To rise means to be given room to rise.

Aspected with focii, VM defies the Absolute Tsar of the Drought. "Drought Tsar! Don't make me come up there!"

The rest of the story is all crazy with the festivity of his ascent, contra tempus. The bunting, the wreaths, the wakes, the circle dances, the warpaint.

What else? You know full well. The lap dances, the storefronts, the signages, the frisking showpony, the fish tails in the parking lot, the ravey gravy, all will be his and thus everyone else's - or no one's at all.

All the rest is restless: the Cabriolets of stretched glass, the fierce wire mules, the pastiche of prairie roses and smoke columns, continued page 3c.

(Still, the unhappening, the refusals, refused; all the inversions, the mock turtle hunts, the ritual slayings of that decaying Christian Science Monitor Lizard.)

Mishima planned to pull over at the first sign of the next station.