Free Onion Songs by Steve Rasnic Tem

of its existence. This cave was full of the dragon’s breath, and thus was full of light and fire. And Joseph had come to realize that the end of his life would, indeed, be this cave.
    Joseph ’s many years of hunting down all the things of this world had given him an instinct. All he had to do to find an animal was to think about it. But he had never really thought about the dragon before, and so he had never stumbled across it. Even when he dreamed about the dragon he didn’t dream of the dragon itself but of its cave full of fire.
    But now at the end of his life Joseph thought about all the animals he had ever encountered and the messages they had brought from the world. And by thinking about them all, in total, he allowed his feet eventually to lead him to the mouth of the dragon’s cave. Joseph thought about hunting the dragon down, killing it, eating it, and then worshipping it.
    He dreamed a creature the size of an elephant, with a roc ’s head and giant eagle’s feathers, front legs of a rhinoceros and furry, lion-like hindquarters below its scaly back. But when Joseph walked into the mouth of the cave he walked into the mouth of the dragon as well. He never got a chance to actually see the dragon; the eyes given to him by the world were useless for this purpose.
    Joseph walked for a very long time inside the dragon, blind, and eventually , with no useful purpose for his arms and legs, they fell off as quickly as he had formed this thought.
    Joseph dreamed within the dragon within his cave in the heart of the world, dreaming of all the animals, all the things he had been and would be. Joseph dreamed that he was the world. And Joseph the world dreamed of the eyes it would one day create, to give to that one piece of itself that required them.

 
    SHOPLIFTER
     
    An old man leaves a large downtown department store with an enormous lump under his coat.
    Stop, thief! cries the store manager rushing up behind him and grabbing his elbow.
    Remove your hand, the old man tells him, it ’s only a large, malignant tumor I have.
    The store manager opens the man ’s coat and removes the refrigerator there, carrying it back into the store on his back.
    An old man leaves a large downtown department store with an even larger lump under his coat.
    Stop, thief! cries the store manager as he rams his head into the old man’s back.
    Why, it ’s only a committee of concerned citizens I have here, the old man says, nothing more.
    The store manager opens the coat and pushes the down escalator back into his store.
    An old man leaves a large downtown department store with an enormous black shadow almost hiding him.
    Stop, thief! Will you never learn? cries the store manager as he leaps on the old man ’s head.
    It ’s merely a cemetery, you funny little man, replies the old man.
    Whereupon the store manager rips open the coat, revealing the hundreds of faces of his best customers, all staring out, sightless, their skin pale, lips cracked.
    And their torn hands and arms pulling the store manager in...

 
    BRAIN OF SHADOWS
     
    While he was asleep someone played with a flashlight in his head.
     
    The intruder was silent but betrayed his or her presence when sudden flashes illuminated the figures in the dream, making them cower and cover their eyes and revealing the landscape they walked in to be no more than paper, plaster, and cheap paint.
     
    Have some courtesy , he mumbled in his sleep, and his dream folk nodded their agreement.
     
    The intruder stumbled and accidentally flashed the light on himself to reveal a biblical figure in long white robes and a beard.
     
    The next night the dream folk were all wearing dark glasses and the body of God lay broken and bleeding behind the sets.

 
    ATTACHED
     
    A mother takes needle and thread and attaches herself to her first born, a daughter.
    A father weeps and shouts, What have you done to attach her so? How can you both live that way?
    A daughter sews the first boy she finds to