***
The Persistence of Re-Memory
***
“Maybe you should see someone.” She had said.
He couldn’t help himself. He cocked an amused eyebrow at what he knew was going to come out of his mouth, whether or not he really wanted it to.
“Maybe you should lose some weight,” is what tumbled from his lips, maddeningly enough. Why not?
It had become sort of his credo ad of late; Why not? Well why not indeed, when you had no control over anything?
As expected, she gasped and left the room. Of all the variable villainies in the known cosmos, none so predictable as a woman’s scorn. He would have to put that in his book. It reminded him of a great analogy for cosmic dissonance. The supposed genius of it made him smile an ugly, toothy smile.
The sound of her heels receding on kitchen tiles reminded him of the ticking of a broken clock. That’s what she reminded him of in her predictable fits.
Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick-
A broken clock that never tocks, all gears and whistles and misanthropy. A broken wife in a broken world, me oh my, oh me!
The eccentricity of his thoughts had begun to multiply like those of a hyperactive prisoner. They performed outrageous acrobatics in his head in unconscious and escalating defiance. His ongoing ability to see the near future was testing the limits of his human psyche, and laughing at the implausible contents of his soul. His mind had begun its divide.
Amidst the cacophony of contradictions and unvoiced impulses, underneath the fog of déjà vu that told him already what his next thought would be, it exposed itself like a rare gem. The thought that, yes he was beginning to scare people. But he had been doing that for the last six days now. It was only when he started scaring himself that he decided it would be best if he saw someone.
He looked for the phonebook fruitlessly until his prescience kicked in and found it for him. It saved him an astounding five seconds of search time; great ability it was turning out to be.
And already before opening it, his mind fell on the page and name he would choose. It didn’t tell him why he had chosen it, only that it was the right choice, the only determinable action.
The name was Dr. Nigel Ros. And he was already dialing the number.
…
“Hi, I’d like to schedule an appointment.”
…
“Is that the only date available?”
…
“I see.”
…
“Yes, it’s Nathan Flynn.”
…
“Ok…”
…
“Tomorrow it is then.”
…
“You too… mm-bye.”
He hung up the phone and then sat around looking at the throw pillows, arm chair covers, and curtains in his little cubist living room, letting the stages of anxiety pass over him in all their predictable sensations. Schrodinger sauntered in from the bathroom hallway, lifting his chin to Nathan in acknowledgement. Nathan returned the gesture, and waved a couple of fingers at him from below his seat.
The cat examined the fingers for a second, and then turned off in the opposite direction, deciding he had better things to do. He was probably right. He had to respect that his wise old cat still hade shades of free will.
The commitment he had just made, however was not of his own free will. The whole world was merely a stage, and he the only player.
“Fuck it.”
He showered. He cooked dinner. He ate Dinner. He took a shit. He took a shower. He made love to his wife. He fell into sleep. Why not?
The next morning had ejected him from the depths of a very discomfiting dream; one that had seemed to whip his brains upward in a spiral like so much cotton candy.
Dreams were infecting his life with their significance. They existed for him and from him. They were the badge of his soul as far as he could discern. They were proof that he was more than just a gear in a clockwork cosmos; his only escape.
These imparted images which seemed to steer his psyche in the only significant direction it could go while his déjà vu persisted. This last one seemed especially significant, what little snatches of imagery he could retain of it:
Prisms that reach the sky erupt in slow motion explosions like flowers blooming in high-speed. Men ride steel dragons without muzzles. Men with insect faces with black rounded reflections for eyes and hard porous snouts scour the land, setting disease upon screaming cities. Walls of flames reach the sky, inhabited by dancing human silhouettes. A great writhing tentacle, miles in diameter falls from the sky, carving trenches into the Earth.
It seemed to be both a vision of the future and an archaic past. He knew little about the origin of the dream. It made him unnaturally uneasy. Blessedly, there was a shift in setting and time, as there’s wont to be in dreams.
The next faze of the dream was about a woman. He didn’t know anything about the woman except that his dreaming mind had dubbed her a “Muse of the cosmos.” The image of her was also quite poignant:
She had no eyes, and in the place where her eyes should have been was porcelain smooth skin. She traded her eyes for a miniature horse that could fit in the palm of her hand and was promised it would see for her, the past and the future and by proxy, the present. It never told her what it saw though, and she didn’t press the issue, trusting it would store its experiences until the time came when her need to know was dire.
Without sight she would spend her time standing in the valley shouldering her violin against the wind, her bare feet flat in the grass and her back straight, lifting her chin to the hills as if she could actually see, and something dignified and at peace with all things was it that she saw in her mind as the fingers of her white dress fluttered and strained against her milky silhouette.
She was beauty and grace defined. This dramatized avatar of beauty seemed to represent something in the world worth living for. One could almost do away with free will to learn her song. Perhaps she was a representation of Ptolemy3? He wondered what all this pointed to. He would have to discuss this with Schrodinger.
He walked into the bathroom and splashed some water on his face. Time to wake up. He got dressed and found his wife, Susannah in the kitchen.
“Wow honey, you look great!” He came up and kissed her on the cheek. Truth be told she looked exactly like she always looked; just fine, but he had gaffed the night before with his quirky comment about her weight. She blushed and smiled.
“You’re in a good mood.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed. Hey where’s that wise old cat of ours?”
“Oh, honey I’m sorry.” She said in a portentously sympathetic tone.
“Why, what’s wrong?” In his head she is simultaneously telling him that his best friend has gone missing. His mind registers shock, his face genuine puzzlement.
“He’s been missing all day.” Now the shock catches up with his face while he is several turns ahead of the conversation in his mind.
Fuck it.
He sent the exasperated pilot in his mind on break, effectively setting himself on complete autopilot. Why not?
“Well what have you been doing about it?” He asked angrily.
“Not to worry, I printed this up.” She went into the dining room and came back with a sheet of paper. It had Schrodinger’s black fuzzy face on the front, even at the camera he looked all knowing and mildly bemused. It said:
Answers to Schrodinger when he wants to. Fifty-dollar reward. Please return our cat, we love him very much! Contact us at…
He took a stack of the papers and a staple gun and walked outside. He walked to the nearest corner post and stopped cold. The sight snapped him back to reality. Every inch of its surface from the ground to six feet up was covered in fliers. A cold tendril seeped into his spine. Every single flier was a missing pet report.
“Fuck it.” He murmured, letting the fliers slip from his fingertips into the wind. Why not?
***
They are men. Men are dissolute. (A Sitcom)
***
Fade in on Sidel d’Artagnan standing at a podium, addressing a congregation of simpering man-beasts in white lab coats. He has Chinese lanterns for eyes, and does his level best to look like a gargoyle. He does this by matching the gelled perfection of his black hair with the pointed aerodynamics of his ears. He grins like a melon baller.
(cheering and clapping)
“Ladies and gentleman, if it would help your attention:” He raises and twists the scalpel in the light. “Shiny, no?”
(laughter)
There’s an almost imperceptible wave that runs through the crowd in the predictable pattern of dim recognition. d’Artagnan scans the crowd, going by slight imperfections to remind him of their individuality. The camera zooms in on his face and he is suddenly deep in thought. There’s a wavering transition effect while someone plays a chime. This would be a flashback.
“…that the herd is its own organism with one massive invisible brain cell suspended in the air, shared by one; shared by all.” This is some army general speaking in a room of dimensions that are only defined by a single swinging dim-watt bulb from above. We know nothing about this general. We will likely never know anything about him. Suffice to say he could be a talking toaster, as long as he reveals important plot details. “Also be aware that if you separate one from the pack they become pathetic. Like a dog who’s so kicked you don’t even want to kick it again for fear of what it might do to your shoes…”
There’s another waver effect/chime and the screen fades back in on d’Artagnan, in seeming satiety from the knowledge imparted by the memory.
“Now as you have undoubtedly already forgotten,” he pauses to press a button and a dazzling hydrogen bomb explosion sets off on the high definition screen that covers much of the wall at his back. This evokes enough “Oohs” and “Ahs” to satisfy his confidence in their attention.
“Brother’s big toe has agreed not to rend the entire city to soot, given we allow him to sit in on a lecture.” He smiles his familiar son cosas de la vida smile at the camera, shrugging his shoulders.
(intense, belligerent laughter, followed by spasmodic coughing fits)
A man in thick-rimmed glasses and a suit so smart he considers himself the apparel and not the versa, stands up and stamps a palpitating foot.
“I call a vote!”
(a distended “ooh,” intended to instigate conflict)
“And what, pray tell would that be?”
“Here, here!” From the congregation.
“You blithering nincompoop of a hominid! From here on out I am abolishing vocal cords!”
(cackling from one single audience member near the front)
“Don’t talk down to us!”
“Here, here!”
“Don’t talk yourselves up!”
The congregation bursts into a raucous of whoops, hollers, and various other bodily cacophonies. The most outraged of the men begin to pull together as if by some strange force of magnetism, many of them melding together at the elbows.
(the audience bursts into laughter and does not stop for some time)
The antics escalate through the laughter. By now it is slapstick at its best.
“Burn an effigy!”
“I believe you have my liver, sir.”
“No, no, no, I’m using you as my liver. By the way, yellow is definitely your color.”
“Who should we burn?”
“Burn Blevins!”
“Who’s Blevins?”
“”It’s either him, or him.” Accusing fingers point from two hands that have fused together into expanding and contracting proboscis.
“Who’s that?”
“Sinclaire? Blevins? By God you boys make a handsome amalgam!”
“I’m Blevins.”
“Screw! You’re Blenclaire.”
(Unnervingly enthusiastic laughter)
“Where’s Sivins?”
“He’s lost consistency!”
“Let’s burn him!”
(insane laughter, a member of the audience dies)
“Gentlemen! What in Christ’s bloody puckered anus do you want to burn an effigy for?” d’Artagnan asks in subdued and weary exasperation.
“What’s an effigy?” A man with his foot stuck in the chest of another man asks, balancing at a right angle. He is already busy dousing the bean bag chair of protoplasm that is Sivins in gasoline.
Sivins simply runs out at the sides like an egg, various mouths appear and disappear on different parts of his anatomy. Now that he’s a useless blob he must try to spread himself out as far as possible and hope that someone drops a chip. The mouths however, are smiling. Sivins being so newly Sivins is enjoying the attention, oblivious to the impending barbecue.
(laughter finally begins to die down, dispersed chuckles litter the crowd)
“Now then,” d’Artagnan speaks barely loud enough to be heard over the symphony of bone growth that has filled the room; a familiar bass overtone of hundreds of heavy old wooden doors being opened and closed. “Without further ado: meet Brother!”
A cadaver from the science lab floats in, inches above the ground. A viscous tar flows from a sideways gape, frozen in rigor mortis. Eyes with which it does not need to see point upwards towards the heavens in what appears to be holy ecstasy.
“Do leave one that can operate a power washer.”
(laughter, cheering, and applause slowly drowned out by the unnatural static of ten thousand approaching panzers)
Suddenly everybody looks at the camera, breaking character. They grin with an intense predator satisfaction, tilting their heads down as the screen shakes ferociously. A broken oboe wails like an injured walrus. The world dissipates in violence.
(fade to black)
