Anthology Complex V by M.B. Julien - HTML preview
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Though in an anti-predetermined universe that is governed by entropy, which you seem to call a 'free will,' there is a problem because the terms 'good' and 'evil' cannot even be properly defined.”
Dice dropped the dice, saying “nine” as they fell. They land on eight and he rolls again. After six additional rolls, he eventually wins another round after they finally land on eight. His score changes to 0.0.0.4.0.1.
“Your loyalty is not to light, but to the stars above,” he told me. “What is your definition of evil?,” I asked him abruptly. “That is irrelevant.” “Why?” “The definition of evil is elusive. It changes over time and varies from place to place. You followed me all throughout America, through a number of cities and over a large period of time, and though you had a faint idea that I had passed through there, you could never actually find me. This is because each time, evil changed.”
“It is true that evil has many faces, but each face is composed of the same components.” “And yet that is enough to cause enough confusion to lead to war.” There is a brief pause.
“You do not understand because you have a one-track mind. Your upbringing is all you know and it is the sole definition you cast upon the world. Yet, there are places in the world where suicide is a tragedy, and in others, it is revered. You will not be able to contend with me until you broaden your mind and lay your heart open to the growing senseless causality of this universe. Think, and then tell me something meaningful for once.” Charm City, Baltimore.
On New Year's Eve, I walked past a new bicycle path that rode along the meadow of moths and ended near the town's library. It was not snowing and the sky was not as dark as midnight, and Lynne had just gotten off work from M.B.J. Airport at six a.m. after starting her shift at eight p.m.
Stopped at the Mulford station, the plan was for me to station myself at the Union Drive stop. There I was to find her and we would walk again to Emily's residence.
“This is Jackson. Transfer to Brown Line and South Shore trains at Jackson. Your safety is important. If you observe unattended packages, vandalism, or suspicious activity, inform personnel immediately. This is a Red Line train to 45th.”
When I got off at Union Drive, Lynne had already been waiting there. The déijà sonata must have felt my presence, for as I approached she turned around and said “Hey Spook.”
In the partial darkness we journeyed through the land and to Em's home. Throughout 59 | THE CHARM CITY
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the limited daytime I laid with Lynne on the couched-bed as she slept for a few hours. I watched television but I was not entertained.
She awoke after the Sun had sank low, and while eating with the family Dave called out to me under the name of Spooker. After a while, after Emily heard Sara call me Spookie and Lynne called me Spook, she asked us why they called me these names.
“That's interesting,” Emily commented on the answer. I'm sure she thought it bizarre, strange even.
In the evening, the celebrations for a brand new year had begun as one could hear music from the neighbors, and after he rummaged through old boxes, Dave came to me, telling me he had found two old dice.
“G said I can have them,” he told me. I later found myself in the kitchen with him playing a game similar to Hazard on a table. It was a simpler form of Hazard, which he explained to me was called “Catalyst.” Of boredom, Lynne wanted to join us, and the hidden causality of her fortune caused me to call her “Lady Luck.” After she won eight games in a row, Dave told us he had had enough and was going to watch Sara build Winter Nights Into Dreams...
There were only four hours until it was the first of January, and one by one in as many hours they each fell asleep until it was only Lynne and I awake in the apartment.
Pretty little mama. Hot little devil. One of these nights I'm gonna find out what turns on your lights. Yes, that's right, sit on daddy's lap. I feel the scruff of her black jeans cause friction on my thighs. Her heart is becoming like an ocean; mysterious, cold, dark. What's this? Oh yeah, lifting up your blouse. Do it. “You see what you did?,” she asks as she points at a bruise on her back. She puts her shirt back down and sits into me.
“I enjoy not having a car.” “The western way of living does not suit everyone,” I replied. “Since I ride the train and walk a lot I have more time to think.” “That's good.”
“Remember that entropy thing you were telling me about?” “I do.” “I was wondering earlier right before you got off the train if it's actually the opposite.” “What do you mean?” “You said the number of points gradually increase in the same direction as time, but what if the number of points is opposing the direction of time. Like, instead of going from 1a to 100nkd, it is going from 100nkd to 1a. If it is going backwards, the chances of each point occurring actually increases and eventually simulates destiny because the final point is the only point that can occur.”
“So you are saying we start out in a highly diverse system?” “And it becomes simpler.
I mean, how come fate and coincidence are always the only options?” “Yeah, maybe it's a combination of the two. There is chance involved, though it is definite to end a certain way. Perhaps that way being heavily influenced by how it started.” “Perhaps,” she mocked me.
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“Can you get off me before someone wakes up and walks in here for midnight food.”
“Why? They know we are lovebirds.” “So? What you're doing is childish.” She hopped off and went to the refrigerator and looked inside, and after a moment closed it, taking nothing from it, only to sit back across the table from me. We looked at eachother for maybe ten minutes, bored, no discussion, and waiting for the death of December and the juvenation of January.
Eventually she told me that there was a piano in the lobby on the ground floor, that I probably didn't see it because it was around the corner. “Does it work?,” I asked. “I think so.” “Then what are we doing here?”
We walk through the living room and I wait for her as she rearranges Sara's body which had been hanging off the side of the couched bed.
On the ground floor I followed her as she revealed to me the hidden piano around the corner. “No public masturbation, please.” She slapped my shoulder.
The bench for the piano barely sat the both of us, and I ended up hanging off its end.
“Are you going to play something?,” I asked after we stared at the black and white keys.
She raises her hand and presses a single black key; the note bounced around all throughout the lobby and suddenly the lobby lights flickered off, and then back on. We looked at eachother confused and puzzled, and then I played a black key myself, and again the lights flickered; brief darkness then light.
She looked at me, curious and in half of a gaze, then played a white key; for a second the room brightened and then returned back to normal.
I decided to play a song that I had learned from my father when I was young. A simple song, which required both black and white keys, and throughout the short duration of the piece the lobby contrasted itself in darkness and in light.
After I had stopped, the both of us looked at the lobby and realized that half of it had been painted in black and other half in white. The front door swung open and in walked a person with a dog. We didn't see them, but we heard the semblance of the dog until they left to catch the stairs.
I began playing again as she watched. It was after maybe a minute that she began humming to the tune of the song. The same humming I had heard before not too long ago, of a siren's song luring me to sea. Unlike long ago, however, were notes I could only describe as “Ooohs” and “Aaahs” and variations on them.
As she hummed, and as she incorporated the Os and As, the room that was once completely black and white became painted with streaks of green. And then streaks of red. And finally, streaks of yellow. These colors finding direction through her voice. A voice that went up and down, each string a melody that I would never hear again.
As she continued, she stood up and took off her shoes, climbed onto the piano, and 61 | THE CHARM CITY
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then laid out flat on her back on it, staring at the colorful ceiling, and her notes broke out into lyrics.
♪ There is nothing that I want more, more than to be close to you
♪ Nothing that I need more, more than the way you make me feel
♪ And so through the winter nights, under snowfall in December
♪ There isn't a thing that I like more, more than when you decide to stay
♪ Not a thing that I love more, more than you being here with me today She immediately became silent, and shortly after I stopped playing. Even shortly after, another tenant walked through the lobby, but we never saw nor heard them.
“Damn. You can't really sing but your non-lexical vocals bring chills down my spine.
It's painful and sad but uplifting at the same time. It's filled with soul. It has a spirit.”
The lobby was at present returned to its normal, formal and former state. Looking around the corner at a clock, Lynne noted that January had finally arrived. “Happy new year,” I say to her. She looked at me, immovably, and finally said, “Happy new year? No such thing.” I gave her a confused look and she continued with a dull monotonous tone.
“Well, a new year is merely symbolic of how another year has gone by and how little we've grown. No matter how desperate we are that someday a better self will emerge, with each countdown on the clock, we know it's not to be, that for the rest of our sad, wretched and pathetic lives, this is who we are to the bitter end. Inevitably, irrevocably; happy new year? No such thing.”
“That's so serious,” I said seriously. “I am a very serious woman,” she replied. She kept the straight face but I failed, “You funny, Lynne.”
Only a few seconds later we heard a series of pops outside, and as she lay on the piano, I think to myself, “I am the catalytic cause to your hazardous effect.”
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(2:2 / 5 / V)
Part 6
M.B. JULIEN
Chapter 51
TO LIVE AND DIE IN MANHATTAN
2:2:6:51
“...No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God...”
THERE are a variety of things we do as human beings to prove to ourselves that we are still alive. One person loads a pistol with a single bullet while another person shines the blade and watches the blood drip off their body. Some people join the military to be closer to death, others become firemen to prevent it; or maybe the fire is his only friend.
A few will stand on the edge of tall buildings. Women and girls will whisper blissful ignorance to herself.
Public speaking is easy. Speech to a crowd is simple. Never look at their eyes. Fail to realize that each individual you are addressing has a past. Has their own complex or simple ideology. Their own set of principles. See them as a mass.
One on one engagement is difficult. Direct connection and private discussion in comfort is almost an impossibility. When you have to look someone in the eye and tell them what is going on in your mind, and there is no third nor three-hundredth nor three-thousandth party to fill the silence, anxiety ensues.
The public speaker, though they have hundreds of eyes on them, never has to look at their audience, but for the private speaker, there is only one set of eyes on them, eyes that demand the same attention; the private discourse is intense, every flaw intimate and magnified. But after that discourse, you will have proven to yourself that you are still human and that you are still alive.
When the conversation runs high with energy, is ample in ideas, thoughtful in magnitude, honest is composition, you'll realize sooner, rather than later, that [every] one is shy under certain circumstances.
It was only two years ago that I had a dream about New York. My partner and I, in a Manhattan apartment, watched a news reel that concerned us.
“This sketch of two masked individuals was released earlier this morning after a detective Barrowe was rescued from inside the Brooklyn tower. Barrowe was kidnapped by the two suspects after they had murdered Internal Affairs officers Lionel Copenhagen and Kenneth Stander. This kidnapping may or may not be linked to the murder of Andy Hope, founder of the 'KIDS' HOPE' charity who was murdered in cold blood last month at a charity event. Mayor Geoffrey Harharwood will be addressing the public later in the afternoon.”
When does an entity realize that it is imperfect? What is it called? Shall we name it
“the erring moment?”
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When the oppressed speak out against their oppressors, very few listen. It is mainly when an oppressor has an “erring moment” and begins to speak out against other oppressors of the same type that oppressors begin to listen. Note that less violent revolution occurs when an oppressor intervenes with oppression and attempts to stop it.
Note that this is also ironic, that a woman cannot realistically stand up for other women, it must be a man. A man cannot stand up for other men, it must be a woman. It is a sad fate that only the rich can realistically end poverty. It is an even sadder fate that very few ever have the erring moment.
And logical fallacy; in it there are two modes of fault: an error and a mistake, which are very much distinguishable. A mistake can be made and a system can still operate, where as when an error is made the system will not operate at all.
To visualize this, using terms of linguistics, think of the function of a sentence in language: I don't like chewing gum. If the sentence had been written as “I dont like chewing gum,” missing the contractive apostrophe, though a mistake has been made it can still operate as a sentence and provide meaning.
An error, however, might be the system completely lacking an alphabet and therefore the sentence cannot even be produced.
If we use terms of a cosmic variety, and substitute the system of an alphabet for a system of the universe, other observations can be made. The subjects in this system, while they may be able to detect mistakes, they would never be able to detect errors as this would be a logical fallacy considering the fact that they do not exist to do so.
In this regard, one could commit a mistake but one could never commit an error. At the very least, one could never witness an error. If God is a programmer, surely he takes shortcuts, and surely he has made mistakes, but because we are around to witness his flawed nature, we can be assured that he does not err.
948-7255: Hello?
430-9513: Hello, may I please speak with Ava Walsh?
948-7255: Speaking.
430-9513: I am calling to let you know that your loan has been approved and that we will be sending you papers in the mail for you to look over.
948-7255: Okay, that is fine.
430-9513: Before I let you go, would you be interested in one of our pre-approved credit-948-7255: I am sorry, but I must go now. I am late for doctor.
430-9513: That's okay ma'am, have a nice day and I hope all is right.
948-7255: Thank you. Bye.
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430-9513: Goodbye.
“This is Jackson. Transfer to Brown Line and South Shore trains at Jackson. Service has been interrupted at 32nd. Please transfer to Gray Line trains at 32nd.”
Almost everyone got off the train at Jackson and the underground hallways were almost filled with busybodies.
I get to Lynne's work location and see that she is off in a corner, maybe a waiting area, sitting Lindian style on a chair. If you're wondering what Lindian style means, it is when you sit with your legs spread to form a sort of wide diamond and the bottoms of your feet touch eachother.
Unregistered: Look behind your
Mrs. Spookie: Why? Are you behind me?
The screen on her cellular phone goes black and she uses it as a dimmed mirror to see behind her.
I ask her what she's watching and she tells me that it was a double feature; Sleepless In Atlantis just finished and they were now playing a cartoon film named Snowy Pastures. I look at the screen and watch as a young girl drives through a blizzard.
After Lynne sees that I am still standing, she moves over and offers me her seat.
Sitting down I noticed a shop that sold movies near her diner. It must have been new, I did not see it the last time I came.
A sound comes from her phone, she looks at it, then tells me it was a message from Chloe. That Chloe had been messaging her all night. This particular message was about the bruise I had given Lynne on her shoulder blade. Chloe was suspicious about it. And just then suddenly I saw an airplane take off from the view of the large window panes in front of us.
“Sweden,” she told me the location of where the plane was going. I wonder how she knows. She does something with her arm and I follow it down to see that she is fidgeting with her silver side. She took that shoe off, then the sock off, and now that foote was bare. In her soul, a bright butterfly dances with a rainbow rose.
In the span of the next ten minutes, another plane takes off. “Yemen,” she confirms.
And after this confirmation the young girl happens upon a library. “Where does this movie take place?,” I asked her. The town seemed off to me. Odd. “...I don't know, somewhere cold?” I laughed.
She remarked that the town did look interesting with its unique and irreplaceable lights, then stated that it is a place she would love to visit. After maybe five minutes, 65 | TO LIVE AND DIE IN MANHATTAN
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another plane took off. “Bulgaria.”
She later asks me if I myself have ever been anywhere interesting. I think about the question. Then I think more about it. And I think. And I think. And I think.
Underneath us as we flew across the world as ravens was the earth in a state of Pangaea. A supercontinent where all land was connected many millions of years ago and was surrounded by a superocean.
We flew downward towards a tropical forest where she led me to a Vadean waterfall.
For a moment we were each a raven landing on a tree branch, and I found this place she brought me to to be most interesting because each movement of the waterfall brought the land further away.
The idea of a “pangaea” developed after fossil evidence was found that concluded
“the presence of similar and identical species on continents that are now great distances apart.” Wiker's, page 12. Another interesting idea is the notion that life originated elsewhere and was then brought to Earth by a traveling spacebody.
These two ideas in conjunction once made me wonder of a Pangaea on the scale of not a planet but a universe.
Imagine. A planet at the end of a solar system has just begun to develop a simple form of life. Racing towards it at a high velocity is a spacebody. They collide and the spacebody has such an impact on the last planet that it breaks off many of its pieces and they fly off into space. Depending on how the spacebody hit the planet, the broken off pieces will be sent off in a certain pattern, such as when you dip your finger into a pool of water and it creates a circled ripple.
So now, after the collision, you've got pieces of rock wandering through space, but it is important to remember that these pieces of rock contain life that can survive low temperatures. I'm not sure the total composition of the universe, not even a galaxy, but if this occurs where there is a plentiful number of neighboring planets, might we be able to see a patterned distribution of life? Distribution of life may take the “shape” effect of the impact. Life, in this case, would be distributed most likely in a certain direction in the shape of something that resembles a wide arc. I wonder if life on Earth is located somewhere on this arc.
If you do happen to gain knowledge on the distribution of these lifeforms and where they end up landing and evolving, might you be able to pinpoint the source of origin?
Had the distribution shape effect been a sphere, in which case the cause would probably be an explosion and not a collision, finding all landing places would give you a center of origin, but with an arc distribution it would prove much more difficult.
In that case, observation of the species is your best option. If you can find a basis in similarity that ties each lifeform's landing location to each other lifeform's landing 66 | TO LIVE AND DIE IN MANHATTAN
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location, you can deduce, unless it is a fact that all life originates identically, that these forms of life originated from the same source and may have even at one point occupied the same area. An example of a basis is DNA.
Once the basis is found, a dragnet search can be performed in the location most likely for the form of life to have traveled from, and in comparing you may find a match to find your source. Imagine if there was only one place in the massive universe that could actually produce life, and this place was constantly distributing life throughout the universe, and then imagine literally tracing back your biologically history to that single location.
I am not sure as to whether it is anthropogeny or anthropology, but one or both of these is the very study, or [part] of the study, of human history and origins. The scientists concerned with these subjects have traced the modern human to have first appeared in Africa, and some time later having spread to other continents such as Asia and Europe.
Possibly the most interesting place I have ever traveled to was in a dream where I visited the very origin of all life throughout the cosmos. It is the most dense object in the universe and is located at the relative center of it. Human perception tells you that it is gray in color, spherical and rotates, but it is not a planet or a star. It is made of dark energy and upon inspection of it, one might pause and wonder if it [is] possible for all life in the universe to have started out as energy.
“Inceptus? Why is it called that?,” Lynne asked. “It was probably some Greek god or something.” “Or maybe a Goddess.” “Maybe.”
Watching the movie, the next time a plane took off, Lynne mentioned the destination of Mexico. I then make a bet with her, saying if the next plane takes off in under eight minutes, I would win. She agreed and started a timer on her phone.
At six minutes I was curious, at seven I was worried, at seven and a half I thought I'd lost, and at seven and seven eighths the next plane began to fly. She couldn't believe she'd lost by mere seconds and demanded a rematch, this time she winning if it was under eight minutes.
I won again in the second round by an identical miracle and she was anxious, demanding another round. The night went on like this, she always being on the narrower side.
There is a fallacy in the socially-driven [themed] mind. In this mind, doing an activity with your family has meaning when the same activity, done alone or perhaps with strangers, suddenly has no meaning at all. This tells us it's not necessarily the activity itself, but with whom you do it with which gives it meaning; which may or may not make sense to you depending on your mindset.
But some people do not have families, even more people do not have friends. Does 67 | TO LIVE AND DIE IN MANHATTAN
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that make their life and whatever activities they engage in meaningless? The notion that your purpose will involve other people is not always true, and it is certainly not true for everyone. For anyone else, the social aspect of an activity, which increases the importance of the family and friends dynamic, is less important than the activity itself. A person who does something alone is probably more likely to derive greater meaning from that activity.
Take into account the life of Christ and the cost of following him. The possible conclusion that if you don't learn to exclude your friends and family to some degree, your life will remain unrealized.
“And it came to pass, that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Your family and friends should not be the ultimate priority. Of course this is a difficult worldview, and because we are social animals we collectively have a “social”
worldview, but meaningful engagement is seldom ever found in the social realm.
All you have are your bullets and knives. Your uniform and your fire. Your buildings and your ignorance. Your mask. And pal, identity is a lifelong process. I have come to terms with what I am, who I am; what and who I will become; and behind the countless acres of dirtfield, I now understand that this is what it means to live and die in Manhattan.
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Chapter 52
THE MACABRE IRONFLY
2:2:6:52
“...and where a person's psychology creates a psychopath, a person's society creates a sociopath...”
I am a sick man. Around me is a calm, but in my mind is a storm. My body twitches.
My thumb locks, my fingers flick, my thighs clamp. My arm pulses. My neck ticks. I stand over a toilet bowl next to a shut bathroom door, and in the bowl is the yellow liquid of urine and a trapped fly. It cannot swim, nor move nor fly. It is stuck, like myself, in the macabre.
I have been to church just twice in my adult life. The first, which you are already aware of, was with Kathleen. The second, which took place last August, was to confess my sins of anger.
There was, however, in my youth, a time in my early teenage years, when I visited church during the night. I did not go inside as the doors were locked, but I considered it a type of service despite the technicality.
That night was the last time I spoke to God as a friend. The end of the friendship was not something I planned but something I realized occurred that specific night as the next decade of my life rolled out. At first, I believed all of the light in my life was gone, but I soon became aware of the great irony that the macabre has its method in flight.
I take a square of toilet paper, fold it, and then put my hand in the toilet bowl to retrieve the fly. I place it on the edge of the sink, and after perhaps a second or two, it shows a fragile sign of life.
I then grab hold of my plunger and flush the toilet and watch as the yellow water rises. I'm not sure how it became clogged but it was. And so I plunged and plunged until much of the water had disappeared and I flushed the toilet again, only to repeat the same process. All this time, the fly had not moved much, but I saw that it had traveled maybe an inch or an inch and a half.
In the bathtub there was a bucket collecting water. Water I plan to pour into the toilet to perhaps force out whatever is lodged inside. And as I stand here watching the water fall, my mind is adrift and wanders and twitches.
How can one say that pathological serial murderers are incapable of feeling? What is it that casts such suspicions on them? Is it because of the hateful acts they have committed? But most homicides in general are committed by a person who loved their victim. Family member, spouse, friend. That argument is invalid.
The way I see it is you have to accept one of two things; that person never loved their victim and is more like the psychopath, or the psychopath is no different than the rest of 69 | THE MACABRE IRONFLY
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us and is as capable of feeling, if not more or if not in a unique way.
Grabbing the bucket, I look out of the window to see a dark blue setting sky. Just over the toilet I watch as the contents of the bucket gush out into the waste receiver and down a tiny hole. I flush, but whatever is stuck inside there has not budged.
On the sink I notice that the fly has continued to move, though its travels have been very minimum. Perhaps it is still ailing from the soaking of urine. Or perhaps it is accessing its memory and dwelling on its past...
Let me remember for a moment, on this snowless night, that fateful day I was first compelled to write down a dream. It seems like so long ago, yet it made way for all of this. It was only an instant, or rather a series of instants, like the three points of a triangle, that trapped me in.
My family did not always have money. In fact, for the first five or six years of my life, I was poor by relation, or poor by proxy, or poor by association, to my parents. And the poverty, which was most likely the first thing I ever came to know, has never left me.
It has always influenced the way I live, and even though I have chosen to live poorly, I do not feel as if I am poor.
During a teenage year, while my father was still alive, if my memory serves me correctly, I wrote down that dream. Then another. And another. By the time I was aware of the first series, which may have been the desert dreams, I realized that the life each of us here live on Earth is only a portion of our existence, and that kind of thinking led me to the conclusion that manageable poverty is escapable through the mind. Those well-off who rely on the tangible are bound to starve.
I place the bucket back in the tub and turn the dial to refill it. I grab the plunger, flush the toilet, wait, and then plunge away again. I flush once more and there has been no progress whatsoever.
The fly's progress has been stopped as well as it has not moved since I last looked at it. Maybe it's given up. Maybe its wings are too wet to fly. What's that sound? It sounds like a police vehicle. When I look out of the window I hear a police car coming my direction until it drives past and the Christmas tree lights up. I wonder what happened.
Chase Mart has changed its name to Chase Foods and has just finished construction in adding to its size. It is now maybe triple the size it used to be. I am not sure if there are new owners to the property because I have not been in there in so long.
I wonder what movies are playing in the theaters right now. I wonder what movies will soon be purchasable. I haven't seen a good one in a while. The last good one I saw I think was Travelogues. And that wasn't even that good. I just don't like traveling.
After the bucket has been filled I pour it into the toilet once more with no avail. This goes on for at least two hours and I spend the off-time thinking of countless various 70 | THE MACABRE IRONFLY
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things. Maggots...
In virtually everyone's home, you will only see happy photographs hung on the walls.
No sad photos. Yet, virtually all of us turn on the news so we may hear of devastating events. We certainly don't turn on the news to find cheery stories. I suspect this is because man is more interested in conflict than solution. And I suspect, to some degree, that man is most delighted when man fails, so long as the failure is not specifically his own. And of course, when man succeeds, he'll make you see it as soon as you enter his home.
I tell you, there is only one way to find true peace, and that is in solitude away from humanity. Humanity is a disease, and where a person's psychology creates a psychopath, a person's society creates a sociopath.
I sit on the edge of the bathtub, watching the motionless fly. A movement! The fly has extended his arms and has begun to rub them together. I have seen this many times before in my observations of flies. It makes me laugh quite often.
God damn it. That phone is ringing again. I do not want to talk to Lynne. I need to fix this toilet. But I have been working foolishly for the last three or so hours to fix something that cannot be fixed.
Why is she calling anyway? Probably to complain about Chloe. Lynne makes it seem like Chloe is her secret admirer. I wonder what's going on between those two.
I take a look at the fly again and though it is not airborne, it has one wing extended as if preparing for flight. You know what I find funny? People tell you not to be an animal, and to once in your life be a human being. These two phrases are satire. An animal doesn't do any of the things a human being might do with the hunted deceased. An animal killing something tends to be a means for survival, but when we humans kill something, it is not always executed as a means for survival. A number of killings will be for entertainment bordering on luxury. Again, I say; complete satire. Unless, of course, those two phrases are meant to be sarcastic, of which I admit I had not been aware.
One thing that crossed my mind the other day was the simple fact that if one person kills one other person, they are deemed a hazard. It is universally thought that a person like this is capable of doing it again, which indeed is true, but just because one person kills one thing, it does not mean they are capable of killing another thing. One man might murder his wife out of passion yet he would never even think of harming another woman.
In this case it is something personal.
However, the same does not apply to say, a solider who has killed in combat. An individual who is literally trained in the skill of killing is actually rewarded when he returns home and is not feared in the least. I don't know, it's just something I was thinking of the other day. Food for thought.
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ledge or edge, nowhere on the sink, not above around or below. Looking tubward, I noticed that the tiny window in the wall had been opened, and I assume it escaped through there.
Another day of life for someone who will smell feces from a mile away. Another day of life for someone who will fly around someone's house dodging a flyswatter and bugspray. And perhaps after spending this way several hours with he or she or it, I gradually became aware that I could not learn of certain things in Heaven or Nirvana.
Only in Hell or cyclic reincarnation would I seek attrition and redemption, for a life is saved when we accept our macabre qualities as our most moral qualities.
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Chapter 53
PAGE 7 OF 8, “THE EIGHT DREAMS”
2:2:6:53
“...what is so sacrosanct about a marriage and a family...”
Dave Parker: Have you ever even seen a two-dollar bill?
Gun Ho Guy: No...
Dave Parker: I will even throw in these two dices.
Dam Son Lee: That's a good trade I think. You don't even like that Vanquisha comic.
Gun Ho Guy: Plus Gavin Hill and Doctor Oldbaby aren't even in these serieses.
Gun Ho opened his bookbag after receiving the two-dollar bill and dice from Dave.
Soon after, their school bus was making its round, and entering the apartment building parking lot was Jack Booth, half-sober in a drunken stupor.
At six p.m. Lynne and I entered the theater to see In Vain Burden. It was a quiet audience because it was a small audience. Nevertheless we chose our seats and chose not to eat anything there. You probably know the reason why.
The film we are watching is what I guess you would call an “important” film laden with themes and symbols and innovative filmwork. These kinds of movies are usually worth the money. The ones that are inevitably sad and force you to wonder upon them days, maybe even weeks, after viewing them.
Other than drama, the secondary genre to this film is crime. If philosophy were a film genre it might work under that as well.
We don't say a word to eachother until the film is finished, and at around nine p.m.
we took a taxi back to the apartment. She asked the driver for a moment or two and went into her apartment to get some things for work, say some things to her kids, and returned into the cold light of night as I left it.
I went to her apartment and saw Dave and Sara doing stuff. I didn't bother them. I simply went into her bedroom and looked around. Sat on the bed. Looked at her dresses.
Peeped at her intimates and unmentionables. Then I noticed her diaries. No, she knows I read them. That's why she put them here. I grab one and begin to read it.
How much of our life will we remember. One, maybe two percent. That seems kind of low. Out of a possible seventy years, how many things will we be able to recall from memory. It doesn't seem like a whole lot. No, it doesn't. When I was ten or eleven... Or maybe twelve... That's a lot of years. I remember a studio apartment we lived in for about a year. I remember it being in a packed city. That explains a lot. I remember a train station, a nearby lake. Cellardoor? I remember a church across the street that was covered 73 | PAGE 7 OF 8, “THE EIGHT DREAMS”
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in vines, almost enough you wouldn't know it was there. That's weird. I remember a library and a librarian who closed up shop every night at nine. I remember a day when our toilet flooded because a guest flushed it and afterward we had to shit in bags for like a month. I've taken a shit in a bag, too. I remember escaping the apartment through the fire escape and taking it many stories up to the roof of the building with Claire so we could see way out. Emily never knew about it. Other than that, I don't really remember anything else about it, and in the end it feels like I only remembered such a small amount of one year. My love. Ooh, that's me. And I talked about whether the universe is capable of having its own memory or not. I remember that. And that discussion got my mind wandering on memory itself. How can you tell if you've lost a memory?
I put the diary back in its spot and think about the last question for a moment. It was indeed an interesting pondering.
By the next hour Sara and Dave were asleep by their own boredom. I took their computer and began using it, browsing through the world wide web and looking at pictures of Tao and May-ling. My favorite was the both of them smiling, May visibly pregnant, in front of their new home. Westerners, while occasionally willing to not progress, have always been obstinate about regressing. Even if the regression is beneficial in their favor.
Interestingly enough, when I clicked to browse a new photograph, I received an advertisement for an upcoming film. It was a “poster” with a man on the cover and in bubble speech he asked, “I ask you, what is so sacrosanct about a marriage and a family that you should have to live in it day after day however unrealized that life may be?”
Second year, March 8th, I had this dream. It has been seven years since I've seen Roach. In these seven years the man has become folklore. Some might even call him a myth, or say such a legend has made about him that he will live on in our hearts, minds and dreams forever.
A small church has been built in his name, and he is known by his followers under the name of “Jericho Roche.” Many from other faiths have labeled him a “false prophet.”
The remaining few have labeled him the Antichrist. The notes he'd left behind stirred something wonderful and something terrible into the hearts of men.
It's impossible to go an entire month without some kind of attack that leaves many dead and many more wounded. It's impossible to find two people who have read one of his notes and can come to an agreement on what he actually meant. He has polarized the nation and the world to come.
Only a year ago his actions, or should I say the actions of his followers, inspired two movements. One carried out by the “Blacks,” who believe the only way to make his dream realized is by force, and the “Blues,” who have gathered together through 74 | PAGE 7 OF 8, “THE EIGHT DREAMS”
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countless nights to discuss a solution on how to better the nation and the world to come.
Peter Moody: But Roche, for one day I am filled with purpose, and another, I am jobless. How do I fill unto these days with that which matters?
Jericho Roche: Peter, it all matters. Perhaps not in the grand design of many things, but all that which is done when he is not in a mode of purpose, brings forth he to sharing a part of his soul with others.
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Chapter 54
SNOWBLOOD. SNOWBLIND. SNOWBOUND.
2:2:6:54
“...It's great for business, if you're in the snow business...”
AT least once a year, I will have this particular dream. It's a dream that takes place in an identical location as the others but is also followed by a certain weather pattern. Be it extreme heat, a rainstorm, a blizzard or intense fog, what have you, it's recurrent only in its location.
The best way I can describe it is to look at a photograph of a place you used to know long ago, and to mindfully and imaginatively decorate it with a weather effect. It becomes a place you have been to only in other lives.
Lynne Parker: Don't hit it, that's not going to make it work.
Sara Parker: We have to try everything.
Dave Parker: It's working!
We were all standing around a vent in the wall, each of us wearing multiple layers of clothing, when David yelled out that the heater was working. None of us believed him, so we kneeled down to find a warmth coming from the wall.
There was excitement. Expletion. Expulsion. As the apartment began to warm, we each took turns sitting in front of the vent, but even after half of an hour, the apartment as a whole still felt cold and the vent itself was not actually completely hot.
Lynne, realizing this, left us to see how warm her bedroom was and on her exit adviced us all to check the other rooms. The bathroom, the kitchen, the kids' room, etc.
Dave and Sara followed promptly and I myself went to my own apartment to check the temperatures there.
Inside, I turned on the heater and waited for the apartment to warm. The rooms here were just as warm as Lynne's living room, if not less warm. I turned it off and went back to their residence, passing by the television and looking for them.
“...The city has been put on red alert and is now in a state of emergency. Please stay indoors and where it is warm...”
I heard someone yell from inside the kids' room, and when I opened the door to the kids' room, I saw them all sitting on the ground, near a vent, wrapped in blankets. It was like the Sun had gone on vacation and its destination was 8038 Chase St. APT 2C, specifically the room of David and Sarah.
I went inside and immediately my body began to warm as I sat down next to them.
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Everyone was quiet for another half hour until I told them that we were in a state of emergency and on red alert. Either no one heard me or no one cared.
At some odd hour I noticed one of Sara's toysets on the floor. Winter Nights Into Dreams... is what it was titled and it did so well to remind me of the weather outside. She finished it once before but was rebuilding it. Rebuilding the town and snow that came with it.
And at some even hour, Dave took off one layer of clothing and went to the window in an attempt to peer outside. He basically told us he was blind to anything going on outside. Not one visible thing in the deep white snow.
“How cold do you think it is?,” he asked us. “Open the window and jump out,” I replied sarcastically. And not thinking he made a gesture to open the window. “Hey! I was joking!” He continued. “If you open that window!” He continued. “Where's my belt?,” I got up.
Before I could rise the window was open and a gust overtook Dave, blowing wind and snow into the room. He fought to close it, laughing and struggling, but could not until the rest of us came to his aid and slammed it shut.
Sara slapped the back of his head and Lynne was angry with him. He didn't respond. I have no idea why he did that. Nevertheless we all retreated to where we were before and now understood the threat of the storm.
From the television in the living room we could hear news on the weather but no one cared to venture out of the warmth. Blizzard Tracy was its name. Terrorizing civilization was its game. Already we have been gifted thirty-three inches of white powder. Much, much more to come. My mind ponders the lands of Earth that have never met a spec of snow. The land without identity and negative of any weather.
WBC Channel 32 News: ...We may receive as much as sixty inches of snow and the storm is expected to continue well into the night...
Dave: Does this mean we don't have school tomorrow?
Sara: Duh stupid.
Dave: Snow day, very nice!
WBC Channel 32 News: ...Because of the high volume of snow, some buildings are expected to be snowed in...
Sara: Mama, why did you leave so early yesterday?
Lynne: I went somewhere with Olya and Jasmin.
Sara: Where?
Lynne: Bowling.
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Sara: How come you didn't take us?
Lynne: Because I took you mini-golfing in the afternoon.
Sara: Oh. Okay.
Narrator: Did you win?
Lynne: At bowling or golf?
Dave: I won at golf.
Narrator: Bowling.
Lynne: I have no idea who won actually. Probably it was Jasmin.
Sara: Jasmin was there!?
Lynne: Yeah.
Sara: You guys know she plays the drums right?
Narrator: I didn't know that.
Dave: Me either.
Lynne: When we got to the bowling alley and saw that she brought her own ball, me and Olya knew we were done.
Dave, Sara, Narrator: Hahahahahahahahah!
Lynne: Yeah! Haha. She was really good.
WBC Channel 32 News: ...Some buildings are expected to be snowed in. Please stay inside and where it is warm. Winds will pick up and debris will be airborne...
Dave: This kinda reminds me of a dream I had in our other house. There was a lot of snow and G got lost outside in it.
Lynne: The house before we moved here? Or the one before we moved to the house before here?
Dave: The house before the house before this one.
Lynne: Oh you mean the house you were born in.
Sara: Is that the house I was born in too?
Lynne: No, you were born in the house before that one.
Narrator: Where was that?
Lynne: Way in the city on Garfield and Charles.
Dave: What street was I born on?
Lynne: Not too far from there, on Leon and McKinley.
Sara: Where were you born?
Lynne: I have no idea sweetie.
Dave: What about you?
Narrator: I was not born, I was created.
Lynne: And what purpose were you created for?
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Narrator: That was not in my instructions manual.
Lynne: Bummer.
Dave: Do you guys think we are snowed in?
Sara: Yeah, what if we can never get out of the house?
Lynne: You should check, and I will stay here with the kids. Be careful though.
Narrator: I couldn't see anything outside and I definitely couldn't open the door so the snow has to be at least five feet.
Lynne: Five feet? Wow.
Sara: Does that mean we are snowed in?
Narrator: Right now, yeah.
Dave: We have to dig ourselves out? Or will people come help us?
Lynne: I'm sure they will send help for all the people who are snowed in.
Sara: Good.
WBC Channel 32 News: ...We urge civilians not to participate in looting or other questionable behavior. The U.S. military has been deployed to aid in this storm, but we want to keep the aid limited to providing food and water to those in need...
Dave: What was that!?
Lynne: It sounded like a bomb... Or something hit the wall.
Sara: Is that what the man in the news was talking about?
Lynne: Maybe. It might be the debris flying in the wind.
Dave: Let me check.
Lynne: David Daniel Parker do not look out of that window.
Dave: Why?
Lynne: Because what if something comes flying through it!
Narrator: I'll check. I'll just kneel down and stay clear of it.
Sara: Do you see anything?
Narrator: Nope.
Dave: Look, the window cracked a little bit.
Sara: Yeah, that wasn't there before.
Lynne: It might be from the wind, just drop the blinds, please.
Narrator: Alright.
Sara: I think I had a dream like that one time, too. It was all snowy and we were 79 | SNOWBLOOD. SNOWBLIND. SNOWBOUND.
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having a snowball fight with that family we used to be friends with.
Lynne: Who?
Sara: Remember the girl who got hit by a car?
Dave: Sasha?
Sara: Yeah, I don't remember which house it was.
Lynne: That was the house before the house before this one.
Narrator: Did she die?
Sara: No but she broke her arm.
Dave: Again! Whatever is hitting the wall is big as hell man.
Lynne: I'm tellin' y'all, it sounds like a bomb.
Sara: For real, I'm moving to the other wall.
Narrator: When you lived in the house before the house before this one, how old were you?
Dave: ...Three?
Sara: Five?...
Lynne: Four and five.
Narrator: So you guys don't really remember that house too well then?
Dave: I remember some things a little bit.
Sara: Yeah I remember a little bit somethings.
Narrator: What do you remember?
Sara: I remember my mom pushing me in a stroller on the street. And there were stores and people standing outside.
Dave: I remember that too.
Sara: You weren't even born in that house yet!
Dave: I guess I'm just psychic.
Lynne: You were born in the house before this one, I think.
Dave: Well, at that house I remember there was a park I used to go to called “win a bagel.”
Lynne: Winnebago. I used to take them there all the time.
Sara: I remember that park too, it was the one with the basketball court right?
Dave: Yeah and there was a field too that sometimes they played football on it.
Lynne: I remember one time two moms got in a fight and the police had to come. I don't think either of them got arrested but they shut down the park for the rest of the day.
Dave: They were fighting because one of their sons was hogging the money-bars.
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Sara: Oh yeah! I remember what you are talking about now. I was trying to climb them but he said they were for him and wouldn't let anyone else use them. That boy was so mean.
WBC Channel 32 News: ...But not everybody is troubled. You got a smile on your face. We don't get very many times to shine, so... This is good for business? It's great for business, if you're in the snow business. Depending on who you ask, this is a good thing. The state legislature will have a day off. School kids will have a day off. And you know who's happiest; skiers. Up until now, skiing has been so-so, after this, spectacular...
Lynne: Do you guys remember Tony?
Dave: Who?
Sara: Yeah who?
Lynne: Remember he lived on top of us and always gave me coupons. He was that old man that watched you guys once a week for four months.
Dave: ...I don't remember him.
Sara: Did he have a sticker on his door with a monkey?
Lynne: Yes!
Dave: Ooohhh now I remember him! Did you guys know I actually went inside his house once.
Lynne: Why?
Dave: It was because he needed me to help him carry some bags to our house.
Sara: Did it smell?
Dave: I don't remember but he had a lot of cats and fishes.
Lynne: Yeah I remember he always used to tell me about one of his cats that he loved. I think her name was Goldie or something.
Dave: He was kinda weird. We used to call him Old Man Tony. Haha.
Sara: Hehe.
Lynne: Really? Haha, I love you two.
Sara: God! What is that!?
Lynne: It's a bomb, I know it. Someone is setting off explosives outside.
Narrator: It was probably part of a car or a sign.
Dave: That would be cool if it broke through the window, maybe next time.
Lynne: No that wouldn't be cool David.
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WBC Channel 32 News: ...Several locations throughout the city have been experiencing on and off blackouts. In the case of a blackout, please attempt to locate the following items...
Dave: Glad our light is still on.
Sara: Yeah because our lights always turn off when there is a storm.
Narrator: We're lucky.
Lynne: In the house before the house before this one there were always-Narrator: Wait, which house is that?
Lynne: The one David was born in.
Narrator: Okay.
Lynne: In that house power wasn't the problem, the bugs were the problem.
Narrator: What kind of bugs?
Lynne: Everything. Cockroaches, millipedes, ants, spiders, name it.
Narrator: You don't like insects?
Lynne: Not when I am trying to eat or sleep. Any other time I love 'em.
Lynne: You guys are too young to remember this but once you both tried to catch a roach.
Sara: I don't remember that at all.
Dave: Yeah me either.
Lynne: It must have been the hottest day of the year and you were both pestering me with it. I was trying to sleep and you were both running around the apartment.
Dave: Did we catch it?
Lynne: What do you think? Can anyone catch a cockroach?
Sara: Haha, I guess we didn't.
Dave: Why were we trying to catch it? To eat it?
Lynne: I hope not.
Dave: What happened to it?
Lynne: I think I got fed up with you two and I made you sleep and it eventually just left. Probably I opened the backdoor or a window or something.
Dave: It seems like it's night now.
Sara: Yeah it looks a little dark.
Lynne: Get away from the window.
Narrator: Yeah get away from the window.
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various parts of the city, please stay tuned to see if your county is on the warning list...
Lynne: I didn't know blizzards could have eyes.
Narrator: Me either. Tornadoes too.
Dave: Eyes?
Sara: Do they mean eyes so the blizzard can see where its going?
Lynne: No that just means in the middle of the blizzard its empty, but when you look at it on a map it looks like an eye.
Sara: Ah.
Lynne: Yup.
Lynne: I guess we don't have to go to sleep since there will be no work or school tomorrow...
Dave: Yup.
Sara: Yep.
Narrator: Mmm hmm.
Lynne: And since this might be your guy's last night alive, you can do whatever you want.
Sara: That's not funny.
Dave: Seriously...
Narrator: What's the matter with you?
Lynne: It was a joke... Gosh.
Sara: Do you guys hear that?
Dave: Hear what?
Sara: Come near here.
Dave: Oh wait, yeah I hear it... It sounds like an animal I think...
Narrator: It does sound like an animal. Or something that's alive at least.
Lynne: Wow, that sounds strange.
Sara: What do you think it is?
Lynne: What if it's a person? Maybe we should call the police?
Narrator: No one would be out there.
Lynne: Well something alive is out there.
Sara: What if someone was looking for their dog and they lost it and got stuck out there. I'll check to see if I can see anything out of the window.
Lynne: No! Stay away from the window.
Sara: I'll do it quick.
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Lynne: I said no... Sara Sofia Parker, do not go near that window... You check.
Narrator: Move idiot. Wasting everybody's time.
Narrator: I can't see a damn thing and I don't want to look for too long so I don't get a piece of a car to my face. Wait, everyone go to the corner I'm going to open the window.
Lynne: Be careful, and mind the crack.
Narrator: I know.
Sara: Do you see anything?
Narrator: I can hear it clearly now, it doesn't sound that far away. I can't tell if it's an animal or a person.
Lynne: Close the window.
Dave: Do you think if we tied you with a blanket you could go see what it is?
Narrator: …
Sara: It's easy to get down there from this window because there is another wall right next to it.
Narrator: …
Lynne: If it's a person we have to help them. At least call the police.
Lynne: Are you sure the building is completely snowed in?
Narrator: There is no way out from the first floor.
Lynne: …
Sara: …
Dave: …
Narrator: If it's not a person I'm killing all of you.
Narrator: Tie it tightly. Yeah use a double knot, just like that. Okay go get your swimming goggles and put them on me. Also do you have another pair of socks? Yes those will do. Okay, make sure there is a knife in the backpack too. I think we thought of everything. I'm ready to go.
Lynne: Hang on as tight as you can you two, don't let go, and make sure you stay down a little bit.
Sara: Okay.
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Dave: I'm ready for this.
Narrator: If anything goes wrong, get Tian immediately.
Lynne: Okay.
Narrator: Let me down a little. A little more. Ju t slowly ke p droppi g me at this ace. Good. A little m e. A litt e more. Good. Go d. Almost t ere. ????. Just ????
at ???? pace. I'm alm st ?????. ??? ???? ??????? ??? ??????. ?? ????.
Lynne: Can you speak louder? We can't hear you... Hello? Are you there?
Dave: I think he reached the ground mama.
Sara: Yeah the blanket isn't tight anymore.
Lynne: Okay, no matter what you do do not let go of this blanket.
Dave: She said doodoo.
Lynne: I'm going to close the window just a little for now.
Dave: He's been gone for a while now it seems.
Sara: And I don't really hear that sound anymore, do you think he got to the person?
Lynne: I hope so hunnie.
Sara: As long as the blanket keeps moving we know he's alive. But if it stops I think we should call the police people.
Lynne: We will. If it's a person we will call the police too.
Dave: If it's a dog can we keep it?
Lynne: Sure.
Dave: Yes!
Lynne: Okay wait, I think he's tugging on the blanket, get ready to pull. I'm going to open the window back up.
Dave: He stopped, so should we pull now?
Lynne: Yeah, start pulling.
Narrator: ????? ????? ????? ????? ????? ????? ????? ????? ????? ????? ?????
????? ?????.
Lynne: We can't understand anything you're saying.
Sara: I think his lips might be too cold.
Dave: It sounds like he's talking gibberish.
Lynne: I got you. Just keep leaning in. Yeah, almost there. Almost there. Almost.
There.
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Dave: The sound is in the backpack now...
Sara: I guess it was an animal.
Lynne: Here, let me take it off you.
Lynne: Oh. My. God. It's a skunk.
Dave: Really?
Sara: Are you serious?
Dave: Does it look scary?
Sara: I'm scared of skunks!
Lynne: I'm going to put the backpack next to the vent, keep an eye on it I need to get bread and water.
Sara: David you watch it.
Dave: Why do I have to watch it?
Lynne: Both of you just make sure it stays warm! Geez!
Dave: Are you okay?
Sara: He's shivering.
Dave: Let's move him next to the vent too then.
Sara: Okay, I'll grab his legs.
Dave: Okay.
Sara: I think he's good now.
Dave: Seems good to me.
Narrator: It got ran over. Someone must have hit it accidentally during the storm. I don't think it will survive its injuries.
Sara: What should we do?
Dave: Should we bring it to the hospital?
Narrator: No, just let it rest.
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Chapter 55
THE RIVER CITY
2:2:6:55
“...Poets lie just as often as politicians...”
WHEN you take away the light and the warmth, you are left with the cold and the darkness. And these two latter things are not so much a presence but an absence.
After the storm, thirty-eight people were pronounced dead. A young boy caught in between the crossfire of looters and police. Dozens of vehicle accidents on any given road. And even after the storm people were still dying. A man of a heart attack while shoveling the snow, a teenage girl of frostbite in a hospital.
The tenants in our building had worked tirelessly the day after the storm. While many helpers were dispatched, there wasn't enough to go around.
It began with Mike, who, fortunately for us, had some equipment for snow removal.
At the entrance of the building he made the first attempts at removing the snow, and when there was enough space for a few more, Tian and I began to help him.
While we dug, we could hear the ambient sounds of the town around us, but could never see it.
When we were finally a few feet out, the three of us retired and were replaced by the father of the Filipino family, one of his sons, the father of the Irish family, his daughter and one of her friends, and a tenant I had never seen before.
When I got back up to Lynne I saw that she was on the phone speaking to Emily, who was currently at a hospital undergoing evaluation. Probably it was something not too serious.
When she hung up the phone I told her that she was needed downstairs and she left to take her shift. Sara went with her. Dave followed with a long face.
I went into Lynne's bedroom and to a corner where I stared down at a box. I put my hands in my pockets, I folded my arms, I put my hands behind my back, and the thoughts poured.
Through the window there was a transparent fog, but the fallout of the storm was still opaque. Poets lie just as often as politicians. And often times, for reasons not entirely unique.
There was a book I read in my twenties which was later adapted for the screen.
Without spoiling it for you, I will relay to you my analysis of it.
The man's final word was “levee,” which was literally a river, but metaphorically a symbol of his youth and his happiness. Then at a moment's notice he was taken from his parents by a business-centered, industrious couple and was raised by them. That day, his 87 | THE RIVER CITY
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future as a wealthy businessman was determined for him and in his old age he had nothing but contempt for his foster parents and his upper class upbringing. In one sense or another, he regretted his life, and while dying, his final thoughts seemed to concentrate on his childhood and the river he once knew.
The movie, at least I thought, seemed to suggest that we all have a river, or a “levee,”
in our lives. A rift that divided and decided the fallout of our story.
How important is a person's final word? A person's final words? After years of living, it is but all they have learned in life in the time they were given.
I go back outside and see that the crew has been working diligently. There is now a pathway to the road ahead, and coming out of the fog I see the entirety of the Filipino family carrying snow removal equipment. They told the rest of us that they were given to them by city workers. They had been driving around supplying civilians with tools for snow removal.
They gave me my shovel and I went back to work. I noticed Tian and Jasmin yards away. I noticed Felicity, who I had only met just that day. I noticed the Irish family and their friend. I noticed Amy. Mike. And I noticed, again, the new resident, whom I later learned had moved here from Haiti and whose name was Charles F. Kane.
While shoveling, I came across an identification card in the snow. The carrier was named Suhm Yung Guy, and I soon discovered it was an I.D. card for employment at a factory. It belonged to the Filipino father, so I made sure to give it to him before we were all done.
After some time Lynne came to my sector and started shoveling the snow there.
“Why you over here all alone?,” she asked. I didn't answer. “I'm going to the store to buy some drinks, do you want to come?” “Yes.”
On the way to Chase Foods, we passed by the same place where a tree had fallen due to a thunderstorm years before and Lynne noticed city workers had previously planted a small tree in its place.
She went over to it and she was the same exact height as it was. She stood next to it and folded her arms and smiled. The déijà twinstorm.
When we got into the store, which was the first time I had been in it since its reconstruction, I saw that all the employees were different. To be honest, they all seemed to be of the same family and I assumed it was perhaps family-run.
We got the drinks for everyone who was working and began our way back. Though on the way back, a black SUV honked at us. Lynne later told me it was Chloe and went to speak with her.
Eventually I found myself inside Chloe's vehicle and on the way back home, she did something that still irritates me. Parked outside of our residence, Lynne easily exited the 88 | THE RIVER CITY
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vehicle but the door on my side was still locked which prevented me from leaving. “The door is locked,” I told Chloe. “Really?,” she said, almost as if she were making fun of me. She told me to try again but it was still locked. It was then that she turned around and looked at me with her smallish eyes, “If you put your hands on her again next time you're not getting out of my car,” and finally she unlocked the door. I knew something was wrong with her. I got out and she drove away, and I just assumed she was off her medication or something.
I get back to the construction site to find everyone in one spot taking their drinks.
Happy together after a great accomplishment. One might like to think that a storm like this could bring together an apartment building, a community, a city, but modern humans have been around for two hundred thousand years and never has there been peace. Why in a year, a decade, a century, a night, would that change?
410-2074: Have you heard from Ava?
646-0704: No, she has not returned call. Maybe because of snow.
410-2074: Keep try her. We need to stay top of loan.
646-0704: Of course. I let you know.
410-2074: Okay, good.
410-2074: Where you are?
768-1849: I'm with Tasha, I told mom I was spending the night over at her house.
410-2074: Stay out of trouble. Police and military still on guard here.
768-1849: I know dad.
410-2074: Okay, I see you tonight. Love you.
768-1849: Love you too.
“It's your turn,” the man with the black dice told me. I had finally managed to tie him in score and was looking to take the lead, though this was not to be as I failed to win a roll.
The black man rolled his dice a few times and took the lead, and in between rolls I asked him, “I've told you about what happened in the windy city, the long trail of your initial decapitation, do you not feel responsible for all that you caused?”
“Let me ask you a hypothetical question,” he planned to answer my question with a question. “Say a man walks out of his home, gets into his car and drives away, only to realize he has killed a cat that was sleeping under his car. Obviously, he is not at fault, correct?” “Obviously...” “But what if he has killed five cats in this manner? At what point is a person morally obligated to check underneath the car?” “I am not sure.” “Whatever 89 | THE RIVER CITY
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your answer would have been, it would have been wrong, because the correct answer is he is never morally obligated.”
“At some point, he has to be responsible for checking under the car if he knows he has a risk of killing another cat.” “You say that because in your world, circumstance has always dictated morality.” “What do you mean?” “If you are preordained to do good in the world, that is not true goodness. If you are preordained to do bad in the world, that is not true evil. And if you are not preordained in any way, then your actions become subject to judgment.” “Elaborate.” “I've told you before, true good and true evil are bound to the notion of free will, but no one knows which is which nor the way to Heaven.
The man who kills the cat, in one scenario he is not responsible, and in another he is, simply because of the circumstance of knowledge.”
“This still does not answer my original question.” “Of course it does. How far can blame go? I am guilty of the initial killing and nothing more. To think with that line of logic would be to charge God, as creator, for all of the ills of the world. And yet, people blame God for countless things. But is a storm to blame for the death of an animal? The universe has its origins in a physically violent way.”
“I see your reasoning. If God gave man freewill despite knowing his nature, he should not be held responsible. But if a man sells a gun illegally and that gun is used to commit a crime, the gunseller is also punished.” “That's if you can find him. God as evasive criminal. God as original sinner. Humans can create laws but they cannot carry them out because they are corruptible.”
In all this time, he had won four more games, and myself three. When I noticed that our location had changed, I asked him how that was possible. He told me that the room we were in now, it existed everywhere and was in everything. River City, N/A.
Just before darkness and just after we had finished removing the final blocking snow, the four of us decided to lay Tracy to rest.
“The hard is too ground to bury, I mean, the ground is too hard to bury it,” I told Dave. “What about the water?,” Sara interrupted, “I saw someone put an animal that died in the water one time in a movie.”
With that suggestion, Tracy was taken out of the box, though still inside the backpack, and we walked a few miles to a creek. Dave carried the backpack the whole way through.
When we got there, a bit of a current was on its way. Dave, backpack in arms, stood closest to the water, and eventually he looked back at his mother to know how to proceed.
She gestured to put Tracy into the water so the water could take it.
Before he did this, he opened the backpack and the stench of death dissipated like early light. He took out a water pistol from his pocket and placed it inside the bag, saying Tracy died like a soldier. An OG.
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Had we found Tracy deceased after the storm, we might not feel we had to go to such great lengths for its memory; we may have even poked at it in dire curiosity; but Tracy was someone we saw die. With hope there is responsibility, but death renders one futile, and the river always comes before the magic.
We gathered rocks and Dave placed them inside the backpack, then pushed it out into the creek. The current took it and we all watched as it went down the stream and underneath an overpass. With each separation the backpack slowly went under until it was submerged altogether and forever out of sight.
Goodnight drivers. Goodnight bridge. Goodnight shovelers. Goodnight snow.
Goodnight river. Goodnight Tracy. Goodnight Moon.
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Chapter 56
GOODNIGHT MOON
2:2:6:56
“...Praise it for the artist that it is in all the ways it has sculpted matter...”
ON a morning from a Kubrick movie, in a suburb where they turn back life. I'd lived in this apartment building in my thirties, thirty years ago. It is where my obsession with my dreams became real. A confusing era of distinguishing memories, realities and dreams.
I now must walk down this road to wait for someone who I know is coming. I'll wait in the final vehicle just before the intersection, and as the person peers through the window to see what's inside, they will find me.
I'll tell this person that we can never fool ourselves no matter how deep within our mind we think we may be.
This is not a reference to dreams, but rather a warning to the unexamined life. The uninvestigated psychology. It is an alert about the beast that hides within us all; the being that drives us into automatic piloting and, without our knowing, renders the soul idle. It is vital that they know it as much as it knows them.
And before they can ask me what I mean, the day will turn to night and a thunderstorm will ensue, and I will wake up, vanishing.
On my way to the meadow of moths, I saw Suhm parking a taxi near a street corner.
A little later I walked past Becky and Latoya who were on the way to the apartment building. They came out of the darkness of the bike path that was still under construction.
They both said hello and I greeted them back.
I get to Lynne's workplace and from a distance I can see that she is talking to someone. It kind of looked like management. I got closer and took a seat on the opposite end and from the discussion realized that it indeed was her boss.
As the two talked on I gazed out of the large window panes and into the airplane lanes with a mild view of a distant city skyline.
Near the waiting area the television was on WBC and was talking about the revival of a long abandoned part of town. The aerial view seemed to center on an old playground which they say was at once an evidence ground for a once high-profile murder case that has now gone cold. Rebuilding has always started with the youth.
After her boss left, she turned around and walked towards me, “What up homie?”
“You've been hanging around David too much.” “He's my boy.” “Shut up, what did the doctor say about his finger?” “Feeling may or may not come back, we have to wait and see, but David said it's not as bad as it was before.” “That's good, is anything wrong with 92 | GOODNIGHT MOON
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Sara?” “No, she hasn't said anything.” “What about you?” “I'm good. You?” “Landlord said the toilet has to be replaced, he's supposed to come on Tuesday.” “Good, tired of seeing you in my bathroom.”
Her phone made a sound and she looked at it, and I noticed that slight discomfort she sometimes has in her face. “Who is it?” “Chloe...” “Why'd you say it like that?”
After a long pause and repetitive looks at her phone, she finally admitted to me that Chloe tried to kiss her.
I was laughing and cringing in my head the entire time as she told me about it. They were alone and Chloe made her move, their lips touched, and Lynne backed away and her rejection was followed by a long awkward discord.
“When?” “On Wednesday. I've been avoiding her. She came to my house yesterday but I didn't answer. And she's already called me three times since I started working.
Doesn't she fucking sleep? Anyway, if you see her act like you don't know.” “You got it.”
She turned 'round and went to a side to take her bookbag and then took out a notebook from her bookbag. She flipped it to a page and then handed it to me, and in big bolded lettering I read the word “DÉIJÀ.” Underneath it was a flower I have never seen before, but then again there are probably thousands of flowers I have never seen before.
“That would be the name of the book, and that would be the cover art, if I ever racked up enough nerve to try and publish it.” “What book?” “My poetry book.” “Ah.” “You don't like it?” “I haven't even read it yet. What is this flower?”
“...Do you think flowers have soulmates?,” she asks. I shook my head, “Don't waste your mind and science's time on such stupid questions.” “No, hear me out.” “Just this once.” “I'll ask in a way that you understand. Do you think soulmates maybe have the same genotype? Or maybe a very similar genotype?”
“To my wife, though only in philosophy, who I searched for and found and who I came to learn bore the same mind.”
That was how I felt looking at her as she waited for an answer. “Yes,” I answered.
“You do?” “Yeah.” “So we are genomates,” she zingered. I pointed at her and laughed.
“You're so gay.” She winked at me after I told her this.
“Come on,” she said leaving and putting up a sign that read “Be back soon!” “Where we goin'?” “For a ride.”
She led me to a section of the airport that was for employees only and eventually we both got into a modified golf cart. We really were going for a ride.
“My boss was telling me that the food and stuff was moved to a new location.” “Food for restocking the diner?” “Yeah. So we may get lost.”
Among the broken fragments of the last minute or so, we cruised through the airport's wide hallways in search of the storage room. We must have passed dozens of restaurants.
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Eventually Lynne stopped the cart in front of a waiting area, full of people waiting for a midnight plane, to look at her phone, perhaps a map. While waiting, not too far and sitting in a chair, I caught a boy staring at Lynne. I didn't say anything at first, but as his stare persisted, I suddenly opened my mouth.
“She's a poet, you know,” I told the boy. He looked at me in surprise, then Lynne looked up to see who I was talking to. The boy was embarrassed, and suddenly Lynnette slapped my arm, “No I'm not,” she said only so I could hear her. She then turned to the boy and reiterated, “I'm not a poet.” The boy's face grew into confusion and he walked away to find someone who I would say was his brother.
Starting the motor again she drove to the end of the way and made a right turn into an area with dozens of clothing stores.
“She's a poet you know,” she says in a voice that seems to mock and mimic mine. She continues, “Look at me my voice is so deep and calm and sinister and I never smile.” She hit me again and I couldn't understand why my compliment offended her.
Making another turn, I caught a glimpse of a television saying our city's football team had finished the season at 2 and 14.
“You ever wonder why things are different?,” she suddenly asked as if she didn't just hit me and was pondering the question for several nights. “What's different?” “Why are there different colors? Different numbers. Shapes. Animals. Plants. Sexes. Elements.
Genomes.” “I'm sure I have in one way or another.”
Currently there were waiting areas on either sides of us and they had become flooded by water. In only a matter of seconds the entire airport was flooded and creatures of the sea swam around us as we continued down the way in our golf cart.
What separates the water from the air, sharks from turtles? Maybe it is a setting as old as the first cooling pools of the universe.
There is a setting of the universe I like to call “duplication accuracy.” We know that many things in our universe can copy themselves, or create duplicates of themselves, but where duplication accuracy comes into play is when there is a mistake in copying.
The simple fact that there can be mistakes in duplication suggests we live in a universe where duplication accuracy is not at one hundred percent. If it were, we might not live in such a diverse universe where we have so many “different” things.
As we drive through this ocean we both witness all the unique creatures of the sea.
The vast array of plant life down below. So many of them almost the same but slightly different in the smallest way. The universe may have a parent duplication accuracy setting, but each system within the universe itself seems to also have a child duplication accuracy setting; that is, for example, a human being has become so complex that its own duplication accuracy setting has decreased and is more susceptible to diseases such as the 94 | GOODNIGHT MOON
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many forms of cancer we fear.
With a score of anything less than 100 for the duplication accuracy setting, this opens the door to a world of uniqueness, but uniqueness has always been a way to chaos. Praise it for the artist that it is in all the ways it has sculpted matter, blame it for all the ways humans have disconformed.
Suddenly she stopped at our destination and gave me a final thought on discrimination, and soon after we entered into the room.
She took out some kind of gadget and begins typing numbers into it. “How many packets of sugar are in that box?” “Twenty-two.” “How many packs of coffee beans in there?” “Fourteen.” And she asked and asked and I answered and answered until she had taken stock of much of the inventory.
The next task included filling up the golf cart compartments with a certain amount of said inventory. “You do this every shift?” “Usually it's Giselle, and really only on Fridays.”
After we loaded up the cart we drove back to the circular diner. On the way back, while driving through a section of the airport that was closed off to passengers, she drove into a room that was wide and filled with empty space. She said she wanted to show me something.
And suddenly, she switched to the second gear of the cart which was reserved for emergencies in the airport and we went flying as if on a race track. It only took a short while for her to begin losing control of the cart and when I told her to slow it down she paid no attention. It was a near miss that would have totaled the cart that persuaded her perhaps she might slow down and revert back to the first gear. Looking back, a display case wobbled back and forth until it evened itself out.
She parked the cart just around the diner and began to fill it. She specifically asked me not to help. As she worked she told me that being the great employee that she was, they added two more workdays to her schedule. “Is that forty or fifty hours?” “Fifty.” She waited for my reply.
“Good, tired of seeing you in my apartment.” She laughed and asked if it was okay with me. I told her I was okay with it as long as she was careful at night.
Thirty minutes later Giselle showed up to relieve her. We get on a train to find Pedro working the seventh hour. We sit near him but it is Lynne who does most of the talking.
I nudged her at Washington but she told me she had coupons for Chase Foods. I wondered if they were open this early in the morning. To my surprise they were, and eventually we carried the grocery bags to the apartment building. At the same time, we found Sara and Dave and all of their schoolmates waiting at the bus stop. I went ahead inside as Lynne talked to them and about five minutes later she entered the apartment.
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I laid out flat on her three-couch and while going to the bathroom she tells me that she is going to go to sleep so she can be awake when Sara and Dave get out of school. I was already sort of falling asleep myself.
With my vision darkening I saw and heard her move about the apartment, putting the laptop computer on a nearby desk and playing an audio CD which contained an audiobook that she most likely got from the library. She had the interesting pastime of playing books so that the chapters would be read in a random order. I guess all in all, like jazz, it was just something to fall asleep to.
She then went to the window drapes and closed them shut eliminating the early light and the bright blue sky. And like that she landed on the two-couch with a plan to fall asleep. There you are, the déijà poet; you live in poems, you dream in novels.
“...without looking back she went down the uneven strand to Cissy, to Edy to Jacky and Tommy Caffrey, to little baby Boardman. It was darker now and there were stones and bits of wood on the strand and slippy seaweed. She walked with a certain quiet dignity characteristic of her but with care and very slowly because—because Gerty MacDowell was... Tight boots? No. She’s lame! O! Mr Bloom watched her as she limped away. Poor girl! That’s why she’s left on the shelf and the others did a sprint. Thought something was wrong by the cut of her jib. Jilted beauty. A defect is ten times worse in a woman. But makes them polite. Glad I didn’t know it when she was on show. Hot little devil all the same. I wouldn’t mind. Curiosity like a nun or a negress or a girl with glasses. That squinty one is delicate. Near her monthlies, I expect, makes them feel ticklish. I have such a bad headache today. Where did I put the letter? Yes, all right. All kinds of crazy longings. Licking pennies. Girl in Tranquilla convent that nun told me liked to smell rock oil. Virgins go mad in the end I suppose. Sister? How many women in Dublin have it today? Martha, she. Something in the air. That’s the moon. But then why don’t all...”
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Chapter 57
UNLUCKY TO LOSE
2:2:6:57
“...You got any more in the back?...”
FADE IN
INT. CHASE FOODS - NIGHT
Inside CHASE FOODS can be heard music playing from the radio station K109
“THE BEAT.” Enter JACK BOOTH through the entrance with a background of tall snow and somewhat drunk. A used lottery card can be observed on the mat of the entrance door.
JACK BOOTH
(looking behind cashier at alcohol)
I'll take all three. You got any more in the back? What brand cigarettes are those?
Cut back to CHASE FOODS entrance, enter DAVE and SARA who have come to purchase candy and milk. Follow DAVE as he walks through the media aisle where he stops and stares at display case for “MORTEM DOOM.” On the radio can clearly be heard the lyrics “though the course may change sometimes, rivers always reach the sea.”
A lottery machine can be observed in the background.
Black screen with white letters, “15 MINUTES LATER.”
EXT. CHASE FOODS – NIGHT
Show three seconds of cars driving by with CHASE FOODS store in the background, which has an electrical sign that reads “Now open 24 hours.” After three seconds show Lynne walking through entrance, same view, with a grocery bag in hand.
INT. CHASE FOODS – NIGHT
Follow LYNNE as she walks past a magazine titled “SCREENPLAY,” which features a photo of Reggie Rice on the cover, and to a cash register. A used lottery card can be observed on the side of a trash can.
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LYNNE
My daughter just bought this but it is expiring soon, can I exchange it?
CASHIER
Yes, can I see your receipt?
LYNNE hands over receipt, cashier allows her to exchange it.
EXT. CHASE FOODS – NIGHT
Cut to JACK BOOTH who is sitting on a curb behind CHASE FOODS drinking alcohol. A used lottery card can be observed behind him.
Black screen with white letters, “3 HOURS EARLIER.”
EXT. CHASE FOODS – DUSK
Show three seconds of cars driving by with CHASE FOODS store in the background.
After three seconds, SUHM GUY enters through entrance.
INT. CHASE FOODS – DUSK
SUHM GUY walks down an aisle and passes by a set of films; a film titled “THE
MACABRE IRONFLY” can be readily seen as he passes by it. A lottery card is seen sticking out of his back pocket.
Cut to another aisle which at first is empty, then SUHM GUY appears into it and is walking to its midsection where he browses a number of car fresheners. As he browses fresheners, on the radio can be heard a radio personality speaking about how a city school was shut down because of a bomb threat.
Black screen with white letters, “3 MINUTES EARLIER.”
EXT. CHASE FOODS – DUSK
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and then crosses the street to vandalize the sidewalk block.
Cut to a top-down shot of GUN HO GUY writing “peepee” into the sidewalk.
Suddenly SPOOKER is seen walking down the same sidewalk and eventually reaches and startles GUN HO GUY. SPOOKER stops and reads the vandalization.
GUN HO GUY
(standing up)
Please don't tell my mom. Look, here, you can have this.
(GUN HO GUY takes out a two-dollar bill)
SPOOKER makes no inclination of wanting the two-dollar bill. A brief moment passes by as SPOOKER awaits the next offer.
GUN HO GUY
I will give you back your headphones.
SPOOKER
I'll be waiting.
New view of GUN HO GUY watching as SPOOKER walks away towards CHASE
FOODS. A used lottery card can be observed on the grass nearby.
Black screen with white letters, “2 HOURS LATER.”
EXT. CHASE FOODS – NIGHT
In the parking lot of CHASE FOODS are JACK BOOTH and JASMIN MINAEA who are arguing in the distance though not loud enough to cause a disturbance.
JACK BOOTH
(inaudible but visibly drunk, annoyed)
JASMIN MINAEA
(inaudible but visibly drunk, angered)
Cut to close shot of JASMIN MINAEA who has just ended her relationship with JACK BOOTH and is walking away. A used lottery card is seen just beside a vehicle.
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Black screen with white letters, “30 MINUTES LATER.”
EXT. CHASE FOODS – NIGHT
JACK BOOTH is sitting on a curb behind CHASE FOODS smoking his last cigarette. Realizing this, he gets up and walks toward the front entrance of CHASE
FOODS.
Hold shot as JACK BOOTH enters CHASE FOODS. Eventually, show SARA and DAVE walking down street as they talk to eachother. Voices are heard clearly despite far distance.
SARA
Don't steal anything, 'cause I always get in trouble too.
DAVE
(counting coins, ignores SARA)
Continue to hold camera shot until they enter CHASE FOODS. Hold camera shot on possible lottery prizes.
Black screen with white letters, “2 MINUTES EARLIER.”
EXT. CHASE FOODS – NIGHT
SARA and DAVE walking down street, part of CHASE FOODS can be seen in the background. A used lottery card can be observed in the grass nearby.
SARA
(bending down)
Someone wrote “peepee” on the concrete.
DAVE
It was Gun Ho or Dam Son, they always do that.
SARA
(bending back up)
I bet.
Black screen with white letters, “20 MINUTES LATER.”
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EXT. CHASE FOODS – NIGHT
LYNNE walking down street with grocery bag, part of CHASE FOODS can be seen in the background. Though you cannot see what she is staring at, it is obvious she is reading the word “peepee” that was written into a sidewalk block. A used lottery card can be observed at the grass nearby.
Black screen with white letters, “9 HOURS EARLIER.”
EXT. CHASE FOODS – AFTERNOON
Show three seconds of cars stopped in front of a red light with CHASE FOODS store in the background. One of the cars stopped is a taxi being operated by SUHM GUY.
INT. CHASE FOODS – AFTERNOON
OLYA DIMIC walks up to a selection of milk gallons, looks and reads over one and goes to grab it but stops, then grabs the next one over. As she is leaving, a shot of the expiration date of the one she was about to take is shown.
Black screen with white letters, “3 HOURS LATER.”
EXT. CHASE FOODS – AFTERNOON
REBECCA and LATASHA are sitting in the parking lot of CHASE FOODS.
LATASHA
This must be the only place in the world that can have a bad blizzard one week and then warm weather the next.
REBECCA
(laughing)
All four seasons in one day.
LATASHA
(laughing)
Thank God for whoever called the bomb threat.
REBECCA
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(laughing)
Get out of school early? I'm fine with that.
REBECCA and LATASHA begin walking away from the parking lot towards a street, all the time a part of CHASE FOODS can be seen in the background.
REBECCA
Sunny left the door open to his taxi again.
LATASHA
Who?
REBECCA
One of my neighbors, he never closes the door hard enough. One of these days his taxi is going to get stolen.
(REBECCA walks over to the taxi)
Cut to a shot of REBECCA opening the taxi door and reaching inside to steal SUHM
GUY'S car freshener, then closing the door shut. A used lottery card can be observed inside the taxi.
REBECCA
(smiling)
Don't worry, I'll give it back to him.
LATASHA
You bad girl you.
REBECCA
Well someone's gotta teach him.
Black screen with white letters, “5 HOURS EARLIER.”
EXT. CHASE FOODS – MORNING
Show three seconds of cars driving by with CHASE FOODS store in the background.
CHARLES F. KANE is shown leaving, walks to the left around the building and disappears.
INT. CHASE FOODS – MORNING
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Slowly zoom out of a shot of LUCEY GOOSIES cereal brand. Hold until AMY
STEINBRENNER walks by and takes one off the shelf.
Cut to a shot of AMY STEINBRENNER holding grocery bags and going through a shelf of magazines. She takes some off one by one, then hidden in the back of a row she takes out a magazine called “SCREENPLAY” and stares at the cover. Eventually she sets the magazine back down in the front of the row. A used lottery card can be observed on the side of a trash can.
EXT. CHASE FOODS – MORNING
Show AMY STEINBRENNER walking out of the front entrance of CHASE FOODS.
Cut to a shot that follows her from behind until she turns a corner. Now in the distance are city works who are marking a sidewalk block for repair.
Black screen with white letters, “6 HOURS EARLIER.”
INT. CHASE FOODS – DAWN
CHASE FOODS is noticeably free of any patrons. An employee of CHASE FOODS
is setting up a display case for a film titled “MORTEM DOOM” which has recently been released to home video. Pieces of the display case illustrate death and disease.
Cut to a shot of another employee who is mopping a floor with a warning sign of wetness nearby.
Cut to another shot of an employee walking into a CHASE FOODS office and turning on the radio to K109 “THE BEAT.” A pop song immediately starts playing.
EXT. CHASE FOODS – DAWN
Music continues to play. Show a low number of cars driving past CHASE FOODS
store. At one point a snow-plow drives through. Final shot is of an employee washing the windows from inside the store as the music continues to play. A used lottery card is seen floating in the wind.
FADE OUT
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Chapter 58
CAVE MYTHOLOGY: EGODYSTONIA!
2:2:6:58
“...undivided punishment comes to those who make themselves to be the absolute hero...”
SOMETIME last night, I had a dream. In a cave of the first humans I saw art that depicted the myth of Mwagos. The art on the cave focused on a man being thrown into Mwagos, and as the man fell, a thousand tortured souls tried to grab him and attempted to touch him on his way down. Mwagos was not a place that existed in the afterlife or the beforelife, but in the nowlife, and if you found yourself in Mwagos, you were most likely sent there by an immortal named Malenko.
The myth is as follows; a man wanted to help his poor village and become its savior, but it was important that he be the sole savior and no one else. A year later he met an immortal named Malenko, and Malenko told him he would sell him his dream for only three rubies.
The man agreed, handed over the three rubies, and Malenko worked his magic, then disappeared.
The next day, the man was given many riches by his government, but it was him only who received these gifts. He became ecstatic and ran through the village telling everyone of his fortune and his plan to divide his riches so that everyone may benefit, but each person he talked to was uninterested in him, in his plans and in his riches.
That night he went back home after being ignored by many of the people he wanted to help, and he racked his brain trying to figure out why no one wanted his aid. For many years to come, he had an abundance of everything he needed and an excess of luxuries, but he was in his own personal hell because no one would accept his gifts. He watched children die of famine, mothers die of disease, fathers die of hard labor, and as much as he pleaded to let these people help him, no one accepted. In the end, he watched others who had little suffer as he himself had plenty and no way to help them, and this situation brought him into a deep depression he had never felt before.
This was the way, or indeed the curse, of Malenko. His method was to play the ego against the soul. The spirit against the narcissism that lives in every human being.
If you went to him and asked him to make you the most wonderful singer in the city so that you may sing for fellow man, Malenko's magic would not just make you the most wonderful in the city but in the world, but then he would make everyone else deaf so no one could hear you. If you asked to be a great painter, your wish was his command, but everyone would become blind. If you asked to become intelligent, this was no problem at all, but everyone would become dumb and unable to understand your lectures. If you 104 | CAVE MYTHOLOGY: EGODYSTONIA!
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asked for beauty, you would receive it, but he would change the common perception of beauty.
Those who were egocentric would be given exactly what they wanted, but when they saw that it was uncommunicable, the ego within would envelope and destroy them. In this state of confusion, anger and indignation was the metaphor of Mwagos, the ego's hell, where they would all eventually fall into. Malenko knew very well of this place, and tricked many by their own ego to fall into it.
948-7255: Hello?
646-0704: Hello Ava how you are?
948-7255: Good Liam, and you?
646-0704: Good, good, is family okay?
948-7255: Yes, sister was caught in storm. She go to the hospital but is okay now.
646-0704: That is very good.
948-7255: What about you family?
646-0704: No family, only family in Ireland.
948-7255: Ah. Okay well I send papers to bank, still waiting.
646-0704: Oh okay, so you send papers. That's what I was going to ask. You let me or Connor know when you are receive reply?
948-7255: Yes yes, of course.
646-0704: Okay, I call back in few days just incase you don't call.
948-7255: Okay, good to talk to you Liam. Bye now.
646-0704: Slan leat.
I've been standing outdoors just outside my backdoor in the cold just thinking. Not about anything in particular. One thought that did cross my mind was a commercial I saw yesterday. But that's not really important.
Some of the snow from Tracy has vanished because the temperature upped slightly, but its impact is yet to cease.
While thinking about nothing an airplane emerged from behind a set of clouds, revealing itself for a moment, and then disappeared into another. The sight of airplanes in the déijà sky always makes me think of my genomate. She has learned to fly by pushing the pain towards the ground and letting the darkness elevate her. I wish I may, I wish I might, wish upon an airplane tonight. I wish she continues her nirvanic flight.
Entering back into my apartment the only light in it was coming from the television, channel 4, OBH, and as I went to shut it off I noticed my pair of headphones. With the light from the television gone my entire apartment had become dark and I decided to sit 105 | CAVE MYTHOLOGY: EGODYSTONIA!
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on the couch.
In the unquiet darkness I heard Tian walking about, I heard Mike and Deana arguing, and I heard the family upstairs having a small party. After only a little while I was able to drown them out and the voices of my mind penetrated my thoughts. Never knowing who was speaking I saw the lucid images of ideas swell my consciousness.
The brainstorm was broken when I heard a knocking at my door. Looking through the peephole I see that it is Chloe, and man, I really don't want to open it, but she may have heard me walking to the door.
“Where has Lynne been?” I told her I didn't know. “You think I don't know your deal?” I asked her what she meant by my deal. “You told her to stay away from me. You told her not to talk to me.” I told her I did no such thing. “Yes, yes you did. You isolate your partners and trap them and manipulate them to massage your ego. And you know people like her won't seek help.”
I took a deep breath and then told her that she was right. I told her that I told Lynne to stay away from her. I told her that Lynne only talks to who I let her talk to and she only does what I let her do. I told her that it would be best if she left Lynne alone.
Of course, though, instead of just leaving, she insulted every male human on the planet. The final thing she said to me before she left was that there was a place in prison for people like me.
After she left I used a key to open Lynne's apartment and found Sara and Dave doing stuff. They know not to answer the door and that anyone who belongs in there has a key.
They know also not to answer the phone unless Lynne's name is on the caller identification. So when I asked them if anyone knocked on the door or called, they answered yes to both. When I checked the history of the telephone, the most recent caller was Chloe S.
I went back to my apartment and sat the same way I did before before I was interrupted. Today was a rare day that saw Lynne work in the evening, so I decided to wait for her before I went to sleep.
Like clockwork the key opened the door to my apartment and as she walked in she turned on the light to find me sitting alone in the dark. This is not the first time she has seen me do this, so it wasn't a surprise when she simply walked by and didn't ask me if I was crazy. While she was in the kitchen, I told her of her girlfriend's visit.
“I told her that I told you to stop talking to her, so you're off the hook.” “Is she going to stop bothering me?” “I don't know.”
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black. “Oh, well, thanks,” I said, “you know me so well.” She laughed. “You don't have to use it if you don't want to,” she reassured, “besides, there are other different things you can do with these mats.”
Later, she was in my kitchen again, looking for some cups. Fortunately there were two that were still clean and after pouring the drinks she handed me a glass cup while she drank out of a plastic cup. She goes over to the light switch for the living room and turns it off then sits next to me on the couch; the room was dark again.
“Okay, so what are we doing?,” she asked, “Just sitting in the dark like murderers and madmen?” I laughed.
You'll find that in many movements there are smaller identity groups. For example, within the rights for gays, you may find homosexual women who focus largely on a voice for lesbians. Within that identity, you may find women of color who focus on the oppression of black gay women. The problem with this, I think, is that at some point as you continue to differentiate yourself within the same identity group, a sense of ego finds its way in, and those particular people want to be the ones who change the world. It will not be enough to just have people speak for you, those people have to have the same identity as you, and eventually it gets down to one person and their ego.
Every now and then Lynne took a silent ghostly sip in the quiet darkness. As much as Malenko will take from you, he does however grant you your one dream. Maybe Mwagos is the simple fact that only you can benefit from it, which also appeals to one's ego. Many of these dreams require the interaction of others, and Malenko seems to punish those who do not include others in their dream. And in those dreams, undivided punishment comes to those who make themselves to be the absolute hero.
She took another drink from her cup and then sat it on the table next to my cup.
Looking at the barely visible cups, a thought came to me. If you don't have an ego, Malenko can't trick you.
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Chapter 59
WESTERN SEPAL GREEN
2:2:6:59
“...In the moment of creation, where power and control meet, the imagination borrows from the most poignant of memories...”
A nightmare continued last night. There was a pounding and shouting from a man on the other side of my door. After a minute it stopped and I wondered if I was just hearing things. I went over to the door, opened it slowly, and saw that no one was there.
I turned around and walked back over to the prostitute I just murdered. The blood spilling from her ankle had stopped.
In my closet was a collection of left-foot prostheses, and I went through each one until I found a match for, oh, which name would she prefer for me to refer to her as?
Daisy or Dahlia? You see, she was mad, had two personalities in her mind; if she worked in the day she was Daisy, if she worked at night she was Dahlia. But right now, it is midway in between day and night.
I fixed the prosthetic onto her left side and returned back to my closet where I found dozens of yellow dresses. I pick one, go back to her naked body, and I clothe her carcass.
It's a wonderful lie.
A dream is sometimes about power. A fantasy is sometimes about control. In the moment of creation, where power and control meet, the imagination borrows from the most poignant of memories.
Who was I looking at? It was not Daisy nor Dahlia. It must have been a memory I could not let go of, something from my past I tried to retain. Someone or something I could not let wither.
Finally, the door broke down and police officers invaded my apartment. The nightmare shifted as they drove me west by northwest through a complicated forest toward police headquarters on Sunset Avenue. The days following brought along a spectacle of epic proportions.
“The serial killer known as 'The Anthologist' has finally been apprehended. Dozens of women's feet were found in a freezer in the apartment along with other bizarre items.
Confessions have been made to the murders of three local prostitutes known in the area by their nicknames as 'Zinnia,' 'Lily,' and 'Rose.' The name of the killer has yet to be released.”
Drinking eggnog that Lynne had bought from Chase Foods, I found myself in the composition notebook room staring into the kitchen at Lynne. Standing at a counter near a microwave, she was eating a banana very leisurely while toying with my cellular device.
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She wore no socks, and to the matching of her yoga mat, she had on colorful and flowery yoga pants and an even more colorful and flowery sports brassiere. The outfit was topped off with several colorful flowers tied into her hair.
The combination of the sight and the dream met together to form a cloud in my mind, a cloud of thoughts and memories, and easily, I was lost in my stare.
Her delicate, dainty hand gripped tightly the base of the banana. The first contact it made with her mouth was brief as she entered in only its tip for a curious taste, and soon again she entered it a second time, further in, enough so that it would have made contact with her tongue. The third time, with the banana only an inch away form her mouth, she suddenly stopped, her mouth opened, and did something on the phone very quickly, then finally entered the banana in for a mouthful, and later peeled back its sides. The fourth time, the banana entered her mouth much slower than the others, I believe because something fascinating had captured her attention on the phone, and as the interest persisted, and with the banana inside considerably, she held the banana in her mouth for a good while as she interacted with the phone. At one point, the way she fed on it, I could have sworn it was a banana made of cream. So Daisy, innocent and unsuspecting, yet so Dahlia, an invitation to the impure.
I began to walk towards the kitchen a little later and in my doing so she raised her leg on the kitchen counter to stretch, and I saw that vein that runs like a brook along her foot.
Suddenly, as I approached, Lynne and I heard glass shatter and break in the living room, and when I realized that it was Sara who was swinging around one of her stuffed animals, and that she had swung it into a glass cup on a table which was knocked into fragile furniture, I decided I had had enough.
Saturdays have become the worst days of my life. It means Sara and Dave are off from school, Lynne is off from work, and they all have the tendency to come into my apartment and do stuff. I don't need to see them every Saturday.
“Everyone out,” I said. “Remove your foot from off that counter, I don't know where your feet have been.” “Forget about the glass just leave immediately.” The three of them gave a sort of laugh as they packed up their belongings and walked the brown mile. My last vision of them while the Sun was still in the air was Lynne closing the door with her flowery winter jacket in hand.
With the noise gone I think I am going to go to sleep. I walk into my living room and lay down on the couch, some of the Sun's weakened rays piercing through the window.
It's so quiet now. It's so quiet.
I wake up to the sound of my cellular device that was going off in the kitchen. I get up to realize it is completely night now, and when I get into the kitchen I see that it is seven p.m. My phone now had the title of “Mr. Spookie,” which I am sure came at the 109 | WESTERN SEPAL GREEN
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hands of Lynne. The message on my phone was from Lynne, saying it was quiet at her place, which was basically an invitation for me to visit.
I walked over, half-suspicious, but saw that she was telling the truth as soon as I walked into the apartment.
There was absolutely no noise and at first I pondered the silence of the children.
Citizen Dave was on the computer watching a cartoon about the Grim Reaper with green headphones on, Sara was laying down in the living room working on her toyset, and Lynne was in her room, now wearing darker and duller colors and color penciling in concept art for the book of poems she was working on. This artwork was named “In Fuchsia,” and also observable were “Sunset Soulmates,” “White Lights” and “Harvest Moon.”
“Is that a rose city?,” I asked over her shoulder. “Yeah, I haven't decided on the name for this poem yet.”
I went and laid on her bed to rest, and she gave me the special feature of getting to hear some of the poems she had finished. Of the many, she read aloud to me two, which were “Growth” and “Majestic Garden.” A part of each for a moment took me back to the past.
While resting on her bed, I also noticed she replaced her “motivational” board with something else. “Be happy, cherish every day, laugh out loud,” all the shit that takes up too much energy to do. She got rid of it a month ago after Sara and Dave told her it was lame, and how Sara said they didn't even hug eachother everyday, which was another commandment from the board. They rarely hugged eachother at best, thank fucking God.
She replaced it with something that has to do with her venture into yoga, and reading over it, I was interested. It told me about eight concepts: Yama - The Five Abstentions
Ahimsa (non-violence, non-harming other living beings) Satya (truthfulness, non-falsehood)
Asteya (non-stealing)
Brahmacharya (celibacy, fidelity to one's partner) Aparigraha (non-avarice, non-possessiveness)
-
Niyama - The Five Observances
Śauca (purity, clearness of mind, speech and body) Santosha (contentment, acceptance of others and of one's circumstances) 110 | WESTERN SEPAL GREEN
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Tapas (persistent meditation, perseverance, austerity) Svādhyāya (study of self, self-reflection, study of Vedas) Ishvara-Pranidhana (contemplation of god, supreme being, true self)
-
Asana (refers to the seated position used for meditation) Pranayama (prāna, breath, "āyāma", to "stretch, extend, restrain, stop") Pratyahara (withdrawal of the sense organs from external objects) Dharana (fixing the attention on a single object) Dhyana (intense contemplation of the nature of the object of meditation) Samadhi (merging consciousness with the object of meditation)
“Do you do all of these?,” I asked. She said no, and told me that she only focused on the ones that strengthen her body and mind.
Sara shouts out my name like twelve angry women, and I follow the voices into her room, where she is standing near a mirror and a two-dollar bill. I thought it looked familiar, and when I asked her where she got it from, she said Gun Ho bought her haunted doll for two bucks.
She then told me that she wanted to show me her train car. It was a model of a single train car, and when I picked it up to look inside, I saw a few passengers, but what struck me was the train operator and his likeness to Pedro.
I called Lynne into the room to look at it and she agreed with me hesitantly. Dave also walked in, wondering what was going on, and eventually and impatiently asked when she would take them to her work.
Dave and Sara have never been to an airport, not that it is a special place to visit, but have heard of them and have always been curious about going to one.
She promised she would take them, and then all of sudden began telling them about my last visit to the airport.
“While we were driving in the cart back to the diner, we drove past a storage room and it didn't even have a lot of storage. So I just put my finger on the gear, flipped it to rock and roll, and we were speeding past everything in sight. Came close to crashing.”
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The entire time she was telling them about it she made stupid gestures of driving.
Flipping the gear from one to two and almost losing control of the golf cart. Some like it fast and do not die easy.
She ended with a promise to take us all on a golf cart cruise around the airport, and I'm sure it was not a promise either of them will soon forget.
After a while it was again just the two of us in her bedroom, and as the dark night pervaded she changed into a leaf-green sleeping nightgown. Like the man shrouded in darkness, I waited for her to fall asleep then sat up in the shadows. It may have been a streetlight, or the snow, or the Moon, but something white came through the front window and lit up the room faintly, just enough for me to see the outlines of her body inside the full emerald jacket.
First I only admired it, the moonlit city of goddesses, but a compulsion came over me as I reached out and slid my hand up and then down the back of her thigh. The next time I went back up, I took the gown along with my hand and felt the silky fabric as I slide it up halfway past her bottom. I squeezed gently what was exposed of her left cheek, then slid my hand over to the right and rubbed it underneath the gown. It was only a moment later that I rode the entire portion of the lower gown up to her waist to see the entire view of her bare naked bottom. Silhouette beauty.
I cupped again her left cheek now with my entire hand, squeezing and releasing and sometimes moving my hand up and down mildly. And I cupped again the right and repeated the compulsion for a few touches more, the outline by the faded light on her body as my guide. Tonight was all about Lynne. L for Lustre.
I decided then, in the mood for lust, to move to her breasts. The gown was cut on either sides in a way that I could enter my hand through near her underarm and massage her breasts the same way I did her bottom. I went in slowly, stopped a few times as to not wake her up, and finally my entire hand held her left breast in between the bed and her body. The soft pressure onto my hand and her nipple pressed against my palm must have felt as good for her in her dream as it did for me in reality.
Because her nipples are sensitive, I was more gentle with her breasts than I was with her bottom and spent less time squeezing them and moving them within my hand. Indeed, I spent less time on them in general.
When I was satisfied with the left breast, I reached over her backside with my right arm, passed under her arm, and then repeated the compulsion as I massaged her right breast. With my right hand and her right breast, I had a better grip and more control, and my face was suspended only inches away from hers as I tried my best not to breathe. The pressure of being in the middle of her and the bed, again, gave me and my hand the warmness of mother's milk. Somehow, I wanted to tell her to never change. I don't mean 112 | WESTERN SEPAL GREEN
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physically, but personally. I had no need to disguise her, she was already what I wanted once upon a time in a dream.
When I was finished with her breasts and her bottom, I went back to her thighs, but I found myself staring at her bottom again. I put my hand over her and back onto the bed and drew my face forward downward toward her bottom, so that my nose was only millimeters away from her skin, and I breathed in through my nose the combination of a smell from her anal cavity and her vaginal cavity.
It was a smell I was familiar with because it was her smell. A smell I would recognize as her own even if my eyes were closed to the object. I'll tell you, she did not smell like flowers; it was a musky smell, not too strong, and one that has the effect of exciting me in a bizarre way. I breathed her in a couple more times for that potent smell, then brought my head back up to stare at her closed eyes once more. Would she be offended if she woke up? How would she feel if she found out I have touched her numerous times in opportunities for a dream as she lay asleep? To know that I have smelled such an intimate part of her body. That I have touched every surface of her body while she is in her most vulnerable state. That I have seen the good, the bad and the pretty.
You see, the question is not whether what I am doing is immoral or not, and the question is not whether I am violating her or not. The question is, rather, who is going to stop me?
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Chapter 60
ONCE UPON A TIME IN A DREAM
2:2:6:60
“...You can have it any color you like, as long as it's black...”
I seem to often recall a moment in my childhood when my mother and father were happy together, sitting together on a beach, or a picnic blanket, something of the like. But it is strange because as far back as my memory goes, I cannot seem to recall them ever sharing a moment of affection. Never a hug, nor a kiss, I'm not even sure if I've ever seen them touch. By the time I was born, I suppose all of that had faded away.
My father, Gerold, and mother, Irene, according to one of my now deceased uncles, Junior, had one of the strangest marriages one could encounter. He used to tell me this story once of when he was living with them, because of the many hardships he was dealing with.
One night long ago as they were all sitting down to eat a meal Junior had prepared, in an apartment on the sixth floor, Junior found two cups in a cabinet and brought it to them.
He had no plans of eating just yet, so he brought them both each a cup and then it became a night he would never forget.
My mother stood up, began cursing at both Junior and my father, and at first they were uncertain why she was upset, but only a moment later found out that she was angered because Junior had given my father a glass cup yet she herself received a plastic cup.
Junior described her rage as something of a person who was mentally ill, only making sense some of the time and at other times speaking word salad.
Junior froze and my father became readily frustrated. My father walks into the kitchen, takes every glass cup he can find, and then begins to walk towards my mother.
On the way to her is a window that looks out into the street, and instead of making it all the way to her, he stops at the window, and very slowly and coolly, he drops every glass cup onto the pavement and a pop and shatter slew.
I remember distinctively, after being told this story, his analyses of both my mother and father and their relationship.
My father was a cold man, emotionally unavailable, which is why my mother was attracted to him. She had some dream of fixing him and making a proper husband out of him. My mother was a warm woman, but not in the good way. In fact, it may be more appropriate to call her hot-headed, mentally unstable, which is, of course, why my father was attracted to her. He had some dream of making her well and taming her. This is what Junior told me of them.
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In the end, again said by Junior, their egos handicapped them and they both failed to change one another into the temperate husband and the obedient wife. I know by his tone and not by his words that he despised the general portrayal by culture of the happy family and happy marriage, especially the marriage portion because it was a lie and the only people in on it were married women and married men. In one way or fifty, he seemed to say that people weren't in love and they got married. People fell out of love and stayed married. All because of what it would look like on the outside.
410-2074: ...this is how we work, you find bank I find women.
646-0704: Fine, okay, what color I rent?
410-2074: You can have it any color you like, as long as it's black...
The basement of my parents' home looks a lot more family-friendly, family-oriented even, but it's a lie. The new rug, the television, the couch, none of these things are me.
What was me was what was here before and lies idle in a storage unit.
I hear someone coming down the stairs, and as Lynne enters the basement she asks me a question, “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants. Does that fit into a poem?” “If the headline is big enough, it makes the news big enough,” I thought out loud. “What?” “Sorry, I was reading something. What did you say?” “Nevermind. What are you doing?” “Nothing.”
She looked around the room in an attempt to figure out what I was doing. After she failed, she told me she was working on the beginning and ending to her book and was having a hard time deciding whether she should include a certain part in the foreword or afterword. Sitting on the couch next to me, she read from her notebook.
“...Human beings are not very complex when it comes to emotion, as we only really have a few core emotions. If you rely on emotion to power your art, you will have a very limited scope and by logic your art will be simple itself. Instead, I believe you should let your mind power your art; the part of the brain where enduring dreams occur; like a lightning storm in windy autumn with yellow leaves flittering to the ground...”
I sat there thinking about the suggestion and then the image of a storm in autumn. It reminded me of a dream I had that took place in 1947. A colorful place by nature, comforting, brown yellow red orange green, quiet town. But in my mind now, that same dream became disrupted by a dangerous storm in the dark.
I told her to put it in the afterword, or at the end of the book, and when she asked me why, I told her it was best to tell someone to do something after you had become friends with them. She agreed.
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she brought his fingertip-numbness medicine, which she said was in her purse in the kitchen.
Ever since Tracy's death, there has been something somber and cloudy about him. A night that he spent sleeping in my apartment had him ask me why living things die. Do all living things die. Where do living things go after they die. To each question I could only tell him that no one who is alive knows. Regardless of any answers, we are all doomed, and you can live any life you like as long as it's tragic. I didn't tell him that.
She stayed with me for a while. Maybe too long of a while. And eventually I got tired and allowed my head to fall onto the side of her arm. The momentum kept me going slowly, and she raised her pen and notebook into the air as my head fell into her lap.
Lowering her arms, she used my head as a writing board.
I lift my legs onto the couch and I can hear her scribbles in my left ear. She showered before she came down here. She is wearing very short shorts. Room-temperature skin, white soap. Strawberry, or kiwi, or banana lotion. Déijà fruit.
“Do you like my lap?,” she laughed. “I'm a mama's boy,” I answered. She had nothing to say until a minute later, “Do you really think I'm a poet?”
I laughed, saying “Publishing a book of poetry doesn't make you a poet.” At that moment she stopped scribbling which I now observed as drawing. “I knew you were a poet two years ago when you confessed your love for me.” “I don't understand.” “Poets can't conceal their feelings, they have a compulsion to express themselves. It's like if they don't then they wither and die.” “Okay, next question. Do you think I am a person who can see things in a unique way?” “How would I know that? And why are you asking me these things?” “Because, I just want to know. When I say something does it make you think 'I never thought of it that way before?'”
First the basement walls changed, then the basement itself became a sort of control room. I could tell we were still underground, and suddenly monitor screens appeared in the corner of our eyes.
Looking over the monitors, we saw images of a quiet and empty snowy town. It seemed as if it didn't have a single resident, a ghost town almost, accompanied with the following things: a library, a beauty salon, a cabin, a cemetery, a motel, a prison, a high school, a house and more. There were lights, blue, green, red, yellow, on four of the screens but nothing more.
On the screen monitoring a library I found sub-cameras, and for more than ten minutes I panned throughout the entire library only seeing books but no readers.
Suddenly Lynne told me she found an “atomic radiation” control unit on a side panel labeled “temperatures,” and asked if she should raise it seeing as it was on -459.67. I told her to go ahead, and as she slid the controller, the town went from winter to spring to 116 | ONCE UPON A TIME IN A DREAM
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summer. While there were still no people to be found, we saw the town go from death to life, from inactivity to activity, from stillness to movement. She returned the dial, and as soon we saw the seasons change again, from summer to autumn back to winter.
When someone says the word “temperature,” the average person thinks of hot and cold. But there is someone who can make you think of temperature in a way you've never thought of it before.
Fix your mind to think of temperature instead as the number of possible outcomes in a system of atoms; that is, the lower the temperature, the fewer outcomes that system can have, and the higher the temperature, the more outcomes that same system can have. For example, in a cold system where there is a small amount of atomic activity, there are far fewer things that can happen as opposed to a hot system where there is a big amount of atomic activity; cold temperatures are indicative of less movement and hot temperatures of more movement. Temperature now is not a calculation of how hot or cold something is, but rather its outcome potential; two degrees means not cold, but rather the system is simple with little outcome potential, and two-hundred degrees means not hot but rather a more complex system with higher outcome potential.
This leads us to stable and unstable systems. A low temperature, or low “atomic radiation,” grants us a more stable system. It is simpler and less can happen as opposed to high temperature, or high “atomic radiation,” in which case as the temperature increases the more unstable the system becomes. A highly unstable system can result in reality disruption; reality disruption can be many things, but one example of it are the various states of matter.
This leads us to the meat and potatoes of this entire theory. What is temperature, really? We know it's not the difference between being warm and cool. My proposition is that what we have come as human beings to call temperature is actually the amount of atomic radiation in a specific area. The more an atom changes its information, whether it be its location or composition, the more other atoms have to be updated of this changed information, and the more updated each atom has to be in the network, the more communication we will find between these atoms. This communication, or trade of information, may be the source of “heat,” and the more intense the communication is between atoms in a network, the “hotter” that area will become. And when atoms communicate less, the “colder” that area will become. In cases of high temperatures and high energy, such as a hydrogen bomb, atomic radiation and communication may be so intense and updates may be so rapid and frequent that atoms cannot keep up and lose information on each other, resulting in instability and reality disruption.
An area with increased atomic radiation and communication will no doubt give way to instability. And atomic instability, the way a human might perceive it, can be under a 117 | ONCE UPON A TIME IN A DREAM
M.B. JULIEN
many-worlds interpretation, can be states of matter, and last but not least, can be heat.
I came back to this reality with my head still resting in Lynne's lap. “By states of matter you mean solids, liquids and gasses right?” “Yeah.” “I see,” she finished. There are many blind people who can see better than those who have vision.
I raised my arm into the air and with my fingers I searched for her face, then for her nose, and then I picked it. She reacted swiftly, pulling my arm away and then slapping it away a second time. Quickly and without warning she then stood up and my head landed on the couch.
“If you're done,” she said while walking away, “which word do you like better?
Lovestone or Soulstone.” “Lovestone,” I answered. “So do I.”
I sit up and am now how I was before. On the side of me is the drawing Lynne was working on, of a lady, dark-eyed and dark-haired. “How come you don't dance with me anymore?” “I don't know,” I answered still looking at the drawing.
She disappeared for a transitory moment to check on the laundry, and I found myself leafing curiously through her artwork. When that transitory moment was over and she returned, she told me that even when she puts the dryer on “more dry” or “less dry,” only the “normal dry” light turns on. I laughed, and then flipped to the next page.
The next drawing, unlike the others, was in color. It was of herself, kneeling down and gardening, wearing a gardener's hat and smiling down at her plot. She wore a skirted dress that went down to but did not cover her lame foot. The leaves flap, then flutter, then fall, and she is a sunset the same color as autumn.
Looking over this drawing, I slowly realized something. We all have two battles. One with the world outside, and one with the world inside. And once you learn how to control the world inside, the world outside no longer matters.
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(2:2 / 5 / V)
Part 7
M.B. JULIEN