I intended to make a very small movie with simple characters- a psychopath who wants to kill his best friend’s wife, the wife who is running away from a past where she has abandoned her culture, the best friend who is campaigning for political office but who is secretly taking international trips to revisit an idyllic childhood.

But as soon as we started casting and these actresses and actors came in and read these lines, I felt, No, no, we need to do something more. We need to make this space-age. We need to set it not in our galaxy but instead beyond our galaxy.

I invited the producer for tea and of course she started in about the traffic and the investors and the tax credit and then she told me her mother had just died and that she’d be gone for the next week of prep.

I sipped my tea and I don’t really remember what happened next but then Humphrey was there with all his pretty girlfriends and it was night again and we were out by the pool. At this point I had a drink with ice in my hand and I turned to Humphrey. Humphrey, I said. What if this whole thing is in outer space? What if we put the girl and the psychopath and the friend in space-suits flying around out there?

I don’t think he even heard what I was saying. He jumped into the pool and splashed the girls and they screamed and laughed and threw inflatable pool toys at him. One of them had dark-rimmed glasses and she stared at me with a kind of reckless, angry stare that I find appealing to the point of compromise.

Soon the two of us were floating on either side of a blue, plastic, air-filled raft, staring at each other without speaking.

And then later I got up out of bed and walked over to the window, pulling a soft robe onto my shoulders. Do you like space? I asked her. Outer space?

She stared at me without blinking like a cat before it bites you. I leaned against the jamb. There is all this emptiness out there, I went on. A tremendous void. People are not being pulled down by gravity. They float. Or they ZIP here and there on space rockets. Much more exciting than here… In LA.

I looked back over to the bed but she was gone and I could hear her down with Humphrey and the other girls by the pool. I walked out onto the balcony and watched them from above. They looked so mortal, so transient, while I was just then beginning to feel immortal and infinite. I leaned against the balcony and thought hard about space, and making the dramatic arc still work with the characters in tight silver space suits.

I went down and joined the party. Now and then I caught actual stars out of the corner of my eye. They twinkled in the violet expanse above like they were winking at me. And I just smiled. I’ll take them up there, I said quietly, watching the revelers chasing and embracing one another. I’ll take them all up there…

All I do is dance. Which is probably why we have nothing in here but a bunch of nylon leotards that stink of the worst sweat. I’ll just go down to the corner store in this sheet.

An hour later you could find me sitting on the stoop, wrapped in my favorite lavender bed sheet, eating marshmallows out of the bag because I had a craving. Little girl from next door: “Can I have one?”

“They’re bad for you sweetie. It’s really just chemicals. They taste like glue.”

“I know. Can I have one?” I gave her one and me another one.

“What are you EATING!” It was her mother. There came a storm of Spanish invective.

I was alone again. I got up and pirouetted. Then I did an arabesque. And a chassé. I couldn’t stop there. I had to raise the sheet a little as I swept through my catalog of favorite moves. A train went by underground and that put some rhythm into my head. Then a car alarm. “It’s rhythm, man! Don’t let it kill your BUZZ, MOTHERFUCKER!!”

There were some claps from across the street. A whistle. I curtseyed and went back up, eating one marshmallow per step. If I keep going like this I won’t even fit in this sheet.

I’d forgotten my key so I sat down and leaned my back against the door, polishing off the marshmallows and flicking the empty plastic bag down the stairs. MAX!! MAAAX!! WHEN ARE YOU GONNA GET HOME MAX??!!

Falling asleep on my own doorstep but how convenient- I already have my sheet! ZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!

But there’s roaches in the hall. That’s not nice. So I’m down again on the stoop, singing quietly and watching the taxis go by as a light rain makes my blue night misty.

People shouting. And HONK HONK BEEEP!! My fingers do the dancing on the step beside me: miniature pirouettes and pliés. Then my eyelids are pulled down by the sleep magnet. That same magnet drags me down to a bad slump. And I’m out.

Tony sat on the edge of the brook, bare feet in the water, tugged at slightly by the gentle current. A large hole had been blown clear through his chest but he still swayed back and forth. He watched the minnows swim circles in the clouds of blood billowing in the water. His own gun sparkled down among the green pebbles. Some twigs snapped behind him but he didn’t turn to see. He swayed and stared. The trees lost their dimension and became sharp black veins silhouetted in the rosy pink sky.

You ain’t a farmer, a voice said from somewhere in the wood behind him. Tony’s right hand made a twitch toward his empty holster. Ripples in the brook reflected the sunset and the empty white sky above.

A kid sat next to him, arms hugging boney knees. A farmer would have done run away a long time ago. The kid spat into the water. Hey, is that your gun? The kid looked at him. Can I have it? He stared at his white feet in the water. Hey, are you dead? The kid leaned in, peering. You ain’t dead. But that’s a pretty big hole. What are you gonna do about that hole?

The kid waded into the water and then submerged for a minute to lift out the nickel-plated pistol. This thing fires good?

Just then a cloud of crows flew overhead, crying their bitter cries and the kid pointed the gun at them, pulling the trigger repeatedly CLICK CLICK CLICK.

I’m gonna let this dry out, he said, and turned toward the forest. He looked back at Tony’s motionless body, feet still dangling in the water. CLICK!

Tony’s eyes moved, following as the kid found his way up through the brambles, finally disappearing among the trees.

He thought he heard the kid singing in a distant, high-pitched voice. Then it was quiet.