Dennis Richard O'Reilly

Part 1: Tim

...watercourse through Eden for all I know or care or wander circuitous, acrimonious, obstreperious, apollonian, abalonean, abstetricean, owe-inspiring, oblifting, overcoasting...

As Timothy Rist steps out of apartment 2A at 2204 Steiner Street, San Francisco, nonsense and semi-sense stream through his head -- as they do whenever he isn't reading or debugging.

...Astral afformelody derisively, sublevity, instrictably colevitated and dispeptible, repulition invalident...

In dark-but-not-black coat, pants, shoes, and logo-less baseball cap, Tim crosses the hallway to apartment 2B.

...deep through pockets, slow through traffic, cul-de-sacrificing, out with an inrush, obliviant, observient, intestitute, irresolute....

He knocks quietly. A woman says through the door, "Who is there?"

"Mrs. Kahn, it's Tim. I'm going shopping." Mrs. Kahn opens the door.

"Come in, Mr. Tim," Mrs. Kahn smiles broadly and motions Tim into the apartment. He takes three steps and stops, leaving the door open behind him. "Do you have a grocery list, Mrs. Kahn?"

"Yes Mr., I have it here." Mrs. Kahn dashes inside the apartment and runs back clutching a piece of paper that she holds out to Tim, who takes it, scans it quickly, and puts it into his coat pocket.

"I'll be back in 35 minutes. Good bye." Tim nods to Mrs. Kahn and walks out.

"Okay, good bye, Mr." Mrs. Kahn shuts the door.

...medieval collateral ligaslatures straining limb from limb and frame by framulation of the most deframable order--defluorable conduct--repudient and reprobatable as you wish, azure wisp, a sure whiz, a Q test, acutest, ablutist, agronomist aglomin' in the gnominest...

Hiding his head in his shoulders and his chin in his chest, Tim walks the carpeted hallway to the stairs and descends into a narrow, sun-lit lobby. Twelve dull-metal mailboxes glisten along the right wall. Tim pauses a second before walking out the iron-grated front door and down 10 pock-marked cement stairs to the sidewalk. He heads south down Steiner.

...gad about, cast about, eyefully, wherily, oh, merrily a month of mays, a mickle a month, a nickel a night, a pickle a pop, propensity, Penn City, pencil appended and misapprehended, offended, upended, resplendent, defendant, suspendant, distendent, obdurant, mode-errant, I see how they parent, unbleached and abraded, easily sated, tire deflated, uneliminated...

Each Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Tim walks the two-and-three-quarter blocks south and three-and-one-fifth blocks east to Andy's Supermarket on Bush near Octavia. He marches to the beat of his mind's phonemic creations.

...Federico federation, fine-feathered fricassee. Cybersonic inorgonic disrephonic catatonic. Austin Tayshawn, Erie Geishan, Rusty Tucson, Preppy Sision, Darryl Hixon, Fussy Nation...

Tim traverses the supermarket aisles purposefully, loading items from Mrs. Kahn's list into the shopping basket.

...Stetson Jetson, everyone gets one, purse on a vacation, barbarian equation, quoridification, aspartomy, exhortomy, ozidate, respectorate, ostensify, prefericate, obliquorate, aliterate, a hypocrite...

Tim goes to the only open checkout line, and when it's his turn he places Mrs. Kahn's items on the moving counter. He pauses the text string running through his noggin and makes effortful eye contact with the clerk, whose name is Brian. Tim smiles, nods, and says "Hello, how are you?"

Tim knows Brian is related somewhat distantly to the owner, whose name is Woo, not Andy. Tim has seen Woo five times: on three occasions in the store and twice at night on the street, far from the store. This is the twelfth time Tim has watched Brian ring up Mrs. Kahn’s groceries. Tim sums and averages his ten most-recent grocery tabs, adds one-half of a percent for price increases, and estimates today’s total at $68.15.

"Find everything okay?" the clerk asks without looking up as he scans Mrs. Kahn's items.

"Yes, thanks." Easy. Whew. Focus.

“$68.25,” Brian says, glancing quickly at Tim’s face.

Pay. Smile. Change. Receipt. Eye contact. Nod. Yes sir, yes sir, four bags full -- two per hand. Tim walks head down, hands full, out the store's front door. The stream recommences.

Ben Begrudgeon, blistic sudgin. Retrobation, dispendension, not to mention, irregression. Re-arraigning, Riva rollin', preterminus, deferminous, boracious, displacious, reputacious, spontificacious....

Tim blends discretely into the background of the urban afternoon, recognizing no one and everyone, nothing and everything. Everyone, everything, no one, and nothing repay the favor.

...Winnie was a little brittle, fit-n-fiddle, front back and middle. Sad-eyed Sid said it oh, so subjectably. Sioux City see-saucer. Seuss Alley Sue. Sally saucily soused. Imprimatically paucilated. There and then arose such a ruse, as he dosed so he boozed, as he sewed so he sued, adding shoals to old shrews. Said he did, did he? Oh, dilly. And Elly O'Daly, she was eerily addled. Ederle oddily. Adlai utterly...

Thirty-five minutes after leaving, Tim knocks again on the apartment 2B door. "It's me, Mrs. Kahn." The door opens. Mrs. Kahn follows Tim into her kitchen. Tim places the bags on Mrs. Kahn's kitchen table. Mrs. Kahn follows Tim out of the kitchen toward the front door. "A very nice casserole for you today, Mr. Tim."

When he reaches the door, Tim turns, nods to Mrs. Kahn, and says "Good day."

...As two swans of two minds swim by ear by heart by rote to rune, by step to m'lou, m'darlin deary derries. Sank two by aries, binaries, by plenopotentiaries. Able bailees bade by baleful breezes, borne to bewail by, will by their will be ill at their ease be...

Twenty seconds later, Tim is sitting in front of the computer monitor in his apartment. The word stream pauses as soon as he sees the blinking cursor. His fingertips resting lightly on the keyboard, Tim reopens his debugger and begins doing what he does second-best: hunting for errors in code.

Part 2: Three's a Problem

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