Anthology Complex II by M.B. Julien - HTML preview
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When Ryan gets outside, the high school students are gone. They are replaced with children and their parents, and they too, stand on the corner waiting for the school bus to come. Ryan laughs at the image because he truly believes that if you are young and 52 | NEW YORK MINUTE
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standing on a street corner, you're either selling drugs or getting an education.
Ryan enters his car and starts the engine and then makes his way to the home of a long-time friend; the wife of a police officer who had been murdered by Spider. When he gets there she invites him in. She tells him the children had already left for school. Ryan sits down and reassures the dead cop's wife that Winston, the detective assigned to the case, was making progress in finding out who murdered her husband.
After Ryan leaves, he drives to the police department to begin his day but is met with words of anger. As he is walking across the parking lot, he runs into another detective who he suspects has had issues with him since the creation of the new unit.
As they pass each other, the other detective, Richards, gives Ryan a look that implies a lack of respect, so Ryan finally speaks out. “You got a problem with me or something?,” he asks.
Richards replies, “Yeah I got a problem with you. You and your nigger partner.”
“Yeah what's that?,” Ryan interrupts. “You guys need to stop trying to be heroes, having a useless unit be made to save a city that can't be saved. Stop trying to set examples for the rest of us and just let them kill each other, it's the only thing they know how to do.”
Ryan looks at Richards and decides to just walk away. As he begins to walk away he tells Richards to go “fuck himself,” but Richards laughs and says “It's pointless. I'll retire in one year and be done with this bullshit and you'll still be running around with your dick in your hand trying to figure out where it all went wrong.”
Ryan takes extreme offense to Richards's last statement, so he turns around and walks back towards Richards and the hostility begins to take form. “You think dead cops and dead children are fucking pointless?,” he asks, but does not want an answer. “You go ahead and sit behind your desk and wait out your retirement while the rest of us actually try to do our jobs.” Ryan begins to walk away again, and Richards says, under his breath,
“You're just too young.”
Ryan enters the police department and finds his desk. As he begins to look through some papers, Frank Mainor comes out of the break room and sees a disturbed Jim Ryan in the distance, and chooses to wait a while before he initiates the day's first contact.
I turn on my television to find that it's not on my favorite channel. For some reason, it often resets itself to the starting channel. As I'm flipping through channels just to see what's on before I get to the news, I come across a program that depicts life in the vast ocean.
The image reminds me about the time Jesus and I were standing at the beginning of a sea, as if he were preparing to baptize me. After a while he tells me to wash my hands, and I do. After the deed is done, he tells me to wash them again, and we do this over and 53 | NEW YORK MINUTE
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over again for God knows how long. As he's looking at me, I can tell he wants me to wash away the sins of such an idle life.
Some time goes by and then he tells me to stop, so I do. He then starts to walk towards me slowly through the water, and when he finally reaches me, he puts his hand on my shoulder and begins to speak.
“I know you have many questions, and I know life has made you very angry. This is not a bad thing, though.” He says these words to me and when he's done I simply nod, letting him know I am listening and that he should continue. “Having many emotions may cloud your judgment, but if you have one very strong emotion, it may turn into passion. There is no doubt that this passion will bring about suffering, and I am certain it will heavily decide the course of a life, but depending on who a person is, it may drive them to do great or terrible things.” It makes me think of social fragments that become alter egos.
“There will be these individuals that will do terrible things,” Jesus continues, “but my father in Heaven has given you a right to distort these events in the case that an event is so terrible that it becomes unbearable to hear.”
I continue to flip through channels until I finally land on a news channel, then I turn off the television. I grab my mail key and go downstairs to check my mail. Nothing unusual at first, bills, junk mail, but then I find two envelopes that are addressed to Lynnette Parker. “To the parents of Sarah Parker.” “To the parents of David Parker.”
This is probably the fourth time this month that I've gotten someone else's mail.
I go back up the stairs and knock on Lynne's door, but it's not Lynne who answers.
Instead, it's a teenage girl and it confuses me. “Is Lynne home?,” I ask. “No she's at work,” the teenager replies. “Work?” “Yes,” she looks at me like I'm crazy, “work.” I pause for a moment and then I hand her the two envelopes that belong to the parents of David and Sarah Parker, “These are for her.” The teenager thanks me and then I leave, still a bit confused.
Hours go by and because Lynne suffers from the politeness complex, which has sub-complexes named apology complex, merci complex and por favor complex, she has the need to pay me a visit to thank me for bringing over the misplaced mail.
We talk for a while and by the day's end, I learn that she had recently found a job working as a waitress at a restaurant in the city. I asked her about the young girl who was at her apartment, and she tells me that she was just a babysitter who lived just a few blocks down the street.
The babysitter, Alondra, is the daughter of one of Mary's friends. Mary had met Alondra's mother at the hospital where she gave birth to Anthony. Alondra's mother had 54 | NEW YORK MINUTE
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given birth a few days prior to Mary's arrival, and after they'd met, they realized they lived very close to each other so they decided to keep in touch.
Keeping in touch was a good idea because Mary's sister would be leaving soon and Mary herself would need a babysitter as she was returning back to work. Alondra, who is home-schooled and is well-known for her professional babysitting skills but was currently out of work, was immediately volunteered by her mother to help Mary with her situation at no cost.
Mary and Lynne, who had become friends, talk about how Lynne had just found a new job but was having trouble finding a babysitter. Mary brings up Alondra, and because they both live in the same apartment building, Mary asks Alondra and Alondra's mother if she would feel comfortable babysitting for Lynne as well, and that of course she would pay.
They agree, and now Alondra babysits for both of them. If both Lynne and Mary need babysitting at the same time, Alondra brings Anthony down to Lynne's apartment.
However, even if Sarah and David are not home, Alondra will sometimes still bring Anthony down to Lynne's apartment because she enjoys playing David's video games.
This is the exposition that has been given to me.
After she tells me about the babysitter, I had asked her if she liked the job, and she says, “Well, it's a job.” I then ask her how far into the city it is, and she says not too far, that taking the bus gets her there in about twenty minutes. “You take the bus?,” I ask her.
“Yeah,” she replies. “How come you don't take your car?” She laughs and reminds me that she has to get it fixed first. “How ironic, one of the reasons I needed the job was to fix an already dying car, and when I do get it, the car that was suppose to take me there gives up,” she says.
“That is pretty funny,” I reply, “you can borrow mine until you get yours fixed if you want.” She looks at me, I'm not sure if she's confused or delighted, then asks, “You have a car?” “Well not here right now, but I have one just sitting somewhere in a parking garage,” I reply. “How come I never see it?,” she asks. “It's cheaper to not use it.
Anywhere I need to go is usually in walking distance, and if it's not, the bus will take me there,” I reply. She looks at the ground, then tells me she's grateful for the offer but that she doesn't mind taking the bus. “Come on, I can't let you stand out there in that cold waiting for the bus to come. Especially when you don't have to,” I say. “No really, it's not that big of a problem and I really wouldn't feel comfortable taking your car,” she replies.
I look at her and say “Well I tried,” and we both laugh. She looks at the ground again, and I can tell she hates taking the bus; like most of us, she probably hates waiting for it the most. I had tried my best to lend a helping hand, but it appears she doesn't like getting 55 | NEW YORK MINUTE
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in the way of others.
She looks back up after the brief pause and says “I have an idea!” “Okay,” I say. “I know you just want to help, but I don't want to just completely take the car, so what if you just drive me there and back? That way you have your car here and can use it as well when you need it. And I'll help pay for gas.”
I think for a moment, and even though that would probably actually be more work on my part, I laugh and agree. “Sounds like a good idea to me, but you'll have to drive when we are both in the car since I don't have a driver's license,” I reply, “and obviously I'll just have to follow the rules of the road when I'm taking the car back home and coming to pick you up.”
Smiles and social fragments are passed around and then she tells me that she will give me her schedule at the beginning of the week so I know which days she is working and at what times. Before she leaves, she starts walking towards me and gives me a hug, then says “I'm really happy to have you be a part of my life,” to which I reply, laughing as I say it, “Yes, you are indeed very fortunate.”
The next day, I call Brandon, a mild friend who I had previously let borrow my car. I ask him if the car is still in the parking garage and he says yes, that the last time he used it was about six months ago. In the night time, I walk to the bus stop through the bitter cold and the dirty snow and wait for the bus to come. After a long time, it arrives, and sooner or later I find myself entering the parking garage and standing before an object from my previous life.
An object that I wanted nothing to do with, but because of a reoccurring messiah complex, needed to metaphorically save a friend from long evil sidewalks in relentless evil weather.
I take off the blue tarp and to my delight, the car is not very dirty. Thank you Branden, such a kind soul.
I get the engine started after a few tries and then begin my drive back home, of course meticulously following the rules of the road. On the way I get more gas, and after a while I am finally home. I park my car in my parking space and enter my apartment. After opening the door, on the ground I find a piece of paper, and after reading it, realize it's Lynne's schedule. The next time she would be working is the day after tomorrow.
Tired from the day's few events, I go to lay down on my bed and immediately close my eyes. The blackness you see after closing your eyes, but before truly falling asleep and beginning to dream, I had always called that “Black Therapy,” a sort of therapeutic conversation you have with yourself.
During my black therapy, I think about the ironic chair that changes these people who 56 | NEW YORK MINUTE
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sit on it, these same people who wanted to change the world. I think about how the real way to change the world is to destroy the chair itself. To break its bones with objects of metal anger. Before this black therapy can evolve, though, I fall asleep.
In the morning I wake up to a knocking door. When I answer it, I see Lynne who seems to be dressed for work, but on the piece of paper she had given me, it said she wasn't working until tomorrow.
“I know the slip said I work tomorrow but someone quit today and they need me to fill in, I saw what I'm assuming to be your car in the parking lot so I was wondering if you wouldn't mind taking me today?,” she asks.
“Of course I don't mind,” I reply. I tell her that I'd be disappointed if the car wasn't used and jokingly say that I might demand that she meet a certain quota each month for car usage.
I hand her the keys so that she can start the car up and then I go to my bathroom to wash my face. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and it reminds me of a downtown city hotel.
After a few minutes I leave my apartment and then the apartment building and in the distance I can see smoke coming out of my car's exhaust pipe. As I get closer I notice that Lynne is sitting on the passenger side. I go to the passenger side and knock on her window and she rolls it down. “You're driving, remember” I say.
She slides over to the driver's seat and I then enter the car and we start our voyage.
Phrases like “I really appreciate this,” “Thank you so much,” “This is a big help,” are often said during the drive. I knew she hated taking the bus.
When we're halfway there she asks me if I will know my way back, and I tell her that it won't be a problem. Finally we reach her place of employment, Famous Max's Diner.
I'm not sure why, but the name seemed familiar.
“Well, this is me,” she says as she laughs. I laugh as well and say “Nice knowing you, you can get out now.” She laughs again and pushes my shoulder as she says “You know you could ask nicely.” “Please, put your hand on that doorknob and pull,” I continue to joke. She laughs one last time and then tells me what time she is finished with work.
Before she gets out of the car, she kisses my cheek, and the moment after that, after she's gone, I feel as if a solution of regret had been injected into my veins. House was a children's game I had never liked playing.
Hours go by and I drive back to Famous Max's to pick up Lynne. During the drive back, we don't talk much, but I do notice that it appears her eye color was a lighter color.
The same color, but a lighter shade.
In the past I had heard about people claiming that their eyes changed colors with their 57 | NEW YORK MINUTE
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mood, but I had always suspected they were misinformed. That their eye color only seemed to change colors due to different angles and lighting circumstances. Whether that is true or not is irrelevant right now, because I know for a fact that Lynne has been seeing brighter days.
Detective Fields, along with his partner, Michael Samson, and two other police officers in uniform arrive at the residence of Triggerfinger in two unmarked police cars.
Because the commissioner of the police department has expressed his concerns about cops being killed in the line of duty, Lieutenant Merrils insisted that Fields take other officers into the field for assistance, and that they all be aware at all times.
The four enforcers of law exit their vehicles and Samson tells the two uniformed officers to go around back to cover any possible exits, but because they are not certain if Triggerfinger is guilty of murder, not one of them knows what to expect. Fields reminds them all that they are just here to talk.
“Mom where's the remote?,” Triggerfinger yells out. “You the only one who watches the T.V. boy, look for it,” she replies. As Triggerfinger gets up to begin his search for the lost remote, he sees Fields and Samson walking towards the apartment building, and the only thing he can think of is how one of the bullets from his gun killed a little girl.
He panics and runs through the apartment towards his gun. After he gets his gun, he immediately runs out the back door and into an alley where he sees two police officers in uniform. In the past, most criminals knew better than to shoot at officers of the law because of the severe consequences that followed, but the past is the past and today belongs to the youth.
Triggerfinger, never failing to live up to his nickname, immediately starts shooting at the two police officers as he runs away. Fields and Samson hear these shots and immediately draw their firearms. Any people who are in the area are now paying attention to their surroundings.
The two officers take cover and then draw their firearms as well, but at this time, Triggerfinger is long gone. Fields and Samson now appear in the same alley as the uniformed officers and notice that they are hiding behind garbage cans. “Which way?,”
Samson asks. One of the uniforms points in the direction they saw Triggerfinger run.
“Okay you two go between these buildings, Samson and I will tail the suspect,”
Fields says. All four of them slowly engage their duties, checking all corners and making sure their partner isn't one breath away from Heaven or Hell, however, none of this matters, because when Samson reaches the end of the alley and looks out into the street, he sees that Triggerfinger has been hit by a school bus and is laying on the ground surrounded by other people.
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Fields calls for an ambulance as he and Samson run up to Triggerfinger, but it appears that he is as good as dead. A few seconds go by and an angered Fields puts away his weapon as he hears his now unnecessary backup's sirens in the distance.
When it is all over, Triggerfinger is pronounced dead and his firearm is collected as evidence, which would later be proved to be the gun that killed Brittney Morrison. Since there were no bullets found inside Samantha Morrison's body, the police would unofficially assume that Triggerfinger had killed them both in an attempt to kill Malcolm Carson, even though it was actually Rock who had killed Samantha, and was now feeling regret for the life he lead.
Some people say that children are the only innocent people in the world, and that when they are gone, the world will burn. The irony is that Triggerfinger was but a child himself.
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Chapter 58
THE EMERALD CITY
1:2:6:58
ONE one-hundredths of a century ago, I had a particularly interesting dream. Before the dream, however, I had been resting on my favorite couch watching my favorite channel. Every once in a while I wondered if the people reporting the news suffered from euphobia, the fear of good news, but every so often I would be reminded that they didn't.
Every so often, I'd hear about how an eighteen year-old beat cancer, how a child caught a football from one of the professional players at a football game, and when she saw that another child was sad that he didn't catch it, she gave it to him. I'd hear about people risking their lives to save another, a man standing up for a woman when an ignorant person spat on her religion.
These uplifting stories, they are out there, but what it seems like to me is that the people reporting the news don't report them as often because the general public is more affected by the stories that bring you down, and thus almost appear to generate more interest.
You might find yourself digging deeper to learn more about the death of someone you knew long ago more-so than digging deeper to learn about the birth of a non-immediate relative. Then again, most newborns aren't buried.
By now I had fallen asleep and was dreaming. In the dream I am in someone else's apartment, waiting for them to come home. The only thing this person has in their apartment is music. No food, no bed, no books, no tables or chairs, just a pile of music.
Something like this makes you wonder if it's how much value a person puts into a single entity that defines them as a person. What is the one thing in the world Joe would refuse to live without? If Joe wakes up and finds that he has lost every thing, what would he miss most?
The door opens and I hide in one of the rooms. The person walks in and stands still for about a minute, and then goes to sit down in the corner of the living room, perhaps to sleep. After a while I walk out and try to say something to him, but I can't. That's when I realize that I have no mouth thanks to a shotgun of my past.
I was confused because I had remembered a white shade that took off my bandage and allowed me to speak, but now, once again, I couldn't speak.
The man in the corner of the room looks up, then he stands up and simply stares at me. He's completely dressed in black and to say he had the demeanor of a mysterious man would be a serious understatement.
We both stand there, and then he puts his hand inside his coat. Because of all the sinful things I had heard about him doing, I assumed he was pulling out a weapon of 60 | THE EMERALD CITY
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some sort to do me harm. Instead, he pulls out a lower face of a human head; lips, jawbone, chin, teeth, every thing. He throws it at me and I catch it, and then he tells me to put it on, and I do.
“Did you piece my face back together?,” I ask. “It's not your face,” he replies. He sees the confused look on my face and continues to speak, “Your face was never gone to begin with, but since you believed it was, it was.” I'm still confused, so he's still talking.
“This is a fragile world. I gave you a mouth because you believed you didn't have one, and so now you do because you believe I gave you one.”
While I'm still mentally digesting what he's telling me, I ask him, “Why do you do these bad things that you do?” “What bad things do I do?,” he asks me back. I know that he knows exactly what I'm talking about, so I divert. I begin to speak, “You and me, we are alike. We both know the truth about birth and death, the truth about the power of belief,” “What is this truth?,” he interrupts. “You yourself said this is a fragile world, and in a fragile world such as this one, where belief is every thing, if you simply choose to believe that your death cannot occur, then it will not occur.”
“Is optional immortality such a bad thing?,” he asks me. “No, it's not,” I reply, “but when someone like you has this power, a person who preys on the un-optionally immortal and does as he pleases with absolutely no consequences, they must be put down.”
A grin grows on his face, “And how do you intend to put me down?” This reminds me about what the white shade had told me, how the only way to truly defeat the man covered in darkness was to convince him the error of his ways. Brutality was pointless.
I remember the white shade sitting me down and telling me that people died because they believed in death, because they had heard so much about it. Because unlike birth, they had to prepare for it. My question is, how do you convince a man to do good deeds when there is no threat or reward of an afterlife.
“If you let me, I will show you the satisfaction of charity,” I say. Something I said must have ticked him off because he starts to walk forward, and when he gets close enough, he takes a swing at my face that knocks me down. He hovers over my body, continuing to punch my face, and after the first few punches, I can already feel my jaw denting inwards. As he's punching me, he says “There are no high horses around here,”
then his punches get harder, “The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.”
A few punches later, he stops for a moment to catch his breath, and then says, “If you want to spar with me, you better take your gloves off.” He delivers one final punch that completely breaks my jaw, and then he stands up. He walks over to his music and begins to play something, but I can't completely hear it because I'm fading away. Slowly, the pain becomes more and more overwhelming and my eyes begin to close.
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Right before I wake up, as my eyes are closing due to the intense pain, I notice spray-paint on the ceiling. "Welcome to the emerald city." Seattle.
What was unusually interesting to me was the concept of death, primarily his death.
He basically tells me that he cannot die, not unless he wants to, but the truth is he already has. The moment anyone finds out that they can live forever, they will experience a sort of spiritual death. That person who you used to be for so long seemingly disappears, and with that spiritual death comes a spiritual birth. He is indeed alive, but his past life is gone forever.
Whether he can dig up his past life or not is a mystery, but after you've seen the writing on the wall, it's very difficult to return to a life where death hovers above your soul. A car, some money, maybe a significant other, things like these become background noise and the only thing that really matters is your spiritual birth, and what you will choose to do from then on.
Abraham Lincoln said if you wanted to test a man's character, you had to give him power. The man dressed in black has all the power he could ever wish for and then some, and he has chosen to become what he has become. I sometimes wonder which way the world would tilt if everyone believed in belief, and every person's character was put to the test.
About two months later I have another dream on the same dreamline. I'm back at the office with the white shade, wondering if my efforts to stop the man of darkness are worth it. “What if all this is just a dream?,” I ask the white shade. “And what if it is?,” it replies.
“Then none of this matters. If he kills someone, it doesn't matter because it's not real,”
I reply. The white shade thinks for a second, and then he says to me, “You are saying a dreamworld does not have real events because you are comparing it to another world which you have been told does have real events, but the lack of belief and value in the dreamworld should not automatically credit this other world.”
The white shade starts to tell me about how either world's events, depending on your character, are equally important or equally unimportant. “If you live your life in the dreamworld, and there you find that your son has died, will you not grieve?,” he asks me,
“If a loved one betrays you, will you not feel?”
“I get it, I get it,” I reply, “but if this is a dreamworld, his actions are not affecting me and the pain he causes in his victims' lives is not real.” “You do not get it, because you are still gray.” His color reference confuses me, but he continues to speak, “Do you truly believe that because you cannot see or touch or feel the pains of his victims, that they are simply non-existent? You probably do, yet in this supposed 'realworld,' when you hear about a woman being stabbed to death, even though you have no connection with her 62 | THE EMERALD CITY
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whatsoever, you probably hoped that her death was quick and with little pain.” He looks at me for a few seconds, then asks, “Why should the death of a woman in one world be more important than the death of the same woman in another?”
The both of us stop talking for a little while and then he tells me that he has something to tell me, that there is another entity that he had not yet told me about. “There is a black shade, who unlike me, believes that all events in any world are equally unimportant.” Suddenly his color reference starts to make sense.
“In our past lives, we both had a certain duty to our community; I had to guide new life into our world, which often made me smile and believe that good things are all around us, and he had to guide those who had died to their eternal resting place, and of course because he knew a life of death, he had a sorrowful way about him.”
“How come you got the better job?,” I ask. “When we are old enough, there is a room that holds our biggest fear that we must enter. When I opened the door to my room, it was filled with emeralds. When the black shade opened his, it was completely empty. Some of us thought that he was maybe fearless, others thought that he was maybe fearful of leading an empty life.”
Kathleen crosses the street and makes her way to her desired place of worship. Just before she opens the door to her church, she passes by the church's sign which reads
“Patience is a virtue.”
As she walks up the stairs, the singing and the praising of the Lord gets louder and the words being sung become more clear. Finally she reaches the top and finds a place to sit.
One of the other church members glance at her and smile, and then goes back to her singing. The shouts of innocent men and women whose goal is to let God know they are still here and they are still willing.
After the singing is over, the pastor begins to speak. “Not too long ago, we all suffered not one, but two losses.” The pastor looks in the direction of Samantha and Brittney Morrison's mother and father. “And while we cried, we demanded answers. We demanded justice.” He pauses. “Just a few days ago, we received one but not the other.
No justice for the two beautiful girls who were taken by our Lord way too early. No justice for their parents or those who loved them. Instead, we find out that the criminal who killed them was just another child, not even much older than the girls themselves.
We find out that he too, lost his life. We may not know why or how, but any one of us can guess that he is no longer here because of drugs and gangs, these vicious concepts that drain the life out of our children.” “Amen,” a man in the front row says.
The pastor continues, “I know every one of you goes to sleep each night wondering when things are going to get better, when things are going to return to how they used to be, and while I can't give you the exact date on when that's going to happen, I can tell you 63 | THE EMERALD CITY
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that God is still watching over us every moment of every day.”
The pastor continues to speak for about an hour, eventually ending his sermon by telling his listeners about how the Bible speaks more about the bad way than the good.
When the service is over and every one is talking, Kathleen walks over to the pastor and they begin to talk. The pastor asks her about her diabetes and if management is going well. Kathleen tells him that she's getting by and wishes that he would pray for her. The pastor tells her that she is always in his prayers.
Later that Sunday, during the night time, Kathleen finds herself tossing and turning in her bed, never really able to fall asleep. She sits up from the frustration, then gets up and walks towards one of the windows in the house. She lifts up the window and a familiar sound comes through the window. The empty sound of the night street, the blind passage of air. It's not much to hear, but it's there. It's always there. The musical oxygen satisfies Kathleen, and she pulls up a chair next to the window to hear more.
“Mikey said he heard that the cops had him trapped, and when they started shooting at him he just tried to make a run for it and that's when he got hit by the bus,” Derek says to a curious Wallace. “He said the cops shot first?,” Wallace asks. “Nah he didn't say that exactly but it seems like every one who was there said they heard shots and you know how the cops here are,” Derek replies. “Cops have rules though, they can't just start shooting at people,” Wallace says, “And Trig, he always had his finger on a trigger.”
Derek hears someone shout his name, and when he looks up, he sees a man in the distance raising up his hand with two fingers sticking out. Derek then retires to a pile of hidden drugs and retrieves two vials. The man who did the shouting sends a customer towards Derek's way, and Derek hands him the two vials, and then goes back to talking with Wallace.
“Yeah anyway man, now's the time to step up. Maybe I can take Trig's spot,” Wallace says, thinking of the handgun he received from Rock. “That shit is tough man, have you even ever seen a dead body before?,” Derek asks Wallace. “Nah,” Wallace replies. As much as Wallace wants to defend himself, he doesn't, and at this moment, the two begin to think of their near futures.
About a block away, Mya Jackson is sitting in an unmarked police vehicle watching the actions of these two young men. She has been for the last couple of hours. About forty-five minutes later, Derek and Wallace part ways and Derek begins his walk home.
Mya decides to head back to the station with her notes to add to the board of individuals who are suspected to be involved in the drug trade.
Derek arrives home to find Spider sitting on the couch speaking on the telephone.
After Spider hangs up the phone, Spider tells Derek that if he wants to stay with him, he has to call his family every once in a while. That they have been calling way too much 64 | THE EMERALD CITY
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wondering about him and how he's doing. Derek agrees, and then Spider hands him mail that had been delivered to him. Derek immediately realizes that the letter is from the narrator.
“You ever seen this guy?,” Mya asks Frank. Frank looks at the picture. “No, who is he?,” Frank asks. “I'm not sure but he must be new. Today's the first time I've seen him,”
she replies. Frank notices another picture on the table, it is a picture of Derek. “Who's the kid?,” Franc asks. “Not sure either, but this guy,” Mya says as she points to the unknown individual in the first picture, “he's yelling out to the kid to go get the ordered number of drugs.”
Scott Merils opens the door to his office and looks into the room of police officers, scanning the entire room for detective Wilson. He sees Wilson sitting at his desk speaking on the phone. “Wilson!,” he shouts, “in my office!” He leaves the door open and then quickly returns to his chair.
About twenty seconds later, Winston appears at the office door. “Yes, sir?,” Winston asks Merils. Merils laughs and says “I said Wilson not Winston.” Winston leaves and lets Wilson know that Merils needs to speak to him.
“Wilson sit down,” Merils says. After Wilson sits down, Merils asks him if he's any closer to finding the son of a bitch who left them thirteen bodies to clean up after. Wilson says, “I've tried several different angles, I've even considered it being a serial killer.”
“Well it is, isn't it?,” Merils interrupts.
“Well, yes, I guess, but because all of the identified victims thus far are related to gangs or drugs somehow, I'm inclined to see it as gang and drug violence. Not necessarily one sole individual with homicidal tendencies, but maybe a few drug dealers with motive and opportunity.”
Merils thinks for a moment, and then Wilson continues. “We've gotten positive IDs on most of the bodies so we are trying to find a connection between them.” Suddenly the phone rings and Merils answers it. “Lieutenant Merils,” he says. “Yes captain,” he continues to speak as he gives Wilson a thumbs up, signaling that their discussion is over and that he may leave the room.
Wilson begins walking back to his desk, but before he gets there, from a distance he can see the mounting pile of paperwork he left behind before he found himself in Merils's office. He stops himself in the middle of the aisle, then turns around and heads for the exit.
Moments later he is driving down a street that will take him to the abandoned apartment building that previously housed thirteen corpses. When he finally gets there and he steps out of his vehicle, the only sounds he can hear is the crushing of the snow beneath his dress shoes and the sound of the cold wind. No one around to ask questions.
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In fact, if you asked an expert who studied this small abandoned part of town, they might tell you that for the last two years, people didn't really live around here, they just passed through.
Wilson walks towards the abandoned apartment building and opens the door that is deteriorating in health. He walks inside to find that the bad smell is still there, and unlike the dying door, is still very much alive and living well. He looks around for a while, hoping to find something that he or the others who looked through here may have missed.
The first floor does not speak to him much, but when he goes up to the second floor, he finds water leaking from the ceiling.
He walks over to the puddle of snow-water, but this discovery is of no real value to the case. Wilson looks up again at the leaking ceiling, and then gets the impulse to go up onto the roof.
Because it is a small building that is intended to only house two families, there is no fire escape to take to up to the roof. Instead, Wilson has to stand on the edge of a window ledge and pull himself up to reach the roof.
As he is pulling himself up, he immediately sees a small cardboard box in a corner of the roof. After he's lifted himself up and after he catches his breath he begins to walk towards the small box. Detective Wilson should be touching any potential evidence to a case with a pair of gloves, but unfortunately he left them in his vehicle.
“Fuck it,” he says, and he opens the box with his coat. Inside he finds that the box is filled with broken toothpicks. He stares at them for a long time but can't understand the image.
After a while he looks up, and not too far away, he sees a playground set. Like the door, this playground is also dying, but even moreso beginning to decay. For a moment, Wilson wonders if he is seeing the same thing that the killer or killers had seen. He had seen the playground before, but not like this.
Wilson gets another impulse and decides to search the playground for any possible clues or evidence. Nineteen minutes into the search, he begins looking through a recycling bin. There he finds a bunch of documents, but more importantly, he finds a few unbroken toothpicks and a receipt for three boxes of toothpicks purchased from a store called Chase Mart. Interestingly enough, the date on the receipt indicates the toothpicks were purchased around the same time the murders were discovered.
Wilson prays that this receipt belonged to the killer or at least one of the killers, and begins to thank God that garbage trucks no longer passed through here. He also prematurely thanks the person who recycled the receipt for having the notion that all trash and recycling bins are regularly emptied everywhere.
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crime scene,” he says. Rousseau arrives with another officer of the law and she helps them collect the potential evidence, and then Wilson and Rousseau begin their drive towards Chase street while she returns to the police station with the box of broken toothpicks and all of the contents of the recycling bin.
Wilson and Rousseau park right outside of Chase Mart. As Rousseau is exiting the vehicle he sees the narrator exiting Chase Mart with Sarah, who is attempting to open a bag of candy.
Wilson and Rousseau finally enter Chase Mart and begin to walk towards the clerk.
Wilson and Rousseau properly identify themselves as police officers to the clerk , and then Wilson says, “I know this may seem out of the blue, but do you recall a customer purchasing exactly three boxes of toothpicks?” The clerk informs the officers that he had only just recently begun his employment at Chase Mart, and that they were better off speaking to the store owner.
The store owner, however, had already been listening since the officers first began to identify themselves. “You are talking about Mr. Toothpick,” the store owner says as he walks out from the back room.
“Mr. Toothpick?,” Wilson asks. The store owner laughs and says, “Yes, that's my nickname for him. Not only does he love them, he's shaped like one as well.” “You wouldn't happen to know anything else about him, would you?,” Rousseau asks. “What do you mean?,” the store owner replies. “Well we'd like to talk to him. You probably don't know his name or where he lives but could you possibly tell us how often he comes here or how he pays?,” Rousseau asks. “At least once a week. Sometimes he'll buy food and other things, but sometimes he will only buy three boxes of toothpicks, and he only uses cash,” the store owner replies. “Is he into some kind of trouble?,” the store owner continues. “No, we just need to talk with him,” Wilson replies.
“I'm not even sure if I would want to know what he's into if he was,” the store owner laughs. Wilson points at a security camera in the corner, “That doesn't work right?,” he asks the store owner. “Hasn't in two years,” the store owner replies. “Of course,” Wilson thinks to himself.
“Can you give us a basic description of him?,” Rousseau asks. The store owner pauses. “Well he's your average white male, except he's a bit tall and very underweight.
No facial hair, black hair I think, brown eyes.” “No identifying marks? Something like a tattoo or a birth mark?,” Rousseau asks. “No, nothing like that I don't think.”
The two detectives ask for the names of the clerk and the store owner and then give the working men their cards should anything arise, and then they leave the store. Two days later, two uniformed police officers are sent out to take turns staking out Chase Mart at the request of Wilson.
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I finish filling up the basket with my dirty laundry and then make my way towards the apartment building's basement. One by one I put each article of clothing into the washing machine, but I pause for a brief moment when I see a shirt that I had bought about three years before.
Traveling the world, not necessarily to find myself but to find peace, I found myself somewhere in Thailand when I came across an old woman selling t-shirts. I asked her about this one, and she told me that this was a shirt that warded off evil spirits.
I have never been the type to actively believe in spirits when I'm in my right mind, but at that particular time in my life, I found it very interesting and that led me to purchase it. I can honestly say, though, as far as I can remember, I've never found myself in an evil situation whenever I have it on.
I continue to fill the washer with clothes and as I'm doing this I hear two or more people coming down the stairs. Eventually I see that it is Lynne and her daughter who have come to get some things from their storage. They had been bringing up various items that they had completely forgotten about.
After I finish, I initiate the wash and then proceed to help them. Two trips, I had the task of bringing up four paintings. I had almost forgotten that she loved to paint.
Sometimes you wake up between a dream and a memory and your biggest fear about death isn't death itself, but the possibility that after you die, you come right back.
After we're done, I stay in their apartment for a little while and notice that David is playing one of his games again. In the game he is the main character and a superhero. It's the complex, and it can even get you at an early age.
I tell him that I hope he is able to save all the people, but I'm not sure he heard me, then I go into Lynne's room where she is putting up her paintings.
“Did you paint these?,” I ask. “No,” she says, “I'm not this good.” The painting she is currently putting up is that of a Sun rising over a city. I find it funny because every time I think of a sunrise I think of the Sun rising over a body of water.
“You want to know something funny,” she asks me. “I've never actually watched a sunrise,” she continues, then laughs. “Liar,” I reply. “I'm serious. I've seen them but I've never actually watched one,” she says. “Well it's not like it's anything life changing,” I reply.
The next painting is lying on her bed, but I can't figure out what it is. When she goes to grab it I ask her what it is, and she tells me it's a painting of a joker, a beggar and a thief. This one I find especially interesting.
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out there. He tells me that people had wondered about him before, but not like this man.
Those are his words.
The Lord never tells me if he ever answered the man, but he does tell me that the man, later on in his life, devotes his life to the idea that after he dies, he will meet the entity that created every thing around him. His firm belief in this causes him to prepare for this meeting, and when people ask him about his rituals, he tells them about his faith.
Some of the people he tells simply do not understand, but those who have also wondered about what is beyond the little white dots in the sky are immediately drawn in by what he has to say, and they too begin to prepare for their own separate meeting with their maker.
I ask the Lord if this man is the reason why we have churches today, and he answers
“Yes and no.” He tells me that a number of random events occurred in this man's life and eventually led him to wonder. Then he tells me that this was happening to people all over the world, that regardless of this man, all people would wonder and eventually something would happen.
His prime example was a story about a little girl who met God for the first time in a field full of fear.
This little girl comes home a bit early after working in the fields with her brother and her mother rewards her with an apple, but when her mother isn't looking, she takes two apples. As she is returning to the fields to rejoin her brother, it begins to rain, and then she hears thunder. Later on she finds that her brother had been struck and killed by a tree that had fallen over.
The naive little girl immediately begins to wonder if her action of thievery cost her brother his life. A concept of karma or some form of discipline coupled with the knowledge of good and evil start to dance around in her mind, and this is when she begins to wonder. But what really puts the icing on the cake, what really makes her afraid, is when she is kneeling over her dead brother, and in the sky, she sees a cloud that almost looks like a hand.
After he's done with his story, he laughs and tells me that he had nothing to do with it.
I guess this was just one of those things you had to credit to coincidence. I always ask myself, if it had been another human being who killed her brother, would she still have found God? Often times I find myself reading past dreams and asking the same questions, and even though the question is the same, I always find a new answer.
“No, she would not find God because she would not connect her theft with something so unsupernatural such as the murder of her brother.” “Yes, she would find God because the murder of her brother would have such a profound effect on her it would cause her to wonder.” There are so many of these.
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it may reach an intersection and pause for a brief moment, will eventually start again with another row of cars to reflect the image of life and the dot on the circle.” “Yes, but only because the thieves are borderline-communist under their own rules and mainly steal from the undeserving to give to the deserving.” “No, however, a person's violent urges can very well manifest in their dreams.” “Yes, while God and Satan are usually definite representations of good and evil, they appear to be indefinable in their stories.”
After Lynne puts up the painting, I move in closer to get a better view of it, and I realize how astounding the detail of the painting is. Juliah had always said that in her writing, she always tried to not be over-descriptive. That she wanted each person to create their own unique world. Where one may see a character with black hair, another may see the same character with blonde hair. These are her words, and while I do agree with her, looking at this painting makes me wonder if that is the best choice. This painting wouldn't be the same without the intense level of detail.
I leave her apartment and on the way to mine I see Tao knocking on my door.
“What's up?,” I ask. I invite him in, a place he hadn't been to in a while. I find out that Tao was feeling the blues because his job let him go. Bad employment rate in a bad city. I guess Tao has white blood; angry about the situation but wants to talk about it to get it out of his system. That's exactly what he does. He talks and talks, and as uninterested as I am, this is at least good for karma for me.
Sometimes I feel as if my friendship with Tao was created from a joke. Kind of like how you can bump into someone in a bank while waiting in line, say your sorrys, and then when the bank is being robbed a minute later, when you see that person again, they are your only friend.
Eventually Tao goes home, still sick with the blues, but all I could really tell him is that everyone gets it and everyone gets over it. Well, most do. Some common colds are fatal.
After he leaves I go to my bedroom and lie on my bed with the intention to sleep.
During this black therapy session, I think about my life and all of the important events that led me to be here right now in this moment in time; probably something you've done many times before as well.
A few hours later, after I've fallen asleep, I wake up in the middle of the night gasping for air. This is not the first time it's happened, and it won't be the last. About half of a year after I started writing down my dreams, for a short while, they became more intense.
Intense enough to make me stop breathing.
The nightmare I'd woken up from was Silvio killing his ex-family. He walks into the apartment building, goes up the flight of stairs and then walks straight to Lynne's apartment door. Somehow he opens the door, and afterwards he walks into Lynne's room.
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He takes out a chef's knife and hovers over Lynne's lifeless body. The first stab is directly in the center of her chest and it goes right through her heart. The silver knife cuts her flesh wide open and the dark red blood squirts out as the lifeless body comes to life.
Her eyes are wide open, and when she realizes what is happening, she tries to scream but Silvio's big hand is already over her mouth. She is too weak and too small to fight back. With his hand over her mouth, he viciously stabs her twenty-six more times until she has finally died.
With bloody clothes, bloody hands and a bloody knife, he walks into the children's room. He walks over to the side of the bed where David sleeps, and he puts his hand over David's small mouth. David follows in the footsteps of his mother. Open eyes, try to scream, you're dead before you know it.
After he kills David, he walks around the bed to Sarah's side. He puts his hands over her small mouth and then he stabs her, but she does not open her eyes. He continues to stab her, and that's when the emotions from the dream overwhelms me and I wake up unable to breathe.
Of course now I'm wide awake pacing through my living room telling myself it was just a dream, but I've heard too much about bad omens and about dreams foretelling the future.
I open the door to my apartment and look down the hallway, then I look at Lynne's apartment door. A few minutes later I find myself walking, continually pacing through the second floor's hallway from end to end, not knowing how I got there or why I had started.
When I realize this, and I calm down, I walk to the top of the staircase that leads to the third floor and stare out of a window that gives you a view of a nearby street. It must have started snowing during the night.
After I've had enough of the view I sit down at the top of the staircase and think about the nightmare again, hoping that Boris doesn't come home from his graveyard shift to find me sitting here like a crazy person.
I sit there for a while, and after enough time I start falling in and out of sleep, periodically traveling between both worlds. I had already decided to stay seated just incase both worlds collide and the very unlikely event of Silvio showing up actually occurred.
Some time goes by, I'm not sure how much, but the time comes when I find myself laughing about something Sarah told me a few weeks earlier. I remember her telling me about a bully she had at her school, and how one time she saw this bully sitting in a corner crying.
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them is often funny because they sometimes lack the vocabulary to do so, and then is sometimes paired with stuttering, but all is always well because where the child lacks, they make up for it with great enthusiasm. Physical gestures, facial expressions. Who needs vocabulary?
I would bet Sarah remembers the image of seeing a bully cry so vividly because it was something that she had never seen before, and because her logic tells her that a big and mean person crying simply does not make sense and is never suppose to happen, but the fact of the matter is anyone can fall to emotion no matter their size; just because you're bigger doesn't mean you don't get as jealous. Many times have I seen giants cry in my dreams.
The sound of an opening door below me wakes me up a bit, and I'm almost sure it's Boris. I get up and begin to time when I will start walking back down the stairs. After I hear the person walking up the stairs, I begin to walk down, and when I reach the bottom of the stairs and I see who it is, I realize that I have found God's message in a bottle.
In some of my dreams, I am told by many people many stories of mythology and folklore. One of the legends is a story about God being unable to communicate with people, so one day, after many failed attempts of trying to contact us, he writes a message on a piece of paper and then puts it in a bottle and floats it out to sea. Peculiar story, but it's a fragile world; tell someone a story and they just might believe it.
The same person who tells me this story, he tells me that whenever someone witnesses something beyond a miracle, something so bizarre or something so great, the only proper definition to define the witnessing is to metaphorically state that this witness has found the very message that God himself had written.
Seeing Silvio in very near proximity unconsciously forces me to wonder if God is infact still watching over us, and my belief that he has forgotten about us is slowly changing direction. I know that I have strange dreams, who doesn't, but now I know that I have a stranger life.
“You again,” Silvio says to me. “Yeah, I get around,” I reply with half closed eyes.
Silvio finishes walking up the steps so that he is eye-level with me and that's when I smell the alcohol on him.
“Because of you my buddy got picked up,” he says as he starts to walk pass me,
“You'll get what's coming to you but today I'm not here for you,” he continues as he gets closer and closer to Lynne's door.
“Are you sure that's a good idea?,” I say as Silvio is about to begin knocking on the door. Silvio puts his arms down and looks at me, “It's the middle of the night,” I say. He is unusually calm, I am as usual calm, but this isn't surprising considering he's half-drunk and I'm half-asleep.
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Silvio raises his arm, and while he's still looking at me, he's knocks on Lynne's door as hard as he can. I walk towards him and grab his arm to stop the knocking, and as I'm doing this he starts to laugh. After he agrees to stop knocking, he tells me that he just wants to see Sarah and David.
I tell him that I would tell Lynne that he came by, and if she wanted to let him see the children then he could. That's when, as any normal human being would, he gets severely ticked off. “What do you mean if?,” he begins to yell. He starts ranting so I tell him to shut up, be quiet, keep it down. That ticks him off even more and that's when the anger switch flips on and he starts pushing me like I'm the enemy. Like I'm the one in a relationship with his ex-wife now.
So he's mad, and now I'm mad, and now we're in a scuffle. We go back and forth for a long while until I finally get the headlock in and drag him towards the stairs, and then I throw him down the stairs. I can't deal with this type of shit.
I walk down the stairs and at this moment I don't really care if he's hurt or not; this bitch deserves a few black and blues of his own. I pick him up, open the front door and then drag him outside, and that's when I see a police officer walking towards us. He tells me to let go of Silvio, so I do, and then Silvio gets up on his feet and the both of us look like we're about to be sent to the principal's office.
Later on, I find out that Lynne had already been awake because of one of David's night terrors. As she's trying to comfort her son, she hears the loud banging on her door and then realize Silvio and I are speaking outside. She calls the police and informs them that her restraining order is being violated, and that's when they come and find Silvio and I outside. Silvio explains to the two police officers about how his visiting was without ill will and how they are only separated and are working on things, but they arrest him nonetheless after they speak with Lynne. My question is how is it possible to get a restraining order on someone you are legally married to.
A while back Tao asked me a question that concerned the murder of Silvio. In the Academy of Sid, I learned that in over ninety-nine percent of the case, if there is no body, then there is no murder. He tells me that if I kill someone, get rid of the body so there is little chance of an investigation. Of course I will never kill Silvio, though; I'm just not that disconnected and I am not the one who decides who gets to live and who gets to die.
During my travelings, under a very dark night, I came across a man who was burning garbage in a small field. When I asked him what he was doing, he told me that he was burning all of the waste that everyone had dumped there. The fire of course was attractive, but the man's actions left something to be desired. Staring into the fire, it tells me that we must all die because we are born, and we must all be born again because we died.
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On my way back, after I was tired of traveling, I met a woman who prayed for my soul after I told her that I had stopped going to church. How does one pray for a soul that has already been lost? So many different people from all walks of life from all over the world that many of us will never meet, but if by chance you do, many of them will be people you'll never see again.
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Chapter 59
DUOLOGY OF MAN
1:2:6:59
MOST of us have at least one addiction or obsession throughout our lifetime that we prefer to keep hidden. We lock it away in hopes of keeping it a secret because if anyone ever found out about it, it could completely change the way that person thinks of you. We avoid this strange case by doing our best to keep it hidden, but when you think long enough about it, I'm sure, almost positive, that everyone's strongest desire and the thing they always have on their mind is to just simply be free. To be free of it all. These are the words of a therapist I was suggested to see many years ago. "Money can't buy life."
Those are the last words of a dying musician.
It's Monday afternoon and there's a knock on my door. When I open it I see Tao.
“Hey you know Jack right?,” he asks me. “Jack who?” Tao points behind him in the direction of Joe's old apartment. “Jack Booth?” “Yeah yeah, that guy,” he says.
Tao tells me that he and Jack had become friends and that Jack had invited him to the opening of a sort of bar Jack's uncle was opening. Jack also tells Tao that he is free to invite some of his own friends, and of course, this is Tao inviting me. “Good food, good music,” that is what he uses to lure me in.
Eventually he convinces me to join him and his new friend Jack, and he lets me know that the bar is opening on the up and coming Friday.
After Tao leaves, I go downstairs to check my mail. While I'm down there, I see a large woman coming up from the basement floor with a basket of clothes. She smiles, I smile, and then she goes on her way. Nothing you haven't read before.
Afterward I pull out the mail I had received, and on top there is a card that tells me it can help me change my life around. “Come to our healing and teaching meetings and find the power of the inner soul.” People say that love conquers all, that goodness prevails, but there is a darkness I have seen that not even love can conquer, that not even goodness can overcome.
It's Tuesday and it's three o'clock in the morning. There's a snowstorm outside and I'm inside watching a fictional television program that depicts real events from the second World War. “The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier's supposed to function,” one soldier says to another concerning the unconscious hopes and fears of war.
The television show reminds me of a dream I had several years ago where my entire company and I parachuted into enemy territory. As soon as we hit the ground, we were fired upon, a sort of baptism by fire.
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the next few minutes. I would have stayed there longer had I not heard enemy soldiers'
voices coming toward me.
The strange foreign language gets closer and closer yet in my mind it feels far away.
With each passing second I go back and forth on my decision to stay hidden or to attack, and then moments later I begin to hear music. Violins, guitars, drums, trumpets, they begin to slowly drown out the strange language. The music gets louder and louder but I get calmer and calmer.
Finally, it stops, and I find myself standing in the ditch with my rifle pointed at two enemy soldiers. They stand there with their primary weapons strapped around their bodies. Every thing is silent. No more music, no more language, no more heartbeats. I'm sure even if fear had a sound, at this moment in time, it too would be silent. I eventually pull the trigger and kill them both, but at the same time give away my position and am forced to move out.
After much running and walking I find other soldiers who are part of my company and I join them. For the next few days I am surrounded by sleep deprivation and nightmares. I'd hear other soldiers screaming in the night while I was on watch.
“My turn,” a soldier says to me. He takes my seat and begins his shift of watching the line. “Semper Fi,” I say to him as I leave, then I walk over to the other soldiers who can't sleep, and as tired as I am, I can't sleep either because I know I'll have nightmares of the foreign language, so I join them in playing cards. At least here, there are winners and losers.
Many times I've thought about the beginnings of war, and ultimately I come to the conclusion, as would anyone else, that war is not a creation of man, but a discovery by his nature.
It's Wednesday evening and I'm waiting for Lynne as she gets dressed for work. I lean against my door throwing my car keys up into the air to kill time, and finally she comes out and walks pass me as she's putting on one of her earrings. “Gonna tell Alondra that I'm leaving,” she tells me.
About two minutes later she comes down the stairs with Alondra and I see the young girl holding Antony. I say hi, I say bye, then I leave with Lynne to take her to work.
“Emily says hello,” Lynne tells me. I hadn't seen Emily in a long time. The thought of Emily reminds me of Kathleen; I can only wonder what she could be doing now.
Lynne doesn't say much more throughout the trip, not until we reach her workplace.
Just before she is about to exit the vehicle, she asks me a question. “Can I depend on you?”
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friends and then one day you go on without me,” she says.
My disconnect often causes me to sever ties with the people I know. In enough time, say several years, I may be far away from here in a place where no one knows my name.
“Lynne, look at me,” I say. I smile, almost laugh, then say “You're my best friend, how could I just leave?” At that point she knows I'm screwing around and attempting to avoid her question. She laughs and says that she's being serious, and then waits for me to answer again.
“I can't promise you. I can't even say I'll try my best,” I tell her, “because I might not.” Had I cared just a little bit more or tried just a little bit harder in life, I may have been a great person. “But I've been here for you and I will continue to be here for you God willing,” I finish. She smiles and gives me a car hug, but the only thing going through my mind is the fact that I just said “God willing.” I soon realize I'm still feeling the effects of a message that I found in a bottle.
Finally she leaves and heads into the building. I sit in the car for a short while, thinking about what she said about people leaving her, thinking about the inevitable future. As I am leaving the parking lot, the inevitable future prompts me to, instead of driving back home, drive deeper into the city.
About fifteen minutes later, I find myself in a place I've been before. Down the block, you can find the office of the therapist I was suggested to see many years ago. As I drive past the office building, I see that the lights are on and that the sign is still up. Perhaps he and his colleagues are still very much busy changing the lives of others. Correcting their faults and making them normal. Shining out the darkness that seeps.
Not too far from here is the apartment building that Maria and I used to live in. Seven minutes later I find myself standing in front of it. It reminds me of the time Lynne took me to where she used use to live.
I walk up to the apartment door and peer inside; it hasn't changed a bit. I walk inside but a locked door stops me from going further, so I get back in my car and drive away.
Never really liked this place that much anyway.
The next place of my past that I visit takes me twenty-five minutes to get to. In this building I explored my obsession of the human mind by participating in group therapy sessions to which I had no reason to involve myself with. People who abuse drugs, people who eat too much, people who have anger issues, people who have sex on their mind every hour of every day; the list goes on and on.
This is the same building where I'd meet Jamal for the first time. On a bus ride home, because he'd assume we both had trouble with illegal drugs, we would instantly connect in our first conversation, but the honest truth is, there was no connection because I lied.
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would increase if there was a program where two individuals who suffer from the same problem depend on each other for support; if you're trying to quit something on your own or for the sake of your friends and family, it's very easy to let yourself down, to let them down, but it's a bit more difficult to let down someone who is in the same boat as you and is also trying their best not to let you down.
How bad would you feel if you succumb to the temptations of your addiction and your therapy partner doesn't? I'm sure couples or friends who smoke have tried to quit together, I'm just wondering what the numbers are.
I glance at my car clock and realize the time has flown by and that I have about an hour until I have to pick up Lynne. I get there early and instead of waiting in the car, I decide to enter her workplace. Famous Max's Diner, it just rolls off your tongue doesn't it?
She is both surprised and delighted to see me. She asks me what I want to eat and I order something light since her shift is over soon. Afterward, she drives me home and I stop by her apartment to see Sarah and David. Alondra is relieved and Mary had already picked up Anthony so it's just us four for a while until I leave myself.
When I get inside my apartment I head straight for the bedroom and lay down on my bed. After a while I start thinking of Anthony and the fact that I may have judged Mary too soon. In the past, there were times when I would see her and that very sight would sicken me, but after getting to know her I've come to realize that she may not be so bad after all. I'm still not sure what the answer is, but what do I know? The only thing that is undeniable, as I have been told by a former police officer, is the simple truth that people show you the sides they want to show you and that you see the sides that you want to see.
But of course, because people normally have more than one social fragment, we tend to complicate and contradict ourselves. You might call this the duality of man; some kind of double fragmented two-faced yin-yang. War and peace inside the same soul. Good and evil on the same wasteland.
It's Thursday morning and I'm driving Lynne to work again. After she is finished and after I pick her up, we go to a supermarket. She plans to make dinner again. We part ways and eventually I find myself laying on my bed again. I am constantly tired without the presence of Mr. and Ms. Nosleep.
After a while I fall asleep and have a dream about my time in prison. In a corner of the prison, there is a place of religion. People who want to change, they go there and they pray, or they worship, or they do whatever it is their religion would have them do.
I decide to visit this place of religion, and when I walk inside I see people sitting. In the far back on the right side, I see an old man sitting inside a booth, calling me over, so I go.
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I kneel down so I can see his face, and in the background I notice pieces of paper hanging on the wall behind him. Written on each separate piece of paper is the name of a religion; religions that I assume he has knowledge of. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism.
“What is your sin?,” he asks me. I think for a moment but I have no idea what I've done to be sent to prison. “It's okay,” he says after he assumes that I am not ready to reveal my crime, “You can confess to God when you are comfortable doing so.” As I get up to leave, the old man grabs my shirt and tells me to seek forgiveness before death comes to find me.
I've spent a lifetime thinking about death and half of a lifetime writing about it, but I'm sure when death comes to find me, I still won't be completely prepared.
After some time someone begins to push at my shoulder which eventually wakes me up. “Wake up sleepyhead.” After I open my eyes I see that it is Sarah, telling me that dinner is ready. I ask her how she got in and she tells me that the door was unlocked.
Your eyes move rapidly while you sleep.
At the dinner table, Sarah begins to say grace and I'm sitting there wondering why David isn't playing one of his games. When Sarah finishes, Lynne asks them both about school and that's the direction we begin in.
After we finish talking about school, Lynne answers my question by statistically telling me that David is so blue because his game thing broke. Those are her words.
“I'm sorry to hear that,” I say. “Don't really care, the games sucked anyway,” he replies. Of course Lynne looks in David's direction and promptly tells him to mind his manners.
Nine times out of ten when I would see David, he'd be playing that “game thing,” but apparently he doesn't even care that it's gone. I guess it chose not to be great.
After pouring mustard on my plate I look up and catch Lynne smiling at me, and I can feel her happiness. Sometimes a person who is capable of being great will choose to be an asshole or a mediocre person instead, mostly so that when they are dead and gone, no one really cries too hard.
This is in comparison to the person who is capable of being great and is actually great in their life. They make the lives of the people around them so colorful and so worthwhile, but of course, when they die, glass shatters and people cry their eyes out, drowning in their own sorrow.
In one hand, you don't want to leave the people you love in agonizing pain, but in the other, you want to make those around you as happy as you humanly can. Lynne wants me to be part of her family, but she has no idea who I am and how painful it would be for her if I decided to leave.
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Dinner is over and I find myself back in my apartment on my favorite couch watching a boring documentary about sleep-learning. Trying to get someone to learn something by conveying information to them while they sleep. The theory actually goes into practice as soon as I fall asleep while it's still on.
However, when I wake up, I find that I am not any more knowledgeable than I was before. I also find that I am even more tired than I was before I fell sleep.
I walk into my bedroom and stare at my bed, knowing that laying down on it will only make it worse. That's when Mr. Nosleep appears and he asks me if I've noticed that it isn't snowing. I look out my window, he's right. I go and lay on my bed, then I tell Mr.
Nosleep to go away, so he does, but he never really does. He's always there, even when he isn't.
I close my eyes and I firmly believe that there is someone out there pushing me to the edge, and eventually I will snap. Maybe in that I will find a moment of clarity where I can see everything for what it really is. No dualities. No perceptions. Maybe I'll see that nothing is one or the other, but that everything is simply the same.
When I was younger my mother told me a story about a snake who didn't know who God was. The snake had no family and no friends, hence no one to teach it about the existence of God.
All of its life, it would hear about this God character, it would keep hearing the name, but it would never know what the other snakes were talking about, nor would it ever have the sense to ask. Not until it actually does many years later. “Who is God?,” the snake asks a complete stranger.
My mother tells me that most of us have an understanding, even an agreement, on who God is, but to the others, it's no more than a name given to someone or something you don't know. She says this is why it is important that we teach the Godless about God.
Thinking about it now, you could only imagine the face of an old person when they first hear about the idea of God.
Kathleen walks into the hospital and makes her way towards Joe's residence, however, before she makes it there a nurse informs her that Joe had been moved. The nurse explains to Kathleen that because Joseph White has been in a coma for about a year, he had been moved to a certain part of the hospital.
The nurse walks Kathleen to Joe's new residence and then lets them be. Had it not been for the nurse's words, Kathleen may not have had the idea of Joe being lifeless for over a year running through her head and she may not have been as depressed.
For the sixth or seventh time, Kathleen tells Joe that Harry is gone, and then she takes his hand. After enough time with her son, Kathleen finds a nurse to tell her doctor that she has arrived for her check up.
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“Did you find Joe?,” the doctor asks Kathleen. “Yes, a nurse told me about his moving,” Kathleen replies. “Yeah, yeah. He's stable, but unfortunately there's no telling when he'll wake out of it,” the doctor says. “How 'bout you, how are you feeling?,” he asks.
“Recently I've been feeling very warm, is that normal?,” Kathleen asks. The doctor tells her that this might be an issue of blood flow and that he will conduct tests to see what the problem may be.
“Let's start your examination,” the doctor says. Kathleen sits down and the doctor extracts a small amount of blood from her arm for a hemoglobin A1c test. Afterwards, the doctor attaches a sphygmomanometer to her arm to conduct a blood pressure test, and then checks her legs, arms and eyes for any irregularities.
After the examination, she says goodbye to Joe and then heads home. When she arrives at her place of residence, she walks in and attempts to turn on a light, but soon finds that there is no power in the entire house.
Kathleen makes her way to the basement and then to a fuse box. Her sister had taught her how to use the box, yet it all seemed foreign to her. After a few minutes, with a bit of luck, trial, error and dedication, she restores power to the house and immediately turns on the basement light.
As Kathleen is leaving the basement to go back upstairs, she passes a couch and notices a book on one of the arms. She assumes the book is some type of medium for keeping notes because there is no title on the cover or on the side.
She picks it up and notices that there is a bookmark towards the end of the book. She opens the book to the page that is bookmarked, and when she realizes that it is not a medium for keeping notes and that it is actually a novel, she turns to the first page of the story. The opening lines are particularly interesting to her, so she continues to read.
It's Friday night and I'm knocking on Tao's door. “Getting my coat, hold on,” he shouts. Somehow he knows it's me.
When he's done we get in his car and drive towards the bar. “This better not be a waste of my time,” I tell him. He looks at me and says, “Would you be doing something better?” “Fuck you.”
“You know, I've known you for a while and I still don't know what you do for fun,”
he says. “I usually spend my Friday nights seeking oral sex with underage Chinese boys and girls,” I reply.
Tao is now looking at me from the corner of his eye with a facial expression that would be hard to describe in words. “That's not funny,” he replies, “and seriously though, I don't even know if you're joking or not. You're a fucking obscure person.” I laugh, which then gives birth to a laugh of his own, and then he tells me that just because he's 81 | DUOLOGY OF MAN
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Chinese, that doesn't make what I said any more disgusting.
Eventually we find the bar and we walk in to find music and a lot of people. I would be amazed to see this place fail.
Tao and I sit down and not too long afterward a lady bartender tends to us. I order water and I can't make out what Tao orders, but nonetheless, she comes back with our drinks. That's when a new song starts and Tao notices that Jack is one of the musicians up on the stage, and that he's playing lead guitar.
The band's song isn't all that bad, but it gets a lot better during Jack's guitar solo. His playing makes you think of how much you love music, and how important you think it is to the world and the people in it. Hearing notes that would make you cry if you had it in you. Tones that tell a story. Chords that remind you that as you age, you may appreciate these sounds less and less until music no longer affects you.
The next song I find even more interesting than the last; a song about a sad clown.
Here we have another contradiction that plays into the complexity of man. Always what you are, never what you're not. Here we have a sad case in the duology of man. You are always what you're not.
The song is over and the band is done playing. Eventually Jack finds us and lets us know that he's glad we could make it. He sits down with us and orders a drink, and right after this, a woman who looks like she is looking for a wild night comes up to the side of Jack and says “Nice guitar, wanna play me now?”
Jack sits there and looks at the woman for a second. She has a nice body and a pretty face, and at this moment, that is all that's relevant because there is no way any one will ever marry this girl.
“I'm sorry, I'm a zoosexual,” Jack says. “What?,” the woman replies. “I'm a zoo, I fuck animals, not people,” Jack says beginning to raise his voice. Tao, the woman and myself, we all stare at Jack. When the woman realizes what Jack had said, a look of disgust grows on her face as she calls Jack a creep, then she walks away.
Jack looks in our direction. “I'm fucking around,” he laughs, “I'm a normal guy. I just don't have time for shit that goes no where fast, you know? Been there, done that.”
“I was hoping you weren't,” I say, “because Tao and I, we love animals.” Tao tells me to shut up, and because I have nothing more to say, I do. Not because he told me to.
As the night goes on, I realize more and more that Jack is a man who laughs at his own pain. That he's about a footstep and one door away from reaching the irreparable darkness, and the only thing that may or may not save him is his passion for music.
The next morning, I wake up at about noon to screaming children. When I look out of my window, I see David and Sarah playing with their next door neighbor friends.
Another snowball fight. I watch them for a little while, and I am thankful that none of 82 | DUOLOGY OF MAN
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them are Chinese.
After about five minutes, I see a man walk towards the children. The man reaches David and begins to talk to him. At this point I'm a bit alarmed because I don't know if David knows the man or not. After about ten seconds, the man leaves, and the kids begin to play again. No harm done.
I wonder, if it had been the president of the United States who approached the children, would I have been as alarmed? Would I have feared some type of wrong-doing?
Probably not. How is it that the president is immediately less harmful than a complete stranger? I'd like to say it's because the president has paid well for his or her image, gaining an advantage over our fragile minds. Marketing and advertising, once again, at work.
Of course, it works both ways. In my dreams as a thief, after my partner has died and after I have found peace, I am confused when I come across a wealthy woman who is giving away her possessions. I know of her and who she is because we had targeted her once before, but we couldn't get to her.
On the outside, she was your average rich heir, and she did well advertising it, but I had no idea she was something more. Something like myself. She was simply something she wasn't. So many times a story is untrue. Or, it has more truth to it than you thought.
In a dream that seems to take place in a distant future that is not on the same timeline as our own, I wake up to find that it is our moon we that have inhabited rather than our earth.
I am a spaceman, as the young ones like to call me, and on this particular day I am to be sent out, like many other men and women who have accepted the nickname
“spaceman,” on a very long and lonely journey through space.
Before I am cleared for departure, Georgiana, a “spaceman” who is set to explore the earth that we know, comes and wishes me luck on my travel, and hopes that I find my journey back to the moon to be filled with pleasantries.
I would tell you that it was on my first night in space that I saw a shooting star, but such a sentence would make no sense. Regardless, the sight prepared me for the many things to come.
Inside of a week after departure, I would often receive messages from the other spacemen who too were sent out to explore space, I'd read about the planets they saw and the stars they felt. The colors and glows that they failed to put in words. The great thing was I had just as many words for them as they had for me.
Outside of the week, however, the messages stopped. I had tried sending some out myself but had no success. I realized that I was finally far enough to be truly alone. Black holes and exploding stars, they were my only company.
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Six months into the odyssey and I would still see something new every day. It wasn't until I was three years in that this pleasantry began to fade. On the days where I would see things that I had seen many times before, I'd think of Georgiana, and wondered what she had found on your earth. I'd sometimes also wonder how long it had really been since I had seen my friends and family.
I've heard that there are places in the universe where, to an outside observer, time speeds up or slows down. Many times I thought about my journey being over in the blink of an eye.
It's seven years in, and on a cloudless night I see a small planet surrounded by what seems to be about a hundred satellites. Of course this excites me, the possibility of finding different life in our universe, so I change my trajectory and head towards the planet.
When I get close enough, I realize that the satellites are not exactly satellites of our kind. I'm not sure what they are, to be honest, but this is when the gravity begins to do its job and my landing process initiates.
When I land, I see that there is no life around. No more life than the life you find in rocks. Perhaps it is just unfortunate that I have arrived on this planet during echo silence.
During a time when a species had previously died, and a new species was on the verge of evolution. Nonetheless, I end up spending about a year and a half on the planet before I leave and go back into space.
When I am back up in the air, I set up the ship to return back to your moon. Eager to report my findings in space and on the planet, I have the speed at a level that gets me back my people approximately within five years. In space, you can never be fully prepared for your miscalculations.
While approaching your moon, I receive a broadcast telling me that all residents of the past moon have moved to the new earth and have settled there, so I quickly change trajectory towards your earth.
While on my way to entering this planet I had never been on before, I see satellites that have bodies tied to them. The bodies look to be of a foreign nature, something you or I would call alien. Some are different colors, all have different anatomies.
Nevertheless, I enter your earth and land safely on a tan terrain. I walk for miles and miles until I finally see vehicles approaching me in the distance. Eventually the vehicles stop and the people exit them, but they aren't happy to see me. Even though we speak the same language, they do not look the same as they did on your moon, and of course, this is when I realize that I too must not look the same as I did before. Yes, aging will change the way you look, but not nearly as much as physical location can.
So, right before they kill me, I realize that the bodies on the satellites were those of 84 | DUOLOGY OF MAN
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other spacemen who had come back after years of travel, and that these people didn't want any more outsiders coming to their planet. I thought I might die out in space, but in the end, it was time and a bad case of fisheye mechanics that were the death of me.
After a while I hear Lynne shout out Sarah's name, and when I look outside I see Lynne talking with the mother of the neighbor kids. At least she looks like a mother. A few seconds later they all walk over to the neighbor mother's apartment building; it's always nice to see parents become friends through their children.
After they disappear, before I can turn away, I see a car pull up. Borys and his significant other get out and walk towards the building, and in her arm she is holding a gorlatnaya hat. A gorlatnaya hat is a fur hat typically worn by Russian nobility. A higher hat indicates higher status. Exactly why I would know something like this, I'm not sure. It makes me wonder if it's the things we know and take interest in that define us as a person.
If Joe went to college, what would he study? If he became a teacher, what would he teach?
After sometime I decide to visit my parents' home, and when I get there I go directly for the room my brother and I used to live in as children. I open the closet and take out three boxes and begin to search through them. Unfortunately for me, I do not find what I'm looking for until I hit the bottom of the last box.
A video game console, two controllers, a bunch of necessary cords, and of course, dozens of video games. I can see the light on their small little faces right now.
Before I leave with Sarah and David's gift, I sit down for a moment, as I always do, and try to remember my family. I hardly ever have a problem remembering my dreams, but I've found that it's the things that should matter most that seem to lose me.
It's pitch black when I get outside and I can only hope that the little ones are still awake. I knock on their door and Lynne answers. She asks me what's in the box, and I tell her to take a look. Once she realizes what it is, she looks at me and then tells me to come in.
Lynne tells Sarah, who is sitting in the living room doing her homework, that I have a gift for her. Sarah shoots up and runs towards me, and when I lower the box so she can look inside, her eyes begin to glow. I begin taking out the contents of the box and place them on the table, and in the background Sarah is jumping up and down on their couch. I have about eighty percent of the games out when David walks out of his room with his opened eyes, wondering why Sarah is making so much noise. Once he understands what he is looking at, his eyes too become wide open. He begins to slowly walk towards me, his eyes never leaving the games, and that's when I know I have him.
“They're yours,” I tell him, “both of yours. Consider it an eighty percent late Christmas present and a twenty percent early Christmas present.” I'm covered.
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“Can you set it up?,” he asks me. That's when Lynne interrupts and tells David to say thank you, to which he does, then asks me again if I could set it up, to which I do. After I set it up for them and after I walk out of their room, I catch Lynne smiling while she does the dishes, so I stand there for a moment.
I see Lynne as a naive and stupid person, and myself as a fairly intelligent person, but when I really look at her, there is something there that is more important than any amount of intelligence, and that's what makes her stronger than me.
When she turns around, she tells me that David was blue because he had been having nightmares all week, and that this would probably cheer him up, but even I know that a dozen video games can't stop nightmares. Maybe he'll have a nightmare about video games. If you have a nightmare about something you love, is it a nightmare? Maybe those are the worst ones.
I think of Lynne having a nightmare about a field of dead roses and think maybe the dreams and nightmares that we have can sort through the complexities and contradictions that we have, and maybe they can define us. If Lynne is a rose, she should not be stepped on. If she is sad, she should not pretend to be happy, just as a sad clown should not pretend to be jolly.
Chris Tales, a firefighter, walks into a neighboring police department to submit a couple of forms concerning a local guns for cash event and runs into an old friend, Steve Jefferson.
They greet each other and talk about lost time until Chris asks Steve about John, one of the police officers who was shot at by a lone gunman last year. Steve tells him that John is doing fine, but that he is still shaken up about the death of one of his fellow officers.
“You know, I've heard like five different versions of what happened, but none of them are from anyone who was actually there,” Chris says, “did John ever tell you what happened?”
Jefferson, who is probably tired of living in the past, pauses for a moment, then begins to speak. He tells Chris that he and John would always talk in the break room, and that in one of those conversations he mentioned how much of a nuisance one of Dante Mac's little cousins was. Then lo and behold, about a week later, John and three other officers drive up on Mac's cousin while he's hanging out with his friends.
“Why were there four officers?,” Chris asks. “You tell me,” Jefferson replies, then he continues with his story.
“So they drive up and start bothering these kids, and then they arrest one of them.
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have two of the kids in handcuffs and a huge fucking crowd to witness the whole damn thing. Shit really hits the fan when one of the people watching picks up a big ass fucking rock and launches it at one of the police cars, shattering the entire window. John's partner doesn't think and he immediately draws his firearm, and as he's turning around he sees a man pointing a Webley & Scott revolver in their direction, yelling about inequality or something, so he fires off some shots at him. The gunman is down now, but it is only a matter of time until John and his partner discover that the other pair of police officers have also been shot, and to make things worse, one of the two kids that they arrested is dead on sight.”
Chris thinks about what he has just been told, and then remarks that he had never been told that a rock had been thrown. He was told that one of the gunman's rounds took out the police vehicle window. Chris also tells Jefferson that he recalls being told that the gunman actually had an IMI Desert Eagle instead of a revolver.
Jefferson takes a sip of his coffee and then nods his head, then says, “Well you know what they say, memory can change the shape of a room or the color of a car.” “Who says that?,” Chris asks. “It was in a movie I saw way too long ago,” Jefferson says, “and I can't seem to remember its name.”
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Chapter 60
PAGE 3 OF 8, “THE EIGHT DREAMS”
1:2:6:60
AN old philosopher once described the development of a misanthropic nature as when a person puts his or her complete trust in another person, thinking this person will be good and absolutely reliable, but later on finds out that the person is not good and is not absolutely reliable, and that when it happens all too often, this person “ends up hating everyone.”
In this film playing before me, on this large screen, I feel that this is the way the main character feels, and while this is all very intriguing, what intrigues me the most is how filmmakers can emulate “adult” problems into “children's” films.
When the film is over, you can see the grin on the kids' faces as they leave the movie theater with their siblings and parents or guardians. The same rings true for Sarah and David, who can't seem to stop talking about the funny character with the funny accent.
Walking down the long hallway with all the other families, Sarah sees a father carrying his daughter on his shoulders. At first, Sarah asks Lynne to carry her the same way, but then Lynne looks at me and eventually my shoulders become the victim.
We get outside and reach the street, so Lynne takes David's hand. With Sarah on my shoulders, we cross the street, and this is when I take a mental photograph of myself looking down at all of us.
While driving home Lynne notices that the tank is almost empty, so she stops at a gas station. While she's filling up the car, David asks her if he can have some money to buy candy, to which she says yes. David and Sarah run into the small store and I watch them as they make the hardest decision of their life.
Lynne finishes and she gets back into the car and we're both watching them now as they pay the clerk. This is when Lynne puts her hand on top of mine and starts to gently squeeze. I look at her, she looks at me, then I say, “I don't know if I should tell you now or later, but I wipe my ass with that hand.” She laughs, then she leans forward and kisses me on the lips, then leans back into her seat. I'm still looking at her, but now she's looking straight ahead at Sarah and David with a stupid smile on her face.
Eventually the kids come back to the car with their candy and we go home. I bid the family farewell and then I enter my apartment and walk towards the bathroom. After I'm finished, I turn on the news to see what it has to say.
After a bunch of uninteresting words, I spot an ant on the wall behind the television. I get up and walk towards the ant and I slam my hand on the wall; I've got the ant's attention now. The ant tries to run but I block its path with my hand. Each time it decides on a new direction, I block it, wondering if more and more fear is building up inside this 88 | PAGE 3 OF 8, “THE EIGHT DREAMS”
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ant.
As I do this, a passage from the Bible rings throughout my head, one that talks about how man and the animal share the same fate, how they breathe the same breath and how they both must die, and more importantly, how meaningless it all is.
I eventually let the ant go back to its family, but I make sure it knows not to return, nor should its friends or its queen.
When I sit back down I notice that the stories from the news are still uninteresting, so naturally my mind wanders. I begin to think of the family next door, and how Lynne didn't say a word after she kissed me. I've noticed throughout my years, at least in my experiences, that it's the people who are not genuinely happy that talk the most. They have to move around a lot and do a lot of things. In the words of a humorist, maybe Lynne didn't end up where she intended to go, but I believe she has ended up where she needed to be.
The news continues to lack decent subject matter, so I begin flipping through the channels until I come across a commercial about rescuing animals. I had never really given it much thought, but I suppose non-human organisms can suffer from poverty as well.
What I have given much thought to, however, is poverty in itself. I've looked at and studied it from just about every angle; logically, mathematically, scientifically and philosophically, and in all my time and research, or simply put, my search, the only answer I've ever been comfortable with is that a world without poverty is the impossible dream.
Bias economic systems, overpopulation, excess surplus and the general nature to possess, these things get you to believe that poverty is simply a natural phenomenon and if your desire is to make a difference, you are better off focusing your energy on something more reasonable and not so close to the complex. Pyramidically, money always seems to go up and back to the rich.
Maybe the end of poverty is indeed the impossible dream, but I do believe that many of the problems we have in the world today could be solved if there were more dissatisfied people in it.
Most of us, myself included, we wake up in the morning, we go through our day, and then we sleep at night, living a satisfied life even if it isn't a desirable one and turning a half-blind eye to what is really around us so long as it doesn't reach us.
We say we believe in things, that we believe in causes, but the days and how we spend them remain the same, rinsing and repeating, waking and rewaking. We do this, of course, until the cause finally reaches and affects our livelihood, and this is the true irony.
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placing notes on cars. For as long as I can remember, I had wanted to ask him why he does this. I wanted to ask him if he really thinks that these notes will have an effect on the people who end up reading them or if he's just wasting his time. I guess it's possible that they do; had I not received his I wouldn't be here now.
“Skip that car,” Roach says to me, so instead of placing the note on the car I read it again and try to better understand what it means, but I get the same output. What I feel it's saying is that at the end of the day, the world is going to let you know your place. It reminds you of placement tests and the massive organization of the human society.
“Don't you feel like you're wasting your time sometimes?,” I ask Roach. He stops and looks at the sky, this pretty much means he is about to say something profound and important. I kind of hate when he does this.
“No, because you are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today,” he replies. I stare at him blankly as he begins to bring his head down. “It's from a song about time. I think it's about how quickly time goes by and we don't even realize it, but also about how we choose to spend this time,” he continues.
Half-life is, in definition, how much time is needed for something to drop to half of its value, and what he says makes me think of the concept of half-life and how quickly or how slowly every thing around me is dying. I think of the biological cells, humans and animals, how quickly ideas fade, the length of dreams, I think about even the half-life of knowledge and technology, and when I'm through, I come to a dead stop when I see a car that has a light switch in the place of a car door handle.
Roach also notices it, but he doesn't say anything. I slowly walk towards it, put my hand on the switch, and then I flip it upwards. I want to say that I remember the night turning into day, but I'm not completely sure if it was night into day or day into night, the only thing I remember is that the light setting instantly changed.
Roach continues to walk, and I follow, and then that's when we spot a man dressed in a suit and tie standing on a curb with a sign that reads “hiring the homeless.” At the bottom of the sign, you can see that it's signed by a Mark C., but you can't be entirely certain that Mark C. is the same person as this man.
Roach and I simply walk past him and continue our work. That is, until we reach the last car on the street and come to a dead end. For this brief moment in time, you think about how there has to be an opposite to half-life.
Now Roach is kneeling down in front of a sewer opening near the curb and throwing down all his notes into the filth. He sticks his hand out and asks for mine, and after I give them to him, he throws those down the drain as well. I begin to wonder if he even actually cares.
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adverse to being alone if it means he gets to keep his mind, that he's not adverse to losing it all if he gets to leave it all behind.
I find myself daydreaming, but I suppose now, at this time, it would be referred to as nightdreaming. When I look out of my living room window, I notice that it is both raining and snowing; imagine abnormally dense snow. This almost tells me that weather changes are coming, but who knows, I've never been that great at predicting these types of things.
As I walk away I hear a loud thunder, and when I open the door to the room that houses the notebooks, I peer out of its window as well, only to once again see a dark night accompanied by dense snowfall. Lightening hides to the blind, and thunder, to the deaf.
I continue to look out of the window in the hopes of seeing a lightning strike, but after a few minutes I become distracted and begin to look at my other lives. How is the weather where I'm not but will be? Or maybe have been.
Of course as I'm looking at the composition notebooks, lightning strikes and I miss it.
Fortunately for me, however, it strikes twice, and I catch it the second time as it branches out into the unknown. Sometimes if it's close enough, a lightning strike can turn night into day, and even if it's just for a second, the sight is enchanting.
I walk over to the other side of the room and wake up a sleeping computer. In the past, long before I met you, I would turn off the lights, turn on the computer, select an album and hit play, then lay on the ground and listen to it in its entirety. Why I did this, I'm not sure, maybe I wanted the music to enter my dreams, but why I have the sudden urge to do this now, I'm definitely not sure, but I figure it's been long enough.
I begin to get tired during the fourth song, and on the fifth song I am falling in and out of sleep, but on the sixth song I am completely gone.
I am standing alongside five other soldiers in what appears to be an unfinished courtroom. Before us stands three people, one of whom who appears to be in charge of both his party as well as I and my associates.
“You have all been accused of committing absurdities in war,” he tells us, “with the primary absurditive charge being the slaying of other soldiers without prior attempt for resolve.”
“Sir,” one of my associates says, “it is not our duty as soldiers to seek resolution, it is our duty to carry out strict orders from our superior officers.”
The man in charge walks up to the soldier who has just made a statement and asks,
“Is it not absurd to end another person's life based solely on the idea that 'someone told you to?' To murder, yes, murder, another individual who is a father or a mother, a brother or a sister, without any factual evidence of their guilt or wrongdoing, or without first seeking a solution to the problem you have with this person?”
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“Sir,” the soldier replies, “war is a complicated process with individual roles. It is not logical to assume it consists of only black and white, to the contrary it has a vast array of colors to perceive and a complex ideology. Our actions are not to be observed individually but as part of a larger system.”
“It is not the system that is on trial, soldier, it is you alone, and this revolver will be your conviction.” The man in charge has a revolver brought to him, to which he then loads and spins. “This revolver holds six bullets, I have loaded it with five. From right to left, you will each point the handgun at your heart and pull the trigger.”
I've heard about many brands of justice; sophisticated justice, karmic justice, even this fate justice being delivered onto us, but I am certain that true and natural justice exists nowhere, at least not on our planet. I've come to observe that the only justice that actually exists here is the justice that people in power will allow you to have.
The man in charge hands the first soldier the revolver, and this is when I recognize who it is. Taio points the gun to his head, but the man in charge reminds him that it is to be pointed at his heart. About twenty-one seconds later, Tao pulls the trigger, and we all hear a click.
Soon after I wake up to find that the weather is the same and that the music has stopped. I get up from off the floor and walk over to the shelf to take out the composition notebook I am currently working on so I can write the dream down. “I am standing alongside five other soldiers.”
“My daughter is obsessed with that show,” Wilson says to Rousseau as they drive towards Mr. Toothpick's home, “I literally have to drag her away from the television.”
“Wait wait,” Rousseau says as he looks out of his window, “turn right here.” Wilson makes a right turn and then asks Rousseau if he's sure that this is the correct street.
Rousseau does not answer at first, but when he sees the apartment building with the numbers he's looking for, he points out the building to Wilson, and Wilson then parks the vehicle.
“Which apartment did they say?,” Wilson asks. Rousseau looks down at the piece of paper that had been given to him by one of the officers who were assigned to stake out Chase Mart. “I can't read this,” Rousseau says as he hands the paper over to Wilson.
Wilson looks at the piece of paper and then says “first floor, 3rd door on the right; what are you, blind?”
The two detectives exit the vehicle and begin walking towards the apartment building. “Remember, we don't want to scare him. As soon as he feels threatened he gets smart,” Wilson says.
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through all of the names that are associated with the first floor.
“1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E, 1F, take your pick Wilson.” Wilson thinks about how the door they are looking for is the third door on the right, then tells Rousseau that he believes it's either 1C or 1F. Rousseau then tells Wilson he believes it's either 1E or 1F. They then both decide on the common denominator which is registered to a mister or miss Freyman, and as Wilson is about to ring the bell, Rousseau discovers that the door to enter further into the building is actually unlocked.
Fortunately Wilson had not yet rang the bell, so they both enter the building and walk towards the third door on the right. When they reach it, they see that it is indeed apartment 1F.
They knock on the door and eventually it is answered. They are met with a tall, skinny man, whom has often been referred to by the narrator as “the first-floor man.”
“Hello Mr. Freyman, we're with the local police,” Rousseau says as he shows Freyman his badge, “I'm detective Rousseau, this is my partner detective Wilson, we were wondering if you had a moment to answer a few questions.”
“I'm sorry but I'm actually headed to work,” Freyman says. “Is there a more convenient time we could speak with you?,” Wilson asks. Freyman thinks for a moment, and then tells them tomorrow morning would be the best time. He also tells them that the police department is en route of his daily routine, so he would actually be able to stop by himself.
As Wilson and Rousseau are walking back to their vehicle, Wilson asks Rousseau what he thinks about Mr. Freyman, to which Rousseau replies, “I still think you're barking up the wrong tree. Plus now, if you are somehow right about him, he has time to prepare.” Wilson sees that Rousseau has a point, but what is really on his mind is why Freyman didn't even bother to ask the detectives what they were inquiring about.
The next morning, Freyman keeps his word and shows up at the police department.
The three men sit down in a private room and as Wilson is about to begin to speak, Freyman says, “This is about those apartment murders isn't it?” Rousseau and Wilson look at each other as they are caught by surprise. “You found my toothpicks, right?,”
Freyman continues.
“Yeah, we did. Can you explain why they were there?,” Rousseau asks. “I can, actually,” Freyman says as he laughs. Freyman continues, “Sometime in the summer of last year,” “June 23rd?,” Wilson interrupts as he remembers the date on the Chase Mart receipt. Freyman thinks, then says “Possibly.”
Freyman continues, “I was driving home, passing through that abandoned part of town, when without any explanation my car breaks down. After I realize that I'm not going to be able to repair the car on my own, I call for roadside assistance. So I wait, and 93 | PAGE 3 OF 8, “THE EIGHT DREAMS”
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about an hour passes by and no one shows up, I figure they're just having a hard time finding the place, so I decide to pass by the time by cleaning out my car after I notice a trash bin. You should have seen how filthy it was,” he says as he laughs. Wilson asks Freyman to write down the phone number of the service he called, to which he does.
“I take a few trips back and forth from my car to the trash, getting rid of a bunch of papers I no longer needed, but in the process I must have accidentally thrown out the toothpicks and the purchase's receipt. You could only imagine my surprise when not too long after that, I read about the murders taking place exactly where I had been, although I hadn't thought too much about it considering I had not really been anywhere near the apartment building. When you showed up at my house, I figured you had searched the area and simply traced the purchase back to me.”
“You say you didn't go anywhere near the building, but what about the box of broken toothpicks we found on the roof of the building?,” Wilson asks. “What box?,” Freyman asks. As Wilson is about to speak, Freyman cuts him off, “Oh, yes, I did leave a box next to the trash bin filled with papers. My best guess is that I must have accidentally put the toothpicks and the receipt in that box without realizing while I cleaned, and then completely forgot they were in there when I left the box next to the bin.”
“Did anyone ever show up?,” Rousseau asks. “Yes, about an hour and a half later.”
“Then where did you go?” “Home.”
“Mr. Freyman, is there a reason why on some of your trips to Chase Mart, you only buy toothpicks? I mean I buy toothpicks too, but it's maybe once or twice a year,”
Rousseau says. “Yes, I build things with them,” Freyman replies. “The Chase Mart isn't my primary supply for toothpicks, I actually buy them wholesale. I buy them from Chase Mart when I only need a few of them.”
“What do you mean you build like little miniature houses?,” Wilson asks. “Oh, no, I'm at the point where I can build just about anything with them. People, skyscrapers, household items, even dinosaurs if I were so inclined,” Freyman replies.
“Okay Mr. Freyman thank you for your time, we will contact you should we need your assistance again.” “I am happy to help anyway I can,” Freyman says.
After Freyman leaves, Wilson tells Rousseau that he thinks Freyman is a liar and that he was going to his desk to call the roadside assistance number Freyman had written down for them.
To Wilson's surprise, the phone number is not disconnected and is actually a roadside assistance service, however Wilson soon learns that the company did not send out anyone to the area Freyman was located within the past four years.
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heart, continues to keep tabs on thirteen.
After speaking with Wilson, Mainor searches for Mya Jackson, who has been out in the field all day following Derek as she attempts to gain more information on the inner workings of his associated organization.
It inevitably turns night and Derek decides to go home, as does Jackson. On her way home, Jackson realizes that she too is being followed, but is uncertain by whom. After some driving, she parks in front of a random house and simply sits there as the tailing vehicle passes her by. Not too long after, Roc, who had become increasingly more aware of her awareness, gets out of the tailing vehicle and begins to walk towards her.
At this sight, Jackson begins to handle her firearm in the case of an assault, but soon realizes that this unidentified person means no harm.
Rock walks up to her window and reveals all ten of his fingers to her, two of which have a folder in between them, and then she slowly exits her vehicle. “Who are you?,”
she asks.
Rock hands the folder over to Jackson and she looks through it, but doesn't know what it is. “What is this?,” she asks.
“Omar Robinson, he's who you're looking for right?,” Rock says. “Who is Omar Robinson?,” she asks. Rock laughs and then realizes that she is asking a serious question.
“Omar Robinson?,” Rock says, “Drugs? Weapons?” Suddenly something clicks in Mya's mind. Is Omar Robinson the “ghost” that she had heard Timothy refer to so many times before? Is he the fundamental problem that she had heard Francis curse in the past?
She looks at the papers again and sees names, phone numbers and addresses. At the same time she sees Rock beginning to reach into his coat and she instinctively panics, but Rock only pulls out a few photos. “I thought he was a pretty decent guy until he started killing people for the worst reasons,” he says as he hands her the photos.
After he gives her the photos he begins to walk back to his car. “Where are you going?,” Mya shouts. Rock doesn't answer. Mya knows that she should be telling Rock that he will need protection, that they may even need him to testify if this information checks out, but by then Rock is gone. Not literally, but philosophically.
In the distance, there is yet another vehicle being used to survey other individuals.
Spider begins to dial Robinson's right hand man as he watches Rock drive away from a still somewhat confused Mya Jackson.
“Yo, Robinson was right just caught 'em talking to that bitch cop, gave her some shit too,” Spider says. “Hold up,” the man on the other line says. A few seconds later he responds to Spider, giving him the authority to kill Rock. Omar had suspected that the life was beginning to wear Rock down, all the silence and hesitation spoke for him.
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received and about the character she had received it from. When she begins to describe Rock, as soon as she mentions the tattoo on his neck, Frank realizes that she is speaking of Terrell Bell, someone he had questioned numerous times about numerous homicides.
Frank contacts the remaining members of their task force and they all decide to meet in the middle of the night.
Rock begins to drive home but stops at a corner store near his residence. He buys a carton of cigarettes and tells the clerk, a long time friend of his deceased father, that he won't be around for a long time.
Rock begins to walk home and leaves his car parked just around the corner of the store. As he is approaching his apartment building, he notices a dark figure lurking behind the brick wall. He begins to reach around to his backside where his handgun is located, but upon seeing another figure coming towards him from the corner of his eye, he decides to run back towards his vehicle.
Shots are fired at Rock, but none are on target. Realizing that there is no way he could make it to his car and have enough time to get away, Rock cuts into an alley in an effort to lead them away from his car.
The two gunmen follow him into the alley but are mocked by the night. A quick search yields nothing and they are forced to retreat due to a lack of time. When Rock sees them retreating, he quickly runs around the block and gets into his car and begins to drive towards Omar's place of work, his previous employer.
Rock parks about five blocks from Omar's legitimate business and begins to walk towards it. When he sees two men exiting a vehicle and enter the building, he is sure that Omar is still inside, so he hides in an alley waiting for his appearance.
Inside the music store, Omar, Spider and a few others are conversing over Rock after the two gunmen explain how he evaded them. Omar firmly expresses to his group how they cannot fight a drug war, Rock and the police all at the same time, so some things will have to cool down and agreements will need to be made with Raheim Johnson, the main drug runner on the eastern side of the city. But as for Rock, Omar says, “He must be put into the ground.”
Omar has all drugs located inside the music store destroyed as well as any evidence that may portray illegal activity as he anticipates law enforcement will begin to survey
“his” company.
Afterwards, Omar sends Spider outside to check the area. Rock sees Spider exit the building and look around, and when Spider goes back inside, Rock moves a bit closer to the building. A few minutes later he sees Spider exit the building once more, but this time he is followed by Wallace, who is a friend of Derek, a few other individuals and finally Omar.
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Rock understands that he in no way has any advantage, so he simply fires four rounds targeted for Omar in the off chance that a bullet may hit him, and then he sprints off back into the alley.
Two bullets shatter the glass of the music store and the other two bullets bury themselves into the shoulder of Omar's right hand man, but he claims he is okay.
Omar has every one fan out to search for Rock, knowing if he doesn't take care of him now, Rock may become a nuisance. Omar leaves with his driver and an injured right hand man in hopes of getting him patched up at a friend's house, and the search lasts until the police begin to drive around the area, and so Omar's searchers too disappear, never finding Rock.
The attending police officers drive towards the music store to find that two large glass window panes have been shot out and they immediately begin to search the area around the broken glass. One of the officers begins to file a report and stamps the time of the report as eleven-thirty seven p.m. The police then attempt to contact the owner of the music store, one Davis Jerome, who is also a friend of Omar Robinson, in hopes to enlighten him about the condition of his place of business.
Inside the police station, Mya Jackson and her fellow law enforcement officers are looking over the material Rock had previously handed over. Past all the names and associated crimes and or roles, they come across the address of the music store which is specifically identified as a front for their illegal activities. “Omar Robinson. Rolls right off the tongue doesn't it?,” Tim laughs.
Somewhere in another part of the sleeping city, Robinson and his driver discuss the events of the night. At first, Robinson and his driver, who is also a close friend, both agree that the person who tried to gun them down earlier was definitely Rock, but after some thought, Robinson begins to believe more and more that it may have actually been one of Raheim's men who tried to gun them down in an attempt to seize more ground for his drug peddling operations.
Eventually Robinson sells the idea to himself when he begins to have a lack of faith in the possibility that Rock would actually try to take them all on. Because of this, Robinson decides to turn what was a borderline cold war into a full frontal attack, seemingly losing his sanity in the process of making this decision. “By tomorrow morning, I want the whole damn city to know that Omar Robinson owns every block from Lincoln and Garfield to McKinley and Kennedy,” Robinson says. “But I thought,”
“Fuck that,” Robinson interrupts the driver, “that hide and seek shit is for children.”
Upon near completion of the documentation of my vision, there is a gentle rapping at my chamber door. It is Tao, telling me about how his ride to the airport would not be able to pick him up, asking me if I could lend a hand. I'd ask him why he couldn't just take a 97 | PAGE 3 OF 8, “THE EIGHT DREAMS”
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cab, but I'm sure it's because of the amount the fare will total up to. The best things in life are the things you get for free, especially when it costs someone else. Take love for example.
“What time is your flight?,” I ask. He tells me it's at eleven forty-five, but that he would need to be there in a couple of hours. After he leaves I look out of my window and find that the rain or snow and the lightning had stopped. At least I had that.
When the time comes along, Tao and I enter my car and we begin our long trip to the airport. For most of the first ten minutes, we make small talk, and when silence ensues I turn on the radio. Shortly after, the first airplane flies overhead.
After a little while I ask him if he had any luck finding a new job, and he tells me that employment is one of the reasons he's going to China. I learn for the second time that he is a computer programmer. He had told me before, but I'd forgotten.
“I'm actually going over there to teach, though,” he says. “Teach?” I ask. “Yeah.
That's also the reason I went last time. I help teach a programming course at a university.” “Oh, I never knew that,” I reply. “I never told you,” he jokes. Thank God.
“But other than that I'm mostly going to visit family.” “For how long?” “Six months.”
“Is your cousin going to be borrowing your apartment again?” “Yeah.” “Word.”
The conversation continues into his computer programming career and all of the jobs he's had in the past here in the States until it finally dies down and the radio takes over again as the second airplane flies overhead.
When I actually begin to listen, I realize that the person speaking on the radio is on the subject of scheming politicians and deceptive city officials.
As far as I am aware, the consensus on bad people is that they are bad. Words and actions will be of no use when trying to get through to someone who doesn't want to change. I've found that there is really only one thing in this world that can gain the attention of such a person.
A man who makes a killing in the selling of arms can turn a blind eye to his role in the deaths of human beings easily. He can go through his entire life being cursed and spit on without batting an eye. However, when death itself approaches his door and it knocks and he knows that it is here to claim his life, and he sees death for the first time in his life for what it really is, it may be possible for him to finally realize the strife he's caused.
“If you've ever been swallowed by a darkness that you can't seem to find your way back from,” the arms dealer says to me, “just sit down and write a story, or paint a picture, or compose a song, because this darkness is not as intimidating as it seems and we can all use it as a tool for the imaginative creation.” The third airplane flies overhead.
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the common days as well because they are what make us aware of the special days.
For certain movies or even novels, a viewer or reader may begin to unconsciously search for a plot when there is no plot to be found. In this case, it is probably best to simply enjoy the commonness throughout. The fourth airplane flies overhead.
We are about five minutes away from the airport when the fifth airplane flies overhead. When we finally get there, I stop in front of one of the entrances and ask Tao if he's sure he has everything, now implanting the idea that he may have forgotten something at home. “I hope,” he laughs.
Tao exits and retrieves his luggage, then peers through the passenger window and says “Six months,” to which I reply, “Six months indeed.” He then jokingly salutes me and begins to walk off.
As I watch Tao walk away, I remember Julia and her literature. Is it possible for a character to be more than just a representation of an idea? Is God good and is Satan bad?
Is black black, and white white, or is there a spectrum of colors that linger out of sight?
“Baggage, your passports ready, and follow the green line to customs and then to immigration. BA two-one-five to Rome, Prado, Naples. May I have your attention, please, customs will be receiving passengers for BA two-one-five to Rome, Prado, Naples.”
On the way back, just a few miles away from my apartment, I come to a stop at a red light. For as long as the red light is lit, it reminds me of my sanctuary, and because of this, I turn right instead of left to visit the home of my parents on this wet night.
When I get inside I walk towards the basement stairs and remove a stubborn lock, then slowly walk to the bottom. I turn on the basement's ignite and am soon overwhelmed with nostalgia.
Sheets of papers on the walls, all filled with writings and pictures and diagrams.
Idioms and phrases. Numbers and ideas. Sometimes you wait for life to happen, and when it doesn't you get bored, so you intentionally create a puzzle you can't solve just to kill time.
You walk up to one of the sheets of paper and see words written in red, green and yellow, but you can't remember why they're there or what they mean.
On the sheet of paper next to it, you find topics that concern repetitive DNA, genetic duplication and various cancers of the human body.
You turn around and walk to the other side of the basement, and on this wall, on this sheet of paper, you read about a short story idea that indulges in misplaced trust and strong curiosity. You think for a moment and you can remember exactly when you wrote this down. It was years ago, after you had a dream in which you were told that one of the biggest ironies in life is that the more you search for happiness, the less of it you find.
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You laugh and remember that you had many dreams like this. Sometimes life thinks its jokes are funny, but really, most of the time they are just dull. They're almost as funny as carrying your own cross or digging your own grave. But now you have to wonder why you just laughed, as if you were actually encouraging life to continue on with its cynical self-amusement.
To the left you see a drawing of Satan counting all of the residents of Hell, primarily so he can show this number to God. Right under this you see another image detailing the human anatomy of both sexes accompanied with formulas to predict if a person has more or less of a chance of being born a certain sex.
Now you go over to the corner of the room and read about a theory on why criminals are the way they are. Not too far away there is a sheet titled “Dead Dollars,” the notion that some wealthy individuals or families have such an excess in wealth that it will be impossible for them to reasonably use, or even come close, to using a large portion of said wealth, and because of this, there will be dead dollars that just sit there while neighbors starve.
It is because of this you believe that more money simply makes more people more poor because the money always goes upwards towards the top of the pyramid to the already-rich. This is the same reason why you believe that money is only a small part to the solution of poverty. Sure, you can feed an entire village, but the money you spent on that food goes right back to the people at the top of the pyramid. A good chunk of it anyway. Soon enough finances will dwindle and those who starved shall starve again.
At this point you realize that you have been unconsciously picking at your cut thumb, causing it to bleed again. You suppose the excitement of nostalgia can get the best of you sometimes.
You go to another corner and remember how you printed out crime statistics of your city and how violent crimes were trending downwards. You remember how you laughed uncontrollably when you realized that the correlation between a less violent city and less violent crimes news media reporting were not in tune. You laughed a bit harder when you realized the correlation was actually inverse.
A few steps away you find one of your father's old piano lesson books. You think about him and his passing and remember how he told you that there is a good chance that you won't win, so just don't play. You look around the basement at your lunacy and wonder if you had taken his advice too lightly or too literally.
You look at the lesson book again and then put it back down. When you live your life as a recluse, sometimes music is the only person you have to talk to, or to listen to.
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you found on these walls. Documentation detailing your first decent into darkness. For the sake of old times, you begin to read it.
“On the subway today, a man came up to me to start a conversation. He made small talk, a lonely man talking about the weather and other things. I tried to be pleasant and accommodating, but my head began to hurt from his banality. I almost didn't notice it had happened, but I suddenly threw up all over him. He was not pleased, and I couldn't stop laughing.”
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(1:2 / 2 / II)
Part 7
M.B. JULIEN
Chapter 61
THE SOOTHSAYER
1:2:7:61
LAST night, I had a dream. I walked out of the wet sea and onto the dry sand, and before me as I looked out was the dawning of a dark blue setting Sun.
Accompanied with the vision were very tall human-made structures that seemed to touch a struggling sky. As I'd walk closer and closer to these structures, I would became more and more dry and eventually I would meet a road.
On the other side of the road stands a sign that reads “Citizens Only,” but I couldn't be sure of what it actually meant.
As I go to cross this road, in the distance I would see some type of transportation vessel coming my way. When it finally arrives, the first thing I would notice is how it is marked with a symbol, followed by “Property of Civilians.”
When the vessel comes to a complete stop, one of the passengers points a weapon of some sort at me, but is told not to waste his ammunition. As they drive off I am left there to wonder what had become of the busy world.