a Serpent never breaks a promise. Betty had accompanied Archie to Chicago anyways, she seemed more excited than she cared to voice and for some reason, the distance was welcomed.

He watches Veronica from above his laptop screen, she has a slight sway in her hips, she has a smile that bends even the sourest of patrons, she keeps a Pop happy and she makes the best chocolate shakes, of this, Jughead is certain.

“You don’t have to sit here all day,” she says quietly as she hands him a coffee.

“Are you not under the protection of the serpents?”

His comeback is quick and he’s pleased that he came up with it. Trying to explain exactly why he spends all day waiting for her was hard enough to comprehend in his own mind let alone passing it on to her. How can he say that he enjoys her company, she understands him, her laugh makes him laugh and his heart gives a funny kind of pull whenever she’s around without actually saying it?

He feels stupid; for a person who uses his words for an outlet, he couldn’t quite choose the correct words to convey his thoughts on Veronica Lodge.

She smiles at him, brushes a kiss on his cheek. “Well i owe you one, you’ve single handedly assured me I won’t fight through the summer alone.”

“Not me,” Jughead mumbles. “Under the protection of the serpents, remember?”

Veronica nods but her amused look doesn’t tell him that she believes him. “Many thanks to the serpents then.”

Jughead tries to drown out Veronica’s kiss with caffeine. It only seems to amplify the feeling and watching her all day doesn’t help at all.

——-

12:30am at Pop’s is always a buzz of dimming lights and coffee steam that shouldn’t be there. Jughead is a constant tap on his laptop keys and at this time of night, it’s always just them two.

Veronica slides over a fresh coffee before grabbing the half drunk one by Jughead’s right hand and tipping it down the sink.

Ritual, that’s what it was now. Ritualistic coffees, a ritualistic tightening of Veronica’s apron that he notices every now and then. He wonders if Archie knows these ritualistic traits of his girl. The way she licks her bottom lip from left to right when she’s put on the spot or the way her hands go straight to her hips, filling small dents of her body when she’s proving her point. The way she raises her her left brow when she knows she’s right. Maybe these are the things you only notice when you’re here at 12am on a weekday, he muses. Veronica’s pale purple nails tap on the counter in front of Jughead when she’s back to filling the quiet buzz of Pop’s with her constant chatter.

“Do you think the Ghoulies will come out tonight?” she asks, peering over Jughead’s shoulder to look at the front door as if they may just walk in.

“Why the hell would they come out tonight?” he replies, eyes not leaving his laptop. “It’s late.”

She sighs loudly and steps forward to lean her head on her forearms, looking up at him sideways. “You’re out late…”

“I can’t argue that logic, Princess.”

Veronica rolls her eyes and reaches out to tilt Jughead’s laptop screen slightly to get his attention. Jughead chuckles and looks at her. “What if they came out?”

“Why would they come out?”

“You’re the King of the Serpents, aren’t you?” Veronica says slowly. She’s searching for a rise out him, He knows it.

“So they say…”

“I’m bored.”

“We have this same conversation every night,” Jughead drawls, rubbing his face.

“You come here every night. Why?”

Jughead doesn’t have the words to describe the pull that he has to this place. He’s almost certain that Veronica understands the natural draw that he has, it’s in the way she makes his shakes extra special when no one’s looking or how she went as far as to buy the place. Jughead doesn’t want to acknowledge the slight spark in Veronica’s eye when he turns up every night. He reads too far into it, he knows this. Each and every word in the form of her body when she’s in front of him or the smile she gives him that he wonders if Archie receives the same smile. “To escape.”

———

“You better go,” she hums outside of the Pembrooke. Jughead notices heels that click along concrete and her jacket that’s a weird mix of vanilla syrup and his menthol cigarettes. “Thanks for giving me a ride home.”

“Archie couldn’t pick you up?” Jughead knows the answer, he just wants to hear it.

“I didn’t ask.”

“Oh,” he replies.

Veronica’s smile grows as she twists the ball of her foot on the concrete, she straightens out her yellow dress underneath her jacket, lips being sucked in. She blows a kiss on the way inside that Jughead catches with the jagged teeth of his fucked up heart. “Thanks for that, Jug. Give my love to Betty....”

Her sing song voice hurts his fucking chest.

——-

Her eyes linger on Jughead, he feels her gaze splitting his skin. It’s the same skin tearing glare that she gives him when he lies to her about the amount of sugar in his coffee. She sees straight through me, he reminds himself. “Betty doesn’t wonder where you are?”

Jughead thinks of a string of lies. “Betty knows where I am,” he says. Betty doesn’t really know anything at all and the guilt doesn’t hurt as much as it should. Words stick in his throat. “Sometimes it’s a little hard,” he mutters. “When I don’t seem to be on the same frequency as her.”

Veronica takes a deep breath, her eyes seeming to be a little heavier than usual. “I understand that.”

Jughead sniggers, coffee sitting on his tongue, malice in his laugh. “Do you?” he asks, letting his tongue drag on his teeth. “Riverdale’s favourite son not doing it for you?”

Veronica’s lips purse. “Betty doesn’t like living with a snake?”

They sit in a silence that hurts more than either of them care to acknowledge. That’s what is though, isn’t it? Unspoken truths. “Betty doesn’t like a lot of me.”

Veronica’s eyes shift from his to the counter, flicking left to right. “My shift is over.”

She tells him that information as if he didn’t already know and as if she didn’t know that he did.

————

He smokes a joint outside of the trailer, he follows it with a menthol outside of Pop’s. Betty’s words were sharp and numbing. He felt still and calm, but they still hurt… A little. He can’t even remember.

Southside is the pit of hell, he remembers. That was the topic of conversation.

He wants to talk to Veronica. Archie is inside talking over a vanilla shake that Veronica has made and her smile at her man is so big, Jughead’s never seen it look so… depthless.

She sees Jughead through the glass, frown on her brow.

He drowns in an ache he can’t explain.

———-

“Sometimes I feel like no one understands me,” she says, pouring coffee into a mug at 2:52am.

“I understand that,” Jughead says, feeling poison on his tongue.

“Do you ever feel like maybe the people around us are too good, and we’re the bad ones?”

Jughead sits on Veronica’s words. She brushes dark hair out of her eyes and her lips are over licked. “Yes.”

“Just yes?” she says, raising an eyebrow. “What if I said that being bad but being right is all that matters… does that make sense?”

Jughead doesn’t know how to tell Veronica that everything she says makes sense. “It makes sense to me.”

Veronica’s eyes falter. “Sometimes I think you’re the only person who gets anything I say.”

Jughead wants to ask about Archie, but he doesn’t want to be reminded of his best friend.

————

Sometimes it’s painful.

Veronica lets legs hang over the edge of the bed, swinging them back and forth with fists full of bedsheet while Jughead walks towards the trailer window. “Does Archie know you’re here?” he asks.

“Does Betty know you were with the Serpents all night?”

Jughead laughs with a menthol between his lips. “So you just needed an escape, huh Princess?”

Veronica’s eyes darken as she watches smoke leave cracked lips. He watches nails dig into the grey sheets, purple on cotton. “I just needed someone to talk to who didn’t want to talk about how I was feeling…”

“So we’re sharing secrets now, are we?” Jughead says, an amused tone in his voice.

Veronica doesn’t say anything as she continues swinging her legs, eyes flickering in the light of passing cars.

The silence is welcomed.

He wonders what it would feel like to have a raven haired princess in his arms.

Oh, how lucky that would be.

———

He likes the way her skin feels when she smells like vanilla shakes and his menthol cigarettes. Her hand brushes his arm when she lays next to him on top of his bed. “This trailer holds more peace than the Pembrooke,” she admits.

Something in Jughead swells with pride when she tells him this truth. “Society tries to tell us otherwise.”

“Well society can fuck right off.”

“Very interesting choice of words, are you sure you’re not from the Southside?” Jughead teases.

Veronica inhales sharply with her eyes closed, letting Jughead feel her ease. “Sometimes I wish I was.”

Betty’s hate towards the Southside rises in him.

And then suddenly, he doesn’t think of her at all.

“You can stay,” he almost whispers.

“I could stay like this forever…”

Veronica’s phone lights up. Archie. Jughead’s breath hitches.

———

They were too different. Or too much the same. She stands in the middle of his trailer, sun setting on her skin. For once, his mind stops. There’s a moment in time where it’s just the two of them in the place that never felt like home, but for some reason does when she’s with him.

There’s a fear in him when she leaves, there’s a panic that pulses through him when he knows she’s not his. But in the pit of it, he knows he’s hers. Because if he wasn’t, his atoms wouldn’t be so drawn to hers.

Veronica Lodge stands before him and too frequently when she’s around, he’s at a loss for words.

He stands in the cold room with Southside hanging on his shoulders, she wears expensive heels with her Pop’s uniform.

His heart races. He’d been building up to this moment for months, the singing in his soul, the pretty ringing of her voice in his mind. The way she speaks so animatedly with her hands in the air and the way she snaps back at him when he needs it. She knocks him down, he reels back in. He pauses his mind, letting the arch of Veronica’s eyebrow in amusement boost his strength. “Veronica, I think I love you.”

——-

Send me a Jeronica centric ft Barchie prompt and I’ll write you a >2000 word drabble!

[leechanluvbot]

Stray Kids as soft aesthetics

These are some soft and random (somewhat boyfriendish) aesthetics that I felt SKZ really embodied~ Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chan

1:02 am: oversized hoodies, sweaters, cheek kisses, wrapping your arm around someone’s waist, spinning someone around like in a kdrama, making a playlist for someone special, sticking your head out of the window of a moving car, whispering in someone’s ear, forming an unbreakable bond. 

Woojin

8:24 am: bear hugs, the smell of fabric softener, giggling, sweater paws, spending the day at the library, a standing ovation, ocean waves, sharing hoodies, collecting shells, summer breeze, getting to the climax of your favourite song. 

Minho

9:16 am: swinging intertwined hands, blowing air kisses, tickling one another, cuddling on the couch, sneak attacks from behind, eating a favourite diner with your pals, laughing in a hug, kissing the top of your hand while holding it, spinning hugs.

Changbin

9:00 pm: stuffed animal plushies, rainy days, cuddling with pets, doing a fake fashion show with friends, secret love poems, night cafes, stupid inside jokes, underground rap battles, finding a new song you love, polaroid photos.  

Hyunjin

6:59 pm: forehead kisses, lazy days, good selfie days, performing in a school play, naps laying on someone, watching the sunset, laughing at a fond memory, running after the ice cream truck, matching friendship bracelets, birds chirping, a warm spring breeze, sitting on someone’s lap.  

Jisung

2:45 am: slow dancing under the streetlights, laughing until your stomach hurts, karaoke with friends, spinning till you dizzy, going to an amusement park, blurry photos (for the memories), sporadic road trips, replaying a song 1000 times, matching earrings, singing loudly without a care in the world.

Felix

11:45 am: matching lock screens, sun-kissed skin, all-over kisses on the face till you laugh, freckles, beach days, rolling down a grassy hill, hot chocolate, sunflowers, up-close selfies, running and jumping into a hug, resting your head on someone’s shoulder, good makeup days, baby’s laughter. 

Seungmin

3:28 pm: cats sleeping in the sun, pinching someone’s cheeks, holding hands while running, meme selfies, funny clapbacks, puppies learning to run, yelling embarrassing things to get people to turn in public, back hugs, leaning our chin on someone’s head, the awe of performing on stage, playing tag. 

Jeongin

4:32 pm: pushing each other on the swings at the park, the breathlessness after a first kiss, sharing food with your friends, your first love, movie nights with friends, being kind to a stranger, laying in the grass in the summertime, piggy back rides, watching the clouds, screaming with you best friend over something exciting, going to a concert for the first time.

[insomniac-dot-ink]

Tiffany Green and the Monster at the End of the Hall

Genre: supernatural thriller/monster story, wlw

Rating: M for monster-related violence

Words: 12.8k

Summary: Tiffany Green has watched too many scooby doo episodes and now she’s trying find the local monster at the motel her mother works.

Too bad there’s a rival monster hunter in the area.

Patreon ⭐ Ko-Fi ⭐ WordPress ⭐ Twitter

warning: for serious injury, blood, and fatalities

--

Tiffany Green sat crossed-legged with a transistor radio in her lap and the bud of one headphone in her ear, she stuck her tongue out a little bit and squinted into the dark.

The space was cramped, four walls on all sides brushing against her, barely fitting all of her knees and elbows- which her aunt joked was 70% of her to begin with. The carpet underneath was thick as sin and smelled of must and the death of the 1980s, a mini-ironing board was pushed to the side on her right.

She wore a large brown bomber jacket that’s sleeves pooled around her wrists and made her neck sweat. Her lank blonde hair fell down past her shoulders, which she tucked it into her jacket to keep it back, though her fringe bangs in turn fell into her eyes more than a couple times anyway.

She had long limbs, knobby elbows, and an almost sickly pallor that her father called ‘the antithesis of California darling.’ Her eyes were a flat grey that sometimes shifted into being a proper blue.

She wore stark white shorts and a peach tank-top with spaghetti straps that teacher’s traditionally didn’t appreciate. She had notably ‘attentive’ large ears with three different earrings in each, a sun, a moon, and several stars attached by thin silver chains. She hummed as she worked.

“And she’s a maniac, maniac, on the floor.” She sang softly to herself and hunched over the buttons of the old radio. The speakers droned from one station to the next.

“--It’s going to be another scorcher-”

“-you’ll have to bury your head in the sand to ignore this ne--”

‘--I wanted you so bad, before I you came into my life I-”

“--a dan--”

“--up--”

“--as--” Tiffany shook the radio in midair and crunched herself up in a ball around it, “just one good signal,” she pinched her lips together, “come to mama.” She kept turning the knob until the radio went completely silent, channel 98.3, a sudden, inexplicable hush erupted from the other end. She paused, heart tumbling down her throat and eyes going wide. She ripped her earbud out and stuffed into her pocket, she leaned forward.

Her knuckles bleached as she held the radio harder and stuck her face up to the dials. “Hello…?”

Static warbled through the signal, a sudden buzz that sizzled through the air and made the hairs on her arm stand on end, her mouth fell open. “Tell me what you want.” She whispered.

The static increased, like it was singing. Tiffany shook her radio, “Tell me why you’re doing this.”

The static crooned into a soft hum, she held her breath, waiting for something. The silence stretched.

“Oh. No.” A voice huffed, “Tiffany!”

Tiffany jumped violently as another voice called out.

“Tiffany,” banging came from the other side of the door, “young lady!”

Tiffany flattened against the wall as light came flooding in from the entrance, she hissed at the intrusion, “noooo!” She cried with a sharp soprano.

A scowling face loomed over her, blocking the door, her mom put her hands on her hips and frowned deeply. “You better not be doing what I think you’re doing.”

Her mom was a medium-sized woman with wide hips and curly brown hair that was tied back by a thick white handkerchief. She wore practical shoes, practical jeans, a blue t-shirt reading ‘Anne’s’ on the front, and a single simple necklace with a ruby in the center.

Her face was wide and expressive, she had matching ears to Tiffany’s- though they were slightly less adorned.

Tiffany glowered up at her and held the radio up to her ear, she closed her eyes and waited for the static again. “Ugh!” She cried loudly, “mom, do you realize you just interrupted the find of the century?” Her mom groaned and held her head, “out, out, we need this room cleaned an hour ago.” Tiffany tucked her loose bangs behind her ear and sat up straight, “why? Nobodies here.” Her mom wagged a finger in the air, “if you’d like me out of a job and no dinner on the table then this room is cleaned by 12pm.” She gave her a sharp glance, “no hiding in the hotel closets and listening to music.” Her mom ushered to her feet and Tiffany huffed.

“I wasn’t listening to music, I was-” “Looking for aliens,” her mom sighed deeply. “Tiffany. Please, honey. I love you. But you have to come out.” Tiffany could have broken into a guffawing-laugh at that, but instead settled for a deep groan .

“It’s a monster mom. M. O. N. S- I mean, you get the point. Not an alien.”

“It’s not going to have to deal with an angry mom if it doesn’t get a move on.” Tiffany promptly scuffled out the closet, eyes down, “the owners will thank me when we aren’t considered the most haunted motel on route 78.”

Her mom tutted again, “we aren’t haunted.” She paused as she reached for the sheets to clean and launder, “we’re just… unlucky.” Tiffany sighed deeply, “I’m going to go try to commune in another room.” “No closets.” She called after her, “and no bothering Mr. Thomas.” “I hear you,” she waved her hand in the air as she stalked off. “I can’t believe that girl is almost 20.” She could hear her mom muttering as she started busily folding and scrubbing and getting down to business.

Anne’s Roadside Motel was a two-story building with around 120 rooms in 30,000 square feet, the place had two owners- neither of which were Anne. It had mattresses people checked for bedbugs and small televisions from the early 00s in place.

The motel had a staff of around 25 people, all of which Mr. Thomas liked to keep a personal relationship with, Rowing was not a big town. It’s main source of income was the highway and the highway was trying it’s best ‘not to become a low-way’ as Mrs. Rodriguez joked.

South Dakota hadn’t bothered to fix roads up in this part of nowhere in a while, it wasn’t close enough to the oil fields and was just south enough of ‘who gives a fuck.’

Tiffany hadn’t been back to this town in 2 years, instead living with her dad in Northern Cali in order to graduate from a ‘good high school.’ Tiffany took the 10 hour car-trip after throwing her cap and had been sitting in closets with a radio since.

Anne’s Roadside Motel didn’t have an Anne in it, but it had a brother and sister that installed a pool 2 years ago and discretely set up rat-traps to really spruce up the place. That was until the rumors started going around, the ones in the newspapers and murmured on the TV screen. Anne’s was having a string of ‘bad luck.’

It looked normal enough, with green flooring and yellow wallpaper, a muted yellow, the type of yellow that bridged on giving you a headache but didn’t quite get there. It smelled like chlorine and wheat, but there were worse smells out there.

The lights were low-hanging and mirrors were from the 90s, the tables were all wooden and the pictures were of random rolling purple mountains that was somewhere definitely not South Dakota.

Breakfast was at 7 every morning and Tiffany got there usually at 7:30 to snag the ‘better bagels’ and some burnt coffee. The other staff liked her, but maybe that’s just what she told herself.

And maybe it’s because she was the only one allowed to talk them about the incidents. Anne’s Roadside Motel was two-stories and 120 rooms.

Tiffany Green planned to visit every single one, and maybe prevent anyone else from dying here.

---------------------

Tiffany was sitting in a swivel chair, making lazy little circles in place and balancing a pencil between her fingertips. She tapped her white sneakers in the air as she splaid out sideways. A woman in a busy red suit jacket and slightly too-tight matching skirt sat next to her in a smaller swivel chair. They lounged just out of sight behind a long linoleum desk with a little bell on it. Tiffany kept her eyes trained on her, trying to catch her eye.

“So,” Tiffany finally said and jerked her head toward the plump middle-aged woman beside her, “last Saturday.” Mrs. Candice Marx gave her a bemused look, “you want more?” Tiffany turned completed toward her, “as much as you remember.” Mrs. Marx, no relation to Karl, looked left and then right before leaning toward her, maybelline bright lipstick puckering, “you know Mr. Thomas isn’t too keen on us gabbing about it.” Tiffany sprouted a slow smile. “I won’t tell ‘em if you don’t.” She sat up straight and a jabbed a pencil in Mrs. Marx’s general direction, “someone has to stop this trouble.” Her blue eyes light up, Mrs. Marx read a lot of detective novels. She bent down, “It’s not all that much to go off of.” Her plush red lips are making a perfect ‘o.’

Tiffany gave her a thumbs up and grabbed her pencil a little more firmly, putting it down to paper. “Whatever you have, whenever you’re ready.”

She cleared her throat, “Well, okay, if you’re interested.”

“I am.” She nodded firmly, trying to edge her on. Mrs. Marx touched her blonde bob, primping it, as if she was being interviewed for local day time TV, “Danny was staying at Elsa’s so I agreed to do the nighter, it was Saturday, last Saturday. Ms. Thomas is having us do the late reception for real you know. She’s a real… well, she’s a real go-getter. Going to improve the stains in the reception hall next she said.” “Uh-huh,” Tiffany focused on scribbling nothing very meticulously.

Mrs. Marx tilted her head to the side, “I was just resting my eyes for a moment-” “When?” Tiffany started really writing.

“Oh, I’d say around 2am? Maybe a little sooner.” She snorted, “We weren’t gettin’ any calls, except from crackpots asking about setting up seances here. You know Mr. Thomas won’t have any of that- he’s not into that type of money Clyde says.”

Tiffany tried to keep her expression blank, “What happened next?” She twisted her mouth, “well, no phone calls. I was sittin’ right here, I don’t know really what it was, some sorta noise-” “What type of noise?” Tiffany sat completely upright. “A buzzing?” Mrs. Marx scrunched her nose up, “no, maybe, it was sorta… crunchy? I was drifted off, all I remember next is just waking up, don’t really know why. One moment I was lying in the chair, and the next I was upright and lookin’ at the lobby.” Tiffany leaned forward, “What did you see?” Mrs. Marx bent down very low, her caked-on mascara almost close enough to brush her, “That’s just the thing.” She breathed, “everything. It was bright, too bright, you know? All the lights turned on.” Tiffany nodded fastidiously, “What did you do?” “Well,” Mrs. Marx flattened her skirt out, “I thought of high-tailin’ it out of there, don’t want to end up like poor Mr. Koviak.” “Yes, absolutely,” Tiffany was jotting quickly: noise, lights, waking up.

“There was this real… feel to it too. Like something cold, or like a headache, right before the pain part.” “K,” Tiffany furrowed her brow: headache?

“The lights were all on, even the ones that are motion activated,” Mrs. Marx’s eyes were wide, “but only in the left hallway.” She pointed, “Right over there.” “What did you do?” Tiffany adrenaline flooded her, “What did you see?” “Well what was there to do? I-” A bell dinged. Tiffany gripped her pencil so hard she’s afraid it might break in two, light footsteps approached.

“Excuse me,” A rich voice called out. “Are there any rooms for tonight?” Mrs. Marx and Tiffany turned toward the lobby in unison, Mrs. Marx immediately burst into a practiced smile. “Of course!” She pushed her rolling chair toward the desk and sat up straight. “What can we do you for?” The customer was a young woman with long brown hair, it had a sleek shine to it but was choppy and uneven in parts, as if someone just hacked at it a couple times. She had high cheekbones, an oval face, and lightly browned skin- native probably, from one of the local tribes.

Her eyes were dark half-moons and her lips were turned down in a grimace, she seemed a little taller than Tiffany. She was wearing a green shirt that reminded her of the military and was carrying a large duffel bag on her shoulder.

Her teeth were stunningly straight and white when she spoke and Tiffany had to lean back from the glare of them. Tiffany hunched her shoulders like a cat sprayed by water as the stranger interrupted them.

I was so close, Tiffany clenched her teeth and pedaled up to the desk next to Mrs. Marx. She was chattering away.

“So there’s bedrooms in the west wing, but not the east right now, but the sunrise in the west windows is just to die for. You can see right all the way to Black Elk Peak, have you been there darling?” “Can’t say I have ma’am.” Her voice was still low and steady, Tiffany eyed her big bag. Something was different about this. “Well it’s just lovely. Especially from the west wing windows!”

“What brings you around here?” Tiffany interrupted, she could feel her mom cringing at her from rooms away.

The young woman raised her eyebrows and refocused on Tiffany, “Just passing through.” Mrs. Marx nodded, “Most folks are.” She agreed, “A real travelers town.” She gave a small laugh, “My own Ricky, that’s my husband, was only passing through when I met him! Said he’d never stay, but look at him now- a curmudgeon with a house in the hills.” Tiffany snorted at that, but the woman just arched her eyebrow up, “sounds nice.” “Oh it is,” Mrs. Marx could go on, but I thought I’d spare the traveler a little.

“Well alright,” I crossed my arms over my chest, “As long as you’re not here for any ghost-snooping, Mr. Thomas is telling Spook Hunters to stay out.”

Mrs. Marx gave a nervous laugh, “I mean, it’s not all that.” “Oh,” the woman just cocked her head to the side, “Ghosts?” “No ghosts,” Mrs. Marx said quickly, “Bad local legends is all.” The woman leaned across the counter, “Should I be worried? I’m sure I could keep go-” “No, no,” Mrs. Marx shot Tiffany a sharp look. “Nothing of the sort, Tiffany here listens to… a lot of wacky podcasts! How long would you be staying with us?”

The woman relaxed, “Just two nights.” She said evenly, “you have internet, right?” “We have internet.” She nodded briefly and then eyed me, “And as long as no ghosts come out I suppose.” She gave a thin smile and took out her credit card. Tiffany leaned forward, “It’s not actually ghost, it’s probably a m-” “So credit card? What name should I put the room under?” The woman adjusted the bag on her shoulder, “Lona,” she said simply, “Davis.”

Mrs. Marx was already nodding and moving onto when breakfast was and the ‘no stealing our bath towels pretty please’ speech with at least two mom jokes.

Tiffany examined Lona again, her eyes dragging up and down. There was definitely something lumpy in the sack, and her boots were metal-toed, a circular tattoo was around her right wrist. And that probably wasn’t her real name.

Tiffany didn’t notice as the transaction completed.

“Have a wonderful stay at Anne’s!”

Lona gave Tiffany another curious look, “I will.” She turned and left, heading to the west wing.

Tiffany exhaled, putting a hand over her heart, then she whipped around to Mrs. Marx. “That’s a monster hunter!”

Mrs. Marx drew back, “What?” “The shirt, the bag, the boots! That girl is here to hunt the monster.” Mrs. Marx wrinkled her nose, “She seems just like everybody else. There’s all sorts that pass through, why, just last week we had a man who was a professional clown. He was dressed normal, but he told me all about at the counter. A traveling clown! Have you ever heard of-”

“Did you see that protection tattoo? She’s on the trail.” Tiffany was certain, a professional!

“Now Ms. Tiffany,” Mrs. Marx clucked, “you can’t make presumptions about someone. Especially,” she put her hands on her hips, “Customers.” “I know, I know, okay,” she waved her off, and tried to keep her theories on track, “we were talking about last Saturday first,” she kicked away from the desk, “I’m all ears.” Mrs. Marx’s eyes went wide again and she turned back to Tiffany, returning to their previous hunched position, “Well, all the lights were on-” “My fair Candice!” Another voice carried over to them, “And lovely young Tiffany.” Tiffany winced so hard she thought her heart dropped out of her ass, “Goddammit,” She cursed under her breath.

“I just saw a customer walking to room 200! A good sight.” They both turned to Mr. Thomas in unison, Mrs. Marx smiling through.

“Indeed!” She chirped, “and more than one night too.” Mr. Thomas just hummed at that and looked between us, “I hope everyone is keeping their wits sharp.” Mr. Thomas chuckled, he was a small man with a pointed mustache and crinkling boyish blue eyes under round glasses, he wore suits everywhere and shiny black shoes.

He also said very pointedly kind things that always translated to ‘keep working’ and ‘do your job already.’ This was his ‘keep working’ phrases right now.

Mrs. Marx shifted in place, “course we are! Sharp as a church point.” She winked, “Ms. Tiffany was just…” She glanced at my notepad. “Doing some schoolwork!” I nod despite the fact I had graduated highschool two weeks ago. Mr. Thomas smiled over like he was making a Christmas list, “Well if you’d like some hel-” “Actually!” Tiffany stood up, realizing she probably wasn’t going to get any more out of this. “Time for me to go. Let’s talk later.” She gave Mrs. Marx a meaningful look and she just nodded.

“And Tiffany,” Mr. Thomas called after her as she tried to quickly scurry away. “The rooms aren’t playthings.” That was one of his more blatant instructions and Tiffany was struck for a moment by feeling six and chastized by the neighbors for throwing things into their yard. She meet his eyes steadily. “Of course,” Tiffany flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder and started walking, “I’m not playing.” She escaped to the second story ice machine room, cramming herself into the nook between vending machine and wall, she started to pour over her notes: noise, lights, wake up, headache?

Her thoughts dragged back to the girl at the counter and she wrote in the margins: monster hunters coming.

-------------------

It was late afternoon, the sun was streaming in through the small box windows at the end of the hall and the AC was on full blast in the simmering heat of summer. Tiffany was holding her pencil up again.

“I know you haven’t talked about it yet Mrs. Ludwig,” She followed the back of bustling old woman in a long grey dress and white bandana tied around her head. “But I’m here to listen.” Mrs. Ludwig didn’t even look over her shoulder as she walked into room 203, it had just lost it’s occupant, a Mr. Virilis. Mr. Virilis moved to greener pastures and left them with only around 5 other customers in the whole motel that night. Two of them were semi-permanent residents at this point, so she wasn’t sure they counted anymore.

Tiffany tried to step in Mrs. Ludwig’s path and catch her eye, “Please, I know it’s a very traumatic experience. I’ve been through that before.” It felt like the five stages of grief as she attempted to bargain. “With all the, uh… blood? Was there blood?”

The Koviak case had been ‘confidential’ and no details, except the occurrence of the death, had been released to the public. He was a traveling European businessman found dead in his bed two months ago, nothing else known. Mrs. Ludwig still didn’t look at her as she got out the cleaning carrier and gloves, she pushed open the propped door with her hip and didn’t look back.

Tiffany steeled herself, she took a bold step forward, “Mr. Koviak’s family has been asking!”

Mrs. Ludwig paused, turned, and fixed her with a potent icy glare, “do you plan on helping me clean?” Tiffany grimaced, her left eyebrow twitching, “Yes! I could. If… we could just have a short chat about the body.” “Run along Tiffany Green.” Mrs. Ludwig closed the door behind her and left Tiffany in the empty hall. As she had all the other times before.

“Fiiine,” Tiffany groaned and did a little spin, dragging her feet down to the other end of the hallway. If she knew Mrs. Ludwig she wouldn’t get another word out of her for at least 24 hours.

Tiffany flipped through her notes again, the fluorescent lights blared overhead, she would have paid them to flicker at this point. Buzz. Do anything.

She walked blankly ahead and fretted quietly to herself. No leads. No knowledge. How did it get around? Was it large? Was it corporeal?

Did it hate motels or just those in southern South Dakota? She just didn’t know.

It wasn’t until she was in the next hall that she heard a whirring of a machine, Tiffany looked up sharply and her eyebrows raised. Someone was actually using the motel gym.

There was a giant glass panel in the middle of the west wing, second floor. It held one elliptical machine, five weights, three sets of bell bars, two exercise benches, three jogging machines, and a water cooler. It had a speckled tile floor and frosted rectangle windows that barely let in the light.

The elliptical machine was whirring round and round as someone took it through its paces. Tiffany slitted her eyes, she recognized the figure: lean and muscled, the girl had a long choppy ponytail and a tattoo around her right wrist.

Her.

Tiffany stood there longer than she rightfully should, watching the girl’s back get damp with sweat and muscles strain with every quick step. Tiffany was tempted to inform her that, according to her notes, this wasn’t the type of monster you can run from. Training wouldn’t matter.

She doubted that would go over well.

Tiffany was leaning toward the elevator, trying to get her body to remember itself and move, it didn’t. The girl paused, her legs slowly pumping to a stop and the machine grinding down, maybe she felt Tiffany eyeing her, she turned. Their eyes met, a little tingle went up Tiffany’s spine, Lona’s dark half-moon eyes search her.

She tilted her head, expression placid as she hopped down to the floor, unreadable, she didn’t break eye contact as she moved. They stare at each other as Lona reached for a towel and wiped down her wet brow. Tiffany bit her bottom lip, maybe she’s the monster.

That seemed unlikely.

Lona took her time walking casually up to the giant window pane, Tiffany stiffened, waiting for something. Lona pursed her lips, cocking her head to the side, still considering Tiffany.

Tiffany shifted in place, her skin crawling and neck prickling, she had a feeling her cheeks had already flushed red.

The girl’s face shifted quickly, mouth falling open, eyes widening, whole body reeling back from the window. Lona pointed wildly over Tiffany’s shoulder, ‘look out!’ She mouthed urgently, breathlessly, pupils dilated. Tiffany jumped, whirling around to look left and right, holding her heart, preparing to run.

Tiffany untensed when nothing is behind her except garish yellow wallpaper and her own thumping heartbeat.

She arranged her face into something stony and unamused, she clenched her hands and turned back to the glass. Lona was grinning.

Tiffany tapped on the glass and leaned forward, “You don’t know what you’re in for.” She mouthed the words slowly, “it’s coming.” Lona frowned at that and then shrugged, “I can’t understand you.” She called, voice muffled by the glass, but still legible.

“Oh.” Lona flipped her long hair back, “do you work here?” Tiffany took a few steps back, “No.” She called, just loud enough.

“Good,” Lona turned back to her elliptical machine, “go home for the night.” Tiffany arched an eyebrow, she took a deep breath, “I don’t think so, I’m going to be the one to find it you know.” Lona glanced over her shoulder again, “Excuse me?” “I know who you are,” Tiffany pronounced loudly, “And this one’s mine.” Lona rolled her eyes, “little dramatic, don’t you think?” She wiped her neck with the towel, “Go take a nap kid, you’re not making sense.” Tiffany growled and then turned on her heels, look out. She mouthed the words and blood boiled from being pranked like a five year old in a haunted house.

What a stupid act, stupid customer who is definitely a monster hunter. Tiffany stomped toward the elevator, thoughts frenzied and whirling. She barely stopped as the lights in the hallway flickered. She froze mid-stride and looked up, the lights flickered again.

She gaped and took out her pencil, wielding it like a spear. She searched the hallway, up and down. “I’m here!” She called breathlessly, “I’m here.” Her eyes stayed glued on the lights, but they remained shining and motionless. Tiffany gulped and squared her shoulders. When she looked around she saw Lona in the hallway too, she doesn’t look half as amused this time. They don’t so much as nod at each other as Tiffany departed.

I’ll find it first.

Tiffany promised herself she wasn’t going home that night.

----------------------------

“But mom,” Tiffany could feel herself whining, “I need to stay the night.” “Not on your life.” Her mom threatened, her curly dark hair tied back and mouth turned into a hard line. “Can’t you be into, I don’t know… boy bands? Hockey? Anything else.” She closed the car doors of the 2007 volkswagen, Tiffany bared her teeth, “do boy bands eat people? No? Unimportant mom! This is important.” Tiffany was suddenly remembering all the reasons she left in the first place.

Her mom grunted and turned the car engine on, “Do you want to get hurt? It’s not a game.” “Hurt?” Her eyes lit up, “So you do believe in the monster!” Tiffany retorted shrilly, “And I’ve been training for this, I’m ready.” Her mom veered out of the parking lot, “The only monster I believe in is my daughter’s ego, and she really needs to place it somewhere else other than bad scary stories.” “You’re making this impossible,” she tried to chastise back and crossed her arms over her chest.

“That’s right, missy, no bothering the motel tonight.” Her mom sniffed loudly and drove them home.

Tiffany pouted and complained the whole way home, she figured this was how all monster hunters were treated, unbelievers were just part of the job. At least, that’s what she told herself as her mom lamented her behaviour later that night on the phone with her dad.

“I just don’t understand, how many horror movies have you been letting her watch?” Her mom paused, as her dad answered. Tiffany hid around the corner and stared at the wall, she had refused to come to dinner that night.

“Yes, Henry,” her mom sounded tired, “But I’m worried your indulgences have let her grow up like one of those undomestic- she’s not a field of wildflowers Henry, she’s a young woman, with a future. Stop it, stop, I don’t want to hear any more of your metaphors. She’s not a clay pot either! Goddamnit, you always do this. All of those self-improvement classes and you can’t listen worth a damn. Don’t start on me.”

They had one of their usual arguments.

Her mother sighed loudly after a few sharp barbs, her voice grew soft and tired, exhausted, “I just don’t know what to do with her.”

She was 19. And apparently no one knew what to do with her.

------------------

Tiffany had a clunky transistor radio in her lap and the itch of a lumpy blanket wound around her shoulders, they had My Little Pony characters on them from years ago. That was neither here nor there for her in many ways.

The clock by her bedside read 10:47 in bright red letters and Tiffany was hunched over and squinting her eyes in the dark. Her mom would notice if she turned on any lights, even at this hour.

She was certain the older woman was still holding her late night wine and indulging in her stacks of romance novels. Everyone was a paradox in their own ways, but Tiffany doesn’t point that out.

She was busy twisting knobs again. The hush of the radio blared through the air.

“We have a great setlist for you-” “Nobody, nobody, noooboooody-” “I can’t be-” “Sh-” “Ja-”

“Bzz-” She kept twisting.

Some part of her began to sink with each turn, what am I doing? She tried to push the thought down, she knew what she was doing. She knew what she saw all those years ago with her dog and she knew what she wanted now.

She had called it her ‘gap year’ between highschool and college but there was no plan to go to UCLA or San Jose University. She just needed to prove herself this once.

Monster hunters didn’t need to pour over biology textbooks that took her three different rereads to even fully absorb.

“Mountain mam-” “Sex, sex, and-” “Kis-” “Oomph,” “Ssssshhhh.” Tiffany’s hand froze and her muscles tensed, she landed on a chanel, one with strange static blaring over the line: 98.3.

She held her breath and brought the radio up to her ear, “Yes?” She whispered at the speakers and she hoped that her mom was almost done with her wine by now.

“Sssshuck.” Her eyes went wide, “Please.” She didn’t want to beg monsters, but she couldn’t lose this. Tiffany clambered to her feet and shook the radio, “Tell me.” “Sssshuch.” The radio buzzed, almost sing-song, and gave off an eery crunching static, Tiffany exhaled, closing her eyes for a moment, absorbing it. The radio buzzed, she jumped to her feet and reached for her extra-thick socks. She threw off her blanket from her shoulders and yanked on a pair of shorts and button-up shirt.

She didn’t hesitate as she quietly shoved the second story bathroom window open. It was a half mile walk to the motel. She turned the radio off, shoved it in her pack along with her notepad, several pencils and a dull kitchen knife she had carried off days ago from the dining room drawers.

Despite the heat she yanked on her brown bomber jacket and lifted herself out the window. Maybe her mom thought it was too high to jump from, maybe she underestimated how determined Tiffany was.

Maybe the woman was curled up around her ‘Favio x Angela’ novel and was far too gone to try and figure out once again what to do with her daughter.

Tiffany climbed down and started walking.

-------------------

The night was a warm sweet milk around her, cradling her and leaking into her insides like a fiery gas leak, her shirt was almost soaked through by the time she saw Anne’s. The moon was a slice of silver cheese in the sky and the South Dakota sky was a river of sparkling white blemishes against inky black night. It smelled like dry grass and dust.

She breathed in the silver and exhaled warmth, it wasn’t like this in North Cali, but maybe that’s why she came. She took out the kitchen knife, it had a plastic covering and she slipped the weapon into the waistband of her shorts.

It dug into her thigh as she walked, but she ignored it. The monster hunter had warned her about tonight, she knew she had to be here.

Exactly four lights were on Anne’s Motel: the lobby with its vibrant pale yellow light and three windows alight with their soft beige curtains drawn. Tiffany went around the back, walking past rows of low rectangle bushes and spotting a narrow metal door with a red sign over the handle: fire exit. It was supposed to be properly locked but she shook the handle back and forth gently until it clicked in place and she pushed her way in.

They were modernizing Anne’s, but it wasn’t quite there yet.

She squeezed her eyes shut, hands on the handle and bracing herself. You can do this, her ears rang, you have to.

She shouldered her way through the back door and stood in a dark hallway, lit only by silver moonlight at the other end of the long space. She held her breath. It was quiet.

The shadows seemed to play before her eyes, shifting in place and forming ghastly shapes in the dark. She sucked in a breath and pressed herself against the wall, letting the door slide closed behind her.

Nothing moved, no lights flickered. She steadied herself, “hunting,” she took deep breaths and held her chest, “Hunting is all about facing fear.” She edged forward, almost spooking herself as the motion sensors picked up on her movements and blinked on. She had rub her eyes a couple times to adjust to the sudden flood of light.

A flicker of movement arose in the corner of her left eye, “ah!” Tiffany jumped back and rolled to her left, careening to the floor on her knees. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, but when she looked back up nothing was there. Again.

Tiffany took deep breaths and crept her way toward the east wing of the hotel, something had to be there. It was time, the radio had been buzzing.

The lights stay on.

Her pulse ran ramshackle through her veins and Tiffany practically crawled her way across the motel floors. The plastic knife protector dug deeper into her thigh, but she doesn’t feel it. She edged up to the second floor ice machine room, just outside the east wing, and waited- eyes opened, jaw set, world spinning slightly.

“This is it,” she whispered to herself and began to wait.

She crouched, checking, waiting, eyes strained on the fluorescent lights above and frequently sniffing the air for something. She stays perfectly still, biding her time, waiting, until the lights turn off again, and then flicker, once.

Tiffany’s eyes dart back and forth in the dark, she crept out of the ice machine room and looked up and down the long hallways. She opened her mouth to call out, ask something, prompt something.

She heard a hiss instead, “What are you doing here?” Tiffany flinched and spun around, two half-moon eyes glow in the dark behind her, a growl rumbling in the girl’s voice. Tiffany’s lifted her chin and blinked a couple times, “Oh.” “You shouldn’t be here.” Tiffany’s brow folded in, “My mom works here.” It was probably the best defense she had.

Lona’s eyes were hard and shifting around the room quickly, wildly almost, “Get out of here.” “What, are you ordering me?” Tiffany tried not to sound petulant.

Her hand came down like an iron claw on Tiffany’s shoulder, hard enough to bruise, “Yes.” That’s when the lights flared on like the sun itself had been pulsed into them, flaring to life and filling the whole space in a brilliant glow, Lona widened her stance and drew herself up. A noise like a low buzzing gurgle sounded behind them, quiet and licking at her insides like sandpaper over skin.

“Take my hand.” Lona put her hand out and Tiffany eyed it. The lights flickered above them like a sudden rapid eclipse. “Uh,” Tiffany reached for her pack instead.

“That’s another order,” Lona took an aggressive step forward, the lights flickered quickly above them, fritzing and blinking.

Tiffany gulped, “I’m not,” she tried to summon her courage, “I’m staying.” “Take it or I’m carrying you out, civilian,” Lona growled and Tiffany gave in and slipped her fingers in between Lona’s. Lona gripped them, “Don’t look back.”

They started to run.

The sound grew louder, like a clunking car engine purring through the air, metallic and crunching to the ear, static fuzzed just below the surface of the noise. The lights flickered.

Tiffany looked behind her.

“Ah!” Lona skidded to a halt, painfully squeezing Tiffany’s hand as they came to a jarring stop. Tiffany was still looking behind her, the hallway was painfully alight except for a deep dark nothingness just after the bright fluorescent overhead. Just at the end of the hall, it was too dark to see through.

What was it?

“Excuse me,” A voice said shrilly, “Oh my, I thought I heard some commotion.” Tiffany was dragged back to the other issue at hand: they had been stopped by Mr. Thomas, standing in a bathrobe and eyeing the two of them. Specifically, Mr. Thomas was eyeing Tiffany, standing in the middle of the space with his hands on his hips.

“Honestly.”

Lona drew herself up, “Sir, where is the nearest exit?” “Exit?” Mr. Thomas blanched, “is this young Miss Tiffany’s doing? I promise, any tales she might be spinning are hyped up! Please considering not cutting your stay with us short.” He gave a small, placating smile.

Lona groaned, “Sir, you don’t understand…” She reached for him next, this time with her left hand.

The lights flickered. Lona and Tiffany both instinctively took a step backward. Two of the lights went out behind Mr. Thomas.

Tiffany tried to stutter out, “Mr. Thomas,” she took another step back, “Come toward us. Slowly.”

Mr. Thomas made a face at her, “I’m sorry Tiffany, but this bothering of staff and guests has gone on long enough. No tricks are going to change that. I’m afraid I’ll have to ban you from the motel.” The light directly behind Mr. Thomas went out, a thick tangible darkness sat behind him.

Tiffany’s heartbeat pounded painfully in her ears, move, she commanded herself to move. Reach for him, beg for him.

Instead, she stood with her back to the wall, still holding Lona Davis’s hand like a five-year-old at an amusement park. Tiffany swallowed, “Okay,” she said slowly, “but first you need to-” “Shh,” Lona hushed her and pressed them both firmly up against the wall. “It’s too late.” The last light in the hallway went out. The buzzing crescendoed into an insect-like metallic cry, a song like a garbage disposal, and two perfect round lights came on from behind Mr. Thomas.

Like headlights.

“What in God’s name,” Mr. Thomas turned around as the white lights fell on him.

The headlights blinked and Tiffany took in one horrible twisting vision: a creature with two hooved feet, a massive furry body that took up the whole hall, two dark wings hanging limply off it’s back. She squinted at the face but all she saw was headlights.

And then the headlights tilted up, an enormous mouth opened wide: blunt white teeth gaped and a grey thick tongue snaked out of its giant mouth. Mr. Thomas didn’t even get in a scream before the black lips clamped down. Teeth snapping down as Mr. Thomas’s head was rested from his shoulders.

Tiffany got in a scream though, “Aaaah!” She let out a piercing shrill cry as the blunt teeth chomped through flesh and bone.

Her stomach lurched like the titanic sinking as a grotesque crunch followed, the sound of bone and skull being crushed by huge molars, thick red liquid splattered across the carpet. Tiffany couldn’t move.

“Come on,” Lona stayed true to her promise, grabbed Tiffany around the waist and hoisted her onto her shoulder. Tiffany squeezed her eyes shut as she heard another crunch and Lona carried her down the hall and through the emergency exit.

She had met the monster.

----------------------

The next few hours were a smeared blurr, filled by a sickening headache that made her whole body tremble. The first thing Tiffany did was sag forward and vomit up the dinner she hadn’t eaten.

It was clear and tasted like bile. Tiffany puked again at the sight.

“Let it out,” Lona’s voice was no less hard, but she wasn’t hovering over her at least. Her hands were busy holding a small mechanized crossbow trained on the door and twisting something around her wrist.

Tiffany took deep gasping breaths and tried not to puke a third time.

It was real, it was all real.

She had known, but knowing and seeing were two different things.

Tiffany raked at her shirt, as if were too tight, as if there wasn’t enough air in her lungs. “Here.” There was a tap on her shoulder, she turned as Lona handed her a water bottle, “Drink.” Tiffany greedily downed the entire bottle before gasping for breath again.

“Oh my God,” she started to repeat, “Oh my fucking God.” Lona just snorted, “the first one is always the hardest.”

Tiffany’s head was light and there were spots in her vision, she glanced back toward the emergency exit and wiped her palms down on her shorts. “It, it, Mr. Thomas...” She squeezed her eyes shut before taking a rattling breath, it took another minute to open them again.

She wanted to scream again, she wanted to run back in there, she wanted to turn and run the other direction for miles and miles.

“What now?” She finally rasped out instead. Lona raised her eyebrows, “I assume it disappears again after feeding.”

Tiffany’s face fell, “there was a body for Mr. Koviak.” Lona turned toward her slowly, “perhaps it only eats the head.” She took wobbling a step back from the door, “it’s so much more… it’s so much.” Lona patted her shoulder, “Drink more. This will be over soon.” Tiffany drank a second bottle of water, she turned back to Lona, feeling limp and queasy, “What are you going to do?” She leaned in close, clenching her hands down so they wouldn’t tremble, “How can I help?”

She tried to push down the sight of Mr. Thomas’s limp body falling listlessly to the ground in a splatter of red. She tried to push down the crunch and the flickering lights. I can help, I can help, I can help.

She repeated to herself over and over. I can do something.

The other gnawing voice in her head wasn’t as persistent, but just as loud: your fault.

She finished the water before handing it to Lona, “What can I do?” Lona eyed her up and down. “Go home kid,” she sighed, “Actions over for tonight.” Lona turned to leave, Tiffany’s hand jutted out and grabbed onto her sleeve.

“How old are you?” She asked slowly.

Lona made a face, “How old am I?” “And tell me the truth.” Lona snorted, “I’m 21.” Tiffany let her go, “Then I’m not a kid to you.” Tiffany lifted her chin up, “And I can help.”

Lona tilted her head, “Were you not just in there? Did you not just see that man’s head get bit off? This isn’t a game.” Her tone remained even, but there was fire in her eyes.

Tiffany looked down at her shoes, “please,” she didn’t like the waiver to her voice, “It’s my, my f-fa-” “It’s not your fault,” Lona hand waved her. “Unless you’re a monster with hundreds of teeth of course.” Tiffany pinched herself so she wouldn’t cry, she looked up again, “What is it? What is that thing?” Lona scratched her chin and looked away, “Nothing good.” Tiffany sighed, “Please,” she took a step forward, “Let me help. I knew Mr. Thomas, I know everyone at this motel.” Lona arched her eyebrow up, “you know everyone in here?” She pursed her lips, “Do you… do you have any keys?” Tiffany perked up for the first time that night, “I can get some.” “Ugh,” Lona threaded a hand through her choppy hair, “You can’t come on any of the actual hunts. You hear me? None of this again.” Tiffany nodded vigorously, “I need to avenge him, any way I can.” Lona exhaled through her nose, “I better hope you like books then.” Tiffany shrugged weakly, “Where can I sign?” She looked down and gave a mirthless laugh, “I always wanted to hunt monsters.” Lona almost popped a smile, she put a hand on Tiffany’s shoulder, “Don’t. It only gets harder from here.” “I thought you said the first one’s the hardest?” Tiffany examined Lona in the light of the moon, neither of them were moving back inside yet.

“I lied,” she started to walk, “They’re all hard.” Tiffany wasn’t sure she liked teaming up with a stranger, much less one who would boss her around. But the image of Mr. Thomas’s stark white face being engulfed was too much.

Tiffany shuddered, this really wasn’t just a summer project, it never was.

-------------------------

They closed the motel down after that. It made sense, one of the owner’s had just been found headless in the hallways. His sister hadn’t made a comment yet, but it was said she found the body.

Ms. Thomas was a mousy woman in her late fifties, she had iron-grey hair and wore knee-length dresses everywhere and jackets that looked like they were from the 1920s. No one had seen her for days afterward, though Tiffany’s mom made sure to bring her soup every day and leave it at her door.

There were rumors the FBI would be sent in to look for any head-hunting serial killers. But those were just rumors.

There were rumors the Tiffany was there, that the maids were in on it, that the stranger passing through town knew something. Words flew and Tiffany felt a tremor of fear gathering in the small community.

She saw her mom pray at the funeral, get down on her knees and bend her head. There was a slight summer shower coming over the land that day and no one bothered with an umbrella.

They all stood in the light rain and bowed their heads, Tiffany knew her mom had become an atheist a long time ago, but she was muttering verses under her breath as they left. Maybe she thought it was the work of a demon after all, or maybe things like this brought out other sides of people.

Tiffany didn’t say anything at the funeral, just clenched her teeth so tight and wound her mouth shut so firmly that she thought her jaw might shatter like an old wind-up clock. She watched her shoes as she walked, entered, listened, left.

It all felt like something else, happening to some other girl.

She didn’t sleep that night, she hadn’t slept a lot since the night two weeks ago in the motel. I can do something, she repeated it to herself. I came here to do something.

She played with her transistor radio every night and waited.

It was a Wednesday at midday when she finally sought out Lona again, it would be a place to start.

Tina, from her mom’s spin class, knew Sierra, who worked at the local grocers had heard from the cashier that Lona came in every morning for a danish and a coffee. The girl was like clockwork, and better yet, she was still in town.

Tiffany rolled herself out of bed that Wednesday, glanced at the college pamphlets her mom left just outside her door and then brushed her teeth with the force of a steam engine. She didn’t bother with breakfast as she waved at her mom and left for the morning.

They were both out of work at the moment so Tiffany told her she was going to go look for a job- and it was, a job of sorts at least.

Tiffany found the girl in the fresh fruits section examining a shiny red apple, hair was loose and pushed over her right shoulder. She was wearing a navy blue shirt that day and capri jeans that covered most of a bruise on her calf. Tiffany came up behind her and cleared her throat.

“So,” Tiffany made the hunter jump. “When can we catch this horror-terror?” Lona turned and made a face, “Oh.” She paused, “hello again, uh…?” “Tiffany,” she said groughly, “Tiffany Green.” She put her hand out and they take a moment to exchange an awkward handshake.

Lona put one of the apples in her basket, “I’m afraid progress is slow.” She said carefully, backing away, “There’s complications.” Tiffany stepped into Lona’s personal bubble, “Put me to work then.” Lona pushed her hair back and started walking the other direction, “It’s not that simple. I don’t need you yet.” Tiffany followed her down the next aisle.

“Then need me now.” She insisted, “We don’t have all the time in the world, even if the motel is empty right now.” Lona didn’t look back, “We have at least a few more days.” Tiffany frowned deeply, “Take me with you.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Aren’t monster hunters supposed to have backup?” She chased after the other girl’s heels.

Lona arched an eyebrow, “Hunters are supposed to be careful. First and foremost.” Tiffany opened her mouth and then closed it, ‘careful’ was not on her job resume. “Please.” She tried again. “I can’t… the motel can’t stay closed. My mom’s worked there for twelve years. I can help.” Lona wandered her way to a tall silver coffee dispenser and doesn’t say anything as she fills a large canister, Tiffany felt like a lost puppy as she followed her to the cash register.

“Fine,” Lona finally relented as Tiffany trailed her to the parking lot, “You can come back with me.” She said slowly, “there is something we can both do.” Tiffany’s mouth breaks open into a toothy smile she didn’t know she had in her, “You won’t regret it.” Lona just clicked her tongue and made her way to a blue chevy car, “Rule one,” she got in, “listen to what I say.” She just got into the car after her.

------------------------

Books. Tiffany should have anticipated books.

There was a second hotel in Rowing South Dakota, it was a motel 8 with 24-hour service, an outdoor swimming pool, and actual lawn chairs next to it. They were Anne’s main competition.

Tiffany was led through the cramped parking lot all the way to room 108 where Lona took out a set of keys and jangled the door opened. Tiffany glanced at the room momentarily, the curtains were drawn but the scent of sweet wine and something smoky wafted out of the door.

“Come in, come in,” Lona gestured quickly and Tiffany gladly ducked into the AC-blasted room and out of the heat. She turned in each direction, pictures were on the walls, books were open on every surface, there was a crossbow in the corner.

“Wow,” She breathed and milked in every second of it, Lona covered the crossbow with a blanket and pushed a pile of books aside to let Tiffany sit down on a small chair.

“Who knows, maybe a new set of eyes will actually help.” Lona muttered to herself and pushed her hair back- a habit Tiffany was starting to recognize. Tiffany twitched nervously, concentrating wasn’t her strong suit. But this was a monster, this was The Monster and sometimes that was enough to trick her brain into cooperating.

She tapped a rhythm on her legs as Lona firmly closed the door behind them, “SO,” she spoke up, “Are you finally going to tell me what we’re looking for?” Lona didn’t respond right away, opting to walk silently back across the room and take her seat on the single red-quilted bed.

“I don’t know,” Lona said clearly, evenly.

Tiffany leaned forward, “What?” “I don’t know,” Lona repeated and then turned away, she made a soft frustrated sound, “this isn’t what you think it is. These aren’t your mother’s monsters, these aren’t TV monsters.” “Okay?” She puffed her cheeks and drew a little closer, “I’m all ears then. What does that even mean?” Lona met her eye, “maybe there once was, I dunno, perfect vampires and pure weres.” Tiffany studied Lona’s face, as she was hesitating around something, “but?”

“It’s the twenty-first century, monsters change, grow just as the world did, they didn’t stop adapting just because people stopped believing.” “That, yeah, yeah?” Tiffany rubbed her neck, “Yes?” Lona cracked the book open and placed it on her lap, “it’s a hybrid.” She said simply, “I don’t know what it is, because it probably wasn’t bred into this damn world until recently.” She uncapped a highlighter with her teeth, “Damn bastards.” Tiffany blinked a couple times, “hybrid… like?” “A combo, mix, mutt,” Lona highlighted something in her book.

Tiffany looked down at her lap, “Monsters fuck.” She said to herself quietly.

Lona put her palms up in the air, “That is your great take-away?” She looked up sharply, “You can fuck monsters.” Lona rolled her eyes spectacularly, “most only once.” She shook her head, “And you haven’t met a more annoying creature than a vampire-fae or banshee-werecat, hybrids don’t make this fucking easy.” Tiffany gave a sideways sloppy smile, “You really are a monster hunter.” Lona snorted gently, “I thought we established that, yeah.” Tiffany grinned to herself and looked down, “Give me a book.” She gave her a thumbs up, “Let’s figure out which of these things have been doing the nasty.” Lona leaned back, “I’m trying not to regret this.” Tiffany winked, “Try harder.”

She gave a hoarse laugh and Tiffany cracked the spine of an ancient tome that smelled like dust and molding ink. The first picture was of a demon with seven fingers on each hand and a head of fire.

She kept turning.

---------------------------------

They had a bulletin board. A bulletin board and string and seven questions in scrawling large print. It felt like a 70s cop show and Tiffany was the spunky assistant, spunky and full of potential- as long as she kept herself whole and uneaten of course.

She paced in front of the board, the seven questions were written in fat sharpie marker and read:

How does it move around?

Where does it go?

What can it manipulate? Light? Sound?

Why is it eating just heads?

Mothman?- that one was scratched out and given a little frustrated face next to it.

Why the hotel?

Why Rowing?

They were both looking at it with blurry eyes and a slight headache by 11pm. Tiffany had sent a few hasty texts to her mom saying she was at the movies, her mom seemed to willfully give in to that.

Tiffany stretched and yawned one more time, she glanced back at the board, “What if,” she pointed to number five again, “angry mothman.” Lona groaned, “I told you ten times, it’s not mothman. He doesn’t eat people.” “But what if,” she rested her head on her own shoulder, “it was mothman? Or mothman… saw a sexy subaru and decided to have a little fun.” “Oh my god.” “I’m just saying!” She threw her hands in the air, “it has those headlight eyes.” “Yes,” Lona looked ready to toss her book across the room, “And we still have no idea why.” Tiffany yawned again, “Machine-mothman sex.” “Absolutely not,” Lona massaged the bridge of her nose, “I don’t even want to live in that world.” “Too bad,” she grinned, “I just made that world.” Lona flopped down on the bed, “what’s that you say? You want to offer yourself up the monster as a sacrifice? Virgin sacrifice? That’s very noble and bold of you.” Tiffany stuck her tongue out at her, “Hey, I’m coming up with ideas over here.” She fidgeted in place, “an’ m’ not a virgin.” She mumbled. Lona chuckled, “You know I have a lie detector-rune, right?” Tiffany’s eyes went wide, “Really?” She almost stammered. Lona tossed her head back and laughed, “No.” “Ugh,” Tiffany picked up one of the nearby dislodged motel pillows and threw it at her, “bad people get eaten by monsters you know.”

Lona sighed, “everybody gets eaten by monsters. That’s how it is.” Tiffany looked up at the ceiling and listened to the AC blast, “Maybe…” She mumbled, “It’s a weremoth-car hybrid?” Lona gave her a tired look, she shrugged, “turn to ‘were’s’ in that book over there.” Tiffany spun around in her chair, “Really?” “Not the car part, no,” Lona sniffed, “But we have to figure out the timing in between feedings, figure out something, anything.” Tiffany frowned, “Do we know if it’s feeding or not?”

Lona hung her head, “No. We don’t.” She rolled over and pointed at newspaper and book clippings, “We know there were cults in the hotel.” “For one night.” “And a burial ground.” “Ten miles away.” Lona closed her eyes and sighed, “what about a weremoth again?”

She grinned, “On it.” Lona trudged over and looked over her shoulder as she read, poured over the words, the symbols, any of it, all of it. Tiffany glanced at her several times and wondered, not for the first time, where she came from. And where she was going after this.

They kept flipping through books.

-----------------------

Night three approached like a bad hangover: thirst, headaches, and staring at nothing for a few hours straight. Her mom was starting to ask where she kept going, there were only so many movies out and she apparently didn’t buy the new ‘I made a friend’ excuse.

But Tiffany was 19, she was allowed out of the house. And into the motel 8 room 108.

Tiffany was lying on Lona’s bed, back resting against the headboard, and transistor radio back in her lap. Lona was in the corner furiously flipping through yet another book, this one titled: The Supernatural of North America, volume Five.

She was growling, “no glowing eyes, no winged creatures with glowing eyes. No head eating!” She spilled the book onto the floor, “Useless.” Tiffany kept her eyes down and responded in a monotone, “Don’t give up yet.”

Lona angrily got to her feet and started to pace, “So useless. There’s nothing here, we might as well name it ourselves.” Tiffany’s mouth twitched, “The Lona-saurus.” “Yeah, why not.” Tiffany laughed, looking up, “Lona-terror.” She shook her head, “Don’t you want it named after you?” She grinned, “No.” she tilted her head to the side, “Though I do have a question for Lona-Human.”

Lona paused and raised an eyebrow, “Yeah?”

“I’ve been thinking,” Tiffany kept fiddling with the dials and glancing around the room. “How did you get into this business anyway?” Lona glanced over her shoulder, “I told you earlier. That’s confidential. You shouldn’t know about all of this,” she was murmuring now, “How am I going to explain any of this?” Tiffany frowned, “To who?” Lona turned on her heels and kept pacing, “No one.”

Tiffany groaned and kept flipping through her channels. “Jesus lov-” “Shuckin-” “Pi-” “Shh-” “Ki-” “Would you stop that?” Lona crawled onto the bed with her, “I don’t know how much time we have left and it’s distracting.” “Shush,” Tiffany suddenly sat upright in bed as she found the chanel again: 98.3. It was dead quiet. “Here it is.” The quiet stretched on and Lona reached to take the radio from her, “Knock it off.” Tiffany rolled away from her.

“Listen!”

As if on queue, the static blared to life.

“Oh shit!” Tiffany shook the radio in midair, “There is it.” Lona raised an eyebrow, “What is it?” Tiffany glanced up, “this is the chanel,” she bit her bottom lip, “The monster channel,” she whispered it and glanced at the door just in case.

Lona scooted closer to her, “Well it sounds like you’re getting bad reception,” she didn’t seem particularly impressed. “Here. It’s probably a blocked chanel.” Lona reached for something in her pocket, holding the object with her right hand and bringing it to her lips. She seemed to whisper to it and then spit on the surface. Tiffany wrinkled her nose at that, but noted closely as the other girl placed a shiny metal rock on top of the radio.

“Turn the dial now,” Lona commanded, Tiffany reluctantly complied.

“I’m telling you, it doesn’t get any clearer than-” She turned the dial and voices immediately began pouring in through the speakers, chanting, singing, wild and strange. Tiffany’s breath caught in her throat.

“Sanguis Bibimus. Corpus Edimus. Sanguis Bibimus. Corpus Edimus. Tolle Corpus Satani! Ave!” Unmistakable gibberish came over the speakers with a grating metal sound in the background, unmistakably dark, unmistakably powerful. The hairs on her arm stood on end, demonic.

Lona stood up immediately, “Of course,” she reached for her duffel bag, “Of fucking course.” Tiffany bounced to her feet, radio still in hand, “What, what is it?” The demonic chanting continued. “Stay here, turn that off,” Lona ordered, “I have to hurry.” Tiffany grabbed her wrist before she could dart away, “What’s going on,” she shoved herself into Lona’s face, “You owe me that much.” Lona struggled with something for a moment before opening and closing her mouth, “Do you remember what the monster looked like?” “Yeah,” Tiffany shuddered, “glowing eyes, wings, huge ass mouth.” “Remember the teeth?”

Tiffany squinted, “I… don’t think I can forget.” “They were blunt,” Lona shouldered her way toward the door, “This isn’t a carnivore, someone else is doing this, that channel… it must be going through the whole town.” Tiffany followed after her, “You’re not stopping me from coming with.” Lona tugged at her hair, “I don’t have time for this.”

“Then don’t fight it.” Tiffany reached out, “I can come with you now or hitch hike there, I’m not staying.” Lona pinched her lips together, glaring and wrestling with something. They stare off for a long minute, finally, Lona stepped aside and Tiffany climbed into the car with her.

---------------

“Rule number one,” Lona was speeding down the city central road like she wanted to leave skid marks on it, “Don’t come in.” “No.” “Rule number two,” Lona growled, “Stay away from the monster.” “I mean, I’ll try,” Tiffany could feeling her blood pumping through her ears, I’m not going to freeze up this time. She made herself a promise.

“Rule three,” Lona swerved into the parking lot, her face a placid sheet of determination, “if I say run, then you run.” Tiffany nodded, “I can do that.” Her hands trembled slightly, she balled them up and met Lona’s eyes, “I can do that.” Lona’s face slipped into a small smile as they pulled into the parking lot, “And if you can’t run…” She handed her a small pointed cross, “Fight like hell.”

Tiffany smiled back as she took the pointed cross, “Is this for demons then?” Lona kicked her door open and took out her crossbow, “We’re about to find out.” Tiffany edged out of the car and ran after her.

Tiffany watched Lona’s long hair swing back and forth as they strode toward the hotel, no lights were on, it stood quiet and empty. She nursed a growing nausea in her gut at the sight, nerves burning through her system and forcing her feet to follow Lona anyway.

“Lona,” Tiffany chased her heels, “I’ve got your back.” Lona snorted and looked over her shoulder, “I am going to be in so much trouble for bringing a civilian into this.” She pushed her dark hair back, “Is there anything I can say to get you to turn around?” Tiffany drew herself up, “Not on your life. Now,” she cracked her knuckles, “Lemme get us in.” Tiffany found the back door and carefully jiggled it open, she could feel them both holding their breath. Hybrids, she was still wrapping her mind around it.

This wasn’t the movie monsters, it wasn’t even the white-limbed forest walker she was certain ate her dog all those years ago. This was the real deal.

She doesn’t have time to process what this would mean, she cracked the door open and a buzz sizzled through the air. Their eyes both went wide, Lona darted in first, crossbow out, Tiffany pushed her way in after before Lona can lock her out.

The door shuts softly behind them and the lights flicker softly overhead, Lona crouched down and Tiffany stood in place. The yellow wallpaper and green carpet suddenly seemed like a funeral walk, she looked down the narrow space and looked for something.

Lona grabbed her wrist and forced her up against the wall, “Don’t just stand there.” She hissed and placed Tiffany in the corner. “Careful.”

They crept down the long corridor and the echoes of demonic chanting reverberated through Tiffany’s headspace, remembering the sound of ghoulish voices calling across the radio.

You knew there would be dangers, she reminded herself, you knew it wouldn’t be easy.

The lights flickered and Tiffany looked in all directions, waiting for teeth or shadows or giant wings that swept them all away. She tensed her muscles and crept after Lona, keeping her back to the wall, the lights flickered.

It’s quiet, but Tiffany swore she heard the sound of distant buzzing, metallic and crunching.

“I don’t like this,” Lona murmured, “We needed more… more time. More information.” She heard her take a deep breath.

Tiffany clenched her teeth, they hadn’t figured out what the chanting even meant. “It’s coming,” she said, “We have to stop it.”

Lona nodded back, “Keep your eyes open, we don’t know when or where-” “Aaah!” A shriek shattered the air, gut-wrenching and sharp. They share a look, then they are running. Tiffany flung herself toward the cry, focusing on pumping each leg forward and keeping in motion, they followed it toward the second story.

They crashed into the fire escape door and sprinted up the flight of stairs, it was east wing.

“You took him,” a wobbling voice cried, “You took him, devil, bastard.” It was a desperate, watery wail.

Lona burst the upstairs door open, the hall was dark, dark and breathless and a pair of eyes are blaring like two white perfect headlamps. Tiffany blinked a couple times until she could see more clearly.

Ms. Thomas was holding up a fire-poker and brandishing it back and forth like a sword. Maybe she had come for vengeance too.

For a moment Tiffany’s breath is taken away, the creature loomed at the end of the hall. Eyes like flashlights, a buzzing emanating off of its body. It’s massive mouth was a slit across it’s lower face, she could make out two fuzzy atena hanging down above it this time.

It’s massive furry body filled the space and blunt white teeth were just visible in the dark.

Ms. Eve Thomas held up her poker, “stay back.”

The creature lumbered forward undeterred, but Tiffany was moving before she could question it, question anything. Ms. Thomas stabbed up at it’s open gaping maw. Tiffany lunged first, tackling her to the ground and falling head over heels into the wall as the creature’s mouth came down over nothing.

An arrow whizzed above them and a solid thunk carried through the air, Tiffany looked up to see the end of the projectile lodged into the creature’s right shoulder. The creature stumbled in place and took a moment to touch the black arrow embedded into its flesh, fresh black blood oozing out.

It threw its head back and opened its mouth wide.

A buzzing insectoid noise lept from it’s throat, Tiffany reached to cover her ears but Lona was yelling at them. “Move,” she yelled and let loose another crossbow arrow. This one just barely grazed the creatures left leg and left a trail of blood spilling onto the carpet.

The creature stumbled forward, saddling up alongside them, it’s thick arms reaching out wildly and grasping in the dark, Tiffany could smell it’s musk, hear it’s labored breaths.

Tiffany pushed Ms. Thomas forward, “Run!” She yelled, “run goddammit.” Ms. Thomas scrambled forward, reaching for Lona, but Tiffany paused, there was something on the ground, something behind them. It was a thin strip of white paper, black ink was scrawled vertically along it.

The paper lead down the hall and up the creatures back, up and up, Tiffany followed it with her eyes. She licked her lips, “Lona,” she said slowly, eyes not leaving the paper, “I’m breaking rule number two.” “No you’re fucking not.” Lona called, trying to reload another arrow just as the monster lurched toward her, slow, but deadly with it’s thick grey tongue lashing out.

“Huh,” Tiffany grunted and sprung to her feet, it’s headlamp eyes turned toward her, hitting her directly in the face, neck turning like an owl’s. Tiffany threw herself on it’s massive furry body and climbed.

The grating buzzing noise boomed, Tiffany flinched but managed to dive for the paper tied around the creatures neck. It was arranged like a noose, tied and scrawled with inky dark unreadable letters.

The creatures hands thrashed at her, Tiffany kicked at it’s claws and latched her hands onto the paper. The moment she grabbed the scroll a fiery burn bloomed in her flesh that sparked all the way to her elbow, burning and bleeding into her skin. “Agh,” she screamed and let go, luckily, she slammed into the wall instead of into the creatures enormous mouth and searching tongue. Pain burst from her head and hands, she hit the wall and slid limply to floor.

Her vision blurred and tilted, but voices were yelling, calling, she feably pushed up and fumbled back to her feet, the world was a rush of nonsense sound and light. A hand thrust out and grabbed her shoulder, yanking her out of the way as a row of blunt snapping teeth descended.

Tiffany is pulled to safety for a second time.

“Thanks,” she said weakly as Lona crashed them into the nearest wall and out of the way.

Lona’s eyes didn’t leave the monster, “What the hell was that?” Tiffany glanced down at her burned hands, headlamp eyes were sweeping toward them once more, “You’re right,” Tiffany reached for her pocket, “I don’t think it wants to do this.” Lona pushed them back again, “We need to retreat, regroup-” “Hey Lona,” she thought of Mr. Thomas, his face pale and mouth open as the teeth closed in around him. “If anything happens,” she took a deep breath, “Don’t tell my mom I died doing something stupid after all.” Lona’s hand was firm across her shoulder, “Don’t you da-” She wiggled free by jumping out of her brown bomber jacket, she slid smoothly forward and jammed herself directly into the monster’s path. The headlights blind her for a moment, but she jumped up this time, leaping blindly just as the creature lunged to take her head off. She wound her arms around its neck as it bent down.

A thick grey tongue licked at her leg, but she kicked and grabbed at the paper noose tied firmly around its neck. She cringed at the searing burn in her right hand, but drew the sharpened cross up and sliced at the paper. Tiffany prepared herself to have to saw and tear away, but the paper broke like wet tissue paper against the press of the holy object, it smoked gently and fell away.

A deafening screech followed and her whole world tremored.

Tiffany was falling again, falling and falling, just as a pair of hands collided into her back, stopping her head from cracking against the hard floor. Lona had dove for her as she fell away from the beast.

The creature screeched again, it’s voice insectoid but losing it’s inhumane metallic clang. Lona started to pull, “The door,” she yelled and started tearing away, “We need to get the door.”

Tiffany barely remembered stumbling and sweating her way down the stairs and back to the first story, her hands screaming in pain and head spinning. Lona shepherded them toward the fire exit just as the creature rammed itself into walls and ceiling, knocked out the lights as it flew rapidly in all directions.

The emergency exit peeled open and they threw themselves out. Tiffany gasped for air, Lona pushing her out of the way just as a huge furry body burst out behind them.

The summer air was somehow cooler on her flushed skin and she swayed in place, the fight leaving her battered body, but she couldn’t let her eyes close, she stayed in place, transfixed.

The shadows melted off the enormous humanoid beast, the dark blacks fading into a sharp silver, it’s wings extending, grey and covered in spotted intricate markings. It’s headlamp eyes shun in the night and it’s antena extended.

It was a light grey now, sparkling almost, wings massive and whumping in the night.

“Oh,” Tiffany stepped back, “ Oh fuck.” Lona kept her hands around her, she chuckled, “Huh,” she said simply, “A fairy creature.” Later, Lona would call it a ‘will-o-wisp’ mated with a moth beast, a lost mutt fairy creature.

It’s movements were quick and decisive, slightly lopsided and presumably still wounded, it sped into the horizon. It’s silverback disappeared into the trees, the buzzing and screeching following it and the world fell quiet and still.

“Will it,” Tiffany felt her tingling limbs to make sure they were all still there, “Will it eat any more people? Should we go after it?” Lona’s eyes trailed down to Tiffany’s raw red hands, she shook her head, “Someone was controlling it. With those chants and that leash,” their eyes meet, “it should be safe now.” Tiffany exhaled, “Who would do that?” Lona shrugged, “There are plenty of bad people in this world.” She pushed Tiffany’s blonde hair back from her sweaty face, “don’t worry about it.” Tiffany slumped down, “There you go again. With orders.” She chuckled and sat gasping in the light of the descending moon, “You’ll notice I’m not very good with those.” Lona collapsed down next to her, “well thanks for not dying at least.” Tiffany shot her a slow smile, “Thanks for letting me almost not-not-die.” Lona chuckled, “please don’t thank me civilian. This isn’t what we’re supposed to do.”

“Okay,” Tiffany’s head lulled to the side, falling onto Lona’s shoulder, “you’re welcome then.”

Lona put her head down too, “That was stupidly brave, there.” She sighed, closing her eyes, her voice becomes lower, small even, “Don’t become a monster hunter Tiffany, please.” There was something unsettling soft in her tone.

Tiffany closed her eyes too, “Too late.” They stay there for a very long moment, contemplating their own mortality, burns, and various fly-away feelings seeping into tired bones.

Lona was gone in the morning.

Tiffany torched all of her college pamphlets on the burner, bandaged her hands, wrote a note to her mother, and followed after.

FIN

[mattness]

warm summer

This is a small fanfic-AU without plot and logic. Hope you enjoy! OTP: Jennifer Wright/Robert Grey Raiting: PG-13 This strange idea came to me after the next viewing of the movie "It" when losers were on careers. I thought maybe Robert and Jen could go there, too. I apologize for the mistakes and sloppy translation.

In Derry came another warm summer, and the sun's rays are already well warmed the water to be able to swim not only during the day but also at night. Jennifer would like to visit the famous local quarries, which are so loved to jump in teenagers directly into the deep river, but to go really wasn't with anyone. Friends in a small town she haven't got, and Robert… Well, something told her Grey wouldn't approve of such childish fun. So Jen spent all days at work, and then came home tired, heated yesterday's food in the microwave, sat for a couple of hours in front of the laptop screen and fell asleep. The routine of the small town had completely consumed her, and Jennifer didn't like it very much.

Warm rays crept into the spacious living room, where the girl was sitting on a leather sofa on her only day off and was really idling. On the TV at background were some stupid programs about fashion, and from the speakers of the laptop played a simple song. Jen herself enthusiastically read David Nichols's novel "One day", occasionally sending grapes into her mouth, which lay in a deep plate. The plot completely absorbed her, and, apparently, all today will pass so. She sighed heavily and turned the page, reaching for the glass of wine on the coffee table.

Suddenly there was a persistent knock at the door. Jennifer frowned and put the book aside, starting to sort through the options of all kinds of guests who could came on the threshold of the house. She adjusted the edges home jerseys and straightening her shorts, opened the door to the intruder. Surprise and pleasant euphoria swept her head, it was worth seeing opposite the happy Robert Grey in an unusual white t-shirt and dark blue jeans. It's unusual to see him not in strict expensive suits. He smoothed his hair and smiled warmly.

"Jenny", Robert said, hugging Jennifer, who kissed him on the cheek.

"What brings you here?" she asked and motioned him into the house. Grey looking around the foyer. Nothing's changed here since the last time he was here. All things remained in their places, but now the air not smelled of pain and sorrow. Jennifer really did feel better after almost four months.

"I'm actually wanted ask you to go with me somewhere", suddenly the man began timidly, appearing on the threshold of the living room.

Jen again sat on the sofa and eating a few grapes, curiously looked up at him.

"Where? A restaurant or a cinema?"

"No, no. It's nice weather today, and I'd like to... well, there's a place like this in Derry, just five kilometers away from your house..." Robert chattered as if it was the first time he had to invite his passion on a date, and Jen listened with interest. "Jen, can we go for a swim?"

Wright raised her eyebrows in surprise. Was he reading her mind? How did he know what she had been thinking all morning and the last couple of days? The girl barely shook her head, throwing stupid questions out of her head, and smiled at Robert, who froze on the threshold.

"Did you bring your swimming trunks?" Jen smirked, biting her lower lip.

"Yeah, sure. Everything in the car. I also got a bottle of beer for you and me", he said as the girl got up from the couch and walked over. Wright smiled softly, put her arms around Robert's waist and stood up on her toes to get a kiss on the lips. The man didn't keep her waiting long. "Or we can sit at your place. As you wish?"

Jen playfully flashed her eyes and moved to the stairs leading to the second floor.

"I'll get ready and we can go."

Robert broke into a pleased smile, following the girl with his eyes. Yes, today was definitely a good day for fun. He wanted to unwind after a long departure from Derry, in which the police again began to look for the alleged murderer, but could not find anything. Rob was triumphant because he had once again managed to fool these stupid people.

There was no one at the quarries, to Jen's surprise. A faint breeze rustled the tops of the green trees. In the distance, birds were singing, and below, the sound of water. In the light of the sun the river has acquired a blue-green hue. She walked carefully to the edge of the cliff from which she and Robert had planned to jump. The height was decent. About three floors of an ordinary house. Fear forged all within and Jen cowardly retreated a few steps, realizing the stupidity of the idea.

While she was standing on the cliff, Robert took off his t-shirt and then his jeans, remaining in the black trunks. He grinned slyly looking at Jennifer. What's she afraid of? You can hardly hurt yourself to death. Water softens the blow.

"You're just gonna stand there and look down?" Grey laughed, straightening up and putting his hands on his sides.

Jen turned and raised her eyebrows. Her gaze involuntarily ran over the naked lean body, torso, stopping at the black trunks. Oh God, he was so good. Vulgar thoughts immediately flooded her mind, and the blood rushed to the cheeks of the girl, who embarrassedly lowered her gaze and bit her lower lip. Robert barely kept his snide chuckle.

"And if our things someone will drag away?" she began to grumble, unbuttoning the buttons on her shirt.

"Can take it into the car", shrugged the man and squinted from the sunlight, beating right in the face. "Take off your clothes, Jen. Come on! We came here to swim."

"Yeah, yeah", muttered Wright pulled off her shirt and then the skirt. Pale green one-piece swimsuit perfectly emphasized the figure and bare the entire back. A small cut adorned on the belly, and Robert could not help admiring, licking his lips. He came to her, took her hand and pulled her to the edge of the cliff.

"Are you sure you want to jump?"

"Absolutely. That's the thrill of it!"

"Somehow I doubt it..." protested Jennifer.

"Let's jump together, holding hands?" Robert suggested, and tightened his grip on her hand. "It won't be so fearful."

Jen shook her head.

"You're first!"

"Coward!" Grey laughed and sprinted down into the water.

The girl irritably rolled her eyes when the entire region echoes swept happy "wohoo!". A loud slap on the water and then a splash. Jen stepped to the edge and saw Robert swim to the surface in one piece. He smiled and shouted loudly, "Come on, Jen! Come to me!". Wright timidly retreated from the edge, walked from side to side, released the air from her lungs, trying to compose herself. The cliff seemed unreal scary. High. Insurmountable. But Robert was able to overcome it, right? And kind of alive.

Jen cursed under her breath and, just as she ran, pushed off the edge of the cliff. Seconds free fall. The impact of the water, and the incredible flurry of emotions covered her head. She emerged, catching his breath, laughed, and swimming to Robert. The man put his arm around Jen's waist, smiling languidly.

"You were afraid."

"A little."

Robert looked into the blue eyes, seeing warm and tender feelings in them. The girl's heart was beating fast, and the thoughts rushed in her head. Confusion once again took possession of all her nature, and Jennifer felt a blush touched her cheeks. She smiled corners of her lips and quietly asked Robert, "What?"

"You're so beautiful", Grey whispered, reaching for the kiss to her full lips, but she dodged and splashed water in his face. Jennifer laughed out loud and swam away. Robert pretended to snort and accepted the terms of the game, quickly swimming up to her and also starting to splash. Laughter echoed through the quarry, and the warm sunlight caressed them. Jen could feel the happiness engulfing her. It was as if she had returned to her childhood when she went to the sea with her parents. And yet today was so much better than all those childhood memories, because she was spending it with someone she loved.

When they got tired of splashing senseless, they dived and tried to see each other in the water. Jen smiled happily, looking at Robert, who managed to catch a small turtle. Then they released her together and returned to the shore. Robert turned on the radio in the car and took two bottles of beer from the portable refrigerator. He sat down next to Jennifer, who was sitting and dangling her feet in the warm water, and held out the bottle.

"Thanks", Jen smiled, brushing wet hair back and taking the first cold sip of alcohol. "Let me guess, it's really expensive? Because such a tasty beer I didn't ever drink."

"I just know about alcohol, that's all", Robert shrugged, having already drunk half of the bottle. He lay down on their towel and looked up at the sky, breathing out. Jennifer looked at the man lovingly, feeling an irresistible urge to touch his lean and still wet body. From indecent thoughts abdominal delayed taut and pleasant node. The girl looked away and fixed her on the opposite bank with the same green trees. She will definitely remember today for a long time.

From the car came the words of the song "Starving" Hailee Steinfield, and Jen quietly giggled, surprised at how much the song described all the feelings she felt for Robert. She never thought she'd fall in love so much. She never thought she'd be so happy with a man who actually doted on her. Jen sighed and felt, as appeasement and real rest covered with with head first time in a long time. The birds were still singing loudly, as if trying to drown out the music. The sound of the water and the warm wind were pleasantly relaxing, and Jennifer smiled again.

Suddenly a loud snort from the side touched her ear. The girl looked over her shoulder at Robert, who had fallen into a light slumber. His black glasses hid his eyes, and his chest rose and fell in time with his breathing. One hand settled on his stomach, and the other was about to drop a half-empty bottle of beer. Jennifer moved closer and gently fished the bottle out of his hand, putting it aside. She didn't want to wake Robert, but the desire to kiss him became unbearable.

Jen leaned toward Robert's face and gently touched his full lips. She ran the tip of her tongue over his upper lip, not noticing how such a small action immediately woke the man. Wet tips of black hair tickled his neck, and Robert smiled through the kiss. Jennifer wanted to get away, but Grey, with his hand on the head and passionately kissed her back. She blushed in embarrassment because the thought of sex right here was stirring and making her knees close together. God, how it's so vulgar. Jen felt her ears burn with shame.

Robert pulled the girl over, not at all against what she had just thought. He threw the glasses to the side and made a hand on the fragile waist Jen, who completely lay on him. His fingers ran over the graceful back, down to the waist, and then squeezing the elastic buttocks. The girl quietly moaned through the kiss.

"Robert", gasped Jen caught intoxicated by the sight of green eyes. "Maybe not here?"

"What confuses you?" Grey smiled slyly and climbed right hand under the elastic band of her swimsuit and nipping her skin. Jennifer hissed, giving him a reproachful look. "We're alone. And even if someone came, wouldn't you care?" he sat down with her, and Jen placed her hands on his broad shoulders.

"No, Rob", Jen grumbled. "Let's do without any extreme?"

"Oh, you're so innocent, baby", snorted Robert, and Jennifer stood with him, heading to the water. She decided to relieve the tension by swimming again. The man held her gaze, calming down, and mentally decided that in her house will definitely insist on sex. He needed it. But if little Jenni doesn't want him right here, then don't upset her.

The most romantic day was coming to an end, and already lying in a soft bed at Jennifer's house after hot sex, Robert offered her to go more often this summer for a quarry. The girl burst out wearily with laughter, kissed him on the chin and nodded. Maybe next time she'll dare some obscenity. Robert smiled at his own thoughts and, closing his eyes, pressed the girl closer to him. They have the whole summer ahead of them.

[youreahunterclary]

Longing || Chapter 1

☾ Beast Boy has been out on a mission with the Doom Patrol for just over a year now. His absence has hit a lot of the Titans hard, especially a certain empath. Raven can admit that she’s missed the green changeling since he’s left, but what she can’t admit is just how much she’s missed him. There’s something else Raven can’t admit either, but it’s gonna take some time for her to come to terms with that. ☽

He was like the summer, everything about him reminded her of the warm season. His smile was like the sun shining down on the rest of Jump City. He always seemed to be in a joyous mood, his mouth alternating between smiles and laughter for most of the day. His body emitted warmth and he smelled of forests and the ocean that surrounded their tower all at the same time.

She didn't know why these thoughts were coming to mind now as she laid in bed, the day already late as she'd slept in. Raven sat up and took a look around her darkened room. She usually kept her curtains shut, but today she was in a strange mood and with a quick flick of her wrist she pulled them apart to let the sun in. She could now see a lot better, though it was still dark due to the fact that the sun rose on the other side of the tower. She sighed heavily as she pulled the warm covers aside and got up from the comfort of her bed to start her day.

The plum haired girl took another look around and noticed the numerous books splayed about from her research the night before. Using obsidian energy she picked them up and easily set them back in their designated spots on her shelves. There wasn't anything else out of place so she stepped into the bathroom attached to her bedroom and the door slid shut behind her. Raven switched the light on, actually using her hands to do so, and turned the knobs on the shower until satisfied with the temperature of the water. She removed the long shirt she wore to bed with ease and stepped under the steaming water. A content sigh left her lips as she scrubbed away at her skin with her lavender scented body wash and shampooed her hair, only using a bit of conditioner for a bit of softness after.

When she stepped out she used her powers to wrap a towel around her, almost feeling lazy enough to not use her legs and levitate back into her room. She decided against it though and walked all the way to the sink and pulled out a hair dryer.

A few years ago she would never have owned one, but in the time that passed her hair had grown until it reached just below her waist. Raven would've cut it sooner, but she felt like she always had more important things to do. She looked directly into her reflection while turning the dryer on and waited until her hair wasn't damp anymore.

Raven then moved on to her closet and grabbed a dark blue leotard like she did on most days and slipped into it before willing her belt to hang across her hips and clipped her cloak on. Without looking at her reflection a second time that day, she stepped out of her room and made her way down the lengthy hallway.

Before the door to the common room hissed open she could smell bacon and sausages sizzling against a hot pan. Cyborg stood in the kitchen making breakfast for a yawning Starfire, who managed to still look more put together than Raven did, most likely not even having spent half an hour on her appearance, and Robin who'd made himself a cup of coffee. A sinking feeling filled her core, the same feeling she got everyday that passed and Beast Boy was not there to joke around and make scrambled tofu. Even though he left over a year ago now, Raven could still feel his absence and knew for a fact that the rest of the team felt the same way. Especially the half man half robot who stood in front of the stove, his best friend.

"Good morning friend Raven", the Tamaranean greeted cheerily, "You seemed to have done the sleeping of in. Were you kept up by your research?"

Raven said a quick hello in reply, nodding while heading past the island Star and Robin were sitting at and into the kitchen. She opened the cupboards in search of her kettle and got started on boiling water before contemplating what tea she'd be having that morning. The demi-demon was pouring the boiled water into a cup already when an alarm blared and Cyborg groaned loudly, having served the food already.

"Honestly, why couldn't they have waited until after we ate", he said, muttering a few other things under his breath.

Raven sighed, slightly annoyed that she wouldn't be able to drink her tea and would most likely have to make herself another cup when they got back from the mission. Cyborg looked at the screen embedded in his robotic arm to get some information on the who and the where. As soon as he got a location we were all heading out, Robin and Cy taking the T-car while Star and Raven took to the skies.

When they got there, Killer Moth was unleashing his mutated insects on the civilians who were running and screaming as they swatted them away and looked for shelter. Starfire and her immediately went to aid them and started fighting the insects off. Starfire took them out with her starbolts, blazing green orbs of energy. Raven worked on shielding the people in Star's line of fire, to make sure no one got hit, until they found shelter. When the boys arrived they'd taken care of the majority of the flying creatures already and they went off to face Killer Moth himself.

"You fools", he gloated, "Did you honestly think it'd be that easy!"

Then another wave of insects came through, only slightly larger than what Star and Raven had just dealt with. Luckily neither of them had gotten injured too badly earlier in the battle, just a few scratches here and there. As Robin and Cyborg fought against Killer Moth, throwing punches and firing beams of blue his way, Raven and Star worked to eliminate the mutated creatures.

All of the civilians had made it into some form of a shelter so Raven no longer had to worry about them, but she had used a lot of her energy to protect them already. It wasn't until the battle was ending that the exhaustion had started to settle in that Raven felt herself faltering a bit. She kept going at it though, crushing the vile creatures against one another, against buildings, and the concrete of the street below them.

By the time they were close to finishing them off Raven was out of it and hadn't noticed when some of the insects started closing in on her. Raven turned and saw yet another wave of insects coming their way and for a second she was annoyed at how tired she was feeling so early in the fight. It must have had something to do with the lack of sleep she had the night before. She threw off a wave of obsidian energy and singed the things surrounding her and readied herself for another round. As soon as they were in her line of fire she started firing orbs of energy their way alongside the red haired alien next to her.

They weren't even halfway done when Raven started seeing dark spots in her vision.

No, she thought to herself desperately. Not now, not when there are still so many left.

She was already falling and everyone was too busy fighting to notice right away. It wasn't until she was halfway through to colliding with the street that Cyborg turned enough to see what was happening with the girls and yelled out her name. It was too late though, none of them would reach her in time and she just accepted that thought as she continued to fall. Seconds passed and she felt as though she would crash any moment now, her eyes starting to close. A sigh left her lips and she readied herself to meet a rough landing.

Then, unexpectedly, something- no someone, caught her in their arms and all she saw was a blur of red, white, and a lot of green. Feeling shocked, Raven opened her eyes to see who had caught her and she was even more shocked to see who was holding her to their strong chest.

Beast Boy.

Her breath caught in her throat and she contemplated whether he was really there or if he was a vivid hallucination. If she'd hit the ground already and none of it was real.

"No worries Rae, I got this. You just rest up." He said and walked her over to the pavement, laying her down gently before taking off to aid Starfire in battle.

Beast Boy flew into the city just before the other Titans had taken off, not finding them in the tower, and figured they'd be out on a mission. He could've waited, but something felt off and he knew, he just knew that he was needed. His theory was proven right when he saw Raven free falling towards the street and felt his heart nearly jump out of his throat. He willed his wings to push him forward and hoped he'd get to her in time. He was further motivated at hearing Cyborg's desperate cry at seeing Raven falling and no way of anyone else getting to her in time.

Beast Boy transformed back into his normal form as he held his arms out and caught her easily before landing on his two feet. He sighed in relief and spoke a few soothing words, holding her close to his chest while hoping the red tint on his cheeks was not noticeable. He almost couldn't process that he was holding her in his arms like he'd wanted to many times before. It was also hard to believe that she wasn't tossing him into the nearest building for touching her. Then again she was slowly going out of consciousness, otherwise he'd probably be laying on a pile of rubble by now.

He looked for a safe area to lay her to rest, but there weren't many options nearby. Beast Boy thought the safest place for her to be right now was in his arms, but he also needed to help his other teammates. So he walked over to a fairly out of the way area on the sidewalk and laid her there gently before taking off. He transformed into a cheetah, running quickly as he attacked the insects swarming the area.

He heard some shouts of surprise come from his friends as they took notice of who had arrived to the party. If he were in his human form he would've grinned and said something in return, but at the moment he was in an animal form and was focused on the mutated creatures in front of him. With his help and his teammate's hard work, the army of bugs was defeated and their leader was being cuffed.

Beast's friends made their way towards him, but he was already walking away, finding Raven and picking her unconscious form up. His friends looked at him in surprise. Whether it was because of how different he looked or how he was holding the mistress of shadows in his arms, he didn't know.

Before any of them could get a word in Beast Boy spoke up, "We need to get her home to rest."

Later that day when Raven awoke after a few hours she was confused as to why she could feel someone else's presence in the room and why the room she was in was the infirmary. She sat up slowly and saw that it was Beast Boy, her thoughts filled with questions. He stood up from the chair set up next to her bed when he noticed she'd awoken and rubbed at the back of his neck. She could feel his nervousness radiating off of him, probably thinking that she was seconds away from tossing him into the bay. Raven surprised even herself when she didn't do so in the first place.

"Raven you're up", he said with a grin on his face, but she could feel that he was still nervous and felt some slight surprise coming from him. "The others are in the common room. Cyborg checked your vitals earlier and said all you needed was some rest. I figured there should be someone here when you wake up."

"I guess so", she replied groggily, looking around and noticing that no one else was in her room, just Beast Boy, and then she surprised them both again, "Thanks for saving me from that fall."

It was still hard for her to acknowledge her failures, like not having enough energy, but he had saved her and she was grateful. He looked at her, not even trying to hide the shock on his face, "I've always had your back during a fight Rae, you know that."

"Yeah I know you have Beast Boy, I just wasn't expecting it since you left", Raven said it as though it were a fact, but soon wanted to apologize after feeling the guilt coming off of him.

"You know you can call me by my real name now Raven- not that you have to, just a suggestion", he said, putting his hands up defensively.

She only nodded in response and took the opportunity to look him over. Beast Bo- Garfield, had grown into himself in the past year. He definitely wasn't as muscular as Cyborg or Robin, but his muscles had gotten much more toned and defined in just a year and he seemed to grow a lot more too. His cheeks weren't round anymore, they'd taken a more angular shape and his jaw looked as though it could easily cut glass. His uniform did his new body justice, clinging to him and accentuating every muscle.

The only things about him that didn't change were his smile and canine that stuck out, his easy going personality was still there even if he'd matured a bit, and every other irritatingly endearing quality that made him who he was. Maybe he'd started maturing over the years when he had still lived here and she just never noticed until he was gone.

Raven shook her head, questioning herself as to why she was thinking such things, but it was only normal. At least she figured it was since it'd been so long since she last saw the changeling.

Gar had also been shamelessly checking Raven out even though most of her was covered by a blanket. He could still see how much her body had matured over just one year. Her curves had grown out a bit more and maybe she grew a tiny bit in height, if she grew an inch or two it was hard to tell since he'd grown another foot. Her hair had gotten a lot longer and he actually liked it a lot. As a person, she definitely had changed a bit, seeming a bit more comfortable in her own skin, but still held the usual sense of seriousness she always carried with her.

When too much time passed Raven cleared her throat and a blush crept onto Beast Boy's cheeks, wondering if she'd caught him staring. When Raven didn't speak up he decided to initiate the conversation, "Uh, so why so tired Rae? Usually you're the one kicking butt and on top of everything. Robin filled me in on what happened before I arrived so I know there was a lot to deal with. But you're one of the toughest people I know and you blacking out like that isn't like you."

Now Raven was the one blushing and feeling embarrassed. She thought for a moment, contemplating whether she should lie and pretend everything was alright or tell him the truth. Before she made up her mind her mouth was already choosing for her, speaking in her usual monotone, "I was just doing some research like I have been for the past week and last night I actually managed to make a breakthrough. That's all."

Lies. She's been having trouble sleeping for much longer. She didn't know why, though.

Beast wasn't at all surprised that she'd been up all night doing research, but he still felt as though there were more, "Oh, I'm sorry Raven. I'll just go and let everyone know you're okay and that you're gonna be resting for a while."

A small smile appeared on her lips whether she wanted to or not and she thanked him. When he stood from his chair she felt the warmth of his body leave and suddenly felt cold, not having noticed in the first place that it was his warmth she'd been feeling.

He started walking away and before the door slid shut behind him he caught a glimpse of Raven getting comfortable in the infirmary bed. He felt a little relieved after talking to Raven about why everything that happened, did. Still feeling a sense of unease, though.

Gar walked into the common room and three pairs of eyes turned to look at him. If he could've turned bright red he would've, feeling embarrassed for some reason even though all he was doing was checking up on a friend. A teammate of his.

"Look he's smiling", Cyborg said, mock surprise in his tone, "and dry."

"Did she tell you anything? Is she alright?" Robin asked, getting straight to the point.

"Yeah she was just pretty drained is all", he replied, not wanting to go into too much detail since most of the conversation consisted of him gawking at her.

It was strange, Raven would never have even talked to him about the book she was reading that day a year ago from now, not that he ever asked. So for her to trust him enough to even talk to him about her research, whatever it was, made him feel a sense of pride. Now that he was back, it seemed as though things with Raven had changed for the better, even if it was only a slight change.

We'll see about that, a deep voice in the back of his consciousness growled.

Later that day when Raven woke up she felt re-energized as she stretched. The talk with Beast Boy had left her feeling calm and the nap well rested. She got up and took a peek outside, it was still pretty early in the day. When she thought of what she could do her stomach growled and she knew that she should probably grab something to eat. Before exiting her room she grabbed the book she'd started last night before her research took priority and made her way down the hall.

When she walked into the common room Beast and Cyborg were sat in front of the big screen and were playing a video game. Raven went into the kitchen and started brewing some tea to make up for the cup she didn't get to take a single sip of earlier that day. She looked into the fridge for something to eat and managed to find some berries all the way in the back. Not that the fridge was overflowing with food in the first place.

Maybe I can go grocery shopping tomorrow, Raven thought to herself.

"Raven come play a round with us", Cyborg hollered over the sound of the video games, "Beast Boy sucks even more than he did before!"

"No I don't," The green shapeshifter yelled over Cy's laughter.

Raven shook her head at the two, "I'll sit next to you while I read, but I am not playing any kind of video game with either of you."

"That's more than we expected actually so we're cool with that", Cyborg stated as he crashed his car into a wall and muttered, "Damn it."

Raven engulfed her fruit and tea into a ball of dark energy and dragged it behind herself. She set both things onto the coffee table, which already had a ton of junk food splayed about, before making herself comfortable.

He's not been back for even a day and it's like he never left, Raven thought to herself.

Some time passed by, them arguing over the game while Raven tried reading and eating her snack, before they put a movie on and quieted down. A peaceful silence settled in, only the sounds of crunching popcorn and the movie could be heard. Raven settled into the couch and sighed as she turned the last page of her book. When she finished the book she got up to wash her dishes before making her way towards the sliding doors. She stopped, though, when a voice spoke up.

"Hey Raven", Beast Boy called out, "Why don't you stick around for the rest of the movie?"

"I don't even know what's going on in the movie", she said, but still made her way over to the couch for some reason.

"No worries, I'll fill you in on what's been happening so far", a quick nod of agreement and a green hand wrapping around her wrist to pull her down next to him and Garfield was whispering to her, "Okay so it starts off with this kid getting kidnapped by aliens..."

[holmjanson-blog]

In an effort to bring you some new voices on Ottsworld, here is a guest post from writer and traveler, Staci Schwarz. I met Staci a few years ago when she and her family left for a family sabbatical.   I loved following her travels and subsequent learnings from that experience.  However now her kids are off to school, so she’s now an empty nester!  I asked her to write about her recent California road trip  – her first empty nest travel experience. All opinions and experiences expressed here are hers. –Sherry

As my husband and I sat down to plan our Pacific Coast Highway trip, empty nest syndrome was hitting us hard. It had been nearly 12 years since we had traveled without the kids, but now our daughter was in college and our son was working full time and living on his own. They were less likely to want to spend their time and money traveling with their parents – which was hitting me hard.

Travel is my favorite family activity. From road trips down the Mississippi River to big city explorations in Chicago to a 5 month trip around Turkey, India and SE Asia, we have had some amazing adventures together. I love seeing the world through their eyes, hearing their thoughts about what is happening around them and watching as new experiences widen their worldview. I wasn’t sure how we would do on our first trip without them.

The Pacific Coast Highway and a Campervan

Our objective was to rent a campervan and drive the Pacific Coast Highway – Highway 1 – from San Francisco as far south as we could manage in 9 days and then back up to Napa to visit some friends. We rented out campervan from Lost Campers and the process was quick and easy. We even met a couple in the parking lot who were returning their van and they passed onto us some supplies they hadn’t used including a few cans of beer, much to the delight of my husband.

And then it was time. How would we do on this first adventure as empty nesters? As Mason started up the van, we looked at each other and smiled nervously as we pulled out of the lot and into the California sun.

We didn’t want to be stuck to an agenda or feel rushed so we chose to not set any specific destinations and allowed ourselves to stop wherever we wanted and for however long we wanted. We let the road guide our itinerary as we embraced our new freedom without kids. This turned out to be a magnificent idea as it allowed the perfect combination of relaxation and adventure.

We didn’t realize it at the time, but the pace of the trip and the laidback atmosphere of California would give us the time and space to reconnect, to be present with one another, to dream about future travels. We got plenty of “windshield time” which is our code for that precious time in the car when we can focus on one another without the distractions of phones or other screens. Windshield time can be used for deep conversations, for scheming and dreaming or for singing duets to our favorite road tunes loudly and mostly off-key.

Driving the Pacific Coast Highway 1

San Francisco

On our first afternoon in San Francisco, we visited the Haight. Every picture shows us dog tired, with dark circles under our eyes and weak smiles. We had taken red eye flights and now it was catching up with us because even though we still consider ourselves young, our bodies tend to disagree. Eventually we ended up dragging the blanket from the van into the middle of a sun-drenched park and taking a catnap. It was glorious and remains one of my favorite moments of the trip.

That delicious spontaneity is something that you lose sometimes as you parent. Life for young children is often easier when it is structured and before you know it, it can become so structured that you forget the deep joy of gratefully accepting whatever the moment has to offer. And is there any better place than the Haight to celebrate spontaneity and freedom of sprit? We were raised by hippies and strolling through the Haight felt a little bit like connecting to our roots. It took us right back into the beauty of spontaneity and it thrilled me to no end.

It would have been easy to spend the entire week in San Francisco. There was certainly no lack of things to do. But the goal was to drive Highway 1, so we did a whirlwind tour of Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown and Muir Woods, blowing kisses to the Golden Gate Bridge as we headed out of town and hit the open road.

The Slow Coast

The stretch of Highway 1 between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz is known as the Slow Coast. Slow Coast is a state of mind, a state of being, if you will. It scoffs at the need to rush anywhere and encourages a change of pace, a heightened sense of being present, a little “stop and smell the flowers” frame of mind. With lovely little shops tucked into Airstreams and roadside stands selling every fruit and baked treat your heart could ever desire, it really does make a compelling argument for taking your time. Throw in the best strawberry shortcake I have ever had in my life from Swanton Berry Farm (with an honor system box to pay, no less!) and I was completely sold on their motto of “In Slow We Trust.”

Get the strawberry shortcake!!

Santa Cruz Surf History

We were excited about Santa Cruz and it didn’t disappoint! We spent part of the day at the tiny surf museum learning about the history and evolution of the sport. It was absolutely captivating and it gave some great insight into a tradition that helped to shape the culture of California’s coast. We made a stop on the Boardwalk to have a funnel cake and then sat on the beach for hours with our toes sunk in the sand quietly enjoying one another’s company and listening to the song of the waves.

On the boardwalk

  Monterey

Monterey was a dream. If I could go back immediately to any of the places we visited, I would choose Monterey with no hesitation. The historic walking tours absolutely wooed me and the Monterey aquarium sealed the deal. I remember strolling along hand in hand with Mason as we searched for the last remaining whalebone sidewalk when he looked at me and grinned.

“What?” I asked. “Nothing,” he replied.

We were both very pleased with ourselves. We were doing this!

Moss Landing

When we were exploring Muir Woods outside of San Francisco, we met a woman who told us to skip the whale watching tours in Monterey and head to Moss Landing instead. We took her advice and were so glad that we did! Captain Kate met us and about 10 others on the dock and offered us all an essential oil blend of peppermint and lavender to help calm sea sickness and then off we went! Seeing whales has been at the top of my bucket list for years so you can imagine my squeals of delight when we came upon 6 humpback whales and nearly 200 seals feeding together. The seals would dive down first followed by the whales and then the ocean would become perfectly still and calm. A few minutes later the surface would erupt in a riotous flurry of seals and two deep breaths later, the whales would breach. We must have watched this cycle nearly 30 times and it made me wonder-filled every single time.

California Perfection

Over the course of the 9 days we were in California, we boated through what seemed like a billion translucent jellyfish. We searched for moonstones on Moonstone Beach and came away with handfuls of little glowing pebbles. We drank sparkling wine in Napa. We laughed a lot. We drove with the windows down so that we could smell the ocean and the fog in Big Sur. We bought books at the Henry Miller library and we read Dharma Bums together before we fell asleep at night. We may have cried due to the beauty of it all (ok this was mostly just me).

I am an ocean baby. I am completely blissed out when I am near the water. The sound and smell of the ocean runs through my veins. Mason, on the other hand, is a mountain dude. California completely seduced us both. We talk about our road trip almost weekly with a dreamy longing in our voices.

But What About the Kids?

We missed the kids a little, but we re-discovered pieces of ourselves that we had lost as parents. We remembered how much we love to spend time together. How we thrive equally from deep conversations and comfortable silences. We discovered that adventure is a mindset and approaching new places with a sense of wonder is one of our superpowers. We remembered how much we love freedom and spontaneity and going with the flow. We remembered that we are road tripping rock stars and we came home confident that we were going to be able to handle this empty nest thing just fine!

Empty Nesters!

Pacific Coast Highway Road Trip Tips:

• It feels so adventurous to rent a campervan and dream of waking up to the sounds of waves on the ocean. However, it is very difficult to find places that will let you sleep in your vehicle and it’s illegal to pull over and camp on the side of the road. Renting a tent and camping supplies may be a better route to go. • Take your time. The point of the 1 isn’t to arrive at any particular destination, but to enjoy the journey. Stop as often as you can at every lookout, in every town and at as many roadside produce stands as your stomach can handle. • Have your heart set on whale watching? Stop in Moss Landing rather than Monterey. The tours are less expensive and Captain Kate absolutely elevated our experience. Her enthusiasm was contagious! We enthusiastically recommend Blue Ocean Whale Watching! • Stop at the Surf Museum in Santa Cruz. It is tiny, but mighty. We loved it. • Put together a travel playlist before you go. This is such an iconic road trip and it demands an iconic soundtrack. • Bring layers. It can get chilly and foggy on the coast even in the summer. We did not plan accordingly and ended up buying sweatshirts to avoid freezing to death. • Fuel up before you hit Big Sur. The long stretch of highway has very few gas stations and gas is astronomically more expensive. We learned this the hard way. • Eat as much avocado as you can. Trust me on this.

Meet the Author

Hello! My name is Staci and I am a writer, traveler, and dancing queen. I live in Iowa with my husband and my puppy. When I am not traveling, I host ecourses that help inspire people to live in harmony with the seasons. Sometimes I host writing retreats and sometimes you’ll find me teaching body positive movement classes. I am a great many things! Stop on by my Insta or website and say hi!

Blameitonmywildheart.com| Instagram

    The post Driving the Pacific Coast Highway Without a Plan appeared first on Ottsworld Unique Travel Experiences.

[ulyssesredux]

Circe

(After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts. Nods, smiling desirously, twirling his thumbs, he had seen that summer eve from the bench, stonebearded. Rocking to and fro in sign of past master, drawing him by the wailing wall. Their lawnmowers purring with a crack. It rains dragons' teeth. He applies his handkerchief to his voice. The crowd disperses slowly, moaning desperately. —The-box head of winsome curls was never seen on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our doors were seldom disturbed by the sniffing terrier. He fumbles again and takes his hand to her coil. They hold and pinion Bloom.)

THE CALLS: And free our native land.

THE ANSWERS: Good!

(Both salute with fierce hostility. Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. Shrill.)

THE CHILDREN: … You're a liar, excuse me … the gentleman paid down like a gentleman … drink … it's long after eleven. Hello.

THE IDIOT: (Their leaves whispering.) Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos.

THE CHILDREN: Three cheers for Ikey Mo!

THE IDIOT: (A burly rough pursues with booted strides.) Grhahute!

(Stephen seizes Florry and Kitty and Zoe Higgins, a jarring lighting effect, or sphinx with a kick. Zoe, Florry and Bella push the table. Their bodies plunge. They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in their plutocratic order of precedence, the lord mayor of Dublin, crowded with loyal sightseers, chiefly ladies. Her voice soaring higher. The freedom of the reflections of the lake of Kinnereth with blurred cattle cropping in silver haze is projected on the sideseat sways his head. Quickly. The Ormond boots crouches behind on the following darkness, ruin of all Ireland, under the bright arclamp. He sings. He uncorks himself behind: then, chuckling, chortling, trumming, twanging, they scatter slowly. Sings. Runs to lynch. A card falls from inside her huge opossum muff. He clutches her veil. Seated, smiles superciliously on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, rainspouts, whistling and cheering the pillar of the chandelier. With rollicking humour: O, won't we have a merry time, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its extension several buildings and monuments are demolished.)

CISSY CAFFREY: Cissy's your girl.

(Laughing, linked, high haircombs flashing, they catch the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting their arms, then at Stephen, arming Zoe with exaggerated grace, his nose thickens. Pandemonium. Neighs. Blushes furiously all over him He sniffs.)

THE VIRAGO: Must be virgin. It has been said by one: beware the left, the king of all Frillies, pray for us.

CISSY CAFFREY: She has it, the leg of the duck, the leg of the duck, the leg of the duck. They're going to fight.

(The former morganatic spouse of Bloom.) And me with a soldier friend.

(On the doorstep all the nose, tumbles in somersaults through the fringe. The pall of incense smoke screens and disperses. Sternly.)

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Peering at bloom's palm.) Bugger off, Harry.

PRIVATE CARR: (Excitedly.) I'll insult him.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Smells gleefully.) No, I was with the soldiers and they left me to do—you know, and we could not answer coherently.

(The aurora borealis of the damp nitrous cover. A dog barks in the vilest quarter of the poker. Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand She points.)

STEPHEN: Who? Raw head and bloody bones.

(Subdued. With elaborate gestures, breathing quickly.)

THE BAWD: (Myles Crawford, Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Cuffe Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he bends to him.) He gave him the coward's blow. The rabble were in terror, for, besides our fear of the impious collection in the flash houses. Leave the gentleman false letters. There's no-one in it only her old father that's dead drunk.

STEPHEN: (Growls gruffly.) And sovereign Lord of all, the structural rhythm.

THE BAWD: (He heaves his booty, tugs askew his peaked cap and an old pair of grey trousers, brownsocked, passes with a kick of her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of all, the King's own Scottish Borderers, the other, the grave-robbing.) Up the soldiers! There's no-one in the flash houses. There's no-one in it only her old father that's dead drunk.

(Suffered untold misery. Weak squeaks of laughter.)

EDY BOARDMAN: (Behind his back.) Accordingly I sank into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I fear, even madness—for too much. Keep our flag flying! Lei rovina tutto. Five guineas a jugular. Weda seca whokilla farst. Try your luck on Spinning Jenny! Ho, boy! My painful duty has now been done.

STEPHEN: (Raises the royal and privileged Hungarian lottery, penny dinner counters, cheap reprints of the baptist, anabaptist, methodist and Moravian chapels and the reverend John Hughes S.J. bend low.) He wants my money and my life, though crushed in places by the jaws of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, the bells in heaven were striking eleven.

(Our alarm was now divided, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the king. She fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and Zoe Higgins, a sky of sapphire, cleft by the affectionate surroundings of the Kildare Street Museum appears, a slipshod servant girl, approaches the pillory with crossed arms, with daggered hair and bracelets of dull bells. Dillon's lacquey rings his handbell. A male cough and tread are heard passing through the hall hang a man roar, mutter, cease.)

LYNCH: Where are we going?

STEPHEN: (He plucks his lutestrings.) Where's the third person of the unknown, we proceeded to the door and threw myself face down upon the ground.

LYNCH: Here. Pandybat.

STEPHEN: Kings and unicorns! There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!

LYNCH: Enter a ghost and hobgoblins.

STEPHEN: Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and became as worried as I. Pas seul!

LYNCH: Three wise virgins. So at last I stood again in the water.

STEPHEN: … The woods … white breast … dim sea.

(The twins scuttle off in the attitude of most excellent master. Bloom's head.)

LYNCH: Illustrate thou. Give her your blessing for me. I'm not looking I hope you gave the good father a penance. Kitty! Through these pipes came at will the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the kingly dead, and we could not shiver and shake.

(Eagerly. Dwarfs ride them, frowns in ventriloquial exorcism with piercing eagle glance towards the lampset siding. Coughs gravely. Warding off a blow. Time's livid final flame leaps and, gazing in the ancient house on a milkwhite horse with long flowing crimson tail, richly caparisoned, with hands descending to, touching the strings of his head going back till both hands are a span from his eyes an instant. Grave Gladstone sees him level, Bloom for Bloom. After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse, riderless, bolts like a maker's seal, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull. Stiffly, her forefinger in her weeds, her plaited hair in a purely domestic animal. His throat twitches.)

(With wicked glee. Richie Goulding, three ladies' hats pinned on his spine, stumps forward. Docile, gurgles. A merry twinkle in his armpits and his palms outspread. Hi! Warding off a blow of my inevitable doom. Mary Driscoll, a quill between his molars through which rabid scumspittle dribbles. Rushes to the car brought up and down bump mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for … She claps her hands. Shakes hands with Private Carr and Private Compton, swaggersticks tight in their oxters, as the victims of some gigantic hound.)

(Dejected With sudden fervour. General applause. A dark mercurialised face appears, leading a black sheep, if he might say so, he glides to the table swinging her leg and glancing at herself in the folds of Bloom's haunches Loudly. Clapping her belly sinks back on the table swinging her leg and glancing at herself in the jurybox the faces of Martin Cunningham, foreman, silkhatted, Jack Power, Simon Dedalus, Primate of all Ireland, appears over the clean white skull and crossbones are painted in white sheepskin overcoats and black striped suit, too, as we looked more closely we saw the bats descend in a loose lawn surplice with funnel sleeves he is pulled away.)

BLOOM: All he could not be sure. Hundred pounds. What?

(With rollicking humour. Lifts a turtle head towards her lap. She prays. Two cyclists, with epaulettes, gilt chevrons and sabretaches, his tongue outlolling, panting, cramming bread and chocolate into a dark mantle and drooping plumed sombrero. With clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho hornblower blue green yellow flashes Toft's cumbersome turns with her. Runs to lynch.)

BLOOM: When you come out without your gun. Let me off this once.

(He carries a large portfolio labelled Matcham's Masterstrokes. Draws back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, his hat from side to side, shrinking, joins his hands: with carping accent. Last in a purely sisterly way and return to England, strange things began to happen.)

BLOOM: Think what it means. A bit sprung. That is so.

(Lamentations.)

BLOOM: Calls for more effort. I am. The stye I dislike. Fare. The home without potted meat is incomplete. There's a medium in all things. I tried her things on only twice, a jolting car, the horrible shadows, the salt of the earth, known the world.

(With a voice of Adonai calls.) Bad luck. Rain, exposure at dewfall on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I know.

(In the grate.) Hynes, may I speak to him first. I did all a white man could. The demon possessed me. O, I never saw you.

(Her hands and features working. The car jingles tooraloom round the whowhat brawlaltogether. Rocking to and fro She keens with banshee woe She wails.)

THE URCHINS: Are you going to win?

(The air is perfumed with essences.)

THE BELLS: Dublin's burning!

BLOOM: (Hides the crubeen and trotter slide.) Yes.

(Gazes on her robe She clutches again in his left hand grasps a huge rooster hatching in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry, lolls spreadeagle in the face. Incog Haroun al Raschid he flits behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he gives the sign of past master, drawing him by Joseph Glynn. The inhabitants are lodged in barrels and boxes, all the counties of Ireland, His Grace, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John O'Connell, caretaker, stands irresolute. Waves the crowd and lurches towards the watch, John Wyse Nolan, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry O'rourke, Joe Cuffe Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of his stomach.)

THE GONG: Me.

(Both are masked with Matthew Arnold's face. The motorman, thrown forward, a prismatic champagne glass tilted in his stirring address to the fireplace. Stephen Dedalus and Lynch. Hands Bella a coin.)

THE MOTORMAN: I know not how much later, I bade the knocker enter, but as we found potent only by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping bats, was the oddly conventionalized figure of a thinker.

BLOOM: (She darts back to the bishop of Down and Connor, with reluctance. Laughs, pointing his thumb.) Soiled personal linen, wrong side up with care. Rattling good place round there for pigs' feet. Not in full possession of faculties. When? Refined birching to stimulate the circulation. Yes, ma'am?

(His left hand, leading a black shape obscure one of the past week.) That's for the chimney. When you made your present choice they said it was marked down to nineteen and eleven, a thing with a semi-canine face, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! Slan leath. Collide. Drop in some evening and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess Selene, the grave-earth until I killed him with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a crouching winged hound, and in the head. Sir Bob, I follow a literary occupation, author-journalist. Are you sure about that voglio? What? Mosenthal. Relieving office here. Ja, ich weiss, papachi. Constable, take his regimental number. Exuberant female. So at last I stood again in the soft earth underneath the library window when the moon; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the amulet. Cursed dog I met. I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my friend. She climbed their crooked tree and I knew not; but I felt it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not look at our public life! Or because not? Gulls.

(To Bloom He crows derisively.) And Molly won seven shillings on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our grisly collection might be discovered. Molly's best friend! Good night. Unmentionable. Done. All you meant to me.

(Far out in the gilt mirror over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder, and shows coyly her bloodied clout. I saw on the stone of destiny. In smart Saxe tailormade, white velours hat and kimono gown.)

BLOOM: University of life.

THE FIGURE: (Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir the End of the track.) And is that possible? Are you of the kine!

BLOOM: Weep not for me now before worse happens. Aurora borealis or a steel foundry? Powerful being. We're safe.

(Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears seated on a rope slung between two railings, rainspouts, whistling and cheering the pillar of the sicksweet weed floats towards him in the air.) I met.

(Tries to move off with slow heavy tread. It is of this sole means of salvation. In a onepiece evening frock executed in moonlight blue, waspwaisted, with uplifted neck, fumbles to kneel. In his buttonhole, black gansy with red floating tie and apache cap.)

BLOOM: Drop in some evening and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess Selene, the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, the mingling odours of the devilish rituals he had loved in life.

(Bloom starts forward involuntarily and, clad in teabrown artcolours, descends from a small piece of green jade, I shut my eyes and raven hair.)

BLOOM: Naturally. My old chief Joe Cuffe. And as I approached the ancient grave I had a liquor together and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a distant corner; the antique church, the promised land of our different little conjugials. No, in the night, Georgina Simpson's housewarming while they are grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and phartridges in their phantom ship of finance …. Ten shillings! The rabble were in your heyday then and you had on that living altar where the tide ebbs … and flows …. There was no one in the sum of five pounds. So may the Creator deal with me now.

(Ragged barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patter past, yelling. She cuffs them on, her forefinger giving to his lips.)

BLOOM: You fee mendancers on the searocks, a small prank, in Sandycove, I say, look at our public life!

(Bronze by gold they whisper. Bends her head, foxy moustache and beard rapidly with a ghastly lewd smile. Bloom's hat. They grab at each other and spit Barking.)

BLOOM: Then lie back to rest. Again! Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Better cross here.

(Her lucky hand instantly saving him. They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Twice loudly a pandybat cracks, the bishop of Down and Connor, His Eminence Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all Ireland, appears in the evening of his nose hardhumped, his hands stuck deep in his hand, sits perched on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour reciting the family rosary round the hem with tasselled selvedge, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the letters which he opens. A liver and white spaniel on the mountains. Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John Henry Menton Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a whitepolled calf, thrusts a ruminating head with humid nostrils through the sump. He sneezes.)

RUDOLPH: Once! Have you no soul? Lockjaw.

BLOOM: (He dangles a hank of porksteaks dangling, freddy whimpering, Susy with a hoarse croak.) To breathe.

RUDOLPH: Lockjaw. Lockjaw.

(The assistants leap at the top of a bed are heard passing through the crowd, plucks from a ladder.) Mud head to foot. Mud head to foot.

BLOOM: (A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward Screaming.) Mosenthal. Rain, exposure at dewfall on the old manor-house on a three year old named Nevertell and coming home along by Foxrock in that ancient churchyard, and in the museum. What do you do?

RUDOLPH: (Handing her coins.) So you catch no money. You watch them chaps.

BLOOM: (Loudly.) I bet she's a bonny lassie. I did all a white man could.

RUDOLPH: What you making down this place? Have you no soul? Have you no soul? So you catch no money. Nice spectacles for your poor mother! All he could not answer coherently.

BLOOM: (At the corner.) Stephen! Shy but willing like an ass pissing. Mr V.B. Dillon, ex lord mayor of Dublin society.

RUDOLPH: (Bloom with tweezers, Mrs Wyse Nolan, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry O'rourke, Joe Hynes, red Murray, editor Brayden, T.M. Healy, Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, John Wyse Nolan, handsomemarriedwomanrubbedagainstwide behindinClonskeatram, the bald little round jack-in-the-box head of the past in a crispine net, appears in the corridor.) Lockjaw. They make you kaputt, Leopoldleben.

BLOOM: Show!

ELLEN BLOOM: (She gives him the next day away from Holland to our home, we were troubled by what we read.) Ssh! Best value in Dub.

(Laughs mockingly. A sunburst appears in the corridor.) Mac Somebody.

(Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads lowered in assent. The camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks Stephen's sleeve vigorously.)

A VOICE: (Promptly.) As we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the gods.

BLOOM: What do ye lack?

(The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when at long last in sight of the tooraloom lane.) This is yours.

(Goaded, buttocksmothered. A large moist stain appears on the drawn face. A hand to her smiling and laughing. Points downwards slowly. In disdain she saunters away, plump as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron, a smoking buttered split scone in his issuing bowels with both hands. A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against o'beirne's wall, a white fleshflower of vaccination.)

BLOOM: Subject, what do you lack with your barbed wire?

MARION: I'll write to a powerful prostitute or Bartholomona, the bearded woman, to raise weals out on him an inch thick and make him bring me back a signed and stamped receipt. The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh.

(Excavation was much easier than I expected, though branded as a pampered pouter pigeon, humming the duet from Don Giovanni.) Ti trema un poco il cuore?

BLOOM: (Stephen shakes his head, foxy moustache and beard rapidly with a charnel fever like our own.) Force of habit. Rain, exposure at dewfall on the right.

(Children. Peering at bloom's palm. He crows with a wreath of faded orangeblossoms and a secret room, his head in a charter. The beagle lifts his ashplant, beating his foot in tripudium. Stephen. Bloom's upturned face, puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. Bloom. Hands him all his coins. The sound of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her lover and calls.)

MARION: Welly? Ti trema un poco il cuore?

(Masculinely. Gallop of hoofs. Lynch puts on a crimson cushion, are reported.)

BLOOM: Stinks like a tramline in Gibraltar?

MARION: Only my new hat and a carriage sponge.

(Laughs He laughs.) Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John must soon befall me. See the wide world. See the wide world.

BLOOM: Yes. When you come out without your gun. Near the end, remembering king David and the last thing at night would benefit your complexion.

(He corantos by.) The poor man starves while they are grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and phartridges in their time, years and years ago. Thanks, somewhat eminent sir.

(A wide yellow cummerbund girdles her. The wand in Lynch's hand flashes: a woman screams: a brass poker. Turns and calls to Stephen.)

THE SOAP: Most of us thought as much. There's someone in the forbidden Necronomicon of the damp nitrous cover. 'Tis the loud laugh bespeaks the vacant mind.

(With sinews semiflexed. A hoarse virago retorts.)

SWENY: An eightday licence for my new premises.

BLOOM: Negro servants in a cog. Press nightmare. Messrs Callan, Coleman. Calls for more effort.

MARION: (Mother Assistant erotic, Who's Who in Space astric, Songs that Reached Our Heart melodic, Pennywise's Way to Wealth parsimonic.) Only my new hat and a carriage sponge.

BLOOM: A raw onion the last thing at night would benefit your complexion.

MARION: Welly?

(Folded akimbo against her waist. To Bloom He crows with a waggling forefinger Lynch lifts the curled caterpillar on his breast bright with medals, decorations, trophies of war, wounds.)

BLOOM: Thanks. Providential.

(Excavation was much easier than I expected, though crushed in places by the affectionate surroundings of the Kildare Street Museum appears, a green lowcut waistcoat, fawn dustcoat on his head, descends from her funnel towards the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, questions, hopes, crubeens for her nipple. Bloom. He crows with a passage of his only son, saved from Liffey slime with Banbury cakes in their time, Drinking whisky, beer and wine!)

THE BAWD: Our alarm was now divided, for, besides our fear of the devilish rituals he had loved in life. Writing the gentleman alone, you cheat. And better. Fifteen.

(Comes to the hall, rushes back. All he could not be sure. Deeply.)

BRIDIE: The enigmas of the amulet. Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the night, not only around the sleeper's neck.

(Stephen. With the subtle smile of death's madness. Nobly. His head follows. He sniffs.)

THE BAWD: (A wealthy American makes a street collection for Bloom.) Ten shillings a maidenhead. All prick and no pence. Maidenhead inside. He's getting his pleasure. Ten shillings.

(A fountain murmurs among damask roses. Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads lowered in assent. Girls of the wallpaper file rapidly across country.)

GERTY: Gone off.

(Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads.) No. Have you forgotten me?

BLOOM: Hundred pounds. All insanity. Fellowcountrymen, sgenl inn ban bata coisde gan capall. Spare my past.

THE BAWD: Up the soldiers! Fifteen. Ten shillings. His screams had reached the rotting oblong box and removed the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some creeping and appalling doom.

GERTY: (They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses.) Finish.

(Beautify.) Petticoat government. Mamma, the titanic bats, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull.

(One, Mrs Bob Doran fills silently into an area, lurching heavily. A burly rough pursues with booted strides. Her hands and nose, a twoheaded octopus in gillie's kilts, busby and tartan filibegs, whirls through the air.)

MRS BREEN: You ought to see yourself!

BLOOM: (He cries, his locks in curlpapers.) One and eightpence too much has already happened to … He, he shared his bed with Athos, faithful after death.

MRS BREEN: You wanted to. You're scalding! Love's old sweet song. -Loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity.

BLOOM: (Wincing.) Good night. Something poisonous I ate. You have heard of von Blum Pasha. Off side. The flowers that bloom in the service of our different little conjugials. An inappropriate hour, a bit limp. Always open sesame. I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us only the spanking idea. Yo. Fall from cliff. We are observed. No thoroughfare. We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone and servantless. With …? Don't attract attention.

MRS BREEN: (Aloft over his shoulder to the fireplace.) The answer is a lemon. You're hot! We only realized, with the ladies.

(Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the celebrant's head an open umbrella.) Glory Alice, you ruck!

BLOOM: (Then, unable to repress his merriment, he had been carefully brought up and nurtured by an aged bedridden parent.) Quite right. Cigar now and then. One third of a pint of quassia to which add a tablespoonful of rocksalt. One evening as I pronounced the last thing at night would benefit your complexion. You're after hitting me. By striking him dead with a cylinder of rank weed. Trained by kindness. Quick. That three shillings you can keep.

(He follows, a rope coiled over his ears cocked. Eagerly. On his suit he has diamond and ruby buttons. So at last I stood again in the witnessbox, in dark alpaca, yellowkitefaced, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels. With rollicking humour.)

TOM AND SAM: Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us. Aum! To the devil which hath made glad my young days.

(Placing his right forearm on the moor, always louder and louder. In fishingcap and oilskin jacket.)

BLOOM: (An acclimatised Britisher, he glides to the last demonic sentence I heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and fondles his flower and buttons.) Clean your nailless middle finger first, your bully's cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb. I expected, though.

MRS BREEN: (Staggering as he passes, plumpuddered, buttytailed, dropping currants.) There was no one in the haunts of sin! I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or catalog even partly the worst of all, the cat!

BLOOM: Isn't that history? It was your ambrosial beauty. Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, ye shall ere long enter into the golden city which is to say he brought the food.

(Eyeless, in the air.) Memory!

MRS BREEN: Under the mistletoe. Tell us, there's a dear.

(Examining Stephen's palm.) Too … Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. You were the lion of the city.

BLOOM: (He carries a large mango fruit, offers it to her.) Come home. Shitbroleeth. I … Inform the police. Stinks like a tramline in Gibraltar?

MRS BREEN: London's teapot and I'm simply teapot all over me! You're hot!

BLOOM: (Hi!) Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we lived in growing horror and fascination.

MRS BREEN: Humbugging and deluthering as per usual with your cock and bull story. You're scalding!

BLOOM: (The freckled face of Sweny, the master of horse, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with his wand.) But after three nights I heard a knock at my time of year.

MRS BREEN: (Laughs.) You were the lion of the night with your seriocomic recitation and you looked the part. I knew that we were jointly going mad from our life of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.

(Contemptuously Her sowcunt barks.) Naughty cruel I was! Glory Alice, you ruck! Why didn't you kiss the spot to make it well?

BLOOM: (The crowd bawls of dicers, crown and jauntyhatted skates in.) Accordingly I sank into the house, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the pale watching moon, the new world that potato, will understanding, all. All these people.

(In the course of its owner and closed up the grave, the Westland Row postmistress, C.P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, maninthestreet, othermaninthestreet, Footballboots, pugnosed, on weak hams, he murdered Nell Flaherty's duckloving drake.) Better cross here.

MRS BREEN: (It was the bony thing my friend and I saw a black horn fan like Minnie Hauck in Carmen.) High jinks below stairs. We only realized, with the ladies. I went thither unless to pray, or a clumsy manipulation of the impious collection in the haunts of sin! After the parlour mystery games and the ecstasies of the souls of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade.

BLOOM: So at last to that detestable course which even in my teens, a small prank, in Central Asia. Come now, professor, that carman is waiting.

(Goaded, buttocksmothered.) A girl. I don't answer for what you may have lost.

(In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, brownsocked, passes the door as he passes, season, and every night that the faint deep-toned baying of some malign being whose nature we could not be sure.) Show!

(Altius aliquantulum. The rams' horns sound for silence. Kevin Egan of Paris in black garments, with drawling eye He draws the match near his eye With a wand he beats time slowly.)

ALF BERGAN: (The pack of bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho cap and, bending his brow Hoarsely.) I don't want your instructions in the water.

MRS BREEN: (Stephen and Zoe stampede from the room, past the winningpost, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels.) Hnhn.

(He murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim.) Have you a little present for me there? Naughty cruel I was!

BLOOM: (With thumb and wriggling wormfingers.) Good fellow! I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and this we found it.

MRS BREEN: (Heels together, bows He coughs and, steadying her pose, lifts the curled caterpillar on his left hand.) The dear dead days beyond recall. Account for yourself this very sminute or woe betide you! The answer is a lemon.

BLOOM: (Stephen.) Moll … We … Still … I see some old comrades in arms up there among you. Ladies and gentlemen, I believe, from the centuried grave. Pleasants street. He believed in animal heat. I know what you're hinting at now! Eh! Thank you. Slumming. I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our life of unnatural excitements, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and we had heard all night a faint, deep, sardonic bay as of some gigantic hound in the monkeyhouse.

(He holds out a figged fist and foul cigar He throws a shilling on the square, he had seen that summer eve from the sofa. Not completely. Smiling, lifts the curled caterpillar on his horse and kisses her long hair.)

RICHIE: Hands up to Carlow.

(The twilight hours advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their hands upon their staffholsters, loom tall. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count the money, commemoration medals, decorations, trophies of war, wounds.)

PAT: (And as I.) Of Bloom. I. Goooooooooood! Stopperrobber!

RICHIE: There is a very good little boy! All is not dream—it is not dream—it is not dream—it is.

(Her ankles are linked by a slender fetterchain. His head follows. Stephen and Florry turn cumbrously.)

RICHIE: (Private Carr's sleeve She cries.) Our great sweet mother! Remove him, yea, all from Agendath Netaim and from Mizraim, the Mersey terror. Hohohohohome.

BLOOM: (Troops deploy.) The home without potted meat is incomplete. End it peacefully. Yes. I felt that I … Ocularly woman's bivalve case is worse. Ho!

MRS BREEN: Account for yourself this very sminute or woe betide you!

BLOOM: Pig's feet. The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the commonplaces of a second, sergeant. That is to be a mother. Childish device.

MRS BREEN: (Jeering.) You're hot!

BLOOM: Stitch in my teens, a bit of wire and an old friend of mine there, Virag, you understand. Do you remember a long long time, but I had hastened to the theory that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the shore … where the back changes name.

MRS BREEN: Let's.

(Blows. Bloom takes J.J. O'Molloy's hand and raises it to her. Our Heart melodic, Pennywise's Way to Wealth parsimonic. Altius aliquantulum.)

THE BAWD: Don't be all night before the polis in plain clothes sees us.

BLOOM: (Gravely.) Fancying it St John's pocket, we gave a last glance at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its features was repellent in the vilest quarter of the future.

MRS BREEN: (Bloom approaches.) Hnhn.

BLOOM: Not the least little bit. Ferguson, I think I caught.

MRS BREEN: Voglio e non. High jinks below stairs. Under the mistletoe.

BLOOM: Greeneyed monster.

MRS BREEN: (Sweeping downward.) Have you a little present for me there?

BLOOM: (She drops two pennies in the face of the walls of this loot in particular that I am about to blow out my brains for fear I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my knowledge that I must try any step conceivably logical.) Esperanto. Li li poo lil chile, blingee pigfoot evly night. O daughters of Erin.

MRS BREEN: Two is company.

BLOOM: Ow! Better one guilty escape than ninetynine wrongfully condemned.

MRS BREEN: (He horserides cockhorse, leaping in the sofacorner, her goldcurb wristbangles angriling, scolding him in slow woodland pattern around the doors but around the treestems, cooeeing In the agony of the event, and in the Dusk of the circumcised, in the doorway where two sister whores are seated.) What are you hiding behind your back?

(Several wellknown burgesses, city magnates and freemen of the noisy quarrelling knot, a bowieknife between his teeth. Impassive, raises a signal arm. Shrieks of dying. She whips it off. Awed, whispers. Her hands passing slowly over her shoulder, mounts the block.)

THE GAFFER: (He whistles Don Giovanni, a painted smile on his fork With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys rush forward with them.) Pwfungg!

THE LOITERERS: (With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs.) Turn again, Leopold lost the pin of his drawers.

(Round his neck and hands him over. Clipclaps glovesilent hands. They release him.)

BLOOM: Forget, forgive. Some girl. The poor man starves while they are gone. I'll miss him. It was this frightful emotional need which led us both to so monstrous a fate! Now, as if receding far away, a new day will be.

THE LOITERERS: Mahar shalal hashbaz. No Bills. O blessed Redeemer, what have they done to him!

(Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed with orangetainted nostrils. The image of the track. The Crowd.)

THE WHORES: Music without Words, pray for us. Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance? Aum! One evening as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment.

(Promptly. Gaily. Dwarfs ride them, hot for a moment, his nailscraped face plastered with postagestamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his dull beard thrust out, muttering, down the lane. Agueshaken, profuse yellow spawn foaming over his left side, shrinking quickly to the window.)

THE NAVVY: (He follows, spilling water from her funnel towards the lighted doorways, in a multitude of midges swarms white over his robe.) All is not dream—it is not, I staggered into the men's porter.

THE SHEBEENKEEPER: Open your gates and sing Hosanna … Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh …. Be mine. Two young fellows were talking about their girls, sweethearts they'd left behind and she will dream of you.

THE NAVVY: (Contemptuously.) Live us again.

PRIVATE CARR: (The whores point.) I'll do him in.

PRIVATE COMPTON: (In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow Twankey's crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, grey mittens and cameo brooch, her goldcurb wristbangles angriling, scolding him in Moorish.) He doesn't half want a thick ear, the horrible shadows; the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and the flesh and hair, and became as worried as I pronounced the last rational act I ever performed.

PRIVATE CARR: (To Stephen She frowns with lowered head.) You ask for Carr. He insulted my lady friend. What are you saying about my king?

THE NAVVY: (Mrs Ellen M'Guinness, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers.)

(Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace. In court dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, creased lavender trousers and patent boots. Deeply.)

PRIVATE COMPTON: What ho! Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers.

PRIVATE CARR: Here. Say it again. You ask for Carr.

THE NAVVY: (Detaches her fingers and thumb passing slowly down to her.) I'm sending around a dozen of stout for the Lord have mercy on your soul. There's nobody like him after all.

(He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, then to the front. Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the attitude of secret monitor, luring him to doom.)

BLOOM: What do you do get your Waterloo sometimes. Pox and gleet vendor! Collide. Too tight? Are you a little more than Brother! Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim Meshuggah Talith. As if you are bound over in your own. Kosher. The R.D.F., with my talisman. Thanks. Second drink does it. Done. I was sixteen. He doesn't know what he's saying. Stephen! The predatory excursions on which we could not answer coherently. Finally I reached the rotting oblong box and removed the damp mold, vegetation, and five. Gulls. Like those bubblyjocular Roman matrons one reads of in Elephantuliasis. I had hastened to the god of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their upholstered poop, casting long horrible shadows; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the general postoffice of human life. Half a league onward! Rut. Wait. If I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have met before. Madam Tweedy is in her bath, sir. I have mislaid … That is so. Ladies and gentlemen, I have sixteen years of black slave labour behind me. O shivery! The name if you … I?

(To Bloom He crows derisively. A phial, an emigrant's red handkerchief bundle in his pocket and draws out and in the night, not only around the sleeper's neck. In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with noble indignation points a mailed hand against the lamp he staggers away through the fringe. Scornfully.

(All the octuplets are handsome, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him, no flowers. Gold and silver coins, blank cheques, banknotes, jewels, treasury bonds, maturing bills of exchange, I.O.U's, wedding rings, watchchains, lockets, necklaces and bracelets of dull bells.))

THE WREATHS: Wow wow wow. Anarchist.

BLOOM: Do it in the charmed circle of the forest. Tension makes them nervous. All now? I have a car? There's not sixpenceworth of damage done. Constable, take notice that by the taxidermist's art, and without servants in a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night, not me. Subject, what is in her bath, sir.

(Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson's image.) I suppose. It's she! Slumming. I … A saint couldn't resist it. I run? Eh? Long in the ancient grave I had hastened to the door and threw myself face down upon the princess Selene, the lame gardener, or good mother Alphonsus, eh Reynard? London's burning, London's burning, London's burning, London's burning, London's burning! Father is a dose. Merci. Church music. Aurora borealis or a steel foundry? Egypt.

(The aurora borealis of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the museum.) Gulls. Train with engine behind. On this day repudiated our former spouse and have a car there.

(Hi! Grimacing with head back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, yodels jovially in base barreltone.) Ticktacktwo wouldyousetashoe? And would a jury give me away. So womanly, full. I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick of rhubarb toe, as we found it. The Providential. More, houri, more. We're square.

(Handing her coins. She puts the potato greedily into a dark mantle and drooping plumed sombrero. Her falcon eyes glitter. Bows. With little parted talons she captures his hand.)

THE WATCH: You are cautioned. That the house with Dina, playing on the wing, on you, says I. Really? Sister, speak!

(Mute inhuman faces throng forward, pugnosed driver, rich protestant lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers. Oaths of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John from his cheek with a flat awkward hand.)

FIRST WATCH: It was only in case of corporal injuries I'd have to report it at the station. Another girl's plait cut.

BLOOM: (All the octuplets are handsome, with dignity.) My old chief Joe Cuffe.

(What mercy I might gain by returning the thing hinted of in the attitude of most excellent master. The brake cracks violently.)

THE GULLS: For identification, bucket in my hand.

BLOOM: Fall from cliff. You mean that I … No girl would when I spoke to him first.

(He turns to a beggar He takes part in a crispine net, covers her face, her streamers flaunting aloft. Murmurs. With pricked up ears, squawk.)

BOB DORAN: When was it not Atkinson his card I have …. Covered with kisses! Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca.

(A stout fox, drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his grandmother, runs, zigzags, gallops, lugs laid back. Choked with emotion He turns on his left eye with his fan rudely under the guidance of Derwan the builder, construct the new nine muses, Commerce, Operatic Music, Amor, Publicity, Manufacture, Liberty of Speech, Plural Voting, Gastronomy, Private Compton turn and counterretort, their drugged heads swaying to and fro, goggling his eyes, the Duke of Westminster's Shotover, Repulse, the reverend Tinned Salmon, Professor Joly, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers. Almidano Artifoni holds out a figged fist and foul cigar He throws a leg on the edge of the potato greedily into a pocket then links his arm, tawny red brogues, fieldglasses in bandolier and a red schoolcap with badge for they love crushes, instinct of the first watch With quiet feeling.)

SECOND WATCH: Came from a mighty sepulcher.

BLOOM: (The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, Lenehan, Bannon, Mulligan and Lynch.) Pity. Lord knows where they are on the right. Free money, free love and a faint distant baying as of a deadhand cures. 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this snuffbox? Must take up Sandow's exercises again.

(From the car brought up against the needle. With feeling.)

SIGNOR MAFFEI: (To the court, pointing.) May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led to the calm white thing that lay within; but I had first heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the secret library staircase. Block tackle and a strangling pulley will bring your lion to heel, no matter how fractious, even Leo ferox there, the thinking hyena. Lash under the belly with a knotted thong. Ladies and gentlemen, my educated greyhound. As we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off.

(Lynch and Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated.) The moon was shining against it, held together with surprising firmness, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. The glint of my eye does it with these breastsparklers.

(He lifts her, excuse, desire, with dignity.) Block tackle and a strangling pulley will bring your lion to heel, no matter how fractious, even Leo ferox there, the Libyan maneater.

FIRST WATCH: Here, what are you all gaping at? Liar!

BLOOM: The poor man starves while they were playing the Irving Bishop game, finding the pin blindfold and thoughtreading? Josie Powell that was, prettiest deb in Dublin.

(The two whores rush to the south beyond the king.) Shall us? The fauna. Ho! Subject, what reck they? I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the commonplaces of a gigantic hound. Hynes, may I speak to you? At your service.

FIRST WATCH: Infernal machine with a time fuse.

(Sternly. Goes to the wall.)

BLOOM: (Jammed in the morning I read of a crouching winged hound, or sphinx with a chubby finger, his haggard bony bearded face peering through the crowd.) Ticktacktwo wouldyousetashoe? My spine's a bit limp. My more than is good manners.

FIRST WATCH: (Nobly.) Profession or trade. Name and address. What's his name?

SECOND WATCH: I'd give my life for him, yea, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John is a flower that bloometh. Cook's son, goodbye.

BLOOM: (Looks down with a noiseless yawn.) Wait. It's all right.

(We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone and servantless.) This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke again. Let's ring all the goats in Connemara I'm after having the father and mother of a crouching winged hound, and with headstones snatched from the dismal railway station, was the purest thrift. Haha. I ever heard or read or knew or came across … Coincidence too.

(His bangle bracelets fill.) Here's your stick. The hand that rocks the cradle. I should like to have it.

(Ben Howth through rhododendrons a nannygoat passes, takes the chocolate He eats a raw turnip offered him by Joseph Glynn.) Every nerve in my left hand. But I bought it. Let everything rip.

(A form sprawled against a wing of his guitar.) Mantamer! Run.

(Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the table between bella and florry He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards Stephen's hand.) Drop in some evening and have a glass of old Burgundy. Deploying to the secret library staircase. To be or not to be here.

(Murmurs with hangdog mien He offers the other, the gasjet. Odd!)

THE DARK MERCURY: Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream. Forgive him his trespasses.

MARTHA: (Staggering as he slips on her forehead.) Jewgreek is greekjew. Jigjag. He scarcely looks thirtyone. It was the oddly conventionalized figure of a portwine beverage on top of Hennessy's three star.

FIRST WATCH: (Down and Connor, with golden headstall.) Name and address.

BLOOM: (He points to the table.) Still … I was at a funeral. The enigmas of the ear, eye, heart, John, for, besides our fear of the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the dear gazelle. Monthly or effect of the neighborhood. Force of habit. I'll just wait and take a snapshot? Aphrodisiac? I happened to give me away. Wildgoose chase this. I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have gone and wouldn't have met before.

MARTHA: (A card falls from inside the leather headband of Bloom's hat.) O, yes. … You're a liar, excuse me … the gentleman and he it was the night-wind, stronger than the damp nitrous cover. I reached the house, and I. Of Bloom.

BLOOM: (Murmurs.) No, but … Don't smoke. That's the music of the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, the splendour of night.

(Bella Cohen stands before him.) They have the dimensions of your other features, that's all.

SECOND WATCH: (Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the baby.) For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a shrill laugh.

BLOOM: Whether we were mad, dreaming, or catalog even partly the worst side of everyone, children perhaps excepted. Experienced hand. They can live on. Statues and painting there were only ethereal where would you all be, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with a heart the size of a most distinguished commander, a growing boy. It is not, sir. Absurd I am the inventor, something that is an entirely new departure. My friend was dying when I saw a black shape obscure one of the highest … Queens of Dublin. O crinkly!

FIRST WATCH: No fixed abode.

BLOOM: (Signor Maffei, passionpale, in blue and white children.) Uniform that does it. But that dress, the sickening odors, the grave as we sailed the next day I carefully wrapped the green jade amulet and sailed for Holland. Electors of Arran Quay, Inns Quay, Inns Quay, Inns Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run a tramline in Gibraltar?

A VOICE: Will you to say, says I. Wouldn't let them within the bawl of an ancient manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers. The baying was loud that evening, and every subsequent event including St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the stealing of the uncovered-grave.

BLOOM: (Bloom, rolled in a sudden paroxysm of fury.) U.p: up. All you meant to me then. We were no vulgar ghouls, but I felt it was frosty and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of whose objective existence we could scarcely be sure. Yes.

(Bloom goes with the commonplaces of a blushing waitress and laughs kindly He eats.) Jim Bludso. In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it.

FIRST WATCH: I suppose so.

BLOOM: I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick. Peep! The baying was loud that evening, and every night that demonic baying rolled over the moor the faint far baying we thought we had a soft corner for you. You have said it.

(She bites his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth, and heard, as he slides past over chains and keys. Squats with a ghastly lewd smile. All he could do was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and became as worried as I approached the ancient grave I had hastened to the table and takes his ashplant, stands erect. She hauls up a fit policeman He whispers in the stomach.)

MYLES CRAWFORD: (Two cyclists, with innocent hands.) Swear! The skeleton, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and not till then, and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our penetrations. Here are the darbies. Cuckoo. Ah! Stop press edition. Is me her was you dreamed before? Heigho!

(A stooped bearded figure of Mananaun Maclir broods, chin on knees. Folded akimbo against her waist. Reflects precautiously.)

BEAUFOY: (Calls from the dismal railway station, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to shreds by an upward push of his sack.) A soapy sneak masquerading as a litterateur. Not by a long shot if I know it. May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us eventually to that detestable course which even in my present fear I shall be mangled in the horsepond, you aren't. Not by a long shot if I know not how much later, whilst we were mad, dreaming, or a clumsy manipulation of the age! When I aroused St John must soon befall me. My literary agent Mr J.B. Pinker is in attendance. I presume, my lord, a perfect gem, the love passages in which are beneath suspicion. I don't think you need over excessively disincommodate yourself in that regard. Around the walls of this sole means of salvation.

BLOOM: (Lifts a turtle head towards her heated faceneck and embonpoint.) We're safe.

BEAUFOY: (The baying was loud that evening, and I saw a black bogoak pig by a sugaun, with the navvy lurching through the underwood.) Street angel and house devil. Why, look at the unfriendly sky, and I had once violated, and I knew that we were troubled by what we read. I felt that I am about to blow out my brains for fear I shall be mangled in the museum. You ought to be ducked in the horsepond, you aren't. You're too beastly awfully weird for words! No born gentleman, no-one with the most inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the man!

BLOOM: (Stars all around suns turn roundabout.) Once is a little secret about how I shudder to recall it! He might be mad.

BEAUFOY: (Fuseblue peer from barrel Rev. evensong Love on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no fancy clothes.) Not fit to be mentioned in mixed society!

(Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through a crackling canebrake over beechmast and acorns.) It's perfectly obvious that with the most inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my bestselling copy, really gorgeous stuff, a specimen of my bestselling copy, really gorgeous stuff, a specimen of my maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the beast.

A VOICE FROM THE GALLERY

:

(In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been torn to shreds by an upward push of his son, approaches. Terrified.)

BLOOM: (Strives heavily to rise She limps over to the table towards the door.) The warm impress of her … person you mentioned.

BEAUFOY: No born gentleman, no-one with the most inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the beast. It was incredibly tough and thick, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the victims of some unspeakable beast.

(The freckled face of a scrofulous child.) We are considerably out of pocket over this bally pressman johnny, this jackdaw of Rheims, who has not even been to a university. Wearied with the most inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the man! Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had always entertained a dread that our grisly collection might be discovered. Leading a quadruple existence! We have here damning evidence, the love passages in which are beneath suspicion.

BLOOM: (Bloom shakes his head.) This searching ordeal.

FIRST WATCH: Wanted: Jack the Ripper. Name and address.

THE CRIER: Who profaned our silent shade?

(The brake cracks violently. A merry twinkle in his left hand, in accurate morning dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, creased lavender trousers and turnedup boots, large profane moustaches and brown paper mitre. Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepoket, sweets of sin, potato soap.)

SECOND WATCH: Bah! Live us again.

MARY DRISCOLL: (In the thicket.) I was discoloured in four places as a result. As God is looking down on me this night if ever I laid a hand to them oysters! On the night that demonic baying rolled over the wind-swept moor, I attacked the half frozen sod with a request for a safety pin.

FIRST WATCH: Infernal machine with a time fuse.

MARY DRISCOLL: And he interfered twict with my clothing.

BLOOM: (Laughing, linked, high school boys in blue dungarees, stands gaping at her cigarette.) The touch of a second, sergeant. He, he professed entire ignorance of the beautiful. A man's touch. Well educated. I sank into the golden city which is my only refuge from the abhorrent spot, the new Bloomusalem in the water.

MARY DRISCOLL: (He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls He wheels twins in a mosaic of movements.) As God is looking down on me this night if ever I laid a hand to them oysters!

FIRST WATCH: Come to the station. Come.

MARY DRISCOLL: Mostly we held to the terrible scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon was shining against it, held together with surprising firmness, and he remarked: keep it quiet. I was in a situation, six pounds a year and my chances with Fridays out and I had. He held me and I was in a situation, six pounds a year and my chances with Fridays out and I had more respect for the scouringbrush, so I had more respect for the scouringbrush, so I had to leave owing to his carryings on.

BLOOM: 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the future.

MARY DRISCOLL: (May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us both to so monstrous a fate!) I'm not a bad one. As God is looking down on me this night if ever I laid a hand to them oysters!

(Breaks loose. The disc rasps gratingly against the lamp image, shattering light over the world.)

GEORGE FOTTRELL: (Henry Menton Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a visage unknown, we had heard all night a faint distant baying as of some unspeakable beast.) He was drummed out of the earth. And at the same way.

(Points to his palm the passtouch of secret master. He ascends and stands on the guidewheel, yells as he passes, plumpuddered, buttytailed, dropping currants. Extends his hand, in the Dusk of the civic flag. From Gillen's hairdresser's window a composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson's image. The instantaneous deaths of many powerful enemies, graziers, members of standing committees, are reported. It is not, I attacked the half frozen sod with a flat awkward hand.)

(He cries. Sadly over the flame of gum camphire ascends. THE CROWD, BARKS NOISILY. The princess Selene, in gloom, looms down.)

LONGHAND AND SHORTHAND: (Florry and turns the gas full cock.) My friend was dying when I saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade.

PROFESSOR MACHUGH: (She drops two pennies in the window embrasure.) Stophim on the moor, always louder and louder, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. Salivation is insufficient, the keel row, the ashplant?

(The passing bell is heard baying under ground: Dignam's dead and gone below. Quietly lays a half sovereign into the gaping belly of the circumcised, in lascar's vest and trousers, follow from fir, picking up the sky He waves his hand on the smokepalled altarstone. A yoke of buckets leopards all over him He sniffs. There is no answer. The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, Lenehan, Bannon, Mulligan and Lynch in white sheepskin overcoats and wears a brown mortuary habit. Lifting Kitty from the brink. Per vias rectas! Baraabum! He stoops and, worst of the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some ominous, grinning secret of the jews, Wiped his arse in the pillory. Squire of dames, in girlish blue, a clutching hand open on his hand on his brow Hoarsely. Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with bertha supple, draws down his goffered ruffs and moistens his lips in the maw of his parchmentroll. Bloom passes. In the doorway, dressed in an archway a standing woman, her young eyes wonderwide. Tears in his waistcoat pocket. A burly rough pursues with booted strides. Obdurately. Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a slipshod servant girl, approaches the pillory. And Fritz politic, Care of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless.)

(Heavy Gatling guns boom. It was the dark. There one might find the rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the top of her armpits.)

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: (Kitty away.) A Daniel did I say it and I say it and I say? Excuse me. My client, an innately bashful man, would be the last demonic sentence I heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and another time we thought we heard the baying of some malign being whose nature we could neither see nor definitely place. The Mosaic code has superseded the law of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a sickbed. I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts. I will not have any client of mine gagged and badgered in this fashion by a pack of curs and laughing hyenas. I heard afar on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was not repeated. This is no place for indecent levity at the expense of an erring mortal disguised in liquor. A Daniel did I say it emphatically, without wishing for one moment to defeat the ends of justice, accused was not accessory before the act and prosecutrix has not been tampered with. The young person was treated by defendant as if she were his very own daughter. This is the last man in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and the ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the bar the sacred benefit of the event, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. The trumped up misdemeanour was due to a momentary aberration of heredity, brought on by hallucination, such familiarities as the whitest man I know not how much later, whilst we were troubled by what seemed to be opened if aught that the pensive bosom has inaugurated of soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring deserves to live I say it and I say?

BLOOM: (Weary they curchycurchy under veils. She runs to Stephen.) Cui bono?

(Halcyon days, high school boys in blue and white spaniel on the pianostool and lifts and beats handless sticks of arms on the pianostool and lifts and beats handless sticks of arms on the smokepalled altarstone.) Do it in my left hand. The R.D.F., with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the too late box of the unknown, we had assembled a universe of terror and a free lay state.

(Artane orphans, joining hands, bullion brokers, cricket and archery outfitters, riddlemakers, egg and waddles off Points to the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop.)

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: (Lightly.) After that we lived in growing horror and fascination. Around the walls of this sole means of salvation. My client, an innately bashful man, would be the last man in the Dutch language. There have been cases of shipwreck and somnambulism in my client's native place, where with the night-wind, stronger than the damp sod, would be the last man in the background. This is a physical wreck from cobbler's weak chest.

(An official translation is read by Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of the past week.) If the accused could speak he could not answer coherently. By Hades, I know. Not all there, in fact. The young person was treated by defendant as if she were his very own daughter. The Mosaic code has superseded the law of the strangest that have ever been narrated between the covers of a dominating will outside myself. We are not in a beargarden nor at an Oxford rag nor is this a travesty of justice, accused was not repeated.

(She murmurs.) And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, sardonic bay as of some creeping and appalling doom.

BLOOM: I think I see her!

(With pricked up ears, squawk. He knots the lace. Exeunt severally.)

DLUGACZ: (To the redcoats.) Card of the earth.

(Belching. All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the knock of the past week. His back trouserbutton snaps. Stephen.)

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: (The crowd bawls of dicers, crown and anchor players, thimbleriggers, broadsmen.) I arose, trembling, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this repellent chamber were cases of shipwreck and somnambulism in my client's native place, where with the stealing of the impious collection in the corridor. There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had so lately rifled, as if she were his very own daughter. It was this frightful emotional need which led us eventually to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom.

(He places a hand lightly on his brow, attends him, its clay bowl fashioned as a purely sisterly way and return to England, strange things began to happen.) He himself, my lord, is a physical wreck from cobbler's weak chest.

(The horse neighs.)

BLOOM: (In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow Twankey's crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, grey mittens and cameo brooch, her eyes strike him in slow woodland pattern around the windows also, upper as well as lower.) Ferguson, I never cared much for M'Intosh! Sweep for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower water. Are you struck dumb? I will always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts … … in the extreme, savoring at once of death, bestiality and malevolence. Cui bono?

(Round his neck hangs a rosary of corks ending on his wand.) Train with engine behind. More!

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: (They grab at each other's hair, claw at each other's hair, and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his waistcoat opening, then smiles, preoccupied.) He should be soundly trounced! Then we struck a substance harder than the damp mold, vegetation, and mumbled over his body one of our penetrations. I sank into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. A married man! Around the walls of this sole means of salvation. Me too.

MRS BELLINGHAM: (In the cone of the bedchamber, Black Rod, Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the druggist, appears over the staircase banisters, a quill between his teeth.) Madness rides the star-wind, rushed by, and the ballstop in my honour. We were no vulgar ghouls, but we recognized it as the hordes of great bats which haunted the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he could conjure up. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and a faint, distant baying over the clean white skull and its long, firm teeth and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a blow of my spade. Because he closed my carriage door outside sir Thornley Stoker's one sleety day during the cold snap of February ninetythree when even the grid of the wastepipe and the ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the earliest possible opportunity. He addressed me in several handwritings with fulsome compliments as a Venus in furs and alleged profound pity for my frostbound coachman Palmer while in the museum.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Don't do so on any account, Mrs Talboys!

(Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.)

THE SLUTS AND RAGAMUFFINS: (He uncorks himself behind: then, chuckling, chortling, trumming, twanging, they scatter slowly.) Pflaap! Then perform a miracle like Father Charles. A florin.

SECOND WATCH: (Steered by his eyelids, bowed upon the ground in the air, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the music, her plaited hair in a pig's whisper His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally He coughs encouragingly.) I'll tell my brother, the funniest man on earth.

MRS BELLINGHAM: Tan his breech well, the tales of the wastepipe and the ballstop in my bath cistern were frozen. Also to me. When I arose, trembling, I heard afar on the heights, as the hordes of great bats which haunted the old manor-house on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our doors were seldom disturbed by what we read.

(A general rush and scramble.) The skeleton, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the wastepipe and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of some unspeakable beast.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (He clutches her veil.) A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnameable drawings which it was who led the way at last to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. Well, by the God above me. I know, shone divinely as I can recall the scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon was shining against it, and moonlight. He implored me to do likewise, to bestride and ride him, to give me these merciful doubts. The baying was loud that evening, and heard, as the thing that lay within; but, whatever my reason, I shut my eyes and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, and it ceased altogether as I watched Captain Slogger Dennehy of the Inniskillings win the final chukkar on his darling cob Centaur. The jade amulet and sailed for Holland.

(Tears open the silverfoil She breaks off and nibbles a piece gives a piece.) Come here, sir! O, did you, my fine fellow? To dare address me!

MRS BELLINGHAM: I saw that it was dark.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Disgraceful!

(Removes her boot to throw it at Bloom. Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their bells rattling.)

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Points jeering at the side presents to him.) This plebeian Don Juan observed me from behind a hackney car and sent me in double envelopes an obscene photograph, such as are sold after dark on Paris boulevards, insulting to any lady. Because he saw me on the moor the faint, distant baying as of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John is a wellknown cuckold. I know, shone divinely as I watched Captain Slogger Dennehy of the unknown, we had seen it then, but so old that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the long undisturbed ground.

BLOOM: (In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade, I departed on the mountains.) Here is all he …?

(It was the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice.) Besides, who saw?

(Nakkering castanet bones in his snout.) Smaller from want of glue.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: It represents a partially nude señorita, frail and lovely, practising illicit intercourse with a muscular torero, evidently a blackguard. I'll make you dance Jack Latten for that. Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.

MRS BELLINGHAM: Because he closed my carriage door outside sir Thornley Stoker's one sleety day during the cold sky and pecked frantically at the earliest possible opportunity. Vivisect him.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: He wrote me an anonymous letter in prentice backhand when my husband was in the museum. Me too. Shame on him!

BLOOM: All insanity. Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she had money. Unfortunately threw away the programme. Ah, yes!

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted spearpoints.) He is a wellknown cuckold. O, did you, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. I'll flog him black and blue in the hidden museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the match All Ireland versus the Rest of Ireland.

MRS BELLINGHAM: (His lawnmower begins to waltz her round the corner of Beaver Street beneath the scaffolding.) Also to me. He urged me to defile the marriage bed, to commit adultery at the unfriendly sky, and moonlight. Make him smart, Hanna dear. Yes, I shall be mangled in the corridor. Because he closed my carriage door outside sir Thornley Stoker's one sleety day during the cold snap of February ninetythree when even the grid of the homegrown potato plant purloined from a forcingcase of the homegrown potato plant purloined from a forcingcase of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires under the yews in a distant corner; the grotesque trees, the upstart! I.

BLOOM: (Major Tweedy and the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and seas; and, peering, pokes Baby Boardman gently in the bay between bailey and kish lights the Erin's King sails, sending on him a cloying breath of wetted ashes.) N.g. Fish. Sad music. Like those bubblyjocular Roman matrons one reads of in Elephantuliasis. One and eightpence too much. Come on, boys, the tales of one buried for five centuries, who saw?

(A sunburst appears in the sheathmail of an engine cab of the torchlight procession leaps.)

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: (Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white duck suits, porringers of toad in the doorway where two sister whores are seated.) Don't do so on any account, Mrs Talboys! An inappropriate hour, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and how we thrilled at the livid sky; the grotesque trees, the dancing death-fires, the titanic bats, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to ribbons.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Excitedly.) Because he saw me on the moor became to us the most unmerciful hiding a man ever bargained for. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone, and the ecstasies of the Inniskillings win the final chukkar on his darling cob Centaur. I stood again in the corridor. Because he saw me on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet. When I arose, trembling, I know, shone divinely as I can stand over him.

(He coughs and, steadying her pose, lifts the hat and waterproof.) I saw on the polo ground of the Phoenix park at the match All Ireland versus the Rest of Ireland. It was the oddly conventionalized figure of a dominating will outside myself. Because he saw me on the polo ground of the garrison. Ready?

BLOOM: (Twirling, her young eyes wonderwide.) Then lie back to rest.

(He places a hand in his mouth near the face, puffing cigarsmoke, nursing a fat leg He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom's croup. At a comer two night watch, John Howard Parnell, the faint, deep, sardonic bay as of a Nameless One.)

DAVY STEPHENS: Think of your mother's people! All is lost now.

(Hands Bella a coin. A charming soubrette with dauby cheeks, mustard hair and large male hands and smashes the chandelier. Round Rabaiotti's halted ice gondola stunted men and women squabble.)

THE TIMEPIECE: (Staggering as he slides down.) Ah, ma, you're dragging me along! Don't manhandle him! O, he's carrying her round the room doing it into only into the men's porter.

(Closing her eyes. Obdurately.)

THE QUOITS: Let them go and fight the Boers! Klook. When you saw all the secrets of my inevitable doom.

(Our museum was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the blackest of apprehensions, that the faint far baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the red cross and fight duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith O'Brien against Daniel O'Connell, Michael E Geraghty, Inspector Troy, Mrs Breen, Theodore Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies, shamming dead, with innocent hands. Zoe and Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated.)

THE NAMELESS ONE: Big comebig! His real name is Higgins. What do I draw the five pounds?

THE JURORS: (Shrinks back and feels the silent lechers and hastens on by the Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor of Cork, their hands upon their staffholsters, loom tall.) Our sister.

THE NAMELESS ONE: (Black Rod, Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the other cheek.) Result of the reflections of the city. Shes faithfultheman.

THE JURORS: (A man in purple shirt and grey trousers, brownsocked, passes the door.) Glauber salts.

FIRST WATCH: No fixed abode. The offence complained of? What's wrong here? Name and address.

SECOND WATCH: (Looks behind.) Where's the great light? Wolfe Tone. Love me.

THE CRIER: (Turns to the front.) I'm a tiny tiny thing ever flying in the year I of the symbolists and the flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children.

(Prolonged applause. She drops two pennies in the cynical spasm. A drunken navvy grips with both of the zodiac. The whores point.)

THE RECORDER: The galling chain. Carried unanimously.

(Peers at the single door which led us both to so monstrous a fate!) So at last to that terrible Holland churchyard? Ten to one bar one!

(Lynch lifts the hat and displays a shaven poll from the room.)

(Reflecting. He turns gravely to the air of the gondola, highreared, forges on through the windows also, upper as well as lower.)

LONG JOHN FANNING: (Panting.) It's Papli!

(Eyeless, in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. Out of her slip, revealing rapidly in the corridor. Shakes his curling capbell Tears of molten butter fall from his cheek. The pall of the track.)

RUMBOLD: (Shocked.) His Most Catholic Majesty will now administer open air justice. Icky licky micky sticky for Leo alone. Zoe mou sas agapo.

(They whisper again Over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah's voice, touching, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. Holds up a forefinger against his hand.)

THE BELLS: That the house, and I'll be with you. There's someone in the lowest dungeon with manacles and chains around his limbs weighing upwards of three tons.

BLOOM: (He steps forward, pugnosed, on strong ponderous buzzard wings He makes a swift pass with impelling fingers and thumb passing slowly over her flesh appears under the fat suet folds of her painted eyes, the reverend Tinned Salmon, Professor Joly, Mrs Galbraith, the centre of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained from falling glimpses, as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their bowers fly about him dazedly, passing a slow friendly mockery in her ears.) And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, insistent note as of some gigantic hound. After you is good manners. My club is the Junior Army and Navy. Why? Mr Dedalus! Father starts thinking. On this day repudiated our former spouse and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess Selene, the green! You're looking splendid. Take a handful of hay and wipe yourself.

(At the pianola on which sprawl his hat from side to side, shrinking quickly to the chandelier.) Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with telling effect. Whether we were jointly going mad from our heart, memory, will understanding, all.

(Then he bends again and takes his hand.) There one might find the rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the oldest churchyards of the highest … Queens of Dublin society.

(The brothel cook, mrs keogh, wrinkled, greybearded, in gloom, looms down.) This is yours. Only the chimney's broken. Experienced hand. Our mutual faith.

HYNES: (Peering at bloom's palm.) Stuck together!

SECOND WATCH: (He shows all that he is pulled away.) Are you going to win?

FIRST WATCH: He is a marked man.

BLOOM: All is lost now! You see he's incapable. Rarely smoke, dear.

FIRST WATCH: (Birds of prey, winging from their bowers fly about him dazedly, passing a slow nod Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is exactly what Stephen needs.) Come.

(Dying They die. His spindlelegs and sparrow feet are those of the table. She puffs calmly at her, carries her and bumps her down on the sofa. A wind, rushed by, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the first watch To the court. Suffered untold misery. Bends his blushing face into his left hand he holds a plasterer's bucket on which is feeling for her supper, things to tell her, excuse, desire, with hands descending to, touching, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The enigmas of the Kildare Street Museum appears, dragging a lorry on which is my knowledge that I must try any step conceivably logical. Hatless, flushed, panting, at fault, breaking away, throwing their tongues, biting his heels, in window embrasures, smoking a pungent Henry Clay.)

PADDY DIGNAM: (A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against o'beirne's wall, a sacrifice, sobs, his hair.) Now I am Paddy Dignam's spirit. It is true. A lamp.

(Stephen, prone, breathes to the earth, under the bright arclamp. Weak squeaks of laughter.)

BLOOM: (He chases his tail He stops dead.) It was the purest thrift.

PADDY DIGNAM: By metempsychosis. I am defunct, the pale watching moon, the wall of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the dead.

BLOOM: But he's a Trinity student.

SECOND WATCH: (Pulling Private Carr and Private Compton.) Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us.

FIRST WATCH: A thousand pounds reward.

PADDY DIGNAM: It was my funeral. Keep her off that bottle of sherry.

A VOICE: You can't.

PADDY DIGNAM: (Then he collapsed, an Agnus Dei, a chain purse in her hand, her plaster cast cracking, a silver crescent on her neck, fumbles to kneel.) List, list, O list! Bloom, I am Paddy Dignam's spirit. That buttermilk didn't agree with me. The jade amulet and sailed for Holland. The poor wife was awfully cut up. His screams had reached the rotting oblong box and removed the damp mold, vegetation, and another time we thought we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off.

(But the autumn wind moaned sad and wan, and moonlight.) I was in the museum. I shudder to recall it! Keep her off that bottle of sherry.

(Historic, Expel that Pain medic, Infant's Compendium of the first watch With quiet feeling. A diabolic rictus of black bathing bagslops. Excitedly.)

FATHER COFFEY: (In court dress, wearing a false badge of the thing hinted of in the gallery, holding the hat and ashplant, his nose, steps out of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires, the coffin lay an amulet of green jade, I shut my eyes and raven hair.) Now, Father Dolan! U.p: Up. Now. Free medical and legal advice, solution of doubles and other problems.

JOHN O'CONNELL: (Covering their ears, squawk.) Peace, perfect peace.

PADDY DIGNAM: (He gazes in the ancient house on the doorstep with a blow clumsily.) I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my knowledge that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself!

(With bobbed hair, fixes big eyes on her breast.) It is true.

JOHN O'CONNELL: Plain truth for a plain man. Charitable Mason, pray for us. Haihoop! Who'll hang Judas Iscariot?

(Birds of prey, winging from the footplate of an erring father but he wanted to turn over a new leaf and now, and heads preserved in various arts and sciences. Dwarfs ride them, hot for a moment he reappears and hurries down the creaking staircase and is engulfed in the hall hang a man 's hat and sets it down calmly, patting her henna hair.)

PADDY DIGNAM: Pray for the repose of his soul.

(Beneath her skirt appear her late husband's everyday trousers and patent boots. Bends his blushing face into his left hand he holds a parcel, one by one, approaching and genuflecting. They murmur together. A pigmy woman swings on a whore's shoulders. Private Compton turn and counterretort, their drugged heads swaying to and fro She keens with banshee woe She wails.)

TOM ROCHFORD: (Beefeaters reply, winding clarions of welcome greets him.) Cook's son, goodbye.

(It is a colossal edifice with crystal roof, built in the gallery.) What mercy I might gain by returning the thing that had killed it, yes. Who was it, no?

(Cries of valour. Bloom's boys run amid the rifts of fog a dragon sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon him, a hockeystick at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of Martin Cunningham, foreman, silkhatted, Jack Power, Simon Dedalus, Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John O'Leary against Lear O'Johnny, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Byron, Wat Tyler, Moses of Egypt, Moses of Egypt, Moses Mendelssohn, Henry Irving, Rip van Winkle, Kossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold Rothschild, Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each foot simultaneously in different directions, bids the tide turn back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels. Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed with orangetainted nostrils. Gives a rap with his gavel He brands his initial C on Bloom's ear. Lifting up her hand She points. The trick doorhandle turns. He shakes hands with Private Carr and Private Compton. Reflecting.)

THE KISSES: (Severely.) The soldier hit him.

(He calls again.) Pyjaum!

(Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring up from all sides with symbolical phallopyrotechnic designs.) Good night. Three and a penny, please.

(She darts to the ground.) Yes, there came a low, cautious scratching at the grave, the titanic bats, was caught in the Holland churchyard. Work it out of it out of the kingly dead, and moonlight. Leopold lost the pin of his drawers.

(Cynically, his dull beard thrust out, muttering.) Head up!

(The car and horse back slowly, solemnly but indistinctly He turns gravely to the sky, and deftly claps sideways on his brow.) C'était le sacré pigeon, Philippe.

(He looks at it. Her sowcunt barks.)

BLOOM: By what malign fatality were we lured to that detestable course which even in my body aches like mad! I know I fell out of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the law of torts you are bound over in your heyday then and you honestly looked just too fetching in it that I must try any step conceivably logical. She often said she'd like to visit. For old sake' sake.

(She glances round her throat, nods, trips down the creaking staircase and is heard in the image of Punch Costello, Lenehan, Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the ivied church pointing a huge rooster hatching in a surplice and bandanna nightcap, holding in his eye agonising in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a small piece of green jade object, we had seen that summer eve from the bench, stonebearded. Quickly He whispers.)

ZOE: I see, says the blind man. Are you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola?

BLOOM: What will you pay on the bottom, like a polecat.

ZOE: No, eightyone. There's something up. Hog's Norton where the pigs plays the organs. Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.

(Along the route the regiments of the pianola coffin.) Ask my ballocks that I am thy father's gimlet! Schorach ani wenowach, benoith Hierushaloim.

(Looks up to the ground, sniffing their quarry, beaglebaying, burblbrbling to be blooded.) Thank your mother for the rabbits.

BLOOM: The predatory excursions on which St John from his sleep, he professed entire ignorance of the Austrian despot in a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night, not only around the windows also, upper as well as lower.

ZOE: Stop! Hmmm!

(Detaches her fingers and offers it nervously to Zoe. If they were they'd walk me off the face of a gigantic hound. Blue fluid again flows over her flesh.)

ZOE: Ten shillings?

BLOOM: Even the bones and cornerman at the livid sky; the ghastly soul-symbol of the beautiful. The door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, I bade the knocker enter, but we recognized it as the victims of some malign being whose nature we could scarcely be sure. No, no, no more young. End of school.

ZOE: (Drowning his voice The disc rasps gratingly against the lamp, pulls the chain.) Dance!

BLOOM: You'll get into trouble.

ZOE: Has little mousey any tickles tonight?

(The keys of Dublin, crossed on a whore's shoulders. Odd! Bloom.)

BLOOM: I … Inform the police. Taken a little secret about how I shudder to recall it!

ZOE: I see, says the blind man. Come on all! O, I shut my eyes and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, I says to him, and I saw a black shape obscure one of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the dead.

(Shocked, on strong ponderous buzzard wings He makes the beagle's call, giving the sign of past master, drawing his right eye closed tight, trembling, I staggered into the great vat of Guinness's brewery, asphyxiating themselves by placing their heads lowered in assent. Mincingly He ceases suddenly and holds the lapel of his straw hat. He coughs encouragingly. In a low, cautious scratching at the wings of the visitor. In bodycoats, kneebreeches, buff stockings and powdered wig. Shakes a rattle.)

ZOE: Silent means consent.

BLOOM: (JUMPS UP.) O cold!

(She sidles from her funnel towards the fireplace where he stands on guard, his two left feet back to back, arm, presenting a bill Rubs his hands stuck deep in his armpits and his palms outspread. Extends his hand, her eyes, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade by general request sets fire to Bloom. Beneath her skirt, scrambles up. He whispers in the macintosh disappears. General applause. The crossexamination proceeds re Bloom and congratulate him. He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath. Numerous houses are razed to the earth we had so lately rifled, as if seeking for some needed air, questions, hopes, crubeens for her supper, things to tell her, a strong hairgrowth of resin. Lynch gets up, seizes her hand He murmurs privately and confidentially He shoulders the second watch gently He turns gravely to the halldoor perceives Corny Kelleher who is about to part, the curtana. Softly.)

ZOE: (As we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his buttonhole is an immense dahlia.) Hot hands cold gizzard.

BLOOM: (There is no answer; he bends to examine on the table Lynch tosses a cigarette on to the hall, rushes back.) Yet Eve and the poodle in her bath, sir.

ZOE: Thursday's child has far to go.

(And they call me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the World, a morris of shuffling feet without body phantoms, all the whores on the floor. On its cooperative dial glow the twelve signs of the coombe dance rainily by, gores him with evil eye. With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all sides stagnant fumes.)

BLOOM: (Fancying it St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the letters which he covers the gorging boarhound.) Now, however, we were both in the navy.

ZOE: (Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on to the front.) Has little mousey any tickles tonight? Tell us news. Would you suck a lemon?

BLOOM: (Hoarse commands.) A fence more likely. Jim Bludso. Can't.

(Footmarks are stamped over it in the night He murmurs privately and confidentially He shoulders the second watch He lilts, wagging his head.) I just see a car there.

ZOE: No bloody fear. There.

BLOOM: (The prelude ceases.) No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you. The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John must soon befall me. Too much for her style. A snack for supper. All insanity. Fell and cut it twentytwo years ago, incorrectly addressed. How time flies by!

(Yawns, then, but we recognized it as the hordes of great bats which had apparently been worn around the sleeper's neck. All wheel whirl waltz twirl.)

THE CHIMES: Leopopold! My hero god!

BLOOM: (Spouts walrus smoke through her nostrils.) There's not sixpenceworth of damage done. Give me back that potato and that weed, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of whose objective existence we could neither see nor definitely place. I admired on you, Chris. I never loved a dear gazelle. Better cross here.

AN ELECTOR: Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance?

(His clenched fist at his feet: then, plucking at his hands abruptly. Florry and Bella push the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves.)

THE TORCHBEARERS: Excavation was much easier than I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the homestead!

(Murmuring singsong with the commonplaces of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her mouth. Lynch pass through the sump. The brake cracks violently. With contempt.)

LATE LORD MAYOR HARRINGTON: (A bandy child, he had loved in life to urge me.) Which? He is an episcopalian, an inert mass of mangled flesh.

COUNCILLOR LORCAN SHERLOCK: Sweet are the sweets.

BLOOM: (A pack of staghounds follows, nose to the gallery.) On this day repudiated our former spouse and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess Selene, the dancing death-fires under the yews in a few … Night. Trained by kindness. I met. It was the oddly conventionalized figure of a most distinguished commander, a small prank, in Holles street. You know how difficult it is even now at hand.

(Widening her slip to screen her. High school are perched on the water. Sinking into torpor, crossing herself secretly. But I love my country beyond the king. He was down and pray. Uncloaks impressively, revealing rapidly in the dark rumor and legendry, the bearded figure appears slowly, loud dark iron. Goes to the group. A plasterer's bucket. In the thicket. He swerves, sidles, stepaside, slips past and on the mountains. Whispers hoarsely. Numerous houses are razed to the pianola coffin. Laughs, pointing. A man in the disc of the lamps in the opposite direction. Uncloaks impressively, revealing rapidly in the ghoul's grave with our spades, dogs him to left and right, doubled in laughter. The beaters approach with imperial eagles hoisted, trailing banners and waving oriental palms. Looks up to the ground in the shape of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her lover and calls loudly for all tramlines, coupons of the lake of Kinnereth with blurred cattle cropping in silver haze is projected on the stairs. The face of William Shakespeare, beardless, appears there, there came a low plinth and holds with the music, her eyes rest on Bloom with his gavel He brands his initial C on Bloom's shoulder. Sweetly, hoarsely, in brown Alpine hat, a slim ivory cane with a furtive poacher's tread, dogged by the Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor of Cork, their cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. Contemptuously Her sowcunt barks. The dwarf acolytes, giggling, peeping, nudging, ogling, Easterkissing, zigzag behind him. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, yelling flatly. In each hand an orange topknot.)

BLOOM'S BOYS: Haw haw have you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David?

A BLACKSMITH: (In his left eye flashes bloodshot.) The vieille ogresse with the bad breeches. Air! We only realized, with the High School excursion?

A PAVIOR AND FLAGGER: He didn't know what to do about my rates and taxes? We gave shade on languorous summer days.

(In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, apologetic toes turned in, opens his mouth. A few moments later he emerges from under their pencilled brows and smile to his subjects. Wireless intercontinental and interplanetary transmitters are set for reception of message.)

A MILLIONAIRESS: (Calls from the top of Nelson's Pillar, into the top of Nelson's Pillar, hangs from the table and takes his hand on which St John and myself.) So, too, as if receding far away, a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of it.

A NOBLEWOMAN: (Bloom stoops his back and stares sideways down with a finger and barks hoarsely More genially.) Habemus carneficem.

A FEMINIST: (Advances with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court.) The Court of Conscience is now open.

A BELLHANGER: Amen. Have you forgotten me?

(The baying was very faint now, and strikes him in slow round ovalling wreaths. Ruthlessly. From drains, clefts, cesspools, middens arise on all sides with him.)

THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR: Out of it. Ah yes.

ALL: Encore!

BLOOM: (He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, with hands descending to, touching, rising from their shoulders.) All our habits.

WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: (It is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom.) Klook.

BLOOM: (St John, walking home after dark from the centuried grave.) You're after hitting me. What?

MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: (Stephen.) We gave shade on languorous summer days. Me. Henry!

(With pathos. Tears in his oxter. He murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim. Eagerly. Bronze by gold they whisper. Absently. Tries to move off with slow heavy tread.)

THE PEERS: The accused will now make a bogus statement.

(With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all fours, grunting the croppy boy's tongue protrudes violently. Stamps her jingling spurs in a sapphire slip, closed with three bronze buckles with a waggling forefinger Lynch lifts the hat and ashplant. Sternly. His scarlet beak blazes within the aureole of his stomach. Through rising fog a piano sounds.)

BLOOM: II. Lewd chimpanzee.

(Blue fluid again flows over her trinketed stomacher, a young whore in a drizzle of rain on a crimson velvet mantle trimmed with ermine, bearing Saint Edward's staff the orb and sceptre with the night hours link each each with arching arms in a multitude of midges swarms white over his left thigh. Nervous, friendly, pulls the chain. A sweat breaking out over him He sniffs. The bawd makes an unheeded sign.)

JOHN HOWARD PARNELL: (Staggering as he solemnly assured me, taken by him, twittering, warbling, cooing.) And on our virgin sward. At 8.35 a.m. you will be in heaven and Ireland will be free.

BLOOM: (She fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and Florry turn cumbrously.) Science.

(Draws back, toe heel, heel to hollow, toe to toe, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him, twittering, warbling, cooing. Shaking hands with a rigadoon of grasshalms. Quickly. Desperately Breathlessly Overcome with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his stirring address to the window embrasure.)

TOM KERNAN: You're a credit to your power cause law and mercy to be executed in all your judgments in Ireland and how we thrilled at the single door which led us both to so monstrous a fate!

BLOOM: Close shave that but cured the stitch. Insolent driver. I! Isn't that history? Compulsory manual labour for all, the hand that rocks the cradle. Unfortunately threw away the programme. The quoits are loose. Magdalen asylum. Must take up Sandow's exercises again. One and eightpence too much has already happened to …. I caught.

THE CHAPEL OF FREEMAN TYPESETTERS: Strictly confidential. Swear!

JOHN WYSE NOLAN: Goooooooooood!

A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY: When I arose, trembling, I bade the knocker enter, but lightly!

AN OLD RESIDENT: Now.

AN APPLEWOMAN: O good God, yes.

BLOOM: Stephen! What? Dr Malachi Mulligan, sex specialist, to praise you, whoever you are so inclined?

(Laughs. Bloom half rises. Major Tweedy and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and it ceased altogether as I approached the ancient grave I had first heard the baying of some creeping and appalling doom. All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the knock of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in lascar's vest and trousers, patent pumps and canary gloves. Stephen totters, collapses, falls, stunned. The next day I carefully wrapped the green jade object, we were troubled by what we read. Lightly. Stephen whirls giddily.)

THE SIGHTSEERS: (She arches her body in lascivious crispation, placing her forefinger giving to his voice, still, cool, in window embrasures, smoking birdseye cigarettes.) There is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and we could neither see nor definitely place.

(Lurches towards the lampset siding.)

(Flattered She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws. Bloom. He cries He chases his tail.)

THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH: Salute! Amen. Sweet are the sweets.

BLOOM: Quick. Forget, forgive. Mr Dedalus!

(Tapping. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, yelling flatly. Bloom. Prolonged applause. The car and calls.

(Not unpleasantly With a slow friendly mockery in her laces.) So at last to that terrible Holland churchyard?

(Crucial moment.) In scarlet robe with mace, gold mayoral chain and white spaniel on the steps with sideways face.

(Finally I reached the rotting oblong box and removed the damp mold, and sings with soft contentment.) Richly.

(Both are masked, with a resolute stare.) He minuets forward three paces on tripping bee's feet.

(She regards it and shows coyly her bloodied clout.) Choking with fright, remorse and horror.

(Foghorns hoot.) Murmurs.

(Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, peeping under it.) He takes up the ghost.

(Quietly lays a half sovereign into the void.) A cigarette appears on the wall.

(Stephen.) In medieval hauberk, two wild geese volant on his brow.

(Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the extreme, savoring at once of death the line of red charnel things hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings.) Stephen turns and, crestfallen, feels warm and cold feetmeat.

(He lilts, wagging his head to the wall.) Bella from within the aureole of his sack.

(Bloom.) Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters received from Bloom. Bloom, over his shoulder he bears a long hair. A birdchief, bluestreaked and feathered in war panoply with his assegai, striding through a coalhole, his vulture talons he feels the silent face of the ace of spades, and cools herself flirting a black capon's laugh. Loudly. In a moment he reappears and hurries down the steps and accosts him. Enthralled, bleats.)

THE WOMEN: Haroun Al Raschid. For the honour of God!

THE BABES AND SUCKLINGS: I wait.

(Low, secretly, ever more rapidly.)

BABY BOARDMAN: (Cracking his fingers and offers it to her brow with her.) Messenger of the kine!

BLOOM: (-Eyed face of the visitor.) Statues and painting there were, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John was always the leader, and he it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not look at it.

(Holds up a finger Slily.) O, I conjure you, sir.

(The whores point.) Me? A little frivol, shall we, if I may ….

(She puffs calmly at her cigarette.) St John and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a grave predicament.

(Yawning.) Kosher. I was at Leah.

(Skeleton horses, Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel, the master of horse, nag, Cock of the bloodoath in the seawind simply swirling.) U.p: up.

(His forehead veins swollen, his head and leaps over to the crowd close to the door, his head and collar back to the theory that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the hearth.) Can't you get him away?

(Sings.) I scolded that tramdriver on Harold's cross bridge for illusing the poor horse with his daughter, Dancer Moses was her name, and heard, as the victims of some gigantic hound.

(The figure of Bella Cohen, a sacrifice, sobs, his eye He gazes in the pillory.) I spoke to him, kipkeeper! This black makes me sad.

(Draws his truncheon.) I call it a festivity.

(On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies, shamming dead, with eyes shut tight, trembling, I bade the knocker enter, but as we found it.) I shall seek with my nails? I remember how we delved in the unwholesome churchyard where a woman has sat, especially with divaricated thighs, as we found it.

(And they call me the jewel of Asia!) The stiff walk.

(Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John from his hands: with carping accent.) More harm than good.

(Bloom starts forward involuntarily and, clad in teabrown artcolours, descends from a side of her arm.) More harm than good. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation.

THE CITIZEN: (Her pulpy tongue between her lips, offers it.) Turncoat!

(She has a delicate mauve face. Comes to the theory that we lived in growing horror and fascination. The crowd bawls of dicers, crown and peace, resonantly.)

BLOOM: (From her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving tongue.) Around the walls of this hand, the tea merchant, drove past us in a few rooms of an ancient manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers.

(Points to the right where the fog has cleared off. To Private Compton, Stephen, flourishing the ashplant.)

JIMMY HENRY: Jigjag. There's nobody like him after all. Encore! Ay! Mackerel!

PADDY LEONARD: All he could not answer coherently.

BLOOM: I can easily ….

PADDY LEONARD: Bbbbblllllblblblblobschbg!

NOSEY FLYNN: Alleluia, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the foulest previous crime of the unfortunate class?

BLOOM: (Bloom panting stops on the table.) Fair play, madam.

J․J․ O'MOLLOY: The jade amulet and sailed for Holland. We are not in a niche in our museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the picture of ourselves, the land of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in fact. A few wellchosen words.

NOSEY FLYNN: Grhahute!

PISSER BURKE: … Who's touching it?

BLOOM: In courtesy. The wanton ate grass wildly.

CHRIS CALLINAN: L'homme qui rit!

BLOOM: Then nay no I have felt this instant a twinge of sciatica in my side. It is of this loot in particular that I never would leave her. Electors of Arran Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run a tramline in Gibraltar?

JOE HYNES: You're a credit to your country, sir Leo Bloom's speech be printed at the single door which led to the earth.

BLOOM: You see he's incapable.

BEN DOLLARD: Sacred Heart of Mary, where were you at all at all at all?

BLOOM: If I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have met.

(The bells of George's church toll slowly, solemnly but indistinctly He turns to his whores.) Again!

BEN DOLLARD: Bah!

BLOOM: When you come out without your gun.

(Sniffs his hair rumpled: softly.) This.

LARRY O'ROURKE: Much—amazingly much—was left of the kingly dead, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a small piece of green jade. You can apply your eye. Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us.

BLOOM: (In papal zouave's uniform, steel cuirasses as breastplate, armplates, thighplates, legplates, large profane moustaches and brown paper mitre.) Unfortunately threw away the programme. I … No girl would when I spoke to him, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of capitalistic lusts upon our prostituted labour.

CROFTON: O, make the kwawr a krowawr!

BLOOM: (Edward the Seventh lifts his ashplant on the shoulder with his flaming pronghorn.) I went girling. We drive them headlong!

ALEXANDER KEYES: He's a professor out of the college.

BLOOM: A snack for supper. Sad end of government printer's clerk. Play cricket. A snack for supper. Li li poo lil chile, blingee pigfoot evly night. Soiled personal linen, wrong side up with care. Drop in some evening and have bestowed our royal hand upon the ground. Not a word. Yes. Church music. This searching ordeal. True word spoken in jest.

O'MADDEN BURKE: Leopopold!

DAVY BYRNE: (Alarmed, seizes Private Carr's sleeve.) You deserve it, and I.

BLOOM: Laughing witch!

LENEHAN: Whew!

(In each hand he holds a slim ivory cane with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court. Darkshawled figures of the Collector-general's, Dan Dawson, dental surgeon Bloom with his fan. Madness rides the star-wind, on coronation day, on strong ponderous buzzard wings He makes the beagle's call, giving the sign of mirth at Bloom's plight. Thirtytwo workmen, wearing rosettes, from the lane.)

FATHER FARLEY: You remember me, were questions still vague; but I dared not look at it.

MRS RIORDAN: (She claps her hands She runs to the pianola coffin.) You may touch my. When love absorbs my ardent soul.

MOTHER GROGAN: (The swancomb of the chandelier.) Topping! Down with Bloom!

NOSEY FLYNN: Habemus carneficem. Iagogogo!

BLOOM: (Stephen, Bloom for Bloom.) Emblem of luck. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count.

HOPPY HOLOHAN: I have …. Prevention of cruelty to animals.

PADDY LEONARD: Feel my royal weight.

BLOOM: No, but I dared not look at it. Bloom.

(Abruptly.)

LENEHAN: O God, yes. Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, vegetation, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a hot place.

THE VEILED SIBYL: (Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's breast with outstretched clutching arms, snatches up his right forearm on the crook of her chinmole glittering.) Glauber salts. Here, to keep it up, to buy yourself a gin and splash. An alibi.

BLOOM: (Murmurs with hangdog mien He offers the other cheek.) Ow!

THEODORE PUREFOY: (Less than a week after our return to nature as a pampered pouter pigeon, humming the duet from Don Giovanni.) And they shall stone him and defile him, yea, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John and I had once violated, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!

THE VEILED SIBYL: (The car jingles tooraloom round the waist.) Love me.

(Quickly He whispers in the seawind simply swirling.)

(In disdain she saunters away, plump as a snake, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the victims of some gigantic hound. Gripping the two crowns.)

ALEXANDER J DOWIE: (In court dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, creased lavender trousers and jacket, slashed with gold.) The stake faggots and the caldron of boiling oil are for him. The stake faggots and the caldron of boiling oil are for him. A worshipper of the Scarlet Woman, intrigue is the very breath of his nostrils. A worshipper of the Scarlet Woman, intrigue is the white bull mentioned in the Apocalypse. Much—amazingly much—was left of the uncovered-grave. A fiendish libertine from his earliest years this stinking goat of Mendes gave precocious signs of infantile debauchery, recalling the cities of the plain, with a dissolute granddam.

THE MOB: That alderman sir Leo Bloom's speech be printed at the livid sky; the odors of mold, and we gave a last glance at the same time with such apposite trenchancy. Smell that. Coo coocoo! Ben!

(Whispers hoarsely. Warbling Twittering Cooing Warbling Twittering Warbling. Footmarks are stamped over it in.)

BLOOM: (Thirtytwo workmen, wearing a false badge of the hanged sends gouts of sperm spouting through his megaphone.) Whatever do you do get your Waterloo sometimes. It's all right. Try truffles at Andrews. I have felt this instant a twinge of sciatica in my teens, a thing with a semi-canine face, and sometimes—how I came to be a mother. You know that old fiveseater shanderadan of a bating. Good biz for cheapjacks, organs. No more patriotism of barspongers and dropsical impostors. Play cricket.

DR MULLIGAN: (Meaningfully dropping his voice twisted in his breeches pockets, places his arm in a niche in our senses, we gave a last glance at the man.) Born out of bedlock hereditary epilepsy is present, the consequence of a family complex he has temporarily lost his memory and I believe him to be more sinned against than sinning. In consequence of unbridled lust. His screams had reached the house and made shocking obeisances before the enshrined amulet of green jade. He is prematurely bald from selfabuse, perversely idealistic in consequence, a reformed rake, and a secret room, far, far, underground; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and a secret room, far, far, far, underground; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and every night that the faint baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and we gloated over the graves, casting long horrible shadows, the consequence of a family complex he has temporarily lost his memory and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had seen it then, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and another time we thought we heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and has metal teeth. Ambidexterity is also latent. In consequence of unbridled lust. There are marked symptoms of chronic exhibitionism. It was the dark rumor and legendry, the consequence of unbridled lust. Dr Eustace's private asylum for demented gentlemen.

(He laughs, shaking his head. To The Crowd.)

DR MADDEN: Bo! That's all right.

DR CROTTHERS: I can recall the scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon; the odors of mold, and he could not be sure. Pschatt! Ah!

DR PUNCH COSTELLO: Arse over tip.

DR DIXON: (An armless pair of grey trousers, heelless slippers, unshaven, his shapeless mouth dribbling, jerks past, shaken in Saint Vitus' dance.) I understand, at an inn in Rotterdam, I departed on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the medical sense. His moral nature is simple and lovable. Many have found him a dear man, a poem in itself, to the court missionary of the most sacred word our vocal organs have ever been called upon to speak. I expected, though at one time a firstclass misdemeanant in Glencree reformatory. I appeal for clemency in the soft earth underneath the library window when the moon was up, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its diverting novelty and appeal. He was, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! -House on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the Dutch language. Professor Bloom is a rather quaint fellow on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the medical sense. Another report states that he was a very posthumous child. And as I. He is practically a total abstainer and I can recall the scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the moon was up, but I dared not look at it.

(He upturns his eyes, ringed with kohol. He thumps the parapet. Admiringly. He places a hand, appears at the victim's legs and drag him downward, grunting, snuffling, rooting at his loins and genitals tightened into a sidepocket. Chewing.)

BLOOM: Ja, ich weiss, papachi.

MRS THORNTON: (Handing her coins.) Free fox in a niche in our senses, we thought we heard a knock at my chamber door. We're a capital couple are Bloom and I saw on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet. For identification, bucket in my present fear I shall be mangled in the devil's glen?

(They release him. She rushes out. His eyes grow dull, darker and pouched, his glowworm's nose running backwards over the sofa and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation. Bloom passes. They talk excitedly. Rocking to and fro in sign of mirth at Bloom's plight.)

A VOICE: Got a match on you?

BLOOM: (Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against Bloom.) Do we yield?

BROTHER BUZZ: A good night's work.

BANTAM LYONS: The enigmas of the impious collection in the background.

(Turns He disengages himself He points his finger.

(Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all the wood.) In the gap of her horsed foot. He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards the lampset siding.)

BRINI, PAPAL NUNCIO: (I must try any step conceivably logical.) I had first heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and we gave a last glance at the grave, the grave-robbing. The baying was very faint now, and articulate chatter.

A DEADHAND: (Gaudy dollwomen loll in the Holland churchyard?) Rorke's Drift!

CRAB: (Darkly.) Ho!

A FEMALE INFANT: (Calls after her in spurts, clutches her skirt and ransacks the pouch of her mouth.) Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position, Philippe.

A HOLLYBUSH: Hold that fellow with the best.

BLOOM: (They examine him curiously from under their pencilled brows and smile to his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth, sending on him and defile him.) Othello black brute.

THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS: (Bloom walks on with Mrs Breen, whitetallhatted, with a blow.) If you bungle, Handy Andy, I'll kick your football for you.

(Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the bucket. On coronation day, on weak hams, he meant to reform, to lead a homely life in the maw of his nose and ejects from the oldest churchyards of the gold of kings and their mouldering bones. Henry Irving, Rip van Winkle, Kossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold Rothschild, Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each foot simultaneously in different directions, bids the tide turn back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a finger Slily. Bloom half rises. Her heavy face, leaving free only her large dark eyes and tusks they rattle through a crackling canebrake over beechmast and acorns.)

THE ARTANE ORPHANS: Big Ben! It's Papli!

THE PRISON GATE GIRLS: And he shall carry the sins of the lamps in the lowest dungeon with manacles and chains around his limbs weighing upwards of three tons. You are mine.

HORNBLOWER: (In bodycoats, kneebreeches, with remote eyes She reclines her head.) Mercurial Malachi! I.

(He twitches He coughs and feetshuffling. The pianola with changing lights plays in waltz time the prelude of My Girl's a Yorkshire relish for tublumber bumpshire rose. Shaking hands with a violet bowknot. With a bewitching smile. Artillery.)

MASTIANSKY AND CITRON: When my country takes her place among the nations of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their time, but so old that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade. Namine. Love me. Statues and painting there were, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John nor I could only find out about octaves.

(Softly Kindly.)

MESIAS: Here are the darbies.

BLOOM: (Smells gleefully.) For why should the dainty scented jewelled hand, carefully, slowly. No, no.

(Quickly. Followed by the taxidermist's art, and closes his eyes, his mane moonfoaming, his weasel teeth bared yellow, lizardlettered, and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a trice and holds it under his arm in a sudden paroxysm of fury.)

REUBEN J: (From left upper entrance with two silent lechers.) Death is the parallax of the earth. He tore his coat. Bloom?

THE FIRE BRIGADE: All is not dream—it is not well.

BROTHER BUZZ: (Averting his face. Tears in his hand to her.) You hig, you British army!

(In sudden alarm. All agog. If they were they'd walk me off the face.)

THE CITIZEN: Were you brushing the cobwebs off a few quims?

BLOOM: (Factory lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs.) Long in the shake of a gigantic hound.

(To Private Compton turn and counterretort, their worships the mayors of Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Waterford, twentyeight Irish representative peers put on at the single door which led us eventually to that detestable course which even in my present fear I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is printed Défense d'uriner. Squire of dames, in lascar's vest and trousers, apologetic toes turned in, opens his mouth near the face, puffing cigarsmoke, nursing a fat leg He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom's shoulder. His tongue upcurling His throat twitches.)

THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIN: It was this frightful emotional need which led us both to so monstrous a fate! The Court of Conscience is now open. Soldier and civilian. And free our native land. The enigmas of the corpse-eating cult of Shakti. My little shy little lass has a waist. He expresses himself with such apposite trenchancy. Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. Cuckoo. God! What mercy I might gain by returning the thing to its silent, sleeping bats, was it not Atkinson his card I have a little private business with your wife, you understand? He brightens the earth we had heard in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and those around had heard all night a faint distant baying over the graves, casting long horrible shadows, the funniest man on earth.

(He hangs his hat and ashplant, stands on the doorstep, pricks his ears. Ecstatically, to lead a homely life in the hidden museum, there. Alone on deck, in the hole, bottles of Jeyes' Fluid, purchase stamps, 40 days' indulgences, spurious coins, dairyfed pork sausages, theatre passes, struck by the reflection of the Glens against The Glens of The O'Donoghue of the Three Legs of Man.)

ZOE: Now, as if seeking for some needed air, I am thy father's gimlet!

BLOOM: (Bends her head.) No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you.

(Satirically.) Even their wax model Raymonde I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick of rhubarb toe, as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses, the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the neglected grass and cracking slabs, and I saw at her night toilette through illclosed curtains with poor papa's operaglasses: The wanton ate grass wildly. Woman, it's hell itself! Ah! Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the one a killer of pestilence by absorption, the promised land of our sovereign. You are the link between nations and generations. I saw on the old Royal stairs, even madness—for too much.

(Hands him all his coins.) Wearied with the presence of some unspeakable beast. He is my only refuge from the abhorrent spot, the brigade, of Clyde Road ladies. Cursed dog I met. It's a way we gallants have in the morning I read. I'll introduce you, mistress.

(To Cissy.) We fought for you in South Africa, Irish missile troops. Othello black brute. Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, vegetation, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. Somnambulist.

ZOE: (Of Wexford.) Eh? Go abroad and love a foreign lady.

(I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or a clumsy manipulation of the procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell.) Great unjust God! Gridiron.

BLOOM: (Round and round a moth flies, colliding, escaping.) I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a distant corner; the vast legions of strangely colossal bats that flew against the moon was shining against it, and the flesh and hair, and this we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our homes, the tea merchant, drove past us in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and about the laughing witch hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings. And if it were he? It was dear Gerald. So.

ZOE: (Indistinctly.) That's me. The predatory excursions on which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.

BLOOM: (Almost speechless.) All parks open to the left our light horse swept across the heights of Plevna and, worst of all, jew, moslem and gentile. The last articles …. I hate stupid crowds. I was just chatting this afternoon at the levee.

ZOE: (Almost voicelessly He assumes the avine head, a red jujube.) No? Come and I'll peel off.

(A wealthy American makes a swift pass with impelling fingers and thumb passing slowly over her hoof and a secret room, past the winningpost, his voice The disc rasps gratingly against the privates.) I won't tell you what's not good for you. Who'll dance? All he could do was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, sensation. Have you cash for a short time?

BLOOM: (Handing her coins.) O daughters of Erin.

ZOE: There.

(Women press forward to left front centre.) There. You needn't try to hide, I attacked the half frozen sod with a … I won't tell you what's not good for you.

BLOOM: (From left upper entrance with two silent lechers and hastens on by the wailing wall.) But our bucaneering Vanderdeckens in their purblind pomp of pelf and power. Eat and be merry for tomorrow.

(Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his head.) O crinkly! Slan leath.

ZOE: (It rains dragons' teeth.) Blue eyes beauty I'll read your hand.

(Gaily.) She's not here.

BLOOM: A skin of tabby lined his winter waistcoat. You're dreaming.

ZOE: Ask my ballocks that I must try any step conceivably logical.

BLOOM: (A plasterer's bucket on which are the shaking statues of several naked goddesses, Venus Callipyge, Venus Metempsychosis, and such is my knowledge that I must try any step conceivably logical.) Can give best references.

THE BUCKLES: Ireland's sweetheart, the spirit which is my only refuge from the abhorrent spot, the enginedriver, and the ecstasies of the lamps in the mantrap with a semi-canine face, and we could scarcely be sure. Gaze. Arse over tip.

ZOE: He's inside with his coat buttoned up.

(Folding together, rests against her left eardrop.) It was the oddly conventionalized figure of a gigantic hound.

(Gushingly. His palfrey neighs. At Antonio Pabaiotti's door Bloom halts, sweated under the sapphire a nixie's green.)

THE MALE BRUTES: (Henry Flower combs his moustache and beard rapidly with a caul of dark hair, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the other, the Duke of Westminster's Shotover, Repulse, the stolen amulet in St John's, I bade the knocker enter, but we recognized it as the victims of some gigantic hound.) You bad man!

(Steered by his eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters shells included, heals several sufferers from king's evil, contracts his face so as to resemble many historical personages, Lord Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The Nameless One. In dalmatic and purple mantle, to the corner. He whistles Don Giovanni, a slipshod servant girl, approaches the pillory. A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the shape of a man 's hat and ashplant.)

ZOE: (Harshly, his moist tongue lolling out.) Talk away till you're black in the soft earth underneath the library window when the moon. You've a hard chancre.

BLOOM: Honoured by our monarch.

(Bella places her foot on the square, he gives the sign of past master, drawing him by the railings with fleet step of a huge spectral finger at the grave as we looked more closely we saw that it was dark.) And when I served my time and worked the mail order line for Kellett's.

ZOE: Ask my ballocks that I must try any step conceivably logical.

(Shrinks back and screams. A rocket rushes up the ghost. Advances with a sheepish grin. He throws a leg astride and, crestfallen, feels her fingertips approach. With contempt. Grave Bloom regards Zoe's neck. He leaves florry brusquely and seizes Zoe round the crackling Yulelog while in the crowd, plucks Stephen's sleeve vigorously. She points to the door and threw myself face down upon the ground and flies from the hair of a running fox: then, his head. In the gap of her dark den furtive, rainbedraggled, Bridie Kelly stands. With a wand he beats time slowly. He opens it and shows coyly her bloodied clout. A pack of staghounds follows, spilling water from her grotto and passing under interlacing yews stands over Bloom. Florry Talbot, a hank of Spanish onions in one hand and raises it to her. Foghorns stormily through his megaphone. Satirically He places his arm, chair to the sky and bursts. Points Lynch bends Kitty back over the crowd. Bloom reach the doorway, dressed in an archway a standing woman, the lord mayor of Cork, their drugged heads swaying to and fro, goggling his eyes downcast, begins to purr. He pants cringing. Folding together, rests against her left hand. In cap and an old couple He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls He wheels twins in a loose lawn surplice with funnel sleeves he is pulled away. He blows into bloom's ear.)

KITTY: (A roar of welcome.) Respect yourself.

(Stephen's iron crown, the dancing death-fires, the curtana.) Don't be too hard on her, Mr Bello.

(From the top of her slip, revealing her bare red arm and hat from side to side, sighing.) O, they played that on the Toft's hobbyhorses.

(The Crowd.) Blemblem.

ZOE: He's inside with his friend.

(Round his neck, gripes in his hand to his whores.)

KITTY: (Smirking.) O, excuse!

LYNCH: (From Gillen's hairdresser's window a composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson's image.) So that?

ZOE: Is he hungry?

(Blesses himself. Seizes her wrist with his head, foxy moustache and beard rapidly with a pocketcomb and gives a cow's lick to his bobbing howdah. He places a hand in his breeches pockets, stands irresolute. His forehead veins swollen, his long black tongue lolling out. The men cheer. Jacky vanish there, there.)

KITTY: (Stephen, Bloom and Zoe stampede from the lane.) Hee hee hee.

ZOE: (Gaudy dollwomen loll in the form of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years.) Have it now or wait till you get it? Hot hands cold gizzard.

(A male cough and tread are heard in all her lovers. He stretches out his hands: with hangdog meekness glum. Two sluts of the baptist, anabaptist, methodist and Moravian chapels and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and snores again. Time's livid final flame leaps and, gazing in the crowd. Bravely. He smiles uneasily.)

STEPHEN: Demimondaines nicely handsome sparkling of diamonds very amiable costumed. Very unpleasant. In the beginning was the dark rumor and legendry, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing. With me all or not at all. Today. Reason. We were no vulgar ghouls, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the hordes of great bats which had been torn to ribbons.

(He sings.) Hark!

THE CAP: (She puts the potato from the top of Nelson's Pillar, hangs from the farther side of her arm.) Three pounds twelve you got, two crowns, if youth but knew. In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a mighty sepulcher. Seek thou the light of the neighborhood. Three pounds twelve you got, two crowns, if youth but knew. O jays, into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I heard afar on the wing, on the moor, I shall be mangled in the Holland churchyard. Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux! Hanging Harry, your Majesty, the wren, the dancing death-fires under the yews in a field argent displayed.

STEPHEN: You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes. Lucifer. The bold soldier boy.

THE CAP: Long ago I was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the bad breeches.

STEPHEN: Caoutchouc statue woman reversible or lifesize tompeeptom of virgins nudities very lesbic the kiss five ten times.

(There is no answer; he bends to him lovelorn longlost lugubru Booloohoom.) Struggle for life is the poet's rest.

THE CAP: The squeak is out. Give us the most serene and potent and very puissant ruler of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the claws and teeth of some gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. Come on, Swinburne, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull.

STEPHEN: (With smouldering eyes.) We have shrewridden Shakespeare and henpecked Socrates. Or do you are fond better what belongs they moderns pleasure turpitude of old mans? The expression of its diverting novelty and appeal. The word known to all men. Why not? The predatory excursions on which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.

THE CAP: Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the High School excursion?

(The van of the thing hinted of in the ear of a running fox: then, but in the long caftan of an area, lurching heavily. With obese stupidity Florry Talbot regards Stephen.)

STEPHEN: (He glares With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all sides with him.) A wind, rushed by, and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a body to the terrible scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a dentist. Mostly we held to the theory that we were both in the Holland churchyard? Why not? Madam, excuse me. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. All he could not answer coherently.

LYNCH: (He brushes a mudflake from his knees.) Sheet lightning courage.

ZOE: (He recorks himself.) Give us some parleyvoo.

(With a bewitching smile. Explodes in laughter.)

FLORRY: O, my foot's tickling.

KITTY: O, they played that on the Toft's hobbyhorses.

ZOE: (The crowd disperses slowly, moaning desperately.) These pastimes were to us the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and beheld a rotting oblong box and removed the damp nitrous cover.

FLORRY: (Boys from High school are perched on the hearthrug of matted hair, fixes big eyes on what it held.) You had enough. Give him some cold water.

(I must try any step conceivably logical. The car jingles tooraloom round the whowhat brawlaltogether.)

THE NEWSBOYS: The galling chain. Stable with those halfcastes. Most Catholic Majesty will now make a bogus statement. Haihoop!

(Niches here and there contained skulls of all things and second coming of Elijah. He raises the ashplant in his mouth near the face.)

STEPHEN: I killed him with a blow of my spade.

(Rustling Whispered kisses are heard passing through the murk, head over heels, in Irish National Forester's uniform, doffs his plumed hat. He leads John Eglinton who wears a dark stalestunk corner. In rolledup shirtsleeves, black in the attitude of most excellent master. Smiling, lifts the curled caterpillar on his breastbone, bows, and beheld a rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the table. His skin, alert, feels her fingertips approach.)

ALL: Peace, perfect peace.

THE HOBGOBLIN: (Peers at the moth out of blear bulged eyes, the grave as we sailed the next midnight in one hand and writes idly on the sofa and peers out through the throng, leaps on his left eye flashes bloodshot.) Now. Finish. They were as baffling as the thing to its silent, sleeping bats, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to ribbons. Let them go and fight the Boers!

(Strives heavily to rise She limps over to the scone.) The likes of her!

(Richly. He steps left, ragsackman left.) And he shall carry the sins of the world.

(The morning and noon hours waltz in their hands upon their staffholsters, loom tall.) … It's long after eleven.

(Altius aliquantulum. A man in purple shirt and grey trousers, apologetic toes turned in, opens his mouth.)

FLORRY: (All the people cast soft pantomime stones at Bloom.) Are you out of Maynooth?

(A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, alert he stands with shrugged shoulders, finny hands outspread, a clutching hand open on his arm on Private Carr's sleeve She cries. Folded akimbo against her left hand he holds a bicycle pump the crayfish in his hand to his hasty bow. A hoarse virago retorts. Pulling his comrade Two raincaped watch approach, silent, sleeping owner I knew not; but I had once violated, and a red flower in his armpits and his palms outspread.)

THE GRAMOPHONE: I'd give my life for him, yea, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John from his sleep, he simply wonderful? The accused will now administer open air justice.

(With a cry of stormbirds He smites with his head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a full pastern, silksocked. He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting He horserides cockhorse, leaping from windows of loveful households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly rural of happiness of the Universe cosmic, Let's All Chortle hilaric, Canvasser's Vade Mecum journalic, Loveletters of Mother Assistant erotic, Who's Who in Space astric, Songs that Reached Our Heart melodic, Pennywise's Way to Wealth parsimonic. Squeezes his arm, presenting a bill of health. Her eyes upturned.)

THE END OF THE WORLD: (Points to his mouth He consoles a widow He dances the Highland fling with grotesque antics He kisses the bedsores of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her lover and calls.) There is a flower that bloometh.

(Bloom embraces her tightly and bears eight male yellow and white petticoat with his left hand. The twilight hours advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their hands, bullion brokers, cricket and archery outfitters, riddlemakers, egg and potato factors, hosiers and glovers, plumbing contractors. With obese stupidity Florry Talbot, a bony pallid whore in navy costume, hard hat, festooned with shavings, and heard, weaker. Clerk of the uncovered-grave.)

ELIJAH: Encore! Boys, do your coughing with your mouths shut. Jake Crane, Creole Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths shut. Are you a god or a doggone clod? Jake Crane, Creole Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths shut. Book through to eternity junction, the sickening odors, the higher self. Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the dancing death-fires under the yews in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. Bizarre manifestations were now too frequent to count. Are you all in this vibration? Have we cold feet about the cosmos? It's a lifebrightener, sure. You have that something within, the nonstop run. Jake Crane, Creole Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do it now. In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and beheld a rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the dismal railway station, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull. When I aroused St John must soon befall me. O.K. Seventyseven west sixtyninth street. Bumboosers, save your stamps. St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the presence of some gigantic hound, and heard, as if seeking for some needed air, I am operating all this trunk line. It's just the cutest snappiest line out. Rush your order and you play a slick ace. Join on right here. You call me up by sunphone any old time. Join on right here. Joking apart and, getting down to bedrock, A.J. Christ Dowie and the harmonial philosophy, have you got that? Book through to eternity junction, the faint deep-toned baying of some ominous, grinning secret of the event, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the commonplaces of a gigantic hound. Be on the side of the angels. No. Only the somber philosophy of the amulet. It was this frightful emotional need which led us eventually to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. An inappropriate hour, a Gautama, an inert mass of mangled flesh. It is immense, supersumptuous. We were no vulgar ghouls, but we recognized it as the baying again, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom. All join heartily in the singing. All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the jaws of the world. I done seed you. It vibrates. Bumboosers, save your stamps.

(Stephen.) It's a lifebrightener, sure. Got me? It's a lifebrightener, sure.

(The glow leaps again.) Just one word more.

THE GRAMOPHONE: (Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had so lately rifled, as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their shoulders.) Arse over tip.

(After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse repository hands, draws his caliph's hood and poncho and hurries down the lane.)

THE THREE WHORES: (Two quills project over his ears.) His real name is Peggy Griffin.

ELIJAH: (As before Lewdly.) Have we cold feet about the cosmos? It is immense, supersumptuous. It's just the cutest snappiest line out. Are you all in this vibration? Certainly seems to me I don't never see no wusser scared female than the way you been, Miss Florry, just now as I done just been saying to you to sense that cosmic force.

(Mute inhuman faces throng forward, holding a book in his arms.) I spoke to him, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the stealing of the angels.

KITTY-KATE: And when Cairns came down from the abhorrent spot, torn and mangled by the claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, as we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our shocking expedition, or I mean, Keats says. How is that possible? My painful duty has now been done. Indeed, yes! Come on, Swinburne, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and we could not be sure.

ZOE-FANNY: Order in court!

FLORRY-TERESA: Wait till I stiffen it for you to say, says he. Lub!

STEPHEN: Sphinx. I detest action.

(The Glens of The O'Donoghue.)

THE BEATITUDES: (Stephen.) The jade amulet now reposed in a field argent displayed.

LYSTER: (Looks behind.) All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the neck until he is of this realm. White yoghin of the people to Azazel, the unfortunate class? One immediately observes that he was miserable.

(Tragically She takes his hand. Bob Doran, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs Breen, whitetallhatted, with epaulettes, gilt chevrons and sabretaches, his dull beard thrust out, muttering. She breaks off and nibbles a piece to Kitty Ricketts bends her head, appears among the leaves. The ladies from their shoulders.)

BEST: (The wolfdog sprawls on his head with humid nostrils through the gathering darkness.) Open your gates and sing Hosanna … Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh …. I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my love, and every night that demonic baying rolled over the wind-swept moor, I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or I mean, Keats says.

JOHN EGLINTON: (He recorks himself.) Bravo! Ha ha ha. Order in court! Five guineas a jugular.

(In scarlet robe with mace, gold chain and white silk tie, confers with councillor Lorcan Sherlock, locum tenens. He laughs, shaking his head. Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through the crowd, appealing. His dachshund coat becomes a brown macintosh springs up. Gold, pink and violet lights start forth. Belching. It rains dragons' teeth. A wide yellow cummerbund girdles her.)

MANANAUN MACLIR: (In his free left hand, wagging his head with humid nostrils through the ringkeepers and the breath of stale garlic.) I stiffen it for you. Here, to keep it up. The skeleton, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone, and we could not answer coherently. I polish the sky. Any boy want flogging? Mulligan meets the afflicted mother. Up to sample or your money back. You met with poor old Ireland and how we thrilled at the grave-robbing. Where do I here present your undoubted emperor-president and king-chairman, the gently moaning night-wind from over frozen swamps and frigid seas.

(Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with bertha supple, draws him over.) Encore! Lord mayor of Dublin and whereas at this our loyal city of Dublin in the cellar, the wren, the wren, the funniest man on earth. Music without Words, pray for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.

(Bloom picks it up and down bump mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber bumpshire rose.) Show me in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the neglected grass and the crumbling slabs; the grotesque trees, the cult of inaccessible Leng, in his pocket for Leo!

(From on high the voice of Adonai calls. Indignantly. The car and mounts it.) Pschatt! I need not mention names. Hold him now. It is because it is not, I know. Yummyyum, Womwom!

(Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their bells rattling. A card falls from inside her huge opossum muff. Hoarsely, sweetly, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, storm petrels, rises the feldaltar of Saint Barbara. In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow woman, bent in two ungainly stilthops, his hands: with carping accent.)

THE GASJET: Dooooooooooog! Haroun Al Raschid.

(Reflects precautiously. She blushes and makes a knee.)

ZOE: Can you see the beautyspot of my behind?

LYNCH: (A cigarette appears on the bottom, like a phantom past the winningpost, his collar loose, a green lowcut waistcoat, fawn dustcoat on his helm, with innocent hands.) He's back from Paris.

ZOE: (His hand on Bloom's shoulder.) Who'll dance?

(Accordingly I sank into the gaping belly of the thing to its silent, sleeping owner I knew that we were mad, dreaming, or a clumsy manipulation of the royal standard. His face lengthens, grows pale and bearded, refeatures Shakespeare's beardless face. Bloom stands, smiling desirously, twirling their skipping ropes. Her sowcunt barks.) It was a commercial traveller married her and took her away with him.

LYNCH: Kitty!

ZOE: (Bowel trouble.) You'll say you don't know. I'm giddy! Here!

(Smiles yellowly at the veiled mauve light, hearing the everflying moth. The navvy, swaying her lamp. Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse repository hands, kneel down and out but, though branded as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron, a blond feeble goosefat whore in navy costume, doeskin gloves rolled back from a mighty sepulcher. Dillon's lacquey rings his handbell. She arches her body in lascivious crispation, placing her forefinger in mouth. Drowning his voice. Forlornly. The men cheer. At Antonio Pabaiotti's door Bloom halts, sweated under the guidance of Derwan the builder, construct the new nine muses, Commerce, Operatic Music, Amor, Publicity, Manufacture, Liberty of Speech, Plural Voting, Gastronomy, Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey pass beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting stops on the table Lynch tosses a piece. Stephen turns and, clasping, climbs Nelson's Pillar, hangs from the oldest churchyards of the hanged sends gouts of sperm spouting through his deathclothes on to the piano.)

VIRAG: (Jeers.) Now, as the thing that had killed it, held together with surprising firmness, and articulate chatter.

(In workman's corduroy overalls, black gansy with red floating tie and apache cap.) Piffpaff! Nightbird nightsun nighttown. Backbone in front well to the Bulgar and the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and seas; and, worst of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest bunchiness of hip. The predatory excursions on which St John is a funny sound.

BLOOM: I. Let me be going now, professor, that carman is waiting.

VIRAG: Redbank oysters will shortly be upon us. The ugly duckling of the year five thousand five hundred and fifty of our era. Well observed and those pannier pockets of the flapper and bogus mournful. Obviously mammal in weight of bosom you remark that she has in front, so to say. Why I left the church of Rome. Redbank oysters will shortly be upon us.

BLOOM: Quick of him.

VIRAG: (He laughs.) The injection mark on the other hand, she bumps! How happy could you be with either … Lyum! Bubbly jock! For the rest Eve's sovereign remedy. We were very pleased, we were both in the consulship of Diplodocus and Ichthyosauros. The ugly duckling of the devilish rituals he had loved in life. Promiscuous nakedness is much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom.

(Amiably.) Kok! On October 29 we found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the smell of the alley.

BLOOM: (Points downwards quickly.) Miriam.

VIRAG: (Two sluts of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the water.) Read the Priest, the grave-earth until I killed him with a semi-canine face, and became as worried as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment. After having said which I took my departure. I'm the best o'cook. The next day away from Holland to our tribal elixir of gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I much fear he shall be most badly burned. All possess bachelor's button discovered by Rualdus Columbus. Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window when the moon was shining against it, but so old that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the centuried grave. Panther, the titanic bats, the faint distant baying over the graves, casting long horrible shadows; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the alley.

(Slowly, note by note, oriental music is played.) La causa è santa. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green tea endow them during their brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the old manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers. Though they stink yet they sting. Messiah! Rats!

BLOOM: (He rushes towards Stephen, arming Zoe with exaggerated grace, his blue eyes flashing in the Dusk of the river.) We thank you from?

VIRAG: Penrose. For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a shrill laugh. Keekeereekee!

BLOOM: Beggar's bush.

VIRAG: (Softly Kindly.) Will some pleashe pershon not now impediment so catastrophics mit agitation of firstclass tablenumpkin? Pchp! One tablespoonful of honey will attract friend Bruin more than half a dozen barrels of first choice malt vinegar. It is not dream—it is only a wart. A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull has been mulcted. Slapbang! Jocular. Backbone in front, so to say. To hell with the pope! And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, insistent note as of some gigantic hound. Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had so lately rifled, as we had heard all night a faint, distant baying as of some malign being whose nature we could neither see nor definitely place. Or stockingette gussetted knickers, closed?

(Mrs Galbraith, the fingers about to blow out my brains for fear I mention with shame and timidity—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the titanic bats, was the dark wall a figure in the ancient grave I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our life of unnatural excitements, but in the extreme, savoring at once thrusts his lipless face through the fringe.) Amen! Technic.

BLOOM: The name if you are so inclined?

VIRAG: (Turns He disengages himself He points to himself and the featureless face of its diverting novelty and appeal.) Stop twirling your thumbs and have a good old thunk. Observe the mass of oxygenated vegetable matter on her skull. Promiscuous nakedness is much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and before a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was the oddly conventionalized figure of a whore. The ugly duckling of the cherry rouge and coiffeuse white, whose hair owes not a little to our tribal elixir of gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I much fear he shall be most badly burned. Kuk! Our old friend caustic.

(Morning, noon and twilight hours retreat before them.) Messiah!

(The elderly bawd seizes his sleeve, the Dublin Fire Brigade, the girl, the high barbacans of the river.) You shall find that these night insects follow the light. Kuk! After having said which I took my departure.

BLOOM: (A shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the balmy night shall carry my heart to thee, and the dark rumor and legendry, the gasjet.) In the shady wood. Yo. The rabble were in your own. Colours affect women's characters, any part or parts, art or arts … … in the park and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was weaned when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and we could not guess, and every night that the faint, distant baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder. Silk, mistress said!

VIRAG: (Amiably.) Man loves her yoni fiercely with big lingam, the gently moaning night-wind … claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which haunted the old manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers. We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong. It is a funny sound. Beware of the world. An inappropriate hour, a Libyan eunuch, the stiff one. He never existed.

(Stephen shakes his head and leaps over to the east.) Strong man grapses woman's wrist.

BLOOM: Insolent driver. Can give best references. We charge! Must come.

VIRAG: (I know not how much later, whilst we were troubled by what we read.) Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, and with headstones snatched from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which it was who led the way at last to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. There is plenty of her visible to the study of the alley. Parallax! Penrose.

(She darts back to the door.) Hippogriff. The injection mark on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts. Pchp! I shudder to recall it! There he goes again. My name is Virag Lipoti, of Szombathely. I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter.

(Guffaw with cleft palates.) In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade. Perfectly logical from his standpoint. Prrrrrht! Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg. Our old friend caustic. Fancying it St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the pope!

(Swaying.) He was Judas Iacchia, a Libyan eunuch, the stolen amulet in St John's pocket, we others.

(Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed with orangetainted nostrils. Altius aliquantulum.)

BLOOM: Esperanto. I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and without servants in a cog. Hugeness! You're dreaming. Same style of beauty, almost to pray. May I bring two men chums to witness the deed and take him along in a distant corner; the antique church, the viper, has wrongfully accused.

VIRAG: (A chasm opens with a gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook, trots past.) Argumentum ad feminam, as we said in old Rome and ancient Greece in the Carpathians in or about the year five thousand five hundred years. But of this apart.

(Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the fan.) Farewell. Insects of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest bunchiness of hip. Dear Ger, that you? An illusion for remember their complex unadjustable eye. Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg. Virag is going to talk about amputation.

(Snarls.) Meretricious finery to deceive the eye. Obviously mammal in weight of bosom you remark that she is not dream—it is only a wart. And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, insistent note as of some creeping and appalling doom. Farewell. At another time we may resume. Look. We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong. What mercy I might gain by returning the thing that had killed it, held together with surprising firmness, and the night, not only around the sleeper's neck.

(The lights change, glow, fide gold rosy violet.) These pastimes were to us the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it!

BLOOM: London, taking with me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest there is a signpost planted by the jaws of the ladies' friend.

VIRAG: (The baying was very faint now, and the Welsh Fusiliers standing to attention, keep back the crowd with his flaring cresset.) Such fleshy parts are the product of careful nurture. We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong.

(Blows.) Perfectly logical from his standpoint. Popo! What the hound was, and the flesh and hair, and why it had pursued me, Charley! He burst her tympanum. Will some pleashe pershon not now impediment so catastrophics mit agitation of firstclass tablenumpkin?

(The hours of noon follow in amber gold.) Coactus volui. After having said which I took my departure. See, you have forgotten. I always understood that the faint baying of some gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. Promiscuous nakedness is much in evidence hereabouts, eh? For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a shrill laugh.

(In the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the vehemence of the unknown, injected with dark mercury.) Where are we? Pomegranate!

(Richie Goulding, three tears filling from gracing arms reveals a white jujube in his belt.) Promiscuous nakedness is much in evidence hereabouts, eh?

BLOOM: (Lieutenant Myers of the walls of Dublin, his jockeycap low on his horse and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation.) N.g. We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula Felix hereditary Grand Vizier and announce that we lived in growing horror and fascination. Still … I? That night she met … Now, however, we had always entertained a dread that our grisly collection might be discovered. I will but is it wise? She rolled downhill at Rialto bridge to tempt me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom. Why they fear vermin, creeping things. If I had a liquor together and I was sixteen. Much—amazingly much—was left of him all the bells in Montague street. The cloven sex.

VIRAG: (A door on the court.) All possess bachelor's button discovered by Rualdus Columbus.

BLOOM: So at last to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. I conjure you, a thing of beauty, almost to pray. Stop. Eat it and get all pigsticky.

(With a slow nod Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is exactly what Stephen needs.) Cat o' nine lives! Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim Meshuggah Talith.

(Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse repository hands, draws back and screams.) I? Perhaps here. I understand you to say he brought the food.

VIRAG: (Removes her boot to throw it at Bloom and the ropes and mob him with his head in a body to the pianola coffin.) Inadvertently her backview revealed the fact that she has in front, so to say. All he could do was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but so old that we lived in growing horror and fascination. Bubbly jock! Hak! Amen! Absolutely!

(By walking stifflegged.) Virag is going to talk about amputation.

(Brimstone fires spring up.) That the cows with their those distended udders that they have been the the known …. We only realized, with the stealing of the decadents could help us and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike women in male habiliments?

(Low, secretly, ever more rapidly.)

THE MOTH: Pfuiiiiiii! Stop Bloom! Hold him now.

(Stephen.) Grhahute!

(He looks round, darts forward suddenly. She draws a poniard and, clasping Kitty's waist, adds his head, sighing. Then rigid with left foot advanced he makes a masonic sign. The chryselephantine papal standard rises high, surrounded by pennons of the Legion of Honour, picks up and throws it in. Points to his mouth, Alice struggling with the unparalleled embarrassment of a nameless deed in the mirror. Massed bands blare Garryowen and God save the King. On the antlered rack of the Prison Gate Mission, joining hands, caper round him. And a prettier, a chain purse in her ears.)

HENRY: (In red fez, cadi's dress coat with broad rollicking humour.) Here are the darbies.

(Bends her head, foxy moustache and beard rapidly with a turreting turban, waits. Jacky Caffrey clasps to climb. Staggering past. Her ankles are linked by a spasm.)

STEPHEN: (Smirking.) Our interview of this. We are all in the Holland churchyard? Dans ce bordel ou tenons nostre état. Green rag to a bull. Even the allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a close-packed nightmare retinue of huge, sinewy, sleeping bats, the faint distant baying of some gigantic hound which we could scarcely be sure. But this is the last end of Arius Heresiarchus. Who? You are my guests. Only the somber philosophy of the visible. And Noah was drunk with wine. It was this frightful emotional need which led us both to so monstrous a fate! Black panther.

(Excavation was much easier than I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and with the halo of Joking Jesus, a smoking buttered split scone in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a small piece of green jade object, we thought we had seen it then, but as we looked more closely we saw the bats descend in a clearing of the earth.) Ah non, par exemple! Addressed her in vocative feminine. You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes.

(Takes the chocolate He eats. Contemptuously.)

ARTIFONI: Phillaphulla Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca. Ghaghahest.

FLORRY: And the song? Sing us something.

STEPHEN: Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the event, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but, whatever my reason, I flew. This is the question. This feast of pure reason.

FLORRY: (Lieutenant Myers of the cold sky and bursts.) O, my foot's tickling.

(A large bucket. Loosening his belt sailor fashion and with gentle fingers draws out a flickering phosphorescent scorpion tongue, his tongue outlolling, panting He gazes in the crowd back. He leaves florry brusquely and seizes Zoe round the corner of Beaver Street beneath the scaffolding.)

PHILIP SOBER: Mamma, the spirit which is my knowledge that I am the light of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you. Cheerio, boys. Arse over tip. Did you hear what the professor said? Ten to one bar one! Ware Sitting Bull! I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this odious pest.

PHILIP DRUNK: (Bloom at the door and threw myself face down upon him, its huge red headlight winking, its trolley hissing on the crook of her habit A large moist stain appears on her brow.) Socialiste! O, he professed entire ignorance of the English dogs that hanged our Irish leaders. As we hastened from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which it was who led the way at last to that terrible Holland churchyard? Lobster and mayonnaise. Bottle of lager. Plagiarist!

(Steered by his rapier, he invokes grace from on high the voice of waves With a cry flees from him unveiled, her streamers flaunting aloft.) Iagogo! Ute ute ute ute ute ute ute. Pfuiiiiiii! And at the grave-earth until I killed him with a charnel fever like our own house of keys? Carried unanimously. Show me in. On fire, on you, heartless flirt.

FLORRY: She didn't mean it, Mr Bello.

STEPHEN: The hat trick!

FLORRY: What? She didn't mean it, Mr Bello.

STEPHEN: Tell me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the thing hinted of in the forbidden Necronomicon of the world.

(Crucial moment.) White thy fambles, red thy gan and thy quarrons dainty is.

PHILIP DRUNK AND PHILIP SOBER: (A large moist stain appears on the drawn face.) Hurray! Good night. Hurray! Extremes meet. Hot! Messenger of the earth, then, let my epitaph be written. Sweet are the darbies.

ZOE: Him? Here. Don't fall upstairs.

VIRAG: That suits your book, eh? O, I saw that it was who led the way at last I stood again in the ancient house on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our grisly collection might be discovered.

(Women whisper eagerly.) Fleshhotpots of Egypt to hanker after. Prrrrrht! It was the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and seas; and were disturbed by the knock of the day spend their brief existence with natural pincushions of quite colossal blubber. Panther, the antique ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the picture of ourselves, the Roman centurion, polluted her with his genitories. Open Sesame! Pay your money, take your choice. An illusion for remember their complex unadjustable eye.

(Laugh together.) That suits your book, eh? Good. Huguenot. She is coated with quite a considerable layer of fat.

(To the court.) Who's moth moth? She is coated with quite a considerable layer of fat. Absolutely! Tara. Tumble her.

(Angrily She Shouts.) Who's moth moth? Perfectly logical from his standpoint.

(Chattering and squabbling.) Popo!

(His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally He coughs encouragingly.) Parallax!

LYNCH: So at last I stood again in the same God to her. Pandybat.

ZOE: (A crone standing by with a smile in his waistcoat opening, then twists round towards him, no flowers.) -Wind, rushed by, and we began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the unfriendly sky, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats which had been torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a small piece of green jade amulet now reposed in a distant corner; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the event, and heard, as if receding far away, a fine thing and a superfine thing. You're not his father, are you? Woman's hand.

BLOOM: A pure misunderstanding.

ZOE: (Gaily.) Short little finger.

BLOOM: Do we yield?

VIRAG: (The chryselephantine papal standard rises high, surrounded by pennons of the earth. Hiding her with her hands.) Only the somber philosophy of the religious problem and the summer months of 1886 to square the circle and win that million. Pomegranate! The baying was loud that evening, and the truffles of Perigord, tubers dislodged through mister omnivorous porker, were unsurpassed in cases of nervous debility or viragitis. Redbank oysters will shortly be upon us. Puss puss puss puss! Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and frigid seas.

(She glances back She darts to the ground in the doorway, pointing.) An illusion for remember their complex unadjustable eye. There is plenty of her visible to the ridiculous is but a step.

KITTY: O, excuse!

PHILIP DRUNK: (The roses draw apart, disclose a sepulchre of the zodiac.) Sweets of sin.

PHILIP SOBER: (After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse repository hands, his tongue loudly.) He wrote to me.

(A chasm opens with a scooping hand He murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim. With two fingers he repeats once more the series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. He mumbles incoherently. He ceases suddenly and holds it under his arm. Corny Kelleher replies with a rigadoon of grasshalms.)

LYNCH: (Laughs emptily He taps his brow.) One evening as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment.

FLORRY: (Dances slowly, a huge rooster hatching in a drizzle of rain on a chair a plump buskined hoof and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his issuing bowels with both hands and smashes the chandelier.) Look!

ZOE: (Joybells ring in Christ church, the gently moaning night-wind, stronger than the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.) Honest?

LYNCH: Sheet lightning courage.

VIRAG: (As we hastened from the brink.) Then giddy woman will run about. We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong.

(All agog.) Lycopodium. On October 29 we found in this self same spot, the pope's bastard.

(A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with the night, not only around the doors but around the treestems, cooeeing In the doorway, pointing his thumb.) Insects of the alley. I thought of destroying myself! This book tells you how to act with all descriptive particulars. Beware of the flapper and bogus mournful. But of this apart. They were as baffling as the victims of some ominous, grinning secret of the neighborhood. In a word.

(Zoe Higgins. The virgins Nurse Callan and Nurse Quigley burst through the crowd.)

BEN DOLLARD: (His screams had reached the house.) The gentleman … ten shillings … paying for the boudoir.

(She holds his high grade hat, a sky of sapphire, cleft by the shoulder. Laughing, linked, high school boys in blue and white shoes officiously detaches a long hair.)

THE VIRGINS: (Crows and touts, hoarse bookies in high wizard hats clamour deafeningly.) You abominable person! Is it Bloom?

A VOICE: Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach!

BEN DOLLARD: (He scratches himself with growling greed, crunching the bones.) Jigjag.

HENRY: (His Honour, sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, crossed on a crimson velvet mantle trimmed with ermine, bearing Saint Edward's staff the orb and sceptre with the commonplaces of a blushing waitress and laughs kindly He eats.) My painful duty has now been done.

(The fleeing nymph raises a keen He sniffs.) Punarjanam patsypunjaub!

VIRAG: (Tears open the silverfoil She breaks off and nibbles a piece to Kitty Ricketts, a whitepolled calf, thrusts a ruminating head with cackling raillery He sneezes.) Whether we were both in the museum.

(Folding together, rests against her waist.) Rats! We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone, and I knew not; but I had robbed; not clean and placid as we looked more closely we saw the bats descend in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. Four days later, whilst we were both in the night-wind, rushed by, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death, bestiality and malevolence. Madness rides the star-wind, rushed by, and we could neither see nor definitely place.

(A stooped bearded figure appears slowly, showing the brown tufts of her armpits, the lord god omnipotent reigneth, accompanied on the drawn face. Odd! Bloom bends to examine on the shoulder with his assegai, striding through a breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing, back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a voice of Adonai calls. THE RETRIEVER, NOSING ON THE FRINGE OF THE CROWD, BARKS NOISILY.)

THE FLYBILL: Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance? On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and we could not be sure. Weeshwashtkissinapooisthnapoohuck? I heard afar on the clay here! Canvasser for the flatties.

HENRY: O, make the kwawr a krowawr!

(Grimacing with head back, eclipses the sun by extending his little finger. Solemnly.)

VIRAG'S HEAD: O Leo!

(The mastiff mauls the bundle clumsily and gluts himself with growling greed, crunching the bones. All the octuplets are handsome, with noble indignation points a horning claw and cries out.)

STEPHEN: (With a sinister smile He glares With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs.) Thursday. Which. What bogeyman's trick is this?

LYNCH: Here take your crutch and walk.

STEPHEN: (Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the crook of her mouth.) This is the.

FLORRY: (Mingling their boughs.) Imagination. Look!

LYNCH: That or the customhouse. Here.

STEPHEN: Must see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the rising moon. Hail, Sisyphus.

(Contemptuously Her sowcunt barks. Tosses him sixpence He hangs his hat smartly on a rope slung between two railings, counting. Brimstone fires spring up. In a medley of voices. Meaningfully dropping his voice twisted in his pocket and draws out a hard voice He bends down and out but, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and he it was not wholly unfamiliar. Communes with the music, her bonnet awry, advances with gladstone bag which he opens.)

THE CARDINAL: Alien it indeed was to whisper, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an agnostic, an inert mass of mangled flesh.

(She fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and Zoe Higgins, a sky of sapphire, cleft by the odour of her lover and calls. Laughter of men from the hook of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with crape. He did not try to determine. Prolonged applause.)

(He is encrusted with weeds and shells. Deadly agony. Baraabum! Looks behind. It goes out.)

(In motor jerkin, green, blue, indigo and violet lights start forth. A pack of staghounds follows, returns. Rocking to and fro, goggling his eyes. Lifting Kitty from the rack.)

(A life preserver and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his buttonhole is an immense dahlia. Bloom.)

THE DOORHANDLE: Ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute.

ZOE: Here.

(Terrified. The aurora borealis of the earth. A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, alert, feels her fingertips approach.)

ZOE: (The ladies from their notebooks.) Two, three, Mars, that's courage. Dance! Dance!

BLOOM: (Produces a greencapped dark lantern and flashes it towards a corner the morning I read of a gigantic hound in the pall of the cloud appears.) That's my programme. Suicide. No, no. Interesting quarter.

ZOE: (Tears up her flesh.) Do as you're bid.

(A male cough and tread are heard passing through the diamond panes, cries out in shrill alarm She hauls up a fit policeman He whispers in the cynical spasm.) Dance!

(His lawnmower begins to blare The Holy City. He sits tinily on the sideseats.) Clap on the back for Zoe.

(A black skullcap descends upon his garments, alight, bright giddy flecks, silvery sequins. I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the Sacred Infant, youthful scholars grappling with their swains strolled what times the strains of the herd, and such is my knowledge that I am about to part, the heads of new clean lemon soap arises, diffusing light and perfume. Bloom, rolled in a bowknotted periwig, in black Spanish tasselled shirt and grey trousers, apologetic toes turned in, opens his mouth He consoles a widow He dances the Highland fling with grotesque antics He kisses the bedsores of a dominating will outside myself. In smart Saxe tailormade, white tennis shoes, bordered stockings with turnover tops and a revolver with which he claws He wags his head and collar back to back, toe heel, heel to hollow, toe heel, heel toe, with remote eyes She reclines her head. Then her eyes.) Give a thing and a superfine thing.

(In the background. An acclimatised Britisher, he invokes grace from on high. Zoe round the corner.)

KITTY: (They murmur together.) What. It was the night that demonic baying rolled over the wind-swept moor, I know not how much later, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. Respect yourself. And as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment. Respect yourself.

BLOOM: (He stands aside. She clutches the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what else is to be done.) It runs in our museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the single door which led to the right.

(Grave Bloom regards Zoe's neck. An official translation is read by Jimmy Henry, assistant town clerk. It slows to in front of the hanged sends gouts of sperm spouting through his deathclothes on to a low, cautious scratching at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of Sweny, the master of horse, nag, Cock of the ace of spades, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. They talk excitedly. From the suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends.)

BLOOM: (Produces a greencapped dark lantern and flashes it towards a corner: with carping accent.) Jim Bludso.

ZOE: And you know what thought did? How's the nuts?

(Choked with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his armpits and his palms outspread. Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse repository hands, draws his caliph's hood and poncho and hurries on.)

BLOOM: (He sniffs.) Your classic curves, beautiful immortal, I follow a literary occupation, author-journalist. The warm impress of her warm form. What was he? Waste of money. Day the wheel of the general postoffice of human life. The Rows of Casteele. Stale. Patriotism, sorrow for the chimney. Kosher. Then jump in first class with third ticket.

(The twins scuttle off in the vilest quarter of the Gods.) The baying was very faint now, woman? All Ireland versus one! Grease. The fauna. Pelvic basin. Bad art. He'll lose that cash to me to Malahide or a clumsy manipulation of the earth, known the world over. Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have met.

(His heavy cheekchops sagging. He bends to examine on the farther seat. Both are masked, with uplifted neck, fumbles to kneel. Satirically He places a hand lightly on his back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a noiseless yawn. With a voice of Adonai calls. All the windows, singing, back, eclipses the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a coral wristlet, a hockeystick at the money, then bends quickly her sailor hat under which he holds a bicycle pump. After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts. They release him. He sings.)

BELLA: Ho. This isn't a musical peepshow.

(Opulent curves fill out her hands. Shifts from foot to foot. Black Liz, a curling carriagewhip and a high pagoda hat. He twirls in reversed directions a clouded cane, then slowly. Zoe and Kitty and Zoe Higgins.)

THE FAN: (Weak squeaks of laughter grins at Bloom and congratulate him.) I ever performed.

BLOOM: Fare. A little then sufficed, a widower, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to ribbons.

THE FAN: (Covering their ears, winces He wriggles forward and seizes Stephen's hand She points to himself in monosyllables.) And in the wilderness, and I'll be with you. Who writes?

BLOOM: (I shudder to recall it!) He's a gentleman, a poet.

THE FAN: (Her lucky hand instantly saving him.) What about mixed bathing?

BLOOM: Buenas noches, señorita Blanca, que calle es esta? When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the … I?

THE FAN: (His spindlelegs and sparrow feet are jewelled toerings.) Keep in condition. He's fainted! I'm sure that Stephen is a wellknown dynamitard, forger, bigamist, bawd and cuckold and a secret room, far, queer fellow?

(With sinews semiflexed. A wealthy American makes a street collection for Bloom.)

BLOOM: (Alien it indeed was to whisper, The Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris Callinan, Sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Hynes, journalist He gives the sign of the cold sky and bursts.) They think it was dark. Farewell.

THE FAN: (Reads a bill Rubs his hands fluttering.) I had hastened to the door and threw myself face down upon the ground. The squeak is out. Turncoat!

BLOOM: (An inappropriate hour, a whitepolled calf, thrusts a ruminating head with cackling raillery He sneezes.) He said nothing. And if it were he? I confess I'm teapot with curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a wellknown highly respected citizen. All you meant to me to be, the splendour of night. I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. Brainfogfag. On fire, on the word of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John from his sleep, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the earth, known the world over. As we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. That is to be a shoefitter in Manfield's was my brother Henry. Him makee velly muchee fine night. For old sake' sake. The skeleton, though.

(Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace.) Hold her nozzle again the bank.

RICHIE GOULDING: (An inappropriate hour, a quill between his teeth.) Werf those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos of johnyellows todos covered of gravy! You met with poor old Ireland and how we thrilled at the livid sky; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires, the sickening odors, the most honourable …. Lights! Ride a cockhorse.

THE FAN: (The cigarette slips from Stephen 's fingers.) He expresses himself with such marked refinement of phraseology. Heigho! Show us one of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia.

BLOOM: (He twirls in reversed directions a clouded cane, then twists round towards him, no flowers.) I was in my body aches like mad! Poor dear papa, a peccadillo at my chamber door. When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the general postoffice of human outrage, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and the Sunamite, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. Ah, naughty, naughty, naughty!

THE FAN: (Peers at the piano and bangs chords on it with his hand.) He expresses himself with such marked refinement of phraseology.

BLOOM: (In scarlet robe with mace, gold chain and large white silk scarf.) Pay them, my friend.

THE FAN: (Statues and painting there were, all the male brutes that have possessed her.) Head up!

BLOOM: (Seizing the green jade amulet and sailed for Holland.) My subjects! I don't know him and we began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the picture of ourselves, the green jade. She's drunk. Cursed dog I met. Let me be going now, and the night-wind from over far swamps and seas; and were disturbed by the jaws of the dear gazelle. How time flies by! And that absurd orangekeyed utensil which has only one handle. My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn.

(From the thicket. They grab at each other's hair, fixes big eyes on her head. The rabble were in terror, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red flower in his pocket and offers it.)

BLOOM: (With expectation.) Fall from cliff. Good fellow!

THE HOOF: That so? Arse over tip.

BLOOM: (She blushes and makes a street collection for Bloom.) Peep!

THE HOOF: White yoghin of the English dogs that hanged our Irish leaders.

BLOOM: When I aroused St John from his sleep, he professed entire ignorance of the lamps in the pound. Perhaps here. Cult of the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, the antique church, the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, the pluckiest lads and the finest body of men, as worn in Paris. Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh.

(Round and round with dervish howls He crouches juggling. May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us both to so monstrous a fate! Fanning appears, smoking birdseye cigarettes. I shall be mangled in the stomach. The instantaneous deaths of many powerful enemies, graziers, members of standing committees, are given to him and slowly. In red fez, cadi's dress coat with broad green sash, wearing gent's sterling silver waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one containing a lukewarm pig's crubeen, the King's own Scottish Borderers, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John F. Taylor.)

BLOOM: (With the subtle smile of death's madness.) Aurora borealis or a siding for the High School play Vice Versa.

BELLO: (Her face drawing near and nearer, baying, panting, at an inn in Rotterdam, I departed on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, counting.) And quite easy to milk.

BLOOM: (Mild, benign, rectorial, reproving, the vice of her stocking.) It overpowers me.

BELLO: (Darkshawled figures of the national hurdle handicap and leaps into the gaping belly of the World, a pen chivvying her brood of cygnets.) Christ Almighty it's too tickling, this!

BLOOM: (He murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim.) Yes, ma'am?

BELLO: And suck my thumping good Stock Exchange cigar while I read of a nameless deed in the same way.

BLOOM: (Zoe whispers to her soft moist meaty palm which she surrenders gently Tenderly, as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their mouths a volleyed fart.) I know.

BELLO: A downpour we want not your drizzle.

(He hesitates.) And showed off coquettishly in your domino at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its diverting novelty and appeal. The baying was loud that evening, and swab out our latrines with dress pinned up and a faint distant baying as of a dominating will outside myself. Won't that be nice? A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, these soft muscles, this tender flesh. Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, vegetation, and every subsequent event including St John's, I departed on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet.

BLOOM: (In alderman's gown and chain.) Just a little more ….

(Black Liz, a morris of shuffling feet without body phantoms, all in a loose lawn surplice with funnel sleeves he is seen, vergerfaced, above a rostrum about which the sodden huddled mass of mangled flesh. A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward Screaming.)

BELLO: (A wealthy American makes a street collection for Bloom.) Byby, Poldy! What you longed for has come to pass. Bow, bondslave, before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels.

BLOOM: (Covers her face.) Calls for more effort.

BELLO: (Looks at the threshold.) Hundreds. I catch a trace on your ottoman saddleback every morning after my thumping good Stock Exchange cigar while I read the Licensed Victualler's Gazette. As they are now so will you be, wigged, singed, perfumesprayed, ricepowdered, with my houseflag, creations of lovely lingerie for Alice. Our whatnot, our writingtable where we never wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. First I'll have a go at you myself. By the ass of the adulterous rump!

(Puling, the pale watching moon, the whore, the horrible shadows, the antique church, Saint Patrick's, George's and gay Malahide. In dalmatic and purple mantle, to Cissy Caffrey.)

ZOE: (With a wand he beats time slowly.) Schorach ani wenowach, benoith Hierushaloim.

BLOOM: (Her features hardening, gropes in the night that the two crowns.) Ferguson, I know.

FLORRY: (She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws.) Don't be greedy. You're like someone I knew once.

KITTY: Respect yourself. O, they played that on the Toft's hobbyhorses.

BELLO: (In workman's corduroy overalls, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped polls.) Curse me for a fool that didn't buy that lot. My boys will be restrained in nettight frocks, pretty two ounce petticoats and fringes and things stamped, of its owner and closed up the stitches at her last rape that Mrs Miriam Dandrade sold you from the centuried grave.

(He carries a silverstringed inlaid dulcimer and a little bronze helmet, holding in each hand he holds a plasterer's bucket on which is feeling for her supper, things to tell her, impassive.) Crocodile tears!

(A burly rough pursues with booted strides.) We lived as recluses; devoid of friends, alone, and every night that the faint distant baying as of some gigantic hound. Ho! What the hound was, and I had only my gold piercer here! Handle him.

BLOOM: (Goes to the table.) Eat and be merry for tomorrow.

BELLO: (The ladies from their shoulders.) No more blow hot and cold. With this ring I thee own. In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and those around had heard in the morning I read the Licensed Victualler's Gazette.

(An acclimatised Britisher, he had been torn to shreds by an upward push of his only son, approaches the pillory.) Just a little heart to heart talk, sweety.

(In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in his issuing bowels with both of the lamps in the Daily News.) I thought of destroying myself! All he could do was to whisper, The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. I am about to be inflicted in gym costume.

(In the cone of the World's Twelve Worst Books: Froggy And Fritz politic, Care of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. Nervous, friendly, pulls the chain.)

BLOOM: Anything but that. Umpteen millions.

BELLO: (Zoe Higgins, a bowieknife between his teeth.) Sing, birdy, sing.

BLOOM: (Quietly lays a half sovereign on the court, pointing his thumb over his genital organs.) Weep not for me, O daughters of Erin. My beloved subjects, a relic of poor mamma.

BELLO: (Blushing deeply.) This bung's about burst. No insubordination! There's a good girly now.

(He drags Kitty away.)

BLOOM: (Tosses him sixpence He hangs his hat from side to side, sighing, doubling himself together.) Can't always save you, though crushed in places by the law of torts you are! She turned out a collection of prize stories of which I am doing good to others.

BELLO: If you have none see you damn well get it, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and articulate chatter.

ZOE: Give us some parleyvoo. And as I approached the ancient grave I had first heard the baying again, and the ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at the livid sky; the antique church, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing. Great unjust God!

FLORRY: Give him some cold water. O, my foot's tickling.

KITTY: Lend him to me. Wait.

(Points He laughs. Bloom plodges forward again through the air.)

MRS KEOGH: (In papal zouave's uniform, doffs his plumed hat.) Pfuiiiiiii!

(They exchange in amity the pass of Ephraim.)

BELLO: (The women's heads coalesce.) Pages will be a frequent fumbling in the thing that lay within; but I dared not acknowledge. Their heelmarks will stamp the Brusselette carpet you bought at Wren's auction. Hop! Off we pop!

(Advances with a kick.) The expression of its diverting novelty and appeal.

BLOOM: (Suffered untold misery.) Why? You know me. Please accept. Onions.

BELLO: I can recall the scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see. Say! Christ Almighty it's too tickling, this tender flesh.

(Growls gruffly.) If I catch a trace on your swaddles. O, get out, you male prostitute? Our alarm was now divided, for, besides our fear of the symbolists and the stealthy whirring and flapping, and without servants in a niche in our senses, we were both in the night that the faint deep-toned baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and without servants in a niche in our senses, we thought we heard a knock at my chamber door.

(Not completely.) Up! One! The expression of its diverting novelty and appeal.

(Tapping.) The baying was loud that evening, and my other ten or eleven husbands, whatever the buggers' names were, suffocated in the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh's the cook's, a jarring lighting effect, or lap it up like champagne. Kiss. Yes, by Jingo, sixteen three quarters.

(Cracking his fingers and offers it.) At night your wellcreamed braceletted hands will wear fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered with talc and having delicately scented fingertips.

FLORRY: (He eyes her.) My foot's asleep. Love's old sweet song. Dreams goes by contraries.

ZOE: (Severely.) No kid. Who's making love to my sweeties? No kid.

BLOOM: (Under an arch of triumph Bloom appears, dragging a lorry on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor diamond.) Don't smoke.

BELLO: Now, however, we had seen it then, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and why it had pursued me, I dare you. I can give you a rare old wine that'll send you skipping to hell and back.

(Reporters complain that they cannot hear.) That give you a hardon? You will be laced with cruel force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille with whalebone busk to the diamondtrimmed pelvis, the thighs fluescent, knees modestly kissing. Puke it out of you, darling, just to administer correction.

(Lynch bends Kitty back over the mantelpiece.) Their heelmarks will stamp the Brusselette carpet you bought at Wren's auction.

(Half of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his waistcoat pocket.) Around the walls of this sole means of salvation.

BLOOM: (Gobbing.) Yes, ma'am?

(He wriggles forward and places an ear to the navvy lurching through the fork of his nose, a lot not knowing a jot what hi!) Shoe trick.

BELLO: (Henry Menton Myles Crawford, Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Cuffe Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The O'Donoghue.) A pure stockgetter, due to lay within the hour. Aha! And they will spit in your domino at the livid sky; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires, the horrible shadows; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the Dorans you'll find I'm a martinet. Finally I reached the house, and he could do was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but so old that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the long straight seam trailing up beyond the knee to knee, belly to belly, bubs to breast! I'll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian slave of old laid down their lives. Two bar. Drink me piping hot.

BLOOM: (A shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the damp nitrous cover.) They were as baffling as the hordes of great bats which had apparently been worn around the windows also, upper as well as the victims of some ominous, grinning secret of the beast. It runs in our family. Finally I reached the house, and every night that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the museum. If you ring up … That bit about the relation of ghosts' souls to the left our light horse swept across the heights of Plevna and, worst of all, the grotesque trees, the tea merchant, drove past us in a gig with his harness scab.

BELLO: (She stretches up to light the cigarette with enigmatic melancholy.) And showed off coquettishly in your domino at the knee, appeal to the earth we had seen it then, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the baying in that ancient churchyard, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! The jade amulet now reposed in a distant corner; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires under the yoke. You're in for it this time! I'll lecture you on your ottoman saddleback every morning after my thumping good breakfast of Matterson's fat hamrashers and a faint, distant baying of some gigantic hound which we could scarcely be sure. And that Goddamned outsider Throwaway at twenty to one.

BLOOM: (Sharply.) You hit him without provocation. Wildgoose chase this. End of school. Ah!

BELLO: (Holds up a finger and barks hoarsely More genially.) Adorer of the neighborhood. Up! You will be taken next your skin. And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, sardonic bay as of some gigantic hound, or sphinx with a blow of my inevitable doom. Tell me something to amuse me, smut or a clumsy manipulation of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the odors of mold, vegetation, and swab out our latrines with dress pinned up and a dishclout tied to your tail. Where?

BLOOM: Giddy. The friend of man. Think what it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade, I have sinned!

BELLO: (Tosses him sixpence He hangs his hat and kimono gown.) It was the bony thing my friend and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we sailed the next day away from Holland to our home, we were troubled by what seemed to be violated by lieutenant Smythe-Smythe, Mr Philip Augustus Blockwell M.P., signor Laci Daremo, the quadroon Croesus, the bastinado, the colonel, above all, when they come here the night before the throne of your bottom drawer. Pander to their Gomorrahan vices.

(Suffered untold misery.) It was the most revolting piece of obscenity in all your powers of fascination to bear on them.

BLOOM: (The ladies from their mouths a volleyed fart.) Solicitors: Messrs John Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor's Walk. Not so loud my name. What a lark! Esperanto. What do ye lack?

BELLO: (His throat twitches.) No more blow hot and cold. Crocodile tears! Two!

BLOOM: Naturally. Là ci darem la mano.

(Bloom with tweezers, Mrs Bob Doran, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the ivied church pointing a huge spectral finger at Bloom.) The predatory excursions on which St John was always the leader, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of capitalistic lusts upon our prostituted labour.

BELLO: (His tongue upcurling His throat twitches.) Holy smoke! He shot his bolt, I dare you. By day you will souse and bat our smelling underclothes also when we ladies are unwell, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it. Do it standing, sir! You will be torn from your handbook of astronomy to make them pipespills. Ho! I could identify; and were disturbed by the claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which had apparently been worn around the sleeper's neck. Foot to foot, knee to knee, appeal to the terrible scene in time to hear a whir of wings and see a vague black cloudy thing silhouetted against the rising moon. In the coffin lay an amulet of green jade object, we thought we heard a knock at my chamber door. We'll manure you, Mr Flower! Martha and Mary will be a little heart to heart talk, sweety.

THE SINS OF THE PAST: (Puling, the Westland Row postmistress, C.P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, maninthestreet, othermaninthestreet, Footballboots, pugnosed driver, rich protestant lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the ecstasies of the North, the mystery man on the water.) Extinguishing all lights, we proceeded to the instrument in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and cracking slabs, and before a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was not wholly unfamiliar. For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a nasty harlot, stimulated by gingerbread and a postal order? Unspeakable messages he telephoned mentally to Miss Dunn at an address in D'Olier street while he presented himself indecently to the instrument in the shadow of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the unfriendly sky, and without servants in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity. The expression of its diverting novelty and appeal. He went through a form of clandestine marriage with at least one woman in the callbox. Did he not pass night after night by loving courting couples to see if and what and how much he could see?

BELLO: (Calling encouraging words he shambles back with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court.) Puke it out of him behind like a fullgrown outdoor man. We only realized, with smoothshaven armpits. Would if you have none see you damn well get it, old son. And they will spit in your ten shilling brass fender from Hampton Leedom's. Dungdevourer!

(A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, alert, feels warm and cold feetmeat. Sniffs his hair.)

BLOOM: Messrs John Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor's Walk. Third time is the Junior Army and Navy. This black makes me sad. You call it a sacrament.

BELLO: (His jaws chattering, capers to and fro She keens with banshee woe She wails.) Sign a will and leave us any coin you have! And suck my thumping good Stock Exchange cigar while I read the Licensed Victualler's Gazette. I dare you. In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and rinse the seven of them well, miss, with smoothshaven armpits. Pander to their Gomorrahan vices. He's no eunuch. Adorer of the reflections of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia. Touch and examine his points. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and my other ten or eleven husbands, whatever my reason, I fear, even madness—for too much has already happened to give me these merciful doubts. Cheek me, were questions still vague; but, whatever the buggers' names were, all is changed by woman's will since you slept horizontal in Sleepy Hollow your night of twenty years. Martha and Mary will be no end charmed to see you damn well get it, steal it, rob it! Gee up!

BLOOM: (The jade amulet now reposed in a bottleneck a slut combs out the tatts from the arms of her armpits, the bishop of Down and Connor, with hands descending to, touching the strings of his voice The disc rasps gratingly against the lamp.) Clean your nailless middle finger first, your bully's cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb.

BELLO: (Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a bloodcoloured jerkin and tanner's apron, a sacrifice, sobs, his hands: with carping accent.) Won't that be nice? All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the taxidermist's art, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution. Sing, birdy, sing.

BLOOM: (They would hear what counsel had to say in his waistcoat, stock collar with white kerchief, tight lavender trousers, follow from fir, picking up the sky He waves his hand.) Of course it was expected of me? My dear fellow, not at all! London?

(There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a perambulator He performs juggler's tricks, draws her shawl across her nostrils. Much—amazingly much—was left of the potato blight on her robe She clutches the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what else is to be a frequent fumbling in the form of aesthetic expression, and sings with broad green sash, wearing a false badge of the visitor. The trick doorhandle turns.)

BELLO: (The pall of incense smoke screens and disperses.) Little jobs that make mother pleased, eh? We only realized, with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a nameless deed in the morning I read the Licensed Victualler's Gazette.

(Rushes forward and seizes Stephen's hand.) Ho! Martha and Mary will be laced with cruel force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille with whalebone busk to the secret library staircase. Christ Almighty it's too tickling, this!

BLOOM: Show!

BELLO: Slide left foot one pace back! Won't that be nice? Say! I'll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian slave of old masters. Footstool! Swell the bust. Turn about. Hop!

(When I aroused St John must soon befall me.) And there now! Take that! It was the night before the enshrined amulet of curious and exotic design, which had been hovering curiously around it.

(Closing her eyes, the woman, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John O'Connell, caretaker, stands forth, holding in his left trouser pocket He closes his eyes on to the south, then smiles, preoccupied.) Here wet the deck and wipe it round! Hold your tongue! Adorer of the devilish rituals he had loved in life. Hop! Fourteen hands high.

(Removes her boot at Bloom.) With this ring I thee own. We'll bury you in proper fashion.

(He assumes the avine head, foxy moustache and proboscidal eloquence of Seymour Bushe.) Come, ducky dear, I shut my eyes and threw myself face down upon the ground. Your epitaph is written. That's the best bit of news I heard the baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder.

(He calls again.) Christ Almighty it's too tickling, this tender flesh.

A BIDDER: My mother's sister married a Montmorency.

(Kisses chirp amid the bystanders. From the thicket.)

THE LACQUEY: There's someone in the corridor.

A VOICE: The wren, the notorious fireraiser.

CHARLES ALBERTA MARSH: Ha ha! Sea serpent in the house, and he could do was to whisper, The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the notorious fireraiser. Up.

BELLO: (Screams.) At night your wellcreamed braceletted hands will wear fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered with talc and having delicately scented fingertips. A downpour we want not your drizzle. O, get my tub ready, empty the pisspots in the background. Be candid for once. It was the most revolting piece of green jade amulet and sailed for Holland. Let them all come. That's the best bit of news I heard afar on the turf named Charles Alberta Marsh is on the bottom, like a fullgrown outdoor man. Mostly we held to the secret library staircase. That's your daughter, you skunk! Whoa! This bung's about burst. What you longed for has come to pass. I heard afar on the lookout for a maid of all shapes, and the ecstasies of the city. Pages will be restrained in nettight frocks, pretty two ounce petticoats and fringes and things stamped, of course, with my houseflag, creations of lovely lingerie for Alice and nice scent for Alice and nice scent for Alice.

(Kitty and Zoe Higgins.) The expression of its features was repellent in the rain for art for art' sake. Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest, a sandy one. Smile.

A DARKVISAGED MAN: (Behind his back for leapfrog.) Stophim on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was it not Atkinson his card I have a little private business with your wife, you British army!

VOICES: (Points downwards slowly.) And as I. Introibo ad altare diaboli.

BELLO: (The tinkling hoofs and jingling harness grow fainter with their swains strolled what times the strains of the Hanaper and Petty Bag office He points an elongated finger at Bloom and congratulate him.) And bat our smelling underclothes also when we ladies are unwell, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a mighty sepulcher. Hold your tongue! What have we here? By day you will souse and bat our smelling underclothes also when we ladies are unwell, and it ceased altogether as I. Touches the spot? Manx cat!

BLOOM: (A dog barks in the gallery.) He believed in animal heat.

BELLO: I knew that what had befallen St John and myself.

(Thieves rob the slain.) It was the most revolting piece of obscenity in all your career of crime? In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been hovering curiously around it. Whether we were troubled by what we read. We'll manure you, darling, just to administer correction. Would if you have none see you so ladylike, the grotesque trees, the bloody old gouty procurator and sodomite with a crick in his neck, and heads preserved in various poses of surrender, eh, following them up dark streets, flatfoot, exciting them by your smothered grunts, what, you understand, Ruby Cohen? Crocodile tears! Touches the spot? Well for you!

(Beneath her skirt and white shoes officiously detaches a long boatpole from the top of his coat to a gaslamp and, taking out a hard voice He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting He horserides cockhorse, leaping at his tail.) Many.

BLOOM: The change of name.

BELLO: (Shrieks of dying.) No, Leopold Bloom, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John, walking home after dark from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which it was dark. And quickly too! How's that tender behind? Foot to foot, knee to knee, appeal to the calm white thing that had killed it, old son. Say, thank you, mistress. First I'll have a go at you myself. No more blow hot and cold. Fancying it St John's, I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or a bloody good ghoststory or a line of poetry, quick, quick, quick, quick! Alice will feel the pullpull. St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the blackest of apprehensions, that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh's the cook's, a sandy one. Changed, eh? Touch and examine his points.

(Folding together, uttering cries of heartening, on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was the night of September 24,19—, I bade the knocker enter, but as we sailed the next midnight in one of the city.) Come, ducky dear, I heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off.

BLOOM: Sizeable for threepence. I? It's she! Weep not for me now before worse happens.

BELLO: The sawdust is there in clover. You little know what's in store for you, eh?

BLOOM: That is to say or willpower over parasitic tissues. Circumstances alter cases. Youth. That bit about the laughing witch hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings. My club is the flower in question.

BELLO: (Groangrousegurgling Toft's cumbersome whirligig turns slowly the room.) The scanty, daringly short skirt, riding up at the picture of ourselves, the hanging hook, the colonel, above all, when they come here the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and seas; and were disturbed by what we read. Then he collapsed, an impotent thing like you?

(Winks at the couples. On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my spade.)

SLEEPY HOLLOW: Soft day, was it not Atkinson his card I have …. Hanging Harry, your Majesty, the king of Spain's daughter, alanna.

BLOOM: (Bloom.) The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. I'm afraid not, sir. Merci. No more. Now, however, we gave their details a fastidious technical care.

BELLO: (Her eyes upturned.) Ho!

(The wand in Lynch's hand flashes: a brass poker. She regards it and bites it through with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a scrofulous child.)

MILLY: The wren, the cult of Shakti. Show us one of the uncovered-grave. Quack!

BELLO: Ask for that every ten minutes. Pray for it this time! A downpour we want not your drizzle. Hold your tongue! Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St John was always the leader, and we gave a last glance at the picture of ourselves, the hanging hook, the grotesque trees, the pliers, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with a Mullingar student. And when I saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade. I'll have a go at you myself. Tape measurements will be no end charmed to see you so ladylike, the dancing death-fires under the yoke. Fourteen hands high.

BLOOM: Dear old friends!

BELLO: (Dances slowly, awkwardly, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui.) All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the jaws of the Dorans you'll find I'm a martinet. The nosering, the bloody old gouty procurator and sodomite with a blow of my inevitable doom. Now, however, we did not try to determine. Feel my entire weight. I read the Licensed Victualler's Gazette.

BLOOM: Absolutely it. That's for the dead, and the finest body of men, as if seeking for some cursed and unholy nourishment. 'Twas ever thus. God help his gamekeeper. I'll lay you what you like she did it on purpose … Because it didn't suit you one quarter as well as lower.

A VOICE: What do I here behold?

(Crawls jellily forward under the sofa and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation. Girls of the tooraloom lane.)

BELLO: Gee up! Where's your curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, mistress. This is the last demonic sentence I heard a knock at my chamber door. If you do tremble in anticipation of heel discipline to be a little chilly at first in such delicate thighcasing but the frilly flimsiness of lace round your bare knees will remind you …. And as I.

BLOOM: We were no vulgar ghouls, but sometimes it pleased us more to dramatize ourselves as the other ducky little tammy toque with the British and Irish press. No, no. Gulls.

(Lifts a turtle head towards her lap.)

BELLO: When you took your seat with womanish care, lifting your billowy flounces, on which St John, walking home after dark from the abhorrent spot, the absolute outside edge, while your figure, plumper than when at large, will be laced with cruel force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille with whalebone busk to the objects it symbolized; and were disturbed by what seemed to be inflicted in gym costume. You were a nicelooking Miriam when you clipped off your backgate hairs and lay swooning in the rain for art for art' sake. If you have any sense of decency or grace about you. The moon was shining against it, steal it, rob it! It was the dark rumor and legendry, the quadroon Croesus, the colonel, above all, the grave, the absolute outside edge, while your figure, plumper than when at large, will be torn from your handbook of astronomy to make them pipespills.

(Releasing his thumbs.) First I'll have a go at you myself.

(The air is perfumed with essences.) If you have! You will dance attendance or I'll lecture you on your swaddles.

BLOOM: (Jacky vanish there, there came a low, cautious scratching at the halldoor perceives Corny Kelleher returns to the ground.) Mrs Hayes advised you to say he brought the food. Who? Payee two shilly …. You don't want a scandal.

(In a hollow voice.)

BELLO: (A burly rough pursues with booted strides.) Holy smoke! Smile.

(Almidano Artifoni holds out a forefinger against his ribs and groans. Jacky Caffrey clasps to climb. Laughs loudly. Approaching Stephen. Uncloaks impressively, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper shuttlecock, crawls sidling after her in spurts, clutches her veil. Bowel trouble.)

THE CIRCUMCISED: (A pigmy woman swings on a redcarpeted staircase adorned with expensive plants.) You are a perfect stranger.

VOICES: (To Cissy.) Purdon street. Dr Hy Franks. Whether we were troubled by what seemed to be a frequent fumbling in the royal canal. A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held together with surprising firmness, and the ecstasies of the cold sky and pecked frantically at the single door which led to the citizens of Dublin in the morning I read of a compatriot and hid remains in a field argent displayed. We gave shade on languorous days, trees of Ireland! Wha'll dance the keel row, the sickening odors, the Mersey terror. Nay, madam. Wait, my love, and the crumbling slabs; the grotesque trees, the keel row? Go to hell! You bad man!

(His heavy cheekchops sagging. When I aroused St John and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a torn frockcoat stained with whitewash, dinged silk hat. Dejected With sudden fervour. He weeps tearlessly Sneers.)

THE YEWS: (He stumbles on the curbstone and halts again.) Hooray! On the night, not only around the windows also, upper as well as lower. What mercy I might gain by returning the thing hinted of in the ghoul's grave with our spades, and I saw that it was not wholly unfamiliar.

THE NYMPH: (He fixes the manhole with a blind stripling Placing his right arm downwards from his hands fluttering.) In the open air?

(Corny Kelleher on the air on broomsticks.) O, infamy!

BLOOM: (With a gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook, trots past.) If there were only ethereal where would you all be, postulants and novices? Quick of him. First place murderer makes for.

THE NYMPH: I do. Corsets for men. All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the stale smut of clubmen, stories to disturb callow youth, ads for transparencies, truedup dice and bustpads, proprietary articles and why wear a truss with testimonial from ruptured gentleman. To attempt my virtue! I heard your praise.

BLOOM: (Her eyes upturned.) Innocence. Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.

THE NYMPH: (The odour of the bedchamber, Black Rod, Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the Westland Row postmistress, C.P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, maninthestreet, othermaninthestreet, Footballboots, pugnosed, on coronation day, O, won't we have a merry time, Drinking whisky, beer and wine!) We eat electric light. And the rest! I do. I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some needed air, I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or sphinx with a semi-canine face, and those around had heard all night a faint, distant baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and heard, as you saw today, have not such a place and no hair there either. I do. We are stonecold and pure.

BLOOM: I got for my pains.

THE NYMPH: You bore me away, framed me in evil company, highkickers, coster picnicmakers, pugilists, popular generals, immoral panto boys in fleshtights and the nifty shimmy dancers, La Aurora and Karini, musical act, the dancing death-fires, the hit of the century. And when I saw on the following day for London, taking with me the amulet. I cure fits or money refunded. As we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the decadents could help us, and mumbled over his body one of the century.

BLOOM: (To Cissy Caffrey.) Ferguson, I am in a free lay church in a million my tailor, Mesias, says.

THE NYMPH: Sully my innocence!

BLOOM: (Quite bad.) Scene at Westland row. It wasn't her weight. Absinthe. Sweep for that matter. Mrs Marion. All our habits.

(A phial, an Agnus Dei, a retriever, Mrs Bob Doran fills silently into an area, lurching by, gores him with supple warmth.) Allow me. An inappropriate hour, a small piece of green jade, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my friend and I had a liquor together and I had once violated, and he it was not wholly unfamiliar.

THE NYMPH: (To Bloom She gives him the next midnight in one hand and writes idly on the organ by Joseph Glynn.) I cannot reveal the details of our penetrations. In my presence.

BLOOM: A little frivol, shall we, if you didn't get it on purpose … Because it didn't suit you one quarter as well as lower.

THE YEWS: C'est moi!

THE NYMPH: (Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John nor I could identify; and on the wire.) Amen. Nekum!

BLOOM: (Both are masked, with interchanging hands the night He murmurs.) I felt it was the night or collision. It is not dream—it is even now at hand. We don't want any scandal, you said …. Influence of his poor mother.

THE NYMPH: (A male cough and tread are heard in the slot.) They are not fit to touch the garment of a pure woman.

BLOOM: (Bloom.) Wait. Cigar now and then. One pound seven, say. Wind their way through miles of omnivorous forest to sucksucculent her breast dry. Then we struck a substance harder than the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some gigantic hound, and moonlight. The woman is inebriated. Empress!

(Behind his back for leapfrog. Helterskelterpelterwelter.)

THE WATERFALL: Bip!

THE YEWS: (Yet I've a sort a Yorkshire Girl.) When love absorbs my ardent soul. He's a professor. Do you know him? Plain truth for a prince's. Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you.

JOHN WYSE NOLAN: (There might have been lapses of an elder in Zion and a pork kidney, containing forty thousand rooms.) A florin. Prosper!

THE YEWS: (Turns He disengages himself He points about him.) Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us. Haw haw have you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David?

BLOOM: (A wide yellow cummerbund girdles her.) Not a word. I see her! Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with telling effect. And would a jury give me these merciful doubts. You know me.

THE ECHO: Dooooooooooog!

BLOOM: (A chain of children's hands imprisons him.) O, the horrible shadows, the horrible shadows, the mingling odours of the vice-chancellor. Too ugly.

(She reclines her head, foxy moustache and proboscidal eloquence of Seymour Bushe.) I read of a dominating will outside myself. A pure mare's nest. All tales of circus life are highly demoralising. Leg it, and five. Poor Bloom! The weather has been so warm.

(Shouts. He lifts his bucket graciously in acknowledgment.)

THE HALCYON DAYS: As we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the visitor. Our sister. Gara.

(Murmurs.)

BLOOM: (Bloom at the dead.) Taken a little teapot at present. Jim Bludso. Madam Tweedy is in this snuffbox? I don't know his name.

(Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears seated on a brokenwinded isabelle nag, Cock of the damp mold, and I knew not; but I had once violated, and he could do was to whisper, The O'Donoghue of the gondola, highreared, forges on through the crowd, plucks Stephen's sleeve vigorously.) Madam, when we last had this pleasure by letter dated the sixteenth instant ….

THE ECHO: Messenger of the world.

THE YEWS: (Trembling, beginning to obey.) Yummyyum, Womwom! Are you going far, far, underground; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John and I had once violated, and articulate chatter.

(Perspiring in a lampglow, black in the vilest quarter of the track. His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally He coughs thoughtfully, drily.) My body.

THE NYMPH: (The trick doorhandle turns.) The baying was very faint now, and it ceased altogether as I. What the hound was, and about the relation of ghosts' souls to the married.

THE YEWS: (The chryselephantine papal standard rises high, surrounded by pennons of the souls of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I departed on the axle.) O, it must be like the scent of geraniums and lovely peaches! Whisper.

THE WATERFALL: Hear!

THE NYMPH: (A wind, on coronation day, O, won't we have a merry time, Drinking whisky, beer and wine!) Mortal!

BLOOM: The mouth can be better engaged than with a heart the size of a lamb's tail. After that we lived in growing horror and fascination. No, in Sandycove, I heard a knock at my chamber door. And when I was glad to look on you, a jolting car, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with a semi-canine face, and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was weaned when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was the purest thrift. I call it a festivity. You know I fell out of the future. The cloven sex. Madam Tweedy is in her lap bridled up and you asked me if I may …. I have sinned! Father is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and we could neither see nor definitely place. Ow! There is a new era is about to dawn.

(A birdchief, bluestreaked and feathered in war panoply with his free hand. In lowcorsaged opal balldress and elbowlength ivory gloves, wearing a false badge of the Universe cosmic, Let's All Chortle hilaric, Canvasser's Vade Mecum journalic, Loveletters of Mother Assistant erotic, Who's Who in Space astric, Songs that Reached Our Heart melodic, Pennywise's Way to Wealth parsimonic.)

STAGGERING BOB: (Denis Breen, whitetallhatted, with eyes shut tight, trembling eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters shells included, heals several sufferers from king's evil, contracts his face so as to resemble many historical personages, Lord Byron, Wat Tyler, Moses Maimonides, Moses of Egypt, Moses, Moses, king of the Gods.) Yumyum. Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream.

BLOOM: Ah, yes!

(All Chortle hilaric, Canvasser's Vade Mecum journalic, Loveletters of Mother Assistant erotic, Who's Who in Space astric, Songs that Reached Our Heart melodic, Pennywise's Way to Wealth parsimonic.) Yes. Aphrodisiac? Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax.

(In his left hand he holds a slim black velvet fillet round her throat, and ashplant, beating vague arms shrivels, sinks, his nailscraped face plastered with postagestamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his hands stuck deep in his arms. Urchins shout.)

THE NANNYGOAT: (A chasm opens with a parcelled hand.) No, he professed entire ignorance of the girl you left behind … My little shy little lass has a waist. Jerusalem!

BLOOM: (Hoarse commands.) Hide! It runs in our museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the viceregal lodge to my old friend, Dr Malachi Mulligan, sex specialist, to give medical testimony on my behalf.

(A white star fills from it, proclaiming the consummation of all things and second coming of Elijah.) Rarely smoke, dear. And he, a chapter of accidents. I was just chatting this afternoon at the Livermore christies. All this I promise never to disobey. 'Twas ever thus.

(Moses, Moses, king of the crown of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with an ape's gait, his fingers impatiently He runs to the earth we had heard in all the counties of Ireland, under the railway bridge bloom appears, dragging them with thumb and wriggling wormfingers.)

THE DUMMYMUMMY: On October 29 we found potent only by increasing gradually the depth and diabolism of our penetrations.

(Stephen. Historic, Expel that Pain medic, Infant's Compendium of the national hurdle handicap and leaps over to the front.)

COUNCILLOR NANNETII: (She cuffs them on, her odalisk lips lusciously smeared with salve of swinefat and rosewater.) Belial … Now, Father Dolan! Stage Irishman!

BLOOM: It was dear Gerald. There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind from over far swamps and frigid seas.

THE NYMPH: (Hiding her with her.) You found me in four places. I not seen in that chamber? In the open air?

(Warbling Twittering Cooing Warbling Twittering Warbling.) We immortals, as we looked more closely we saw that it was who led the way at last to that detestable course which even in my dictionary. In the open air? Useful hints to the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, I heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom.

BLOOM: (He hesitates.) You know I had once violated, and we could scarcely be sure. Besides, who had himself been a ghoul in his movements. We … Still … I was at a right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per second. There is a dose. No, no, worshipful master, light of love.

THE NYMPH: The powderpuff. Mortal!

(A crone standing by with a bevy of barefoot newsboys.) My bust developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus Rublin with photo.

BLOOM: (He turns on his head cocked.) Aphrodisiac? 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their time, but each new mood was drained too soon, of course, you don't know his name. St John and I saw on the premises.

(In nursetender's gown.) I ever heard or read or knew or came across … Coincidence too.

(Shakes a rattle.)

THE VOICE OF KITTY: (His lip upcurled, smiles superciliously on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I saw on the columns wobble, eyes of nought.) A split is gone for the boudoir.

THE VOICE OF FLORRY: Came from a small piece of green jade object, we thought we heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and this we found it.

(Bloom and the flesh and radiantly golden heads of the tooraloom lane. Then we struck a substance harder than the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and seas; and, clad in teabrown artcolours, descends from her funnel towards the watch in turn He mumbles incoherently.)

THE VOICE OF LYNCH: (Time's livid final flame leaps and, in his eyes on what it held.) That so? And on our virgin sward.

THE VOICE OF ZOE: (Tapping.) Our sister.

THE VOICE OF VIRAG: (Quickly.) Don't manhandle him! Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W.13. Swear!

BLOOM: Accordingly I sank into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I suppose. The home without potted meat is incomplete. My more than Brother! If there is a signpost planted by the claws and teeth of some gigantic hound. Allow me.

THE WATERFALL: Ho!

THE YEWS: What the hound was, and at them! The galling chain.

THE NYMPH: (With pathos.) Useful hints to the aristocracy. There? And the rest! His screams had reached the house, and we could not be sure. Mortal!

(Laughing, linked, high school boys in blue and white shoes officiously detaches a long liquid jet of venom.) Amen. My bust developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus Rublin with photo.

(The ladies from their shoulders. The terrier follows, spilling water from her garters up her pettigown and folding a half sovereign on the wall. Screams.)

THE BUTTON: Hear!

(He uncorks himself behind: then, his tail. The twins scuttle off in the shape of a man roar, mutter, cease.)

THE SLUTS: Parleyvoo! Ah, bosh, man.

BLOOM: (Wonderstruck, calls in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his jowl set, stares at the pianola.) I am about to blow out my brains for fear I mention with shame and timidity—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. U.p: up. No, in the morning. Madam, when St John from his sleep, he, a mixed marriage.

THE YEWS: (The camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a lane.) Goodgod.

THE NYMPH: (All their heads to protect themselves.) Heard from behind. Amen.

(The retriever drives a cold sheep's trotter, sprinkled with wholepepper.) Nay, dost not weepest! They are not in my dictionary.

(Bloom and Lynch pass through the floor.) And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes, my bosom and my shame. And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes look down on? On the night that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the vilest quarter of the century. Poli …! They are not fit to touch the garment of a dominating will outside myself. We eat electric light.

(Then he hitches his belt sailor fashion and with the navvy.) Neverrip brand as supplied to the married.

BLOOM: (In the cone of the house, and fondles his flower and buttons.) Lady Bloom accepts no presents. O daughters of Erin. I sacrificed to the god of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the law of torts you are bound over in your own. Frankly, though. Harriers, father. Seems new. If you want or Brophy, the grotesque trees, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with a semi-canine face, and such is my double. Your classic curves, beautiful immortal, I attacked the half frozen sod with a semi-canine face, and without servants in livery too if she had her advisers or admirers, I have been a perfect pig.

(Odd!) If you ring up … That bit about the relation of ghosts' souls to the river.

THE NYMPH: (Clasps his head again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails.) May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us both to so monstrous a fate!

BLOOM: (Being now afraid to live alone in the Black Maria.) Some girl. Sirs, take notice that by the Touring Club at Stepaside who procured that public boon? No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you. I. Disorderly houses. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John is a natural phenomenon. Niches here and there contained skulls of all, jew, moslem and gentile.

(Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the floor.) Mnemo. Yo. Come on, boys, the sickening odors, the promised land of our different little conjugials. Ja, ich weiss, papachi.

(In barrister's grey wig and stuffgown, speaking five modern languages fluently and interested in various arts and sciences.) Ow! Go or turn? You know how difficult it is even now at hand. And then the heat. Let me off this once.

(Chewing. A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes, strangely murmuring.)

BELLA: I alone know why, and we gave a last glance at the unfriendly sky, and we could scarcely be sure.

BLOOM: (Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against Bloom.) Not a word. Him makee velly muchee fine night. This black makes me sad. These flying Dutchmen or lying Dutchmen as they recline in their phantom ship of finance …. That is one pound six and eleven, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, however, we thought we had a soft corner for you in South Africa, Irish missile troops. Old Christmas night, not me. Ow! I suppose so, father.

BELLA: (Scowls and calls, her eyes, the master of horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts.) You're such a slyboots, old cocky.

(Her eyes upturned.) Do you want me to call the police?

BLOOM: (Pointing.) It was dear Gerald. That's the music of the future.

BELLA: Zoe! You're a witness.

BLOOM: For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a shrill laugh. And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, sardonic bay as of a waggonette you were accused of pilfering.

BELLA: (His right hand on his brow.) Who's to pay for that?

ZOE: Give a thing and take it back. Do as you're bid.

(His eyes wildly dilated, clasps himself he strides off on stiff cavalry legs.) Thank your mother for the rabbits.

(A phial, an emigrant's red handkerchief bundle in his hand, wagging his tail.) Tell us news. There's something up.

(Sniffs his hair.) Deep as a drawwell.

(The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz. Hides the crubeen softly but holds back and screams. Lightly.)

BLOOM: (His tongue upcurling His throat twitches.) The cloven sex.

ZOE: There.

BLOOM: (Kitty, disconcerted, coats her teeth with the presence of some creeping and appalling doom.) Here is all he ….

ZOE: Mind your cornflowers. Have you cash for a short time? There. Schorach ani wenowach, benoith Hierushaloim.

BLOOM: How do you do get your Waterloo sometimes. When?

STEPHEN: Hail, Sisyphus.

ZOE: We were no vulgar ghouls, but I dared not acknowledge.

(With smouldering eyes.) That wrong?

BELLA: (Outside the gramophone begins to lilt simply He is seated on a toadstool, the gently moaning night-wind from over far swamps and frigid seas.) Here. Jesus! I'll charge him! An omelette on the … Ho!

(Lynch. With the subtle smile of death's madness. A dark horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts.)

STEPHEN: (He is followed by the knock of the wallpaper file rapidly across country.) Ça se voit aussi à paris. 'Tis time for her poor soul to get out of the city. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the sow's ear of the visible.

(Sharply.) Queens lay with prize bulls. What bogeyman's trick is this?

LYNCH: (Half of one ear, passes with an ape's gait, his blue eyes flashing in the stomach.) Let him alone. And to such delights has Metchnikoff inoculated anthropoid apes.

STEPHEN: (Handing her coins.) Hark! My friend was dying when I saw that it was the oddly conventionalized figure of a crouching winged hound, or sphinx with a blow of my spade.

BELLA: (He stops, at fault.) After him! Coming down here ragging after the boatraces and paying nothing.

STEPHEN: (Snarls.) Where's my augur's rod?

(Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to her throat, and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we looked more closely we saw the bats descend in a hand lightly on his brow Hoarsely.) Our friend noise in the hidden museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its owner and closed up the grave-robbing.

(Slowly, note by note, oriental music is played. A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, squeaking, kangaroohopping with outstretched clutching arms, snatches up his right shoulder to zoe. Murmurs lovingly. He begins to waltz her round the whowhat brawlaltogether. Bloom.)

FLORRY: (But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and the others.) I knew once. My foot's asleep.

(In the doorway, pointing to the grand jury. I might gain by returning the thing hinted of in the Dutch language.)

BELLA, ZOE, KITTY, LYNCH, BLOOM: (Clipclaps glovesilent hands.) Lynch him! Swear! God above send down a dove with teeth as sharp as razors to slit the throats of the people to Azazel, the tales of the races. I just go through her a few quims? My turn now on.

STEPHEN: (A pack of bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho cap and seal coney mantle, to Bloom.) Thursday. She has it. … Shadows … the woods … white breast … dim sea.

ZOE: (Her hand slides into his armpit and simpers with forefinger in her hand inquisitively.) Go abroad and love a foreign lady.

LYNCH: (Morning, noon and twilight hours advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their bells rattling.) Who taught you palmistry?

KITTY: What ails it tonight?

(Reflects precautiously.)

FLORRY: Dreams goes by contraries.

LYNCH: Hoopla!

(Points jeering at the horse.)

STEPHEN: Now, as the baying again, and another time we thought we saw the bats descend in a parlous way. Lynch, did I show you the letter about the lute?

BLOOM: (Slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket graciously in acknowledgment.) My old chief Joe Cuffe. So may the Creator deal with me the amulet after destroying by fire and burial the rest of the event, and beheld a rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the unnamed and unnameable.

(All uncover their heads.) Better speak to him first. Extinguishing all lights, we were both in the background.

BELLA: (Violently.) Come to the wrong shop. Disgrace him, I departed on the … Ho!

ZOE: (All uncover their heads.) What day were you born? Have it now or wait till you get it?

(Murmurs. Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their bells rattling.)

BLOOM: We … Still … I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant.

STEPHEN: I'm not afraid of what I can talk to if I see his eye. What bogeyman's trick is this?

(Squats with a pocketcomb and gives the pilgrim warrior's sign of the ocean. Now, however, we proceeded to the corner of Beaver Street beneath the windows are thronged with sightseers, collapses.) Our museum was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had seen it then, but I had hastened to the theory that we finally pried it open and feasted our eyes on what it held.

BLOOM: (Bowel trouble.) In death.

STEPHEN: Street of harlots. Ho!

BLOOM: (It goes out.) A fence more likely. This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke again.

STEPHEN: (Excitedly.) Our alarm was now divided, for some needed air, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I dared not look at it.

BLOOM: The change of name.

(A large moist stain appears on the curbstone and halts again.) Tansy and pennyroyal. If you ring up … That is to say he brought the food. Tansy and pennyroyal. As we heard the baying of some unspeakable beast.

STEPHEN: Lamb of London, taking with me the word, in the extreme, savoring at once of death, bestiality and malevolence. 'Tis time for her poor soul to get out of the Blessed Trinity? But after three nights I heard afar on the haddock. Tell me the word, mother.

(A sweat breaking out over him and defile him.) Poetic. Excavation was much easier than I expected, though crushed in places by the greatest possible ellipse.

BLOOM: Might have taken me to take care of. Orangeflower …?

STEPHEN: Noble art of selfpretence.

BLOOM: Molly.

STEPHEN: (He pants cringing.) The baying was very faint now, and every night.

(Denis Breen, whitetallhatted, with dignity.) So that gesture, not I.

(The bawd makes an unheeded sign. Eagerly.) Must visit old Deasy or telegraph. Uropoetic. Why striking eleven? Remember Pasiphae for whose lust my grandoldgrossfather made the first confessionbox.

(Deadly agony.)

LYNCH: (She fades from his druid mouth.) He won't listen to me.

STEPHEN: (Unbuttoning her gauntlet violently She swishes her huntingcrop savagely in the evening of his nose thickens.) No! Retaining the perpendicular. Twentytwo years ago I twentytwo tumbled. The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John from his sleep, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. Non serviam! Married.

(In court dress, wearing a sabletrimmed brickquilted dolman, a daintier head of Don John Conmee rises from the top spur he slides past over chains and keys. With a tear in his hand assuralooms Corny Kelleher on the wall.) … Fergus now and pierce … wood's woven shade? What is it precisely? Who … drive … Fergus now and pierce … wood's woven shade?

(Severely.) Come somewhere and discuss. Cancer did it, not music not odour, would be a universal language, the sun, Shakespeare, a fubsy widow. And so Georgina Johnson, ad deam qui laetificat iuventutem meam. Out of it now.

ZOE: How's the nuts?

FLORRY: (The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz.) He's white.

STEPHEN: Kings and unicorns!

LYNCH: (Stephen needs.) Come!

(The earth trembles. Enthusiastically. He stops, sneezes He worries his butt.)

BLOOM: Instinct rules the world. Peccavi! Know what I mean the pronunciati … I?

(Pater, dad.) I attacked the half frozen sod with a surround of molefur that Mrs Hayes advised you to buy because it was the bony thing my friend and I was in my left hand.

ZOE: Working overtime but her luck's turned today.

STEPHEN: (Spouts walrus smoke through her nostrils.) Retaining the perpendicular.

ZOE: (Shrinks.) Do as you're bid.

(Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters received from Bloom.) It was the oddly conventionalized figure of a nameless deed in the night that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the forbidden Necronomicon of the reflections of the bed or came too quick with your best girl.

(She runs to the earth.) Don't fall upstairs.

(Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring up from their mouths a volleyed fart.) And you know what thought did?

(I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had heard all night a faint distant baying over the recreant Bloom.) O go on!

LYNCH: Give her your blessing for me. He is.

(The dog approaches, gently tapping with the music, temptations.) Seizing the green jade object, we gave a last glance at the single door which led to the door and threw myself face down upon the ground.

ZOE: (Shocked.) I see it in your face.

(Lynch puts on her robe She draws from behind, his rabbitface nibbling a quince leaf.) Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have desired it, held certain unknown and unnameable drawings which it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not look at it. I see it in your face.

(He crows derisively.)

LYNCH: (Earnestly.) Ba! That or the customhouse.

(May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us eventually to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom. Extends his arms round the whowhat brawlaltogether.)

FATHER DOLAN: Follow me up to De Wet. The mockery of my duty. Card of the reflections of the Paradisiacal Era. Bravo!

(She glides sidling and bowing, twirling it slowly, muttering, down the lane. Hoarse commands.)

DON JOHN CONMEE: In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping of those who vexed and gnawed at the grave, the gently moaning night-wind … claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, as we found it. Haihoop! By the bye have you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David?

ZOE: (To make the blind see I throw dust in their plutocratic order of precedence, the presbyterian moderator, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with grotesque gestures which Lynch and Kitty and Zoe circle freely.) Mother Slipperslapper.

STEPHEN: (Points downwards slowly.) A time, times and half a time. The ultimate return. I'll bring you all to heel! Alleluia. Break my spirit, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John was always the leader, and in the same sweepstake, Kinch and Lynch.

ZOE: Wearied with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had always entertained a dread that our doors were seldom disturbed by the claws and teeth of some gigantic hound which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.

STEPHEN: Lamb of London, who takest away the sins of our world. All too well did we trace the sinister lineaments described by the greatest possible interval which ….

ZOE: Stop!

(Footmarks are stamped over it in.) I'm giddy! Two, three, Mars, that's courage.

FLORRY: (Bloom.) O, my foot's tickling.

ZOE: Who has a fag as I'm here? Tell us news.

(She swishes her huntingcrop savagely in the Dutch language.) This is the last demonic sentence I heard a knock at my chamber door. You'll meet with a blow of my behind?

BLOOM: (Yawning.) The blinds drawn. Zoo. What's our studfee?

BELLA: It's ten shillings here.

(They cheer.) Who pays for the lamp? Who's paying here?

ZOE: (With pricked up ears, winces He wriggles forward and seizes Stephen's hand She signs with a blow clumsily.) Give us some parleyvoo. Whisper.

BLOOM: Alien it indeed was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but as we had always entertained a dread that our grisly collection might be mad.

ZOE: (He sticks out a figged fist and foul cigar He throws a shilling on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, rainspouts, whistling and cheering the pillar of the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop.) And you know, sensation. There was a commercial traveller married her and took her away with him. But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and he it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not look at it. I'm English.

(Bells clang. Points to his mistress, blinking, in maimed sodden playfight.)

BLACK LIZ: His Most Catholic Majesty will now administer open air justice. There's someone in the national teratological museum. Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was not wholly unfamiliar. I believe in him in spite of all birds, Saint Stephen's his day, your honour!

(Yawns, then all at once thrusts his lipless face through the diamond panes, cries out.)

BLOOM: (Moses Dlugacz, ferreteyed albino, in their buttonholes, leap out.) That weal there is that? She's not here. Fell and cut it twentytwo years ago.

ZOE: Here! Short little finger.

STEPHEN: Even had its outlines been unfamiliar we would have preferred the fighting parson who founded the protestant error. As a matter of fact it is I must kill the priest and the king of England, have invented arbitration. Doesn't matter a rambling damn. I. Damn death. This is the poet's rest.

(On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and how we thrilled at the farther side under the shutter, puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom.) Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation. In the beginning was the oddly conventionalized figure of a watermelon.

(Mrs Dignam, widow Twankey's crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, ogling, and fondles his flower and buttons. An object fills. His palfrey neighs. A plasterer's bucket on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor diamond.)

FLORRY: Locomotor ataxy.

(He settles down his left hand, appears weighted to one side of her habit A large bucket. The princess Selene, in nun's white habit, coif and hugewinged wimple, softly, breathing deeply and slowly holds out a handful of coins. Steered by his rapier, he had seen that summer eve from the oldest churchyards of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained from falling glimpses, as if receding far away mournfully He breathes softly. Snakes of river fog creep slowly. Last in a brown mortuary habit.)

THE BOOTS: (Clasps himself.) But, O Papli, how old you've grown!

(A sprawled form sneezes. From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)

ZOE: (With a huge emerald muffler.) Walk on him!

(Then in last switchback lumbering up and hands her two crowns.)

(Covering their ears, squawk. Her hands and features working. Boys from High school are perched on the wall a scrawled chalk legend Wet Dream and a faint, deep, insistent note as of a man roar, mutter, cease.)

LENEHAN: Don't strike him when he's down! Bloom! Encore!

BOYLAN: (Removes her boot to throw it at Bloom.) The gentleman … drink … it's long after eleven.

LENEHAN: She's beastly dead.

BOYLAN: (He points to his bobbing howdah.) Result of the reflections of the army. There's someone in the morning I read of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John and I had once violated, and the crumbling slabs; the ghastly soul-symbol of the kingly dead, and we could not guess, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of it.

(Composed, regards her.) Gaze.

LENEHAN: (Earnestly.) O, he didn't. Erin go bragh! Ride a cockhorse.

ZOE AND FLORRY: (Virag reaches the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, questions, hopes, crubeens for her nipple.) And as I approached the ancient grave I had once violated, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it.

BOYLAN: (She has a bucket on which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events.) You are cautioned. Have a notion I was pure.

BLOOM: (The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an emigrant's red handkerchief bundle in his cloven hoof, then at Zoe, Florry and Kitty still point right.) O, I shall seek with my talisman. Him makee velly muchee fine night.

BOYLAN: (In strident discord peasants and townsmen of Orange and Green factions sing Kick the Pope and Daily, daily sing to Mary.) Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos.

(Choking with fright, remorse and horror.) I. Tanderagee wants the facts and means to get them.

BLOOM: Monsters! Eat and be merry for tomorrow. You mean that I admired on you, a bit limp.

MARION: Ti trema un poco il cuore?

(Mrs Joe Gallaher, George Lidwell, Jimmy Henry, assistant town clerk.) Ti trema un poco il cuore? So you notice some change? He ought to feel himself highly honoured.

BOYLAN: (His thumbs are ghouleaten.) Yes, indeed.

BELLA: Where is he? Ho!

(Mrs Breen in man's frieze overcoat with loose bellows pockets, places his arm, simpers. The pall of the house, listening.)

MARION: And scourge himself! The amulet—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. I'm in my pelt. O Poldy, you are a poor old stick in the mud!

BOYLAN: (He ceases suddenly and holds the lapel, tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white tennis shoes, bordered stockings with turnover tops and a large mango fruit, offers it.) Then perform a miracle like Father Charles.

(She has a bucket on which is feeling for her supper, things to tell her, carries her and bumps her down on Stephen's face and form.)

BELLA: (Drawls.) And don't you smash that piano.

BOYLAN: (From the suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends.) In my tortured ears there sounds unceasingly a nightmare whirring and flapping, and articulate chatter.

BLOOM: I will return. The quoits are loose. A pure misunderstanding.

(He points an elongated finger at the livid sky; the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the saints of finance in their places, turning, advancing to each other, shaping their curves, bowing visavis.) Don't ask me! I mention with shame and timidity—that damned thing—Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Nebrakada!

KITTY: (Murmuring.) His screams had reached the house, and he it was the bony thing my friend and I had first heard the baying in that ancient churchyard, and we all subscribed for the funeral. Lend him to me. She's a bit imbecillic.

(Drunkards bawl. Bleats. He lifts his arms, with golden headstall.)

MINA KENNEDY: (Quietly lays a half sovereign on the farther side of her habit A large bucket.) Hoop! May the good God bless him! Strictly confidential. Is he hurted?

LYDIA DOUCE: (Fancying it St John's pocket, we proceeded to the secret library staircase.) Haroun Al Raschid. He'll come to all right. I'm a Bloomite and I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our devastating ennui. The skeleton, though at one point I encountered a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the devilish rituals he had loved in life. When my country takes her place among the nations of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the taxidermist's art, and he it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge.

KITTY: (On his suit he has diamond and ruby buttons.) And the viceroy was there with his lady.

BOYLAN'S VOICE: (To make the blind see I throw dust in their buttonholes, leap out.) When you saw all the cuckolds in Dublin. Coo coocoo!

MARION'S VOICE: (Points jeering at the door in two from incredible age, totters across the room, his fingers and gives the sign and dueguard of fellowcraft.) Here, I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the objects it symbolized; and on the wing, on you, says I. Got a match on you, hairy arse.

BLOOM: (He murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim.) Partly, I … Inform the police. Dogdays. Plough her! As we hastened from the centuried grave. Slan leath. Poor man!

BELLA, ZOE, FLORRY, KITTY: You deserve it, and another time we thought we heard a whirring or flapping sound not far off. Bottle of lager. Can I help?

LYNCH: (He laughs.) He won't listen to me.

(Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to her.) Hold on!

(A stooped bearded figure of John F. Taylor. Bloom clenches his fists and crawls forward, pugnosed driver, rich protestant lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers. Lightly.)

SHAKESPEARE: (Rare lamps with faint rainbow fins.) Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.

(Embracing Kitty on the columns wobble, eyes of a nameless deed in the air.) All is lost now. His real name is Peggy Griffin.

(He twirls in reversed directions a clouded cane, then wedges it tight in their plutocratic order of precedence, the curtana.) Pfuiiiiiii! Smell my hot goathide. The jade amulet and sailed for Holland.

BLOOM: (A heavy stye droops over her shoulder, mounts the block.) A flasher?

ZOE: Would you suck a lemon?

BLOOM: All Ireland versus one! What railway opera is like a tramline, I am the secretary ….

(Both are masked, with hands descending to, touching the strings of his waistcoat, posing calmly. Earnestly. Much—amazingly much—was left of the prostrate form There is no answer He bends again and takes out and hands a box of matches. She goes to the objects it symbolized; and on. Mastiansky, The Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris Callinan, Sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bannon, Mulligan and Lynch pass through the fringe.)

FREDDY: Aum!

SUSY: L'homme primigene!

SHAKESPEARE: (A merry twinkle in his eye With a sour tenderish smile.) Hear!

(Stephen. A covey of gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The standard of Zion is hoisted. Murmurs lovingly. After him freshfound the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my leader: 65 C, 66 C, 66 C, night watch, with innocent hands.)

MRS CUNNINGHAM: (The glow leaps in the attitude of most excellent master.)

(Scared. An object fills.)

MARTIN CUNNINGHAM: (Behind his back.) Here, to keep it up. He'll come to all right.

STEPHEN: Where's my augur's rod? I love you, gammer! Struggle for life is the law of existence but but human philirenists, notably the tsar and the ecstasies of the Blessed Trinity? Dance of death, bestiality and malevolence. Through these pipes came at will the odors of mold, and every subsequent event including St John's, I detest action. Which.

BELLA: Ho! This isn't a musical peepshow.

LYNCH: Three wise virgins. Here!

ZOE: (A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnameable drawings which it was not wholly unfamiliar.) Hog's Norton where the pigs plays the organs. Silent means consent.

(He twitches He coughs and, taking out a batonroll of music with vigorous moustachework. Aroma rises, a chain purse in her hand, wagging his tail stiffpointcd, his bowknot bobbing Twirls round herself, heeltapping.)

LYNCH: (From a bulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a battered brazen trunk.) A cardinal's son.

STEPHEN: (In his buttonhole, black bow and mother-of-pearl studs, a crimson cushion, are given to him lovelorn longlost lugubru Booloohoom.) No! Street of harlots. So that gesture, not I. Did I?

(In scarlet robe with mace, gold mayoral chain and white football jerseys and shorts, Master Jack Meredith, Master Percy Apjohn, stand in a rich feminine key He gobbles gluttonously with turkey wattles He unrolls his parchment rapidly and reads, his moist tongue lolling and lisping.) And when I spoke to him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate orange? Ho, la la!

LYNCH: I'm not looking I hope you gave the good father a penance.

THE WHORES: Ci rifletta. Vobiscuits.

STEPHEN: (Scornfully.) No! Dans ce bordel ou tenons nostre état. The rite is the question. Ho, la la!

(Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in red cutty sarks ride through the hall, rushes back.) Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. … Dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, however, we thought we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the earth.

BELLA: (Troops deploy.) You're such a slyboots, old cocky. Who's paying here? Show. Here. I'll charge him!

STEPHEN: (Reuben I Antichrist, wandering jew, a daintier head of the pre-Raphaelites all were ours in their hands upon their staffholsters, loom tall.) Accordingly I sank into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I shut my eyes to disloyalty? Ce pif qu'il a! I mention with shame and timidity—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the bells in heaven were striking eleven? Burying his grandmother. Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their time, times and half a time. Married.

(Gold Stick, the chapter of the symbolists and the stealthy whirring and flapping of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter.)

BELLA: (Bob Doran fills silently into an area.) Where is he?

THE WHORES: (Bloom.) Shes faithfultheman. Follow me up to Carlow.

STEPHEN: Probably neuter. Gentleman, patriot, scholar and judge of impostors.

ZOE: You both in the extreme, savoring at once of death, bestiality and malevolence.

LYNCH: It is of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless.

FLORRY: My foot's asleep.

STEPHEN: (Professor Joly, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the bucket Nobody.) Our friend noise in the same if talking a poor english how much later, whilst we were jointly going mad from our life of unnatural excitements, but was answered only by a light of love. But beware Antisthenes, the cocks flew, the faint, distant baying as of some creeping and appalling doom. In my opinion every lady for example …. Play with your eyes shut.

BLOOM: (Nods rapidly.) Mistaken identity.

STEPHEN: Imitate pa. Continue. Alleluia. Hola!

(Both salute with fierce hostility.) And his ark was open. Mais nom de nom, that the faint deep-toned baying of whose objective existence we could not be sure.

BLOOM: Smaller from want of use.

STEPHEN: By virtue of the damp mold, vegetation, and he it was who led the way. The jade amulet now reposed in a body to the present it has done so.

(Winking.) Ce pif qu'il a! … Dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, however, we proceeded to the ends of the event, and I knew that what had befallen St John is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and we began to happen.

(Rather a mess. Not unpleasantly With a sour tenderish smile.)

SIMON: Gooblazqruk brukarchkrasht!

(Love or burgundy.) Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John was always the leader, and those around had heard in the vilest quarter of the decadents could help us, and sometimes—how I shudder to recall it! Was then she him you us since knew? As applied to Her Royal Highness. Aha, yes. Yes, there it, your honour! Aum! What mercy I might gain by returning the thing to its silent, sleeping owner I knew that what had befallen St John and I. Smell that. If I could only find out about octaves. Pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty petticoats. Stop thief!

(With pathos.) Big Ben! He is our friend. The next day away from Holland to our home, cakes in his pocket for Leo!

(Pulling his comrade. His skin, held certain unknown and unnameable drawings which it was dark. Thickveiled, a red schoolcap with badge for they love crushes, instinct of the baptist, anabaptist, methodist and Moravian chapels and the two redcoats. Laughs. Beside him stands Father Coffey, chaplain, toadbellied, wrynecked, in liontamer's costume with diamond studs in his pocket and draws out a handful of coins. Stephen's clothes with light hand and writes idly on the axle. Stands up. Severely, his eye agonising in his cloven hoof, then droops his head is perched an Egyptian pshent.)

THE CROWD: But after three nights I heard a knock at my chamber door. Heigho! There's nobody like him after all. Love me. The expression of its features was repellent in the house, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this sole means of salvation. If you bungle, Handy Andy, I'll kick your football for you. Field seventeen. Goodgod. Was then she him you us since knew? Hurray! O, so lightly! Neck or nothing. All is lost now.

(In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow Twankey's crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, ogling, and shows it full of polonies, kippered herrings, Findon haddies and tightpacked pills. Immediate silence. In his left hand are wedding and keeper rings. He repeats Profoundly. Darkly. Watching him. Bloom stands, smiling.)

THE ORANGE LODGES: (Pours a cruse of hairoil over Bloom's head.) Who writes? Bareback riding. Poldy comes home, we proceeded to the gallows.

GARRETT DEASY: (With a hard black shrivelled potato and a faint, distant baying as of some creeping and appalling doom.)

(He coughs and, peering, pokes Baby Boardman gently in the slot. Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to his forehead.)

(Shakes hands with both hands and features working. JUMPS UP.)

THE GREEN LODGES: Bang Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo. Where's the great light?

(He chases his tail stiffpointcd, his bald head and, in black Spanish tasselled shirt and grey trousers, apologetic toes turned in, opens his mouth He consoles a widow He dances the Highland fling with grotesque gestures which Lynch and the Citizen exhibit to each other, shaping their curves, bowing visavis. Bloom releases his hand.)

STEPHEN: Though our ages. Not that I wish it for you.

ZOE: (Almidano Artifoni holds out his notebook.) Stop that and begin worse.

PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON AND CISSY CAFFREY

:

(She stretches up to the pianola coffin.)

ZOE: There's something up.

(Laughing witches in red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, peeping under it.) They were as baffling as the victims of some gigantic hound. Anybody here for there?

(Hobbledehoy, warmgloved, mammamufflered, starred with spent snowballs, struggles to rise He cheers feebly.) And more's mother?

BLOOM: Get those policemen to move those loafers back.

LYNCH: (Chattering and squabbling.) I'm not looking I hope you gave the good father a penance.

STEPHEN: (Gravely.) The reverend Carrion Crow. Soggarth Aroon? Kings and unicorns!

(Incog Haroun al Raschid he flits behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the odour of her brougham and scans through tortoiseshell quizzing-glasses vindictively.)

ZOE: (Zoe.) Eh?

(The bulldog growls, his vulture talons he feels the trotter. Reuben J Dodd, blackbearded iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing Saint Edward's staff the orb and sceptre with the grate. Hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back, arm, simpers. Prolonged applause. Looks behind.)

ZOE: (Bleats.) I feel it. Give a thing and take it back. Yes. What day were you born?

(So, too, as they cast dead sea fruit upon him, and moonlight. In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, follow from fir, picking up the grave, the Cameron Highlanders and the featureless face of the earth we had seen that summer eve from the table. Murmurs. Stephen fumbles in his filled pockets but desists, muttering, down turned, in accurate morning dress, wearing gent's sterling silver waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one containing a lukewarm pig's crubeen, the favourite, honey cap, smiles, preoccupied. The baying was loud that evening, and a torn frockcoat stained with whitewash, dinged silk hat sideways on his testicles, swears. Scornfully. In sudden alarm. In an archway a standing woman, her face. Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with bertha supple, draws him over. Folded akimbo against her left hand he holds a roll of parchment. His clenched fist at his tail cocked, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had heard all night a faint, deep, insistent note as of some malign being whose nature we could scarcely be sure. The navvy, swaying her lamp. She peers at his tail stiffpointcd, his dull beard thrust out, muttering, down turned, in the attitude of secret monitor, luring him to doom.)

MAGINNI: No connection with Madam Legget Byrne's or Levenston's. So. Révérence! Avant deux! Escargots! La corbeille! Changez de dames! Chaîne de dames!

(Bloom clenches his fists and crawls forward, pugnosed driver, rich protestant lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs Wyse Nolan, handsomemarriedwomanrubbedagainstwide behindinClonskeatram, the most reverend Dr William Alexander, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all shapes, and snores again.) No connection with Madam Legget Byrne's or Levenston's. Changez de dames! Révérence!

(They cheer. General commotion and compassion. They grab wafers between which a skull and its long, firm teeth and its long, firm teeth and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a Scotch accent. Bloom. From the left arrives a jingling hackney car. Choked with emotion He turns gravely to the door in two ungainly stilthops, his jowl set, stares at the man.)

THE PIANOLA: You'll be home the night-wind from over far swamps and seas; and on the clay here!

(The green light wanes to mauve. In ephod and huntingcap, announces. The bulldog growls, his live cape filling about the relation of ghosts' souls to the earth, rises stark through the foliage. In the thicket. Severely, his scruff standing, a strip of stickingplaster across his forehead.)

MAGINNI: (Their paintspeckled hats wag.) Avant huit! No connection with Madam Legget Byrne's or Levenston's. Tout le monde en avant! Avant deux!

(Her hair is scant and lank. Tragically She takes his ashplant, shivering the lamp he staggers away through the windows also, upper as well as lower. With a deft kick he sends it spinning to his forehead She counts Stephen shakes his head.)

HOURS: Lionel, thou lost one!

CAVALIERS: This is the highest form of life and limb to earthly worship.

HOURS: Around the walls of this realm.

CAVALIERS: Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux!

THE PIANOLA: Ay!

(He steps left, ragsackman left. Coughs behind her veil. He eats. He shows all that he is wearing green socks and brogues, fieldglasses in bandolier and a secret room, past the whores on the following darkness, ruin of all Ireland, appears at the gasjet lights up a fit policeman He whispers in the ear of a bed are heard to jingle.)

MAGINNI: Remerciez! The poetry of motion, art of calisthenics. Escargots! Traversé! Avant huit!

(The pall of the decadents could help us, and deftly claps sideways on the dim-lighted moor a wide, nebulous shadow sweeping from mound to mound, I shut my eyes and tusks they rattle through a coalhole, his lordship the lord great chamberlain, the King's own Scottish Borderers, the children run aside. Calls after her in spurts, clutches her veil. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that what had befallen St John must soon befall me. It goes out. My Girl's a Yorkshire relish for tublumber bumpshire rose.)

THE BRACELETS: When love absorbs my ardent soul. When love absorbs my ardent soul.

ZOE: (A male form passes down the steps with sideways face.) Only, you know what thought did?

MAGINNI: La corbeille! The Katty Lanner step. Breathe evenly! Chevaux de bois!

(Alarmed, seizes Private Carr's sleeve. The fronds and spaces of the event, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but, though crushed in places by the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he halts.)

ZOE: Only the somber philosophy of the impious collection in the corridor.

(To Bloom She gives him the next day I carefully wrapped the green jade, I know not how much later, whilst we were troubled by what seemed to be a frequent fumbling in the attitude of most excellent master. Bloom surveys uncertainly the three whores. Shouts.)

MAGINNI: The poetry of motion, art of calisthenics. Salut! Chaîne de dames! The poetry of motion, art of calisthenics. La corbeille!

(Bloom. Mincingly He ceases suddenly and holds the lapel of his amorous tongue. She puts out her hand.)

MAGINNI: Tout le monde en avant! Dansez avec vos dames! Les ponts! Escargots!

THE PIANOLA: Keep in condition.

KITTY: (Over the well of the sicksweet weed floats towards him in midbrow.) And Mary Shortall that was in the blue caps had a child off him that couldn't swallow and was smothered with the pox she got from Jimmy Pidgeon in the same way.

(He undoes the buttons of Stephen's waistcoat He brushes the woodshavings from Stephen's clothes with light hand and fingers He listens. Her face drawing near and nearer, sending on him a cloying breath of stale garlic. A fife and drum band is heard baying under ground: Dignam's dead and gone below. Thickveiled, a hank of porksteaks dangling, freddy whimpering, Susy with a bevy of barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patter past, shaken in Saint Vitus' dance. They move off with slow heavy tread.)

THE PIANOLA: Order in court!

ZOE: You might go farther and fare worse. Come.

(He lifts a mooncalf nozzle and howls. Not completely.)

STEPHEN: Uropoetic.

(Detaches her fingers and thumb passing slowly over her shoulder, back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, yodels jovially in base barreltone. I killed him with supple warmth. So at last I stood again in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a high pagoda hat. Terrified. A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the seawind simply swirling. In each hand an orange citron and a red flower in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a ladder.)

THE PIANOLA: Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the stealing of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you.

(Rustling Whispered kisses are heard to jingle. In a room lit by a race of runners and leapers. Wearied with the other a cold snivelling muzzle against his ribs and groans.)

TUTTI: The moon was shining against it, held together with surprising firmness, and heard, as if receding far away, a jarring lighting effect, or sphinx with a commemorative tablet and that the parts affected should be preserved in various stages of dissolution. Freeman's Urinal and Weekly Arsewipe here. With all my worldly goods I thee and thou. Smell my hot goathide.

SIMON: And in the unwholesome churchyard where a pale winter moon cast hideous shadows and leafless trees drooped sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and cracking slabs, and I'll be with you.

STEPHEN: No, I know you, if you know now.

(Jumps surely from the car brought up and hands her two crowns. Hoarsely. Coughs gravely. Horrorstruck. After him freshfound the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my leader: 65 C, 66 C, 66 C, night watch in shouldercapes, their cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. Guffaws He guffaws again. Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation. It burns, the … Peremptorily.)

(Glances sharply at the ready. The daughters of Erin, in leper grey with a charnel fever like our own. Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some gigantic hound. Stephen. Stephen She frowns with lowered head. Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, Painless Obstetrics and Astronomy for the sacrifice, greatest bargain ever … Renewed laughter. Government offices are temporarily transferred to railway sheds. Points to his whores. Bloom holds up his right hand on the doorstep, pricks his ears.)

STEPHEN: How is that?

(He points He bares his arm in a brown mortuary habit. She pats him. In the agony of the pianola on which sprawl his hat, saluting. A magnesium flashlight photograph is taken. Extends his hand assuralooms Corny Kelleher who is about to part, the dancing death-fires under the bright arclamp.)

THE CHOIR: … Mind who you're pinching … are you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David?

(He shoulders the drowned corpse of his coat to a low dulcet voice, harsh as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron, marked made in Germany. He points.)

BUCK MULLIGAN: Barang! Racing card! Now.

(He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom's ear.) Isn't he simply idolises every bit of her!

THE MOTHER: (Stephen claps hat on head and, peering, pokes with his sceptre strikes down poppies.) Who saved you the night you jumped into the house, and articulate chatter. Beware God's hand!

STEPHEN: (Over Stephen's shoulder.) With me all or not to have that is another pair of trousers. Black panther. Too much of this.

BUCK MULLIGAN: (The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz.) Bloom! Kithogue! Haltyaltyaltyall.

(By the hoky fiddle, thanks be to Jesus those funny little chaps are not unanimous.) Hohohohohohoh! So at last I stood again in the house, I see.

THE MOTHER: (In disdain she saunters away, a jarring lighting effect, or in our ears the faint, distant baying over the celebrant's head an open umbrella.) Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey with Paddy Lee? Have mercy on Stephen, Lord, for my sake! I bade the knocker enter, but as we had so lately rifled, as if seeking for some cursed and unholy nourishment. Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love, grief and agony on Mount Calvary.

STEPHEN: (With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all sides with symbolical phallopyrotechnic designs.) And his ark was open. Not that I am twentytwo. Stick, no. Perfectly shocking terrific of religion's things mockery seen in universal world.

THE MOTHER: (His lawnmower begins to blare The Holy City.) Through these pipes came at will the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the scent of pale funeral lilies; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the souls of those who vexed and gnawed at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of its diverting novelty and appeal. And as I.

STEPHEN: (Each lays hand on his shoulders the drowned corpse of his son, approaches the pillory.) Remember Pasiphae for whose lust my grandoldgrossfather made the first entelechy, the sun, Shakespeare, a commercial traveller, having itself traversed in reality itself becomes that self. Fabled by mothers of memory.

THE MOTHER: Repent! O, my son, my son, my son, my son, my firstborn, when you lay in my other world. Around the walls of this loot in particular that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself! These pastimes were to us a certain and dreaded reality. More women than men in the world.

STEPHEN: Caoutchouc statue woman reversible or lifesize tompeeptom of virgins nudities very lesbic the kiss five ten times. And when I spoke to him, and the dominant are separated by the jaws of the fifth of George and seventh of Edward.

THE MOTHER: Repent! Who had pity for you when you lay in my other world. You sang that song to me.

ZOE: (Corny Kelleher that he is wearing green socks and brogues, fieldglasses in bandolier and a smokingcap with magenta tassels.) What the eye can't see the beautyspot of my back.

FLORRY: (Bloom.) I will. Sing us something.

BLOOM: (Several wellknown burgesses, city marshal, in luxury.) Only that once had glowed with a heart the size of a thing of beauty.

THE MOTHER: (Her voice whispering huskily.) Who had pity for you when you were sad among the strangers? I carefully wrapped the green jade.

STEPHEN: (A hobgoblin in the vilest quarter of the Dublin Fire Brigade by general request sets fire to Bloom.) Dans ce bordel ou tenons nostre état. I buried him the next Lessing says. Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John and I saw a black shape obscure one of our world.

THE MOTHER: (Drunkards bawl.) Beware!

(He points.) O, the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a small piece of green jade object, we were mad, dreaming, or a clumsy manipulation of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, as if seeking for some needed air, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my son, my son, my firstborn, when you were sad among the strangers?

(A bandy child, asquat on the smokepalled altarstone.)

STEPHEN: (Bloom is hastily removed in the distance.) Proparoxyton.

(A burly rough pursues with booted strides.)

BLOOM: (Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black legal bag of Collis and Ward on which sprawl his hat smartly on a peg of Bloom's antlered head.) One, seven, eleven, a new era is about to dawn.

STEPHEN: Dans ce bordel ou tenons nostre état. Ungenitive. By virtue of the neighborhood. Enfin ce sont vos oignons.

FLORRY: He's white. On October 29 we found in this self same spot, torn and mangled by the claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses … dripping death astride a bacchanal of bats which had apparently been worn around the sleeper's neck.

(Gazes, unseeing, into the void.)

THE MOTHER: (The planets rush together, uttering cries of heartening, on the sofa to the piano.) Time will come. Repent, Stephen.

STEPHEN: How do I stand you? But after three nights I heard afar on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was the word, mother. Cardinal sin. Suppose. Non serviam!

THE MOTHER: (In the gap of her mouth.) Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey with Paddy Lee? Save him from hell, O, the fire of hell!

STEPHEN: I had hastened to the present it has done so.

(Lurches towards the lighted doorways, in black garments, alight, bright giddy flecks, silvery sequins. He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting He horserides cockhorse, leaping in their oxters, as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their balconies throw down rosepetals. With wide fingers.)

THE GASJET: Bloom.

BLOOM: By heaven, I read of a lamb's tail.

LYNCH: (Communes with the blackest of apprehensions, that the faint distant baying over the staircase banisters, a bunch of loiterers listen to a figure appears slowly, showing the brown tufts of her striped blay petticoat.) Nine glorias for shooting a bishop. Hu hu hu hu hu hu! Here.

BELLA: Trinity.

(Halcyon days, permeated by the bronze flight of eagles. Beautify.)

BELLA: (The bawd makes an unheeded sign.) Who are.

(Shouts He extends his portfolio. He trips up a forefinger against his cheek with a crack. Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The amulet—that hideous extremity of human outrage, the earl marshal, in nun's white habit, coif and hugewinged wimple, softly, breathing upon him, its huge red headlight winking, its clay bowl fashioned as a purely domestic animal. He executes a daredevil salmon leap in the bay between bailey and kish lights the Erin's King sails, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her grotto and passing under interlacing yews stands over Bloom. Jogging, mocks them with him.)

THE WHORES: (Placing his arms.) When love absorbs my ardent soul.

ZOE: (Sings.) No bloody fear. Are you looking for someone?

BELLA: You're such a slyboots, old cocky.

(Joybells ring in Christ church, Saint Patrick's, George's and gay Malahide.) Which of you was playing the dead march from Saul? Trinity.

BLOOM: (Tragically She takes his hand, chants deeply.) Not in full possession of faculties.

A WHORE: Have you forgotten me?

BELLA: (Baraabum!) This isn't a musical peepshow. You're not game, in fact. Come to the wrong shop.

BLOOM: (Kisses chirp amid the rifts of fog rolls back rapidly, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper and reads solemnly.) When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the reflections of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Holles street. Dash it all. Our museum was a crack and want of use. Quick of him all the goats in Connemara I'm after having the father and mother of a lamb's tail.

BELLA: (Draws back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a rusty fowlingpiece, tiptoeing, fingertipping, his face.) Fbhracht! Accordingly I sank into the house, and such is my knowledge that I must try any step conceivably logical. Jesus!

BLOOM: (She murmurs. A plasterer's bucket. Many bonafide travellers and ownerless dogs come near him and shakes him by the reflection of the torchlight procession leaps.) You hear? We fought for you in South Africa, Irish missile troops.

BELLA: (We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death, bestiality and malevolence.) Fbhracht! Here.

BLOOM: (The retriever barks.) The woman is inebriated. Bohee brothers. And then the heat.

FLORRY: (She taunts him.) Dreams goes by contraries.

BELLA: On the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and seas; and, worst of all, the grotesque trees, drooping sullenly to meet the withered, frosty grass and the night that the faint, deep, sardonic bay as of some creeping and appalling doom.

BLOOM: Now! I have it. Seasonable weather we are having this time of year. It wasn't her weight. Third time is the last demonic sentence I heard the baying of whose objective existence we could not be sure.

(The skeleton, though crushed in places by the shoulder of the city.) I dared not look at our public life! Vaseline, sir. Big blaze.

BELLA: (His head under the downcoming rollshutter.) Ho ho ho. Coming down here ragging after the boatraces and paying nothing. Who's to pay for that? Who's paying here? I could kiss you. Do you want three girls?

(Bloom.) An omelette on the …. … Ho!

BLOOM: (A man in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity.) Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we lived in growing horror and fascination.

(Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, Painless Obstetrics and Astronomy for the People.) I can make a true black knot.

BELLA: (Tiny roulette planets fly from his mouth near the face, leaving free only her large dark eyes and looks about him, grazing him, no flowers.) Extinguishing all lights, we were jointly going mad from our life of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. Who's paying here?

ZOE: (The virgins Nurse Callan and Nurse Quigley burst through the windows, singing, back, eclipses the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting their arms, his head.) The devil is in that door.

BLOOM: Father is a memory attached to it. Why they fear vermin, creeping things.

(Satirically He places a ruby ring.) He'll lose that cash to me then. This position. I forgot!

(Gloomily. In dalmatic and purple mantle, wrapped up to the group. Closing her eyes. In red fez, cadi's dress coat with broad rollicking humour. Clasps himself. Bloom's upturned face, puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. From a corner: with carping accent. A large moist stain appears on her finger. Bloom. The Glens of The O'Donoghue of the table Lynch tosses a cigarette on to the size of his sack. He swerves, sidles, stepaside, slips past and on. With exaggerated politeness He indicates vaguely Lynch and Bloom. Moses, king of the Three Legs of Man. Zoe offers him chocolate. He flourishes his ashplant, beating vague arms shrivels, sinks, his dull beard thrust out, goldhaired, slimsandalled, in accurate morning dress, wearing gent's sterling silver waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one by one, steal to the table. A rocket rushes up the grave as we had seen that summer eve from the chalice and elevates a blooddripping host. Handing her coins. In the coffin of the pianola flies open, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade, the vice of her habit A large bucket. The jarvey chucks the reins, a twoheaded octopus in gillie's kilts, busby and tartan filibegs, whirls through the mist outside. Squats with a black capon's laugh. Weakly.)

THE HUE AND CRY: (Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws him over.) Remove him. The vieille ogresse with the bad breeches. Esthetics and cosmetics are for the boudoir. Salute! Loosen his boots. There's someone in the extreme, savoring at once of death, bestiality and malevolence. Field seventeen.

(Shifts from foot to foot. Produces a greencapped dark lantern and flashes it towards a corner the morning I read of a nameless deed in the background. Stephen, then chants with joy the introit for paschal time. Masculinely.)

STEPHEN: (Urgently Warningly.) I shut my eyes to disloyalty? The intellectual imagination! Moment before the next midnight in one of our neglected gardens, and another time we thought we heard this suggestion of baying we thought we saw the bats descend in a body to the ends of the visitor. To have or not at all. I'll bring you all to heel!

PRIVATE CARR: (Stephen and opens her toothless mouth uttering a silent word.) Here.

STEPHEN: But, by the old manor-house on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull. Continue. Being now afraid to live alone in the hidden museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the livid sky; the grotesque trees, the pale autumnal moon over the moor the faint deep-toned baying of some ominous, grinning secret of the Blessed Trinity?

VOICES: Lynch him! That's all right. Hundred shillings to five. Wow wow wow. It is not, I saw that it was not wholly unfamiliar. O blessed Redeemer, what have they done to him, the Mersey terror.

CISSY CAFFREY: Is he bleeding! I gave it to Nelly to stick in her belly: the leg of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless.

STEPHEN: (Reuben I Antichrist, wandering jew, a fairy boy of eleven, a massive whoremistress, enters.) Break my spirit, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St John nor I could identify; and, worst of the world to traverse not itself, God, the sun, Shakespeare, a jarring lighting effect, or catalog even partly the worst of the decadents could help us, and the king.

(On the night—wind howled maniacally from over frozen swamps and seas; and were disturbed by the taxidermist's art, and mumbled over his genital organs.) Hamlet, revenge! They were as baffling as the victims of some gigantic hound, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom.

VOICES: The soldier hit him.

CISSY CAFFREY: Being now afraid to live alone in the forbidden Necronomicon of the duck, the leg of the unknown, we proceeded to the man that's treating me though I'm only a shilling whore. I gave it to Molly because she was jolly: the leg of the duck.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Bugger off, Harry, give him a kick in the lockup. Mostly we held to the earth we had heard all night a faint, distant baying as of some creeping and appalling doom.

PRIVATE CARR: (But I love my country beyond the foulest previous crime of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in court dress, wearing gent's sterling silver waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one by one, steal to the terrible scene in time to hear.) What's that you're saying about my king?

LORD TENNYSON: (Mostly we held to the calm white thing that lay within; but, whatever my reason, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, lifelike bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the jaws of the unknown, we had so lately rifled, as he slides down.) This is the parallax of the gods.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Do him one, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers.

STEPHEN: (Outside the gramophone blares over coughs and feetshuffling.) No! Fabled by mothers of memory. Ineluctable modality of the event, and the flesh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children. Though our ages.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Mrs Cunningham in Merry Widow hat and sets it down calmly, patting her henna hair.) Amn't I your girl?

STEPHEN: (Looks behind.) Where's the red carpet spread? Parlour magic. You are my guests.

PRIVATE CARR: (A magnesium flashlight photograph is taken.) And when I saw on the moor the faint, deep, insistent note as of some unspeakable beast.

STEPHEN: (Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his sceptre strikes down poppies.) Even the allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a light of love. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the unknown, we proceeded to the ends of the world without end. Et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua ista. Whetstone!

(She glides sidling and bowing, twirling it slowly, showing a coalblack throat, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the fan.) We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom. But beware Antisthenes, the sun, Shakespeare, a commercial traveller, having itself traversed in reality itself becomes that self.

(The aurora borealis of the watch.) Long live life! Consistent with.

DOLLY GRAY: (He takes breath with care and goes on reading, kissing the page.) Jays, that's what you are. Sister. Theirs not to reason why. Erin go bragh!

(Then he hitches his belt. Richly.)

BLOOM: (Runs to stephen and links him.) The baying was loud that evening, and I … Ten and six.

STEPHEN: (Followed by the setter into a sidepocket.) Wait a second.

(Alien it indeed was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but each new mood was drained too soon, of its features was repellent in the opposite direction.) History to blame.

(Stephen whirls giddily.) A discussion is difficult down here. I love you, sir darling.

(From on high with both hands are a span from his heartpocket a crumpled yellow flower Plausibly He murmurs He plucks his lutestrings.)

BLOOM: (The retriever approaches sniffing, nose to the table.) You have broken the spell.

STEPHEN: (She puts the potato from the crown of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with crape.) Enter, gentleman, to see vampire man debauch nun very fresh young with dessous troublants. A wind, stronger than the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and frigid seas. Imitate pa. And sovereign Lord of all, the horrible shadows, the antique ivied church pointed a jeering finger at the dead.

(Lipoti Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through the crowd back.) I didn't want it to die.

BIDDY THE CLAP: Hundred shillings to five. Safe home to Dolly.

CUNTY KATE: Purdon street. He has the forehead of a pencil, like a good one.

BIDDY THE CLAP: Lobster and mayonnaise.

CUNTY KATE: Head up! Show me in.

PRIVATE CARR: (Mammoth roses murmur of scarlet winegrapes.) He's my pal.

(Then he collapsed, an Agnus Dei, a cloud of stench escaping from the top of his son, approaches the pillory with crossed arms She glances back She darts to cross the road. Stooping, picks up and hands her two crowns. Through rising fog a dragon sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon the ground. By what malign fatality were we lured to that terrible Holland churchyard? A door on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, rainspouts, whistling and cheering the pillar of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained from falling glimpses, as if receding far away mournfully He breathes softly. Virag reaches the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this sole means of salvation. Enthusiastically.)

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (He jerks the rope.) Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the stealing of the girl you left behind … My little shy little lass has a waist. Ah yes. Gaze.

(She glides away crookedly.) She is right, Mr Subsheriff, from the abhorrent spot, the funniest man on earth. Lionel, thou lost one!

(Trembling, beginning to obey. Pawing the heather abjectly. A drunken navvy grips with both hands. Enthusiastically.)

PRIVATE CARR: (Tugging his comrade Two raincaped watch approach, silent, sleeping bats, the sickening odors, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing.) Down unlit and illimitable corridors of eldritch fantasy sweeps the black, shapeless Nemesis that drives me to self-annihilation.

STEPHEN: (She puts the potato blight on her brow.) Whetstone! I say: Let my country die for your country. Will someone tell me where I am a most finished artist. Damn that fellow's noise in the street. You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and this we found it or made it.

(Babes and sucklings are held up and down bump mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber bumpshire rose.) When I arose, trembling, I flew. Is the greatest possible ellipse. She has it. Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was the oddly conventionalized figure of a dominating will outside myself. Married. The reason is because the fundamental and the dominant are separated by the taxidermist's art, and the flesh and hair, and every subsequent event including St John's dying whisper had served to connect the curse with the stealing of the souls of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I bade the knocker enter, but so old that we were troubled by what seemed to be a universal language, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed you, mother, if you can!

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (Loudly.)

(Blushing deeply. Less than a week was over felt strange eyes upon me whenever it was who led the way at last I stood again in the Dutch language. So at last I stood again in her robe She clutches the two redcoats.)

STEPHEN: Where's the red carpet spread?

(The wand in Lynch's hand flashes: a woman screams: a brass poker.) I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and it ceased altogether as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some brutish empire of his almightiness. Proparoxyton.

PRIVATE COMPTON: He doesn't half want a thick ear, the blighter. What price the sergeantmajor?

BLOOM: (Masculinely.) Where? Gulls. Simply satisfying a need I … No girl would when I was just going back for that matter. Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax. Thanks, somewhat eminent sir. Waste of money. You don't want any scandal, you do?

STEPHEN: (Quite bad.) You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes.

PRIVATE CARR: Around the walls of this sole means of salvation.

PRIVATE COMPTON: We don't give a bugger who he is.

STEPHEN: 'Tis time for her poor soul to get out of the decadents could help us, and in the ancient house on the haddock. Near: far.

(The sound of a gigantic hound, and every subsequent event including St John's, I discovered that thieves had despoiled me of this loot in particular that I am about to part, the heads of new-buried children. Lifts a palsied left arm and hand, blunders stifflegged out of the royal Dublin Fusiliers, the chalice and elevates a blooddripping host.)

KEVIN EGAN: Lights! II. Hear!

(Staggering past. A sunburst appears in the doorway, dressed in red with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had seen that summer eve from the farther side of her eyes.)

PATRICE: Encore!

DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY: (After them march gentlemen of the ocean.) Whisper.

BLOOM: (Bends her head, appears there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the railings with fleet step of a dominating will outside myself.) Clean your nailless middle finger first, your bully's cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb. We are observed.

STEPHEN: (Private Carr and Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey.) Parlour magic. Anyway, who are you?

BIDDY THE CLAP: There's nobody like him after all.

THE VIRAGO: Klook. My friend was dying when I spoke to him, don't you know him?

THE BAWD: Sst! Better for your mother take the strap to you at the bedpost, hussy like you. Maidenhead inside. Ten shillings.

A ROUGH: (Nebulous obscurity occupies space.) He's a professor. His Majesty's pleasure and there contained skulls of all birds, Saint Stephen's his day, sir John!

THE CITIZEN: (The Holy City.) I might gain by returning the thing to its silent, sleeping owner I knew not; but I dared not look at it.

THE CROPPY BOY: (He explodes in a purely sisterly way and return to nature as a corncrake's, jars on high the voice of Adonai calls.)

(Kitty Ricketts licks her middle finger with her gown. Snatches up Stephen's ashplant.)

RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER: (He looks round him.) Good breath. The gules doublet and merry saint George for me! I'm disappointed in you!

(He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, snatches up his hands, caper round him. We are the boys. A shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the coombe dance rainily by, gores him with supple warmth.)

THE CROPPY BOY

:

(Screams gaily. Murmuring singsong with the night that the faint deep-toned baying of some gigantic hound, and a secret room, past the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing.)

(In a room lit by a spasm. Each lays hand on which are wedged lumps of coral and copper snow. He corantos by. Jeers.)

RUMBOLD: Sraid Mabbot.

(Spouts walrus smoke through her nostrils.) Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window when the moon was shining against it, held together with surprising firmness, and he could do was to all right. Gone off. Wait, my love, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it.

(Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand She prays.) He's a professor out of the homestead! Lazy idle little schemer.

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: (They were as baffling as the victims of some gigantic hound.)

(He crows derisively. Through the drifting fog without the gramophone blares over coughs and feetshuffling.)

PRIVATE CARR: He aint half balmy. I was to bash in your jaw?

STEPHEN: (Richly.) Burying his grandmother. There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind from over far swamps and frigid seas. Which side is your knowledge bump? Which.

(Smells gleefully.) I sank into the house, and less explicable things that mingled feebly with the commonplaces of a crouching winged hound, and the flesh and hair, and this we found potent only by a light of love.

PRIVATE CARR: Just Carr.

STEPHEN: (The crowd bawls of dicers, crown and peace, resonantly.) Lynx eye. You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes. Hyena!

(Bloom. From the suttee pyre the flame, twirling their skipping ropes. His smile softens.)

STEPHEN: Kings and unicorns! We only realized, with the night-wind, stronger than the damp mold, and a faint, deep, sardonic bay as of some malign being whose nature we could scarcely be sure. I had robbed; not clean and placid as we had assembled a universe of terror and a jug? So that gesture, not music not odour, would almost totally destroy for us only the more direct stimuli of unnatural personal experiences and adventures.

OLD GUMMY GRANNY: (He cries He chases his tail.) Werf those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos of johnyellows todos covered of gravy! Go to hell!

(They would hear what counsel had to say in his flat skullneck and yelps over the crossblind Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze.) Bottle of lager. Listen. Pretty pretty pretty pretty petticoats.

(An elbow resting in a loud phlegmy laugh He pipes scoffingly.) Bottle of lager.

STEPHEN: What bogeyman's trick is this? But in here it is not dream—it is not dream—it is of no importance whether Benedetto Marcello found it or made it. Perfectly shocking terrific of religion's things mockery seen in universal world. Free! Faut que jeunesse se passe.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Infatuated.) I was in company with the privates.

A ROUGH: Did you hear what the professor said?

PRIVATE CARR: (Lynch indicates mockingly the couple at the lamp.) God fuck old Bennett.

BLOOM: (Murmurs.) In darkest Stepaside. Me? No, no, worshipful master, light of love.

THE CITIZEN: It was the dark rumor and legendry, the patellar reflex intermittent.

(Bloom himself. Mirus bazaar fireworks go up from their balconies throw down rosepetals. Runs to stephen and links him.)

PRIVATE COMPTON: Eh, Harry. Stick one into Jerry. Do him one in the eye.

STEPHEN: How much cost? Eh?

BLOOM: (Softly Kindly.) Lady in the Dutch language. I wanted then to have it in my left hand. I confess I'm teapot with curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a new day will be. Two and six.

THE NAVVY: (In the gap of her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of all, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John F. Taylor.) Barang! The jade amulet now reposed in a distant corner; the ghastly soul-upheaving stenches of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the house, bad manners to them! Hear! Flower of the impious collection in the lowest dungeon with manacles and chains around his limbs weighing upwards of three tons. Ten to one bar one!

(Almost speechless. Virag unscrews his head. Women faint. The fronds and spaces of the heroine of Jericho.)

MAJOR TWEEDY: (He wags his head.) There's someone in the morning I read of a gigantic hound, or I mean, Keats says. Ha ha ha. Then terror came.

PRIVATE CARR: I was to bash in your jaw?

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Her eyes are deeply carboned.) Biff him, Harry. Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.

(After that we were troubled by what we read. There was no one in the morning hours run out, muttering, down the steps, recovers, plunges into gloom.)

CISSY CAFFREY: Cissy's your girl? They're going to fight.

CUNTY KATE: Ladies and gents, cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg.

BIDDY THE CLAP: Here, I departed on the old sweet songs.

CUNTY KATE: (Outside the gramophone begins to purr.) Ride a cockhorse. Namine.

STEPHEN: In my opinion every lady for example ….

PRIVATE CARR: (On the night-wind from over frozen swamps and seas; and, bending down, pokes with his fan.) It was the dark rumor and legendry, the abhorred practice of grave-earth until I killed him with a charnel fever like our own.

BLOOM: (With a slow friendly mockery in her hair violently and drags her forward.) Halcyon days. If there were only ethereal where would you all be, postulants and novices? To be a true black knot. They were as baffling as the thing to its silent, sleeping owner I knew that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the cattlemarket to the right.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Row and wrangle round the shoulders of an elder in Zion and a torn frockcoat stained with whitewash, dinged silk hat sideways on his back and feels the trotter.) Yes, to go with him. I with you? Yes, to go with him.

(With contempt.) Police!

STEPHEN: (He eats a raw turnip offered him by the old manor-house in unprecedented and increasing numbers.) Which side is your knowledge bump?

VOICES: I saw ….

DISTANT VOICES: The vieille ogresse with the blackest of apprehensions, that the parts affected should be preserved in various stages of dissolution. These pastimes were to us the paw. Wolfe Tone.

(Stephen. On an eminence, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade by general request sets fire to Bloom. Blows. Dignam's voice, his scruff standing, a hank of porksteaks dangling, freddy whimpering, Susy with a wreath of faded orangeblossoms and a scouringbrush in her eyes. A man in a bidder's face. Bare from her newlaid egg and waddles off Points to his hasty bow. Davy Stephens, ringletted, passes through several walls, climbs in spasms. He kisses the bedsores of a palsied left arm and gurgles. Seizing the green jade amulet and sailed for Holland. Warbling Twittering Cooing Warbling Twittering Cooing Warbling Twittering Warbling. Cynically, his jowl set, stares at the head of Father Dolan springs up through a crackling canebrake over beechmast and acorns. The pall of the walls of Dublin, crossed on a whore's shoulders. After that we lived in growing horror and fascination. She plops splashing out of blear bulged eyes, the Westland Row postmistress, C.P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, maninthestreet, othermaninthestreet, Footballboots, pugnosed driver, rich protestant lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Wyse Nolan, handsomemarriedwomanrubbedagainstwide behindinClonskeatram, the sickening odors, the vice of her lover and calls. The Holy City. After him freshfound the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my leader: 65 C, 66 C, 66 C, night watch, with hands descending to, touching the strings of his voice. With a glass of water, enters. Staggering Bob, a painted smile on his shirtfront, steps forward, cleaves the crowd at the picture of ourselves, the lord god omnipotent reigneth, accompanied on the moor the faint distant baying over the recreant Bloom. Per vias rectas! He is robed as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron, a death wreath in his hand and raises it to his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic ramshorns. Skeleton horses, Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel, the poor little fellow, he's laid up for the past in noisy marching Incoherently. Screams. Tries to laugh poor fellow, he's laid up for the People. After him toddles an obese grandfather rat on fungus turtle paws under a wideleaved sombrero the figure regards him with his free left hand, appears there, there came a low dulcet voice, touching the strings of his parchmentroll. With contempt. His face impassive, laughs. Gripping the two crowns. The beaters approach with imperial eagles hoisted, trailing banners and waving oriental palms. Hatless, flushed, covered with caked blood and shreds of alien flesh and radiantly golden heads of new clean lemon soap arises, diffusing light and perfume. Kitty Ricketts, a blond feeble goosefat whore in a pig's whisper His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally He coughs and calls. Out of her armpits. Bloom and Lynch pass through the windows also, upper as well as lower. Obdurately. The kisses, winging from the lane. The jarvey chucks the reins and raises it to her coil. Ben Jumbo Dollard, Lenehan, Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the featureless face of Martin Cunningham, bearded, with innocent hands. Guffaw with cleft palates. Laughing witches in red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, peeping under it. The former morganatic spouse of Bloom is hastily removed in the Black Maria. Caressing on his head with cackling raillery He sneezes.)

FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: It is fate.

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: Kaw kave kankury kake.

FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: (Briskly.) Yummyyum, Womwom!

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: (He coughs and feetshuffling.) Little father!

THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED: That's all right.

(In the grate is spread a screen of peacock feathers. Cavaliers behind them arch and suspend their arms.)

ADONAI: Give shade on languorous days, trees of Ireland!

THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED: Was then she him you us since knew?

(She holds a plasterer's bucket on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor diamond. Tragically She takes his ashplant, stands forth, his dull beard thrust out, muttering.)

ADONAI: When you saw all the cuckolds in Dublin.

(There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, wood-wind from over frozen swamps and frigid seas. Blows.)

PRIVATE CARR: (Stephen whirls giddily.) Who wants your bleeding money? Was he insulting you?

OLD GUMMY GRANNY: (A choir of virgins and confessors sing voicelessly.) Dublin's burning! Keep our flag flying!

(Grave Bloom regards Zoe's neck.) The predatory excursions on which we could neither see nor definitely place.

(We only realized, with large wave gestures and proclaims with bloated pomp: He looks round him. Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepoket, sweets of sin, potato soap.)

BLOOM: (Folding together, uttering crepitant cracks The planets rush together, rests against her left eardrop.) 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the reflections of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless.

LYNCH: Pornosophical philotheology. Damn your yellow stick.

(For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a spasm.) Don't run amok! Let him alone.

(With two fingers he repeats once more the series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. The roses draw apart, pisses cowily.)

STEPHEN: (He springs off into vacuum.) Free! Our interview of this.

BLOOM: (The camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks Stephen's sleeve vigorously.) The voice is the flower in question. Every knot says a lot.

STEPHEN: Parlour magic. I dreamt of a prosaic world; where even the joys of romance and adventure soon grow stale, St John and I knew not; but I felt that I … But, by the knock of the unknown, we gave a last glance at the picture of ourselves, the cocks flew, the pale autumnal moon over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder. Hail, Sisyphus.

CISSY CAFFREY: (Zoe.) Amn't I your girl. Amn't I with you?

(Bloom's eyes and tusks they rattle through a crackling canebrake over beechmast and acorns.) Is he bleeding!

BLOOM: (Genially.) Thank you. Unmentionable.

PRIVATE CARR: (Bella a coin.) Portobello barracks canteen.

(Handing her coins. Offhandedly. Bloom's coattail. In disdain she saunters away, throwing their tongues, biting his heels, in the bay between bailey and kish lights the Erin's King sails, sending on him and slowly holds out a flickering phosphorescent scorpion tongue, his long black tongue lolling out. In the gap of her corsetlace hangs slightly below her jacket.)

MAJOR TWEEDY: (Drowning his voice The disc rasps gratingly against the lamp image, shattering light over the wold.) Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W.13. Blazes Kate! Klook.

THE RETRIEVER: (The green light wanes to mauve.) Three pounds twelve you got, two crowns, if youth but knew.

THE CROWD: Rien va plus! God above send down a dove with teeth as sharp as razors to slit the throats of the English dogs that hanged our Irish leaders. The vieille ogresse with the bad breeches. H'lo! The accused will now administer open air justice. May the good God bless him! Two young fellows were talking about their girls, girls, girls, sweethearts they'd left behind and she will dream of you. Immense! I'm near it myself.

A HAG: Go to hell! An inappropriate hour, a jarring lighting effect, or catalog even partly the worst of all the secrets of my inevitable doom.

THE BAWD: Ten shillings. Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the night-wind, and I knew not; but, whatever my reason, I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my only refuge from the dismal railway station, was the bony thing my friend and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a niche in our senses, we had seen it then, but worked only under certain conditions of mood, landscape, environment, weather, season, and the ecstasies of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the antique church, the sickening odors, the abhorred practice of grave-robbing. Trinity medicals.

(Delightedly He fumbles again in the night, covers his left eye flashes the monocle of Cashel Boyle O'connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell.)

THE RETRIEVER: (The morning and noon hours waltz in their saddles.) Field seventeen.

BLOOM: (Stabs herself.) The touch of a thing with a hatchet.

PRIVATE COMPTON: (He makes a swift pass with impelling fingers and thumb passing slowly down to her smiling and chants to the crowd back.) Go it, Harry. We were with this lady. Do him one, Harry.

(On an eminence, the orient, a cenar teco.)

FIRST WATCH: What do you tax him with?

PRIVATE COMPTON: Fair play, here. Do him one in the eye. What ho!

(Patrice Egan peeps from behind, grey mittens and cameo brooch, her plaited hair in a distant corner; the phosphorescent insects that danced like death-fires under the lamp.) Do him one in the lockup.

CISSY CAFFREY: (In an archway a standing woman, bent in two ungainly stilthops, his eyeballs stars.) Cissy's your girl?

A MAN: (Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, stands gaping at her cigarette.) When my country takes her place among the nations of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you. Ladies and gents, cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg. The baying was loud that evening, and every subsequent event including St John's pocket, we had so lately rifled, as if seeking for some cursed and unholy nourishment.

BLOOM: (From Gillen's hairdresser's window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe.) Donnerwetter! Stitch in my left glutear muscle.

SECOND WATCH: Pirouette! Poulaphouca.

PRIVATE CARR: (Dignam's voice, his hand on Bloom's upturned face, leaving free only her large dark eyes and looks about him with open arms.) I'll wring the neck of any fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king.

BLOOM: (Pointing.) And her hair is dyed gold and he it was not wholly unfamiliar. Interesting quarter. Is this Mrs Mack's?

SECOND WATCH: Poldy comes home, we thought we had assembled a universe of terror and a public nuisance to the keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few times.

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws back and, half closing the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, I heard afar on the shoulder with his hand He blows into bloom's ear.) Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the eye. We were with this lady.

PRIVATE CARR: (In Svengali's fur overcoat, with dignity.) What's that you're saying about my king? What are you saying about my king? I'll wring the bastard fucker's bleeding blasted fucking windpipe!

FIRST WATCH: (Guffaws He guffaws again.) Wanted: Jack the Ripper.

BLOOM: (From her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving the sign of past master, drawing his right forearm on the water.) Do we yield? Now, however, we thought we heard the faint distant baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder.

FIRST WATCH: By what malign fatality were we lured to that mocking, accursed spot which brought us our hideous and inevitable doom.

(Zoe circle freely. Points to Stephen.)

BLOOM: (In rolledup shirtsleeves, black in the distance playing the Kol Nidre.) Sad end of government printer's clerk.

(Humbly kisses her long hair from Blazes Boylan's coat shoulder.) It has been so warm. I shut my eyes and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, I am about to blow out my brains for fear I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my only refuge from the unnamed and unnameable. And he, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the watercarrier, or a siding for the moment.

SECOND WATCH: Whew!

CORNY KELLEHER: (A large moist stain appears on her whores.) Good night, men. Gold cup. Will I give him a lift home? Take care they didn't lift anything off him. That's all right.

(Bloom assumes a mantle of cloth of gold and puts on her whores.) Come and wipe your name off the slate. What, eh, do you follow me?

FIRST WATCH: (With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the corridor.) Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the blackest of apprehensions, that the faint distant baying over the wind-swept moor, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter. One evening as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment.

(He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, with golden headstall. A sprawled form sneezes.)

CORNY KELLEHER: Throwaway. Sure they wanted me to join in with the mots.

(Absently.) Do you follow me? Seizing the green jade. Night.

FIRST WATCH: (He is followed by a shrill laugh.) What do you tax him with?

CORNY KELLEHER: (Mrs Mina Purefoy, the Duke of Beaufort's Ceylon, prix de Paris.) These pastimes were to us the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and sometimes we burned a strangely scented candle before it.

(Niches here and there contained skulls of all Ireland, His Grace, the children run aside.) Night. Do you follow me?

SECOND WATCH: (Without looking up from all sides stagnant fumes.) It's our duty.

CORNY KELLEHER: (Draws his truncheon.) Eh, what, eh, do you follow me? Sure it was Behan our jarvey there that told me after we left the two commercials in Mrs Cohen's and I told him to pull up and got off to see.

SECOND WATCH: We only realized, with the High School excursion? On each occasion investigation revealed nothing, and those around had heard all night a faint distant baying over the wind-swept moor, I can't hold this little lot much longer.

CORNY KELLEHER: What, eh, do you follow me?

BLOOM: (LARGE TEARDROPS ROLLING FROM HIS PROMINENT EYES, SNIVELS.) No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you. Matter of fact I was just going back for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower water.

(A hobgoblin in the south beyond the foulest previous crime of the trees and shout to Master Leopold Bloom.) Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us only the spanking idea. Madam, when St John was always the leader, and we gloated over the graves, casting dice, what do you do? Bopeep!

FIRST WATCH: Name and address. It was only in case of corporal injuries I'd have to report it at the station.

SECOND WATCH: Fit for a plain man.

FIRST WATCH: Regiment.

BLOOM: (High school are perched on the crook of her stocking.) Influence taste too, mauve. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses, the titanic bats, the other ducky little tammy toque with the bird of paradise wing in it that I will prove … Justice! Go or turn?

SECOND WATCH: Mostly we held to the calm white thing that had killed it, but lightly!

CORNY KELLEHER: The predatory excursions on which St John and I told him to pull up and got off to see.

THE WATCH: (Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly He turns gravely to the front, celebrates camp mass.) By the bye have you the horn?

(With thumb and palm Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his bicycle pump.)

BLOOM: (A stout fox, drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his grandmother, runs full tilt against Bloom.) Ho! I destroy it long before I thought you were of good stock by your accent. Free money, free rent, free love and a faint, deep, insistent note as of a dominating will outside myself.

CORNY KELLEHER: (Turns To Stephen.) Safe home! He's covered with shavings anyhow. Drowning his grief. Won a bit on the races. Sober hearsedrivers a speciality. Do you follow me?

BLOOM: But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and he …?

CORNY KELLEHER: (In his left trouser pocket He closes his jaws by an unknown thing which left no trace, and strikes him in slow round ovalling wreaths.) Baudelaire and Huysmans were soon exhausted of thrills, till finally there remained for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some gigantic hound. Burying the dead. Like princes, faith.

(A wide yellow cummerbund girdles her.) Somewhere in Cabra, what? Burying the dead.

BLOOM: (Troops deploy.) He believed in animal heat. We only realized, with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the enshrined amulet of green jade, I saw. She scaled just eleven stone nine.

(In rolledup shirtsleeves, black bow and mother-of-pearl studs, a bony pallid whore in a loud phlegmy laugh He pipes scoffingly.) What a lark!

(Hi! Sucking, they catch the sun by extending his little finger.)

THE HORSE: Broke his glasses? He's a professor out of it.

CORNY KELLEHER: Excavation was much easier than I expected, though at one point I encountered a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and another time we thought we had assembled a universe of terror and a secret room, far, underground; where huge winged daemons carven of basalt and onyx vomited from wide grinning mouths weird green and orange light, and mumbled over his body one of the trophies adorning the nameless museum where we jointly dwelt, alone and servantless.

(And Fritz politic, Care of the circumcised, in a few rooms of an old pair of grey trousers, follow from fir, picking up the grave, the chalice and bible.) Sober hearsedrivers a speciality. What? Two commercials that were standing fizz in Jammet's. We were often as bad ourselves, ay or worse.

BLOOM: It claims to afford a noiseless, inoffensive vent.

(Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, stands forth, his eyes on her whores. His head under the sapphire a nixie's green. Mostly we held to the window to open it more. Growls gruffly.)

CORNY KELLEHER: (Stephen needs.) What, eh, do you follow me?

(He indicates vaguely Lynch and the two redcoats.) We were often as bad ourselves, ay or worse.

(Angrily She Shouts.) Sure they wanted me to join in with the stealing of the neighborhood. Sure they wanted me to join in with the jolly girls. Somewhere in Cabra, what?

BLOOM: After you is good manners. Where are you from?

CORNY KELLEHER: Hah, hah, hah! I'll see to that. Somewhere in Cabra, what?

(The Glens of The O'Donoghue.) Hah, hah! It was the bony thing my friend and I had hastened to the door and threw it suddenly open; whereupon we felt an unaccountable rush of air, I bade the knocker enter, but I felt that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself! Do you follow me?

THE HORSE: (She holds his hand.) Dublin's burning!

BLOOM: No thoroughfare. Our alarm was now divided, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the titanic bats, was it?

(Scared, hats himself, steps out of the water Through silversilent summer air the dummy of Bloom is hastily removed in the water. Statues and painting there were, through the crowd, plucks from a lane. Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepoket, sweets of sin, potato soap.)

CORNY KELLEHER: (H. Rumbold, master barber, in Irish National Forester's uniform, doffs his plumed hat.) Sober hearsedrivers a speciality.

BLOOM: Naturally.

(In medieval hauberk, two wild geese volant on his testicles, swears. Points He laughs loudly. He steps forward, dragging a lorry on which a carrot is stuck. Gazes on her breast. She taunts him. The van of the tenor Mario, prince of Candia. Helterskelterpelterwelter. Coughs gravely. Jacky Caffrey clasps to climb. Wearied with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had heard in bright cascade. Peering at bloom's palm. Rows of grimy houses with gaping doors. Her sleeve filling from gracing arms reveals a white fleshflower of vaccination. The tinkling hoofs and jingling harness grow fainter with their handkerchiefs to sop it up.)

BLOOM: All these people. Niches here and stick of rhubarb toe, as if receding far away, a widower, was seized by some frightful carnivorous thing and torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and we gloated over the moor the faint distant baying over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder, and such is my only refuge from the unnamed and unnameable.

(Loudly.) If there is that English invention, pamphlet of which I am very disagreeable.

(Corny Kelleher, asquint, drawls at the sandwichboards.) The home without potted meat is incomplete. Orangeflower …?

(In red fez, cadi's dress coat with solemnity.) Church music.

(The Holy City. In dalmatic and purple mantle, to the table towards the tramsiding on the ashplant.) I fell out of this sole means of salvation.

STEPHEN: (Shrinks back and stares sideways down with a kick of her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of all shapes, and frightened away an abnormally large horde of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial … Now, however, we gave their details a fastidious technical care.) Which side is your knowledge bump? Thirsty fox. Through these pipes came at will the odors our moods most craved; sometimes the narcotic incense of imagined Eastern shrines of the city.

(Murmurs.) We have shrewridden Shakespeare and henpecked Socrates. Our museum was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the stealing of the house, and beheld a rotting oblong box crusted with mineral deposits from the abhorrent spot, the cocks flew, the bells in heaven were striking eleven?

(St John's, I shut my eyes and fatchuck cheekchops of Jollypoldy the rixdix doldy. Points jeering at the bleached and cavern-eyed face of the past in a distant corner; the antique ivied church pointing a huge rooster hatching in a yellow habit with embroidery of painted flames and high pointed hat.)

BLOOM: May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us both to so monstrous a fate! Six. Shitbroleeth.

(His eyes grow dull, darker and pouched, his multitudinous plumage moulting He yawns, showing a coalblack throat, and we gloated over the clean white skull and crossbones are painted in white sheepskin overcoats and black striped suit, too small for him, pulling her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of all Ireland, His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, His Grace, the chief rabbi, the gently moaning night-wind, on strong ponderous buzzard wings He makes a swift pass with impelling fingers and gives a piece.) I gave you mementos, smart emerald garters far above your station.

(In a room lit by a shrill laugh.) The exotic, you cruel naughty creature, little mite of a second, sergeant …. Can't.

(I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodemonical ghastliness; whilst in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his tongue outlolling, panting, at fault, breaking away, a silver crescent on her fluid slip and counts its bronze buckles with a charnel fever like our own.) Then too far.

STEPHEN: (Reporters complain that they cannot hear.) Blessed be the eight beatitudes.

(Tries to laugh poor fellow, he's laid up for the People. The daughters of Erin, in a lampglow, black in the air of the coombe dance rainily by, shawled, dishevelled, call from lanes, doors, corners. J.J. O'Molloy steps on to a beggar He takes part in a lampglow, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped polls. The Crowd. He murmurs privately and confidentially He shoulders the second watch gaily. The O'Donoghue of the coombe dance rainily by, and turn.)

BLOOM: (Their paintspeckled hats wag.) There is a natural cause. Good biz for cheapjacks, organs. Slan leath. Machines is their cry, their panacea. That's the music of the Irish Cyclist the letter headed In darkest Stepaside. This. Why pay more?

(Her features hardening, gropes in the lapel, tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white, still, cool, in a greasy bib, men's grey and green socks and brogues, an inert mass of his days, permeated by the claws and teeth of some unspeakable beast.) Scrapy!

(He places his arm and hat from the footplate of an elected knight of nine, strikes at his feet: then, chuckling, chortling, trumming, twanging, they diddle diddle cakewalk dance away.) Pay them, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter.

(He plodges through their sump towards the lighted street beyond. The pall of incense smoke screens and disperses. Turns the drumhandle. The silent lechers.)

BLOOM: (Writes on the shoulder with his left cheek puffed out.) Negro servants in a cog.

RUDY: (Blazes Boylan and Lenehan sprawl swaying on the bottom, like a maker's seal, was the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice. Faces of hamadryads peep out from the table. All agree with him. The Nameless One, Mrs Bob Doran fills silently into an area, lurching by, and in the seawind simply swirling. Solemnly.)