Jakob felt no pain nor dizziness. He wasn't nauseous or light headed or even tired anymore. He simply was. He existed. He still perceived and felt, but he no longer needed his skin or his eyes or his nose. Perception was no longer about physically relating to the world around him, it was different for him now. He could see things, but he understood that his eyes merely part of his perception of himself. When he closed them and everything was dark, it was a willful withdrawing of his ability to perceive his surroundings.
But he couldn't have closed his eyes, even if he had wanted to.
Everything shone brightly. Each building was tall and stately and covered in chrome. All of them, every single one. They all seemed to shine and sparkle, even though the sky was gray and overcast. Jakob looked warily at the sky and he felt that it wasn't really a sky as much as a lid. He wondered for a moment before his attention returned to his immediate situation.
He was looking out a window from a large plaza. This plaza seemed packed with people moving this way and that. Some looked irritated, while others smiled at him blithely. He stared around wondering as each of these people seemed to shine themselves. They seemed to be covered in the same sparkling chrome as the building around them.
But more than this, as he looked up, he saw that the window in the plaza extended a great ways up, giving him a full view of the skyline. He couldn't see very far, but it seemed to him that the buildings in the distance were actually taller than the ones close by.
He was staring wildly at all of this, attempting to soak it in, when a hand was placed firmly, but not tightly, over his.
“Alright nah, ked. Les kep movin' nah, shall weh?”
Jakob's eyes found the hand, chrome and shining like the others, but larger by far. He followed the hand up to the arm and to the face. Jakob had to tilt himself sideways to see all of the man, he was so very wide. The man seemed to extend out from his neck like an upside down balloon. The head at the top was shining with disheveled brown hair. The man squinted down at Jakob, but Jakob couldn't see what color his eyes were. The man made a tight smile at Jakob.
“Ev ben away so long Ev furgotten ma manners! Here now, ma nem ez Joshua, eh?”
A hand the size of a plate swung around from the far side of the man. It came down in front of Jakob. Jakob looked up at the man, who continued to squint at him. He thought the man was smiling, but he couldn't tell from here. Jakob put his hand, so very puny in comparison, in that of Joshua's. They shook and Joshua's wrist sparkled. On it was a small golden bracelet. It was knit like a finger trap and Jakob looked at it wonderingly.
Suddenly everything brightened. Jakob looked up. Everyone in the room had stopped. They were all looking up towards the sky. Jakob looked over at Joshua. Joshua himself had his face turned up towards it and for a moment, his face seemed to reflect the same golden light. It changed Joshua's visage, making him seem younger by far. Then, just as quickly, the light was gone and everyone shoes once again began to chatter in the great plaza.
“Well now, wed best beh off nah, doncha thenk?” Joshua said, looking down at Jakob scrutinizingly.
“Where are we going?” Jakob asked.
“Dunna yea know why et ez ya 'ere, ked?”
Jakob tried to think, but all he could think of was the sound of his mother's door as it opened. Her face as it came through the doorway, looking sleepy but concerned.
“Okeh, well yull fend oot soon enough I suspect! Fur right nah, less just get a move on, eh?”
Before Jakob could nod, Joshua had started off through the plaza. He was walking normally, but Jakob's legs raced to keep up.
They crossed the plaza, weaving in between the people as the moved towards the door. Joshua moved quickly, careful not to bump anyone. Jakob thought it seemed like a dance almost. Joshua swaying this way and that, missing people by inches at times, but always with his eyes on the doors. They reached them after a moment and Joshua pushed one open and led Jakob out into the street.
Joshua turned quickly and it pulled Jakob sideways.
“Hey!” He cried.
Joshua stopped and looked back at him. He squinted with the gray sky behind him.
“Can I hold your hand, please?” He asked. Jakob squinted himself. Even though it was cloudy, it was still bright from all of the reflected light.
Joshua looked down at him (at least, Jakob thought he was looking at him). He seemed to be judging for something. After a moment, he opened the hand holding Jakob's arm. Jakob meant to rub it, but when he looked at it, he almost screamed.
“My arm!” He said, his voice quavering slightly.
His arm seemed only half there. It was still three dimensional and intact, he hadn't lost any fingers or the such, but it was semi-transparent. It reminded him for a moment of frosted glass. As he looked at it, he saw Joshua's hand behind it. It was open and waiting. Jakob took it and the two continued to walk. This time turning right and moving away from the building they had just exited.
“I tekit yea neverr ben 'ere before?” Joshua asked him. His voice was suspicious, but Jakob didn't notice. He was staring at his other hand as Joshua led him to the end of the block. From there, they made another right onto a street that was far less crowded that the earlier one. Jakob wondered at his palm, looking through it and seeing the vague shapes of the buildings behind it. He turned his hand on Joshua and looked up at the hulking man as they walked. Looking through it, he no longer saw the shine that seemed to cover everything. Instead, the colors seemed bland and washed out. It's all faded, Jakob thought. This thought struck him funny and he put his hand down.
“Mr. Joshua, where are we going, please?”
“Well beh therr soon enough nah. Ah, 'ere we go!”
The turned another corner and came to a large open square. It was so wide that the buildings around it seemed like a huge shining fence built to hem it in. Most of it seemed to be very worn (but nonetheless shining) cobble stone. It was a great open area with nothing at all around to fill it. It had no fountains or statues, no monuments of any sort. As far as Jakob could see, there wasn't even so much as a bench to sit and feed birds. Not that he saw any birds, but, he thought, if they did exist, they would probably enjoy being fed from benches.
At the other side of the square, facing Jakob and Joshua, was an enormous building. It seemed by far the largest of the hedge that surrounded the square. It was towards this great chrome giant that Joshua seemed to be taking him.
“Is this the boy?”
“Aye, so he ez.”
Jakob was still holding Joshua's hand. They had entered the building through a pair of comparetively tiny doors in the center of the front of the building. Inside, everything seemed a bit darker, although the lights overhead seemed brightly fluorescent.
Jakob looked around Joshua at the foyer of the building. It was sparse, without any chairs or benches or even tables. There were none of the usual niceties one found in waiting rooms. It gave the room a hygenic, officious look. Everything shining under the lights. Jakob say through the windows that the sky was still a mundane gray, neither story nor clearing. Indeed the clouds, as Jakob surmised they must be, seemed not to be moving at all. They seemed only to hang there as a great mass. A long gray sheet drawn from one end of the horizon to the next.
“Report to room 310N, please.”
The man behind the counter seemed young enough, his face smooth and unblemished, but his voice seemed both old and bored as it directed them.
“Take the elevators to your...”
“Eh know how te get therr, yea little desker, you! Doen worry ehbout meh nune nah!”
With that, Joshua turned to him, motioning him passed the counter and the man with the old voice, towards the only hallway leading from the foyer.
This hallway was both windowless and doorless. Each wall reflected the light, making it quite bright. They came to the end and turned right. There before them was the elevator. Joshua reached out and pressed the button with the up arrow on it.
“Redeckulus, right?”
Jakob looked around, he saw no other doors, not even a second elevator.
“Is this the only one?” He asked.
“Aye, thes ez the only par of doors dun here, but belev meh, there'z moore then one elevater.”
This confused Jakob, but Jakob nodded nonetheless. He looked down at the man's hand, his own less substantial fingers surrounded by the larger chrome ones. Joshua seemed to see this. He let go of Jakob's hand and bent down to look at him.
“Yea look lek a good ked, too young tehh be 'ere, that's fur shore, but donchoo rrun off on meh now, m'lad. Mmm?”
“Okay Joshua.” Jakob said. Joshua was down closer to him. This close up, Jakob could see that the man had blue eyes. These shone like the rest of them, but their expression seemed kind. Jakob nodded, looking at them. They're faded too, he thought. Joshua smiled, his eyes disappearing into squints as his cheeks came up.
“Yea a good boy, Moses. Em surry yea have tehh beah here.”
Jakob looked at him for a moment, his face blank.
“Moses?” He whispered. The smile dropped from Joshua's face in an instant. He was looking at Jakob with a frank interest.
“I'm not Moses.” Jakob whispered again.
“Wut?” Joshua asked. Behind them, the elevator dinged as it arrived.
Jakob knew something, but his mind was slow, numb. He knew something, knew it for a fact. It had to do with the name. Why can't I think of it! He thought. It was a claustrophobic feeling. There was something there. He knew knew knew it, but he couldn't grasp it. He tried to remember.
Behind them. The door dinged again.
“Who are yea?”
Who am I? He wondered. His mind was drifting. Suddenly, the lights seemed very bright. His head was crowded, full of fluff that he could sort through. He was pawing his way, trying to get around it to an idea that was buried in it, but he couldn't quite seem to reach it.
Joshua put out a hand to stop the doors as they tried to close.
“Boy, who are yea, ef yea ain't Moses?”
“I don't remember.” Jakob said.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Pittman Place Pt 3
Later that night, Jakob lay in bed. He had had a bath but he still smelled smoke. He didn't think he'd ever stop smelling it. He'd tried blowing his nose and had been rewarded with a tissue full of black snot.
But he had washed the soot from his face and from his hair, had brushed his teeth and put on his pajamas, and although it was an extraordinary day, the likes of which would test any man or woman, Jakob was very sleepy. Now that he was warm and safe and clean, he yearned for his bed. He wished only to curl up under the blankets and forget everything that had happened over the last few hours.
But it was not to be the case.
He walked down the hall to his room and heard the door close downstairs. He heard his mom as she went into the kitchen, then started up the stairs. He walked to his bedroom and lay down. He pulled his blankets over himself, heaping them up in a great pile.
“How are you doing, darling?” His mother asked as she came in. She sat on the edge of his bed and turned on his lamp.
“I'm OK, Mom. Just sleepy.”
“The firemen say you were very lucky to get out when you did. What in the world were you doing over there, Jakob?”
Jakob curled up under his covers. He could feel his mother waiting, but he didn't know what to tell her. He couldn't put into words what had happen. He couldn't explain about Moses and the monster. His arms and legs were heavy.
“Okay” his mother said finally, “I'll let you sleep. We'll talk more in the morning.”
She pulled back the covers and kissed his cheek. She replaced them and turned off the lamp. Jakob was relieved that he didn't have to explain. His body relaxed. So much so, that he was asleep before his mother closed his bedroom door.
“Jakob.”
Jakob was cold. He looked around his room. His blankets were gone. He could see his bare feet at the end of the bed.
“Jakob.”
Jakob started for a moment, still only half awake. He searched for the voice. He recognized it.
“Moses?”
He saw a light glimmering in the far corner of the room. Out of it walked Moses. I must be dreaming, Jakob thought. He looks as real as he ever was.
“Jake, I need you to trade me clothes.”
Jakob was confused. Moses wore a sweater and jeans. He was barefoot like Jake, but Jake thought he looked warmer than he was.
“Jake, really. I need you to trade me clothes!”
“Why?”
“I can't tell you, just hurry!”
Everything seemed to blur just then. Jakob looked down at his chest and found a zipper. He laughed, it looked so funny. It poked out from his sternum, just sitting against his chest. He reached for it, grasping it lightly.
He looked up at Moses.
“Don't look.”
Moses smiled and turned around. When his back was turned completely to him, Moses disappeared. Jakob almost laughed again, but he could feel that Moses was still in the room, just hiding. Quickly, quickly, Moses whispered.
Jakob took hold of the zipper and pulled it down. He grimaced, anticipating pain, but found there was none. Instead, he felt warmer. No, that's not right, he thought. It wasn't warmth so much as lack of cold. He watched the zipper go down his body. When it reached his waistline, it stopped. He pulled the folds of the suit aside and saw that he wore the same sweater and jeans as Moses had been wearing a moment ago. He wondered at this for a moment.
“Quick, Jake!”
Moses reappeared in the same place as before, this time his hands were outstretched to him. He seemed both very excited and very scared. His eyes darted around the room, but always came back to Jakob. Jakob sighed and stepped out of the body suit he had been wearing. He was starting to think this wasn't a very funny dream after all. He pulled the suit from the floor and handed it to Moses. As it touched Moses' hands, their eyes met. Jakob wondered at an odd twinkling he saw there. Moses and Jakob stood there for a moment, their eyes locked with one another, frozen in time.
Then Moses changed.
Instead of Moses standing before Jakob, Jakob instead saw himself reflected back at him. His reflection wore the same pajamas as Jakob and the same dreamy expression.
“Moses?” He asked.
His voice was different somehow. He looked down and saw he was still in the sweater and jeans as Moses had been wearing. He didn't understand.
The other Jakob yawned loudly and shook his head. He looked at Jakob for a moment and then walked to the bed. He lay down and covered himself with the blankets which had fallen on the floor.
“Hey!” Jakob said, “What are you doing? That's my bed!”
Again his voice was strange in his own ears. The other Jakob covered himself up and closed his eyes. Jakob walked to the bed and looked down at him. He saw a smile on the other Jakob's lips.
“Better keep it down, Jake, or they'll hear you.”
“What? What are you doing?”
“Shhhh.”
Jakob stomped his foot indignantly. What was Moses doing? Stop pretending, he thought angrily. He reached down to touch Moses. His hand was inches from Moses' shoulder when it stopped. It stayed there in the air, unmoving, next to the blanket.
Jakob tried to pull his hand back, but couldn't. He pulled at it harder for a moment, trying to shake it free, but nothing happened.
It was then that he heard a noise. It was like a chain being dragged down the hall. It sounded very large. He heard a bumping as the chain moved. It seemed to be coming towards him rather than being dragged away. He turned around just as a shadow moved under his door. Mom! He thought.
But the shadow moved then, whatever it was, it snaked back and forth, still making sounds of heavy chains. As Jakob watched, he saw something wriggle under the door. It was something small, but the chain noise was louder now, in the room with him even. He tried to get a better look, but his hand stayed put and prevented him from looking around at his door way. Jakob grew frightened, he did not like whatever this was. Whatever part of the dream this might be, he didn't want it.
He closed his eyes, squeezing them tight to try and wake himself up. Still he heard the chains, closer now. He shook his head back and forth and squeezed his eyes tighter and tighter. Still he heard chains.
“Wake up!” He shouted. He heard his old voice as it pushed through the new one.
It was quiet and very still. He heard no more rustling. He hoped for a moment that whatever it was had disappeared. Down the hall, from his mother's room, he heard his mom's voice call his name.
He opened his eyes.
Everything was so bright, he almost couldn't see. Something hung in the air in front of him, twisting around wildly. It looked like a giant glowing worm of some sort. It reminded Jakob of the design on a finger trap, that sort of criss-crossed pattern. Its thrashing slowed for a moment and it seemed to be considering something.
Then in a flash, it swept itself around his waist. He tried to use his free hand to pull it off of him, but that hand was stuck just as rigidly as before. He struggled for a moment, but the strange snake continued to coil itself around his body. He made mewling noises and tried to move, but his entire body was stuck rigidly in place.
The for a moment everything stopped and he heard his mother's door open.
Then the chain snake tugged, as if signaling to someone on the other end, and, in an instant, Jakob was pulled out of his spot and under the door. His body seemed to slip under, like he was an octopus and was without bones. He was pulled at an incredible speed, seeing his mother's face in her doorway for only an instant.
“Mom!” He cried, but he was already past her.
He went down the stares and through kitchen. It pulled him under the front door and out onto the street. He tumbled for a moment, barely noticing the use of his arms and legs had returned. He rolled out to the sidewalk, only to be tugged, rather roughly, onto the black top. He lay there panting and looked down and the shining cord.
“I'd stand up, if I war you.” It said.
Jakob was flabbergasted. He propped himself up on his hands and knees, looking down in amazement.
“Up and at 'em now, we haven't time to waist!”
There was an edge of authority in the voice which pushed Jakob to obey. He stood up, the golden chain still about his midsection. He ran his fingers over the chain, it felted warm and vibrated slightly, as if there was something going on inside of it. As he watched, there was another tug, but this time the chain was caught and held. The chain was parallel with the street and ran down to the end of Jakob's block.
“What's going on?” He asked.
“Hold on, ked. T'll be all right.”
The chain held taut for a moment, shining like a neon light. Jakob looked at it with wonder and amazement. He felt something gathering at the far end of the street. He stopped watching for a moment and looked back at the house. He looked at the darken front window and saw himself reflected in it, standing in the street. But he wasn't himself. He looked like Moses.
What a strange dream I'm having, he thought.
For the third time that night, the air was still and heavy around Jakob. For a moment, Jakob vaguely perceived the voice of his mother from the upstairs of his house. Mom, Sis, he thought. The chain grew tight and then the force multiplied tenfold, pulling Jakob off his feet. He flew forward at an incredible speed and in seconds, when he reached the end of his block, he came to Oblivion.
But he had washed the soot from his face and from his hair, had brushed his teeth and put on his pajamas, and although it was an extraordinary day, the likes of which would test any man or woman, Jakob was very sleepy. Now that he was warm and safe and clean, he yearned for his bed. He wished only to curl up under the blankets and forget everything that had happened over the last few hours.
But it was not to be the case.
He walked down the hall to his room and heard the door close downstairs. He heard his mom as she went into the kitchen, then started up the stairs. He walked to his bedroom and lay down. He pulled his blankets over himself, heaping them up in a great pile.
“How are you doing, darling?” His mother asked as she came in. She sat on the edge of his bed and turned on his lamp.
“I'm OK, Mom. Just sleepy.”
“The firemen say you were very lucky to get out when you did. What in the world were you doing over there, Jakob?”
Jakob curled up under his covers. He could feel his mother waiting, but he didn't know what to tell her. He couldn't put into words what had happen. He couldn't explain about Moses and the monster. His arms and legs were heavy.
“Okay” his mother said finally, “I'll let you sleep. We'll talk more in the morning.”
She pulled back the covers and kissed his cheek. She replaced them and turned off the lamp. Jakob was relieved that he didn't have to explain. His body relaxed. So much so, that he was asleep before his mother closed his bedroom door.
“Jakob.”
Jakob was cold. He looked around his room. His blankets were gone. He could see his bare feet at the end of the bed.
“Jakob.”
Jakob started for a moment, still only half awake. He searched for the voice. He recognized it.
“Moses?”
He saw a light glimmering in the far corner of the room. Out of it walked Moses. I must be dreaming, Jakob thought. He looks as real as he ever was.
“Jake, I need you to trade me clothes.”
Jakob was confused. Moses wore a sweater and jeans. He was barefoot like Jake, but Jake thought he looked warmer than he was.
“Jake, really. I need you to trade me clothes!”
“Why?”
“I can't tell you, just hurry!”
Everything seemed to blur just then. Jakob looked down at his chest and found a zipper. He laughed, it looked so funny. It poked out from his sternum, just sitting against his chest. He reached for it, grasping it lightly.
He looked up at Moses.
“Don't look.”
Moses smiled and turned around. When his back was turned completely to him, Moses disappeared. Jakob almost laughed again, but he could feel that Moses was still in the room, just hiding. Quickly, quickly, Moses whispered.
Jakob took hold of the zipper and pulled it down. He grimaced, anticipating pain, but found there was none. Instead, he felt warmer. No, that's not right, he thought. It wasn't warmth so much as lack of cold. He watched the zipper go down his body. When it reached his waistline, it stopped. He pulled the folds of the suit aside and saw that he wore the same sweater and jeans as Moses had been wearing a moment ago. He wondered at this for a moment.
“Quick, Jake!”
Moses reappeared in the same place as before, this time his hands were outstretched to him. He seemed both very excited and very scared. His eyes darted around the room, but always came back to Jakob. Jakob sighed and stepped out of the body suit he had been wearing. He was starting to think this wasn't a very funny dream after all. He pulled the suit from the floor and handed it to Moses. As it touched Moses' hands, their eyes met. Jakob wondered at an odd twinkling he saw there. Moses and Jakob stood there for a moment, their eyes locked with one another, frozen in time.
Then Moses changed.
Instead of Moses standing before Jakob, Jakob instead saw himself reflected back at him. His reflection wore the same pajamas as Jakob and the same dreamy expression.
“Moses?” He asked.
His voice was different somehow. He looked down and saw he was still in the sweater and jeans as Moses had been wearing. He didn't understand.
The other Jakob yawned loudly and shook his head. He looked at Jakob for a moment and then walked to the bed. He lay down and covered himself with the blankets which had fallen on the floor.
“Hey!” Jakob said, “What are you doing? That's my bed!”
Again his voice was strange in his own ears. The other Jakob covered himself up and closed his eyes. Jakob walked to the bed and looked down at him. He saw a smile on the other Jakob's lips.
“Better keep it down, Jake, or they'll hear you.”
“What? What are you doing?”
“Shhhh.”
Jakob stomped his foot indignantly. What was Moses doing? Stop pretending, he thought angrily. He reached down to touch Moses. His hand was inches from Moses' shoulder when it stopped. It stayed there in the air, unmoving, next to the blanket.
Jakob tried to pull his hand back, but couldn't. He pulled at it harder for a moment, trying to shake it free, but nothing happened.
It was then that he heard a noise. It was like a chain being dragged down the hall. It sounded very large. He heard a bumping as the chain moved. It seemed to be coming towards him rather than being dragged away. He turned around just as a shadow moved under his door. Mom! He thought.
But the shadow moved then, whatever it was, it snaked back and forth, still making sounds of heavy chains. As Jakob watched, he saw something wriggle under the door. It was something small, but the chain noise was louder now, in the room with him even. He tried to get a better look, but his hand stayed put and prevented him from looking around at his door way. Jakob grew frightened, he did not like whatever this was. Whatever part of the dream this might be, he didn't want it.
He closed his eyes, squeezing them tight to try and wake himself up. Still he heard the chains, closer now. He shook his head back and forth and squeezed his eyes tighter and tighter. Still he heard chains.
“Wake up!” He shouted. He heard his old voice as it pushed through the new one.
It was quiet and very still. He heard no more rustling. He hoped for a moment that whatever it was had disappeared. Down the hall, from his mother's room, he heard his mom's voice call his name.
He opened his eyes.
Everything was so bright, he almost couldn't see. Something hung in the air in front of him, twisting around wildly. It looked like a giant glowing worm of some sort. It reminded Jakob of the design on a finger trap, that sort of criss-crossed pattern. Its thrashing slowed for a moment and it seemed to be considering something.
Then in a flash, it swept itself around his waist. He tried to use his free hand to pull it off of him, but that hand was stuck just as rigidly as before. He struggled for a moment, but the strange snake continued to coil itself around his body. He made mewling noises and tried to move, but his entire body was stuck rigidly in place.
The for a moment everything stopped and he heard his mother's door open.
Then the chain snake tugged, as if signaling to someone on the other end, and, in an instant, Jakob was pulled out of his spot and under the door. His body seemed to slip under, like he was an octopus and was without bones. He was pulled at an incredible speed, seeing his mother's face in her doorway for only an instant.
“Mom!” He cried, but he was already past her.
He went down the stares and through kitchen. It pulled him under the front door and out onto the street. He tumbled for a moment, barely noticing the use of his arms and legs had returned. He rolled out to the sidewalk, only to be tugged, rather roughly, onto the black top. He lay there panting and looked down and the shining cord.
“I'd stand up, if I war you.” It said.
Jakob was flabbergasted. He propped himself up on his hands and knees, looking down in amazement.
“Up and at 'em now, we haven't time to waist!”
There was an edge of authority in the voice which pushed Jakob to obey. He stood up, the golden chain still about his midsection. He ran his fingers over the chain, it felted warm and vibrated slightly, as if there was something going on inside of it. As he watched, there was another tug, but this time the chain was caught and held. The chain was parallel with the street and ran down to the end of Jakob's block.
“What's going on?” He asked.
“Hold on, ked. T'll be all right.”
The chain held taut for a moment, shining like a neon light. Jakob looked at it with wonder and amazement. He felt something gathering at the far end of the street. He stopped watching for a moment and looked back at the house. He looked at the darken front window and saw himself reflected in it, standing in the street. But he wasn't himself. He looked like Moses.
What a strange dream I'm having, he thought.
For the third time that night, the air was still and heavy around Jakob. For a moment, Jakob vaguely perceived the voice of his mother from the upstairs of his house. Mom, Sis, he thought. The chain grew tight and then the force multiplied tenfold, pulling Jakob off his feet. He flew forward at an incredible speed and in seconds, when he reached the end of his block, he came to Oblivion.
Friday, December 3, 2010
David Sedaris
So I met David Sedaris.
I met him on a crazed sort of whim, jumping in my grandmother's car and racing to the bookstore signing.
Previous to meeting the legendary humorist, before I ever got to the wall post directing me to the Changing Hands Bookstore (which I had never set foot in before tonight), I was having a weird day.
It started off pretty normal. I got up and ate the usual breakfast: one potatoe (sliced then fried); two eggs (scrambled!), turkey slices, two cuties, multivitamin, and lemonade. Breakfast of champions. I read about it earlier this semester when I was obsessed with bicycling. I guess I'm still obsessed, because I'm absolutely adamant about eating it. I need the protein and carbs and fruit for my daily twelve miles on the bike. Not bad, I suppose.
Anywho, I ates me some grub and headed to school. I had read on twitter that Atomic Comics was having some sort of ridiculous sale for some sort of ridiculous reason that I couldn't be bothered to remember.I'm a gist man, mostly, and I tend to skim things. Unless it's Simon Pegg's tweets, which I read religiously (I bought his comic book app for the iphone).
In any case, I lucked out, as it was half off everything. Super luck! The only sort of foreshadowing that can be seen here, was that I meant to eat lunch, but was so pleased with my purchases I never got around to it. But I ate a big breakfast, so I figured I was good.
I got some real winners which I could write about here, but I think I'll wait until I've finished all of them and then blog my reviews on my loot. Needless to say, Grant Morrison kills Batman.
So after my first round of providence, I headed to school to hang out. I ran into some friends from my political science class and we had a rousing conversation about about this nutter woman in our class. She believes in aliens, 2012, and the absolute validity of the Left. She is a joy in the classroom. We are pretty sure she has hepatitis. We aren't sure, but we think it's probably all of them.
I left them to their business and drank some CRANAPPLERASPBERRY, which was delicious.
Pretty standard, you say? Ed, quit boring us with your stupid day, you say?
It's all pertinent! Sort of! Mostly the last stuff, but still...
Anywho, I went to my art class, to do art right? Not really, I was pretty much done with my two day sketch and altogether distracted by the texts and phone calls I was recieving. I had been getting them since poly sci on tuesday and they were all in regards to this big 15 page paper that nine different people were writing. Some of these people, who are very nice regardless, were super clueless and called me constantly. One of them, I actually outlined his entire paper to him in detail, three times in one particular conversation! In any case, I couldn't stop the texts crying out for help, so I talked to my Croatian life drawing teacher, Edna, and she let me out early.
This is really were we start our descent.
I left class and biked 10 miles down to my aunt's house to help my grandmother babysit my cousins. This ride was kind of crazy because I was pushing myself for time. I think it took me like 30 minutes? When I got there, I was drenched in sweat and my legs felt like they'd wibble wobble away. But I hung tight and put the rugrats to bed! Hazzah.
It's at this point that I got a push notice from a girl in my life drawing class, Ashley. It's important to note that I saw the notice, but ignored checking my facebook for her wall post. Instead, Grandma and I spent half an hour at Wal-Mart. The only purchase of importance was pesto.
After this, we cruised home. I was nervous about collating and editing all of the papers that the other members of the group would be sending me. It was terrible, I got a big pimple in the middle of my forehead. It's pretty much gone now, but I was pissed yesterday.
Also, my phone was almost dead. I had taken too many calls and texts from people in my poly sci class. It had croaked out it's "Below 20%, Please Charge!" warning. So I plugged it in and sat for a moment to read my messages. It was then that I checked my wall.
"Hey, so if you get here in like an hour david sedaris is still sighning books..."
I looked at the time: 39 minutes ago.
After that, it was like 24. I stopped with the groceries and undressing and politely asked my grandmother to borrow her car. She said it was fine, so I grabbed the one Sedaris book I actually own a copy of: Dress Your Kids In Corduroy and Denim. This, incidentally, was the first book of his I had ever read, ever. It was the actual copy I bought at the Lakeside library when I was 15 or 16. It was my first instance of trying to walk and read; as I read most of it on the walk home from Lindo Lake Park. Past the dirty 7-11, where Joel Wheeler got in a fight in high school. Over the bridge, the underside of which was covered in swastikas. Passed the Circle-K where my mom first worked when we moved to San Diego, before she got the shwanky accounting job that would become my own. All the way back to the house I grew up in (mostly). By the time I reached my bedroom, on the third floor of our pink house in the Navy housing complex, I done.
I made it to the bookstore, immediately thinking it was closed and that I was too late. I started to feel that bitter sort of crushing hopelessness, but I powered through anyways. The lights were on, but I didn't see anyone exept for the guy mopping the floor in the coffee shop.
I grabbed my book and made it to the door. It's an enlightening moment when everything sort of hangs on something so small as a door.
But I pushed it, and it opened.
After that, it's a blur of dead baby jokes and chatter. I had started to change, so I ended up wearing a hoody and nothing under it. This made me a little chagrined when Mr. Sedaris noticed my tattoo. I then unzipped it most of the way, a rather odd thing, I thought. I met up with Ashley and her sister and got to hitch a ride with them in line. We approached him altogether and he was amazingly congenial. It's really hard not to gush about it because he was just ludicrously nice. I told him a dead baby joke and he wrote "To Ed, I can't spell retardED without you". The girls told him there jokes and I remember he told us a dirty one in return, though I can't recall what it was. I feel kind of self conscious in retrospect about the interview, because I hadn't eaten since that hearty breakfast I mentioned early, so I was a little light headed and shaky. He signed their books, even going so far as to draw a dachsund with a baby attached to it on Kelly's. Then they told him it was their birthday, which it was on Tuesday, as her and her sister and some unknown sister are triplets. So, of course, he gave them presents. I'm not totally sure because I didn't look closely and I was talking incessantly (I WAS NERVOUS) but I'm pretty sure it was super sweet David Sedaris lotion and shampoo. He turned to me, looking up at me with these clear blue eyes.
"I don't want you to feel left out..." He said.
"Uh..." I replied.
He fished in his bag (SANTA) and pulled out a box. He opened the box and handed me a small white square card. It read:
Stop Talking
And I will cherish it forever.
Then he told this joke.
(To me) "If you woke up in the woods with grass stains on your knees and a used condom hanging out of your asshole, would you tell anyone?"
(Me) "Uh...Yes? NO! No, I mean, No..."
(Him) "Want to go camping?"
Vulgar, I know, but an appropriate ending to an altogether crazy day/ fall down strange night.
I met him on a crazed sort of whim, jumping in my grandmother's car and racing to the bookstore signing.
Previous to meeting the legendary humorist, before I ever got to the wall post directing me to the Changing Hands Bookstore (which I had never set foot in before tonight), I was having a weird day.
It started off pretty normal. I got up and ate the usual breakfast: one potatoe (sliced then fried); two eggs (scrambled!), turkey slices, two cuties, multivitamin, and lemonade. Breakfast of champions. I read about it earlier this semester when I was obsessed with bicycling. I guess I'm still obsessed, because I'm absolutely adamant about eating it. I need the protein and carbs and fruit for my daily twelve miles on the bike. Not bad, I suppose.
Anywho, I ates me some grub and headed to school. I had read on twitter that Atomic Comics was having some sort of ridiculous sale for some sort of ridiculous reason that I couldn't be bothered to remember.I'm a gist man, mostly, and I tend to skim things. Unless it's Simon Pegg's tweets, which I read religiously (I bought his comic book app for the iphone).
In any case, I lucked out, as it was half off everything. Super luck! The only sort of foreshadowing that can be seen here, was that I meant to eat lunch, but was so pleased with my purchases I never got around to it. But I ate a big breakfast, so I figured I was good.
I got some real winners which I could write about here, but I think I'll wait until I've finished all of them and then blog my reviews on my loot. Needless to say, Grant Morrison kills Batman.
So after my first round of providence, I headed to school to hang out. I ran into some friends from my political science class and we had a rousing conversation about about this nutter woman in our class. She believes in aliens, 2012, and the absolute validity of the Left. She is a joy in the classroom. We are pretty sure she has hepatitis. We aren't sure, but we think it's probably all of them.
I left them to their business and drank some CRANAPPLERASPBERRY, which was delicious.
Pretty standard, you say? Ed, quit boring us with your stupid day, you say?
It's all pertinent! Sort of! Mostly the last stuff, but still...
Anywho, I went to my art class, to do art right? Not really, I was pretty much done with my two day sketch and altogether distracted by the texts and phone calls I was recieving. I had been getting them since poly sci on tuesday and they were all in regards to this big 15 page paper that nine different people were writing. Some of these people, who are very nice regardless, were super clueless and called me constantly. One of them, I actually outlined his entire paper to him in detail, three times in one particular conversation! In any case, I couldn't stop the texts crying out for help, so I talked to my Croatian life drawing teacher, Edna, and she let me out early.
This is really were we start our descent.
I left class and biked 10 miles down to my aunt's house to help my grandmother babysit my cousins. This ride was kind of crazy because I was pushing myself for time. I think it took me like 30 minutes? When I got there, I was drenched in sweat and my legs felt like they'd wibble wobble away. But I hung tight and put the rugrats to bed! Hazzah.
It's at this point that I got a push notice from a girl in my life drawing class, Ashley. It's important to note that I saw the notice, but ignored checking my facebook for her wall post. Instead, Grandma and I spent half an hour at Wal-Mart. The only purchase of importance was pesto.
After this, we cruised home. I was nervous about collating and editing all of the papers that the other members of the group would be sending me. It was terrible, I got a big pimple in the middle of my forehead. It's pretty much gone now, but I was pissed yesterday.
Also, my phone was almost dead. I had taken too many calls and texts from people in my poly sci class. It had croaked out it's "Below 20%, Please Charge!" warning. So I plugged it in and sat for a moment to read my messages. It was then that I checked my wall.
"Hey, so if you get here in like an hour david sedaris is still sighning books..."
I looked at the time: 39 minutes ago.
After that, it was like 24. I stopped with the groceries and undressing and politely asked my grandmother to borrow her car. She said it was fine, so I grabbed the one Sedaris book I actually own a copy of: Dress Your Kids In Corduroy and Denim. This, incidentally, was the first book of his I had ever read, ever. It was the actual copy I bought at the Lakeside library when I was 15 or 16. It was my first instance of trying to walk and read; as I read most of it on the walk home from Lindo Lake Park. Past the dirty 7-11, where Joel Wheeler got in a fight in high school. Over the bridge, the underside of which was covered in swastikas. Passed the Circle-K where my mom first worked when we moved to San Diego, before she got the shwanky accounting job that would become my own. All the way back to the house I grew up in (mostly). By the time I reached my bedroom, on the third floor of our pink house in the Navy housing complex, I done.
I made it to the bookstore, immediately thinking it was closed and that I was too late. I started to feel that bitter sort of crushing hopelessness, but I powered through anyways. The lights were on, but I didn't see anyone exept for the guy mopping the floor in the coffee shop.
I grabbed my book and made it to the door. It's an enlightening moment when everything sort of hangs on something so small as a door.
But I pushed it, and it opened.
After that, it's a blur of dead baby jokes and chatter. I had started to change, so I ended up wearing a hoody and nothing under it. This made me a little chagrined when Mr. Sedaris noticed my tattoo. I then unzipped it most of the way, a rather odd thing, I thought. I met up with Ashley and her sister and got to hitch a ride with them in line. We approached him altogether and he was amazingly congenial. It's really hard not to gush about it because he was just ludicrously nice. I told him a dead baby joke and he wrote "To Ed, I can't spell retardED without you". The girls told him there jokes and I remember he told us a dirty one in return, though I can't recall what it was. I feel kind of self conscious in retrospect about the interview, because I hadn't eaten since that hearty breakfast I mentioned early, so I was a little light headed and shaky. He signed their books, even going so far as to draw a dachsund with a baby attached to it on Kelly's. Then they told him it was their birthday, which it was on Tuesday, as her and her sister and some unknown sister are triplets. So, of course, he gave them presents. I'm not totally sure because I didn't look closely and I was talking incessantly (I WAS NERVOUS) but I'm pretty sure it was super sweet David Sedaris lotion and shampoo. He turned to me, looking up at me with these clear blue eyes.
"I don't want you to feel left out..." He said.
"Uh..." I replied.
He fished in his bag (SANTA) and pulled out a box. He opened the box and handed me a small white square card. It read:
Stop Talking
And I will cherish it forever.
Then he told this joke.
(To me) "If you woke up in the woods with grass stains on your knees and a used condom hanging out of your asshole, would you tell anyone?"
(Me) "Uh...Yes? NO! No, I mean, No..."
(Him) "Want to go camping?"
Vulgar, I know, but an appropriate ending to an altogether crazy day/ fall down strange night.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Pittman Place Pt 2
The house stood quiet and still. Some door stood open, while others were closed. The shades were pulled in the upstairs sitting room and in the attic, one large round window allowed light to flood in.
On the second floor, a chair sat on its side. It had been turned over in a great rush a number of years ago and never righted again. Indeed, the house itself had fallen ill, never to be righted.
If such a form can be humanized, one can think of the house as a head.
The house watches, as eyes are wont to do, and percieves the world as it rushes by at a distance. It sees the children as they shuffle by and the cars as they speed through the neighborhood late at night.
The house has stood for many, many years, ever watching. It has spent too long watching the children shuffle and the cars race. It has seen rain and snow and clouds of dust and smoke. It has heard the screams of the women as their drunken husbands smash the plates and their feelings. It has seen children, abominatable spunk borne of their parents sleazy indescretions, hitting and hurting and killing the love and innocence inside others. The teens who fondle in cars, inhibitions and propriety vomited out of their innocuous love making. The house watches, the house sees. It sees these men and women, to sides of a coin. But this money is blood and shit and dirt. These men and women are killers and thieves and prostitutes. They think they are safe and unseen. They think their dark and selfish deeds are solemn secrets easily forgotten.
But the house never forgets. It always watches, but never, ever, forgets.
These goblins call it the Pittman Place. It knows this name, but it's known others before. All the different words and tongues and names amount to the same thing: the Bad Place.
But heads have mouths, do they not?
One can carry a metaphor too far, can suggest silly things like noses and ears and freckles, when the perceptions of a building are far different from our own. So before getting carried away, let me equate one final detail.
Even if the house lacks physical eyes, a nose, a mouth, ears, teeth, a tongue, or a brain; it yet still sees; yet still hears; yet still thinks; and is yet still hungry.
Jakob stood in the foyer. Moses watched him looking around. Moses was grinning hideously, but Jakob was too enthralled to notice.
“Quick, Jake! We gotta run if we're gonna get out.”
Jakob nodded and they started down the first hallway, Moses leading. They moved quickly, but Jakob saw the kitchen as they passed it. It looked dusty and empty, the appliances old and untouched. They raced passed a bathroom, a sad thing to see in an empty house. Jakob could only wonder for a moment why it seemed so before they came to stairs.
Moses began to stomp up as quick as a cat. Jakob was surprised. He realized then that he had never seen Moses run before. Jakob looked up at Moses from the bottom of the stairwell. He moves so fast, he thought.
“Are we really going up?” Jakob asked.
“Shh! We have to be quick!” Moses hissed.
Jakob looked for a moment back down the hallway, but started up once he heard Moses continue. He didn't want to be left alone. Not here, he thought, not now. He stopped for a moment at a window, it looked less bright for some reason. Jakob looked at the sky, masked behind clouds of dirt on the window pane.
Still Moses' feet continued.
Jakob hurried up the stairs after him. He rushed up to the second floor. When he crested the steps, he came to a long hallway with doorways on either side. Every door was closed. Moses? Jakob wondered.
He heard footsteps above him. Thuds traced the ceiling above him. His heart pounded and he turned to the next flight. His feet dashed up each step, so fast he feared they would catch at any moment and send him tumbling back down. He thought of his nightmares, but instead of running from some entity, he was chasing Moses farther inside the house.
His feet danced up the last few steps. There was no window in this stairwell and when he arrived at the third floor, it seemed very dark indeed. He stood once more on the top floor and listened the thud as his blood pushed itself though his ears. His face was hot and he was shaking, but he was trying to stay calm. Oh where's Moses, why did he run off and leave me? Jakob thought.
He stepped forward and his eyes adjusted slightly to the dark. He could see something dim at the end of the hallway, it flickered slightly.
“Moses...” Jakob meant to speak louder, but his voice came out hushed, barely moving passed his lips. The light flickered slightly. Jakob began to walk towards the flickering, and as he came closer, he saw it came from an open doorway. This comforted him, as all of the other doors were closed. Moses must be in there trying to scare me, Jakob thought. He told me stories about it and now he's gonna try and sneak up and scare me. Jakob tightened up at that, but he also smiled. Any minute now, he thought; waiting, hoping, for Moses to jump out so he could shout at him and stomp downstairs and go home.
He got closer to the door. That jerk, he thought. His shoes seemed to whisper in the carpet and he put his hand out. He grinned for a moment and shoved the door open. In his mind's eye, he saw Moses falling over and shouting at Jakob for outwitting him.
But he heard no shout. The door moved quietly open.
The candlelight leapt back from the open doorway and crowded around a desk and a figure. The figure was big, much to large to be Moses. Jakob was afraid, but not of ghosts or nightmare tiger. This looked like an adult, which meant he was probably in trouble. He felt a flourishing of hope and tried to step back quietly.
“Come in.”
The voice was deep and commanding, it riveted Jakob to his spot.
“Come in.” The voice repeated, louder this time.
Jakob stepped closer. He had a healthy enough interest in television to know that not every adult was nice to a child and that some of them were dangerous. These were ambiguously labeled: 'strangers'; but Jakob didn't think the man could harm him. He might be slower than Moses, but he could still out run any grown up. The light moved and the figure turned around.
The man was old, much much older than Jakob had expected. The face was lined and sunken. Jakob relaxed a little unconsciously, his body recognizing that this shell of a man was no threat. The skeletal face came more into view as the old man held the candle up to see who had come into the room. The eyes didn't glitter or shine, but sat glassy and dead in their sockets.
“Who are you?” The man said. His voice was so deep it seemed to shake the walls around them. It hit Jakob in the face like a cannon. He withered where he stood, sure of his guilt. The skeleton man waited.
“My name is Jakob.”
“It's not.”
Jakob wrinkled his brow. He looked at the old man. The man licked his lips. Jakob recoiled as the tongue darted out. The man's face had so many lines, so many harsh cracks. How old do you have to be, Jakob thought; to look like jerky?
“Where are you from, boy?”
“Just next door, I really should be getting home...”
Jakob waited, hoping the man would not acknowledge his guilt for entering a house without being first invited in. But I was invited! He thought. He suddenly thought of Moses. He looked around the room, but it was empty except for himself and the old man. The old man continued to look at him, he licked his lips once more.
“The boy next door, liar who won't tell me his name. Tell me boy, do you like tigers?”
“W-what?”
Jakob looked back at the old man. He felt a tremor of shock at the name the man had called him. He watched as the man carefully lifted himself from the chair, propping himself up with one hand. He turned his back to Jakob and set something on the desk. He looked over his shoulder at Jakob.
“Tigers, boy, look here!”
The man pushed himself away from the desk, leaving the candle. He stepped back, looking at Jakob. Jakob was bewildered. He looked at the man, then at the table. The candlelight shone brightly on the cover of a book the man had set down. The cover seemed a dazzling green. Jakob stepped forward towards the table to look at it. He watched the old man carefully as he moved closer. The man backed away to a distance that assured Jakob. Plenty of room, he thought. His hand touched the desk and he looked down. Oh wow, he thought.
The book was a bright jade that seemed to sparkle. Written in gold across the top was a title Jakob immediately recognized. The Rose Garden. He looked over at the man, who simply nodded. Jakob looked back at the book. He was amazed at the cover, the little designs worked into the title. He turned the cover over and almost gasped.
The Rose Garden
Jakob Merrill
His hand touched the paper. It caressed the page slowly before picking it up and flipping to the next. It was his words, everyone of them. He moved through the first parts, then stopped.
Chapter 2
He had never written a second chapter, he had only ever done a short story. He stared at the words and began to read.
The old man watched the boy. Silly stupid thing, already so engrossed. The man walked quietly to the door at the other end of the room. He closed it quietly. Little liar boy. So small and stupid. Just like his father and his mother before him and then inbred bastards that rubbed themselves together to make them. The boy would do, it thought. It was sick at the thought of taking in something like him, but its craving was too malicious for its deep prejudices.
It walked behind Jakob as he read. It shook its head and let the mouth fall slack. The mouth drooped, hanging open. The old man pulled at the drooping mouth, making it longer. It worked it faster and farther until the teeth touched the floor. It pressed them down into the carpet, driving the teeth in like nails. The old man nodded and the mouth shook like a curtain.
Jakob continued to read. Every sentence and phrase seemed to have come from his own head. It was a joy to see it on the page, printed. The joy of his thoughts and ideas put down so beautifully was a rush of ecstasy.
The old man looked at the boy and his legs began to extend. The teeth in the floor began to sprout up through the carpet. The now taller old man walked to one side of the room, its jaw trailing behind him. When it reached the wall, it pressed the side of the mouth into it, watching it morph into the wall as the floor had done. It looked at the boy for a moment. The boy stared into the pages, lost in the wonders contained there within. It looked at the book. The page was blank. It looked back at the boy and shook its head. Teeth followed the old man to the wall, hedging the boy off from the closed door. The teeth glistened and the carpet became damp with ectoplasmic saliva. The old began to stroll towards the other side of the room. It tried not to look at the boy, focusing on finishing its business so it could eat. The old man stopped.
Jakob blinked for a moment. He looked at the page. The words shook before him.
The old man looked around, its huge mouth shaking. Its arms stretched out longer, the fingers a foot long and sharpened like spears. The candle light dimmed. The old man, barely manlike any longer, looked back at Jakob, its hands extending out to grab him if he should turn.
The candle dimmed further and Jakob looked over at it.
“Sorry, buddy. Some other time.” Moses said.
The candle flared, illuminating Moses' face, a hideous smile draw across it. Jakob started to scream. Moses' face hung in the air, his body was elsewhere. The face seemed huge lacking the rest of the form, and a smile was drawn like a slash across it. A hand appeared, small like Jake's own, coming to rest on the table. The fingers curled around the candlestick.
Jakob heard a roar come from behind him. It seemed to come from the walls. It rang out from every where at once. Jakob's mind went numb with the noise. He looked at Moses', still floating before him. The grin was still there, but it seemed hot to him. Not that the face itself was hot, but that there was a hotness around the face giving it a mirage effect. Pain blossomed in his hand. He looked down at the book, his book, and saw the candle resting against the pages. The flame spread across the book. Jakob recoiled from it, cradling his hand. His pinkie was singed, but not badly.
The roaring continued. Jakob turned to look for the old man. Jakob actually screamed this time. The mouth ran along half the floor and then old man stood more than nine feet tall, towering over him. It had long spindly fingers as thick as broom handles, aiming at his face.
Jakob heard his own screaming as it echoed in his ears and it seemed to break his trance. He stepped quickly to his left as the fingers ran into the wall. They didn't press smoothly into them, but instead tore through the drywall and wood, leaving ragged holes.
I need his blood, it thought, I need it for the flames! I need it! I need it!
It roared again and Jakob dove for the far side of the room. Something moved by him which he couldn't see. He rolled over and looked up. The monster was trying to twist itself around to him. Some of it's fingers had broken off when it pulled them from the wall. Jakob saw that they were splintered like tree branches. Jakob saw what had rushed by.
In trying to turn itself, to pursue Jakob around the room, the monster had put its hand against the door. It pushed with this hand, the mouth it had sewn down so carefully tearing jaggedly from one side to the other.
But it did not tear entirely, and it was this that saved Jakob. The old man monster turned back to pry at the cheek stuck fast in the wall, taking its hand from the door. While it turned about to free itself, it saw the bonfire. The book had lit the desk which now sent fire shooting up the wall. It saw this and cried out shrilly. It threw itself toward the desk, the wall-implanted cheek tearing free, pulling part of the wall with it. It fell upon the desk, to smother it perhaps; instead, it send fire out in a wave to the corners of the room.
These sparks caught the carpet and the room began to fill with smoke.
Jakob rushed to the door, ignoring whatever carnage might be in the void behind him. He turned the handle, but the door wouldn't open. It had been driven into the jam by what ever it was and now it was stuck fast. He pulled and pulled, but it wouldn't budge.
“You owe me.”
Jakob looked around for a moment, his eyes starting to tear up from the smoke. He coughed and put his hand to the knob. He almost fell backwards onto the rows of teeth as the door swung inwards. Instead, he clung to the doorknob and pushed himself out into the hall.
He heard a another scream and a crash. Fresh heat buffeted the back of his neck and sparks flew around him. In his mind's eye, he saw the beast crashing into the door frame, blazing like a torch. He could not turn to face, but instead, Jakob fled down the hallway and the stairs.
There was a great crash as he reached the second floor as the beast sank through the floor bringing fresh flame to the ceiling. It looked at Jakob, whatever face it might have been lost in the fire storm. Jakob saw no eyes or ears, but new that it saw him. He saw something open, something like the ruin of a mouth.
“COME BACK BOY!” It bellowed.
Jakob turned his heels and put his foot to the last flight of stairs down. Smoke chased him and clouded everything. The window he had passed before was black, no light coming through. More and more heat swirled around him, even as he ran down the steps.
When he reached the bottom, he saw the bump as the beast pushed it's way through the second floor into the first. A hand groped, raking the walls with fire. Everything seemed very bright now. Jakob turned and flames tracing down from the ceiling. He looked away quickly and the window exploded outward. This frightened Jakob so much, he jumped forward. The flaming fingers swung quickly towards him and he fell to the ground to avoid them. All be one missed him, but this one struck him in the temple and sent him reeling. He felt more and more heat as the blood ran down his cheek.
He looked up just as the monster's head erupted forth, pushing a light fixture out of the way. It fell and shattered on the floor. Jakob looked at, then past it to the door. He looked back up as what once was the old man's eyes, just blank burning sockets now, stared down at him. He felt the house shake under him and the doors burst off their hinges. He started forward keeping to the wall. The hand came at him, quicker this time, but he threw himself out of the way. He land just in front of the door. The house rumbled all around him. Somewhere above him, he heard a bathroom mirror shatter. He put his hand on the door handle. It was warm, but not too hot for him to use. He turned the handle.
Nothing happened. He turned it again, pulling this time, and it came off in his hand. He stared at it for a moment, uncomprehending.
The house continued to shake. He heard rumbling and something thumped behind him. He looked over his shoulder. The monster had come all the way through this time. It stood, itself and the house, ablaze around it. He stared at Jakob and Jakob felt the utter contempt and hatred of the thing. Jakob's knees buckled and he leaned back against the door for support.
The thing opened what had been its mouth. It held it open and the mouth grew. Its hands stretched forth around the mouth. They reached out, growing sharper and longer, reaching for Jakob. Jakob slid down the door, away from the hands, but still the hands came. The mouth grew larger and larger, until...
“If you're in there get down!”
Suddenly the door shook in its frame. There was a crash and splinters flew everywhere. The door was pushed open, sending Jakob sprawling. Fresh air drafted in, cooling Jakob's hot face. The long hands stretched for Jakob as he lay there prone.
“What the hell!?” Someone cried.
Jakob felt someone grab his ankles and pull him out onto the porch. His shirt pulled up. Later, he would find small splinters stuck in his stomach. But as the cool outside air wafted gently over him, he didn't care about splinters or about the rose bushes that seemed to reach for him weakly as he passed. Instead, he looked up and saw what might be considered the face of the house. He saw it contorted, fire shooting from its eyes, its brow furrowed with rage.
Jakob couldn't help but watch as the house burned to the ground.
On the second floor, a chair sat on its side. It had been turned over in a great rush a number of years ago and never righted again. Indeed, the house itself had fallen ill, never to be righted.
If such a form can be humanized, one can think of the house as a head.
The house watches, as eyes are wont to do, and percieves the world as it rushes by at a distance. It sees the children as they shuffle by and the cars as they speed through the neighborhood late at night.
The house has stood for many, many years, ever watching. It has spent too long watching the children shuffle and the cars race. It has seen rain and snow and clouds of dust and smoke. It has heard the screams of the women as their drunken husbands smash the plates and their feelings. It has seen children, abominatable spunk borne of their parents sleazy indescretions, hitting and hurting and killing the love and innocence inside others. The teens who fondle in cars, inhibitions and propriety vomited out of their innocuous love making. The house watches, the house sees. It sees these men and women, to sides of a coin. But this money is blood and shit and dirt. These men and women are killers and thieves and prostitutes. They think they are safe and unseen. They think their dark and selfish deeds are solemn secrets easily forgotten.
But the house never forgets. It always watches, but never, ever, forgets.
These goblins call it the Pittman Place. It knows this name, but it's known others before. All the different words and tongues and names amount to the same thing: the Bad Place.
But heads have mouths, do they not?
One can carry a metaphor too far, can suggest silly things like noses and ears and freckles, when the perceptions of a building are far different from our own. So before getting carried away, let me equate one final detail.
Even if the house lacks physical eyes, a nose, a mouth, ears, teeth, a tongue, or a brain; it yet still sees; yet still hears; yet still thinks; and is yet still hungry.
Jakob stood in the foyer. Moses watched him looking around. Moses was grinning hideously, but Jakob was too enthralled to notice.
“Quick, Jake! We gotta run if we're gonna get out.”
Jakob nodded and they started down the first hallway, Moses leading. They moved quickly, but Jakob saw the kitchen as they passed it. It looked dusty and empty, the appliances old and untouched. They raced passed a bathroom, a sad thing to see in an empty house. Jakob could only wonder for a moment why it seemed so before they came to stairs.
Moses began to stomp up as quick as a cat. Jakob was surprised. He realized then that he had never seen Moses run before. Jakob looked up at Moses from the bottom of the stairwell. He moves so fast, he thought.
“Are we really going up?” Jakob asked.
“Shh! We have to be quick!” Moses hissed.
Jakob looked for a moment back down the hallway, but started up once he heard Moses continue. He didn't want to be left alone. Not here, he thought, not now. He stopped for a moment at a window, it looked less bright for some reason. Jakob looked at the sky, masked behind clouds of dirt on the window pane.
Still Moses' feet continued.
Jakob hurried up the stairs after him. He rushed up to the second floor. When he crested the steps, he came to a long hallway with doorways on either side. Every door was closed. Moses? Jakob wondered.
He heard footsteps above him. Thuds traced the ceiling above him. His heart pounded and he turned to the next flight. His feet dashed up each step, so fast he feared they would catch at any moment and send him tumbling back down. He thought of his nightmares, but instead of running from some entity, he was chasing Moses farther inside the house.
His feet danced up the last few steps. There was no window in this stairwell and when he arrived at the third floor, it seemed very dark indeed. He stood once more on the top floor and listened the thud as his blood pushed itself though his ears. His face was hot and he was shaking, but he was trying to stay calm. Oh where's Moses, why did he run off and leave me? Jakob thought.
He stepped forward and his eyes adjusted slightly to the dark. He could see something dim at the end of the hallway, it flickered slightly.
“Moses...” Jakob meant to speak louder, but his voice came out hushed, barely moving passed his lips. The light flickered slightly. Jakob began to walk towards the flickering, and as he came closer, he saw it came from an open doorway. This comforted him, as all of the other doors were closed. Moses must be in there trying to scare me, Jakob thought. He told me stories about it and now he's gonna try and sneak up and scare me. Jakob tightened up at that, but he also smiled. Any minute now, he thought; waiting, hoping, for Moses to jump out so he could shout at him and stomp downstairs and go home.
He got closer to the door. That jerk, he thought. His shoes seemed to whisper in the carpet and he put his hand out. He grinned for a moment and shoved the door open. In his mind's eye, he saw Moses falling over and shouting at Jakob for outwitting him.
But he heard no shout. The door moved quietly open.
The candlelight leapt back from the open doorway and crowded around a desk and a figure. The figure was big, much to large to be Moses. Jakob was afraid, but not of ghosts or nightmare tiger. This looked like an adult, which meant he was probably in trouble. He felt a flourishing of hope and tried to step back quietly.
“Come in.”
The voice was deep and commanding, it riveted Jakob to his spot.
“Come in.” The voice repeated, louder this time.
Jakob stepped closer. He had a healthy enough interest in television to know that not every adult was nice to a child and that some of them were dangerous. These were ambiguously labeled: 'strangers'; but Jakob didn't think the man could harm him. He might be slower than Moses, but he could still out run any grown up. The light moved and the figure turned around.
The man was old, much much older than Jakob had expected. The face was lined and sunken. Jakob relaxed a little unconsciously, his body recognizing that this shell of a man was no threat. The skeletal face came more into view as the old man held the candle up to see who had come into the room. The eyes didn't glitter or shine, but sat glassy and dead in their sockets.
“Who are you?” The man said. His voice was so deep it seemed to shake the walls around them. It hit Jakob in the face like a cannon. He withered where he stood, sure of his guilt. The skeleton man waited.
“My name is Jakob.”
“It's not.”
Jakob wrinkled his brow. He looked at the old man. The man licked his lips. Jakob recoiled as the tongue darted out. The man's face had so many lines, so many harsh cracks. How old do you have to be, Jakob thought; to look like jerky?
“Where are you from, boy?”
“Just next door, I really should be getting home...”
Jakob waited, hoping the man would not acknowledge his guilt for entering a house without being first invited in. But I was invited! He thought. He suddenly thought of Moses. He looked around the room, but it was empty except for himself and the old man. The old man continued to look at him, he licked his lips once more.
“The boy next door, liar who won't tell me his name. Tell me boy, do you like tigers?”
“W-what?”
Jakob looked back at the old man. He felt a tremor of shock at the name the man had called him. He watched as the man carefully lifted himself from the chair, propping himself up with one hand. He turned his back to Jakob and set something on the desk. He looked over his shoulder at Jakob.
“Tigers, boy, look here!”
The man pushed himself away from the desk, leaving the candle. He stepped back, looking at Jakob. Jakob was bewildered. He looked at the man, then at the table. The candlelight shone brightly on the cover of a book the man had set down. The cover seemed a dazzling green. Jakob stepped forward towards the table to look at it. He watched the old man carefully as he moved closer. The man backed away to a distance that assured Jakob. Plenty of room, he thought. His hand touched the desk and he looked down. Oh wow, he thought.
The book was a bright jade that seemed to sparkle. Written in gold across the top was a title Jakob immediately recognized. The Rose Garden. He looked over at the man, who simply nodded. Jakob looked back at the book. He was amazed at the cover, the little designs worked into the title. He turned the cover over and almost gasped.
The Rose Garden
Jakob Merrill
His hand touched the paper. It caressed the page slowly before picking it up and flipping to the next. It was his words, everyone of them. He moved through the first parts, then stopped.
Chapter 2
He had never written a second chapter, he had only ever done a short story. He stared at the words and began to read.
The old man watched the boy. Silly stupid thing, already so engrossed. The man walked quietly to the door at the other end of the room. He closed it quietly. Little liar boy. So small and stupid. Just like his father and his mother before him and then inbred bastards that rubbed themselves together to make them. The boy would do, it thought. It was sick at the thought of taking in something like him, but its craving was too malicious for its deep prejudices.
It walked behind Jakob as he read. It shook its head and let the mouth fall slack. The mouth drooped, hanging open. The old man pulled at the drooping mouth, making it longer. It worked it faster and farther until the teeth touched the floor. It pressed them down into the carpet, driving the teeth in like nails. The old man nodded and the mouth shook like a curtain.
Jakob continued to read. Every sentence and phrase seemed to have come from his own head. It was a joy to see it on the page, printed. The joy of his thoughts and ideas put down so beautifully was a rush of ecstasy.
The old man looked at the boy and his legs began to extend. The teeth in the floor began to sprout up through the carpet. The now taller old man walked to one side of the room, its jaw trailing behind him. When it reached the wall, it pressed the side of the mouth into it, watching it morph into the wall as the floor had done. It looked at the boy for a moment. The boy stared into the pages, lost in the wonders contained there within. It looked at the book. The page was blank. It looked back at the boy and shook its head. Teeth followed the old man to the wall, hedging the boy off from the closed door. The teeth glistened and the carpet became damp with ectoplasmic saliva. The old began to stroll towards the other side of the room. It tried not to look at the boy, focusing on finishing its business so it could eat. The old man stopped.
Jakob blinked for a moment. He looked at the page. The words shook before him.
The old man looked around, its huge mouth shaking. Its arms stretched out longer, the fingers a foot long and sharpened like spears. The candle light dimmed. The old man, barely manlike any longer, looked back at Jakob, its hands extending out to grab him if he should turn.
The candle dimmed further and Jakob looked over at it.
“Sorry, buddy. Some other time.” Moses said.
The candle flared, illuminating Moses' face, a hideous smile draw across it. Jakob started to scream. Moses' face hung in the air, his body was elsewhere. The face seemed huge lacking the rest of the form, and a smile was drawn like a slash across it. A hand appeared, small like Jake's own, coming to rest on the table. The fingers curled around the candlestick.
Jakob heard a roar come from behind him. It seemed to come from the walls. It rang out from every where at once. Jakob's mind went numb with the noise. He looked at Moses', still floating before him. The grin was still there, but it seemed hot to him. Not that the face itself was hot, but that there was a hotness around the face giving it a mirage effect. Pain blossomed in his hand. He looked down at the book, his book, and saw the candle resting against the pages. The flame spread across the book. Jakob recoiled from it, cradling his hand. His pinkie was singed, but not badly.
The roaring continued. Jakob turned to look for the old man. Jakob actually screamed this time. The mouth ran along half the floor and then old man stood more than nine feet tall, towering over him. It had long spindly fingers as thick as broom handles, aiming at his face.
Jakob heard his own screaming as it echoed in his ears and it seemed to break his trance. He stepped quickly to his left as the fingers ran into the wall. They didn't press smoothly into them, but instead tore through the drywall and wood, leaving ragged holes.
I need his blood, it thought, I need it for the flames! I need it! I need it!
It roared again and Jakob dove for the far side of the room. Something moved by him which he couldn't see. He rolled over and looked up. The monster was trying to twist itself around to him. Some of it's fingers had broken off when it pulled them from the wall. Jakob saw that they were splintered like tree branches. Jakob saw what had rushed by.
In trying to turn itself, to pursue Jakob around the room, the monster had put its hand against the door. It pushed with this hand, the mouth it had sewn down so carefully tearing jaggedly from one side to the other.
But it did not tear entirely, and it was this that saved Jakob. The old man monster turned back to pry at the cheek stuck fast in the wall, taking its hand from the door. While it turned about to free itself, it saw the bonfire. The book had lit the desk which now sent fire shooting up the wall. It saw this and cried out shrilly. It threw itself toward the desk, the wall-implanted cheek tearing free, pulling part of the wall with it. It fell upon the desk, to smother it perhaps; instead, it send fire out in a wave to the corners of the room.
These sparks caught the carpet and the room began to fill with smoke.
Jakob rushed to the door, ignoring whatever carnage might be in the void behind him. He turned the handle, but the door wouldn't open. It had been driven into the jam by what ever it was and now it was stuck fast. He pulled and pulled, but it wouldn't budge.
“You owe me.”
Jakob looked around for a moment, his eyes starting to tear up from the smoke. He coughed and put his hand to the knob. He almost fell backwards onto the rows of teeth as the door swung inwards. Instead, he clung to the doorknob and pushed himself out into the hall.
He heard a another scream and a crash. Fresh heat buffeted the back of his neck and sparks flew around him. In his mind's eye, he saw the beast crashing into the door frame, blazing like a torch. He could not turn to face, but instead, Jakob fled down the hallway and the stairs.
There was a great crash as he reached the second floor as the beast sank through the floor bringing fresh flame to the ceiling. It looked at Jakob, whatever face it might have been lost in the fire storm. Jakob saw no eyes or ears, but new that it saw him. He saw something open, something like the ruin of a mouth.
“COME BACK BOY!” It bellowed.
Jakob turned his heels and put his foot to the last flight of stairs down. Smoke chased him and clouded everything. The window he had passed before was black, no light coming through. More and more heat swirled around him, even as he ran down the steps.
When he reached the bottom, he saw the bump as the beast pushed it's way through the second floor into the first. A hand groped, raking the walls with fire. Everything seemed very bright now. Jakob turned and flames tracing down from the ceiling. He looked away quickly and the window exploded outward. This frightened Jakob so much, he jumped forward. The flaming fingers swung quickly towards him and he fell to the ground to avoid them. All be one missed him, but this one struck him in the temple and sent him reeling. He felt more and more heat as the blood ran down his cheek.
He looked up just as the monster's head erupted forth, pushing a light fixture out of the way. It fell and shattered on the floor. Jakob looked at, then past it to the door. He looked back up as what once was the old man's eyes, just blank burning sockets now, stared down at him. He felt the house shake under him and the doors burst off their hinges. He started forward keeping to the wall. The hand came at him, quicker this time, but he threw himself out of the way. He land just in front of the door. The house rumbled all around him. Somewhere above him, he heard a bathroom mirror shatter. He put his hand on the door handle. It was warm, but not too hot for him to use. He turned the handle.
Nothing happened. He turned it again, pulling this time, and it came off in his hand. He stared at it for a moment, uncomprehending.
The house continued to shake. He heard rumbling and something thumped behind him. He looked over his shoulder. The monster had come all the way through this time. It stood, itself and the house, ablaze around it. He stared at Jakob and Jakob felt the utter contempt and hatred of the thing. Jakob's knees buckled and he leaned back against the door for support.
The thing opened what had been its mouth. It held it open and the mouth grew. Its hands stretched forth around the mouth. They reached out, growing sharper and longer, reaching for Jakob. Jakob slid down the door, away from the hands, but still the hands came. The mouth grew larger and larger, until...
“If you're in there get down!”
Suddenly the door shook in its frame. There was a crash and splinters flew everywhere. The door was pushed open, sending Jakob sprawling. Fresh air drafted in, cooling Jakob's hot face. The long hands stretched for Jakob as he lay there prone.
“What the hell!?” Someone cried.
Jakob felt someone grab his ankles and pull him out onto the porch. His shirt pulled up. Later, he would find small splinters stuck in his stomach. But as the cool outside air wafted gently over him, he didn't care about splinters or about the rose bushes that seemed to reach for him weakly as he passed. Instead, he looked up and saw what might be considered the face of the house. He saw it contorted, fire shooting from its eyes, its brow furrowed with rage.
Jakob couldn't help but watch as the house burned to the ground.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Pittman Place
The Pittman Place by Ed Chaney
Moses and Jakob passed the old Pittman place every day on the way to school. It was a tall, narrow building that seemed to loom out at them over the great overgrown rose bushes in front. These rose bush obscured windows on either side of a porch. They stood out from it, making the porch and front door more cave-like than welcoming. These bushes were so large, that the boys wondered how the mail man got through to slide the mail into the slot.
The building was tall too. It stood three stories tall and had a steep, pointed roof. At the topmost corner, where the two sides of the roof met, there was an old rooster weather vane; that swung this way and that, following the boys as they slouched passed the house.
They didn't ever look up into the windows, merely slid from under their gaze until they were well enough away. Only then would they look back, the sun obscuring the panes of glass so they could only see the sky reflected.
They were both very afraid of the house. Everyone in their grade was. Every now and then some new wise guy would get up and try and lobby his invincibility. This joker would beat his chest and tell the other boys, leaning over their hamburgers and french fries, about how he wasn't scared of nothing. Jakob would think of Moses.
Kids are always scared of something, and that thing was the Pittman place.
When Jakob had been younger, before Moses and his mom had moved in next door, Jakob had heard stories of the power of the Pittman place. In the third grade, he had been sitting at lunch, munching on a peanut butter and jelly and slurping his milk, a bunch of fifth graders had rushed passed him. They all piled in on the table next to his and began to talk rapidly in hushed voices.
“Tonights the night,” one said. He had a gleam in his eyes. Jakob was so small and the boys so intent on their plans, they didn't notice him listening.
But he watched them look around at each other, five in all he counted, each promising to meet up tonight. He wanted to ask them where it was they were so excited about going, but he didn't think the bigger kids would play him straight.
In the end, the boys got up and took off as fast as they had arrived.
When Jakob walked home that day, holding his older sister's hand, he glanced at the Pittman place. It seemed open, ready. It was waiting for something. Jakob shivered and squeezed his sister's hand.
“Ow! Jakob!” She said and let go.
He had a strange feeling then which he couldn't put into words. He was afraid and felt like something was tugging at him, that he was afloat in a current. He started to look over at the house. He felt the house pull at him and tried to grab her hand. She let him take it and he was relieved. He looked up at her to see if she had felt it too, but he couldn't see her eyes behind her sunglasses.
“I'm sorry,” he said.
“It's fine Jakob.” She replied and they walked on.
The next week at school, one of his classmates came in and started talking adamantly to the kids still hanging up their coats. They looked at him in alarm. Jakob tried to listen in, but the kid was too far away and the class was too noisy. The teacher started to call kids to their desks and Jakob forgot about it.
Later, on the playground, Jakob saw the same boy surrounded by a circle of people listening intently. Jakob remembered and ran over in that way that all little boys seem to. He joined the circle, listening to the story already in progress.
“He did not.” A boy with a backwards cap said.
“Did too!” The boy in the middle cried.
“No way. No one goes in the Pittman house. My uncle says that it 'condemned', which means the devil lives there, so..”
“WELL your uncle is wrong! My brother is best friends with Tommy Clifton and he says that all five of them went into the house.”
The boy with the cap shrugged and looked around.
“Your brother is a liar. My uncle works for the police department. He knows everything about everything, and he says that the devil lives in the Pittman house.”
All the kids shivered at that. One of the girls walked away, looking hopefully for a friend to play basketball with. Her leaving seemed to break the power of the circle. The boy with cap sauntered away and the kid in the middle looked dejectedly down at his sneakers. Jakob asked him what had happened to the boys. The boy looked up hopefully, but saw it was only a little kid.
“Aw c'mon, I don't want to give you nightmares, kid.”
“But I want to know.” Jakob replied.
The kid heard Jakob's voice tremble and looked up at the gray sky hanging overhead.
“What happened to them?” Jakob asked again.
“They went insane, kid. Totally bonkers. Looney tunes.”
Jakob and Moses stood in front of the house. They tried to look at the gate, not at each other. They hadn't planned this. That was the point. Jakob looked to Moses for strength. He thought of the nightmares. Moses gave him a quick, hopeful glance and pushed the gate open.
Jakob had nightmares just like the boy had said. He thought of the kids running from the house, but, in the dream, he was one of the kids. He was too small and they ran past him in great bounding steps. His feet seemed to run in mud and he scrambled to get off the front porch. He heard the front door swing open behind him and his terror overcame him. Sometimes, if he was lucky, he would get off the front porch, only to be caught in the rose bushes. The bushes would grow around him until he was trapped. He would push and push, kicking up dirt as the thorns tore his clothes.
If he stopped for long enough, he could hear something rustling behind him. It chased him and in the end, it was always the same. He would wake up in his bed. A deep feeling of fear would come over him and he would reach for his bedside lamp. Between his hand reaching and his fingers touching the switch, his imagination would fill all of the dark corners of the room. Finally, the light would come on and he would sit there panting, staring at his closet and dresser.
After a while, this nightmare began to happen so infrequently, he felt comfortably talking about it. He didn't tell his mom or sister, but instead, he used it for an assignment in class. It was in the fourth grade, he had to right a short story which they would then illustrate. He wrote “The Rose Garden”, in which a little boy becomes trapped by menacing thorns while a tiger roams around the garden looking for him. He watched his teacher read it and saw her mouth turn down slightly.
When he got home that night, his mother asked him about it. He told her he had heard stories about the Pittman place. She told him that it was nonsense and that it was nothing to be afraid of. He said he understood. He told her he had just wanted to write a good story. She gave him a big hug and put his story on the fridge.
The kids at school heard about it and some older kids started to tease him. They called him scaredy cat and said the house was out to get him. He shrank away from them on the playground and hunched over his food at lunch. The other kids thought it was strange, but most understood in their own way. They didn't chat with him about it or make friends, but he could sit with them
“Hey do you want to come over to my house?”
Jakob looked up from the sidewalk. He saw a boy sit down on the curb next to him. The boy had short hair and dark eyes.
“What's your name?”
“Moses. Like in the Bible.”
“There's a Moses in the Bible?”
“Course there is.”
Moses looked at his hands. Jakob watched him for a moment and went back to drawing lines with the orange side of his chalk. He heard Moses shuffle his feet.
“What's yours?”
“Jakob. With a 'k' not a 'c'”
Jakob and Moses sat for a while. Jakob let Moses use his chalk and they drew cartoons and space ships and explosions in the sidewalk in front of Jakob's house.
Moses went to a different school than Jakob, but they were both in the same direction so they started walking together to school. Jakob's sister was glad because she had a new job and needed to get to work all the time. Every time Jakob saw her now she was running for the door, her keys in her hand, a pop tart hanging from her mouth. She'd pull it out and kiss him on the cheek.
“Mmm, you taste like a pop tart!” She'd say. He laughed at that.
Moses hadn't lived next door for very long, but he seemed to know a lot of stories about the house. He told them to Jakob, who was eager to listen. They fueled his imagination somehow. They scared him and he had nightmares sometimes, but he wanted to be scared just the same.
“One time,” Moses said, “there were some crooks who decided to hideout in the Pittman place, way way back, a long time ago. Three guys. They hid there for a week. Finally, the cops tracked them down to the house, but when they broke down the door and went inside, all of them were dead.”
Jakob would walk on normally, but a shiver would dance down his back.
“What happened to them?” He would inevitably ask.
“They had killed themselves by eating the money. They ate until they choked.”
The house made them do it! Jakob would think, shivering all the more. Unconsciously, he would sometimes reach for Moses' hand, but he always knew it would be just as cold as his; and that's never any comfort.
Moses lead the way down the path to the porch. Jakob followed behind him, watching the boy's feet move across the ground. He looked up and saw the house for a moment. It was open. Even the rose bushes seemed to separate. It's getting ready to take a big bite, he thought.
“Who is Moses?” Jakob's mother asked him.
He had just brought home his grades. She looked at them and frowned. The paper sat lightly in her hand, but Jakob was shifting from foot to foot. Just sign it, he thought.
“He's a friend of mine, Mom.”
She looked over his grades and again and looked up. He hoped it would be to ask him for a pen. Instead, she leveled her eyes at his.
“You can do better than this, Jake. I know you can. You're a smart boy.”
Jakob wanted to groan. He wanted to stamp his foot. He didn't want to have to wait here for this. It's the other kids, he wanted to say. They won't leave me alone! I can't concentrate. But, instead of doing this, Jakob simply stood there. She watched him for a moment.
“Promise me you'll try harder, okay?”
Jakob breathed out. He watched his mom grab a pin and sign off on the report card. She finished with a flourish and handed it to him. He turned and ran to the door. He put the card in his backpack and grabbed the doorknob.
“I'm going to start checking your homework, young man! I wanna see straight A's!”
Jakob turned the knob and dashed outside.
They stood on the threshold. Jakob looked at the rusty handle and the clouded glass in the doorway. No boy's rock had made it this far to try to knock in the small panes, so they remained perfectly square in their fitted spaces. But they were clouded. Clean glass covered in who knows what.
The door was old and large, but solid. It didn't have any small splinters to catch on children's thumbs. Nor did it seem set strangely or off kilter in any way.
Jakob thought of the boys running out, leaving their minds behind. He thought of the men stuffing their faces with money. He could picture the tears running down their faces as their mouths opened wider and wider.
He didn't have to look at Moses to know that he was waiting. Waiting for Jakob to put his hand on the worn, rusted looking doorknob and turn.
“The house is haunted, I'm telling you!” One boy said to another.
They were sitting at lunch. They huddled together against the cold wind. Normally, Jakob was fine in his jacket. It kept him warm and made him feel safe. Safe enough to keep his distance from the chatter, but still sit with people.
But today he had forgotten it in the classroom. He meant to ask one of the teachers to let him back in to get it, but he was hungry and so he forgot it all the more in the rush of warm bodies going through the cafeteria lines. It wasn't until he sat down at the table that he began to feel cold. He shivered from it and looked to his right. There was a girl there that he knew, so quickly scooted closer to her. Immediately a boy sat down on his other side. He sighed with relief and began to warm up between the two.
“No way. My big brother says that it's just ugly and old and dirty.”
“Your brother doesn't know! He spends all his time with girls!”
“Does not! He just knows them is all...”
“Yeah, sure, whatever.”
“Doesn't make the Pittman house an haunted-er!”
Jakob perked up at that. He knew something about the house. He looked at the boys. They looked at him for a moment, then down at their food. One was grumbling. Jakob felt uncertain whether he should say anything. He was warm and close and secure; he didn't want to lose that by running into something and getting eaten up for it. He shivered.
The girl next to him looked over. She smiled at him and he smiled back at her.
“Aren't you cold out here?” She asked.
He nodded shyly.
“Here,” she said, “My mom packed me some cocoa to keep warm. You can have some, if you want. Just don't drink it all.”
Jakob smiled and took the thermos she handed him. He took a few sips. He got a taste of something warm and sweet. He took a gulp and handed it back.
“Thanks a lot.” He said. Hot chocolate ran down the inside of his chest and curled up like a kitten in his stomach. He nestled around the ball of heat, protecting it from the cold air; savoring it.
“No one knows nothing about it! Not your brother or his girlfriends!”
“Does too! Everyone knows!”
Jakob looked up quickly. One of the boys saw him and pointed.
“Even Jakob knows, right Jake?”
Jakob was stunned. The kids turned to him. The girl with the hot chocolate looked at him over the rim of her thermos.
“Yeah...”
One of the boys opened his mouth to say something, but decided not to. The table went quiet. The boys looked around, searching for another volunteer.
“I know stories about the place, I heard them from my friend Moses.”
The boys turned back to him. Everyone turned to look at him again. Go on, their eyes said.
“He...his parents, they've been around for a while. They know all about the house and what happened in it. He tells me about it sometimes. He tells me stories about what happens when people go in there...”
It all came out in a rush, but Jakob knew there was more. He knew all about it. He just couldn't figure out what to tell.
“Like what?”
“Well, he says that one time a family moved in there and they unpacked and then they went to bed. Well they had a little kid, right, and he couldn't sleep 'cause it was all new and so he got out of bed and went out into the hall...”
Every child sat waiting.
“And disappeared.”
There's a moment of hesitation. Jakob looks back over his shoulder. The rose bushes hem him in, blocking a view of the entire street. He looks for a soul, anyone. He wants an adult to run over and chide him, tell him that he should stop what he's doing and go home and work on his homework. Anyone.
He looks and looks.
Nothing moves. The leaves on the rose bushes, not pruned in innumerable seasons, twist around in the slight breeze. This breeze is like a gentle nudge, pointing him towards the door; pushing his hand down on the knob; trying to suggest he turn it just slightly. His hand quivers, the knob shaking ever so softly. This shake turns it for a moment.
There is a loud click.
“So you've been inside?”
“No...”
“You don't know then!”
“I do! I do know!”
The boy looks around like a lawyer on TV. This is all circumstantial, your honor.
“If you've never been inside, you don't know, and that's 'cause you're a scaredy cat. You guys are all scaredy cats. I came from the city and I know that there's no such thing as a haunted house.”
Jakob stared at the table. He was shivering, but not from the cold. He was angry. He was so angry that the boy wouldn't understand. The place is haunted, he thought.
The warmth seemed to evaporate from the group of children, and soon the bell rang, calling them back to their classes.
“Moses can I ask you something?”
“Sure, Jake.”
They were sitting on the sidewalk. Jake pulled his hat forward over his forehead, then back out of his eyes. He stared at the little rocks in the sidewalk cracks. He looked at the weird foam that was between some of them. It was brownish black and looked like fungus. He examined the tiniest cracks in the square he was sitting on and wondered what could have made them.
“Have you ever been inside the Pittman place?”
Moses looked up at him. Jakob couldn't see, but Moses looked at him strangely. His eyes shone slightly while he looked at Jakob questioningly. He looked back to the sidewalk.
“Oh yeah, sure I have. Loads of times. There's nothing to it, Jake.”
Jakob continued to fidget. He touched a little rock, attempting to roll it out of the crack without touching the strange fungus foam.
“Nothing ever happened?”
“Nah Jake, I just ducked in and out really quick. Nothing ever happened.”
“So it's safe?”
Jakob dropped the rock, distracted by the conversation. He returned to it trying to look uninterested.
“Well yeah, it's empty. And besides, I went in the daytime and nothing ever happens while the suns up.”
“So we could do it some Saturday or something? Maybe?”
Jakob sneaked a glance at Moses. Moses was turning over his shoelace absently. Jakob wondered at the talk. He had worried about it at school, after the boy had accused him, but if it was true that Moses had gotten in and out...
“Well the thing is, it's better not to plan it. I think the house is a lot like a cat, sorta. You can't plan something on it, you just have to sort of do it. Out of nowhere.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, see, 'cause that's what went wrong with everyone else! They plan it and some how the house knows. But if you surprise it, you can go in and out, no problem.
Both boys looked up at each other. They watched in tandem for a few moments. Jakob dropped his rock and put his hands on the ground.
The knob turned back and the door began to swing open. The breeze that had been there before, pushing him forward, was gone.
The boys stood and looked a moment longer, then started to walk. The rocks in the cracks left in their places like childhood toys discarded on a playground. The neighborhood was still and quiet, each scuff of their shoes echoing on and on into the suburban landscape.
Jakob was unsure of Moses' prognosis, but couldn't bear to speak his fears. He was muted by an inner belief that speaking them would alert the house and bring upon them all sorts of misfortune.
They walked to the edge of Jakob's yard, Jakob carefully noting the seam which split his house from the Pittman place. He always noticed it. It was as if the lines you see on maps were actually there, and this one in particular separated the real from the surreal. Regular life from its horrible antithesis.
The door swung open. Moses went in without a look back. Jakob felt the wind like a gentle hand on his back. He stared at this new seam which marked a new sort of separation.
They walked to the edge of Jakob's house and met the fence, and later the gate.
This seam was not a division of abstract concepts or of metaphysical quandries. These seam represented something raw and strong within Jakob and as he crossed it...
Moses touched the gate and looked to Jakob. Just next door, so quick, so easy.
He felt the crossing much more powerfully than the walk from his house. He had moved not from real to unreal or belief to disbelief, but from safety...
Just next door.
“Do you want to come over to my house?”
To danger.
The door closed.
Moses and Jakob passed the old Pittman place every day on the way to school. It was a tall, narrow building that seemed to loom out at them over the great overgrown rose bushes in front. These rose bush obscured windows on either side of a porch. They stood out from it, making the porch and front door more cave-like than welcoming. These bushes were so large, that the boys wondered how the mail man got through to slide the mail into the slot.
The building was tall too. It stood three stories tall and had a steep, pointed roof. At the topmost corner, where the two sides of the roof met, there was an old rooster weather vane; that swung this way and that, following the boys as they slouched passed the house.
They didn't ever look up into the windows, merely slid from under their gaze until they were well enough away. Only then would they look back, the sun obscuring the panes of glass so they could only see the sky reflected.
They were both very afraid of the house. Everyone in their grade was. Every now and then some new wise guy would get up and try and lobby his invincibility. This joker would beat his chest and tell the other boys, leaning over their hamburgers and french fries, about how he wasn't scared of nothing. Jakob would think of Moses.
Kids are always scared of something, and that thing was the Pittman place.
When Jakob had been younger, before Moses and his mom had moved in next door, Jakob had heard stories of the power of the Pittman place. In the third grade, he had been sitting at lunch, munching on a peanut butter and jelly and slurping his milk, a bunch of fifth graders had rushed passed him. They all piled in on the table next to his and began to talk rapidly in hushed voices.
“Tonights the night,” one said. He had a gleam in his eyes. Jakob was so small and the boys so intent on their plans, they didn't notice him listening.
But he watched them look around at each other, five in all he counted, each promising to meet up tonight. He wanted to ask them where it was they were so excited about going, but he didn't think the bigger kids would play him straight.
In the end, the boys got up and took off as fast as they had arrived.
When Jakob walked home that day, holding his older sister's hand, he glanced at the Pittman place. It seemed open, ready. It was waiting for something. Jakob shivered and squeezed his sister's hand.
“Ow! Jakob!” She said and let go.
He had a strange feeling then which he couldn't put into words. He was afraid and felt like something was tugging at him, that he was afloat in a current. He started to look over at the house. He felt the house pull at him and tried to grab her hand. She let him take it and he was relieved. He looked up at her to see if she had felt it too, but he couldn't see her eyes behind her sunglasses.
“I'm sorry,” he said.
“It's fine Jakob.” She replied and they walked on.
The next week at school, one of his classmates came in and started talking adamantly to the kids still hanging up their coats. They looked at him in alarm. Jakob tried to listen in, but the kid was too far away and the class was too noisy. The teacher started to call kids to their desks and Jakob forgot about it.
Later, on the playground, Jakob saw the same boy surrounded by a circle of people listening intently. Jakob remembered and ran over in that way that all little boys seem to. He joined the circle, listening to the story already in progress.
“He did not.” A boy with a backwards cap said.
“Did too!” The boy in the middle cried.
“No way. No one goes in the Pittman house. My uncle says that it 'condemned', which means the devil lives there, so..”
“WELL your uncle is wrong! My brother is best friends with Tommy Clifton and he says that all five of them went into the house.”
The boy with the cap shrugged and looked around.
“Your brother is a liar. My uncle works for the police department. He knows everything about everything, and he says that the devil lives in the Pittman house.”
All the kids shivered at that. One of the girls walked away, looking hopefully for a friend to play basketball with. Her leaving seemed to break the power of the circle. The boy with cap sauntered away and the kid in the middle looked dejectedly down at his sneakers. Jakob asked him what had happened to the boys. The boy looked up hopefully, but saw it was only a little kid.
“Aw c'mon, I don't want to give you nightmares, kid.”
“But I want to know.” Jakob replied.
The kid heard Jakob's voice tremble and looked up at the gray sky hanging overhead.
“What happened to them?” Jakob asked again.
“They went insane, kid. Totally bonkers. Looney tunes.”
Jakob and Moses stood in front of the house. They tried to look at the gate, not at each other. They hadn't planned this. That was the point. Jakob looked to Moses for strength. He thought of the nightmares. Moses gave him a quick, hopeful glance and pushed the gate open.
Jakob had nightmares just like the boy had said. He thought of the kids running from the house, but, in the dream, he was one of the kids. He was too small and they ran past him in great bounding steps. His feet seemed to run in mud and he scrambled to get off the front porch. He heard the front door swing open behind him and his terror overcame him. Sometimes, if he was lucky, he would get off the front porch, only to be caught in the rose bushes. The bushes would grow around him until he was trapped. He would push and push, kicking up dirt as the thorns tore his clothes.
If he stopped for long enough, he could hear something rustling behind him. It chased him and in the end, it was always the same. He would wake up in his bed. A deep feeling of fear would come over him and he would reach for his bedside lamp. Between his hand reaching and his fingers touching the switch, his imagination would fill all of the dark corners of the room. Finally, the light would come on and he would sit there panting, staring at his closet and dresser.
After a while, this nightmare began to happen so infrequently, he felt comfortably talking about it. He didn't tell his mom or sister, but instead, he used it for an assignment in class. It was in the fourth grade, he had to right a short story which they would then illustrate. He wrote “The Rose Garden”, in which a little boy becomes trapped by menacing thorns while a tiger roams around the garden looking for him. He watched his teacher read it and saw her mouth turn down slightly.
When he got home that night, his mother asked him about it. He told her he had heard stories about the Pittman place. She told him that it was nonsense and that it was nothing to be afraid of. He said he understood. He told her he had just wanted to write a good story. She gave him a big hug and put his story on the fridge.
The kids at school heard about it and some older kids started to tease him. They called him scaredy cat and said the house was out to get him. He shrank away from them on the playground and hunched over his food at lunch. The other kids thought it was strange, but most understood in their own way. They didn't chat with him about it or make friends, but he could sit with them
“Hey do you want to come over to my house?”
Jakob looked up from the sidewalk. He saw a boy sit down on the curb next to him. The boy had short hair and dark eyes.
“What's your name?”
“Moses. Like in the Bible.”
“There's a Moses in the Bible?”
“Course there is.”
Moses looked at his hands. Jakob watched him for a moment and went back to drawing lines with the orange side of his chalk. He heard Moses shuffle his feet.
“What's yours?”
“Jakob. With a 'k' not a 'c'”
Jakob and Moses sat for a while. Jakob let Moses use his chalk and they drew cartoons and space ships and explosions in the sidewalk in front of Jakob's house.
Moses went to a different school than Jakob, but they were both in the same direction so they started walking together to school. Jakob's sister was glad because she had a new job and needed to get to work all the time. Every time Jakob saw her now she was running for the door, her keys in her hand, a pop tart hanging from her mouth. She'd pull it out and kiss him on the cheek.
“Mmm, you taste like a pop tart!” She'd say. He laughed at that.
Moses hadn't lived next door for very long, but he seemed to know a lot of stories about the house. He told them to Jakob, who was eager to listen. They fueled his imagination somehow. They scared him and he had nightmares sometimes, but he wanted to be scared just the same.
“One time,” Moses said, “there were some crooks who decided to hideout in the Pittman place, way way back, a long time ago. Three guys. They hid there for a week. Finally, the cops tracked them down to the house, but when they broke down the door and went inside, all of them were dead.”
Jakob would walk on normally, but a shiver would dance down his back.
“What happened to them?” He would inevitably ask.
“They had killed themselves by eating the money. They ate until they choked.”
The house made them do it! Jakob would think, shivering all the more. Unconsciously, he would sometimes reach for Moses' hand, but he always knew it would be just as cold as his; and that's never any comfort.
Moses lead the way down the path to the porch. Jakob followed behind him, watching the boy's feet move across the ground. He looked up and saw the house for a moment. It was open. Even the rose bushes seemed to separate. It's getting ready to take a big bite, he thought.
“Who is Moses?” Jakob's mother asked him.
He had just brought home his grades. She looked at them and frowned. The paper sat lightly in her hand, but Jakob was shifting from foot to foot. Just sign it, he thought.
“He's a friend of mine, Mom.”
She looked over his grades and again and looked up. He hoped it would be to ask him for a pen. Instead, she leveled her eyes at his.
“You can do better than this, Jake. I know you can. You're a smart boy.”
Jakob wanted to groan. He wanted to stamp his foot. He didn't want to have to wait here for this. It's the other kids, he wanted to say. They won't leave me alone! I can't concentrate. But, instead of doing this, Jakob simply stood there. She watched him for a moment.
“Promise me you'll try harder, okay?”
Jakob breathed out. He watched his mom grab a pin and sign off on the report card. She finished with a flourish and handed it to him. He turned and ran to the door. He put the card in his backpack and grabbed the doorknob.
“I'm going to start checking your homework, young man! I wanna see straight A's!”
Jakob turned the knob and dashed outside.
They stood on the threshold. Jakob looked at the rusty handle and the clouded glass in the doorway. No boy's rock had made it this far to try to knock in the small panes, so they remained perfectly square in their fitted spaces. But they were clouded. Clean glass covered in who knows what.
The door was old and large, but solid. It didn't have any small splinters to catch on children's thumbs. Nor did it seem set strangely or off kilter in any way.
Jakob thought of the boys running out, leaving their minds behind. He thought of the men stuffing their faces with money. He could picture the tears running down their faces as their mouths opened wider and wider.
He didn't have to look at Moses to know that he was waiting. Waiting for Jakob to put his hand on the worn, rusted looking doorknob and turn.
“The house is haunted, I'm telling you!” One boy said to another.
They were sitting at lunch. They huddled together against the cold wind. Normally, Jakob was fine in his jacket. It kept him warm and made him feel safe. Safe enough to keep his distance from the chatter, but still sit with people.
But today he had forgotten it in the classroom. He meant to ask one of the teachers to let him back in to get it, but he was hungry and so he forgot it all the more in the rush of warm bodies going through the cafeteria lines. It wasn't until he sat down at the table that he began to feel cold. He shivered from it and looked to his right. There was a girl there that he knew, so quickly scooted closer to her. Immediately a boy sat down on his other side. He sighed with relief and began to warm up between the two.
“No way. My big brother says that it's just ugly and old and dirty.”
“Your brother doesn't know! He spends all his time with girls!”
“Does not! He just knows them is all...”
“Yeah, sure, whatever.”
“Doesn't make the Pittman house an haunted-er!”
Jakob perked up at that. He knew something about the house. He looked at the boys. They looked at him for a moment, then down at their food. One was grumbling. Jakob felt uncertain whether he should say anything. He was warm and close and secure; he didn't want to lose that by running into something and getting eaten up for it. He shivered.
The girl next to him looked over. She smiled at him and he smiled back at her.
“Aren't you cold out here?” She asked.
He nodded shyly.
“Here,” she said, “My mom packed me some cocoa to keep warm. You can have some, if you want. Just don't drink it all.”
Jakob smiled and took the thermos she handed him. He took a few sips. He got a taste of something warm and sweet. He took a gulp and handed it back.
“Thanks a lot.” He said. Hot chocolate ran down the inside of his chest and curled up like a kitten in his stomach. He nestled around the ball of heat, protecting it from the cold air; savoring it.
“No one knows nothing about it! Not your brother or his girlfriends!”
“Does too! Everyone knows!”
Jakob looked up quickly. One of the boys saw him and pointed.
“Even Jakob knows, right Jake?”
Jakob was stunned. The kids turned to him. The girl with the hot chocolate looked at him over the rim of her thermos.
“Yeah...”
One of the boys opened his mouth to say something, but decided not to. The table went quiet. The boys looked around, searching for another volunteer.
“I know stories about the place, I heard them from my friend Moses.”
The boys turned back to him. Everyone turned to look at him again. Go on, their eyes said.
“He...his parents, they've been around for a while. They know all about the house and what happened in it. He tells me about it sometimes. He tells me stories about what happens when people go in there...”
It all came out in a rush, but Jakob knew there was more. He knew all about it. He just couldn't figure out what to tell.
“Like what?”
“Well, he says that one time a family moved in there and they unpacked and then they went to bed. Well they had a little kid, right, and he couldn't sleep 'cause it was all new and so he got out of bed and went out into the hall...”
Every child sat waiting.
“And disappeared.”
There's a moment of hesitation. Jakob looks back over his shoulder. The rose bushes hem him in, blocking a view of the entire street. He looks for a soul, anyone. He wants an adult to run over and chide him, tell him that he should stop what he's doing and go home and work on his homework. Anyone.
He looks and looks.
Nothing moves. The leaves on the rose bushes, not pruned in innumerable seasons, twist around in the slight breeze. This breeze is like a gentle nudge, pointing him towards the door; pushing his hand down on the knob; trying to suggest he turn it just slightly. His hand quivers, the knob shaking ever so softly. This shake turns it for a moment.
There is a loud click.
“So you've been inside?”
“No...”
“You don't know then!”
“I do! I do know!”
The boy looks around like a lawyer on TV. This is all circumstantial, your honor.
“If you've never been inside, you don't know, and that's 'cause you're a scaredy cat. You guys are all scaredy cats. I came from the city and I know that there's no such thing as a haunted house.”
Jakob stared at the table. He was shivering, but not from the cold. He was angry. He was so angry that the boy wouldn't understand. The place is haunted, he thought.
The warmth seemed to evaporate from the group of children, and soon the bell rang, calling them back to their classes.
“Moses can I ask you something?”
“Sure, Jake.”
They were sitting on the sidewalk. Jake pulled his hat forward over his forehead, then back out of his eyes. He stared at the little rocks in the sidewalk cracks. He looked at the weird foam that was between some of them. It was brownish black and looked like fungus. He examined the tiniest cracks in the square he was sitting on and wondered what could have made them.
“Have you ever been inside the Pittman place?”
Moses looked up at him. Jakob couldn't see, but Moses looked at him strangely. His eyes shone slightly while he looked at Jakob questioningly. He looked back to the sidewalk.
“Oh yeah, sure I have. Loads of times. There's nothing to it, Jake.”
Jakob continued to fidget. He touched a little rock, attempting to roll it out of the crack without touching the strange fungus foam.
“Nothing ever happened?”
“Nah Jake, I just ducked in and out really quick. Nothing ever happened.”
“So it's safe?”
Jakob dropped the rock, distracted by the conversation. He returned to it trying to look uninterested.
“Well yeah, it's empty. And besides, I went in the daytime and nothing ever happens while the suns up.”
“So we could do it some Saturday or something? Maybe?”
Jakob sneaked a glance at Moses. Moses was turning over his shoelace absently. Jakob wondered at the talk. He had worried about it at school, after the boy had accused him, but if it was true that Moses had gotten in and out...
“Well the thing is, it's better not to plan it. I think the house is a lot like a cat, sorta. You can't plan something on it, you just have to sort of do it. Out of nowhere.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, see, 'cause that's what went wrong with everyone else! They plan it and some how the house knows. But if you surprise it, you can go in and out, no problem.
Both boys looked up at each other. They watched in tandem for a few moments. Jakob dropped his rock and put his hands on the ground.
The knob turned back and the door began to swing open. The breeze that had been there before, pushing him forward, was gone.
The boys stood and looked a moment longer, then started to walk. The rocks in the cracks left in their places like childhood toys discarded on a playground. The neighborhood was still and quiet, each scuff of their shoes echoing on and on into the suburban landscape.
Jakob was unsure of Moses' prognosis, but couldn't bear to speak his fears. He was muted by an inner belief that speaking them would alert the house and bring upon them all sorts of misfortune.
They walked to the edge of Jakob's yard, Jakob carefully noting the seam which split his house from the Pittman place. He always noticed it. It was as if the lines you see on maps were actually there, and this one in particular separated the real from the surreal. Regular life from its horrible antithesis.
The door swung open. Moses went in without a look back. Jakob felt the wind like a gentle hand on his back. He stared at this new seam which marked a new sort of separation.
They walked to the edge of Jakob's house and met the fence, and later the gate.
This seam was not a division of abstract concepts or of metaphysical quandries. These seam represented something raw and strong within Jakob and as he crossed it...
Moses touched the gate and looked to Jakob. Just next door, so quick, so easy.
He felt the crossing much more powerfully than the walk from his house. He had moved not from real to unreal or belief to disbelief, but from safety...
Just next door.
“Do you want to come over to my house?”
To danger.
The door closed.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
School Ish
Just some info I guess.
I got into an Honors program. As long as I complete this semester with a 3.25 gpa or higher, I'll be taking honors English 101. I should get a tuition break and it will look mad good on my transcripts.
Which don't need much helping as it turns out. I enrolled in MAPP, a transfer program between Mesa Community College and ASU. I'll automatically have a spot once I complete my credits and I'll have a fixed tuition (just in case what happened in England jumps the Atlantic).
Luckily this transfer should be rather soon, as I have mapped out my classed for the summer. I should be able to do about 14 credits so I'll keep the BAH AND knock a semester off my junior college.
In other news, I might be an editor for an Academic Journal. I'm meeting the other interested parties tomorrow. Apparently this too looks mad good on your transcripts so hopefully it will be mad fun as well. I'm not the hugest fan of ASB/selling-your-soul-to-reach-the-wholly-apathetic type thing, but I could get behind a sort of read-submissions-and-put-them-in-a-book type thing. Either way, should be interesting.
I turned in all this info to the Veteran's Services department at school so they should handle.
The last real hard thing I have left is calling the VA to tell them I changed my degree program at MCC. Hopefully, it will go smoothly. These things can turn into nightmares.
I got into an Honors program. As long as I complete this semester with a 3.25 gpa or higher, I'll be taking honors English 101. I should get a tuition break and it will look mad good on my transcripts.
Which don't need much helping as it turns out. I enrolled in MAPP, a transfer program between Mesa Community College and ASU. I'll automatically have a spot once I complete my credits and I'll have a fixed tuition (just in case what happened in England jumps the Atlantic).
Luckily this transfer should be rather soon, as I have mapped out my classed for the summer. I should be able to do about 14 credits so I'll keep the BAH AND knock a semester off my junior college.
In other news, I might be an editor for an Academic Journal. I'm meeting the other interested parties tomorrow. Apparently this too looks mad good on your transcripts so hopefully it will be mad fun as well. I'm not the hugest fan of ASB/selling-your-soul-to-reach-the-wholly-apathetic type thing, but I could get behind a sort of read-submissions-and-put-them-in-a-book type thing. Either way, should be interesting.
I turned in all this info to the Veteran's Services department at school so they should handle.
The last real hard thing I have left is calling the VA to tell them I changed my degree program at MCC. Hopefully, it will go smoothly. These things can turn into nightmares.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Sufjan Stevens
I doubt anyone is really surprised I went and saw him, any more than they will be surprised that I blogged about it afterwards. I'm very shallow, what can I say?
So let's jump right into it.
As a preface, I will say that I had my music palate cleanse well before the concert. I watched five episodes of Arrested Development and did my french homework. I was primed and ready!
The concert was at the Mesa Community Arts Center, which sounds super lame (cause it's Mesa) but it wasn't at all. It was called the Ikeda theater (I think). It was very modern with these very geometric walls with this blue LED lighting in the cracks.
The first performer was D M Stiff. The crowd was kind of apathetic, but after his first song someone called out and asked for his name again. I'll admit I had forgotten it too...
The only song titles I remember are Thanksgiving Moon and My Impatience (or Impatient Me?), both show stoppers. The former was accompanied by a trompone and trumpet (it might have been a French Horn, I'm sure someone will tell me the difference someday). It was really melodic and touching. Pretty sweet for a dude with a guitar and somewhat faulty equipment. He attempted to loop himself clapping, to some success, on a song. He mentioned afterwards that it usually turns out much better. We heard proof of this on the last song when he looped his vocals into an eerie chant and then into a sort of choral climax. All and all, very rad.
Then, after reading a day old newspaper and chatting with the guy to my right about iphones (in a short aside, I'm buying one here soon so I went online to read reviews. I swear it was like iporn), it was time for the main event.
I have been waiting to see Sufjan Stevens since the summer of 2006. I had just finished my last real year of school. I had a PACE class over the summer and then an English class at a community college in the fall. That was the end of high school for me. I had a job (but no car) and had been enjoying my newfound bridge into the great wide real world.
Sadly, I was seventeen and rather stupid. I went out with a bunch of kids from school one night and we did a "Senior Prank". Needless to say, it went very badly. This led to a confession (welcome to Christian school) and punishment. Supposedly, we had to do community service once a week for five weeks (or some such nonsense). The first week, there was five of us. The next there was three. The next only two. And the last, only me.
It was on this fateful day After graduation (which I hadn't attended) that I was forgiven and acquitted of my punishment. The principal noticed that I was the only one there and had been there consistently. I don't claim to have ever liked the man, but I credit him with this one act of kindness. He let me off the hook.
So I called my mom and wandered to the nearest mall. I had been listening to Nick Drake and my friend Kyle had noticed and recommended me two artists which I'd like: Elliot Smith and Sufjan Stevens. Other than the All Delighted People EP and some album about a moon, I own discographies for each (thanks Dynamite). But that day, I bought my first. I bought a brand new Come On Feel The Illinoise, with Sufjan in a cape across the front, under the plastic security wrap. To date this nostalgia even further, I pulled the case open and popped the cd into my cd player. I know right?
The first measures of music came through the headphones and I was overwhelmed.
I used to carry around a little notebook that said "Memorandum" across the front and I wrote this note:
Everything has changed
And maybe I have too
With all this history in mind, the heartbreak and the roadtrips, let me just say this:
I was not dissapointed.
And that might just be an extreme emotional reaction, but from the first song (Futile Devices I think) to the last (John Wayne Gacy Jr.) I was enthralled.
I had listened to the new album once or twice, but live!, with the Royal Robertson apocalyptic artwork projected a story high, lights flashing, dancers shimmying, recalling the Danielson Family!; I fell in love! It was like I had thought I had truly loved it before but now I was re-tought to feel emotion and was given a new, better (more electro!) love to use. The Age of Adz was dark and raw and dancy. Too Much and I Walked were energetic and up tempo. Get Real, Get Right was like a love letter to Royal, giving him recognition for having had an effect on Stevens. Sufjan gave a short speech on Royal and his work and what happened to him, further asserting the connection he felt when creating the album.
More than anything though, even with much softer songs like the Owl and the Tanager, it was just fun. Vesuvius had a flames and a geometric volcanoe projected over the band. The real show stopper was Impossible Soul. For this last act a diamond was lowered in front of the dancers, who were then projected onto it. From there the song only escalated to auto-tuning and then further to a dance party and a mild 'battle' between Sufjan and his dancers. This culminated in a sort of 'sing off' between auto-tuned Sufjan and one of the girls, who finally broke and began to giggle helplessly. She continued to giggle and laugh until they launched the final song (before the encore of course).
Chicago.
Too amazing for words.
After the five minutes of non-stop roar from the crowd, he did Concerning The UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois. Just him and a piano. Then he moved on to probably my favorite song, Casimir Pulaski Day, which I find amazingly touching. From there, his band collected guitars and banjoes and moved straight into The Dress Looks Nice On You, during which I called a sleeping Shelbi. I'm not sure if she heard any of it or will remember it tomorrow, but it reminds me of her too much for me to just let that chance slip by. He then ended with John Wayne Gacy Jr. I heard some girl (a newbie perchance?) remark that the songs namesake "Really was a monster, though."
With that being said, I drove home.
On that day back in '06, before I even had a cell phone, I walked back to the school and waited for my mom to pick me up. I'm pretty sure that since that day then, I really haven't been back to that building since. I have no idea what happened to those people I was so caught up with. Monstrous, I know.
Sufjan told the audience about his anxiety about playing the new material. He thanked us for being loving crowd and told us about his fear of the open spaces. He said that in Age of Adz, he confused heartbreak with the Apocalypse.
"And in my best behavior, I am really just like him..."
Moving forward.
So let's jump right into it.
As a preface, I will say that I had my music palate cleanse well before the concert. I watched five episodes of Arrested Development and did my french homework. I was primed and ready!
The concert was at the Mesa Community Arts Center, which sounds super lame (cause it's Mesa) but it wasn't at all. It was called the Ikeda theater (I think). It was very modern with these very geometric walls with this blue LED lighting in the cracks.
The first performer was D M Stiff. The crowd was kind of apathetic, but after his first song someone called out and asked for his name again. I'll admit I had forgotten it too...
The only song titles I remember are Thanksgiving Moon and My Impatience (or Impatient Me?), both show stoppers. The former was accompanied by a trompone and trumpet (it might have been a French Horn, I'm sure someone will tell me the difference someday). It was really melodic and touching. Pretty sweet for a dude with a guitar and somewhat faulty equipment. He attempted to loop himself clapping, to some success, on a song. He mentioned afterwards that it usually turns out much better. We heard proof of this on the last song when he looped his vocals into an eerie chant and then into a sort of choral climax. All and all, very rad.
Then, after reading a day old newspaper and chatting with the guy to my right about iphones (in a short aside, I'm buying one here soon so I went online to read reviews. I swear it was like iporn), it was time for the main event.
I have been waiting to see Sufjan Stevens since the summer of 2006. I had just finished my last real year of school. I had a PACE class over the summer and then an English class at a community college in the fall. That was the end of high school for me. I had a job (but no car) and had been enjoying my newfound bridge into the great wide real world.
Sadly, I was seventeen and rather stupid. I went out with a bunch of kids from school one night and we did a "Senior Prank". Needless to say, it went very badly. This led to a confession (welcome to Christian school) and punishment. Supposedly, we had to do community service once a week for five weeks (or some such nonsense). The first week, there was five of us. The next there was three. The next only two. And the last, only me.
It was on this fateful day After graduation (which I hadn't attended) that I was forgiven and acquitted of my punishment. The principal noticed that I was the only one there and had been there consistently. I don't claim to have ever liked the man, but I credit him with this one act of kindness. He let me off the hook.
So I called my mom and wandered to the nearest mall. I had been listening to Nick Drake and my friend Kyle had noticed and recommended me two artists which I'd like: Elliot Smith and Sufjan Stevens. Other than the All Delighted People EP and some album about a moon, I own discographies for each (thanks Dynamite). But that day, I bought my first. I bought a brand new Come On Feel The Illinoise, with Sufjan in a cape across the front, under the plastic security wrap. To date this nostalgia even further, I pulled the case open and popped the cd into my cd player. I know right?
The first measures of music came through the headphones and I was overwhelmed.
I used to carry around a little notebook that said "Memorandum" across the front and I wrote this note:
Everything has changed
And maybe I have too
With all this history in mind, the heartbreak and the roadtrips, let me just say this:
I was not dissapointed.
And that might just be an extreme emotional reaction, but from the first song (Futile Devices I think) to the last (John Wayne Gacy Jr.) I was enthralled.
I had listened to the new album once or twice, but live!, with the Royal Robertson apocalyptic artwork projected a story high, lights flashing, dancers shimmying, recalling the Danielson Family!; I fell in love! It was like I had thought I had truly loved it before but now I was re-tought to feel emotion and was given a new, better (more electro!) love to use. The Age of Adz was dark and raw and dancy. Too Much and I Walked were energetic and up tempo. Get Real, Get Right was like a love letter to Royal, giving him recognition for having had an effect on Stevens. Sufjan gave a short speech on Royal and his work and what happened to him, further asserting the connection he felt when creating the album.
More than anything though, even with much softer songs like the Owl and the Tanager, it was just fun. Vesuvius had a flames and a geometric volcanoe projected over the band. The real show stopper was Impossible Soul. For this last act a diamond was lowered in front of the dancers, who were then projected onto it. From there the song only escalated to auto-tuning and then further to a dance party and a mild 'battle' between Sufjan and his dancers. This culminated in a sort of 'sing off' between auto-tuned Sufjan and one of the girls, who finally broke and began to giggle helplessly. She continued to giggle and laugh until they launched the final song (before the encore of course).
Chicago.
Too amazing for words.
After the five minutes of non-stop roar from the crowd, he did Concerning The UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois. Just him and a piano. Then he moved on to probably my favorite song, Casimir Pulaski Day, which I find amazingly touching. From there, his band collected guitars and banjoes and moved straight into The Dress Looks Nice On You, during which I called a sleeping Shelbi. I'm not sure if she heard any of it or will remember it tomorrow, but it reminds me of her too much for me to just let that chance slip by. He then ended with John Wayne Gacy Jr. I heard some girl (a newbie perchance?) remark that the songs namesake "Really was a monster, though."
With that being said, I drove home.
On that day back in '06, before I even had a cell phone, I walked back to the school and waited for my mom to pick me up. I'm pretty sure that since that day then, I really haven't been back to that building since. I have no idea what happened to those people I was so caught up with. Monstrous, I know.
Sufjan told the audience about his anxiety about playing the new material. He thanked us for being loving crowd and told us about his fear of the open spaces. He said that in Age of Adz, he confused heartbreak with the Apocalypse.
"And in my best behavior, I am really just like him..."
Moving forward.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
The Brood
So David Cronenberg is very well known for doing very strange stuff. One of his first films involved a woman who murdered people using sex. The star of the film was an ex-porn star, but apparently he coaxed an amazing performance out of her. He made the film, The Fly, which may or may not be a remake (I can't recall), with Jeff Goldbloom and Geena Davis. Wonderfully grotesque. In one seen, the editor of a science magazine is watching a video of 'Brundlefly' eating a donut. He explains that in order to eat things, he must vomit an acid on them and then drink it like a smoothie. We don't actually see the drinking. Instead the camera cuts to the editor's horrified face and we hear loud slurps from the camcorder. Cronenberg also did such oddities as Videodrome, Naked Lunch, Eastern Promises, A History of Violence, and Crash (not with don cheadle and lots of feeling; it's about people who get sexually aroused from car crashes).
But, these fine films were not on the menu tonight.
Instead I watched 1979's The Brood. This was recommended to me in King's Danse Macabre, so of course it went straight on the netflix. It doesn't have any big name stars or mind blowing special effects.
What it does have, is a woman lapping the blood from her new 'born' fetus.
Needless to say, it was a pretty great film.
It opens with a man on a stage talking to another man. He is acting and pretending to be the man's father. He is trying to coax a reaction out of the man until finally the man rips his shirt open, revealing a number of small sores. The camera then picks up with Frank Caverth, who is leaving the auditorium and picking up his daughter. Later he gives her a bath and when he has her turn around to wash her back, he notices a number of bruises and scratches. He is enraged by this and confronts the man onstage, Dr Raglan, the owner and main physician/psychiatrist at a hospital specializing in 'psychoplasmic therapy'. Raglan begs off Caverth. We then see Frank talk to a lawyer and his daughter's teacher. The lawyer explains what he can do about his wife, who is hospitalized at the psychoplasmic center; while the teacher voices her concern without actually going into specifics. Caverth is then seen dropping his daughter off with her grandmother, his wife Ruth's mother. Here's were the horror begins. While Raglan is seen doing therapy with Ruth, there is a loud crash in the kitchen at her mother's house. After a few more crashes, the grandmother stands to go freshen her and her granddaughter's drinks. She leaves the daughter, Candice, on the couch. We see plates and boxes falling. Loud grunting and crashing. The grandmother walks into the kitchen and looks around. She sees the mess, but doesn't understand where it came from. Suddenly, she looks up at the top of the cabinets. We see a small for jump onto her and grab her neck. She gasps and shrieks. The tiny monster has a meat tenderizor and decides to go to town on ole grannies face.
Out of concern, Candice decides to investigate. She walks into the kitchen to see the dead, bloody body of her grandmother. She hears a grunt and turns to look at the stairs. Two small hands grip the post holding the banister, and a sinister gray face snarls at her before disappearing into the darkness.
The movie moves from there. There's quite a lot more blood but nothing so over the top as when Ruth 'gives birth' and then decides to clean her young.
It was a good movie, but more than that, it scared the bejeezus out of me. I was sitting on the couch and couldn't help but look around towards the kitchen. Goosebumps rose on my legs. So good.
While I wouldn't watch it with your mother, I definitely recommend it if you're ever in the mood for a sweet horror flick. I also recommend Fourth Kind.
Fuckin Aye.
But, these fine films were not on the menu tonight.
Instead I watched 1979's The Brood. This was recommended to me in King's Danse Macabre, so of course it went straight on the netflix. It doesn't have any big name stars or mind blowing special effects.
What it does have, is a woman lapping the blood from her new 'born' fetus.
Needless to say, it was a pretty great film.
It opens with a man on a stage talking to another man. He is acting and pretending to be the man's father. He is trying to coax a reaction out of the man until finally the man rips his shirt open, revealing a number of small sores. The camera then picks up with Frank Caverth, who is leaving the auditorium and picking up his daughter. Later he gives her a bath and when he has her turn around to wash her back, he notices a number of bruises and scratches. He is enraged by this and confronts the man onstage, Dr Raglan, the owner and main physician/psychiatrist at a hospital specializing in 'psychoplasmic therapy'. Raglan begs off Caverth. We then see Frank talk to a lawyer and his daughter's teacher. The lawyer explains what he can do about his wife, who is hospitalized at the psychoplasmic center; while the teacher voices her concern without actually going into specifics. Caverth is then seen dropping his daughter off with her grandmother, his wife Ruth's mother. Here's were the horror begins. While Raglan is seen doing therapy with Ruth, there is a loud crash in the kitchen at her mother's house. After a few more crashes, the grandmother stands to go freshen her and her granddaughter's drinks. She leaves the daughter, Candice, on the couch. We see plates and boxes falling. Loud grunting and crashing. The grandmother walks into the kitchen and looks around. She sees the mess, but doesn't understand where it came from. Suddenly, she looks up at the top of the cabinets. We see a small for jump onto her and grab her neck. She gasps and shrieks. The tiny monster has a meat tenderizor and decides to go to town on ole grannies face.
Out of concern, Candice decides to investigate. She walks into the kitchen to see the dead, bloody body of her grandmother. She hears a grunt and turns to look at the stairs. Two small hands grip the post holding the banister, and a sinister gray face snarls at her before disappearing into the darkness.
The movie moves from there. There's quite a lot more blood but nothing so over the top as when Ruth 'gives birth' and then decides to clean her young.
It was a good movie, but more than that, it scared the bejeezus out of me. I was sitting on the couch and couldn't help but look around towards the kitchen. Goosebumps rose on my legs. So good.
While I wouldn't watch it with your mother, I definitely recommend it if you're ever in the mood for a sweet horror flick. I also recommend Fourth Kind.
Fuckin Aye.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Freaky Town
Tonight on my ride home, I had a bunch of guys shout "Gimme yo bike!" at me. Luckily, the light was green so I just sped on by. SO Sketchy.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Monsoon
I guess it's been super stormy everywhere this week. Something about the heat wave from the previous week created some pretty wild weather down here in the valley. Today, in fact, while I was chatting with Kristen, it began to rain. During the next five minutes, it moved to progressively heavier rain and wind, blowing the trees sideways (and over in a lot of cases). Then it began to hail. This too grew to the size of gumballs before abating.
Afterwards, I thought, wow I should get going to school so I don't end up stuck in a tornado or some nonsense. I had to wait a bit, as a bit more rain kicked up, but around 2 o'clock I finally set off. Blue skies shown through onto the streams running down gutters. These, I found, led to a river. It may seem like a joke, but I tried to cross Main St and found myself ankle deep, even though my feet were on the pedals.
I turned around and went up University. I had to keep to the sidewalks, far to the right to avoid getting splashed by passing cars. I turned left onto Horne, thinking I would rejoin Main upstream, were the rapids might be calmer. But, hereagain, I found myself stomping my soaking legs out of a basin and onto a sidewalk. Luckily, by the time I made it across the block to Mesa, the water was lower. I still couldn't ride the bike lane, but that was alright considering I was still making forward progress. It was just passed Center when I found my first downed tree. It had fallen in front of some lucky woman's car (I knew it was a woman because I had to ride into the street as she didn't notice my call of 'On your left!').
From here the pattern emerged.
All along Main up to Alma School and from Alma School to Souther, I saw fallen foliage and debris. I had this happy image in my mind of the rain as a healer and cleanser, washing the trash and glass and bottles into the drains. Such was not the case.
As I turned onto Southern, making the push for the final mile to school, I saw police lights up ahead. I was detained at the turn into Fiesta Mall, and a man who had just gotten off the bus joked about my soddened condition. I asked him what had happened up at the light. He didn't know, but was friendly enough about it. I crossed to the left hand side of the road (the wrong side unless you want to be hit by a driver coming out of a parking lot or turning right). I started to cross the Fiesta entrance, as I didn't see any traffic, but a couple cars burned the light. The last cars driver flipped me the bird even though I was stopped in the median. Bad day I guess.
I casually made my way west until I got to the light. I passed more fallen trees and found the lights in the big steel hooks dead and dark. Policemen stood in the intersection and directed traffic. I took a chance and crossed. Luckily, no one pummeled my dumbass.
I got to school easily after that. I noticed the cause for the malfunction of the signal light on my way; there were two powerlines knocked over. My grandma told me later that something like 17 had been knocked over in Phoenix proper. It might be an exaggeration, but not by too much. Once on campus, I parked the bike and walked towards were I had parked it the day before. I had brought an adidas pullover, thinking I'd need it for the ride home. I put it on and zipped up the throat against the cold.
I went and found the key I had lost the day before, lying in the pebbles and dirt, then went to the library. The rain went crazy while I was there, so much so that I watched it for a while in a conference room. Everything was gray and black. I had been growing hungrier and had forgotten to pack a snack for my post-ride recovery. I decided to brave the rain and go to Pita Jungle for a gyro and some garlic potatoes. This turned out to be pretty tame, as the rain began to clear after I walked out the doors.
After the meal, I went back to the library and started Thomas Pynchon's V. Then I went to class. Nothing to it.
Afterwards, I packed up and grabbed my bike. I had a moment when I thought about getting out my headphones, but I decided to leave them locked in the ziplock I had brought to carry my wallet and phone.
This was really lucky.
As soon as I got out of the small area for locking up your bikes, it started to rain. I sighed and started to pump my way home. I got down to Alma School and turned left. The wind came hard and it began to rain a bit more. My eyes were squinted to see through it. I made it down to University and turned right. There was more debris but the weather lightened up noticeably. I thought of turning into the street to make up some time (the first leg had taken me the same amount of time, 30 minutes, as the total trip home had the day before) but at Country Club a big lifted pickup decided he (always is) wanted to blow up the starting line so he could get over in front of the guy in the lefthand lane. What the guy managed to do was spin his tires really loudly, shout forward and sideways at the same time, and then roar down the street to maim others. I decided to stick with the sidewalk for this particular outing.
After that, it was a easy ride home to a hot shower and two very long phone calls.
Exciting stuff, n'est-ce pas?
Afterwards, I thought, wow I should get going to school so I don't end up stuck in a tornado or some nonsense. I had to wait a bit, as a bit more rain kicked up, but around 2 o'clock I finally set off. Blue skies shown through onto the streams running down gutters. These, I found, led to a river. It may seem like a joke, but I tried to cross Main St and found myself ankle deep, even though my feet were on the pedals.
I turned around and went up University. I had to keep to the sidewalks, far to the right to avoid getting splashed by passing cars. I turned left onto Horne, thinking I would rejoin Main upstream, were the rapids might be calmer. But, hereagain, I found myself stomping my soaking legs out of a basin and onto a sidewalk. Luckily, by the time I made it across the block to Mesa, the water was lower. I still couldn't ride the bike lane, but that was alright considering I was still making forward progress. It was just passed Center when I found my first downed tree. It had fallen in front of some lucky woman's car (I knew it was a woman because I had to ride into the street as she didn't notice my call of 'On your left!').
From here the pattern emerged.
All along Main up to Alma School and from Alma School to Souther, I saw fallen foliage and debris. I had this happy image in my mind of the rain as a healer and cleanser, washing the trash and glass and bottles into the drains. Such was not the case.
As I turned onto Southern, making the push for the final mile to school, I saw police lights up ahead. I was detained at the turn into Fiesta Mall, and a man who had just gotten off the bus joked about my soddened condition. I asked him what had happened up at the light. He didn't know, but was friendly enough about it. I crossed to the left hand side of the road (the wrong side unless you want to be hit by a driver coming out of a parking lot or turning right). I started to cross the Fiesta entrance, as I didn't see any traffic, but a couple cars burned the light. The last cars driver flipped me the bird even though I was stopped in the median. Bad day I guess.
I casually made my way west until I got to the light. I passed more fallen trees and found the lights in the big steel hooks dead and dark. Policemen stood in the intersection and directed traffic. I took a chance and crossed. Luckily, no one pummeled my dumbass.
I got to school easily after that. I noticed the cause for the malfunction of the signal light on my way; there were two powerlines knocked over. My grandma told me later that something like 17 had been knocked over in Phoenix proper. It might be an exaggeration, but not by too much. Once on campus, I parked the bike and walked towards were I had parked it the day before. I had brought an adidas pullover, thinking I'd need it for the ride home. I put it on and zipped up the throat against the cold.
I went and found the key I had lost the day before, lying in the pebbles and dirt, then went to the library. The rain went crazy while I was there, so much so that I watched it for a while in a conference room. Everything was gray and black. I had been growing hungrier and had forgotten to pack a snack for my post-ride recovery. I decided to brave the rain and go to Pita Jungle for a gyro and some garlic potatoes. This turned out to be pretty tame, as the rain began to clear after I walked out the doors.
After the meal, I went back to the library and started Thomas Pynchon's V. Then I went to class. Nothing to it.
Afterwards, I packed up and grabbed my bike. I had a moment when I thought about getting out my headphones, but I decided to leave them locked in the ziplock I had brought to carry my wallet and phone.
This was really lucky.
As soon as I got out of the small area for locking up your bikes, it started to rain. I sighed and started to pump my way home. I got down to Alma School and turned left. The wind came hard and it began to rain a bit more. My eyes were squinted to see through it. I made it down to University and turned right. There was more debris but the weather lightened up noticeably. I thought of turning into the street to make up some time (the first leg had taken me the same amount of time, 30 minutes, as the total trip home had the day before) but at Country Club a big lifted pickup decided he (always is) wanted to blow up the starting line so he could get over in front of the guy in the lefthand lane. What the guy managed to do was spin his tires really loudly, shout forward and sideways at the same time, and then roar down the street to maim others. I decided to stick with the sidewalk for this particular outing.
After that, it was a easy ride home to a hot shower and two very long phone calls.
Exciting stuff, n'est-ce pas?
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Month of Horror
So I informally decided yesterday, while on the phone with Lucas, that this October I will go back to my roots. I grew up reading Stephen King, as his works were readily available. My mother read him voraciously, so much so that it is a famously ominous anecdote in my family that she was reading The Shining when she was pregnant with me. She also drank Dr. Pepper, just saying.
In any case, I read plenty from the Grandmaster of Horror. In high school I read:
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
Four Seasons
Salem's Lot
All of the Dark Tower books
The Stand
The Shining
Four Minutes to Midnight
A few from the Night Shift
Listened to part of Dreamcatcher
and Cell
These I loved in addition to the many wonderful film adaptations. It was my gateway drug into horror, I think. From there I watched everything from Pet Sematary to Requiem For A Dream (if that scene with the electroshock therapy/sex party/prison isn't horror, my name is Mud).
And then for a while, I wandered off. I had forgotten my first love. I indulged in foreign films and classic novels.
So, I decided yesterday, after watching not only Let The Right One In but it's exact replica Let Me In, that I would make this October something to remember. I want to rekindle my lost love affair with the genre which originally got me righting. I want ghosts and monsters and vampires and vaginas with teeth in them(?)!
In the words of Mr. King
Let the dance begin...
In any case, I read plenty from the Grandmaster of Horror. In high school I read:
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
Four Seasons
Salem's Lot
All of the Dark Tower books
The Stand
The Shining
Four Minutes to Midnight
A few from the Night Shift
Listened to part of Dreamcatcher
and Cell
These I loved in addition to the many wonderful film adaptations. It was my gateway drug into horror, I think. From there I watched everything from Pet Sematary to Requiem For A Dream (if that scene with the electroshock therapy/sex party/prison isn't horror, my name is Mud).
And then for a while, I wandered off. I had forgotten my first love. I indulged in foreign films and classic novels.
So, I decided yesterday, after watching not only Let The Right One In but it's exact replica Let Me In, that I would make this October something to remember. I want to rekindle my lost love affair with the genre which originally got me righting. I want ghosts and monsters and vampires and vaginas with teeth in them(?)!
In the words of Mr. King
Let the dance begin...
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Home
I decided to go to bed early last night, in the midst of watching A Very Long Engagement on netflix. I've been staying up later and later, as my classes are in the evening, but I thought I should rectify that in order to rejoin normal society. So I hit the sack.
Then about 15 minutes ago, I woke up. I turned over and stared at my fan, feeling that cold you have at 5 o'clock in the morning when your body is at low-tide. I had dreamed about my old house in Lakeside. The place I'd spent 11 years of my childhood, from 3rd to 12th grade (if I'd had one), growing up. In the dream, there was a party going on at my house. Although I couldn't see who was there, in my mind's eye I know it was people like the youth group from LCPC or friends from school. My parents were from the era too. I recognized them as the people they were back then. My father, the judicial law giver, sitting and smiling in his big blue chair. My mother, chatting, her mouth speaking and smiling at the same time. The only other character I remember clearly is Lucas Coleman, who just happened to be hanging out. I remember him because when I woke up I immediately recalled a time when he had come over unnannounced, while I was watching a movie with my girlfriend, and we had awkwardly all watched a movie together. I'm sure there were others. I would be remiss for not inviting everyone into my subconscious for a party, I suppose.
I guess that's the terrible thing about dreams, that you can only really remember the end clearly, and even that seems to be disintegrating slowly, like sand from a hourglass. In any case, the end of my dream found me waking in the middle of the night. I was up in my room, except it wasn't quite the way I'd left it. There was a large desk in the middle of it. I went to turn on the light, in order to see what we'd all been working on, but the light wouldn't turn on. All around me were the party goers, now sleeping quietly in heaps and mounds. I opened my door and walked out of my room. In the hall, I looked into the bathroom and saw more people sleeping. They were on the counter and the floor, blocking the door from opening all the way. I can picture them curled up in the tub, quietly slumbering in my subconscious. I turned away.
I went past my parents room and down the stairs. I came to the kitchen and found my father, up early and tinkering. I asked him what was wrong with the lights. I don't remember what he said exactly, but I remember a feeling like "I guess that's just the way things are."
It leaves me with a feeling I can't describe. I feel a sort of mixed nostalgia tinged with longing. Some might say they're the same thing, but I know this isn't. This is counterbalance with the feeling of "so it goes" from the end of my dream.
Sometimes I really do miss every one I grew up with. I miss them in the way people miss tv shows they watched as a kid. I miss them, but only the way they were. The memory of knowing them. The memory of watching hey arnold at night when you're eating fruit loops on the couch. I miss them just as they were when I knew them, but I understand that they are all different now, no matter how much they seem similar. The Kyles and Joels and Deannas are all strangers with similar faces and names to their counterparts in my memories.
I've spent the last few years of my life sleeping on floors and couches and in other strange places. Now that I'm back in a bed, back in school, my mind feeds me the similarities with my old childhood home. It's one of those funny things your brain does, I guess. No matter how much time you spend adventuring or traveling or learning, it puts you in your place. It knows were you came from and reminds you of it, highlighting the before and after of your existence. In my dream, I see a lights gone out. I wonder what it was?
Then about 15 minutes ago, I woke up. I turned over and stared at my fan, feeling that cold you have at 5 o'clock in the morning when your body is at low-tide. I had dreamed about my old house in Lakeside. The place I'd spent 11 years of my childhood, from 3rd to 12th grade (if I'd had one), growing up. In the dream, there was a party going on at my house. Although I couldn't see who was there, in my mind's eye I know it was people like the youth group from LCPC or friends from school. My parents were from the era too. I recognized them as the people they were back then. My father, the judicial law giver, sitting and smiling in his big blue chair. My mother, chatting, her mouth speaking and smiling at the same time. The only other character I remember clearly is Lucas Coleman, who just happened to be hanging out. I remember him because when I woke up I immediately recalled a time when he had come over unnannounced, while I was watching a movie with my girlfriend, and we had awkwardly all watched a movie together. I'm sure there were others. I would be remiss for not inviting everyone into my subconscious for a party, I suppose.
I guess that's the terrible thing about dreams, that you can only really remember the end clearly, and even that seems to be disintegrating slowly, like sand from a hourglass. In any case, the end of my dream found me waking in the middle of the night. I was up in my room, except it wasn't quite the way I'd left it. There was a large desk in the middle of it. I went to turn on the light, in order to see what we'd all been working on, but the light wouldn't turn on. All around me were the party goers, now sleeping quietly in heaps and mounds. I opened my door and walked out of my room. In the hall, I looked into the bathroom and saw more people sleeping. They were on the counter and the floor, blocking the door from opening all the way. I can picture them curled up in the tub, quietly slumbering in my subconscious. I turned away.
I went past my parents room and down the stairs. I came to the kitchen and found my father, up early and tinkering. I asked him what was wrong with the lights. I don't remember what he said exactly, but I remember a feeling like "I guess that's just the way things are."
It leaves me with a feeling I can't describe. I feel a sort of mixed nostalgia tinged with longing. Some might say they're the same thing, but I know this isn't. This is counterbalance with the feeling of "so it goes" from the end of my dream.
Sometimes I really do miss every one I grew up with. I miss them in the way people miss tv shows they watched as a kid. I miss them, but only the way they were. The memory of knowing them. The memory of watching hey arnold at night when you're eating fruit loops on the couch. I miss them just as they were when I knew them, but I understand that they are all different now, no matter how much they seem similar. The Kyles and Joels and Deannas are all strangers with similar faces and names to their counterparts in my memories.
I've spent the last few years of my life sleeping on floors and couches and in other strange places. Now that I'm back in a bed, back in school, my mind feeds me the similarities with my old childhood home. It's one of those funny things your brain does, I guess. No matter how much time you spend adventuring or traveling or learning, it puts you in your place. It knows were you came from and reminds you of it, highlighting the before and after of your existence. In my dream, I see a lights gone out. I wonder what it was?
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Wyrm
A martian epic I started. We all have our wild sides I suppose.
The Wyrm
Pt.1
On Mercury, Hermes stood. He skin was light and dark, shining out in all directions while he pitched the little ball, on which he stood, faster and faster.
The landscape shifted like quiksilver and he watched the planets and spun.
He was smiling at the stars when he heard a flutter of wings behind him. A small cherubic boy stood before him, a parcel tucked under his arm.
Hermes frowned at the child, but watched intently, nonetheless as the child drew a pictograph in the air. As the message began to unfold, Hermes expression waned and even the sun king grew pale.
As it was, no one could remember who arrived on Mars first anymore. It had become one of those useless details which, given the number of newsworthy incidents, had been eclipsed in the grander scheme of things.
All anyone could remember was the race.
Each of Earth's country's had sought to colonize the red planet. Each president and politician drove it's people to new fervors. They talked incessantly about a place they had never been and the wonders that could be found there. It was an El Dorado for the 21st century. It's red carpet led, not to gold, but new scientific discoveries.
Surely, they said, that by knowing more about our neighboring planet, we will be able to ascertain new information about our own!
So it was settled, in all manner of ways.
Each country set off for the new world, brushing their shoulders against the other.
It was risky and rash. Each astronaut, cosmonaut, what-have-you, was pushed to be the first. Pilots made ridiculous decisions, politicians made ridiculous statements; and, as the race went on, it seemed as if everyone was winning, in all directions, and all at once.
Then a rocket exploded, killing twelve men and women. All genius' in their field, all in the best form of their lives.
This, in a twisted way, brought the interstellar aviators back down to Earth.
One captain looked at his crew and broke the silence. Another answered and spoke to another. In a fleet of 9 crafts, each had been flying solo.
One ship was almost out of food.
Another had lost their navigating equipment and had been following the others, line-of-sight, ever since.
On the dark road of space, between home and glory, they became one nation, one people, one cause.
The stress and anxiety dissolved with those twelve.
It was so when they arrived, each man a refugee. The countries of Earth had laughed at their soldiers and scientists, so far away from home. Politicians sipping exotic flavors had told them that they should do what they are told, if they knew what was good for them.
But the new people new what was good for them.
As the settlers to America, so many years in the past, they had no idea.
Pin stood in the desert, breathing deep and looked at the red sand shifting across the horizon. It blew through his hair, painting his face chest. He watched the horizon ripple with the wind. The great ocean of sand, billowing out into infinity.
From the depths of the ocean, there came a call.
It sang across the great distance to him. He listened, but did not understand. The horizon continued to ripple. A shape emerged from the waves.
Pin looked down at the small outcrop of rocks on which he stood, bare but for some shorts. Alive when he shouldn't be. He looked down at his hands. They were blood stained evenly from the tip of his fingernail to his elbow and onto his chest.
He was a martian, he thought.
He heard a deep echoing call and looked out again. Amongst the waves, the shape grew larger and larger still. It was too far off to make out anything more than it's size. It was immense, but moved with incredible finesse through the rolling landscape.
Pin became afraid.
The creature was growing in size, thrusting it's way towards him. It's splashing and jumping were precise and patterned, so that it became a leviathan arrow; flying towards him out of the heart of the great planet.
The echoing began to sound like rolling thunder. Or laughter.
Pin's legs felt weak, but he couldn't sit or fall over. The wind kept him upright and motionless. The painting desert presented him to the creature. The creature would take him, he knew.
It was as the creature finally neared him that he finally felt something cold pressed into his palm. He looked down at the new weight and found a huge jagged sword.
He lifted it up at the howling monster and the dream evaporated around him.
It was on an unknown date, unknown month, unknown year, that Pin awoke in a bunk inside North Dome. He looked around hazily, stopping to look at his skin, which wasn't crimson at all. He sighed and lay back against the bed. He closed his eyes and stretched his arms and legs out.
When his hand came down on the mattress, it struck something cold.
Pin felt a shiver cross him. His fingers felt around the spot for the hard, metallic cold. The came around a round ball, which attached to a filligreed cylinder. The sword.
Pin shivered and felt himself shake all over. He breathed a deep sigh and took his hand from the object.
He opened his eyes, through off the blanket, and calmly ran from his bed.
In the years following their settling of Mars, the newcomers built and made and invented, with a ferocity mankind had never seen. They still hadn't seen, as mankind had turned its back on the explorers upon the space fleets arrival to Mars. Communication was lost, or abandoned, and in the hopelessness of the situation, many died quietly alone in their beds.
It was in this vacuum, that Charles Fox stepped forward and presented them with a future.
He outlined a plan. A plan for survival. A plan for sustainability. He presented them with life.
So they made the domes, dividing them into cardinal points.
They made the houses and bunkers within the domes to keep the sand at bay.
The built labs and workshops, silos and farms.
When they came upon a problem, the collective mind of the colony invented a way around it.
If the ground was too hard, they built a better drill.
It the water was too far and too cold, they built a better aquaduct.
If the people became, fatigued, sickly, or weak; they made and created and worked around or through it.
In those first ten years, only 11 died.
They continued to strive, but to some, it seemed forever hopeless. They could not breathe the air or go outside without a suit. They were foreign contaminants to a planet that did not want them.
It was such that, no matter the level of success in providing food or medicine or safety; they settlers never felt like more than unwelcome guests.
Pin stepped into a shaft of light and climbed the stairs to the Mess. His stomach growled at him and he stepped quickly into the queue of people. He flexed his hand and tried to forget his bed and his dream. Friends smiled at him and he bid them a fine day, but he was lost inside himself. He stepped through the line and received his meal, thanking the service man and receding to a table next to a portculis.
There he was sitting when Plenty arrived.
As the first children were born, the crew turned colonists turned parents, decided to name their children after the things they missed about their old home. Children were called Garden or Tree or Gelato, each to the smiles and sadness of those who could remember their life before the domes and the sand.
This was done in a lighthearted manner in a time when most of the crew members considered dying quietly, alone in their beds. However, with the first child, a strange new emotion climbed into the hearts of the men and women.
For once, they began to see the future as more than a bleak cliff in the red landscape; that they would, at some point or another, topple off, ending all that they had built. Without discussion or consensus they had all come to believe that it was all just Christmas lights on a dead tree.
But, when the first child came, the first human ever born on Mars, those who had felt only abandonment and estrangement, indulged in hope.
“What's new?” she asked.
He looked out the glass, trying to count the inches between himself and the desert.
“Oi!” She tapped at his cup. Without looking over at her, he said:
“Plenty of time to tell.”
She made a noise in her throat and stood up.
He paused for effect and looked over, watching as she carried her bowl to her brother's table. He sighed and turned back to the window.
The horizon seemed to ripple and he felt a moment of euphoria. He turned to his food.
Pin stood in the docks, his bare feet shuffling through the dust colored by iron oxide. Each man in the bay moved quickly. Gathering gear and setting it out for the next expedition. Pin looked and looked about the room, searching for Plenty's brother.
“Pin?” someone said to his left. He turned to find Peanut, a great jovial hulk, looking down at him. He shuffled his feet and turned to the giant.
“Peanut!” He said with a great smile, “Where are you off to today?”
“Same as usual,” said the man with a sigh, “What're you doing down here?”
“Well...” Pin started, looking casually around the room for any alarm, “I was wondering if you had an extra spot open for today's trip?”
Peanut's expression brightened. Since an accident a few weeks back had sucked Pin's second cousin, Noodle, out of his suit, partly; the volunteers for the excursions for water had been wanting.
“Well sure, I think we can figure something out.”
It was almost funny to the settlers. It reminded them of back home, when you saw something one way from far away, but as it came closer, it was the opposite.
They broke ground on the dome as fast as they could, but ran into a number of problems with the wind that whipped around the planet. They had thousands of tons of materials,including their ships, turning over because of it.
Finally, with little recourse, they drilled the dense Martian soil, with the hopes of creating a more solid base for the domes to rest upon.
It was then that they made a fantastic discovery.
After less than a hundred feet, they struck mud. This sent the scientists into frenzies, each with a Nobel Prize in mind. But Fox stepped forward and pointed to the mud that came oozing out of the ground and said one word: water.
Pin was more than halfway into his suit, when a voice called to him. He sagged as Plenty's brother, Good, was pointed to him. He could hear Good siddle up behind him and whisper in his ear.
“What's this about messing with my sister?”
Pin turned quickly around at him, his eyes staring into Good's. Good was taken aback by the gesture and repeated his question.
“I've done nothing to her, mate,” Pin answered.
“Why do you shun her when she clearly thinks the Earth of you?”
He didn't know. He never knew. It was just the way he felt. But how can you say that to her brother, he thought. How can you tell her that, in a place filled with death and survival, you can't bring yourself to enough civility to procreate.
“I..” he started. Good's eyebrows ticked up.
“I'll talked...I'll talk to her about it.”
Good looked at him for a moment, still weary, but unsatisfied. Pin turned from him and continued to prep his suit.
They called the short distance to the wells and pumps “The Opening Measure”, because after that, anything was bound to happen. Peanut stood out near the front of the line, as he was very tall. Each of them wore what looked like a suit of armor, their heads encapsulated in shining metal bubbles. The suits had once been white, Pin had been told, but now each of them were brown and red from long use.
Peanut trudged along quietly for a while, the rest of the procession, a short man named Curry, a lanky boy named Corn and a few others Pin didn't readily remember, walk along in his footsteps.
After a few minutes of it, his intercom switched on. It was Peanut.
“Hey ya Pin.”
“Hi Peanut.”
“So what will it be today?”
Peanut scanned the horizon for a moment and turned the group slightly to the right.
“What's available, Pea?”
“Well we got Curry here checking the electrical on the wells, Bobo is with him while Corn and me check the pumps. You up for checking the line?”
“Sure thing.”
The intercom clicked off.
Curry sped up for a moment and Pin assumed that he was talking with Peanut.
Pin knew that while in the Measure, it was extremely important to focus on the line. The leaders realized that the corroding of the paint on the suit, while detrimental in a small way, made for good camouflage. Not that there were any predators, but they still decided on playing it safe.
But as they were the only life on Mars, Pin had always thought it like hiding from oneself.
Pin understood all of this, but, as it was a clear day of sorts, he indulged himself. He looked around, watching the clouds, great dust devils off in the distance. The mountains (the distance of sight affirming the beauty of the day) were great and hulking in the distance. Their size so much more than imposing. As a child, Pin had asked his father once if he could climb them. His father skipped the rational response in this and told him instead: “Maybe someday”.
Peanut clicked on again, this time as an all call.
“Alright folks, there she is in the distance. You guys know what to do, so let's be quick and get out of here so we can see the look on Station Manager's face at all the oxygen we saved.”
There was no hurray from the men, only the click and the absence of Peanut's voice.
There were six wells. Each was set 50 meters from the one before it. Wires ran between them for the teams to use in transit. The wells were set at staggers depths, but all drew from an enormous underground reservoir known as Fox Deep. Above each well, there were large pumps, each with a reinforced hose leading to the main line. This line was made from incredibly thick pipe, and was buried for it's own safety.
Pin's job, was to check the distance from each hose to the mainline, looking for leaks, abrasions, etc. When they arrived, Curry handed Pin a flashlight and a scanner to accomplish his task. The problem with the hoses was, due to their reinforced nature, no anchoring wires were attached to them. The scientists either didn't want to weaken them or forgot, no one knew.
It was a clear day, the sky a swirling light orange, the martian landscape some semblance of calm. Peanut had a radio in his helmet that with which the domes could reach him. This channel was only used in case of emergency. If they should find themselves stranded or if one of them were hurt, they would radio to base and measures would be taken.
These radio transmissions only occurred three times in the history of Mars.
The first, happened during the building of the wells. A group scientists wanted to try to build at night, such was the fervor for water at the time. When questioned, they outlined addition measures for the protection of themselves and their suits. These, with the radio, they said, would provide them ample security to survive anything the night had to offer. One man, George Mannecart, asked them, at the time, what measures they had to survive an attack (this before they had found that their sector, if not all of Mars, was uninhabited). The scientists proposed that one of them might bring along a tazer and the matter was settled.
That evening, before sunset, the group, radio code Red Eye, the group reached the well construction site and relieved the day crew. A few hours after the sun set on the red planet, the radio transmission was received:
“Help! This is a mayday! SOS! Whatever the bloody hell you want! Over!”
“Lt. Martyr. Come in. What is the problem?”
“We've got a hurricane HQ! Some of the scientists are blathering that it's so large we don't even have a classification for it! There also seem to be a number of tornadoes joined in with the storm! Over!”
“What's your 20? Over.”
“We've taken shelter in as much of the construction site as there is left to offer, but it's tearing the wells and the equipment apart! Over!”
“Okay, we are have paged Dr. Mansard. He'll advise as to survival protocol. Over!”
“This is Mansard. Martyr?”
“Yes sir! Over!”
“We exactly in the site are you? Erm...Over.”
“We have taken shelter in the wells sir! I'm here with Stepan, and Peter and Nikolai are in another! Our positions are temporary, at most! The storm is destroying everything sir! Over.”
Mansard consulted his notes and believed he had found a suitably place for them to survive the storm. He consulted with Fox before issuing the orders.
“Martyr? Over.”
“Yes sir. Here sir. Over.”
“There is an outcropping of rocks just east of the site. Do you have your GPS? Over”
“Yes sir, but the storm, sir...Over”
“Martyr, you can't survive there all night. Now in the rocks, there are some small caves. We haven't properly searched them, but the reconnaissance I have suggests that the four of you can fit. I need you to try and make it to the caves. Wait for a break in the storm. It should be more than a hundred and fifty feet away at most. Over.”
“I'll consult the engineers. Over.”
In the end, they were left with no other choice. After radioing back to the domes, Martyr led the men to the caves. After that, the domes lost contact with the scientists. When the morning came, a search party was sent, consisting of three men, to find the Red Eye. They found the site abandoned, but upon entering the caves found the bodies of the three engineers. Each suit had been ravaged and torn, presumably by the storm. Martyr was no where to be found.
The second transmission was some years after that and was equally enigmatic.
It was led by a naval officer named Bottle Jones (earth born), a uproariously funny man, who engaged himself in the finding of new water sources. His team consisted of two twins, Twist and Shout, both born on Mars. They were young, but he employed their speed and dexterity in quick raid missions into the surrounding waste.
They worked in concentric circles, using underground mapping techniques invented and pioneered by Jones himself. He used them to make a three dimensional map of the ground beneath the wells and the domes. What he found was an inlet, leading to Fox's Deep. This river underground was thought, at first, to pour from the reservoir. It was in following it that Bottle discovered that it was widening the farther it went from Fox's. He conjectured that the river, in actuality, was flowing from some where much larger. With this electric news, he went to Fox for permission to follow it back to it's source. He hoped that, if possible, the river could lead to a mass of water large enough to not only sustain them, but allow them to grow more food and plants. He dreamed of expansion. He told Fox that with that level of comfortable survival, they could begin to search out mineral deposits and begin to refine them.
But Fox was unmoved by Bottles elaborate dreams. The two argued over the project, Fox referring to it as a suicide mission, but in the end, consent was given.
After this, Bottle and the twins worked for two months, making the equipment and resources they'd need. Bottle knew they would have to spend at least one night in the Martian landscape, and thus he made provisions for it. Such was Jones' amiable nature, that the entire colony buzzed with excitement. Many began to dream of buildings and resources beyond their grasp. The dreamed of easy life and hope that they might do more than survive.
The day they left, most of the citizens arrived to send them off with songs and cheering. Bottle flashed his brilliant smile and the twins grinned. There is still a picture of three of them in the computers. They look like heroes.
After that, they were never seen from again.
The only data on their mission comes from transmitters in each of their suits. The colony watched in awe as they traversed the landscape. They had only a few satellites to track them with, so they could only map their terrain for a few hundred miles. Bottle's team never made it that far.
The technician on the radio, a woman named Eartha, received Bottle's last transmission very early in the morning of their second day.
“(A great shout, uncomprehensible)”
“Jones, sir? Over.”
“Whhhhhhhat's yyyooooouuuur name?”
“Jones? Over?”
“Whhhhhhooooo iiiiiisssss thissssss?”
“Bottle Jones, sir! Is that you?”
Eartha was shaken by the voice on the receiver. She sent for her directing officer. Miles (short for Smiles) Breener took over for her after she told him about the transmission.
“Chief Jones. Come in. Over.”
“Jooooonnnnessss?”
Miles looked at Eartha. He wasn't smiling.
“Who is this? Over?”
“Jooooonnnnessss?”
“You are not Chief Jones.”
“Yoooouuu aaaaarrrrre nooooot Eaaaaarrrrrtha.”
At this, Eartha fainted.
The transmission severed soon after that and the GPS on the three men moved irratically and then disappeared off of the map.
No search party was sent, as Fox saw their distance and the irrational nature of the transmission as cause to pronounce Bottle's group MIA. The colony felt the blow and mourned the loss of their friends and dreams.
Peanut's transmission was the third.
Pin made footsteps with horizontal lines in the dirt as he paced away from the work crew. He held the scanner close to the pipes and ran his flashlight over it as he walked. For a moment, he had a feeling nudity; he felt all of the layers over his skin. He stood for a moment and looked again out into the red orange landscape. He watched the dust devils, spinning in an almost magnificent way. It's like dancing, he thought; the great whirlwinds spinning this way and that.
Peanut clicked in.
“You alright there?”
“Yeah, I'm good.”
“You thinkin' about Good's sister or something?”
“Nah.”
“Good, 'cause we are done over here so we are moving on to the next. We'll see you over there alright?”
“Right-o.”
Peanut clicked out and Pin continued to walk. He glanced over at the crew, each clipped to the transit wires, making their way over to the next well. I have to hurry, he thought, and returned to the scanner.
His concentration could only hold out for a few moments, however, as his attention was diverted. From the corner of his eye, he thought he noticed something. When he was first allowed out on these missions, his father told him that the desert can play with your eyes. He called it “Marvin the Martian” syndrome. He had bent down to Pin in a loading bay and looked him in the eyes.
“There's nothing out there.” He said and Pin had nodded his agreement.
There was even a rhyme known to the handful of children raised in the domes.
'Marvin the Martian never lived in the ocean/
Marvin the Martian never did./
If Marvin the Martian doesn't live in the ocean/
Then where does the Martian man live?'
The first few times Pin went out into the land ocean, he would hum the words like a mantra; and although no one ever felt truly relaxed or at home, they all stopped humming after a while. It wasn't a comfort with the surroundings, how could it be? They were aliens here.
Try putting a fish on land and asking if it feels the dirt is hospitable.
But because of the mental training and the frequency of excursions in which Pin was included, Pin had learned that there were no monsters or trapdoor spiders hiding in the red sand.
So when Pin turned, he felt like he had found a sword in his bed.
Peanut marched the men over to the next well, taking care to keep an eye on little Curry. He watched the wire and kept an eye on the horizon. It seemed darker to him somehow.
He knew from experience, that it was sometimes possible to see a storm from hundreds of miles away, especially on a clear day like this. He only worried about it in a casual way, like he did members of his team and their equipment.
He walked the last length of the wire and put his hand on the pump. He felt it thrumming through his glove and was relieved. Another of his worries was damaged machinery, a bigger one was water shortage. He walked around the unit, named Prancer, and bent down to open the diagnostics hatch. He looked again at the sky. It seems brighter, he thought.
Curry stepped in next to him and he and Bobo checked the well.
“Still wet sir.” Curry sang to him.
Peanut nodded and pulled out his diagnostic scanner. He plugged it into the machine and waited. All Peanut had to do was to check if it was green or red on the scanner. The more complex data would be uploaded and returned to the engineers in East Dome for decoding. Peanut was no moron, but the danger of the missions necessitated simplicity.
He looked down at Curry and marveled at the speed of the man's hands. He's done this for so long, he thought.
It was just then that his scanner flashed red and the sky began to darken.
It was just as before.
From out in the ocean of sand, Pin heard the call. It sang across a great distance to him, but he did not understand.
I've left my sword in my bunk, Pin thought.
The creature swam across the horizon, as it had in his dream. It grew in size, ebbing and flowing with the martian tide. It moved, again, with incredible dexterity and purpose; as if it was the only creature that could call Mars a home.
Pin was entranced by it, turning his suit away from the pipes and his crew to marvel.
The dream flashed for a moment in his mind and something felt wrong. Terror slid insidiously into him and he stepped towards the creature.
The beast threw itself about in the land ocean, seemingly chaotic, but drawing nearer. It moved as if insane or in great anguish, casting itself unheeding into rocks and dunes. Pin felt there was something sinister about the creature, but before he could press himself as to what, Peanut came on in a panic.
“This is an ALL CALL! REGROUP AT THE FIRST WELL!”
Pin turned quickly and fell into the dirt. He looked up at the gigantic mast of orange clouds storming down upon them. He tried to stand up, but a gust of wind blew him over again. Sand rolled over him and he was blind for a moment.
“PIN! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!”
Pin tried to answer, but paused at the echoing roar. It sounded like rolling thunder. Or laughter. He turned to see the great monster bearing down upon them, only a few miles away. He carefully pushed himself upright and turned to look for the work crew. He saw them huddled around the last well, Peanut's hulking figure turned toward him.
He glanced once more at the monstrosity. It was a great worm, he saw. It's skin black and ridged. It had many red eyes, each more hateful than the next.
It was in that moment, that Pin felt an unknown call to do something. He turned away from Peanut and began to run.
What the hell is the kid doing? Peanut thought. He watched Pin, the boy's back to them. He was about to radio again, when suddenly Pin began to run, after a fashion, away from them.
Peanut was flabbergasted. Of all the suicidal maniacs to end up with, he thought. He stood up and looked at the hose, thinking he had to go after the kid. He ducked back down after a moment, as the wind buffeted the team again.
I have to get the team back, he thought. He knew this, but his heart went out to Pin. He felt an immense amount of feeling for the boy, but he knew after a moment that he could not save him. He watched as Pin continued to disappear into the ever-growing storm.
Peanut froze and his heart beat in his ears. He thought he saw something else out there with Pin, something enormous. Curry came on.
“What's going on?!”
Peanut shook his head as the scene disappeared.
“We have to leave him. He's gone.”
Curry didn't respond. Peanut breathed out the sadness and fear he felt and called back to the domes.
“This is Peanut. Over.”
“Go ahead Peanut. Over.” This was Tanya.
“We're stuck in a sandstorm. Over.”
“Do you have shelter? Over.”
“No, we are trapped against a well. Over.”
“Alright, time to take Rover for a test drive then. I'm sending Good to get you. Over.”
“Also...we lost Pin...Over.”
“Say again Peanut? Over”
“Pin, Fox's boy, we've lost him...”
Over.
At first, Pin ran towards the beast. His heart, at first terrified beyond reason, began to swell with something new. He felt himself start to lift inwardly.
He stared at the worm, the great monster flashing this way and that. It's great evil eyes staring at him. It seemed to understand the newness of the boy's courage and laughed. It's call filled Pin's ears and his eyes watered. His heart shook with fear, but he pushed himself faster. He sprint through the land ocean and the sand storm, his eyes almost shut with tears. Unknowingly, his hands balled into fists.
He blinked and found himself standing before a great pit. His eyes grew wide and he through his arms out before him. He left his feet and found himself in open air. The pit was only about ten feet across and he groped for the other side.
The last thing he saw, before his helmet struck the side wall, was the worm. But at this last glance, it was no longer a worm, but a wolf, huge and black. It's eyes still glared maliciously and as it disappeared from view, Pin heard its barking laughter.
Charles Fox sat in his office in the East Dome staring at the wall. His eyes were blank and his face was drawn. He unconsciously tapped his hand on the desk. After a moment, his eyes came back to life and he began to outline a new draft of blue prints.
The colony had no schools to speak of, as they were, in some respects, a rural community. If one populated by as many genius' the nations from Earth could stuff inside a spaceship. It was the politicians idea that schools would be relatively unnecessary, as they were scientists on a mission. Charlie's eyes laughed.
The politicians had also stated that the second wave of space colonists would follow the first so closely that there would hardly be time for them to need any formal education system.
Thus, with the advent of couples, and their children (some born en route, others born on Mars), the colonists had fell into a simple, parent-child apprenticeship. Children, including Fox's own, were taught their parents particular skill, as best they could. It was allowed that not every child would be able to intrinsically understand quantum physics or something of the sort, as well as their parents, who were taught in Earth's most renown and prestigious colleges and universities.
But then, there had never been children such as these.
Borne out of adversity; from possible the most promising gene pool possible; taught the ins and outs of everything their parents did from the moment they could speak; these children were astoundingly capable. Some more so than their parents. It was science as the family business, in a place where failure was not an option.
Fox kept this in mind as he drew up the blue prints. Whittling away at the problem as he saw it.
There was a tone from the wall and a voice came on. It was Tanya. One of the Russians, he thought. Not that it had any bearing anymore.
“Mr. Fox?”
He stepped over to the box on the wall and keyed the speaker.
“Yes Tanya?”
“We've just had a radio call from Peanut, he was the one leading the team to the wells this afternoon.”
Charles knew Peanut and liked him very much. It was something about his adventurous spirit.
“It seems he's been trapped out there by a sandstorm.”
“Is the team alright, Tanya?”
“Mostly, sir. One of the members has gone missing.”
Charles sigh and shook his head.
“Which member?”
“It was your son, Pin, sir.”
A man in shining garb stands before Pin, his feet bare in the red dust. He wears a crown and his body glows with some electric light. His arms are crossed and he stares into Pin.
Who are you, Pin thinks. He is bare and red, as before, breathing in the Martian air and standing in the Martian soil. There is no sword in his hand. He wonders where it has gone.
The man holds out the rod in his hand. He points it at a mountain. But it is more than a mountain, growing larger and taller than any other. Its peak skims the top of the atmosphere and possible into the void beyond. A great red testament to the unknown.
Pin looks between the rod and the mountain and doesn't understand. The electric man looks at him and points to the top. Pin shakes his head inside his helmet.
He wakes for a moment and sees the crack. His head is muddy and he sinks back.
The glowing man is still pointing at the mountain, still looking into Pin. Pin is red and strong in the dream, but he knows he his dying. He tries to shake his head again.
He winces at the pain in his neck. The pain brings him back for a moment. He begins to breath and chokes. Pin's head is filled with pain. There's a pressure on his arm.
An electric hand is grabbing him, pulling him back into the dream. Pin's eyes flutter and he sees the glow before him. They flutter again and he sees the darkness of the cave and crack in the plastic.
I'm dying, Pin thinks.
He looks at the man, who seems to smile at him. At his thought. Pin wonders again who the crowned, shining personage is, as a shining hand reaches towards him. The rod is gone. He is holding Pin with both hands now.
Now in the cave.
Now in the desert.
Through the cracked helmet the man glows and the impossible unblinking eyes stare into him.
Pin begins to feel a pressure all over his body. He can feel it over ever inch of his skin. Even his veins, even his cells, all of them are being pushed and pulled, all at once. It grows uncomfortable, it's too much. He looks at the man, but the man is too bright and the pressure is too strong. The man, king, whomever, is pulling him. Pulling him out of his suit, out of his clothes, out of his skin. Pin glances at his feet as the man gives one final tug, removing his soul from his body.
Pt.2
The hatch opens on West Dome. Plenty carefully careens the buggy up into the bay and they shut again. Pressure normalizes. For a moment, there is a peaceful silence. Then bodies rush into the room. Hands help to remove gear. The team is checked for any injuries. Peanut sits off to one side, his great hulking shoulders sagging under what he knows is coming. He facies the wall, but he knows what he'll hear. Suddenly the bustling room grows quiet. It's admiration, he thinks. It's awe. He stands and turns to face Fox. The entire bay watches the two men. Fox nods to Peanut. Peanut returned the gesture and follows him out.
Once out in the hall, they begin the march to East Dome. Fox begins the question, the one he'd been dwelling on all day.
“Peanut.”
Peanut follows through the corridors, behind and to Fox's right. He feels a weight on him, after the mission, after the mishap. Still, with it, he continues to stand straight, his full height almost touching the ceiling. He sighs.
“Yes sir.”
“Peanut, I...I want you to...”
Fox stops and turns to Peanut.
“Peanut, for right now, go home. The satellites have mapped that the storm will last for quite some time yet. I see no point in dragging out a traumatic experience, so we will discuss it tomorrow. When the weather is clear. When there's actually something we can do about it.”
“But sir!”
Fox looked into Peanut's eyes.
“But sir, we could go and look for him. We could take the buggy or...”
“Peanut, we don't have the resources.”
He put his hand on the great shoulder.
“Believe me,” He whispers, “I wish that there was something, anything we could do. But we can't, and you can't. Not in this storm, not now.”
Peanut nodded and looked up and down the halls.
“Has there been any problem with water sir?”
Fox looked surprised.
“Why?”
“The pump on Prancer seems to be acting up. That was as far as we got, but they all may be in jeopardy.”
Fox shrugged.
“Not that I know of, but I'll alert Caleb. He'll see it gets dealt with. For now, go ahead and head home.”
Peanut turned and walked toward North Dome, feeling Fox watch him go.
From a distance, Tanya sees Peanut hulk his way down the corridor. She watches him walk, and even in his sulky mood, she cannot help but feel the the attraction. She shakes her head and follows him down a flight of stars and into the Main Hall. The ceilings here aren't much higher than everywhere else, but they are reinforced almost twice as much as any of the other domes. Tanya knows that this is because they are the main junction between all of the segments and without them, everyone would die. She learned this from her father, one of the men buried in South Dome. He told her about it, even as a child.
“My lovely Tanya, where would each be without the other?” he tried to explain, as he walked around enormous planters, filled with every plant imaginable. She followed him obediently, watching him water each small blossom or twig.
“I do not understand, Papa.”
She watched his back. He turned this way and that, holding a leaf in his hand for a moment. He looked around the greenhouse quickly before calmly plucking the small green appendage.
He turned to her, his eyes twinkling behind his spectacles. His small gray mustache brushing over his lips as he spoke softly to her.
“My little one, light of my heart, do you see this leaf? The one I hold here in my hand?”
“Yes, Papa.”
“Why is this leaf green?”
“I do not know, Papa.”
“It is strange isn't it? There is a chemical which I will teach you about, it is in this plant and it makes the leaf green. What do you think of that, my daughter?”
“What does the chemical do?”
“It takes light and turns it into food, energy essentially, for the rest of the plant.”
“Oh.”
He bent down to her and held the leaf up so she could better examine it. Her hand unconsciously reached for it. He smiled at the motion and held the leaf out to her. She was hesitant for a moment, but chose to reach out and touch it. Her fingers played over the smooth outside of the plant, touching the forking symmetrical network of veins. Her father saw her eyes moving and her mind moving behind them.
“Now daughter, why do I use this precious organism when I explain our city? What does it have to do with you and me?”
“I do not know, Papa.”
“Think for me little one.”
She looked up at the artificial light, filling each plant with warmth, giving food to them, making them grow.
“We are the leaves.” She said.
“Yes,” he replied, “And isn't it funny that leaves are green no matter where they are grown?”
She smiled and her returned it.
“Come now.” Tanya remembered him saying.
She passed through the Main Hall, still following Peanut. She knew she would need to return to work soon, but for now, she could spend a little time wondering why he wasn't turning to North Dome, but instead striding towards East.
Pin stood up at the bottom of the pit, the shimmering man gone, leaving him alone in the dark cavern. Light came down through the top of the hole at an angle, affording him a view of the sky. He looked up at it for a moment, a feeling of lightness at the empty pinkish hue. A feeling of lightness everywhere, he thought.
He looked at his hands in the light. He clenched them before his eyes, the knuckles turning white.
Where are my gloves, he thought.
He felt the lightness turn. He was sinking, lowering his hands and looking at his body. Funny, he thought, doesn't even look like me.
The face had blood dried over the forehead and cheek. He could see a discoloration when he looked at the skin. It was pale and slightly blue. The eyes were open, each now empty, devoid of the self which now stood before it. Pin ran his hand over the crack in the helmet, not only to test the fracture, but to find if he could feel it without the flesh of his hands. His hand stopped against the smooth glass and he felt the small fissure the fall had opened in his helmet.
For a moment, he was seized with a strange idea. He bent down over his empty frame, his knees resting in the fine dust.
The Wyrm
Pt.1
On Mercury, Hermes stood. He skin was light and dark, shining out in all directions while he pitched the little ball, on which he stood, faster and faster.
The landscape shifted like quiksilver and he watched the planets and spun.
He was smiling at the stars when he heard a flutter of wings behind him. A small cherubic boy stood before him, a parcel tucked under his arm.
Hermes frowned at the child, but watched intently, nonetheless as the child drew a pictograph in the air. As the message began to unfold, Hermes expression waned and even the sun king grew pale.
As it was, no one could remember who arrived on Mars first anymore. It had become one of those useless details which, given the number of newsworthy incidents, had been eclipsed in the grander scheme of things.
All anyone could remember was the race.
Each of Earth's country's had sought to colonize the red planet. Each president and politician drove it's people to new fervors. They talked incessantly about a place they had never been and the wonders that could be found there. It was an El Dorado for the 21st century. It's red carpet led, not to gold, but new scientific discoveries.
Surely, they said, that by knowing more about our neighboring planet, we will be able to ascertain new information about our own!
So it was settled, in all manner of ways.
Each country set off for the new world, brushing their shoulders against the other.
It was risky and rash. Each astronaut, cosmonaut, what-have-you, was pushed to be the first. Pilots made ridiculous decisions, politicians made ridiculous statements; and, as the race went on, it seemed as if everyone was winning, in all directions, and all at once.
Then a rocket exploded, killing twelve men and women. All genius' in their field, all in the best form of their lives.
This, in a twisted way, brought the interstellar aviators back down to Earth.
One captain looked at his crew and broke the silence. Another answered and spoke to another. In a fleet of 9 crafts, each had been flying solo.
One ship was almost out of food.
Another had lost their navigating equipment and had been following the others, line-of-sight, ever since.
On the dark road of space, between home and glory, they became one nation, one people, one cause.
The stress and anxiety dissolved with those twelve.
It was so when they arrived, each man a refugee. The countries of Earth had laughed at their soldiers and scientists, so far away from home. Politicians sipping exotic flavors had told them that they should do what they are told, if they knew what was good for them.
But the new people new what was good for them.
As the settlers to America, so many years in the past, they had no idea.
Pin stood in the desert, breathing deep and looked at the red sand shifting across the horizon. It blew through his hair, painting his face chest. He watched the horizon ripple with the wind. The great ocean of sand, billowing out into infinity.
From the depths of the ocean, there came a call.
It sang across the great distance to him. He listened, but did not understand. The horizon continued to ripple. A shape emerged from the waves.
Pin looked down at the small outcrop of rocks on which he stood, bare but for some shorts. Alive when he shouldn't be. He looked down at his hands. They were blood stained evenly from the tip of his fingernail to his elbow and onto his chest.
He was a martian, he thought.
He heard a deep echoing call and looked out again. Amongst the waves, the shape grew larger and larger still. It was too far off to make out anything more than it's size. It was immense, but moved with incredible finesse through the rolling landscape.
Pin became afraid.
The creature was growing in size, thrusting it's way towards him. It's splashing and jumping were precise and patterned, so that it became a leviathan arrow; flying towards him out of the heart of the great planet.
The echoing began to sound like rolling thunder. Or laughter.
Pin's legs felt weak, but he couldn't sit or fall over. The wind kept him upright and motionless. The painting desert presented him to the creature. The creature would take him, he knew.
It was as the creature finally neared him that he finally felt something cold pressed into his palm. He looked down at the new weight and found a huge jagged sword.
He lifted it up at the howling monster and the dream evaporated around him.
It was on an unknown date, unknown month, unknown year, that Pin awoke in a bunk inside North Dome. He looked around hazily, stopping to look at his skin, which wasn't crimson at all. He sighed and lay back against the bed. He closed his eyes and stretched his arms and legs out.
When his hand came down on the mattress, it struck something cold.
Pin felt a shiver cross him. His fingers felt around the spot for the hard, metallic cold. The came around a round ball, which attached to a filligreed cylinder. The sword.
Pin shivered and felt himself shake all over. He breathed a deep sigh and took his hand from the object.
He opened his eyes, through off the blanket, and calmly ran from his bed.
In the years following their settling of Mars, the newcomers built and made and invented, with a ferocity mankind had never seen. They still hadn't seen, as mankind had turned its back on the explorers upon the space fleets arrival to Mars. Communication was lost, or abandoned, and in the hopelessness of the situation, many died quietly alone in their beds.
It was in this vacuum, that Charles Fox stepped forward and presented them with a future.
He outlined a plan. A plan for survival. A plan for sustainability. He presented them with life.
So they made the domes, dividing them into cardinal points.
They made the houses and bunkers within the domes to keep the sand at bay.
The built labs and workshops, silos and farms.
When they came upon a problem, the collective mind of the colony invented a way around it.
If the ground was too hard, they built a better drill.
It the water was too far and too cold, they built a better aquaduct.
If the people became, fatigued, sickly, or weak; they made and created and worked around or through it.
In those first ten years, only 11 died.
They continued to strive, but to some, it seemed forever hopeless. They could not breathe the air or go outside without a suit. They were foreign contaminants to a planet that did not want them.
It was such that, no matter the level of success in providing food or medicine or safety; they settlers never felt like more than unwelcome guests.
Pin stepped into a shaft of light and climbed the stairs to the Mess. His stomach growled at him and he stepped quickly into the queue of people. He flexed his hand and tried to forget his bed and his dream. Friends smiled at him and he bid them a fine day, but he was lost inside himself. He stepped through the line and received his meal, thanking the service man and receding to a table next to a portculis.
There he was sitting when Plenty arrived.
As the first children were born, the crew turned colonists turned parents, decided to name their children after the things they missed about their old home. Children were called Garden or Tree or Gelato, each to the smiles and sadness of those who could remember their life before the domes and the sand.
This was done in a lighthearted manner in a time when most of the crew members considered dying quietly, alone in their beds. However, with the first child, a strange new emotion climbed into the hearts of the men and women.
For once, they began to see the future as more than a bleak cliff in the red landscape; that they would, at some point or another, topple off, ending all that they had built. Without discussion or consensus they had all come to believe that it was all just Christmas lights on a dead tree.
But, when the first child came, the first human ever born on Mars, those who had felt only abandonment and estrangement, indulged in hope.
“What's new?” she asked.
He looked out the glass, trying to count the inches between himself and the desert.
“Oi!” She tapped at his cup. Without looking over at her, he said:
“Plenty of time to tell.”
She made a noise in her throat and stood up.
He paused for effect and looked over, watching as she carried her bowl to her brother's table. He sighed and turned back to the window.
The horizon seemed to ripple and he felt a moment of euphoria. He turned to his food.
Pin stood in the docks, his bare feet shuffling through the dust colored by iron oxide. Each man in the bay moved quickly. Gathering gear and setting it out for the next expedition. Pin looked and looked about the room, searching for Plenty's brother.
“Pin?” someone said to his left. He turned to find Peanut, a great jovial hulk, looking down at him. He shuffled his feet and turned to the giant.
“Peanut!” He said with a great smile, “Where are you off to today?”
“Same as usual,” said the man with a sigh, “What're you doing down here?”
“Well...” Pin started, looking casually around the room for any alarm, “I was wondering if you had an extra spot open for today's trip?”
Peanut's expression brightened. Since an accident a few weeks back had sucked Pin's second cousin, Noodle, out of his suit, partly; the volunteers for the excursions for water had been wanting.
“Well sure, I think we can figure something out.”
It was almost funny to the settlers. It reminded them of back home, when you saw something one way from far away, but as it came closer, it was the opposite.
They broke ground on the dome as fast as they could, but ran into a number of problems with the wind that whipped around the planet. They had thousands of tons of materials,including their ships, turning over because of it.
Finally, with little recourse, they drilled the dense Martian soil, with the hopes of creating a more solid base for the domes to rest upon.
It was then that they made a fantastic discovery.
After less than a hundred feet, they struck mud. This sent the scientists into frenzies, each with a Nobel Prize in mind. But Fox stepped forward and pointed to the mud that came oozing out of the ground and said one word: water.
Pin was more than halfway into his suit, when a voice called to him. He sagged as Plenty's brother, Good, was pointed to him. He could hear Good siddle up behind him and whisper in his ear.
“What's this about messing with my sister?”
Pin turned quickly around at him, his eyes staring into Good's. Good was taken aback by the gesture and repeated his question.
“I've done nothing to her, mate,” Pin answered.
“Why do you shun her when she clearly thinks the Earth of you?”
He didn't know. He never knew. It was just the way he felt. But how can you say that to her brother, he thought. How can you tell her that, in a place filled with death and survival, you can't bring yourself to enough civility to procreate.
“I..” he started. Good's eyebrows ticked up.
“I'll talked...I'll talk to her about it.”
Good looked at him for a moment, still weary, but unsatisfied. Pin turned from him and continued to prep his suit.
They called the short distance to the wells and pumps “The Opening Measure”, because after that, anything was bound to happen. Peanut stood out near the front of the line, as he was very tall. Each of them wore what looked like a suit of armor, their heads encapsulated in shining metal bubbles. The suits had once been white, Pin had been told, but now each of them were brown and red from long use.
Peanut trudged along quietly for a while, the rest of the procession, a short man named Curry, a lanky boy named Corn and a few others Pin didn't readily remember, walk along in his footsteps.
After a few minutes of it, his intercom switched on. It was Peanut.
“Hey ya Pin.”
“Hi Peanut.”
“So what will it be today?”
Peanut scanned the horizon for a moment and turned the group slightly to the right.
“What's available, Pea?”
“Well we got Curry here checking the electrical on the wells, Bobo is with him while Corn and me check the pumps. You up for checking the line?”
“Sure thing.”
The intercom clicked off.
Curry sped up for a moment and Pin assumed that he was talking with Peanut.
Pin knew that while in the Measure, it was extremely important to focus on the line. The leaders realized that the corroding of the paint on the suit, while detrimental in a small way, made for good camouflage. Not that there were any predators, but they still decided on playing it safe.
But as they were the only life on Mars, Pin had always thought it like hiding from oneself.
Pin understood all of this, but, as it was a clear day of sorts, he indulged himself. He looked around, watching the clouds, great dust devils off in the distance. The mountains (the distance of sight affirming the beauty of the day) were great and hulking in the distance. Their size so much more than imposing. As a child, Pin had asked his father once if he could climb them. His father skipped the rational response in this and told him instead: “Maybe someday”.
Peanut clicked on again, this time as an all call.
“Alright folks, there she is in the distance. You guys know what to do, so let's be quick and get out of here so we can see the look on Station Manager's face at all the oxygen we saved.”
There was no hurray from the men, only the click and the absence of Peanut's voice.
There were six wells. Each was set 50 meters from the one before it. Wires ran between them for the teams to use in transit. The wells were set at staggers depths, but all drew from an enormous underground reservoir known as Fox Deep. Above each well, there were large pumps, each with a reinforced hose leading to the main line. This line was made from incredibly thick pipe, and was buried for it's own safety.
Pin's job, was to check the distance from each hose to the mainline, looking for leaks, abrasions, etc. When they arrived, Curry handed Pin a flashlight and a scanner to accomplish his task. The problem with the hoses was, due to their reinforced nature, no anchoring wires were attached to them. The scientists either didn't want to weaken them or forgot, no one knew.
It was a clear day, the sky a swirling light orange, the martian landscape some semblance of calm. Peanut had a radio in his helmet that with which the domes could reach him. This channel was only used in case of emergency. If they should find themselves stranded or if one of them were hurt, they would radio to base and measures would be taken.
These radio transmissions only occurred three times in the history of Mars.
The first, happened during the building of the wells. A group scientists wanted to try to build at night, such was the fervor for water at the time. When questioned, they outlined addition measures for the protection of themselves and their suits. These, with the radio, they said, would provide them ample security to survive anything the night had to offer. One man, George Mannecart, asked them, at the time, what measures they had to survive an attack (this before they had found that their sector, if not all of Mars, was uninhabited). The scientists proposed that one of them might bring along a tazer and the matter was settled.
That evening, before sunset, the group, radio code Red Eye, the group reached the well construction site and relieved the day crew. A few hours after the sun set on the red planet, the radio transmission was received:
“Help! This is a mayday! SOS! Whatever the bloody hell you want! Over!”
“Lt. Martyr. Come in. What is the problem?”
“We've got a hurricane HQ! Some of the scientists are blathering that it's so large we don't even have a classification for it! There also seem to be a number of tornadoes joined in with the storm! Over!”
“What's your 20? Over.”
“We've taken shelter in as much of the construction site as there is left to offer, but it's tearing the wells and the equipment apart! Over!”
“Okay, we are have paged Dr. Mansard. He'll advise as to survival protocol. Over!”
“This is Mansard. Martyr?”
“Yes sir! Over!”
“We exactly in the site are you? Erm...Over.”
“We have taken shelter in the wells sir! I'm here with Stepan, and Peter and Nikolai are in another! Our positions are temporary, at most! The storm is destroying everything sir! Over.”
Mansard consulted his notes and believed he had found a suitably place for them to survive the storm. He consulted with Fox before issuing the orders.
“Martyr? Over.”
“Yes sir. Here sir. Over.”
“There is an outcropping of rocks just east of the site. Do you have your GPS? Over”
“Yes sir, but the storm, sir...Over”
“Martyr, you can't survive there all night. Now in the rocks, there are some small caves. We haven't properly searched them, but the reconnaissance I have suggests that the four of you can fit. I need you to try and make it to the caves. Wait for a break in the storm. It should be more than a hundred and fifty feet away at most. Over.”
“I'll consult the engineers. Over.”
In the end, they were left with no other choice. After radioing back to the domes, Martyr led the men to the caves. After that, the domes lost contact with the scientists. When the morning came, a search party was sent, consisting of three men, to find the Red Eye. They found the site abandoned, but upon entering the caves found the bodies of the three engineers. Each suit had been ravaged and torn, presumably by the storm. Martyr was no where to be found.
The second transmission was some years after that and was equally enigmatic.
It was led by a naval officer named Bottle Jones (earth born), a uproariously funny man, who engaged himself in the finding of new water sources. His team consisted of two twins, Twist and Shout, both born on Mars. They were young, but he employed their speed and dexterity in quick raid missions into the surrounding waste.
They worked in concentric circles, using underground mapping techniques invented and pioneered by Jones himself. He used them to make a three dimensional map of the ground beneath the wells and the domes. What he found was an inlet, leading to Fox's Deep. This river underground was thought, at first, to pour from the reservoir. It was in following it that Bottle discovered that it was widening the farther it went from Fox's. He conjectured that the river, in actuality, was flowing from some where much larger. With this electric news, he went to Fox for permission to follow it back to it's source. He hoped that, if possible, the river could lead to a mass of water large enough to not only sustain them, but allow them to grow more food and plants. He dreamed of expansion. He told Fox that with that level of comfortable survival, they could begin to search out mineral deposits and begin to refine them.
But Fox was unmoved by Bottles elaborate dreams. The two argued over the project, Fox referring to it as a suicide mission, but in the end, consent was given.
After this, Bottle and the twins worked for two months, making the equipment and resources they'd need. Bottle knew they would have to spend at least one night in the Martian landscape, and thus he made provisions for it. Such was Jones' amiable nature, that the entire colony buzzed with excitement. Many began to dream of buildings and resources beyond their grasp. The dreamed of easy life and hope that they might do more than survive.
The day they left, most of the citizens arrived to send them off with songs and cheering. Bottle flashed his brilliant smile and the twins grinned. There is still a picture of three of them in the computers. They look like heroes.
After that, they were never seen from again.
The only data on their mission comes from transmitters in each of their suits. The colony watched in awe as they traversed the landscape. They had only a few satellites to track them with, so they could only map their terrain for a few hundred miles. Bottle's team never made it that far.
The technician on the radio, a woman named Eartha, received Bottle's last transmission very early in the morning of their second day.
“(A great shout, uncomprehensible)”
“Jones, sir? Over.”
“Whhhhhhhat's yyyooooouuuur name?”
“Jones? Over?”
“Whhhhhhooooo iiiiiisssss thissssss?”
“Bottle Jones, sir! Is that you?”
Eartha was shaken by the voice on the receiver. She sent for her directing officer. Miles (short for Smiles) Breener took over for her after she told him about the transmission.
“Chief Jones. Come in. Over.”
“Jooooonnnnessss?”
Miles looked at Eartha. He wasn't smiling.
“Who is this? Over?”
“Jooooonnnnessss?”
“You are not Chief Jones.”
“Yoooouuu aaaaarrrrre nooooot Eaaaaarrrrrtha.”
At this, Eartha fainted.
The transmission severed soon after that and the GPS on the three men moved irratically and then disappeared off of the map.
No search party was sent, as Fox saw their distance and the irrational nature of the transmission as cause to pronounce Bottle's group MIA. The colony felt the blow and mourned the loss of their friends and dreams.
Peanut's transmission was the third.
Pin made footsteps with horizontal lines in the dirt as he paced away from the work crew. He held the scanner close to the pipes and ran his flashlight over it as he walked. For a moment, he had a feeling nudity; he felt all of the layers over his skin. He stood for a moment and looked again out into the red orange landscape. He watched the dust devils, spinning in an almost magnificent way. It's like dancing, he thought; the great whirlwinds spinning this way and that.
Peanut clicked in.
“You alright there?”
“Yeah, I'm good.”
“You thinkin' about Good's sister or something?”
“Nah.”
“Good, 'cause we are done over here so we are moving on to the next. We'll see you over there alright?”
“Right-o.”
Peanut clicked out and Pin continued to walk. He glanced over at the crew, each clipped to the transit wires, making their way over to the next well. I have to hurry, he thought, and returned to the scanner.
His concentration could only hold out for a few moments, however, as his attention was diverted. From the corner of his eye, he thought he noticed something. When he was first allowed out on these missions, his father told him that the desert can play with your eyes. He called it “Marvin the Martian” syndrome. He had bent down to Pin in a loading bay and looked him in the eyes.
“There's nothing out there.” He said and Pin had nodded his agreement.
There was even a rhyme known to the handful of children raised in the domes.
'Marvin the Martian never lived in the ocean/
Marvin the Martian never did./
If Marvin the Martian doesn't live in the ocean/
Then where does the Martian man live?'
The first few times Pin went out into the land ocean, he would hum the words like a mantra; and although no one ever felt truly relaxed or at home, they all stopped humming after a while. It wasn't a comfort with the surroundings, how could it be? They were aliens here.
Try putting a fish on land and asking if it feels the dirt is hospitable.
But because of the mental training and the frequency of excursions in which Pin was included, Pin had learned that there were no monsters or trapdoor spiders hiding in the red sand.
So when Pin turned, he felt like he had found a sword in his bed.
Peanut marched the men over to the next well, taking care to keep an eye on little Curry. He watched the wire and kept an eye on the horizon. It seemed darker to him somehow.
He knew from experience, that it was sometimes possible to see a storm from hundreds of miles away, especially on a clear day like this. He only worried about it in a casual way, like he did members of his team and their equipment.
He walked the last length of the wire and put his hand on the pump. He felt it thrumming through his glove and was relieved. Another of his worries was damaged machinery, a bigger one was water shortage. He walked around the unit, named Prancer, and bent down to open the diagnostics hatch. He looked again at the sky. It seems brighter, he thought.
Curry stepped in next to him and he and Bobo checked the well.
“Still wet sir.” Curry sang to him.
Peanut nodded and pulled out his diagnostic scanner. He plugged it into the machine and waited. All Peanut had to do was to check if it was green or red on the scanner. The more complex data would be uploaded and returned to the engineers in East Dome for decoding. Peanut was no moron, but the danger of the missions necessitated simplicity.
He looked down at Curry and marveled at the speed of the man's hands. He's done this for so long, he thought.
It was just then that his scanner flashed red and the sky began to darken.
It was just as before.
From out in the ocean of sand, Pin heard the call. It sang across a great distance to him, but he did not understand.
I've left my sword in my bunk, Pin thought.
The creature swam across the horizon, as it had in his dream. It grew in size, ebbing and flowing with the martian tide. It moved, again, with incredible dexterity and purpose; as if it was the only creature that could call Mars a home.
Pin was entranced by it, turning his suit away from the pipes and his crew to marvel.
The dream flashed for a moment in his mind and something felt wrong. Terror slid insidiously into him and he stepped towards the creature.
The beast threw itself about in the land ocean, seemingly chaotic, but drawing nearer. It moved as if insane or in great anguish, casting itself unheeding into rocks and dunes. Pin felt there was something sinister about the creature, but before he could press himself as to what, Peanut came on in a panic.
“This is an ALL CALL! REGROUP AT THE FIRST WELL!”
Pin turned quickly and fell into the dirt. He looked up at the gigantic mast of orange clouds storming down upon them. He tried to stand up, but a gust of wind blew him over again. Sand rolled over him and he was blind for a moment.
“PIN! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!”
Pin tried to answer, but paused at the echoing roar. It sounded like rolling thunder. Or laughter. He turned to see the great monster bearing down upon them, only a few miles away. He carefully pushed himself upright and turned to look for the work crew. He saw them huddled around the last well, Peanut's hulking figure turned toward him.
He glanced once more at the monstrosity. It was a great worm, he saw. It's skin black and ridged. It had many red eyes, each more hateful than the next.
It was in that moment, that Pin felt an unknown call to do something. He turned away from Peanut and began to run.
What the hell is the kid doing? Peanut thought. He watched Pin, the boy's back to them. He was about to radio again, when suddenly Pin began to run, after a fashion, away from them.
Peanut was flabbergasted. Of all the suicidal maniacs to end up with, he thought. He stood up and looked at the hose, thinking he had to go after the kid. He ducked back down after a moment, as the wind buffeted the team again.
I have to get the team back, he thought. He knew this, but his heart went out to Pin. He felt an immense amount of feeling for the boy, but he knew after a moment that he could not save him. He watched as Pin continued to disappear into the ever-growing storm.
Peanut froze and his heart beat in his ears. He thought he saw something else out there with Pin, something enormous. Curry came on.
“What's going on?!”
Peanut shook his head as the scene disappeared.
“We have to leave him. He's gone.”
Curry didn't respond. Peanut breathed out the sadness and fear he felt and called back to the domes.
“This is Peanut. Over.”
“Go ahead Peanut. Over.” This was Tanya.
“We're stuck in a sandstorm. Over.”
“Do you have shelter? Over.”
“No, we are trapped against a well. Over.”
“Alright, time to take Rover for a test drive then. I'm sending Good to get you. Over.”
“Also...we lost Pin...Over.”
“Say again Peanut? Over”
“Pin, Fox's boy, we've lost him...”
Over.
At first, Pin ran towards the beast. His heart, at first terrified beyond reason, began to swell with something new. He felt himself start to lift inwardly.
He stared at the worm, the great monster flashing this way and that. It's great evil eyes staring at him. It seemed to understand the newness of the boy's courage and laughed. It's call filled Pin's ears and his eyes watered. His heart shook with fear, but he pushed himself faster. He sprint through the land ocean and the sand storm, his eyes almost shut with tears. Unknowingly, his hands balled into fists.
He blinked and found himself standing before a great pit. His eyes grew wide and he through his arms out before him. He left his feet and found himself in open air. The pit was only about ten feet across and he groped for the other side.
The last thing he saw, before his helmet struck the side wall, was the worm. But at this last glance, it was no longer a worm, but a wolf, huge and black. It's eyes still glared maliciously and as it disappeared from view, Pin heard its barking laughter.
Charles Fox sat in his office in the East Dome staring at the wall. His eyes were blank and his face was drawn. He unconsciously tapped his hand on the desk. After a moment, his eyes came back to life and he began to outline a new draft of blue prints.
The colony had no schools to speak of, as they were, in some respects, a rural community. If one populated by as many genius' the nations from Earth could stuff inside a spaceship. It was the politicians idea that schools would be relatively unnecessary, as they were scientists on a mission. Charlie's eyes laughed.
The politicians had also stated that the second wave of space colonists would follow the first so closely that there would hardly be time for them to need any formal education system.
Thus, with the advent of couples, and their children (some born en route, others born on Mars), the colonists had fell into a simple, parent-child apprenticeship. Children, including Fox's own, were taught their parents particular skill, as best they could. It was allowed that not every child would be able to intrinsically understand quantum physics or something of the sort, as well as their parents, who were taught in Earth's most renown and prestigious colleges and universities.
But then, there had never been children such as these.
Borne out of adversity; from possible the most promising gene pool possible; taught the ins and outs of everything their parents did from the moment they could speak; these children were astoundingly capable. Some more so than their parents. It was science as the family business, in a place where failure was not an option.
Fox kept this in mind as he drew up the blue prints. Whittling away at the problem as he saw it.
There was a tone from the wall and a voice came on. It was Tanya. One of the Russians, he thought. Not that it had any bearing anymore.
“Mr. Fox?”
He stepped over to the box on the wall and keyed the speaker.
“Yes Tanya?”
“We've just had a radio call from Peanut, he was the one leading the team to the wells this afternoon.”
Charles knew Peanut and liked him very much. It was something about his adventurous spirit.
“It seems he's been trapped out there by a sandstorm.”
“Is the team alright, Tanya?”
“Mostly, sir. One of the members has gone missing.”
Charles sigh and shook his head.
“Which member?”
“It was your son, Pin, sir.”
A man in shining garb stands before Pin, his feet bare in the red dust. He wears a crown and his body glows with some electric light. His arms are crossed and he stares into Pin.
Who are you, Pin thinks. He is bare and red, as before, breathing in the Martian air and standing in the Martian soil. There is no sword in his hand. He wonders where it has gone.
The man holds out the rod in his hand. He points it at a mountain. But it is more than a mountain, growing larger and taller than any other. Its peak skims the top of the atmosphere and possible into the void beyond. A great red testament to the unknown.
Pin looks between the rod and the mountain and doesn't understand. The electric man looks at him and points to the top. Pin shakes his head inside his helmet.
He wakes for a moment and sees the crack. His head is muddy and he sinks back.
The glowing man is still pointing at the mountain, still looking into Pin. Pin is red and strong in the dream, but he knows he his dying. He tries to shake his head again.
He winces at the pain in his neck. The pain brings him back for a moment. He begins to breath and chokes. Pin's head is filled with pain. There's a pressure on his arm.
An electric hand is grabbing him, pulling him back into the dream. Pin's eyes flutter and he sees the glow before him. They flutter again and he sees the darkness of the cave and crack in the plastic.
I'm dying, Pin thinks.
He looks at the man, who seems to smile at him. At his thought. Pin wonders again who the crowned, shining personage is, as a shining hand reaches towards him. The rod is gone. He is holding Pin with both hands now.
Now in the cave.
Now in the desert.
Through the cracked helmet the man glows and the impossible unblinking eyes stare into him.
Pin begins to feel a pressure all over his body. He can feel it over ever inch of his skin. Even his veins, even his cells, all of them are being pushed and pulled, all at once. It grows uncomfortable, it's too much. He looks at the man, but the man is too bright and the pressure is too strong. The man, king, whomever, is pulling him. Pulling him out of his suit, out of his clothes, out of his skin. Pin glances at his feet as the man gives one final tug, removing his soul from his body.
Pt.2
The hatch opens on West Dome. Plenty carefully careens the buggy up into the bay and they shut again. Pressure normalizes. For a moment, there is a peaceful silence. Then bodies rush into the room. Hands help to remove gear. The team is checked for any injuries. Peanut sits off to one side, his great hulking shoulders sagging under what he knows is coming. He facies the wall, but he knows what he'll hear. Suddenly the bustling room grows quiet. It's admiration, he thinks. It's awe. He stands and turns to face Fox. The entire bay watches the two men. Fox nods to Peanut. Peanut returned the gesture and follows him out.
Once out in the hall, they begin the march to East Dome. Fox begins the question, the one he'd been dwelling on all day.
“Peanut.”
Peanut follows through the corridors, behind and to Fox's right. He feels a weight on him, after the mission, after the mishap. Still, with it, he continues to stand straight, his full height almost touching the ceiling. He sighs.
“Yes sir.”
“Peanut, I...I want you to...”
Fox stops and turns to Peanut.
“Peanut, for right now, go home. The satellites have mapped that the storm will last for quite some time yet. I see no point in dragging out a traumatic experience, so we will discuss it tomorrow. When the weather is clear. When there's actually something we can do about it.”
“But sir!”
Fox looked into Peanut's eyes.
“But sir, we could go and look for him. We could take the buggy or...”
“Peanut, we don't have the resources.”
He put his hand on the great shoulder.
“Believe me,” He whispers, “I wish that there was something, anything we could do. But we can't, and you can't. Not in this storm, not now.”
Peanut nodded and looked up and down the halls.
“Has there been any problem with water sir?”
Fox looked surprised.
“Why?”
“The pump on Prancer seems to be acting up. That was as far as we got, but they all may be in jeopardy.”
Fox shrugged.
“Not that I know of, but I'll alert Caleb. He'll see it gets dealt with. For now, go ahead and head home.”
Peanut turned and walked toward North Dome, feeling Fox watch him go.
From a distance, Tanya sees Peanut hulk his way down the corridor. She watches him walk, and even in his sulky mood, she cannot help but feel the the attraction. She shakes her head and follows him down a flight of stars and into the Main Hall. The ceilings here aren't much higher than everywhere else, but they are reinforced almost twice as much as any of the other domes. Tanya knows that this is because they are the main junction between all of the segments and without them, everyone would die. She learned this from her father, one of the men buried in South Dome. He told her about it, even as a child.
“My lovely Tanya, where would each be without the other?” he tried to explain, as he walked around enormous planters, filled with every plant imaginable. She followed him obediently, watching him water each small blossom or twig.
“I do not understand, Papa.”
She watched his back. He turned this way and that, holding a leaf in his hand for a moment. He looked around the greenhouse quickly before calmly plucking the small green appendage.
He turned to her, his eyes twinkling behind his spectacles. His small gray mustache brushing over his lips as he spoke softly to her.
“My little one, light of my heart, do you see this leaf? The one I hold here in my hand?”
“Yes, Papa.”
“Why is this leaf green?”
“I do not know, Papa.”
“It is strange isn't it? There is a chemical which I will teach you about, it is in this plant and it makes the leaf green. What do you think of that, my daughter?”
“What does the chemical do?”
“It takes light and turns it into food, energy essentially, for the rest of the plant.”
“Oh.”
He bent down to her and held the leaf up so she could better examine it. Her hand unconsciously reached for it. He smiled at the motion and held the leaf out to her. She was hesitant for a moment, but chose to reach out and touch it. Her fingers played over the smooth outside of the plant, touching the forking symmetrical network of veins. Her father saw her eyes moving and her mind moving behind them.
“Now daughter, why do I use this precious organism when I explain our city? What does it have to do with you and me?”
“I do not know, Papa.”
“Think for me little one.”
She looked up at the artificial light, filling each plant with warmth, giving food to them, making them grow.
“We are the leaves.” She said.
“Yes,” he replied, “And isn't it funny that leaves are green no matter where they are grown?”
She smiled and her returned it.
“Come now.” Tanya remembered him saying.
She passed through the Main Hall, still following Peanut. She knew she would need to return to work soon, but for now, she could spend a little time wondering why he wasn't turning to North Dome, but instead striding towards East.
Pin stood up at the bottom of the pit, the shimmering man gone, leaving him alone in the dark cavern. Light came down through the top of the hole at an angle, affording him a view of the sky. He looked up at it for a moment, a feeling of lightness at the empty pinkish hue. A feeling of lightness everywhere, he thought.
He looked at his hands in the light. He clenched them before his eyes, the knuckles turning white.
Where are my gloves, he thought.
He felt the lightness turn. He was sinking, lowering his hands and looking at his body. Funny, he thought, doesn't even look like me.
The face had blood dried over the forehead and cheek. He could see a discoloration when he looked at the skin. It was pale and slightly blue. The eyes were open, each now empty, devoid of the self which now stood before it. Pin ran his hand over the crack in the helmet, not only to test the fracture, but to find if he could feel it without the flesh of his hands. His hand stopped against the smooth glass and he felt the small fissure the fall had opened in his helmet.
For a moment, he was seized with a strange idea. He bent down over his empty frame, his knees resting in the fine dust.
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