  Smiths Pantheon Smith lifted his eyes and knew immediately that it was time for a walk. He didnt need a clock to tell him that. Hed never needed a clock to tell him anything. Smith resented people that lived by their watches, who ate when it was time to eat, who drank when it was time to drink. But Smith was compassionate, understandinghe knew people werent born that way. Each had bought a watch of his or her own free will, once upon a time, but then, ever so slowly, the watch had conquered any independence these poor souls might have had, its fingerless hands ardently gripping the reins that harnessed them as if they were mindless animals.
No, he didnt own a watch. He didnt own a clock. It was time to walk because Smith felt like walking. He was full. Hed tested the limits of his stomach, with spaghetti. Now it was time to walk it off.
It was still a dreary day. The sun strained to glare at him behind a thick swath of clouds. Smith stepped down from the cabins porch, onto the moist dirt, looked to the wall of trees before him, their timber tentacles straining to touch the white sky. He entered their domain, leaving his little colony of civilization behind. Smith had become fed up with everything. Thats why he was there, in the middle of the wilderness.
Smith saw a world that he had no desire to be a part of, on the news, every night, over and over again. Miseries and the voyeurism associated with them were in a golden vogue. Profit before human need. Families across America sat together on their striped couches in their cramped, dim living rooms, eyes wide, dilated, faces expressionless, the stern televisions blinking angrily at them with death, commercials, and then more death. Smith was never an advocate of censorship, in any form, but the screaming mothers and the silent coffins really didnt seem to be changing mindsthey kept dropping carpet bombs, they kept firing missiles, they kept shooting guns. And we kept watching.
We couldnt get enough of it, apparently, because, to be honest, we just never stopped. Smith didnt have a problem with the images, no; he had a problem with the universal, American apathy toward taking action against clear wrongdoing. Everyone thought someone else would do something about the carnage, but this notion was so widespread that nothing constructive was ever accomplished. Injustices went unsolved, unpunished, people forgot and moved on. Smith didnt want to call himself one of them anymore, because gradually he discovered that he wasnt one of them. They thought he was, though, and it was embarrassing.
So he gathered his savings and left. He was alone, but not lonely. Alone was the way to be in that world. Back in the city, it wasnt long before Smith realized that relationships in any form were taxing, bothersome, trivial. He didnt need them. Isolation solaced him, gave him time to do what he wanted, when he wanted, without a person to worry about for miles in every direction.
Thats just how he was. Thats how he thoughtthey could kill each other, fuck each other over, as long as he didnt have to deal with it. Let the world burn. Smith wouldnt have been surprised if everything collapsed during his self-imposed exile. Everyone knows Earth has it coming, he thought. He didnt want to think about that anymore.
He shut the planet out of his mind and walked enthusiastically into the wide arms of the forest. Robins chattered an undulating tempo above Smiths head. He heard something rustle behind a pile of browned leaves, cocked his head toward it. A chipmunk sprouted up a tree some feet ahead. He ascended the small mountain he lived on, the mountain that, as far as Smith knew, held no name. It was an easy walk, at a pleasurably steep angle.
He walked fast and burned his calves without breaking a sweat, and as the forest thinned the mountain became more obvious, a frozen landslide of boulders led to its crest. He leaped over the rocks, hoisted himself onto ledges, felt dried moss prick his fingers, granite bite his palms. He lifted himself to one of the larger stones near the top. A column of ants wormed its way beneath his legs, between his hiking boots. One left the line, touched his shoelaces with its antennae, then skittered back to its group. Smith sighed.
He didnt know why he thought of it then, but he reached his fingers into his pocket and picked out a quarter, set it on the rocks surface, in the path of the ants. They ignored it entirely. Something to admireants have civilization, ants have society, ants divide their labor, but most of all, ants dont give a shit about money. Its possible to live without money. Hell, ants do it all the time; they thrive without ever thinking about it. Whatd you say, were different species?
Ha! Sure we are. Its easier to live with lies than with truths, isnt it? The clouds had cleared and the sky had blazed to pink. Smith reached the summit as the sun licked the horizon with its iridescent tongue. He stood there and watched in awe as it drooped beneath the shoulders of the world.
Its colorful saliva lingered for a bit after it had disappeared, but before long the last tinges were evaporated. The cold chased the warmth away. He was left with the bare, star-spackled sky. Hed never seen a view like that back in the city, even in the suburbs. Like standing at the center of a football stadium, with thousands of noiseless camera flashes directed solely at Smith, standing alone, quiet on its field. Stars.
He sat down on the rock and was surprised to find that it was cold, made of metal. He lowered his eyes and read the letters: MOUNT PANTHEON There was a sentence or two beneath, but the writing was too small and his vision was going anyway so he didnt bother. He raised his eyebrows. So that was the name of the mountain. Interesting. Never heard of Mount Pantheon.
Definitely an odd name for a mountain, especially a small one. Something pushed against the air, then. Something was pumping. A shrill wine grew behind the fast chorus of beats. As the percussion intensified, Smith looked to see the distant silhouette of a double-rotor helicopter, a red light on its underside blinking desperately. It shot over Smiths head, the shriek of its engine all but unbearable.
His nose inhaled a plume of dry, acrid smoke. He watched as it tried to gain altitude, and stood as it dropped back toward him, like a pendulum, swinging its nose to face his widened eyes. Smith dropped to his stomach, buried his head beneath his arms, heard its raucous scream flood his ears. Something cold slid over Smiths shoulders, something smooth and metallic. He heard a horrific scraping noise. Instinctively, Smith looked forward; saw its nose dancing on the summits edge mere feet away.
It fell, upside-down, onto the landslide of rocks. Its body smashed and crumpled into a terrible wreck, a serrated corpse that belched bright flame and black smoke into the sky. Smith stood, and Smith ran. Right at it. He leaped over rocks, past burning metal shards dipped in oil and blood. The same colony of ants he had passed was fleeing the wreckage, swarming over the boulders and spilling off into the forest.
The jaws of flame roared at him like a hound out of Hades as he climbed through the shattered cockpit windows, past two gutted pilots slumped in their upside-down chairs, their belts slick with their insides. Smith knew, just looking at them, they were dead. He paused, with the realization that he had never been so close to a warm corpse. He tried to meet the empty gaze of their eyes like a timorous toddler, but saw nothing. He stretched out his hand, furtively touched the helmet of one of the pilots. It burned his fingers, he yanked them back.
Smith retreated from the bodies, bumped against the cockpit wall. He shook his head, blinked, realized there might be survivors. Smith moved down the ceiling of a thin corridor, through veils of smoke and tongues of flame, calling to see if anyone were alive. Smith heard a shout, ran toward it. In the bay of the helicopter there were boxes containing bullets as large as Smiths middle finger strewn across the ceiling, apparently they hadnt been secured. The door at the end of the body was open wide, and a large machine gun pointed down to the steep slope of white rocks he had climbed barely minutes before.
Grasping the barrel of the gun, his legs pointed at the ceiling, was a soldier. Smith weaved through the boxes, wrapped his fingers around a handhold on the wall, and extended his other arm. The soldier screamed for help; Smith screamed his assurances. Smiths fingertips couldnt get a grip. The man was too far away. Smith stretched out as much as he could, straining to keep a grip on the handhold, his center of gravity well over the edge of the helicopters ceiling.
The ship jolted and creaked, angrily. A box of ammunition hit Smith in the head. Golden bullets rained out of the cargo hold, most of them pattering on the soldiers uniform. The trees loomed below. The soldier became more anxious; Smith found it harder to feign calmness. He told Smith his finger was wrapped around the trigger of the gun, that the gun was loaded.
Smith asked him why the hell the gun was loaded. The soldier told him, because they were the military, they always had their guns loaded, they were ready for anything. Smith asked him what they were looking for; the soldier said he had no idea what they were looking for anymore, but that, furthermore, this was no time for conversation. Then the soldier said he was going to try to get a better grip. The mouth of the gun burst a stream of bullets, riddling his body with them. Smith looked away, clenched his teeth.
The guns percussion didnt stop until it was out of ammunition, but the hammers drum was unending. The corpse hung by the finger that pressed against the trigger, the momentum from the golden bullets causing him to twirl like a cocooned insect suspended from a spider web. The helicopter creaked again, and the forest rushed toward Smith. He could only sigh in terror, dilate his eyes. A tree lanced from the dark earth and jammed itself against the inner wall of the cargo hold. Its leaves and branches cut against his skin, and he lost his grip, fell through the air and rolled over the moist soil.
After a time Smith managed to get to his feet, though his ribs protested the movement vehemently. He looked upward and saw the corrugated beast pointing its nose vertically to the sky. The copters mouth had swallowed the tree and the throat of the cargo hold seemed to be gagging on it. But the machine balanced there, blazing its fires with a passion from wounds that were visibly growing in size. One last bullet fell into Smiths open hand. His fingers tightened around it, and he screamed as he threw it back at the helicopters corpse.
It could keep its bullets. 
