A Heaven of Others (8 page)

In the beginning
I had a late summer birthday like my Aba with the Haftorah from Isaiah
Fear not for I am with thee I will bring thy seed from the east and gather thee from the west I will say to the north Give up and to the south Keep not back bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth
the same titles I knew from each night I did this which was almost every and still I don’t know why I didn’t just go ahead and up and rearrange all the books on my shelves why I didn’t just put new titles there move some old ones around others but I never did and so quickly it seemed but it probably wasn’t I was bored of the titles and so moved I wandered my eyes to the left or so to stare dead ahead at the crack of the draft at the door at the seam the scar of the suicide attempt of the wall its light that was coming through shining though getting narrower and narrower or rather becoming shorter and shorter smaller it seemed as if a rectangle becoming a square becoming a yellow circle that was like a block I used to play with that the Queen gave away to my new cousin in Arad I never would meet becoming a generic cereal O I would string as if to bead a bracelet or necklace on a shed of the Queen’s hair drowned in my milk whole in the morning becoming just a pinpoint a prick the sting of a wasp one for both of my eyes and yet one for each too imprinting itself singeing themselves
incising
and
gashing
until despite the pain I fell asleep finally I must have fallen asleep at long last I fell asleep I did as dead as I am now and will be forever and there yes here yes this was what I am after this is what I’ve been after what I was trying to say what I’m saying that heaven is like: when I fell asleep and into a dream but into a dream THE Dream that might or might not be new novel or original but I’m sorry it was a dream at least I’d never had before and certainly not since I dreamed of dreaming and that was it was a dream of a dream only in which I was in bed with the covers with the Aeroplanes on them the helicopters’ propellers and rotors tangled up to my nose with my eyes closed I saw what I thought what then happened was that I was sleeping and that I knew I was dreaming that I was dreaming of sleeping and in that sleep I was dreaming that was it that was all I was forced was compelled it’s that I was cursed to dream myself dreaming and with everything around me the same and unchanging and me unable to change it or myself I was straightened into this dream of dream into this dream of a dream of a dream with as many levels or hierarchies or heavens’ worth of consciousnesses if you want attendant upon the phenomenon as I can now attempt to admit to know understand that was it was without revelation there was no revelation there was none at all to be had and instead though it’s a poor bargain if you’d ask me now if only you could only if I could answer in return the assurance of existence that’s it times tenfold that’s all that I am shining I’m just shining through the horror just through the raw yolk of existence cracking a shine through its knobless handleless shell it was horror yes because It was horror or rather more accurately more faithfully It was terror yes more like terror that was it was terror it was abject terror abject total terror yes terror that’s what heaven is like that absolute truly terrible dreaming of dreaming of mine.

Yom Hazikaron
, 2004

Joshua Cohen is the author of five other books, the story collections
Bridge & Tunnel (& Tunnel & Bridge); Aleph-Bet: An Alphabet for the Perplexed
(with artist Michael Hafftka); and
The Quorum;
and the novels
Cadenza for the Schneidermann Violin Concerto;
and
Witz
, an 800-page telling of the life of the last Jew. His fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared in
Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Triple Canopy, Tablet Magazine, The Forward, The Believer, N+1
, and in the anthology,
30 Under 30: Innovative Fiction by Younger Writers
(Starcherone, 2011), as well as in many other venues. He was born in southern New Jersey in 1980, and currently lives in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn.

Also available from Starcherone Books

Kenneth Bernard,
The Man in the Stretcher: previously uncollected stories

Donald Breckenridge,
You Are Here

Blake Butler and Lily Hoang, eds.,
Thirty Under Thirty: An Anthology of Innovative Fiction by Younger Writers

Peter Conners, ed.,
PP/FF: An Anthology

Jeffrey DeShell,
Peter: An (A)Historical Romance

Nicolette deCsipkay,
Black Umbrella Stories
, illustrated by Francesca deCsipkay

Raymond Federman,
My Body in Nine Parts
, with photographs by Steve Murez

Raymond Federman,
Shhh: The Story of a Childhood

Raymond Federman,
The Voice in the Closet

Raymond Federman and George Chambers,
The Twilight of the Bums
, with cartoon accompaniment by T. Motley

Sara Greenslit,
The Blue of Her Body

Johannes Göransson,
Dear Ra: A Story in Flinches

Joshua Harmon,
Quinnehtukqut

Harold Jaffe,
Beyond the Techno-Cave: A Guerrilla Writer’s Guide to Post Millennial Culture

Stacey Levine,
The Girl with Brown Fur: Tales and Stories

Janet Mitchell,
The Creepy Girl and other stories

Alissa Nutting,
Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls

Aimee Parkison,
Woman with Dark Horses: Stories

Ted Pelton,
Endorsed by Jack Chapeau 2 an even greater extent

Thaddeus Rutkowski,
Haywire

Leslie Scalapino,
Floats Horse-Floats or Horse-Flows

Nina Shope,
Hangings: Three Novellas

Purchase through
www.starcherone.com
, from your favorite bookseller, or through Starcherone Books, PO Box 303, Buffalo, NY 14201

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