Something surreal twisted out of sync and appeared on the sidewalk. In a dark overcoat and tipped-down hat, seeming a refugee from an obsolete age of gangster movies, it walked into the library.

"May I help you?" asked the old librarian, a face all obeisance, a face crinkled upon itself like a windblown sheet of newspaper.

"What is life?" asked the Gangster-Shadow-Twist.

"Excuse me?" the librarian queried, not certain that she had heard correctly. It repeated its question, to which the old lady now responded, "Freedom and a heartbeat, I suppose."

"Freedom does not exist and I possess no heart," the Shadow-Twist replied. "Is there anything else involved?"

The librarian turned her back now. "I am a busy person. If you have any further questions, feel free to browse."

"Thank you," was its departing comment as it hummed through the autodoors and into the March wind.

The sidewalk was new, incised with occasional finger-etched immemorials, many letters inside a quarter as many hearts. The bushes were tiny gnarled things with bold thorns and roots buried deep amongst the dry flaky dirt to the side of the walk. Something about their crouching compactness was remotely threatening. Trying to take notes on everything while it had the chance, the Twist turned to examine the library.

The library was a thing of red brick and greying, stressed mortar; sporting a great network of choking vines that clung to the walls with inconsiderate talons. The tall, clean windows presented their view of the interior in an absurd way, with different lighting, a different color scheme, and a different sort of motion than the rest of the face of the building. Without a shrug the Twist turned away and came to a street: a strip of hydrocarbon reek that it feared to tread upon. Seeing no alternative, it jetted swiftly across to the other side. Here he was greeted by more buildings, soot-stained and foreboding, boasting their colorful insides through facades of angled glass. One was a room of bound paper, the next a place of styled slabs of wood, and the third a place of strong aromas which lured the Twist to its doors.

"What is in here?" the Twist asked politely.

His reply came from a girl, young and smooth, idly chewing something that could not be seen. She seemed to find great amusement in this simple question. "Health food," she commented, "You know: fruits, nuts, spinach ... natural things."

"I do not know." Its tone was weary. "But I do know that health and life are related. Do these things make one live?"

The girl began to smell afraid. "Of course not. But they might make you live longer." She gave up then and tried to shrink away behind the sales counter.

"You make no sense, and these scents are not pleasing." The Twist complained, then departed that place. No sooner had it turned a corner than it was hailed from above.

"Neat suit, man!" was the call, and when the Twist turned its senses upwards, it saw that the voice came from a young man hanging from a second-story window. It said nothing, and the Hailer added, "Hey man, ya wanna come up'n smoke a bowl wi some bored guys?"

The language made no sense, but the Twist understood the tone of invitation, and always accepted such on his quests. It scanned the sides of the building, seeking entrance. A set of rusted, shadowy stairs clung unhappily to the rear of the building, and a door was thrown open at their summit, so thence proceeded the Twist, climbing slowly and purposefully.

At the peak of this creaking ascension, the Twist was ushered into a dimly lit room by Hailer, a rough-faced soul with a permanently angered face.

"Take yer coat?" asked Hailer.

"No. It is mine," replied the Twist, and Hailer chuckled. He led the Twist into the next room, where there were four other men. The room smelled like the smoldering ruins in the wake of a forest fire, a thin bluish smoke clinging to the ceiling, seeking escape through the stucco ridgework. The other occupants sported aggressive and oddly displaced expressions, each staring his own bored amazement at the sight of the Twist.

"I'll be damned! It's Clyde Barrow!" shouted one of the men, and some of the others laughed. The Twist did not understand, and did not ask for details, but he mentally labelled this man Shouter.

"Is this life?" asked the Twist, getting back to his studies without any introduction.

"Ya Knockin it?" snapped someone, earning the name of Rapper as he struck a metal bar repeatedly into the palm of his hand.

"Knocking? If that means studying, then yes."

The men were confounded and apprehensive, their eyes disfocused, their voices garbled and rude. Hailer handed a can to the Twist, who stared at it from a variety of angles before handing it back. Hailer laughed and pulled on the can, evoking from it a sizzling sound and a smell like the cloy of overripe, rotting fruit. This he handed back to the Twist, which looked at it cautiously.

"Yud think e never seen a beer before," laughed Rapper.

"What is the use of sealing up bad odors in small cans?" asked the Twist, setting the can down nearby.

Shouter staggered to his feet. "Yo, buddy. It's all we got. If it ain good enuf fer ya, juss hand it back. Juss don't get too big fer yer coat."

"I do not understand you. I only came here to ask about life."

"Yer gonna learn about death first if ya don't fuckin shape up," someone snapped back.

"Shape up? I am afraid that I do not speak your language that well. What do you mean?"

Shouter approached the Twist, snarling. "Listen here, dick-fer-brains ... we've taken enuffa yer shit!" And Shouter tried to grab the front ot the Twist's overcoat. His hands pressed only into air, throwing him off balance, stumbling him through the Twist and against the wall.

The room fell silent. A late evening blue filtered in amongst them, saw their fear, and departed. Now there was only darkness. A light rain was now scratching feebly at the windows; a car slished past outside and below, its tiresounds fading through Doppler to a different tone, then rounding a bend into silence. Cigarette butts ashed and flaked away before the silence was broken.

Shouter shuffled to his feet and retreated from the thing he had touched. Hailer sat heavily on a chair, crushing a stack of papers that occupied it. It was Shouter who spoke. "You're the Grim Reaper, aren'tcha? I could FEEL it." His voice was a scared whisper.

The Twist understood this and replied, "The name sounds familiar, but I do not call it my own. I ask explanation."

"You came here as a sign. One of us will die, and you will take his soul with you when you depart." Much of the colloquialism in the man's voice had melted away in the heat of his fright.

Someone returned, "Come off it, man. The Reaper's a hooded thing with a sickle, NOT some hoodlum from the roaring twenties."

Shouter turned upon him. "Yeah sure. I just put my hand through the fuck! Explain that!"

Silence.

"I am not interested in death," stated the Twist indifferently. "I only wish to hear tell of life. I want to make myself alive."

"Huh. Don't know what to tell you then, buddy,: Shouter admitted without relaxing. "Life is all we got, and it sucks. Then you die. There're drugs to speed it up and drugs to slow it down, but everyone dies anyway."

"What is death then?" asked the Twist, tightening the air around them all. Someone coughed.

"Death is the end. Nothing. Darkness. Nobody knows, really, cuz dead people don't talk much."

"I came from a place that was black and fluid, heat and colors that were thoughts or souls. Was this death? What am I?"

"The Reaper," Shouter confirmed. "Who's gonna die?"

"All of you, eventually, like you said. There's no sense testing me. I HAVE been listening to you." The Twist's voice was losing its power, gaining reverberance, and he could feel the Pull of Return, which told him that his visit was coming to an end. It was inescapable: he would be twisted back to that place from whence he came. "As you can hear, I am getting weak. I must depart now. Thank you for your words." The Twist turned to leave, and there was no resistance.

Outside, the sidewalk was beginning to fade, but the Twist followed it anyway. It turned a corner and trailed off into a direction that no human could follow; but it was here that he met the librarian.

"I think I'm having a heart attack," said the old woman, clutching her chest. She tried to get back to the library, but kept drifting further away.

"Didn't you see him when you left?" asked the store girl, with slashes in her face. She spun down the walk, crying blood.

"Buncha fuckin Doritos," complained Cougher, holding his throat as he fell past the Twist. "What a way to go .... it ain't FAIR ..."

Of course, none of this made any sense to the Twist. Alone, it shrugged and took the last, directionless turn into oblivion.