• Prologue: The Congress of the Stones
• We meet the Fata Morgana, a goddess. We follow her down illimitable flights of steps cut from the living rock of her world of exile. There will be a parley with the planet itself. The pitch of the steady slope is such that she thinks ‘down’ no matter whether the passageway rises or falls.
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• Chapter 1: The Pig Killing
• Harry Pease has heard the call of the Fata Morgana, Lady of the Wild Things―a goddess, ancient and dispossessed. A late vocation from a religion long forgotten: this Harry decided to keep to himself. It all began when Marcus Hanrahan called to say there was beer in the refrigerator and the pigs were waiting. He and the wife and the Hanrahan kids, whose pets the pigs had been, would be at the mall...
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• Chapter 2: The Electric Virgin
• The Queen of Heaven, Orange Virgin, Fata Morgana, etc., etc. shuddered as the first pig died. On the Other Side, the strain of the sacred pig was breeding true again. And she had not known. How and when does a pig know it is holy and dressed in the raiment of joy? A new pig, a pig of the ancient line, not yet self-aware until the revelation of the final, fatal flash―the pig and its killer knotted in their mutual innocence. “One gets out of touch... I am explaining myself. This is all wrong.”
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• Chapter 3: Meet Biff
• Biff Bangtree backed out of the buttery, his pockets full of doughnuts. Biff Bangtree was not yet his name, since Morgana had neglected to call him anything. That he have a name was not a vital component of their lovemaking.
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• Chapter 4: The Raspberry Dream
• At the tip of an eyelash a tear formed, glistened, and fell to the empty channel far below. The tear caught Morgana quite by surprise. Tears have their own reasons. She observed its downward spinning through the mist, the tear’s coiling descent a path that circled in against itself. The mechanics of its fall changed it from a tear to a sphere, turning the crystal pearl over and over in its flight, examining it as if for flaws.
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• Chapter 5: Harry Does the Lawn
• Joyce Gladstone (Mrs.), librarian, at an age when the obituaries were the first item turned to in the paper, avoided that page, apprehensive lest her interest precipitate another vanload of books. Sometimes the thought of Harry Pease and his collection of Popular Mechanics and Playboy magazines stalked her nights, interrupting her blameless sleep. She dreaded finding Harry’s name listed among the newly dead.
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• Chapter 6: Morgana and the Eidolon
• “You have an admirable facility for understatement, goddess. What you have just witnessed and cannot remember is the end of everything and a new beginning―the Big Bang. Yearnings, struggles, joys: all the paradigms, apotheoses, covetousness, sloth, envy, etc., along with dandelions, cabbages, butterflies―the hotel reservations and weekend painting projects of a googolplex of individuals are over, caput, finis―sucked through the eye of Eternity’s needle, pushed out backwards on the other end, and here you are. Simple, really.”
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• Chapter 7: Sarabande
• Home from her cosmic tête-à-tête, the Fata Morgana addresses Sarabande, Superintendent of plantings and the Herbarium. “Sarabande, I know this is becoming tedious for all of us, but you are not the Sarabande to whom I last spoke, are you? I mean you are truly beautiful and there is that in the curve of your mouth and the shape of your ear, the very turn of your hair―the way it exposes the notch, that tiny irregularity at your widow's peak when you tie it back like that. You are Sarabande?” Kneeling in the fresh spring mud of the greensward, Sarabande ruins her gown―“...the one to whom you spoke was my great-great-great-grandmother.”
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• Chapter 8: Electricity Comes to the Star Chamber
• In the cellars of the Queen three stone heads grace the capital of a buried pendentive. The heads are malign at first glance, a dead craftsman’s nightsweats and horrors: vaguely a Cow, a Goat, and a Manticore. Mineral deposits have whitened the Goat’s tongue and striped his head so that his tongue appears to have paused in the fastidious licking of an ice cream cone. The Goat’s dead eyes are rolled back, hollow stone pupils positioned to stare up the kilt of any passing visitor. In former times he had been out-of-doors and his gaze was heavenward, away from the temptations of the earth and the flesh.
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• Chapter 9: Prince and Morgana
• Pen Harrington has disappeared into the cellars of overnight radio, a lover of night nurses and truck-stop waitresses. To those up top in the sunshine who might think of him the consensus is that the best thing about Pen Harrington is Prince―big, loving, gentle and not too bright. Where Pen goes, Prince goes, and preferably by car. Prince sits in the passenger's seat giant and yellow, and mostly Labrador retriever. Prince sleeps and dreams of a cow stuck in a wall. The stone head looks down and nods wisely. It has a secret. “I know who you are,” says the Cow. Prince raises a leg. “I wouldn't do that if I were you. I am a sphinx. Cleopatra loved me.”
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• Chapter 10: Video Poker
• Wherein Pen Harrington and Prince meet the Fata Morgana at a bus stop. With none of his master’s inhibitions, Prince walks up to the goddess and sticks his nose between her legs. “Prince...” A low, happy glottal rumble as ears are scratched by the exciting, wonderful woman. More tail-thumping and the nose is firmly back in place. “...I knew introductions would be in order. Prince and I are going to be close. Very close. Call me Maggie.”
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• Chapter 11: Biff is Born
• There is a heterodyning squeal and Biff looks to the radio receiver. “This is today’s lesson, study it well. You will do daring things.” The voice of the Fata Morgana is inside his head. An urgent baritone fills the room―“And now... Dolby Jenks, Space Ace, brought to you by Chocolate-flavored Ovaltine...”
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• Chapter 12: Stone Heads and Mayflies
• The stones of the Fata Morgana’s castle are black basalt, striped with travertine―an outcropping of the world spirit. The stones get little satisfaction from the flickering, fluttering life dwelling in the spaces they define. Nor are they particularly quick-witted even by their own lights, and their thoughts, when they think at all, are particularly tedious, for not many decisions are required of them and they take the long view.
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• Chapter 13: Pork-A-Dillos
• Linda Winkelman, priestess-designate of the Fata Morgana, wants “more.” More of just what she is not quite sure, but she is certain there has been a short-changing somewhere along the line. A chips and nachos conglomerate is introducing Pork-A-Dillos, a low-cholesterol fried pork rind product, the latest scientific breakthrough. Linda has been named project manager for the new product's test marketing; if it flies she will be in line to direct the national campaign.
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• Chapter 14: Nowhere Again
• Wherein the Manticore, indifferent to the guises of chopped liver and salmon with herbs, quests through a spectacle of glittering implements―steel, iron, tin and aluminum, quarts, gallons, missionary cauldrons, runcible spoons, shirers, boilers, broilers and basters, colanders, ewers, forcemeat forms, pâté molds, sieves, lids and ladles. Fluted tin forms braided like the innards of a mollusk’s abandoned husk await gelatin confections, larding needles languish for a loin of pork. A shelf of ceramic rabbits awaits their pâté masquerade.
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• Chapter 15: The Cicerone
• Wherein a spinach quiche is mentioned and the Manticore becomes impaled: “I say, are you stuck?” asks Biff Bangtree. He crouches to behold a creature made up of many other creatures: porcupine, man, lizard, eagle, scorpion. We likewise meet the Wise Child and the Destroyer―aspects of the Fata Morgana.
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• Chapter 16: Linda in Wonderland
• Wherein Biff, Morgana and the Manticore go prospecting for a priestess in peril. A wide-bodied Checker cab spins into the taxi stand at the corner, trying to use the parking lane for an illegal turn to catch the light at 33rd Street. A spray of brown slush stipples Linda’s panty hose all the way to the knee.
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• Chapter 17: Chocolate for the Queen
• Wherein Linda Winkelman meets El, the sky-demon: “I got all dressed up for the Visitation. You are the instrument, the vehicle, if you catch my meaning, of a meeting of vast teleological implications. At this very moment, even as we speak, so to speak, the emanations of the demon-queen of Sumer and Babylon are invading your persona.” Her kidnapper toggles her head back and forth. “Hotsy-totsy, Morgana. You in there? We’ve been expecting you.”
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• Chapter 18: The Valiant Buffet
• Wherein Harry Profitt Pease browses the refreshments table. This evening is the regular illustrated lecture—a slide show—at the Valiant Trust Memorial Institute Free Library. Harry turns to see a pig hop up on the window seat next to Alma Nightingale, claiming a warm depression vacated by Joyce Gladstone, the librarian. Harry stares. The pig is a spotted china with a tight brushy tip to her tail that hinted at purebred bloodlines. “You wouldn’t have a cabbage left in your truck, would you?” the pig asks.
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• Chapter 19: A Roundelay of Rust and Rot
• Wherein Harry and the Fata Morgana introduce themselves: “You are a pig,” Harry observes. “And you are a dirty old man. Don’t belabor the obvious.” The pig rummages in the truck’s glove box and, coming up with an archival Mars bar, settles herself comfortably in the passenger’s seat.
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• Chapter 20: The Mouse
• Wherein the Orange Virgin and El the sky demon are in attendance in the sub-cellars of the Hotel Taft. A cat carries in a still-twitching mouse and lays it at Morgana's feet. “Someone at least remembers who I am. Pardon me, I must share this well-intentioned offering.” Morgana sits cross-legged, facing the cat with the mouse between them. “To you it is religion, to the cat it is lunch, and religion will wait.” The Queen of Heaven bites the head off the mouse and hands the remains to the cat.
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• Chapter 21: Card Tricks and Cheap Tricks
• Wherein the Queen of Heaven checks her rear end to discover a curly pink tail at the base of her spine, while the Manticore meets Linda Winkelman: “You will have to pardon me, but I'm not used to impromptus. Ta-Dah!” There is a smell of ozone, the flickering of blue and pink letters. WELCOME TO THE NEW JERSEY TURNPIKE. REDUCE SPEED APPROACHING TOLL PLAZA says a neon sign. “A regular touch of home,” says Linda.
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• Chapter 22: The Ministry of Responsibility
• Wherein we meet Libby Pease, Harry’s sister, and discover why lime jello with embedded chicken parts and an aerosol whipped topping is a favorite bring-along for covered dish suppers. Likewise Cousteau McClonaghy, proprietor of a flashing blue neon sign, EAT. Respect for his namesake has him keep fish frys Fridays at the diner long after Vatican II.
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• Chapter 23: At Harry’s
• Wherein we learn that Harry Pease entertains visitors from other planets. Whether Harry has actually seen and talked with them is hard to pin down, but on one thing he is adamant: sojourners from the astral planes make his place a regular stopover on their passage from wheresis to whatever. He has seen their spoor: strange messages on the uninhabited channels of his TV, usually in the early morning hours when the decent, Christian stations are turned off.
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• Chapter 24: An Infusion of Orrisroot
• Wherein Harry Pease discovers all is not as it seems: “Your voice. It reminds me of Lauren Bacall,” he tells the spotted pig. And the Orange Virgin speaks to Harry’s health and welfare: “Your death, immediate and terrible, is no longer on the menu. I forget people have feelings, too. I had planned something modern and deliciously psychopathic for you; you should be flattered. Like chopping you into little bits and flushing you out to sea. Pardon me for being brusque—these are my little ways.”
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• Chapter 25: The Poet
• Wherein molecules rush in to fill the space so recently occupied by Tom Winkelman, one third of a kitchen table, and a laptop computer. The Poet offers sustenance: “Corn whiskey―make it myself. God only knows what the proof is.” Tom has jumped into the clear air of a Europe untouched by Huns, plague or industrial revolution to land in a haystack, a guest of the Queen of Heaven.
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• Chapter 26: A Vine-covered Cottage
• The house has a storybook air to it, a short ground floor and a steeply thatched roof―whitewashed animal dung and straw with an occasional fieldstone for accent. Tom Winkelman remembers seeing something like it in brochures for picturesque vacations. “It’s like dying but with regular mail service,” remarks Valerie Hatt. “There’s a village five kilometers upstream and through the woods. Or leagues, versts, miles. Depends on who’s walking. Weights and measures are pretty unpredictable here.”
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• Chapter 27: Shootout at EAT
• Wherein a heavily-armed woman strolls in through the shredded remains of Cousteau’s Salada Tea screen door; her introductory burst of automatic weaponry showing no respect for cooperative advertising. She is packing more firepower than the National Guard and looks very much like a wronged woman on a tear. “The absent wife,” says Pen, referring to Valerie Hatt, somehow transported from Morgana’s Languedoc village.
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• Chapter 28: On the Downtown Local
• Wherein the Fata Morgana decides Linda Winkelman, priestess, is an unnecessary clutter. Tonight is the night Tom thaws Szechwan dumplings, too, thinks Linda. Please don't be angry dear reader, for we have reached that time in Linda’s story arc where we have to bump her off. Anyway, the idea of missing out on Tom’s dumplings makes her disproportionately cheery about her impending death. She drops her gym tote and rummages through its pockets. Doesn't she have a bottle of Midol somewhere?
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• Chapter 29: A Dream of Dancing
• Wherein a patrician beauty dances open-mouthed, taking short frequent breaths—more, surely, than are demanded by the exertions of the dance—her eyes rolled back to the whites in a stylized gesture of sexual anticipation which her escort must notice. The escort notices, but he is busy covering his back. Both preoccupied, they spin on woodenly—dancing around an object of which they must never speak, whose existence must never be acknowledged. There is power in a glance, the power that if your eyes linger overlong on another dancer’s partner this will require him to forget his timing, drop rhythm, break the truce. They have pretended they are here for the dance.
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• Chapter 30: King Stiltwalker and the Queen
• Wherein The Fata Morgana, Queen of Heaven, etc., etc. ponders the  past: “Times and places change, not faces. Here I have accomplished something so stupendous, touching the unborn for millennia to come, and there is nobody left on stage but me who knows just what the hell happened. Some congratulations are in order. The child, Biff Bangtree, will be well.” The Fata Morgana smiles a secret smile. “I have things, ahh... arranged.”
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Ogg Vorbis?

A new arrival at onetinleg.com is the Ogg Vorbis option. I mean, really... who wouldn’t prefer a compression technology inspired by Terry Pratchett’s Discworld? Ogg is the enclosure, Vorbis the codec―more bounce to the ounce and at a potentially lower bit weight than MP3s. There is a panoply of Ogg Vorbis players out there―I use the VLC player; you can download it here. But then, I am an XP holdout. The Windows 7 operating system comes with the Ogg-friendly Windows Media Player 12. There are add-ons for older devices, too. Mac? Yep. For OS X follow the bread crumbs at http://www.vorbis.com/.

iTunes and That explicit thing

An iTunes hint. Search out “Audio Podcasts.” Then type “Orange Virgin” or “Rob Hunter” in the search box; this should get you there. While navigating the tales you may notice some (all of them, thus far) tagged as explicit. No outside agency is responsible for this. I did it myself. The free-living citizens of these yarns exercise a talent for robust self-expression and have likewise been known to procreate at the drop of a, well... at the drop-of-a...