RENNIE AND I went back to England on a fact-finding mission connected with his studies. We took the Ryanair flight into Stansted Airport and then a series of trains, buses, and a rental car until we arrived at the sands of the North Sea coast. We were standing there in a reedy inlet when I first noticed the outline of a large, furry animal in the sands. It was a household cat, but it had been reduced to two dimensions, almost like a carpet. Someone had pressed this cat, as with an iron, or maybe it had been run over by a tank? Up and down the beach, we found other two-dimensional pressed animals and there were some washing up in the waves. I was intrigued by this, but Rennie barely paid any attention to the animals. He wanted to talk about history and nostalgia. In Rennie’s view, nostalgia was eating away the true, tedious work of studying history, the same way that the North Sea was slowly eating away at Winterton Beach. “You’ll notice when you produce any academic work these days,” he said, “that people are no longer interested in the facts, in events, numbers, measurements, or anything concrete that can be defined, no, they want the fluff, the drama, the fucking romance of the era. They only are interested in nostalgia these days, not real history.” We walked along the beach and came to the Royal Museum. Inside there were different kinds of exhibits. One was a life-sized British graveyard that included graves from different eras, ranging from Anglo-Saxon burial mounds right up to the crypts of the Victorian era. Further on, we came to an old industrial mill that was still churning the waters. We went inside, passing through an iron gate. Rennie continued to fume about history. He picked up a large boulder and threw it under the wheel, bringing the whole mechanism to a stuttering halt. “You see this?” he cried. “This is the still-beating heart of British nostalgia!” The pressure on the wheel began to build up and the walls of the mill started to crack. It was like an earthquake. “Come on,” Rennie said. “We’ve got to get out of here before they get the Royal Dragoons after us.” We went back out through the museum, past the cemetery exhibit, and came down a hall filled with tall portraits of the Duke of Wellington and so on. There was a separate back staircase that led down into the staff area of the museum, and we walked through their cafeteria. The Royal Dragoons had already arrived and were filing in, and we passed them as we walked out the door into the sunshine of an English winter day and over towards the car we had rented by the station in Norwich. One of the Royal Dragoons, a beautiful young lady with long red hair, wearing their special red jacket and sash, followed us out and began to pepper us with all sorts of questions. She was a bit shy but seemed genuinely interested in Rennie’s research, but I said we had to go. The Dragoon seemed disappointed, and said she only wanted to know more. “It’s almost as if you’re trying to run away from me,” she said, “as if you don’t like me.” “No, no,” said Rennie. “We just don’t want to miss our flight.” Later, after they found out who had destroyed the nostalgia mill, Rennie and I were both blacklisted from Britain for some time. It was only after the discussions around the Northern Ireland Protocol failed for a 15th time that a magistrate granted the two of us clemency.

I WAS UP to my waist in green swamp water. It wasn’t murky or silty and at no point was I scared or did I sense any kind of natural dangers. No water moccasins came swim-slithering by. Instead, I came upon some branches downed in a storm and began tossing them in the direction of some cypresses. A few beavers had taken refuge there and were busy building something. Building, building, busy beavers. I can’t say they were the most endearing of creatures. Big teeth, paddle tails, semiaquatic rodents. They were grateful for the donations though, and went at once to work diving and building and chomping. As for me, it was time to ramble on. I crawled out of the swamps and got on a white bus bound to somewhere. I was interviewing a German scientist in the back. Sandy-haired, looked like a thinner, kinder Dolph Lundgren. He had done his postdoc at Universitäten Neustrelitz. A chemist by training. I went to check my recording device and when I looked back, he had changed appearances and was now African American. I kept blinking at him, but he couldn’t understand what had happened either. Had I been hallucinating? How does that happen? The bus finally arrived to its destination, and I could see the publishing house was having a street party. There were bins of books and long tables covered in white tablecloths. Baskets of calzones and fist-sized falafels. Floppy Neapolitan pizzas with runny melted mozzarella. Women in summer bonnets. The academy instructors were there. Everyone was talking.

SOMEHOW I CAME to possess an illustrated book of erotica. It was new, or at least some of the illustrations were in color. I was sitting upstairs in an alcove thumbing its pages when Sonja came in. I hadn’t seen her in a while, and was kind of surprised by her appearance. Where had she been all this time? Sonja wore a long bright red dress with a white sweater on top, and seemed quite happy to see me. To be brief, I was quickly seduced. Her yellow hair tangled loosely halfway down her back. I hadn’t kissed a woman who was that beautiful in a very long time, if ever. It felt so good to be kissed. What did she want with me anyway? Then, just as soon as Sonja had appeared, she was gone, but with my book of erotica tucked away under her dress somewhere. I went out into town to find her but she eluded me. The Hanseatic Days Festival was on and the streets were so colorful and vibrant and crowded with sellers and customers. There were antiques for sale, old books, street corner musicians, sauna demonstrations and the like. Someone was roasting a pig. Ruta came by with her new lesbian lover, but I was confused because she used to be married to a man and they had a bunch of children. Was this big switch to be believed or was it just a passing phase? I ignored the both of them and kept looking for Sonja and my illustrated book of erotica. It wasn’t such a great book, you know, but it was mine, and I wanted to find Sonja and kiss her. Miguelito was there and we got to talking by the water fountain. While we were talking, I noticed that another woman was climbing a cherry tree in the park. I watched as she got out on one of the branches, loaded with pink blossoms, saw me from afar, and then toppled and tumbled down into the bushes. I started to dig through the old books on sale nearby, hoping that perhaps Sonja had left the book there, or traded it in for something new. There was an old copy of Kon-Tiki and a Soviet atlas, but I couldn’t find the book of erotica. It was Sonja’s to enjoy for now. Wherever she was.

THE HEADLINE READ, “McCartney Dies! Ringo Last Living Beatle!” and there was a photo of Mr. Starr giving the peace sign. I folded up the newspaper and tossed it back on the counter at the seaside bar. One of the natural attractions was the wreck of a ship more or less on shore, and you could walk out on its rusty deck and look over the edge into the roar of the sea, if you dared. There were other families on the ship’s deck and I noticed, with some concern, how a child dove off into the water and swam back, safely. Of course, my daughter wanted to swim too, and before I could say no, she went over the edge, into that swirling froth. I thought about diving in after her, but soon after she was back on deck dripping wet. On the way back to the hotel, Lata ambushed me. She had been hiding in the bushes. She told me she wanted a baby, but I said it was an impossibility. “Please, please, please,” she said. “I love you.” I told her it was impossible. “If I have any more children, I’ll just die. And that’s the beginning and end of it.” I felt rotten about the whole thing and went back to the hotel room. It looked over a vast swimming pool, but there was something lifeless about it. “Dead Sea,” I quipped to myself. Where was this, anyway? The Bahamas? The Canaries? All these places looked the same. Later, Ramon came by to pick me up. He cruised up in his convertible and off we went. Latrell was in the back seat. He kept putting his legs on me and I kept pushing them off. He was in a bad mood too — was it McCartney’s demise that had rankled everyone? — but Ramon kept telling us that McCartney had really died back in 1966 in a car accident, and it was only his replacement, William Campbell, who had died. Or maybe he had also died and this was just another replacement? How many McCartneys were there? I felt bad for Ringo. He was the oldest one, and now this? What a rare honor, to be the last of a quartet. I’d had enough of dead ships and dead seas, dead heroes and and dead everything. I needed to find another island, to get away for a while. As soon as we pulled up to the little supermercato, I gave them all the slip.

I WAS IN ENGLAND or maybe Scotland. Some larger UK city with Georgian architecture, but nothing recognizable. I was looking for a cash machine, but there were none around. There was a café toward the ends of one wing, but nothing else there. Just some city folks drinking lousy coffee and an old man selling Cornish pasties. While I was searching, I encountered a young family with two sons who recognized me. They were fans of my work, and I was happy to sign autographs, but they would not quit pestering me. I lost my temper. We were by the main door and I sprinted across the street to get away, into another gold-bricked mansion. This, as I found out later, was the main building of the regional NHS Trust. I did find an ATM and withdrew some crisp banknotes. They had not yet replaced the queen with the new king. Vesta was there waiting. Vesta’s had a hard time of it. She always does. She is a firestorm woman of uncertain circumstances. We began to leave the center together, and I was surprised when she wanted to do it right there at an intersection. There’s a kind of desperation with her that is so satisfying. Many long for comfort, for security. They want to be held and never let go of, preferably by someone with a good-paying job and of sufficient emotional fortitude. Not Vesta. She’s a monsoon, and that only makes it doubly satisfying. “No, no, no,” I told her, “Everyone will see us! Let’s go back to my place.” At my place, we climbed the stairs and went into a closet. There were people downstairs having some lunch. I could hear them eating, but we felt safe and there was just enough space.

IT WAS A SCATTERED and disjointed scene, as are most parties at the Depps’ house. I use Depps, plural, as due to some tinkering with the space-time continuum, or other freak accident, there are now two of them, and they are both the same Johnny. There is a 40-ish Depp, the one who starred in The Curse of the Black Pearl, and then a much older one, the graying, grandpa Depp, about to star in some future, unpenned installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. The older Johnny Depp gives the younger one pointers, but they don’t always see eye to eye. Sometimes the younger one listens, sometimes not. Because they host so many events, these discussions are usually around trivial matters, where to place the beer keg, for example, or what kinds of wine to serve. If you remember correctly, there is a back living room with plush couches, a large, open central area, complete with a kitchen and well-lit by skylights, and then another room beyond that, where the boys and girls like to play billiards and there’s even a juke box with records by the Electric Prunes and Amboy Dukes and “Rumble” by Link Wray. Beyond the billiard-juke box room, there is a smaller space. This is where Depp, Sr. and Depp, Jr. keep the wine. The wine room. There’s whiskey in there too. Cognac. The man (or men) likes to drink. Of course, someone had to bring a python to one of these things. It was the night that Stig was over to host another murder mystery. Stig, as you know, carries a slingshot in his back pocket for protection. One can never be too careful. Considering I was stuck in Johnny Depp’s liquor stash, cornered by this tropical snake, I thought it would be an apt time for him to wield it. But he said no. Not only did he only use the slingshot on special occasions, but he didn’t want to get his suit dirty. Then he told me the snake was my problem. Stig turned off the lights, shut the door, and went back to hosting.