Unaware of the horrific danger that suffused this place, a pale young man floated nakedly and motionlessly in a stone tank full of water.

The walls of the tank were smooth like rubbed, bluish-gray slate. The silence was deceptive. The air around the tank was dark--caverns full of darkness, galleries and tunnels full of darkness, ceilings dripping with stalagmites from ages of patient time. Horror and innocence together stalked these corridors.

The liquid in the tank and on the floor all around had a faintly greenish absinthe tinge that blurred the man's still features. His eyes were closed, his handsome features serene as if he were dreaming in these days before his birth.

And nearby, someone waited. Something. Someone. Breathing hungrily.

The light was dim in the birth cave. Light did not shine here so much as it flowed slowly and thickly, like a turgid polymer up one side of a glass beaker and down the other. The light was thick, a matrix of vivid memory routines that randomly invoked themselves, one now, one then, and just as quickly vanished, in this place where time had lost all meaning.

The air was very still--hardly moving at all, just when a droplet of dew fell from a stalagmite pink as coral, or ran like candle wax down some shimmering stalactite. The echoes of these drippings traveled back and forth in the caves--the sound of a droplet landing above the sleeping man's face, sending rings outward in tiny lapping waves.

The young man lay in this cool, mossy broth with his arms at his side. Each delicate fingertip was whorled with perfect skin poised against exquisitely detailed thighs, for he was in every way a complete human, down to the very capillaries that glowed in his pale skin. On the backs of his arms and legs were strangely hard, dark patches more resembling wood than skin. Time had lost all meaning long ago, except in the quickening of his pulse. If stones and water and floating slime had ears, they might have heard the growing thunder of his heartbeat while the walls dripped ever so steadily and quietly with the patience of a clock that never lost spring compression.

Nearby, giving off muffled breaths, was the hungry Watcher who moved clumsily in the shadows. He wheezed with effort and sometimes sobbed with need. The Watcher eyeballed that growing body so warm in its tank, with the mass of umbilical tubes trailing out of the tumor-like, warty bioexchange mass covering the abdomen. The Watcher knew: that stuff was richer than gray brains and would make his hunger stop hurting and his own thinking a trifle less fuddled. Did not want to eat this, knew he shouldn't, but could not stop himself. Again. And drawing closer, crawling, ever so quiet so as not to wake the young sleeper. So sad, the lovely face. Already, the Watcher's mouth snuffled as he swallowed the freely flowing saliva of his famishment. So bad, to do this, but could not help himself. His fingers twitched as he reached out for the tangled tubes that brought life to his brother.

Alex Kirk lived down the street from a little girl with dimples and white teeth. Her name was Maryan Shurey and they often got into trouble together.

They ran away one afternoon. A bright blossomy afternoon, the autist might have said as a young man, a moo-day, so winsome the ifty leaves and crowny trees, all green and hackathorny, the magpies dancing their cartoon dance under white clouds {glued cotton on Popsicle sticks} on the refrigerator door in the kitchen.

Later that afternoon, Alex and Maryan came back riding in an ice cream truck waving waffle-cones piled high with scoops of vanilla chocolate and strawberry music--Pop Goes The Weasel!

The dreams were like a narcotic, filling the young man with warmth and pleasure as he slept in his stone womb.

The Watcher, too, dimly remembered Maryan Shurey and Alex Kirk.

Maryan stood on a stool and leaned out of the truck, telling each kid who came close: "Hey, what flavor would you like? Chocolate? Vanilla? Or Strawberry?" She'd fold her hands together, incline her head to one side so her locks bounced, cute as a button, and she'd say: "Personally, I prefer strawberry. That's because it's my favorite color. Don't you think?"

Thus, in nature's complex and odd ways, nothing was lost. The sleeper twitched briefly. Maybe his eyes flickered just a bit, the lids lifting as the lashes trembled, while the Watcher tore open the rich cheese containing the fishness, the yolkness, the momness, the thick bloody pudding of oxygen and iron and life flowing into the newly formed young man. The sleeper was days away from being born, and his perfect fingers closed once, twice, silently in the water. His hands fluttered and grew still even as the tank's color turned from transparent green to wine red, then black and the water roiled. The water bubbled and foamed, filled with the violence of the watcher now eater who reached in with both hands and tore out the tubes, tore off hunks of rich life, stuck his head into the very water and groaned with need and pleasure as the orgasm of satiety filled him like a sick full tide. Leaving his dead prize to dry and mummify, the eater, now Watcher again, staggered away from the feast still steaming with the warmth of the tank and the bloody fatty sweet creamness of a dead summer morning that would never see its afternoon.

When the Watcher finished what was left in the tank, it belched noisily and wandered off, getting lost in the lower galleries for days. Sleeping off the fullness. Dreaming of another boy's summer days. The Watcher who now slept on a soft sandy corner in the stone caverns knew hungry because of the ice cream truck. He could see in his own dry dreams the boy and the girl smiling. Alex and Maryan. The taste of vanilla ice cream lingered on the side of the watcher's tongue from a long sucking slurp a million years ago. The tongue like an icebreaker cut through floes of chocolate to reach the steaming frozen vanilla meat wrapped around the clean little pinewood stick that smelled like a forest or a wood mill.

After sleeping a long time, the watcher awoke feeling that hunger again. He lifted his misshapen head and raised himself on hairy arms that were brawny but not quite the same length. In fact, the left side of his body was much smaller than the right, and even his head was oddly shaped with a large right side and a little left side, except the two frog eyes were alike.

The caverns smelled of love and mint and freshness. Sponges glowed faintly on the walls, some more yellow, others greener, with bacterial luminosity. Eating sponges helped soothe the hunger, but they were not the meaty food that made the stomach feel good. The Watcher remembered how scary it had been to run away with Maryan and began crying--its howls resounded heart-brokenly among the stalagmite/stalactite galleries. Maryan gone forever. Better to have stayed home and watched cartoons rather than this dangerous adventure. Daddy coming home with the evening newspaper--where? The Watcher was alone and wanted its mother, but that was long ago and she might have forgotten by now. Maybe the ice cream truck would come again? And maybe the little girl? Would she taste good?

In another tank in another cave not far from the last, a young man slept in a tank, awaiting the hour of his birth. As he slept, he dreamed warm and comforting dreams of Maryan and Alex.

Pop goes the weasel! The ice cream truck came around the corner. Impulsively, Alex grabbed Maryan's hand and ran, towing her along. Always up for adventure, she squealed and ran along with flying pigtails. The truck turned the corner and disappeared from sight. The boy and girl ran after it, but couldn't find it, and got lost. The morning grew hotter as the sun arched up above the towny roofs, and tar began to run black and liquid on the asphalt streets. They ran and ran, growing tired and scared, until they heard the distant chimes again on a faraway city block: Pop goes the weasel! Now they knew which way to run, to catch the truck, to be borne home grinning and licking cold vapor-wrapped ice creams on sticks. What fun!

The dreams inside the new, good copy of Alex were sweet and efficient. The deoxyribonucleic acid polymers had long unraveled according to their programmed instructions. His genome/phenome had sparkled in the tank like an intricate glass spaghetti about six feet long and roughly in the shape of a human being, at least seven or eight months ago. The ancillary cellulation had grown in a steady process, all at once, dermis and epidermis forming at one level, striated muscle tissue under that, spongy bone at the core, and nerve filaments snaking through the entire structure according to some astronomically complex bioelectrical blueprint. His brain unpacked itself rather like a blow-up rescue boat inside his dura mater. Plop, went one cortex, plop went another, until the whole skull cavity was quite packed, while leaving nice room for the sinus cavities that would soon receive their first breath of air.

The Watcher could smell new life forming in the caverns and tunnels. He snuffled about, licking clean weedy water and eating mushrooms that glowed on the walls. He was often scared, and hungry anyway.

Waiting...

Wee Alex, he stumbled through the darkness crying for his mommy. Or for the little girl with the nice smile. His tummy really hurt now, pounding like his heart. His wailing filled the coal-black air around him and came bouncing back like scary beasts pouncing. Scared, he waved his arms and yelled and ran, and the more he yelled the more the wails and screams and snorts followed him, pressing from all sides, until he hid in a blacker-than-black corner and shivered quietly and soon the bat-like noises stopped flying toward him.

Ah, then he rose. He smelled the flower smell, the sweet smell, the mommy smell, the nursing hands and feeding tubes of where it was good to eat. This way! the good smell seemed to say, and the mushrooms glowing on the walls looked like big smiles as he stumbled, faster and faster.