Daisy Sweetgrass is the result of an affair between the wife of Presbyterian minister and a door-to-door flower seed salesman on a steamy August afternoon in 1984. Reverend Sweetgrass never learned of his daughter’s true paternity, and neither did Daisy until her mother, Evangeline, collapsed in her garden when she was twelve. Convinced she was on the verge of death, she revealed to her dear sweet Daisy in melodramatic murmurs about the glassy-eyed young man who was in fact her real father. Her mother told her that he had a passion for 7th century Persian poetry, smelled of pine trees and damp wool, and had given her a packet of daisy seeds as a parting gift. As per the origins of Daisy’s musical talent, Evangeline could only tell her that he had a very pleasant hum.

“I thought you’d be here,” Daisy said as she approached him on the edge of the event horizon, staring off into the void. She wondered if he had heard her, but then the banjo stopped.

“I like to come here when I need to think,” replied Grudge, and without turning around said, “It’s nice to see you, though.”

Now, there was no reason for Daisy to sweep the back of her red and white polka dotted dress aside as she sat down. There was in fact no need to sit down at all. Daisy was simply a creature of habit and it was her habit to do her gazing from hilltops or rooftops seated. So she sat down, not quite beside him but cattywampas.

“It’s nice to see you, too, Grudge.”

He snorted deeply and spat. It landed on the lip of the hole and was pulled in instantly.

They sat and stared in mutual silence for a few moments and those moments quickly grew into eons. She wanted to touch him. Daisy reached out her arm slowly, but had second thoughts. She decided to ask permission.

“Would it be okay if I played with your hair?”

He gave her that sideways glance of his.

“Yeah, sure.”

And so she began to run her fingers through his hair, watching the loose strands float and then become violently absorbed into the hole.

Grudge closed his eyes, breathed deeply, said nothing.

Daisy stopped and lit a cigarette, wishing that she were funny.

“Did you know,” Daisy began, even though she knew that he probably already did know, “that black holes were first postulated by a physicist named Karl Schwartzchild in WWI in a trench? It was either 1918 or 1919. I’ve never been much good at remembering exact dates…”

She laughed awkwardly.

“Leave it to a physicist, right? To be waist deep in shit and guts, his mind retreating from war into numbers. But it’s kinda poetry, right? As though being sucked into one dark, confounding force in mankind led him to uncover the possibility of one that existed in space. I know what you’re thinking, that I’ve over-stretched the parallel, or I haven’t done the analogy justice, but you see what I’m saying. A star burns brightly, implodes, becomes so tiny and so dense that it pulls and stretches the gravitational fabric of this universe to such a degree that it gives this illusion of this ambling void, sucking up matter like a vaccuum never to return. I’ve read that we’ve been able to locate one in every galaxy we know of. It comes down to a ratio of one to one. What does that mean ? One per galaxy. Think of the symmetry there. And I can't help but think about what it is. Is this (motioning to the black hole before them) the end, or do we have it all wrong? Couldn't it also be the beginning?”

Daisy finished her cigarette, extinguishing it on the sole of her shoe. She stared at the charred butt for a moment, or an eternity.

“I love you, you know,” she said.

“Yeah, I know,” said Grudge.

She flicked the cigarette butt into the void. She stood up, and as a course of habit, wiped down the back of her dress.

“I’m gonna go, Grudge,” said Daisy.

“Take care of yourself,” he said.

“I’m trying. I’m sure as hell trying.”

Dear Sulzburger P. Morland,

I hope you find yourself content and in good health, sir. I am writing to you at this moment because I there is a practitioner of Chinese traditional medicine by the name of Wang in my neighborhood, who is a firm believer in the healing properties of your snake oils. I have no firm convictions with regard to either western or eastern medicine, as I am a pragmatist and an impatient one at that, although most anyone you meet here seems to have a very strong opinion. Dr. Wang has always been of the belief that western medicine ignores the latent value in natural remedies and the connections between symptoms and causes emanating from distraught qi within the body. I recall a period of feeling low and out of sorts, so I paid a visit to Dr. Wang in his little clinic down the alley from my home. He informed me that my feelings of depression were the result of cold kidneys. Then he performed acupunture, which made me feel better instantly (although admittedly, I can't say that I felt any increased warmth in my kidney region). And as I was about to get up from my repose, he insisted that I remain a little longer, as he had a supplementary treatment to offer me. In his shabby blue and white striped pajamas, he disappears into a back room and reappears with a bottle of nothing other than your snake oil. He had a curious gleam in his eye. Dr. Wang then tells me excitedly this story of an elixer his ancestors, who were physicians to the emperor, would make themselves. It had been passed down generation to generation, that is, until the Cultural Revolution when Red Guards stormed into his father's shop when he was young and broke each and every vile, and burned every recipe book because it was one of the four "olds." Unfortunately for Dr. Wang, his father, so shocked by the experience, died on the spot and the recipe was lost.

Then one day, while in Xiamen, he came across a wayward sailor by the name of Bjorgenson, drunk and seated beside a crate of viles. Bjorgenson had acquired them accidentally, believing it contained the hash he had worked so hard to acquire from gangsters in Dhaka. When he had disembarked from the Portuguese schooner bound for the Pacific, however, he fell wholly into despair. And as one who could not live without his substances, he decided to try and sell as many as he could for some strong Chinese baijiu. Dr. Wang took pity upon this man and offered to by a vile of this golden liquid, smelling oddly of fennel and supernatural things. Intrigued by it's familiarity, he took a sip. It was following this act that he realized this was the precise elixir that cured emperors of their gout, lethargy; calmed eunichs of their treachery; allowed men to control the intensity of their orgasms. This was it! He purchased the whole crate on the spot and returned to his clinic in order to uncover the ingredients within.

By the time Dr. Wang prescribed me a spoonful of your snake oil daily, his clinic had been converted into a laboratory. He confided in me, however, that it was to no avail. The ingredients could not be isolated. His belief in its effectiveness, however, was unshakeable. He considered it to be the missing link between western and eastern schools of medicine. A truly extraordinary thing!

Oh, but I forget myself Mr. Morland (or is it Dr. Morland?). My name is Daisy, Daisy Sweetgrass. I sing, and according to some, quite sweetly. I am from Gum, Mississippi, which is a small town in the Mississippi Delta. There's only one church in Gum, and if you visit, you're sure to see the sign in front of Gum Presbyterian Church, presided by the Reverend Josiah Sweetgrass. My father's half brother was a famous blues guitarist and before I ran away to China, he bequeathed it to me. "Keep those fingers strong and your eyes bright, Daisy, " he said. "Do that and your voice'll take you far." Well, he was right. I find myself a year and a half later in the Chinese capital Beijing, broke as the devil's fingernail but getting closer to the things I want for myself out of this life.

I am intrigued by your oil's potency, its limitless ability to remedy all ailments, to affect my presentiments. Too, it makes me curious about you, Mr. Morland. I pray that I am not being to forward, but I should like to know more about you, your practice, and the circumstances in which you find yourself. Should you find yourself so willing, I would take it as an honor.

Sincerely yours,
Miss Daisy Sweetgrass